A Study in Silks tba-1

by Emma Jane Holloway

  As if conscious of being watched, Mouse twitched the end of its long, steel tail. It made a scraping sound against the bottom of the box.

  Imogen leaned forward, peering at the side table where the box sat. “What have you got there? Oh, what clever, darling little devices! I need to see something wonderful right now.”

  Device? Bird grouched. I’m more than just a lump of brass!

  “Do you like them?” Evelina replied airily. Be quiet! She’s not supposed to know you’re alive!

  She did say darling and clever. I can forgive a lot for that.

  “Of course I adore it.” Imogen scooped the bird out of the box, then nearly dropped it as it fluttered its wings, trying to balance. “Good gracious, it moves! Did Tobias make it?”

  The bird squawked derisively. Evelina did not reply, wondering why the devil the bird wasn’t playing dead. Of course, it was a deva. Or perhaps diva. Neither were predictable.

  “You made it, didn’t you?” Imogen gave her a sly look and stroked the bird’s shining head. It bobbed with pleasure, gems flashing in the candlelight. Then it gave a coo of adoration. Evelina watched as realization dawned on Imogen’s beautiful face, freezing her expression. “This creature is full of magic.”

  Evelina’s breath caught, her whole body suddenly a block of ice. She leaned forward so quickly she nearly launched from the chair. “Hush!”

  Imogen stared at her. She dropped her voice to a murmur. “Mechanics and magic. Living machine! Do you realize what you’ve done? This is genius!”

  Evelina looked away, only slowly finding the courage to meet her friend’s gaze. She couldn’t help thinking of Nellie Reynolds dragged into court for witchcraft. “You can’t tell anyone. Promise me!”

  Imogen was too excited to be serious. “Is this something your father’s people know how to do?”

  Evelina waved her hands in a negating motion. “Only some of it. Promise not to tell.”

  “Evelina—”

  “Promise me!” Evelina gave in to her panic, grasping Imogen’s wrist.

  Imogen yelped at the force of her grip. “Yes, I promise. Of course I promise!”

  Evelina leaned closer. “You saw what the Gold King did to Dora. What do you think he would do if he discovered I have a whole new means of making machines work? Have you heard about the actress they arrested?”

  Imogen closed her eyes a moment, turning pale. “I promise. I’ve heard about Nellie Reynolds’s trial.”

  I knew she would promise. This one is good. Bird bumped its head against Imogen’s hand, like a cat begging to have its ears scratched. She stroked it, then squealed as Mouse ran up her leg so it, too, could beg for attention.

  Imogen looked at Mouse with wide eyes. “This is your secret.”

  Evelina released her breath. “It is.”

  “I wouldn’t ever share it, if I were you.” Imogen’s tone was serious as she touched Mouse’s nose with her fingertip. “Some things are too wonderful to be safe in this world.”

  “You know me. I’m careful.” Only once, faced with life and death, had Evelina given away her secret. During the worst of Imogen’s illness at school, Evelina had felt her slipping away, and she’d spent hours coaxing Imogen’s essence to stay with her body. She had won that battle, but even the memory of that horrible night made her hands tremble. That was how Imogen had a hint of what she could do, though they rarely spoke of it—at least until the dark of night, when Imogen had nightmares about her soul wandering away from her pale, cold body, or of being trapped in some dark, smothering place. Then all pretenses stopped.

  Her friend’s fingers stilled. “I knew you could do magic, but nothing like this.”

  “You were keeping too many of my secrets already. It didn’t seem fair to burden you with another.”

  Imogen made a rude noise so loudly that the bird hopped to Evelina’s hand. “I don’t accept that. You’ll have to make it up to me.”

  “Of course.” Evelina hadn’t felt guilty before, but now she did. “What can I do?”

  Imogen closed her eyes, her soft fingers still cradling the sleek form of Mouse. “Someday I’m going to ask you for an enormous favor, and you’ll have to say yes.”

  “Of course. But what sort of favor are you thinking of?”

