A Study in Silks (67 page)

Evelina pondered that, trying to catch up to the fact that Imogen’s heart was readying itself for more than a battle of wits with her brother’s best friend. “Where is Bucky?”

Imogen pulled out a dainty kerchief and mopped her nose. “Papa heard that I turned down Stanford Whitlock. He’s furious. Now, if I want to go anywhere without him or Mama on my heels, I’m going to have to climb out a window.”

That made no sense. “But the Penners have plenty of money, and Bucky is a hundred times more capable than Whitlock. Surely they can see that.”

“Whatever the Penners have, the Whitlocks have more. His father owns a bank. And Stanford isn’t the only prospect on Father’s list. The Westlakes’ son has a title. Buckingham Penner is very much a second choice by those standards.”

Evelina cursed under her breath. “This isn’t fair.”

Imogen’s eyes filled with tears. “I won’t marry someone I don’t like, much less love. I won’t.” Lord B probably had no idea how stubborn his daughter really was. They were in for a storm. “This is all my fault! I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to believe it!”

Evelina was bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“There is something going on between my father and Keating’s cousin, Harriman. I overheard them at the dinner party.” Imogen closed her eyes, as if recalling the scene. “Harriman said he’d done exactly as Papa instructed, no more and no less. That he had returned the crates to the warehouse and informed Mr. Keating of their arrival. And then he went on to say that whoever said there was a missing article was quite mistaken. Does that make any sense at all?”

Evelina had gone numb. “A bit.”

Imogen had known this for days. A feeling of betrayal
swamped Evelina for a moment, but it didn’t stay. What daughter would want to believe her father was at the core of a crime? She couldn’t blame her friend.

But Imogen looked hollow with grief. “If I’d said something, maybe this would all be over by now. Maybe your uncle wouldn’t have been shot.”

Evelina’s chest ached with a brew of anger and sadness. “We can’t know that.”

Imogen took another shuddering breath. “This week has been so horrible! First Grace and then … everything. Then what Papa said about Grace. After last night, Mother won’t get out of bed.”

It was true. Lady Bancroft had retreated altogether. The revelation of her husband’s infidelity had been bad enough. That it happened at the dinner table, follow by a shooting, was intolerable. After the murders and the Disconnection, it had been the last straw.

“It all reminds me of my nightmares,” Imogen said, taking quick gulps of air in an effort to keep control of her words. “I’m trapped in the dark, and I can’t get away from whatever is coming.”

Then the dam broke. Imogen wept and wept, her heart breaking. Evelina held her, feeling unutterably sad, but she had nothing to offer. As long as she had known Imogen, she’d been able to protect her, but over the last week, she’d lost that ability. It felt strangely like exile.

“Oh, Evelina,” Imogen sobbed. “The worst of it is how little courage I seem to have. I thought I was braver. What if they had you on trial, instead of Nellie Reynolds? Would I still be too much of a coward to speak out?”

Evelina shivered and squeezed her tight. “Promise me that you’ll be that coward.”

LATER, EVELINA HOVERED
at the door of the guest room. Wounded as he was, Holmes had been cared for overnight at Hilliard House. Evidently, one didn’t evict even the most provoking dinner guest after he was shot at the dinner table.

“Dr. Watson?” she called softly.

She slipped inside. The second-floor quarters were divided into a bedchamber and sitting room overlooking the back garden. They were meant for a male guest, with green walls and substantial leather furniture. A tiger skin rug sprawled in front of the fireplace.

Holmes was propped in a leather chair, an ottoman supporting his slippered feet. She looked around for Watson. He had collapsed in another chair, a frown darkening his deceptively benign face. Not that Dr. Watson wasn’t benign—he was one of the best souls in the Empire—but a man didn’t get to be her uncle’s right-hand man without a good uppercut and the stamina of a draft horse.

Just not enough to outlast her uncle. Watson had the look of a man at the end of his rope. “Stop talking nonsense, Holmes. You’ve been shot.”

Uncle Sherlock glanced down at the sling meant to hold his right arm still. “So I have. It’s a tremendously motivating factor.”

“For what?” Watson snapped. “Bleeding to death? The only motivation you should have is a desire to sleep.”

