He had lush brown hair, the color that blended into the forest, and a matching mustache that went past the corners of his frowning lips.
"Warden, my deepest apologies. But I understand that sometimes words are not enough," I said. "However, I did not come here to relive those mistakes. I came because I thought that maybe Ben had returned."
The Warden was the only other person in Philadelphia that knew Ben's true identity. The rest thought he was Temple Franklin, Ben's grandson, who took care of the estate.
"Bah," said Simon.
His eyes were the no color of rain, and they hardened at my words, like a winter zephyr turning falling water to shards of ice. It was my first hint that something was seriously wrong.
"Miss Carmontelle," he said, the wrinkles around his mouth deepening, then his eyes rounded and his tone changed, his German accent coming through, "why are you wearing men's attire?"
I smoothed back the rip in the sleeve of my brown linen coat, catching my wrist on the pewter buttons as I brought my arm across my chest.
"Working at the printing machine," I said, leaving out the damnable escaping type block. Once I was finished with this, I promised myself a warm bath as recompense for an unprofitable day.
His face softened by a degree, and maybe I hoped he'd remembered that before the incident we'd enjoyed each other's company.
"A man has been killed," he said, nodding towards the window.
I suppose I should have been more aghast, but I was relieved that he hadn't said, "Ben has been killed."
"Terrible," I uttered.
Warden Simon Snyder's brow lowered a moment before he cocked his mouth. "Wanna see?"
My hands moved to lift up my non-existent dress. While I enjoyed the trappings of male clothing, I'd spent my life in dresses. I shoved my memory-addled hands into my coat pockets. My right hand fell upon something round and smooth, and for a moment, I forgot that I'd stolen something from Mrs. Bingham.
Simon must have caught the regret passing across my face because he frowned at me again. I pulled my hands out and clasped them behind my back as I'd seen Ben do when he was deep in thought.
"The light's no good, so you have to cup your hands to the window glass to see through it," he said, his minty breath washing over me.
Ignoring the handsome constable next to me, I placed my face against the glass, bracketing away the light with my hands as instructed.
The receiving room inside Ben's estate could have been a French salon for all its trappings. Plush, embroidered sofas from Seddon's in London ringed the wide room, giving space for entertaining and discussion of the pertinent topics of the day. A brass-geared astronomy clock sat on the fireplace, its intricate guts displayed by a glass front.
My eyes did not linger on the details of the room I knew so well. Instead, they fell gravely upon the scene at the center of the room, the place Ben might have commanded if he were entertaining.
Upon the expensively patterned carpet that probably came from Harrods in London sat an unusual object, the size of which might have come up to my waist and was slightly wider than Simon's broad shoulders. At first, my eyes deceived me and I thought the object, which had the rough shape of a cup, contained a shimmering light much like the brilliant moon in the deepest night.
When I blinked the image was gone, which probably meant it was only a reflection in the window from light slipping through my fingers. Upon second review, I thought it had been etched with patterns much like the guts of the astronomy clock upon the mantle. In actuality, the object at the center of the room was covered in fine gears and stiff wires that exuded a sense of otherworldly contraption. I might have mistaken it for one of Ben's inventions had it not been so incomprehensible.
His inventions typically had a forthright logic to them, easily understood upon first viewing. This cup, this cauldron, was like a maze to the eyes, and any attempt to follow the gears, wheels, springs, and pistons that made up the outer surface resulted in a slight pain at the temple, like having someone press a finger hard against that area.
I blinked and pulled away, shaking my head, looking back upon the failing light of dusk to clear my head.
"You saw it, too?" Simon asked quietly.
"I'd think I had the barrel fever looking at it," I said. "But what is the bother?"
He nodded. "Look again. This time past it...that cauldron."
I found looking anywhere else in the room besides that object was difficult, like trying not to stare at another person's deformity upon first meeting. Eventually, I saw what he had mentioned: a body lying face first on the rug, arms splayed out as if the cauldron had fallen on the person.
"Who is that?" I asked.
Simon frowned. "The note did not say."
"The note?"
He appeared uncomfortable, stretching his neck and scrunching up his lips. "A note was slipped under my door saying that someone had been murdered. I tried the entrance when I first came up, but it's locked."
This I knew as well, because sometimes when I looked up the hill towards the estate, I thought I saw lights in the windows, so I would scurry up and try the door only to find it barring my way and no sign of life within.
"Simon, may I see the note?" I asked, hoping to ascertain something about the identity of the author by the wording and penmanship.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his linen coat. "Methinks not."
I made my way to the door as Simon pressed his face to the window. I gazed into the keyhole as I'd done many times before, before straightening and turning the handle.
The lock clicked and the door swung open, a strange smell like burning ozone escaping the room. I almost closed the door before Simon noticed, but my lips betrayed me, calling out to the Warden of their own accord.
He joined me at the open door, staring at the threshold as if it were a two-headed cow.
"How did you—?" he asked. "Should I check you for glims or lock picks?"
I showed my open palms to him. While I did know the art of teasing the tumblers, a skill taught to me by an often debt-ridden Wolfgang, I had performed no such skullduggery on the door.