  Imogen gave a crooked smile. “Just as he was leaving tonight, Stanford Whitlock proposed. When Papa learns that I turned down an eligible young man, I shall have to pay the piper. I’ll need a clever friend on my side.”

  “But it’s Stanford Whitlock,” Evelina said derisively. “Surely Lord Bancroft can’t want him for a son-in-law.”

  “His father is in banking and has an indecent amount of money. Any father would drool like a starving dog at the prospect of that amount of wealth in the family.”

  “But you could hope for money and a functional intelligence in the same man. Surely your father is not driven onto the ropes that badly.”

  Imogen buried her face in her hands, letting Mouse run down into the silky nest of her skirts. “I don’t know, Evelina. With Papa, I never know how much is threat or truth or simply his ambition at work. The only certainty is that if this whole business of being Disconnected goes on, I’ll be lucky to marry the butcher’s boy.”

  “Well then, you can rely on a steady supply of bacon.” Outrage prickled under Evelina’s skin. She had been hoping to spare Imogen distress, and so far her investigations had only revealed more questions.

  Imogen looked up, her brow puckered. “Bacon?” Then she started to both laugh and cry, all the tension of the last dozen hours bubbling up at once.

  Evelina folded her in her arms, biting her lip to keep from sobbing herself. With so much at stake, she couldn’t let herself falter. Not for an instant.

  Chapter Eighteen

  London, April 7, 1888

  WEST END, LONDON

  11 p.m. Saturday

  The next night after his fight with Striker, Nick scanned the throng near the Savoy Theatre, finding his mark. The playbill on the door proclaimed Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, and from the mood of the crowd swarming into the Strand, it had been a successful performance. The crush made it necessary to thread between other pedestrians coming and going from the restaurants and playhouses. Carriages clogged the road, the brass and gold of harness and crest glinting in the uncertain light. Fine evening clothes, so bright inside the opulent buildings of the district, were muted to shades of indigo and wine.

  Ah, there he was. Nick had been following him for hours, having picked up his trail quite by accident on Oxford Street in the late afternoon. Dr. Magnus, of course, wore nothing but black from top hat to the shining toes of his dress shoes, a raven among the peacocks. He blended with the shadows, at times visible only because of the glint of his silver-headed cane. Unlike most of the evening revelers, he walked alone, his stride quick and purposeful where the others ambled and chatted.

  Another look around, this time for Yellowbacks. There were plenty of street rats lurking about, but none that Nick recognized from his rooftop chase. Best of all, there was no sign of Striker—Nick’s ankle was still sore and swollen and nowhere ready for a rematch. Of course, it could be the streetkeepers kept away from this no-man’s-land southeast of the Strand. The area represented an uneasy truce between the Yellowbacks and the Blue Boys.

  Nick detached himself from where he leaned against the brick wall and sauntered after Magnus, careful to keep at least two clumps of people between himself and his quarry. And careful not to limp. Showing weakness was the surest way to make himself a target.

  Nick watched the tall man as he strode from gaslight to gaslight, swinging his cane in rhythm with his steps. There was something jaunty in his movements, as if he were reliving the closing song of a comedy—and yet Nick could never imagine Dr. Magnus enjoying such simple pleasures. Coupling the man with any innocent impulse was simply impossible.

  Nick had met with Magnus the night after the incident with Striker, or rather Magnus had found him
at the place where Ploughman’s was performing. The doctor had been very interested to hear about Tobias Roth’s workshop, and even more that the young man was going there in secret. Obviously, the information played nicely into whatever plan Magnus was brewing.

  With his report delivered, Nick considered his obligation paid. He had agreed to provide information on Tobias Roth in return for Magnus’s protection from the police, and that was done. Now he could satisfy his own curiosity. Who was Dr. Magnus and what was he up to? Whatever it is isn’t jolly clowns and toffee. There’s something grim going on.

  As Magnus’s long strides took him from one pool of gaslight to the next, the capes of his coat merged with the shadows as if he walked in his own aura of darkness. It was a trick of the eye, but there was something unnerving in the sight, as if any moment he might dissolve into a cloud of fluttering bats.

