by Elsa Hart
Once again, her mind was pulled back, this time with dizzying force, to her very first moments in the Mayne house. She stared ahead of her in shock. The door into the hall was open as, she noted vaguely, was the door beyond it leading out into the garden. But between her and the exit was a glittering field of glass shards lit by a flare of sunset light. A faint smell of spiritu vini hovered in the air.
Cecily took a calming breath. The house remained silent and still. She advanced, stepping around pieces of glass. It seemed not one, but two jars had fallen or been knocked from their places. A long, pale serpent formed a curving path through the puddle.
She continued out through the open door onto the veranda. The marble Athena regarded her from its pedestal, cheeks streaked with soot as if from weeping. The gravel paths were disturbed, grooved and uneven as if something heavy had been dragged along them. Her eyes moved to the sweetbay tree and the circle of fallen petals around it. She squinted. There was an object among the petals, white like they were but larger.
By the time she reached the tree, her heart was pulsing in her throat. Lying crumpled amid the petals was a white cap. She picked it up, knowing already whose it was. She had seen Meacan pull it off her head and stuff it in her pocket several times a day, claiming she could not think with it on. Clutching the cap, Cecily ran to the door in the garden wall. It was closed but not bolted. She hauled it open.
The lane was empty except for wheel tracks and boot prints in the mud. Beyond it rose the elm tree, a forked, forbidding tower. Cecily shut the door and ran back to the house. She rushed from room to room calling Meacan’s name. The white shrouds Martha had used to replace the black ones and protect the collection from dust billowed as Cecily opened and shut doors. As her fear increased she imagined birds rustling their feathers beneath the cloth and skeletons turning their skulls with little clicks. She moved from the garret rooms down past the sorrowful elephant skull and down to the kitchen. The hearth was swept and cold, the ceilings and walls denuded of John’s bouquets of herbs.
Her search ended back at the shelves in the hall. She ran her hands along them, feeling for the paper Meacan had come to find. It was not there, but as she stepped down from the stool, Cecily’s eye fell on a sodden strip of cloth emerging from under a display table. She crouched and pulled. The object that slid out was a sturdy cotton pocket designed to be tied around the waist and concealed beneath a skirt. It was heavy, and Cecily could already see the shape of what was inside it. Cautiously, she drew out the pistol. It was Meacan’s. She reached again into the pocket and found the powder and bullets. Meacan had been prepared. She just hadn’t anticipated the danger in time.
Cecily had already looked inside the study. Now she returned to it. The room had not been draped in white. It looked the same as it had since Sir Barnaby’s death. The objects on the open shelves appeared to be in their proper places. And yet it seemed to Cecily something had changed. Her gaze fixed on the smooth surfaces of the closed cabinets. From the locks of three of them protruded three tiny keys. Cecily went to the leftmost one first. She did not need to turn the key. The door was unlocked. She opened it. Then she opened the two to its right. The shelves of all three cabinets were clean and empty. The collection of John Rose was gone.
CHAPTER 33
Fear and self-recrimination gripped Cecily’s shoulders with sharp claws. Her thoughts staggered under their weight. How could she have failed to anticipate the threat? She had listened to Meacan tell her to be careful without giving a thought to the dangers Meacan might encounter. The Mayne collection was more than just the site of the crime. It was the center of it. Today, for the first time since Sir Barnaby’s death, the house was abandoned. What better moment for the killer to return and conclude a plan of which the murder had been only one part?
Her gaze fell on the row of crystal balls arranged near her on the mantelpiece. Her own reflection, warped and distorted, stretched across the orbs. She thought of the countless hours John Rose and Barnaby Mayne must have spent staring into polished stones and black mirrors, convinced the correct words would summon spirits to grant their wishes. Show me who has her, she thought. Show me where she is. Nothing appeared within the clouded depths. From the emptied shelves that had held the Rose collection she could almost hear distant, mocking laughter. You had the answer, they seemed to say. You did not see it, and now your friend is lost.
She shut the cabinet doors. That was enough. What was required now was clear thought and decisive action. She went to the window and looked out at the garden. The killer must have had a carriage waiting in the alley behind the house. Meacan may not have had time to use her pistol, electing instead to leave it as a message for Cecily, but the disturbed gravel and fallen cap suggested that Meacan had still been struggling when she had been taken away. She had been alive. If she still was—Cecily shoved aside the other possibility—she would be in grave danger.
The room was growing dark. Shadows crept toward Cecily from the corners as she rotated the book wheel, pulled Sir Barnaby’s journal from its strap, and tucked it into the bag she carried. She left the house. Outside, the stone church towers were turning black against the pallid sky. The coachman she hailed looked at her dubiously when she told him where she wanted to go. A coffeehouse was no place for a lady, his expression said clearly as he nodded for her to climb up, and none less so than that of Signore Covo.
* * *
“You will have to wait.” The servant with the scar through his beard blocked the entrance to the narrow staircase leading up to Covo’s private rooms. His command of the position was evident from the patch of wall that had been left bare to fit a man of his exact height and girth. Leaning against it, he became part of the mad jumble. Amid the clutter that framed him, Cecily could make out an ivory skull, the hook of a bishop’s crozier, a bird’s nest, a paper scroll, and a fan of spun glass that reflected the crowded tables behind her.