"By the Constitution, I swear I merely turned the knob and it opened," I said.
Simon hesitated as if he had something to say, shook his head, and went inside the front room. He hadn't told me I couldn't enter, so I followed him inside.
I'll admit, my first thought was not about the unfortunate soul who'd lost his life in Ben Franklin's front room. I was more interested in exploring the rest of the house to find some clue as to where Ben might be and why he hadn't returned. His disappearance had been so sudden that I suspected it had not been intentional.
There were two doors for egress and I made my way to the first. A shock hit my fingers as they neared the handle and I pulled away smartly, shuffling after the Warden before he noticed my observation. The spark seemed to echo in my head, recalling some previous memory I was not privy to, except to sense the shape of it against the back of my eyes. This feeling of forgetfulness, of worm-holed memory, plagued me of late with no end to my frustrations in sight.
Simon was crouched near the body, trying to get a look at the man's face without turning him over, because once he did, he might lose some important bit of information about the murder. I thought the decision displayed that subtle intelligence that had attracted me to the Warden upon our first meetings. He was, as Ben liked to say, "a man with many tracks going through his station."
"How did he die?" I asked.
A scowl wasn't the right word for the expression on his face, possibly more pinched in thought with a weight of responsibility.
"I don't rightly know," he said, tilting his head this way and that, trying to divine any clues. With a reluctant sigh, Simon turned the body over and started patting the man down for papers. He had a smallish build with beady eyes and a generally unremarkable face.
While the dead man was a sad truth of life, and I had seen many in my days, I found the
cauldron the object of my interest. I wasn't sure a cauldron was the right word for it, though the nom de plume Simon had given fit as comfortably as a key in a lock when he said it.
Cauldrons, or cooking pots, typically had a rounder midsection, like the belly of a rich man. This object was more slender, taller, like a pestle that one could find in Ben's alchemical labs. Yet, I couldn't think of the object as just a pestle.
"It's still giving me that pressure at my temples from looking at it," I said.
Simon glanced up. "I don't like it, whatever it is. Makes me feel like I'm lost in a dark forest, far from the city."
I nodded as I walked around the room, looking for other signs that might explain either the cauldron or the dead man. Nothing in the room seemed out of place. It was as if the man and the cauldron had dropped into the room.
"How did it get here?" I asked. "I see no sign of entrance, no furniture moved."
I spun around, reviewing the room, and as I did, I had a heady sensation, like standing up too fast. The source of my discomfort was unknown, until I repeated the movement, this time paying attention to when I became uncomfortable.
When the cauldron first came into view at the corner of my vision, my stomach sank and a bit of nausea overcame me. But that was not the worst part about it. The cauldron seemed larger when I was not looking directly at it, maybe even twice the size I originally thought. But when I stared at it, it resumed its proper cauldron size.
"Why are you moving your head back and forth in that manner? You look like a tavern door," he said, standing up and smoothing his overcoat.
With my fingertips pressed against my lower lip, I said, "Look away from the cauldron and then slowly bring your head around, keeping your gaze straight, but make yourself aware of the cauldron the whole time."
He did as I said, and his eyes widened on the second time around. "Why, that's unnatural."
"We can't know that," I said. "Maybe it's like a mirage in the desert."
He rubbed his chin. "A mirage never made me want to vomit."
"Did you determine who he is?" I asked.
Simon held out a leather pouch with lock picks sorted neatly into a row.
"What is that?" I asked, knowing perfectly well what they were.
"Lock picks," he said, frowning as if he didn't believe me.
"A black art," I muttered, crossing myself. "Had he stolen anything?"
Simon shook his head. "Nothing on his person. Unless he was trying to steal this cauldron."
"I've never seen that amongst Ben's personal effects," I said.
"Where is Ben? I'd heard he was in Europe or maybe with the Ottomans, trying to find us new allies in case those rotten Russians start pushing west again," he said, then remembered my country of origin and looked away.
"If he is, it was a secret mission and he left in the middle of the night by some way I can't fathom. No airships left Philadelphia that night," I said.
"Maybe he took a carriage to New York and flew from there," offered Simon.
I gave a slight nod, not wanting to agree with him, though I had come to the same conclusion not long after Ben's disappearance. What bothered me was that he had said nothing before leaving, which made me worried about his person. The other option was that the matter had to do with the Transcendent Society, and if I was told nothing, then it made my position within the organization even more precarious than I’d first thought.
While I was busy with my concerns, Simon spied something on the other side of the cauldron. His gaze narrowed and he leaned his lanky frame over and plucked the object from the luxurious rug.
He held up the object between forefinger and thumb. It was small and round, about the size of a button. It was a button, I saw as I moved closer.
Simon was staring at it until I came into his view. Then he looked at my brown linen coat and the pewter buttons on it. They displayed tiny eagles with spread wings.
His gaze fell upon my sleeve, which was missing a button. It had probably been loosened when I yanked my arm from the printing press, and fallen off while I was moving around the room. But this was not the conclusion that the Warden was coming to. His face tightened with tiny movements, like a rope being cinched around a bundle.
Simon took one long, sudden lunge towards me, grabbed my other arm, and compared the button in his fingers to the one on my sleeve. An eagle with outstretched wings. A perfect match.
