A Curious Beginning

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  He left the box with Stoker, hurrying away under Stoker’s baleful gaze. I expected him to open it, but he did not. After a long moment, he extinguished his cigar and rose, putting the box to the side. He strode after Leopold, in the direction of the professor’s tent, his shoulders set, his hands working themselves into fists.

  “Salome,” I interrupted. “Please be so good as to bring me that box.”

  She laid aside the book and did as I asked. The box was polished wood, nearly two feet long. I put a hand to the clasp, and Salome gave me a reproachful look.

  “It is private.”

  “It is not locked,” I pointed out. “Furthermore, if he didn’t wish me to open it, he ought not to have left it lying around.”

  She could make no argument to that, and since she was as curious as I, she said nothing further as I turned again to the clasp. It gave way easily.

  “How curious,” I said, reaching into the box. I extracted an item the likes of which I had not seen since I had left South America.

  Salome peered at it. “It is a whip.”

  “Specifically, it is a rebenque,” I told her. “Used by gauchos. Cowboys,” I explained, seeing her look of perplexity. “It is for the enthusiastic encouragement of livestock, usually cattle and horses.”

  I ran my fingers over the rebenque. It was a rather fine specimen of its maker’s art. Designed for discipline rather than damage, it was not as long or as vicious as a coachman’s whip. But anyone who had seen one used on a man would know better than to discount its ability to deliver pain. The handle of this one was perhaps a foot and a half long, covered in rawhide. From it depended a single thong, also of rawhide, two inches in width and some eighteen inches long. The end was not tapered, for it was not meant to draw blood but to deliver a stinging slap. I gave it a single flick and it responded with a sharp crack.

  “Stoker is no keeper of livestock,” Salome pointed out. “What need does he have of this?”

  “What need indeed?” I echoed grimly.

  I put the whip back into its box and sent Salome away. I blew out the lamp before Stoker returned, and when he did, I turned my face to the wall and pretended to sleep. For a long while Stoker lay wakeful in the dark, and at length I could bear it no longer.

  “That is a rather fine rebenque,” I began.

  He made a noise that was a cross between a growl and a sigh of exasperation. “Leave it, Veronica.”

  “I shan’t ask you to explain. I already know,” I said.

  “The devil you do,” he said sleepily.

  “You think I am bluffing merely to draw you out?”

  “That is precisely what I think. Now, go to sleep.”

  “Very well. I will not explain that I am familiar with the rebenque because of my own travels in South America. There is also no point in my sharing with you that I am well aware the professor will not let us remain here if you cannot earn our keep. With no target for the knife-throwing act, you would be forced to acquiesce to whatever scheme he devises—even something as torturous as a public fight for pay with a rebenque.”

  It was a long moment before he spoke. “Well, I am glad you did not explain all of that. It would have been boring in the extreme.”

  “Would it also bore you to know that I have deduced he means you to fight Colosso?”

  He remained silent and I went on. “You, I have little doubt, are skilled with the whip, but Colosso is a full head taller than you and outweighs you by an hundredweight. The rebenque is the only way to create a semblance of a fair fight. Have I got it right?”

  “Yes,” he sighed.

  “When is it to be?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “Good. I should hate to miss it.”

  And to his credit, Stoker laughed.

  • • •

  In the interest of further restoring my strength with fresh air and a little fortifying exercise—as well as providing a distraction for Stoker—I insisted upon walking out the next afternoon, thrusting a hamper of sandwiches at Stoker as I took up my net. We passed through the village so he might call in at the post office to see if his friend in Cornwall had sent along the latest London newspaper. He emerged a moment later, his hands empty, but his air was one of deep satisfaction, and I noted the edge of a thin parcel peeping from the top of his pocket.

  “Come along,” he said, taking my elbow. “I know just the spot where we shan’t be overheard.” We walked some distance out of the village, passing a few prosperous farms and an aggressively ugly Norman church before crossing the churchyard and into the copse beyond. I stopped short as he closed the gate behind us.

  “A bluebell wood!” I exclaimed. “How lucky we are to find them in bloom so late. Is there anything so lovely?” A river of bluebells flowed through the trees, carpeting the ground and filling the air with sweet, subtle perfume.

  I spread a rug in a patch of gilded sunlight and stretched out, watching a pretty little Hipparchia janira—a common Meadow Brown butterfly—flap slowly amid the milkwort and oxeye daisies. Stoker took out his knife and applied himself to a pair of apples, removing the peel from each in a single long russet curl.

  “That must serve you well as a taxidermist,” I noted, taking a healthy bite of the apple. “It takes real skill to have the skin off in one unbroken strip.”

  “A thoroughly unladylike observation,” he returned.

  “Yes, well, being a lady is a crashing bore, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  He shrugged. “You seem to enjoy it.”

  “As you pointed out, I am not exactly a lady.”

