Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles

by Cooper, Karina

  I did not often have cause to stroll the college grounds. The last time I’d been nearby, it had been on the arm of Earl Compton, and this as a St. Croix. How appalled would he be to find me here, now, wearing the trappings of a collector, and the trousers of a man?

  I stifled a smile, though I didn’t need to. My respirator kept the worst of the scratch from my throat, and the yellow lens over one eye guided me easily along paths less obvious beneath shifting banks of yellow and black.

  What would I do here?

  It didn’t matter, truly. I would search the dead professor’s offices, perhaps find a clue the constabularies missed. Perhaps I would find nothing, and return home all the more clueless as to Lady Rutledge’s challenge.

  There would be only one way to know for certain.

  The University College boasted a fine array of twelve Corinthian columns and a pediment elevated on a plinth by at least nineteen feet. The triangular pediment boasted no ornamentation, but what it lacked in grandeur was more than supported by the large, round dome peeking from behind. Light from the cupola behind the columns shed an eerie flicker as the fog snaked between the dirtied pillars.

  This was the main building, the central entry by which pupils and professors alike passed through. The gritty London fog had worn the once-pale stone to smudged gray, and the columns seemed to be suffering with time.

  I walked quickly through the guttering lamps affixed to each column, found the doors unbarred. With so many pupils, it should not have surprised me, but I could not help but wonder if such ease of access only hastened Professor MacGillycuddy’s demise.

  I stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind me, and took a moment to slip the protectives from my face.

  All was quiet. Not so much as a murmur of a voice reached me across the vast halls. No footsteps, no echoes. The furnishings were genteel in nature, not fine but neither were they poor. Affixed to the walls, statues carved in exquisite detail loomed over the interior hall. As I passed, I noted Flaxman’s Farnese Hercules, his rather comically large Michael overpowering a cowardly Satan.

  Here in this hall, I was surrounded by more men’s flesh than would ever be deemed proper were it actually in the flesh, as it were, and I could not help a sudden fit of laughter that I could not muffle behind my gloved hands.

  I was no stranger to the concept of conjugation, nor to idea of nudity, but it bemused me, even as it tickled me, that such things cast in stone were wildly more welcome than wrapped in life.

  But I did not come to view the art, powerful though it had been reviewed by critics.

  Where would I be, then, if I were offices belonging to a professor of naturo-philosophy?

  It took me virtually no time to circle back around to the main portico, and even less to locate the study halls of what must be the naturo-philosophers. The door, like the others, was unlocked.

  The lights in the hall were kept bright, but only a distant flicker worked its way through the inky shadows clinging to the open gallery.

  Vaguely threatening shapes loomed at me as I peered inside, outlined by what faint ambient light trickled through strangely wide windows. What views must be had on clearer days? Lucky pupils, to be so gifted with the apparatus of the institution.

  My footfalls whispered as I crossed the hardwood flooring. No rugs dampened the sound, and I could just imagine the mild cacophony of bright, inquisitive minds filling the hall, seated behind each desk with book and quill—

  I hesitated as I passed a long, cylindrical tube. Light danced across it in muted embers, and I reached out before I’d warned myself off. It didn’t matter. There would be no traps for me here; only the temptation of an apparatus I could not have.

  A telescope, for one. I recognized it, though I’d never looked through my own. A shame, that. There was not enough light, too much fog, to direct it to the window now.

  Smiling faintly, I stepped around a large globe hanging from two distended tubes whittled to points. The earth shifted as I brushed past it, but did not fall. A merry shimmer of crystal rang brightly around me as I set glass stars swinging by accidental purchase.

  And behind it, a muffled thump.

  I froze in a sea of winking light and tinkling glass, unerringly pointed to the front of the hall, and the offices to the right.

  Somebody was here. Not a student, for no one would work in the dark. Not, then, a professor.

  Or perhaps just so, I cautioned myself, and crept quietly to the first of the doors. I pressed my ear upon it, and heard only a muffled, indistinct sound.

