The Butterfly Conspiracy

by Vivian Conroy

  Raven grimaced. “Thank you, I will not risk my life. Give me that beet soup, then.” He glanced at Merula. “How about you?”

  “The cabbage with cheese is delicious,” Bowsprit enthused, and Merula said, “I’ll have that.” She smoothed her dress, glancing around her. “I have never eaten in a restaurant before. Aunt Emma calls it uncivilized.”

  “But she does eat at the houses of friends?” Raven asked.

  Merula nodded. “Of course.”

  “Then what is the difference?”

  “I don’t know. I think this is quite exciting.” Merula smiled, then sobered as she looked at the list of guests to the summer party where Lady Sophia had had the almond incident. “Can you deduce nothing useful from that list?”

  Raven shook his head. “Miss Knight must have been right when she said Lady Sophia had lost contact with most of her friends.”

  “It is odd,” Merula persisted, “as you told me her late husband was a respected member of the zoological society. Wouldn’t people have attended that party who’d also come to a lecture like the one Lady Sophia died at?”

  “You have a look then.” Raven passed her the list.

  Merula read the names, which were almost all foreign to her. “Foxwell is not on it,” she said to make some kind of observation. “He wasn’t yet living with Lady Sophia then, I assume. Or no: even if he had been living with the family, he would not have been on the list as a guest.”

  “So could he have known about the almond incident?” Raven asked.

  Merula sat up. “Yes, I think he could have. Julia told me when we met at the exhibition that Miss Knight was friendly to Foxwell. As if she hoped he would take an interest in her. If they spent time together, she might have mentioned the almond incident to him. As a reason for Lady Sophia’s eccentric behavior, for instance.”

  “Why would she have? When we talked to her, she didn’t mention it to us. After her mistress collapsed and died, surely such an earlier incident would have been refreshed in her mind, especially with her nurse’s training?”

  Merula sank back against the chair. “Yes, that is odd,” she admitted.

  Bowsprit said, “One of Lady Sophia’s footmen told me that as word of Lady Sophia’s death got out, the shops where she ordered goods all hurried to send messages to Foxwell about the outstanding bills. It seems he is under pressure to pay quickly or risk rumors that there is not as much money in the estate as everyone expects. He was even seen leaving the house with some large object covered with a blanket. The footman supposed it was some valuable, like an antique clock or painting, he was going to sell off.”

  “Or a zoological specimen,” Merula said. “Did the footman know where he was going?”

  Bowsprit shook his head. “I’ve asked at some pawnshops if zoological specimens have been offered to them, but none of them knew of any.”

  Raven said, “I think it makes more sense to assume Foxwell would sell directly to a collector. And as long as we don’t know to whom…”

  Merula was still pondering the mention of unpaid bills and asked, “Was the ostrich feather fan among the items purchased but not yet paid for? Then we’d know the name of the shop where it was bought and could go there to ask questions about it.”

  Bowsprit said, “I can try to find out.”

  Their soup and cabbage with cheese were brought. Raven put his spoon into the red substance and gave it a critical look.

  Merula laughed softly. “It’s no different than any other soup, I suppose. Give it a chance.”

  Raven carefully tasted it. “Not bad,” he said with a surprised half smile. “Rather spicy even.”

  “They like to use spices here,” Bowsprit nodded. “Influences from the East, I imagine.”

  Merula was glad her cabbage didn’t have too much spice. The cheese was melty and delicious and a great combination with the cabbage. She said to Raven, “I would like to try this once again. Some other time when we don’t have to…”

  He silenced her by putting his hand on her arm. He nodded at the door. A policeman entered, looking back and saying something to someone behind him.

  Bowsprit was on his feet already. “This way,” he hissed.

  They abandoned their table and followed him to a worn velvet curtain that concealed a door. They stood in the kitchen, several cooks giving them rather surprised looks.

  Bowsprit put down some money, calling “For our meal” while he went ahead of them to a door that led into a back alley.

  A foul stench of waste filled the air, and Merula held her hand over her face as they hurried across cobbles wet with dirty water. At the end of the alley, Bowsprit looked this way and that.

  “Hey! You there!” a voice called. “Halt! Police!”

  They broke into a run, pushing past a maid carrying several hatboxes and a group of children sharing sweets from a paper bag.

  On the corner, Bowsprit, who was well ahead of them, almost ran in front of a brewery cart, the driver swearing at them as his horse neighed in panic. They managed to cross behind the brewery cart and in front of a brougham, ducking into another alley where the sounds of hammering resounded.

  Passing an open door, Merula glanced in and saw an old man putting together a coffin. Several finished ones stood along the wall.

  Shivering, she hurried farther, waiting for a hand on her shoulder. But there was no hand and no shouting. As she dared to slow down a moment and glance back, she saw no one following them. Apparently the policemen had lost them at the moment of crossing the busy street.

  “Raven!” she tried to call between strained breaths. “Wait for me!”

  Bowsprit was out of sight, and Raven was about to turn the corner, but he looked back and then waited for her.

  Panting, she leaned against the wall.

  “You have to practice running,” Raven said. “Every morning after breakfast. The grounds at Raven Manor are big enough for it.”

