by Riley Cole
Spencer reached for the box. Having something to do would be a godsend. If he were left alone with his own dark thoughts too much longer, he’d be no use to anyone.
He undid the latches and pulled the cover off the machine. Then he froze, his blood suddenly pumping so hard the acrid taste of copper filled his mouth. “But we don’t have the cylinder. The inspector— We forgot—”
Sweet shook his head. “Don’t need it.”
Spencer blinked at him, unable to think.
The inventor grinned. “I made a copy.”
“But I thought you said—”
“I said it would be difficult to make a duplicate. I didn’t say it would be impossible.”
Spencer sagged back in his seat. They could still get White. Should he escape, Burke could still bring him up on charges.
Sweet watched him think it through. “One way or another, White’s finished. Especially once you use this.” He set another, smaller box atop the table and flipped it open. Two more brass cylinders were nestled inside. Spencer could see that both were covered in the same kinds of scratchings, as if they’d been recorded as well.
“More duplicates?”
“White will think so. He’s going to ask you for the rest of them.”
Briar rose up on tiptoe, studying the cylinders. “But these cylinders come with a surprise, don’t they?”
The inventor attempted to look modest. “Quite a nice little surprise.”
He turned the case, so the narrowest side faced Spencer. Each corner was studded with a brass nail. He pointed at the top corner. “This one’s a switch. You’ll need to be careful. There’s a bomb inside.”
Spencer’s eyebrows shot up.
“Not a real bomb. Don’t want to blow you up. For now. It’s apricot pie. Sorry Mrs. H,” he gave the cook a sheepish look. “Opens with a nice big pop. Should scare the living tar out of anyone within ear shot.”
Spencer scratched his head. “Apricot pie.”
“What?” The inventor looked defensive. “Could have used kitchen scraps, but I thought you’d prefer something better smelling.”
Spencer scrubbed his face with his palm. Facing down White and his goons with an apricot pie. He’d been in worse scrapes. And not as capably armed.
Not with his sister though. Not when her life—and Meena’s—was on the line. He nodded to himself, trying to swallow around a throat dry and tight as the Sahara. He’d use any damn means at his disposal.
And he would win.
Sweet tapped the case above the button. “Once you push that, you’ll have ten seconds before it detonates.”
“Understood. How do I start this thing, then?” Seeing that the cylinder was already in place, Spencer reached for the metal handle of the gramophone.
“Don’t!” Edison grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to touch that.”
Spencer yanked his hand back. “So how am I supposed to demonstrate it?”
“Let White do it.”
“If I can persuade him.”
“What does this look like to you?” Sweet turned the machine so that the wide horn with its cylindrical opening was facing Spencer’s chest.
Amazing.
Spencer blinked in surprise. “It looks like the business end of a gun.”
Sweet grinned. “I’d say so. Once you turn it toward him, I doubt White’ll give you the chance to operate the thing. Let him crank it. When you detonate the bomb, the full force of it hits him right in the face.”
Spencer gaped at the inventor.
Sweet shrugged. “Smarter than I look, aren’t I?” He swiveled the device back around.
“And vastly smarter than Leyland White.”
Sweet dropped his gaze and cleared his throat. “As to that, I’ve got a few more little baubles for each of you. We might as well go over them now. I’ll be right back.” He headed back to his workshop.
Silence fell over the room again as the others slumped down in their own chairs. Nothing more to do now but wait.
And suffer.
There was always that.
He slid down in his chair until the back of his head rested on the top rung. He’d been so convinced—so damned certain—there was no such thing as real love that he’d slapped it away, even when it was staring him straight in the face.
How ironic.
If they were so ill-suited, why had he been so blasted miserable this past week? Why was it all he could think about was the way her smile warmed his soul?
He closed his eyes against the painful memories. She was afraid to be played for a fool. Afraid he’s stray. Fair enough, he had to agree.
But his omission had been larger. Large enough to sink them.
He’d been so afraid he couldn’t measure up to the man she wanted, he lost the chance to be the man she loved.
19
Teeth clenched in concentration, Meena wedged the silver hair ornament into the rusted slot of the screw high above her head. Only one window—it’s glass shattered—offered escape from their makeshift prison. Sadly, it was covered by a thick grate that had been screwed into place long before Queen Victoria’s coronation. The instant she tried to turn the screw, the silver bent as if it were India rubber.
Meena swallowed a curse and climbed carefully back down the tottering pile of shelves and boxes she and Alicia had constructed. She handed the misshapen piece back to Alicia. “I’m afraid your hair comb will never be the same.”
The girl smiled bravely in the dim light. “It wasn’t one of my favorites.”
Despite their circumstances, Meena grinned. The girl had fortitude. And intelligence. And far more sense than she would’ve expected from a schoolgirl.
Out of habit more than anything else, she arranged her skirts so they wouldn’t wrinkle as she plopped down on yet another broken piece of shelving. She could just make out Alicia’s outline in the fading light. The tiny grated window was their only source of illumination. Meena squinted down at the watch pinned to her dress. Sundown soon. They might have another hour of usable light. Somehow she doubted their captors would grant them a lamp.