  Magnus turned left down a street that was far less crowded. Nick started to trot to catch up, and then thought better of it when pain lanced up his injured leg. He caught his breath, hopping on one foot to catch his balance. To his surprise, Magnus stopped and turned.

  “Are you coming, Mr. Niccolo?” the doctor said, making himself heard without seeming to raise his voice.

  Heat surged to Nick’s face. He was an expert sneak. How had the man known he was there? From a distance, he couldn’t feel Magnus’s aura of magic, but perhaps the doctor’s senses were sharper? Nevertheless, he swaggered forward—not quite hiding a wince as he stepped on his throbbing ankle—as if this was exactly what he’d meant to happen.

  “Good evening, sir.” He swept an extravagant bow.

  “I take it you wish to make another report?”

  Nick cocked a smile to cover the panicked scramble in his mind. How could he explain himself? “I was wondering if you had any further need of me.”

  Of course, that was the opposite of the truth. He wanted to pin the man to a card and study him like a bug. He couldn’t exactly say it, though.

  “I’m sure you were.” With a sardonic look, Magnus beckoned. “Then come. My lodgings are this way.”

  Nick hesitated, momentarily startled. He was going to get a look inside the doctor’s home? If he wanted to know who the man was, this was an excellent beginning. But if he crossed that threshold, would he ever leave?

  The question skittered down his spine, leaving his stomach cold. Did he dare to match wits with Magnus? Who knew what strengths the foreigner possessed, besides a lick of dark magic? And a curiosity about the people Evie is with.

  That was no good.

  A distant clocked bonged the hour, and Magnus shifted impatiently.

  Fortune, be my whore. Nick fell in beside him, wondering what steps there would be to this dance. Magnus said nothing, and Nick said less.

  They went for some blocks, finally stopping in a small, elegant street of tall Georgian homes with wrought-iron fences and tiny front gardens. The red brick facades were broken by narrow windows framed in white. The effect was at once understated and in impeccable taste. There was no sign to give the street name, but Magnus approached the townhouse marked 113.

  “We’ll keep this brief,” Magnus said, unlocking the door. “I have had a long and complicated day.”

  “I am devastated to hear that, sir.” Nick stepped into the house behind him. The place was silent, no manservant rushing to take his master’s coat.

  Magnus tossed his hat and cloak onto a velvet-covered bench by the door and placed his cane in a large china urn patterned with blue chrysanthemums. “Your cheek is uncalled for. Why were you really following me?”

  Nick didn’t answer right away. The foyer was not large, but it had a marble floor and gold-leaf scrollwork framing the door. He hadn’t been inside a rich man’s house before—not through the front door, anyhow—and the sight of so much wealth threw him back on his heels. It was one thing to know he was poor, quite another to feel the full force of everything he could never have. A bitter taste invaded his mouth, as if he had been chewing the ashes of his own dreams.

  Anger robbed him of caution. “I’m curious to know what you want with Tobias Roth, sir. He may be clever, but he is little more than a pretty boy.”

  “And you are, no doubt, infinitely more clever and capable.” Dr. Magnus turned a mocking sneer his way as he opened the door to the rest of the house. “Nick with no name and less education.”

  The barb stung, but Nick responded by strolling into the doctor’s rooms as if he already owned something much finer. The trick wasn’t to swagger, but simply to fill the space with his presence. No great feat for a showman.

  He schooled his face as he looked around, observing the tooled green leather on the walls, the carpet so thick the toes of his boots disappeared as he walked. The center of the room was filled with a huge table, bow-legged and carved with zephyrs at every corner. It was piled high with books and contraptions Nick guessed were scientific in purpose.

  His stomach roiled with an emotion he couldn’t name. Envy was part of it, but there was more. At least one other ingredient was rage so acute that bile burned in throat. What did he do to deserve this? How can one man ever hope to enjoy so many things?