  Merula didn’t have the energy to reject this eccentric proposal or even laugh about it. Her head was light, and she saw black spots in front of her eyes.

  Raven stepped closer to support her. “They might not have been after us,” he said in a cheerful tone. “They might just have thought it suspicious that we ran. They might have taken us for thieves or something.”

  “I hope so.” Merula wiped the sweat off her forehead. “We need to find that cook, but how can we if we can’t move about anymore?”

  Raven patted her arm. “We will find the cook,” he said. “Bowsprit has asked around, and he might hear something. Think of how far we’ve come already. We figured out how Lady Sophia died.”

  Leaning closer to her, he said, “You figured it out. You thought of the fan. It was genius.”

  She looked up at him. “It won’t help Uncle Rupert if we can’t determine who put the almond essence on the fan.”

  Standing here, hot and tired and feeling more like a fugitive than ever before, she felt so small and inadequate, unable to ever solve this conundrum.

  Raven held her gaze. “We’ll find that cook. I promise. Now come on before they catch up with us anyway. What was the address of the next employment agency?”

  CHAPTER 14

  No one had heard of a Mrs. Bridgewater who had been the cook of Lady Sophia Rutherford, and with a heavy heart Merula sat in the carriage on the way home to Raven Manor. The sun was already sinking, casting everything in a fiery red glow. In a field, a deer was looking for something to eat, and high against the skies a bird of prey circled, searching out his dinner on the ground below.

  At the bridge leading across a brook onto the road to Raven Manor, a small boy was waiting. He stepped onto the bridge, blocking their way, and halted them with a weighty gesture. “You can’t go there,” he said. “The police are there.”

  “What?” Raven called. He leaned out of the carriage door to look at the boy. “What are you saying?”

  “I got a pound,” the boy said with an exultant grin, “to wait all afternoon and
night, if I had to, and tell a coach that came to pass here that the police were at the house.”

  “Galileo’s way of warning us,” Raven said to Merula with a grim expression. He asked the boy, “What are they doing at the house?”

  “Nothing. Just watching it. That’s what he said.”

  “Is he still at the house?”

  The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. He had many boxes with him.”

  “So he managed to sneak out with his things,” Raven said pensively. “Where can he have gone?” He looked at the boy again. “Did the man with the boxes tell you where he was going? Or what we were to do?”

  The boy shook his head. “Just that the police were watching the house. Oh, and that the owl always finds a place to roost.”

  “A place for the night,” Raven muttered. “Owl … What can he have meant by owl?”

  He thanked the boy, and Bowsprit turned the horse around. He asked Raven, “What do you want to do now, my lord?”

  “Owl.” Raven stared ahead. “Galileo gave us a hint with this word owl. A hint as to where he is hiding out. But I don’t understand the clue. Do you?”

  He looked at Merula.

  She shook her head. “I think it’s meant for you to understand. You grew up around these parts. Is there a place here where you can see owls? Or something named after an owl?”

  “Naturally.” Raven’s expression lit. “There’s an old factory where they used to make cigars. They were called Athenas. Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and her symbol is the owl.”

  “Of course. Do you know where this factory is, exactly?”

  Raven gave Bowsprit some instructions, then leaned back against the padding. His expression was grave again. “They found Raven Manor. It means they are well informed and rather desperate to catch up with us. Your uncle must have admitted under pressure that you are the butterfly expert, not he. They must believe you can give them vital information as to how Lady Sophia was killed.”

  “Or they think I killed her,” Merula said, her stomach full of ice. “They want me because they believe I am a murderer. They want to catch me to convict and hang me.”

  Raven grabbed her hand and squeezed. “I won’t let it come to that, I promise.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “We have come too far to lose now. Lady Sophia died because someone consciously put almond essence on her fan. Someone knew that once the fan was used and the essence inhaled, Lady Sophia would become unwell. Struggling for breath, she would wave the fan more vigorously and inhale even more of the lethal scent. She worsened her own symptoms; she hastened her own death. It is so devious that, if only for that reason, I want this person caught and brought to justice.”

  Merula caught the intensity in his voice and wondered if he was also thinking of his mother, of the fears she had endured, of how she had been hunted by someone who had tried to drive her mad, who in the end made her rush away from her home into the night, into the arms of her killer.

  It was indeed devious.

  It made the blood boil with fury.

  In the dusk, they saw the contours of an old factory building, the last rays of sunlight glinting in the cracked windows. As they got out of the carriage, a crow called out in the distance. The eerie silence drove a shiver down Merula’s spine. What if the boy had also mentioned the owl to other people? What if this was a trap of some kind?

  Raven seemed to wonder the same as he stood and looked around him, carefully, his body tense, his hands formed into fists.

  Bowsprit said, “I will go see if I can find Galileo. You stay here near the carriage. At the first sight of danger, you flee with it. Don’t wait for me. It is most important that you stay free to complete the investigation.” He walked away from them with firm steps to try the door leading into the building.

  Raven watched him with a doubtful expression. “He has a point, of course, that we have to stay free, but can I just let him go in there alone?”

  Merula shrugged. “Bowsprit is a resourceful man. He saved us at the vegetarian restaurant.”