  An animal? It certainly couldn’t be too far-fetched. Naturo-philosophy covered much of the reasonable world, and animals were as much a part of it as I was.

  Perhaps a great deal more free, on the whole.

  I sidestepped neatly, pressed my gloved hand to the next door and bent to listen.

  This time, I heard a woman’s voice. Clipped. Irritated. An argument?

  What she said, or to whom she said it, I could not know. I reached for the door latch; it caught, but did not lift.

  Well, locked, then. At least something in this university was.

  With nothing for it, I raised my hand and knocked. Rap, rap. Businesslike.

  The voice stilled. I heard nothing, and then, sharply, footsteps. I stepped back as the door latch lifted. “What ungodly hour it is,” grumbled the man who eased the portal open. A man? “No, there will be no delay on the tests scheduled for—” A pair of indistinguishable eyes framed by lanky brown hair widened as they pinned on me, in all my hand-tooled finery. “The devil are you?”

  “Collector’s business,” I told him, and watched the color drain from his face. In the kerosene light afforded from the interior of the office, I could see that he was a thin man, made all the more apparent by the clothing that hung on his frame. His cheeks were a bloom of red, as if he could not cease blushing even should he demand it, and his hair was slightly too long for appeal. It was also mildly unkempt, suggesting he ran his fingers through it often.

  Or perhaps, I thought as a shadow flitted in the room beyond his shoulder, I had interrupted that very act, but with someone else’s fingers.

  “Am I interrupting something?” I asked, more than a little cheeky.

  He stepped out of the office entirely, eased the door shut even as more rich color bled into his cheeks. “What do you want?” he demanded.

  I raised my eyebrows, hands on my hips. “I am not here to wave a finger under your nose, sir.”

  “What?” His eyebrows beetled, caught somewhere between confusion and worry. “What’s going on, then? Why are you here at . . .” He fumbled for his pocket watch. I let him, and took the time to admire the lovely casing as he opened it with impatient, ink-stained fingers.

  The blend of tooled gold and worked copper was virtually unmistakable. The man may have no money now, but he’d once had enough to purchase one of Haldercourt Fussey’s finest. I’d long since promised myself that should my trusty little brass watch give out, I’d court the man for a custom piece.

  “Past three of the clock,” I offered as he squinted at the glass. “That’s when we like to come out, didn’t you know?” But I smiled to soften the edge, especially when I watched him glance over his shoulder, snapping the timepiece shut. “You may be at ease, Mr. . . . ?”

  “Professor,” he corrected me. “Professor Johannes Lambkin, newly minted professor of naturo-philosophical study.”

  A mouthful, and a motive. “Newly?”

  “Since MacGillycuddy died.”

  A flicker of disappointment filled me. Was Lady Rutledge’s challenge going to be this easy?

  Professor kills professor for tenure. How boring.

  I frowned suddenly, aware of the words still ringing in my mind like a chime. Boring?

  Since when were lives boring?

  “Right,” I finally said, aware the silence had gone on too long for comfort. I raised both hands. “I’m not here to collect you, Professor. I am seeking MacGill
ycuddy’s murderer.”

  Lambkin had the courtesy not to laugh outright. “A woman?”

  “A collector,” I assured him, but I made no move to prove the point. Either he would believe me, or he would not, and I would have to tie him to something sturdy while I bothered his girl in the office.

  The next move was his, and fortunately for him, Professor Lambkin was a professor of the mind. He did not question me. “Right, then. Murder. If you ask me, he had it coming.”

  I tilted my head. “I beg your pardon?”

  He smiled, a wry thing that pushed his too-thin cheeks into sharp relief. How a man could be practically blushing with good health and still manage to appear starved was beyond me, but he did. “MacGillycuddy was mean as an Irish bastard,” he told me. “I suspected he was one. Never had a kind word, pushed his pupils hard.”

  “All of them? Did he have no favorites?”

  “All of them,” he confirmed, tapping the side of his beaklike nose. “But especially the ladies.”

  That surprised me. “Why the ladies?”