Her uncle subsided a little. “I want a report, niece of mine. What have you found out about last night?” After casting a guilty glance at Watson, he fixed her with the look of a schoolmaster asking his student to recite lines, then his face softened. “What is the matter?”

“Imogen and Lady Bancroft are in a sorry state this morning. I’m worried for them.” She could have added Holmes to that list, but he wouldn’t have appreciated being included with two frail women.

“I have looked in on Lady Bancroft,” Watson said. “I prescribed a dose of laudanum. The sleep will do her good. I offered the same to Miss Roth earlier this morning, but she declined.”

Evelina nodded. “Thank you.”

“I would think,” said Holmes, “that a speedy resolution to this affair would be the best medicine. The longer it drags on, the more of a toll it takes upon a delicate constitution.”

He was right. Worry alone helped nothing. She cleared her throat, picking a place to start her report. “I had a thorough
look at the grounds before the police arrived this morning. There was a single set of footprints leading to and from the sundial in the garden to the back wall. The shooter approached by the back alley and used the sundial to hide while he took his shot.”

“Anything else?”

“There was no litter or debris left behind. The prints looked to be from a fit adult male.”

“The weapon was most likely a handgun,” Watson offered, “judging from the size and velocity of the bullet.” The doctor looked up at Evelina, his expression somewhere between fondness and exasperation. “You are looking lovely, my dear, although it pains me to find you mixed up in this gruesome affair. Really, you’re too pretty a young lady to concern yourself with violence.”

Evelina remembered a girlhood crush she had nurtured for the doctor and consoled herself with the knowledge that had the romance flourished, she would have eventually been obliged to smack him over the head. She sat down, smoothing her skirts. “This matter may be unpleasant, but the sooner it is solved, the sooner we can put it behind us.”

Sherlock gave a razor-thin smile. “Just don’t develop a taste for murder.”

“Solving murders, you mean.”

Watson heaved a tired sigh. “There are days I begin to think they are one and the same thing.”

“There is one other piece of new information,” she offered. “I have solved the cipher.”

Her uncle’s eyes lit up. “Indeed?”

Evelina pulled a folded scrap of paper from her pocket and reread it. “Cannot copy chest. Please advise,” she said aloud to Sherlock and Watson. “I’m not sure what it means by copying.”

“Ah,” Holmes replied with a feline smile. “This grows interesting.”

“I would have thought we were talking about someone melting down valuables for gold,” said Evelina cautiously.

Holmes gave her a sharp look. “Perhaps theft is but half of it.”

The doctor took the paper from her uncle and read it over. “How did you determine the key?”

“The clock on the landing uses one, and I knew both Magnus and Lord Bancroft knew it. The key is the name Helen. Dr. Magnus is obsessed with Helen as the personification of divine truth.”

Watson handed the paper back to Holmes and gave her an avuncular smile. “Very observant.”

“Excellent.” Holmes tapped the fingers of his good hand on the chair.

“A lucky guess,” she countered.

Her uncle gave a brief shake of his head. “Luck is percentages. Good percentages are aided by good deduction. The value in this is not the message but the key. I entertained the notion that Keating might have been at the heart of this matter after all, but it appears that is not the case. And again, the cipher could have been added to this stew of intrigue by Magnus, but my guess would be our host.”

Oh
. Evelina closed her eyes a moment, dreading the consequences for Tobias and Imogen and even young Poppy. She recalled the conversation with Tobias in the garden and his desire to shield his father’s liaison with the murdered maid. “Are you sure? I know that Lord Bancroft was involved with Grace Child, but still …”

“Let us go over the facts again.” Holmes said, a touch irritably. “Then we can decide what Lestrade does and does not need to know.”

Her heart lifted a little at that, though it was hardly a guarantee. “The fact that he slept with Grace doesn’t prove anything.” But it implied a lot, and she could see from her uncle’s face that he had already considered that.

And then that sense of hope crashed when she thought about the cipher. “Nonetheless, Imogen came to me with information this morning that I’m afraid does her father no good.”

“Do tell.”

So she did. Holmes listened carefully. “What an unfortunate burden for so lovely a young lady. But how do you think it fits with what else we have learned?”