  Magnus turned a device mounted on the wall, and a gigantic chandelier came to life overhead. Glass baubles rattled in the drafts of the high, high ceiling, but the light remained bright and steady. Now Nick could make out a balcony of sorts all the way around the room, where tall bookcases lined every inch of wall space.

  Nick swallowed down his emotions for the sake of curiosity. “That doesn’t look like gaslight.”

  “It’s not. It is electrical incandescent light operated from a generator. Nothing here is gas or coal. I refuse to do business with the so-called steam barons.”

  “Were you Disconnected?”

  “No. I never bothered to have the place hooked up to their utilities.”

  “For what reason?” Nick looked around uneasily, noticing the dusty odor in the place, the cobwebs clinging in the shadowed corners. Perhaps the man really did have no servants. But if he had only been in England a short time, where had this library come from?

  “Let me answer that in a roundabout way. The Savoy is an interesting playhouse,” Magnus said. “Apparently the original plan was to light it entirely with electricity. They’d got as far as hiring someone to build a generator.”

  “And?” Nick couldn’t care less, but danger lurked at the edges of Magnus’s words. No doubt he would care in a moment or two.

  “D’Oyly Carte, the proprietor, is still using the Gold King’s gas. Evidently there was a sudden change of direction after his electrical man was found dead. Bled to death after swallowing a dozen broken lightbulbs. The chap who designed the bulbs, some fellow named Swan, suffered a similar fate. There were a great many jokes about the Savoy being his swan song.”

  Nick swore under his breath. “Why does one playhouse matter so much to the steam barons?”

  “The steam barons? No one accused them of a thing.”

  “Who else would do it?”

  “Precisely. And if they let one establishment do what they liked, anyone who could get away would wriggle out from under their collective thumb. They are greedy masters, after all. One pays once for light and again for heat and thrice if you are so lucky as to receive electricity for your business—but woe betide the customer who tries to cut costs by converting the steam to electricity or the gas to a boiler without the express permission of the utility. They might miss an opportunity to collect their fee.”

  “What’s your involvement, sir?” He asked the question boldly, not like a servant to his master but man to man. As usual, the only tool he had was his pride.

  Magnus studied him, obviously weighing what he saw. “Me? I am but a humble doctor who practices the art of mesmerism. My involvement counts for nothing—and yet like every man, woman, and child of the world, my involvement is everything. There are plenty of theaters in Paris, New York, Florence, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg. The
re are also hospitals, universities, and racetracks. The entire world is watching what happens in the Empire with avid interest. Should Europe simply sit back and watch a mighty power bleed to death? Should they go to war? The question of when to intervene on Queen Victoria’s behalf, and how much, is greatly debated.”

  “And if they don’t step in?” Now Nick was actually curious. He rarely had occasion to think much beyond his own horizon, but this intrigued him.

  “Someone will, eventually. I might say inevitably. But will it be too late? Your steam magnates already have tentacles in the German states. I would rather like to lop those tentacles off, and I might even be able to do it if I play my cards cleverly enough.”

  Since when did a mere mesmerist interfere in international affairs? Dr. Magnus was clearly more than he admitted to. “You care about what happens in Germany?”

  The man laughed, showing white teeth. “Before you accuse me of philanthropical leanings, let me say first the barons have something I want.”

  “What is that?”

  “My own affair.”

  Magnus fell into a red velvet wing chair that framed his head like a peacock’s fan. He waved Nick to a footstool. Instead, Nick leaned against the table and folded his arms. He wanted to stay light on his feet.

  “So you will fight them?” he asked, watching Magnus’s dark face. What would the steam barons have that this creature would want?

  “I’m not a rebel in the accepted sense. I work alone. But I do plan to poke a stick in their wheels. You might say that right now I am looking for the best possible stick for the job.”

  Nick looked down at the stacks of books on the table. Most looked very old, the leather corners worn away to expose fraying cloth. The titles contained words he didn’t know, or maybe they weren’t even in English. “So, Dr. Magnus, do these ancient books say that Tobias Roth is a good stick?”