  “My suspicion is he didn’t have a mother to coddle him.”

  A bastard, and now a motherless one? It smelled an awful lot of vinegar to me. “If I were to ask you if you killed him, what would you say?”

  He snorted outright. “I’d never kill a man with poison.”

  “Poison?” The word came out before I’d caught myself. That detail had not been in the article.

  His eyes gleamed; devilish mischief, for all the morbidity of the subject. “Didn’t know that, eh? Shame on your masters.”

  I stilled. Masters? What kind of woman did he assume me to be?

  Aware of his blunder, Lambkin raised both hands. As if by sincerity he could ward away Satan himself. “Now, now, didn’t mean nothing by it, miss,” he said hastily. “Just a rumor, is all. Dr. Algernon mentioned in passing a day past or so.”

  “Mentioned what?” I demanded, lowering my voice to that octave that seemed to always cause men larger than I to quail. I watched it take root now, as if it weren’t I—shorter, smaller, likely even not as strong—standing before him, but something more dangerous. A man, perhaps.

  I would never kill him; I would not even accost him without good reason, but Lambkin needn’t know.

  I didn’t smile, though I wanted to.

  “A smell,” he said, fast as he could process the words. “Funny sort of smell he said reminded him of a batch of foul stuff once come off a corpse on his laboratory slab. Don’t know what, honest!”

  I believed him. His shoulders all but twitched in a bid to fall back through the door he protected, his stance practically at right angles to the floor.

  “What’s your girl know?” I asked, such a quick turn of subject that I watched him blink near for half a minute.

  “Girl?” And then, coughing into his open hand, he added much faster, “No girl, certainly not. That would be unseemly and against university law. No fraternization, no, miss.”

  The rotter fancied himself a real ladies’ man, didn’t he? Bringing a girl—likely a street dove—to his brand-new office to boast. I didn’t have the heart to suggest that most ladies of such negotiable wages would not find a man of science worth any more or less than the coin in his pocket.

  Instead, I asked, “Had he any particular students he struggled with? Any arguments? Notices of disciplinary action?”

  “No, miss.” And then, with a sigh, he admitted, “He was a right bastard, but the pupils respected him for it. To anger him would be to cut one’s studies mercilessly short.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged, a little sheepishly if I was any judge. “Professor MacGillycuddy was also the Master of Admissions.”

  “What?” I took a step forward in my interest. “For University College?”

  His eyes widened, so much that I could see more white than color. “For the University of London,” he corrected me. “All of it.”

  Why hadn’t that bit of information been in the article? I understood that all eyes remained fixed on this Ripper, but some professional pride wouldn’t go amiss, even in a rag. Blast.

  “Thank you for your time, Professor.” And then, because I wasn’t entirely heartless, I added, “And good fortune on your new position.”

  “Thank you.” He made no move while I stood in front of him, so I departed without another word.

  I was halfway across the hall when I heard him open the office door.

  At the very least, I wished him a pleasant pastime with his doxy. She’d be no sweet, but if she followed him this far, then she was likely to warm his—well, to ease his burdens for a few hours at least.

  I hurried swiftly through the halls, down the stairs once more. What had I learned?

  The professor was definitely murdered. But why?

  Was it Lambkin? I doubted it. He didn’t strike me as a man with the constitution to commit murder. If he ever so much as drew another man’s blood, he’d like as not be in tears before the wound clotted.

  Then who? Another rival? How many could the naturo-philosopher have?

  Certainly not every professor and lecturer in the university. Many would have no reason to kill for a motive of position. Mathematicians would never fill the role of a philosopher of the natural world; certainly the professors of musical study were barred.

  Perhaps a better question was who would want to kill the Master of Admissions? And why was a master of the University of London not earning his keep in King’s College?

  I let myself out into the brisk October air.

  Then sucked it in on a hard sound, a bitten off warning, as Zylphia stepped out of the shadows beside me. “You did not come” was her greeting, an accusation interrupted on my gasped, “By all the saints!”

  I clutched for my suddenly racing heart.