Meena studied the walls of the old storeroom one more time, hoping to find something she might have overlooked the hundred other times she searched. She had no idea where they’d been brought. White’s ruffians had thrown sacks over their heads the instant they’d been shoved into a waiting carriage.
But they hadn’t traveled far. Even through the small window, she smelled water. Oily, rotten Thames water. And creosote. And wet wood. They were close by a dock. Which narrowed things down only marginally.
But what sort of building were they in? What type of neighborhood? How populated?
Important details that remained a mystery.
She only knew the space they’d been dragged through smelled strongly of smoke, as if the building had all but burnt to the ground. Though still acrid and chokingly strong, the smell suggested an old fire rather than a recent one. The damp, and the top note of mold, reinforced her conclusion.
Whatever edifice they’d been stashed in must be little more than a burned out hulk.
Yet the store room at the back had survived unscathed. No doubt the steel door had something to do with that. Whatever business had been concluded there required a strongroom with a steel door, a ceiling reinforced with steel beams, and a Hasenpheffer double barrel lock.
The distinctive click had hit her ears the moment one of the men had thrown open the latch to their new prison. The Hasenpheffer was an exquisite lock, hardly an instrument an ordinary shopkeeper could afford.
Or require.
A pity they weren’t on the far side of the door trying to get in. Fine or not, she could have picked it in seconds. On the inside, the door offered only a dummy handle. Unless she found a way to drill through steel, she had no way to access the deadbolt itself.
Alicia tossed her mangled hair comb on the floor next to its bent mate and two twisted shoe buckles. “That’s it for our tools then, isn’t it?”r />
Meena could tell the younger girl was trying to sound unconcerned, but it wasn’t difficult to detect the note of panic beneath the words. While Alicia’s back remained straight, her lower lip trembled ever so slightly.
Meena surveyed their pitiful pile of possessions. Between her sturdy leather traveling bag and Alicia’s delicate beaded purse, they possessed one boar bristle hairbrush, three hat pins, a vial of Hadley’s verbena and lemon eau du toilette, numerous embroidered handkerchiefs, Caldwell Nance’s latest publication, two sets of gloves, a silver container of lip rouge that Meena suspected Alicia was not supposed to be carrying, and a house key.
Nothing strong enough to tear off that grate, not in its rusted condition. More importantly, nothing that would make an effective weapon against two strong men.
Had she been alone, she would’ve tried stabbing her guards with a hat pin and making a run for it. She didn’t dare do that with Alicia in tow. So it would be a mental game.
Which would require time.
In the interim, she needed to keep her young friend calm and hopeful. Meena squinted up at the tiny window. It wouldn’t hurt to keep trying, even if the effort was futile. It would do Alicia good to think they were making progress.
She motioned Alicia toward the back of the storage space, closest to the window. “Come sit here, where it’s brighter.”
As the girl arranged her skirts so she could sit on the floor, Meena handed her the book.
Alicia examined it as if it were some sort of puzzle. “The Mummy’s Curse?” She wrinkled her nose at the title. “I had no idea you liked sensation novels.”
“Vastly under rated, if you ask me.”
“I’ve never read one.”
“Perfect timing, then.”
“I’m not sure Spencer would approve.”
Meena yanked a hatpin from her purse. “All the better,” she murmured. “I should very much appreciate it if you’d read to me. It calms my nerves. You read, and I’ll work on the grate.”
“Of course.” Alicia appeared to wonder what Meena had done with her wits, but she opened the book.
“I believe it would be best to start at the beginning. I’m already a few chapters in, but the story will make far more sense that way.” Thank Zeus, or Ramses or Tutankhamun, Mr. Nance had recovered his wits. The Mummy’s Curse was a vast improvement upon his last offering.
The book’s binding crackled as Alicia pressed it open in her lap. “It is with horror, and great regret, that I look back upon the series of events that tore me from my home and flung me, completely unaware and unprepared, into a mystery of the most devious creation,” she read. “A mystery who’s chilling climax would test my faith and bring me closer to evil than I hope ever again to come.”
While Alicia read, Meena climbed backup atop the boxes. As she’d suspected, her house key was too fat to fit into the screw’s head. The flat edge of her hat pin did slide into the slot. Although a great deal of rust flaked down the wall as she twisted, the screw remained frozen. The window was barred with hardened steel. A hat pin would get her nowhere. But it was something to do, something to assure Alicia that they would escape.
And they would do.
“Worry not, dear reader,” Alicia continued. “My adventure was not without its rewards. Through such trials and tribulations as I hope never to relive, I was presented with True Love.”
Meena’s breath caught. The passage pained her just as much as it had the first time she’d read it the day after Spencer left. She curled her hand around the useless hat pin. If only she weren’t such a coward.
Deep in her heart, she was a frightened little ninny. Not frightened of Leyland White, his men, or their nefarious plans. She’d find a way to escape, or Spencer and her family would find a way in. Either way, she and Alicia would be home before breakfast.
She was a coward when it came to her heart.
If she only she’d had the courage to trust him. He might well have broken her heart again, but she survived the first time.