  “You are when it suits you. You are fortunate that in our world those ladylike trappings provide you with a bit of protective coloration to hide what you really are.”

  I tipped my head thoughtfully. “And what am I really?”

  “Damn me if I know,” he replied. “I have been attempting to discover that since the moment you dropped into my lap, but you are as elusive as those wretched butterflies you hunt.”

  “I am an open book,” I assured him.

  He gave a snort of derision and rummaged for the parcel he had retrieved from the post office. He extracted a newspaper and a letter—a note from his friend, no doubt.

  As he read, I reclined against a tree, twisting a curl of apple peel around my fingers. The air in that perfumed field was intoxicating, and it roused instincts within me that I seldom permitted myself to let slip the lead—at least not in England. I had no intention of acting upon them; that was strictly forbidden under the rules I had set and of which I reminded myself sternly and often. But it was pleasant to ponder the possibilities. “That groom, Mornaday, is rather handsome, wouldn’t you say?” I said, thinking aloud.

  He peered at me over the newspaper. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Veronica, I realize you are accustomed to exercising your affections with a certain degree of freedom, but you cannot go about the countryside seducing assorted strangers. We are attempting to preserve the fiction of a happily married couple.”

  “Piffle. We gave a poor picture of it when you permitted Salome to—well, perhaps we had best draw a veil over that incident,” I said, arching a brow at him. “And you have no fear I will misbehave with Mornaday. I only ever indulge my baser requirements when I am abroad. But if I did, Mornaday would serve quite nicely. He is a perfectly attractive fellow. He has lovely hands.”

  Stoker refused to rise to the bait. He resumed his newspaper, turning the pages with an outraged snap.

  “Too lovely,” I said slowly, sitting up.

  “Hm?” He was busy reading again and paying me scant attention.

  “For a groom, Mornaday has very soft skin. I noticed it when we first shook hands. His palms were very smooth, free of calluses. Have you ever known a man who works with horses to have tender hands?”

  “No, they have hands like s
hoe leather,” he said, peering intently at the newspaper.

  “Then what is he playing at in taking a job as a groom? He claims it is his regular employment, but that must be a lie.”

  “We have more considerable problems than the softness of Mornaday’s hands,” he said tightly. He thrust the newspaper into my hands. “Read.”

  I skimmed the article, horror mounting in a cold wave. I read it again, slowly this time, but the facts did not change. The verdict in the inquest had been murder by person or persons unknown. That much we had expected. We knew the baron had been murdered, and it had been an unlikely hope that the authorities had already apprehended his murderer. But the rest of the article revealed a far greater calamity. Besides reporting the verdict—and the fact that the baron had instructed via his will that he was to be privately interred with no formal ceremony—the newspaper seemed to relish relating that in a related matter, the Honorable Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, youngest son of Lord Templeton-Vane, was currently being sought by the Metropolitan Police to assist them with their inquiries into the murder of the Baron von Stauffenbach.

  “Stoker, they cannot possibly mean—”

  “They do,” he said grimly.

  He was right, of course; there was only one possible interpretation to the article: I was traveling with a man wanted for murder.

  I skimmed the rest of the article, but it gave few details. “How do you think they came to connect you to the baron?”

  He thrust his hands into his hair. “I rented the warehouse from him. There would be a record of the payments in his ledgers.”

  “You mean the baron owned the warehouse where you live?” He nodded in the affirmative, and I carried on. “The police would have discovered this when they looked through his papers. They must have called upon you only to find you missing.” He groaned, and I knew I was on the right path. “Naturally, it would seem suspicious to them that you should disappear at the same time the baron was murdered. And with the inquest verdict of ‘murder by person or persons unknown,’ they have settled upon you as the likeliest candidate. This article gives only your name, but it is simply a matter of time before they circulate your photograph and description.”

  He lifted his head, his expression one of abject misery. “Why? Why did I not think of this when I left London?”

  “Not to be critical at a difficult moment,” I put in hesitantly, “but why did you not seek out the police as soon as the baron was murdered? It does seem the most logical course of action, doesn’t it?”

  “Not helpful,” he said sharply.

  “You did not answer my question then, but I should very much like an answer now.”

  He paused, and I realized he was making up his mind whether to trust me at last.

  “Because in the eyes of polite society and no doubt those of Scotland Yard, I am already a murderer.”

  I stared at him, and he gave me a bitter smile. “Well, well. I have managed to render you speechless at last. I should think that calls for a drink.”

  He reached into the basket for my flask of aguardiente and took a deep draft. I held out my hand and took a hearty swallow of my own.

  Then I gave him a level look. “Why do they believe you to be a murderer?”

  He did not flinch. “Because I am.”

  It was a long moment before I could speak again. “I suppose I ought to thank you for being so forthright. As a matter of curiosity, whom exactly did you kill?” I thought for an instant of the wedding band I wore—a ring that had once graced the hand of his wife. He had mentioned his marriage as one of the casualties of his disastrous expedition. Had she been the victim of a homicidal impulse? I found that impossible to believe.