She knew very well that he had already made his conclusions, but spoke anyway. “If Bancroft was giving the owner of the warehouse instructions, there is little doubt that he is involved. To me it sounds as if whoever sent Grace with the gold was seeking instruction from His Lordship, since the note came in the same package.”

“Quite. And I would suspect that receiving no answer, the author—most likely this Harriman—acted on his own and so set the cat among the pigeons.”

“But what exactly was going on in the warehouse?” Not even Magnus had been sure. “Was it more than just melting down Keating’s gold as shipments arrived?”

“Indeed it was more. First and foremost, this was a very elaborately staged theft. There are a half dozen criminal masterminds in London who will be jealous of our host’s acumen once they read it in the papers.”

Panic surging, Evelina shot to her feet. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted her uncle involved. “That can’t be done. Exposure would ruin his family, and they are my friends. There has to be another way!”

“I have been shot,” her uncle said sharply. “I am not in the mood for you to make excuses on behalf of a man who just last night was doing his best to cast aspersions on your character.”

Evelina bit her lip, searching for a way to distract him. “I have a theory about why they haven’t found the casket.”

“Later. I will listen to it all when I am ready to do so. Right now I want to hear everything from the top,” Holmes snapped.

Evelina bridled at his tone, but held her tongue in a mutinous silence.

“My pipe, Watson.” Her uncle held out his hand irritably. “You brought it, I hope.”

“Of course, Holmes.”

There was no way to pack and light a pipe one-handed, so the dutiful doctor searched the mantel and picked up a briar pipe. The ritual of preparing it took a moment, so Evelina closed her eyes, searched her memory, and began once again with the night she was surprised by the grooms in the attic.

Watson paused at the fireplace, lighting the pipe from the perpetual flame that burned in the mouth of a carved stone dragon. The feature had been installed just days ago, a gift from the Gold King. Holmes accepted the pipe from Watson and nodded to Evelina to continue.

She went through the investigation, step by step. Apart from smoking, Holmes appeared asleep. Watson, however, listened carefully, and she realized this was the first time he had heard it—which was no doubt why her uncle was having her recount it all again. He would have remembered every scrap.

She had just reached the part about Magnus’s death, when Sherlock raised a hand to halt the flow of words. “I want to talk to Lestrade, and I want to see your friend Nick. They will have the last pieces of this puzzle.”

“
NICK
!”
EVIE
’
S HUG
damn near killed him, but he forced himself not to whimper like a beaten puppy. The embrace was worth the pain. She was soft in all the right places, the brush of her sweet-smelling hair reminding his body he’d slept alone too long. But she backed away before they sparked magic from each other.

He took off his hat, his hand over the cracked spot on the brim. His wardrobe and daylight weren’t good friends. “Your bird found me. I came. It said someone here wanted a word.”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. He looked a sight, he knew, with black eyes and bandages and more bruises than skin. He wasn’t going to be performing for a few days, that was for sure—and that would be hard on his purse.

“Thank you for what you did,” she said simply. “That was a terrible risk you took.”

It had been, but he shrugged. The one good thing was that the Gold King had wanted the sorcerer dead. There was a chance he’d step in if they were caught, though Striker had his doubts about anything Jasper Keating promised. There was no love lost between master and man.

Evie took his arm, guiding him through the big house.
He’d been inside a few times now, but never with permission. With no active threat to counter, it was all he could do not to stare around him like a farmboy on his first trip to market.

“My uncle wants to talk to you.”

“Sherlock Holmes?” He stopped in his tracks, bringing her up short. Her skirts swung like a bell.

“Who else? Uncle Mycroft never goes anywhere, much less to visit me.”

Let himself be grilled by Evelina’s genius uncle? Not bloody likely. But then he’d always had a curiosity to meet the man.

“Please, Nick.” Her eyebrows puckered the same way they had when she was two feet tall. “He’s trying to solve this once and for all.”

Nick’s side hurt enough that he was sure it was making him stupid. “All right.”

He’d walked into Dr. Magnus’s lair. He could do this. But pain and fatigue had robbed a lot of the swagger that had seen Nick through that encounter.