  The slats of my corset allowed me no purchase with which to dig my fingers in, but as I sensed no impending death, I let go. “Don’t sneak up on me, Zylla.”

  Her eyes, strange and vibrant in even the faintest light, were narrowed. “You were to meet me on the edge of Baker.”

  Was I?

  Oh, sod it. Of course I was. That was the bargain we’d made, wasn’t it? She would not accompany me to the Menagerie, the better to keep her out of the Veil’s immediate awareness, and I would meet with her on the edge of Baker Street territory. My sudden remembrance came on the back of a rude uncivility. I’d forgotten, indeed.

  “I am sorry,” I said, immediately contrite. “I thought to search the professor’s hall after speaking to Hawke, I didn’t—”

  “Remember?” Zylphia matched my pace as I made my way down the steps, my shoulders hunched against the chill. “Or want company?”

  “Come now, you know I wouldn’t shed you on purpose.” Not entirely the truth, but true enough for this moment. “I truly am sorry.”

  She frowned.

  I could see she was clearly worried about something, so I stopped, faced her in the courtyard, hands on my hips. “What is it?”

  When her mouth pursed, then twisted, I dared to touch her arm. It shifted out from under my fingers, smooth as if it were not deliberate at all, but I did not take it to heart. This was just how she was. “I know it isn’t easy, having a spy,” she began.

  Oh, bother. Not this again.

  I cut through her words with a sharp, dismissive gesture. “We’ve been over this, haven’t we? You have agreed not to share the details of my identity. That’s all I can ask until I retrieve the mo-shoe.”

  A wince, faint but there. She had long since given up on my inability to pronounce the word correctly.

  “Trust me.” I looked up into her face, projecting all the reassurance I could despite my smaller stature. I was curvier than her by a long ways, but she wore her weight elegantly. And she was much taller than I. “You’re my friend, Zylla, even before you became my keeper.”

  “Some keeper.” Her smile evened. Rueful, and resigned. “What did I miss, then?”

&n
bsp; Finally! Neutral territory. “The professor was poisoned,” I told her, lacking all preamble and relieved for the change of discourse.

  Her smile vanished. “By what?”

  “By whom,” I corrected, “although a what may tell us more. I wonder if I can find what morgue the body was autopsied in.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Foul.”

  “Fascinating,” I countered. “There’s a new professor in MacGillycuddy’s position, yet I don’t think he’s the type to murder.”

  “No evidence?”

  I kicked at the fog, droplets of mist scattering around my foot like clinging webs. “Intuition, yet no evidence. He’s too excited to toss his working girl’s skirts than—”

  I stopped. Tilted my head.

  “Cherie?”

  “Did you hear something?” I asked at the same time, turning in front of the university steps. A slow, thoughtful circle. Had I heard something, for that matter?

  “No,” my companion murmured, dropping her voice to near a whisper in case.

  I had heard something. I was positive.

  Or was this my mind once again? Playing tricks of sight and sound, starved for good sleep and sustenance.

  I planted my hands along my corseted waist. “I swear, I—”

  Whatever it is I’d meant to say suddenly died on the back of a terrible scream.

  Not my own.

  I looked up. Zylphia shrieked. I nearly did but for the fact I’d bitten my tongue as a dark shape thudded to the cobbled courtyard at our feet. Grotesque echoes rebounded from all directions; flesh impacting stone, bones cracking. As searing pain lanced from tongue to brain, I blinked back furious tears and gasped.

  Professor Johannes Lambkin lay still, a dark figure in a sea of displaced mist curling around his lifeless body. Blood smeared his face, courtesy of a terrible gash across his temple, his cheek. His lip had been all but torn away, hanging now by a thread over his chin, and teeth were missing in a gaping grimace.

  I saw no evidence of fists or weapon; he’d landed on his back.

  Zylphia, quicker than many would be, dropped to her knees, reached around his throat for signs of life. She held a palm to the man’s shredded lips, but his eyes stared wide, and the pallor already claiming his flesh told a tale of blood displaced.