Aware of the curious looks of the customers, Cecily lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “I am not here to purchase Diana’s crown or the stone that slew Goliath or the arrow with which Cupid struck Mark Antony or any of the other knickknacks your master sells to credulous customers. My business is urgent. If he does not see me at once, I will turn around and announce to the room that he is a fraud and a charlatan.”
Frowning, the guardian of the stairs summoned a servant and sent him up into the darkness. “She’s to come up,” said the servant when he returned. The bearded man shrugged and waved Cecily past. She followed the servant upstairs. As they ascended, the conversations in the coffeehouse blended into a single murmuring stream punctuated by splashes of laughter. The servant brought her to the door of Covo’s office and knocked.
“Come in, Lady Kay.”
Cecily entered. The small fire and handful of candles did not quite account for the red and golden glow that filled the room. It was as if there were more flames illuminating it than she could see. Covo stood at his desk. In front of him rested an assortment of clocks, each set to a different time, and an hourglass in which the sand appeared to have been arrested in the middle of its fall.
“Chocolate or brandy?” asked Covo.
Cecily eyed him warily. In her experience, people with whom she was only slightly acquainted could not help but reveal a little more of themselves at the outset of every meeting. Encountered under new circumstances, they presented new details of their styles, moods, and manners. This was not the case for Covo, whose appearance and affect were identical to what they had been the first two times she had seen him. It was as if he existed changeless in this space where time did not pass.
“Let it be brandy, then,” said Covo, and continued speaking as he poured two cups. “I have been called a fraud and a charlatan by those with significantly more influence over this city than you, Lady Kay, and it has done no harm to my business. My sensitivities are another matter. Your threat offends me, and I would not have you believe it was what earned you admittance to—”
Cecily interjected in a tone of quiet urgency. “Meacan is in danger.”
The change in Covo’s expression came and went as quickly as a flash of light on a facet of a spinning prism, but Cecily saw it before it was gone. He cared. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. “I understand there is no established trust between us,” she said. “But I do not know where she is, and I need your help. When I asked you before whether you knew of the man called John Rose, you told me you did, but you refused to say more. I need you to do so now.”
Covo studied her for a long moment. “Perhaps,” he said at last. “But first I will require more information from you.” He picked up the two cups and carried them to the table in front of the fireplace, moving with the controlled elegance of a predator who, with its prey in sight, tenses its muscles but does not leap. “Please sit.”
Cecily shook her head. “There is no time—”
“Then you must speak quickly and not waste it,” said Covo, with a sweeping gesture of invitation to a chair.
Recognizing that Covo did not intend to proceed in any way other than his own, Cecily composed herself and sat down opposite him at the table. “Meacan has been kidnapped,” she announced. “By the murderer of Sir Barnaby Mayne.”
A muscle in Covo’s jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. “Most would say the murderer of Sir Barnaby Mayne is in prison. But I take it the person to whom you are referring is not young Mr. Dinley.”
“No.”
“I think, Lady Kay, that you should tell me all that you know.”
Cecily was firm. “That will have to wait. There is too much to explain. What I will tell you is this. When Meacan was abducted tonight, the collection of John Rose was also taken. That is why you must tell me what you know about him.”
A strange smile curved Covo’s lips. The fire was reflected in his auburn eyes. “Very well, Lady Kay. But you will have to ask more specific questions, for what I know about John Rose would supply a bard with songs enough to entertain a thousand mead halls and a scribe with stories enough to fill a library. John Rose, you see, was my father.”
The exclamation of surprise and disbelief about to burst from Cecily died in her throat as she realized that Covo was serious. She stared at him. “Why wasn’t that your answer when we asked you before?”
Covo’s gazed flickered over the encrusted walls and ceilings surrounding them. He smiled again, as if at a private joke. “My chosen profession benefits from a degree of ambiguity on the matter of provenance. There is power in a false name, just as there is in a false label.” He picked up a small box and slid it open to reveal a tiny pair of scissors. Cecily read what was etched on a silver tag. The scissors with which Delilah cut a lock of Samson’s hair.
Shaking herself from the strange spell of the revelation, Cecily pulled Sir Barnaby’s journal from her bag and placed it on the table between them. “You asked me to be more specific. Sir Barnaby, like your father, was trying to master occult powers. What can you tell me about this?”
Covo made a quick examination of the book. His expression was faintly amused. “Do not tell me that you, a woman of scientific inclinations, have been persuaded to pursue witchcraft? Or rather, do tell me, for if so, I have a number of items for sale that may be of interest to you.”
“Of course I haven’t, but we are speaking of your father. He believed he had discovered a key to accessing the powers of the spirit realm.” She leaned forward, flipped the pages of the journal, and slid the folded letter from its pocket.
Covo unfolded it. He touched a fingertip to the confident, curling letters. He read it quickly. Several times he chuckled softly. “Lady Kay,” he said, looking up. “This letter was written by my father. I know his hand. But he was no occultist.”