"It must have fallen off when I was looking around the room," I said, as the wrinkles in his face deepened.
"Get out," he said with menace. "Out. Now. Why didn't I see it before? This is just like the other time." He spun around. "This whole thing feels so...Russian. That's it. I don't know what happened, or why this man died here, but I think you have something to do with it."
He held up the button in accusation, pointing it like a rifle.
"Get out, now," he seethed, the intensity of his voice pressed into each word.
I hurried from the front room of Franklin's estate. The Warden followed me out as if he had to make sure I was leaving.
"I don't know what's going on," he called after me, "but I think you have something to do with it. Maybe even with Ben Franklin's disappearance. You'd best stay away from this house, Miss Carmontelle, until I figure out what's going on. And if I do find that you're involved, I swear you'll hang the very next day."
Chapter Three
To clear my head from the whirlwind of thoughts, I marched down Spruce Street towards the Bradford Paper Store. My shoulders itched with the feeling that Warden Snyder was still staring at my back. Rather than dwell on it, I decided to do something about my other problem: my debts.
The Agrarian Party of Philadelphia had ordered a stack of pamphlets last week, and I had until Tuesday to complete the order, the task I had set myself until that brazen Mrs. Bingham had appeared in my shop like the plague. Had she not appeared, I would never have noticed the Warden running to the Franklin Estate, and would have recovered that lost type block by now.
With gas lamps providing a hazy light on the nighttime streets, and the day's heat washed away by a westerly breeze bringing with it cool sea air, the populous moved about freely. A clump of upright men in natty overcoats, hair pinned back with thread-loose ribbons, clutching pewter mugs, stumbled out of the Queen's Club tavern on the way down the street towards the Duck Foot Tavern. They were loud and boisterous, a drinking club by the looks of them, most of them well into their altitudes. Others on the street moved wide to avoid them.
Overhead an airship passed, the whine of its steam engines lost to the shouts and laughter of the drinking club. It was a passenger vessel, rather than a military ship, though it seemed I saw more of the latter these days. The airship yards of Camden, across the Delaware River, were busier than sin.
The bell rang upon entrance to the Bradford Paper Store. The desk, which had a simple oak front, was only two steps inside. William Bradford appeared moments later in a homespun mustard brown woolen jacket. He had a long nose and a bit of cribbage-face. His lips soured when he saw me, followed by a heavy sigh.
"Madam, I am your most obedient servant. What may I do for you?" said Mr. Bradford.
"I need to purchase five reams of paper," I said. "I have a line of credit at the Bank of North America."
"I'm afraid, madam, I cannot help you," he said.
I paused and collected myself. "Sir, could you favor me with an explanation? You cannot, or will not help me?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Is there a difference? Either way, you cannot have the paper."
"Sir, my credit line with the bank is good. I am Yekaterina Carmotelle, the printer of the Patriot Letters. I have business and I need the paper," I said.
He looked down his nose at me, sucking on his front teeth. "Madam," he said, "I cannot sell you the paper because I do not have the paper. It is produced in our paper mill in Germantown, north of Philadelphia."
I slapped my hand on the oak desk. "How can a paper shop not have paper?"<
br />
"Madam," he said like a command. "Your rudeness is unnecessary. The last twelve reams were purchased not an hour ago by another printer who received a large job. Something about a party to christen a new airship, or something of the sort."
My stomach twisted. "When will you receive more?"
Mr. Bradford made a halfhearted shrug, as if he couldn't be bothered by my question. "It's hard to say. New steam-powered printers have driven up the need for paper. We usually sell out of our stock as soon as we receive it."
"Can I purchase it in advance?" I asked, trying to hide my desperation.
"Only with coin," he said. "No credit."
The way he looked down his nose at me confirmed that, had I not clearly been an immigrant, I might have been able to purchase the paper on credit. I felt like someone had jammed a stick through my stomach and was twisting it around. The order for the Agrarian Party pamphlets was due in three days.
"Very well, sir," I said with my chin held high, "I will be back on the morrow, and the next day, and the next day, until new paper arrives."
"I'm sure I will be delighted to answer your questions upon each new day," he said drolly while picking his fingernails.
"Good day to you, Mr. Bradford," I said.
"And good day to you, as well," he said, inclining his head.
The air outside seemed colder upon return, and I pulled my coat tighter, attempting to block the evening breeze. The circumstances of the Agrarian job were troubling—I needed the profit to pay my interest at the bank.
The way back to my house was further than my shop, so I cut through a side street to shorten the distance. While the day had been a disaster, I could at least draw a warm bath and get a good night's rest. In the morning, I could set up the type and be ready to produce the pamphlets as soon as I received the paper.
I was so focused on the spot only a few paces in front of me that I did not see the old man in a revolutionary coat until it was too late. His breath assaulted me first, a mixture of bitter campfire coffee and something noxious he'd eaten in the last day. Then he grabbed my forearm. He had a sharply pointed cleft chin with a nose exaggerated by old age, while his powdered grey wig barely fit on his head and gave the impression of a nut shrunken from its shell.
A Cauldron of Secrets (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 2) Page 2