A Study in Ashes (41 page)

She paused, her body angled slightly away from him, shutting him out. “I thought you said there was no need for concern.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. I’m his father. He’s too”—Bancroft searched for the right word—“good. No, a purist. He refuses to play the game.”

That brought her gray-eyed gaze to his face. “I know. He drives me to distraction. But that’s not what he was made for.”

And then she turned and left, leaving him standing alone in the room, fidgeting with the coins in his pockets. The argument had left him shaken.
I shouldn’t have told her I was worried
. That wasn’t the sort of thing the man of the house was supposed to say—but it was true.
I can’t think about this. There’s too much at stake to take my eyes off the mark
.

Bancroft left the drawing room and went up to his study. He opened the door, allowing the scent of tobacco and old leather to waft over him as he walked in. Not so long ago, he’d done the same thing to find Tobias sitting at his desk. The memory of his son wrenched him unexpectedly.
He’d damned well better be fine!

Bancroft shut the door behind him, taking a deep breath and letting it out a bit at a time. Solitude and silence settled over him, slowing the pounding of his heart. The privacy of
the room held half its value to him. The other half was the memory of all the plots, feints, and victories he’d orchestrated from behind his desk. There had been failures, too—his investment in Harter Engine Company, for starters—but he’d won his share of hands. Here, in this room, he was in control.

Calmer, he sat down at the desk and shuffled a stack of papers to one side, squaring the edges with an authoritative
thump
. The volatile state of the Empire screamed for prudent diversification, and over the last few days, he’d been transferring assets out of London banks and into accounts he held in France and the United States. He knew it was a smart move, and that certainty released the tense knot forming at the back of his neck.

But relief didn’t last. Beneath the financial papers was the note he’d received at Duquesne’s. Annoyed, Bancroft picked it up, tempted to toss it into the dustbin. Nothing more had come of it, and he had enough complications to wrangle without cryptic threats.

Then he paused, remembering the difficulties he’d had dealing with the Chinese traders. He wondered again about Harriman and the goldsmiths. The episode felt like ancient history, even though it had not been two years past. No doubt he was worrying for nothing. He hadn’t personally met any of the Chinese workers, outside of Han Zuiweng. Engaging and directing the help had been Harriman’s job. By rights, no one involved with hiring the Chinese should even know Bancroft’s name.

He turned over the note, studying the Chinese character on the reverse side. Again, he thought it looked familiar, although that might have been his imagination. Bancroft shrugged his shoulders, shaking off the sensation that he was being watched.
Nonsense
. The only other pair of eyes in the room belonged to the stuffed tiger’s head fixed to the wall above his desk.
Figure this out and get it out of your brain. You can’t afford the distraction
.

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a file of correspondence he’d received from merchants in the coal trade. Leafing through the thin stack of pages, he wasn’t sure what
he hoped to find. When he’d taken on the task of finding a source of coal for the rebels, he’d done much of the legwork in person. In part, he’d become personally involved because of the delicacy of the mission. One didn’t simply march up to the sales desk asking for contraband supplies for a group of traitors. Bancroft had needed all his ambassadorial skills, building personal relationships with the merchants who came and went among the ever-shifting population in the Limehouse area.

But there had been a few letters, most in English. His idle flipping began to take on purpose, and he turned the pages faster. The ones that interested him were the few that had come on paper stock with the company crest printed at the top. He pulled them aside one by one until he found the one he wanted—a letterhead with ornate Chinese dragons down the margins. The note itself had been a polite but brief apology from a merchant who was closing down his operation to return to his own country.

Bancroft shoved the note with the hand-drawn character closer to the letter. There it was: a match to the character that formed part of the design. Even though he couldn’t read the script, Bancroft had long ago trained himself to remember shapes and ornamentation. In the diplomatic business, remembering the details of a piece of jewelry or the crest on the side of a coach could be key. After a while, it became habit.

But now that he’d made the connection, what did it mean? Had the note from Duquesne’s come from someone connected to the merchant company? He picked up the letter, reading it over again. It was still the same bland apology as before, so he turned his attention to the letterhead itself—and the two fierce dragons descending to the underworld, smoke pouring from their nostrils. He’d thought them picturesque but irrelevant before, and yet now he began to wonder. Han, the Chinese foreman, had commanded some sort of magical serpent guardian.