Cecily’s brows drew together. “The meaning is clear.”
“To me it is, yes.”
Cecily tried to calm her rising frustration. “This is no time for your riddles and games. Meacan is alone. She may be hurt. We must—”
“On the contrary,” Covo interjected. “This is precisely the time for riddles and games, though you err in thinking they are mine.”
He continued. “My father was a singular man. One might say we had a certain affinity of personality. Much of what I know, I learned from him, though I saw him only rarely. His travels took him on one path. Mine, when I was grown, took me on another. Such was the nature of our separate venturing that each time we did meet, we accepted that it might be for the last time. That last time did come, nine years ago, when we traveled together to a library hidden deep within a desert that lies far to the east. We drank tea together while hawks the color of sunset wheeled above us, and we exchanged stories, some true, some not, of what we had seen in the intervening years. It was a pleasant time. I could not have chosen—” Covo paused, his gaze turned to the fire.
Cecily waited. After a moment, Covo went on. “Among the events in his life with which he acquainted me was his finalization of a contract between himself and an old friend to whom he had decided to leave his collection.” Covo tapped the journal. “I refer, of course, to Barnaby Mayne.”
“But why would it not go to you?”
The question made Covo smile again. “Because he knew I would not want it. My father and I shared some interests, but not all. I am not truly a collector. He was. And, like all collectors, he wanted his collection to be preserved. He selected Mayne because he knew Mayne had established himself as one of the most dedicated collectors in London. He trusted Mayne to care for his cabinets, and to assure them the prestige my father felt they deserved. My father had many admirable qualities, but humility was not one of them.”
“I see,” said Cecily slowly. “But what has any of this to do with the occult?”
“My father was not a credulous man, Lady Kay. He enjoyed a good tale, but gave no credence to amulets, talismans, and spells. He would have laughed at the fools who gathered here the other night to haggle over grimoires and debate the orientation of magic circles. Indeed, he laughed as he described to me what his correspondence with Mayne had revealed to him of Mayne’s growing fascination with the subject.”
“Then this letter—” Cecily’s eyes dropped to the document.
“Is a lie,” Covo finished. “He knew the strength of Mayne’s desire to believe, and he used it.”
“But why?” Cecily tried to understand. “Sir Barnaby had already agreed to take the collection, and as you just said, your father knew Sir Barnaby was a serious collector, the kind who would honor their agreement and protect the Rose collection.”
Covo was thoughtful for a moment. “I would suggest to you, Lady Kay, that whatever else a collection may be, it is, inevitably, a record of a collector’s existence. And, unlike those copies we make of ourselves in our children, a collection remains always within its collector’s control, a faithful testament to what he has seen, and to his thoughts, his judgments, his choices, and his fascinations. The anticipation of its destruction can become, for the collector, another aspect of Death. The thought of its preservation, by extension, is a promise of immortality.”
Understanding flared through Cecily’s mind. She pictured Sir Barnaby’s objects, each assigned so deliberately to a room, each so confidently affixed with a red label. “Your father wanted more than for his objects to be kept safe,” she said slowly. “He didn’t want his collection divided by another man’s understanding of the world. He didn’t want his labels replaced with new ones, or his birds moved to one room and his shells to another. He wanted them kept together, and he knew they would be so if their new owner believed they held a secret they would only yield if seen as an undisturbed whole.”
“We all fear death, Lady Kay. Some of us merely choose more unique ways to dampen our fears than others.” Covo looked down at the journal. “It must have amused him greatly to think of Sir Barnaby puzzling over his objects. He would have enjoyed this book.”
The candle flames danced around them and the whole room glittered like a dragon�
�s cave. Cecily spoke softly. “Sir Barnaby spent his final years tormenting himself in search of a secret that wasn’t there.”
Covo’s expression was unreadable. “As I told you, my father was not a humble man. Neither was he a kind one.” Covo frowned. “I have told you what you wished to know, Lady Kay. I do not see how this will help us find Meacan, unless there is someone else who has been searching for occult secrets.”
Covo’s words hung in the silence that followed. Cecily closed her eyes. Her mind had begun to race. She opened them when she heard Covo’s voice. “You are pale. Please drink.”
She picked up the cup Covo slid toward her, but she hardly allowed it to touch her lips before she set it down. “I know where we must go,” she said.
Covo’s eyes narrowed. Cecily began to speak in crisp, clear sentences, in the same manner with which she might have justified the complex identification of a plant. As Covo listened, there appeared on his face an expression that was almost unknown to it.
“Lady Kay,” he said, when she had finished. “You have done what few have ever been capable of doing. You have surprised me.”
“Then you will help?”
“I am at your service.”
“Good,” said Cecily, standing up. “We will require a distraction.”
CHAPTER 34
The hall was a deep pool of darkness broken by bands of moonlight. Bones, antlers, and crooked spires of coral reached for Cecily as she passed them. She had taken off her shoes and tucked them into the bag she carried so that her steps would be silent, but the floor was old and did not like intruders. Each time it creaked she froze, holding her breath as she listened for sounds of someone coming. Above her head, birds of prey with outstretched wings spun slowly on their strings.