  “A man who deserved it, and I would do it again, and that is all you need know,” he said flatly. Not his wife, then, I reflected, but I was no less intrigued by the possibilities that remained. Had she had a lover Stoker had revenged himself upon? Was it a business arrangement gone terribly wrong? Unpaid gambling debts? He went on. “The police in this country cannot touch me for it, but they know my name well enough. I am sorry to say that my first thought when I learned of Max’s death was not for the loss of my friend, but the certainty that they would eventually settle on me as the likeliest culprit. And it appears I am correct,” he added with a nod to the newspaper.

  “You can hardly blame them,” I said mildly. “You are a policeman’s very dream, are you not? Connected to the baron by ties of business and friendship and burdened by an unsavory reputation. It would not be difficult to draw inference of motive somehow. A lazy policeman would be your undoing.”

  I meant to continue on in that vein, but he was staring at me, his expression one of frank disbelief.

  “Stoker, you look like a carp. Whatever is the matter with you?”

  “I just admitted to you that I am a murderer. I have taken a man’s life, and you have nothing more to say upon the subject?”

  “You have no wish to elaborate, and I have no wish to make you. What would you have me do, pry confidences from you like pulling teeth from a horse’s mouth? Besides, I am not entirely blameless in the matter of withholding information.”

  His gaze narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  Swiftly and with clinical efficiency, I related my experience with Mr. de Clare at Paddington Station. All the while, his expression never altered from one of dispassionate assessment.

  “And is that all?” he asked coolly when I had finished.

  “Yes. I ought to be contrite, but I don’t think I can manage it. You have kept your secrets; I have kept mine.”

  “But my secrets won’t get you hanged for a murder you didn’t commit,” he countered, his color high.

  “Oh, don’t let’s start this again,” I protested. “We might work very well together, you know, if only we could bring ourselves to trust each other. I have believed this from the first minutes in your workshop when I saw your sweet little Phyllomedusa tomopterna.”

  “It is a tarsius with a genetic mutation,” he corrected. “Now, do shut up and let me think.”

  “No. From this minute forward, we will work together, cooperatively, to solve this murder as it ought to be solved in order to clear you of suspicion and bring the baron’s killer to justice,” I told him firmly. “One ought to employ order and method to a murder investigation just as one should to a scientific investigation.” I looked at him closely. “Perhaps this is why you are a failure. You are far too impulsive and lacking in discipline. Oh, do not fuss. You will give yourself an apoplexy. It was simply an observation.”

  He had started to storm at me but shut his mouth again on a hard snap of the teeth. When he spoke, the words were ground out between them. “This is never going to work if you insist on enraging me upon no provocation whatsoever.”

  “I wouldn’t say no provocation. You did stab me,” I pointed out helpfully.

  “That was an accident, but you can be bloody certain the next time I do it, it will be with complete deliberation.”

  “Oh, fustian. You may bluster and storm, but we both know there shall not be a next time. I saw your face, Stoker. You were utterly horrified that I was injured and spared no time in coming to my aid. In fact, I am beginning to think your quickness is one of your finer qualities, in spite of the complications into which it has led us.” He spluttered a little at this, but I studiously ignored him. “Now, if we take the excellent example of Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective, as our model, we must proceed in an orderly and rational fashion. Method must be our watchword, and in that case, I think we ought to focus our attentions on the baron himself. After all, the victim is the logical place to begin our investigation, is it not?”

  “What qualities?” he asked with a suddenness that confused me.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said I have fine qualities. What are they?”

 
“It is not nice to put someone on the spot, Stoker,” I told him primly.

  “Very well. We have established I am not nice. What am I, then?”

  I tipped my head, thinking hard. “You are enthusiastic. I admire that. You have a curious mind, which is an excellent thing in a scientist. And you are, notwithstanding the recent unfortunate occurrence, rather good with knives and conjuring tricks. Now, about the baron—”

  “That is all? The list in its entirety? I am enthusiastic and curious and I can pull a rabbit from a hat?”

  “Oh, can you? I haven’t seen that, but it sounds like great fun.” I smiled kindly to show him that I meant it, but he replied with a curl of his upper lip.

  “That is really what you think of me,” he said, his tone one of mystification. “You have just described a seven-year-old boy.”

  I shrugged. “Some folk mature earlier than others, Stoker. It is no fault of your own.”

  “I am above thirty years of age. I have led, not accompanied, but led expeditions to Amazonia and the Galapagos. I have discovered forty-two species of animal never before named in the known world. I have seen active combat in naval battles. And you have reduced me to a moronic child who asks questions and performs coin tricks.”

  “I did not mean to hurt your feelings,” I began, but he waved me off with a dismissive gesture.

  “You never really know how others see you,” he said. “But thank you for that illuminating description.”