  Raven had to smile. “Yes, he even remembered to pay for our food. A real gentleman.”

  Then they heard a call and a call back. Two owls, it seemed, in the dusk. But then Bowsprit was already gesturing at them to come over, and they ran up to him. Inside the factory building Galileo was waiting, his many “boxes,” as the boy had called them, strewn about. “I thought you’d never come,” the chemist called. “I was certain you had been caught and it was left up to me to solve this whole thing.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “There you are now. We must go back to London. We must find a safe place there.”

  “Where?” Raven asked, glancing at Bowsprit as if he expected his valet to have the answer.

  But Merula said, “With Lamb’s mother. She lives in Rotherhithe. The police don’t like to come there, as they say it’s full of cutthroats and disease.”

  “Yes, an ideal hiding place,” Raven said ironically.

  But Merula said, “Lamb’s mother knows I helped Lamb to care for her. She’ll take us in.”

  “But earlier,” Galileo said, “we suspected that the police had found out about my house via this girl Lamb. What if you walk straight into the police’s arms by going to her mother?”

  “I don’t believe Lamb told the police anything,” Merula said firmly. “And we have no choice. We can’t go back to Raven Manor, and we can’t stay here either. This building looks as if it’s about to collapse.”

  “It won’t just collapse,” Galileo protested. “Besides, who says the police haven’t issued a reward for information about us? If Lamb’s mother is a poor woman, as you suggest, she might be tempted to turn us in for the reward money.”

  “She would never do that,” Merula said, her voice more certain than she felt. “If we want to get back to London before midnight, we must leave now.”

  “The lady has a point,” Raven said. “We have to find that cook, and we can best do that from London.”

  “Julia might also have discovered something very interesting about Foxwell, finances, or other people involved,” Merula added, rallying herself into believing this. “We have to combine all our information and see who is at the heart of it.”

  Galileo picked up a box or two. “Carry this to the carriage, then,” he said with a sigh of resignation. “But I tell you that if this girl Lamb and her mother can’t be trusted, we are going to be in a lot of trouble.”

  * * *

  Merula had never actually been to the house of Lamb’s mother and had to go by memory of little things Lamb had told her about her upbringing. The alehouse nearby where her father spent all of their money, the lodgings for sailors who carried strange tattoos from all the ports where they had been, the sound of church bells in early morning inviting people to start the day with praise. And the next-door neighbor who was a butcher who gave the pig bladders to the children to turn into balls to play with.

  “This must be it,” Merula said softly, pointing at the chipped door. At the next house over, a straw dog licked a bucket that was stained with something dark. Probably blood from slaughter.

  Raven said, “Are you sure?”

  Merula lifted her hand as a chime filled the air. She pointed up at the tower of the church high over the houses, then down the street where windows were still lit and the raucous laughter of drunken men drifted out a half-open door. “That is the alehouse. This must be it.”

  Not allowing doubt to seize her, she knocked on the door. It took some time before it opened a crack and a suspicious face peered out. It was an old woman in a mended nightdress, her white hair pulled back in a braid that hung over her shoulder. “What do you want?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

  “I am Merula. Your daughter Anne’s mistress.”

  The elderly woman’s face changed at once. “Miss Merula! I had never expected you to come here. And at this hour.” She peered worriedly down the street to where the alehouse was. “Come in quickly.” />
  “This is my friend, Lord Raven Royston,” Merula said. “And a friend of his. And his valet. I will explain why we are all here.”

  “Come inside first and do the explaining there,” the old woman said.

  They all stepped inside, the men bowing under the low door beam. In the small living room, two chairs stood at a table with a cloth over it. A chipped vase held some flowers. Over the open fire was a shiny polished kettle. Everything was simple and old but neatly cleaned and arranged to give the small space some atmosphere. The old woman said, “I can’t offer all of you a place to sit.” She studied Raven. “A real lord, who would have thought it?”

  “I must be frank with you,” Merula said. “Anne must have told you about the … problems?”

  “Your uncle’s arrest, yes, Miss. A terrible thing. Anne is certain he is innocent.”

  “Yes, we know it, but we must prove it. The police, however, believe in his guilt. We cannot face them until we have evidence it was different from what they believe. Can we stay here? Can you hide us until we have found that evidence?”

  Anne’s mother stared at them. “Hide you? So the police are looking for you?”

  “Yes.” Merula held her gaze. “I’m honest about it, as I don’t want you to get into any trouble. The police seem to be looking for me. And also for my friends because they have helped me. But I must stay free a little longer. We know how Lady Sophia was killed, just not who did it.”

  The old woman crossed herself. “May death stay far away from my home,” she said softly.

  Then she studied Merula with sharp eyes. “Anne told me how you made it possible for her to leave the house at night. How you even gave her money once for coals.”

  Merula looked down. “It was nothing much. I have such a good life; I’ve never had an empty stomach or a cold night. I just wanted you to have food and warmth as well. Anne works so hard to provide for you. I’ve seen her hands chapped from cold water and her face all red with exertion from doing heavy chores. She never complains, though. She is always cheerful and grateful. You should be proud of her, not me. I did nothing really.”