If only she’d realized sooner that it was worth the risk. She and Spencer would be sitting there together. Knee to knee. Hip to hip. Shoulder to Shoulder.
Heart to heart.
Meena sighed disgustedly. He wasn’t, and they weren’t.
“Shall I continue?” Alicia was looking up at her.
Meena picked up the sound of footsteps outside the door. Then the distinctive snick of a key turning in the lock. She held her hand out. “Wait.” Hand still wrapped around the long pin, she scrambled down from her perch.
“Don’t you try anything.” One of their captors called out as he swung the door slowly open. “I’ve brung you some food.”
A harsh laugh came from behind him. “What do you think they’ll do, Jones? Swat you with their handbags?”
A wiry man with graying hair and worry lines etched deep into his thin face, poked his head around the door. At his colleague’s comment, his eyes widened in fear. He waited until his eyes adjust to the gloom and he could see that Meena and Alicia were nowhere near the door before he inched further inside.
Meena tried to take the tin plates from his hands. “Thank you.”
The man shrank back, pulling the plates to his chest. “Stay back.” He set them on the floor at his feet. “I’ve heard tell of you. You’re gonna try something.”
“I think not.” Meena stretched taller and crossed her arms over her chest. “That won't be necessary.”
The man blinked at her as if he hadn’t understood her perfectly clear statement.
“Your boss, Mr. White? He’s gotten you into a great deal of trouble. More trouble than you’re aware of, I’d venture to guess.”
The man said nothing, but he watched her closely. She could see the muscles in his neck working as he swallowed repeatedly.
“I see you’re aware of the penalty for kidnapping then.” She nodded thoughtfully. “He must be paying you all a king’s fortune to risk the noose.”
The man’s hands began to shake, and his eyes, already round with fright, grew even wider.
Excellent.
Fear would make them slow. Slow and stupid and careless.
Before she could continue her onslaught, a meaty fist reached through the doorway and seized the back of the man’s collar. “That’ll be enough of that.”
The smaller man was dragged back through the opening and the door slammed shut.
“That was an excellent start.” Meena picked up the plates and handed one to Alicia. “We should eat. We’ll need our strength later.”
Alicia frowned at a stale chunk of bread. “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they?”
“Absolutely not.”
To Meena’s dismay, her bracing statement did not appear to have the desired effect. Alicia’s eyes were filling with tears.
Meena dropped her own bread back down atop the overcooked mutton on her own plate. “Alicia, look at me.”
She locked gazes with the girl, trying to infuse her with her own sense of confidence. “We are far more valuable alive. They intend to trade us for something.”
Alicia’s small nod encouraged her.
“But more to the point,” Meena continued, “I have an escape plan. We should be out of here directly.”
“But there’s no way to remove the grate.”
“Unnecessary.” Meena picked up her bread. “We’ll be leaving through the door.”
A tiny shake of the head told Meena she hadn’t yet succeeded in convincing her charge. She forged ahead. “The men guarding us? They’re poor and desperate and considerably less than brilliant. I have the smaller one half convinced to let us out already.”
“You do?”
“Most definitely.” Meena nibbled at the bread. “Fear is a slow acting poison, but it is unerringly effective.”
“Maybe Spencer and your cousins will find us first. They’re quite clever.”
“They are indeed. It’s likely they’ll locate us before I have the guard convin
ced. Either way, we’ll be eating a real supper soon. A late supper, but still.” Meena paused as if she were thinking. “Late suppers always require extra dessert. It’s a law of sorts.”
Alicia attempted a smile and bit into her bread.
The crunch of dry bread echoed in the small room as they ate. Meena would get Alicia back to her brother. Her only worry was seeing Spencer again herself.
While her foolish heart leapt at the thought, her brain shied away from the pain she knew would knife her unmercifully the next time she had to watch him laugh, watch his beautiful mouth curve wide into a wicked grin.
And know it would never again be for her.
“White said ten o’clock. Where is the sodding pig?” Spencer glared down at the box holding the gramophone. The urge to kick it, to smash to pieces, was so strong his leg twitched with the effort to hold himself back.
“Steady, man.” Burke clapped a hand on his shoulder. “It’s only just gone the hour.”
Spencer drew in a deep, shuddering breath. The wait was killing him. Inch by inch, he could feel his soul being squeezed by the relentless nightfall.
Knowing Alicia and Meena were out there, in the cold, in the dark, at the hands of God knew who…
He stared at the bricks marching in a circular pattern around the subway entrance, desperate to calm the rage that threatened to blind him. Even if this hadn’t been his fault, the waiting would be intolerable.
Knowing he had led them to this place made it unbearable.
Sweet came up behind them in the dark. “Don’t see a thing.”
Even Burke looked concerned. The knowledge twisted Spencer’s gut.
The inspector let out a deep sigh. He narrowed his eyes as if it would help him penetrate the darkness. “It’s an odd place for a meeting.”
Spencer had thought so too. White’s final note had specified the south entrance to the Tower Subway. The odd round building housing the stairway down to the cross Thames tunnel was surrounded by shops. Nightfall, however, sucked the life from the entire neighborhood. Shops were shuttered and the street vendors had long since disappeared back to their homes.