Spurred by a fresh idea, Bancroft returned to the file and kept flipping pages until he found a second paper. It had been a list of companies in the Limehouse area that he might want
to contact. He’d got it from the tax rolls. These were the official company names gathered by the local authorities, and they sometimes differed from what the traders put on their signs. Bancroft found the listing with the same address as his dragon letterhead. It was for the Mercantile Fellowship of the Black Dragons of the Hidden Sea. There were two contacts listed, and with a ping of surprise, he recognized one of the names. It wasn’t the signatory of the letter, but instead a Mr. Fish.

Bancroft sat back in his chair.
Mr. Fish?
He knew the name from the minutes the Steam Council published in the
Bugle
. He knew the minutes were just official drivel meant to project the image of public-spirited men of business—and probably reporting about 5 percent of what actually occurred—but the list of attendees was probably correct. The oddity of the name—who called himself Fish?—had made it stick in his mind though he had only seen it on two occasions, for the Black Kingdom sent a different representative to the council almost every time.

That raised brand-new questions. Did the Mercantile Fellowship of the Black Dragons of the Hidden Sea have a connection with the Black Kingdom underneath London? Since the Chinese were supposed to be unaligned with any member of the Steam Council, that gave Bancroft pause. Had he stumbled across a little-known alliance?

But worse was the possibility that he’d drawn the attention of the underground world. Nobody knew much about it, and those who did were too afraid to speak of what they knew. Black ruled more than the utility infrastructure that passed beneath the streets—and the other barons had paid dearly for permission to install most of that anyhow. Silence Gasworks, the company that provided Black’s steam and gas, produced just enough for the underground’s use. No, Black’s true power lay elsewhere, ruled over by a presence—no one knew precisely who or what—that seemed to be far older than the Steam Council.

There were certainly places the daylight traveler could go beneath the earth—the carefully negotiated territories of the underground rail lines, for instance—but it was folly to
step outside those carefully demarcated boundaries. Few who strayed into the labyrinth of Black’s subterranean passages ever came back.

Bancroft’s fingers twitched, then started to shake.

So what did the Black Kingdom want with him?

Dartmoor, October 4, 1889
BASKERVILLE HALL
3:15 p.m. Friday

BASKERVILLE HALL WAS ONE OF THOSE NIGHTMARE PROPERTIES
that argued for a box of matches and a barrel or two of oil. Watson had first thought so upon arrival and now, standing outside and staring up at the grim edifice, he was ready to assist the would-be arsonist. The beds alone were a felony.

The hall had probably been the last word when it was built—Watson guessed the original parts of the house dated to Good Queen Bess or maybe even her father. But nothing in it had been updated since. The furniture and finishes were oily black with age. The house itself was square and dark, made gloomier still by the fact that someone had bricked over many of the windows, probably during an era when windows were taxed. The only people who could have been happy there were Gothic novelists, maniacs—more or less the same thing—or perhaps moles.

And when one tried to escape the dank chill of the house, the main attraction was a path—about twenty feet across, counting the lawn—flanked by impenetrable twelve-foot yew hedges. And, to complete the effect, the only way in or out of the walk was a wicket gate that led onto the bleak, wandering vastness of the moor. And there, amid the rolling sea of wild gorse and prehistoric ruins, were bogs waiting to suck down unsuspecting ramblers and the occasional pony.

It was at that place, near the moor gate, where Sir Charles had died. The man had been found face down, his arms splayed and clutching the ground, and his face contorted with fear. There had been no physical injuries to speak of, beyond heart failure. The consensus at the hall was that the old gentleman had been frightened to death. Maybe he’d finally noticed where he’d been living.

Holmes, who had been peering at the ground where the body had been discovered, came up beside Watson. “I found nothing but the footprints of a dog.”

“Well, you were looking for a legendary agent of death. Besides the mildew in my bedding, that is. Perhaps it was the ghostly Hound of the Baskervilles enacting an ancient curse.”

Holmes looked amused, but it was fleeting. “Very good. See what you can do with that in your literary exploits. I’ve convinced the Gold King that Evelina’s presence is mandatory to the investigation, but we have yet to give substance to the tale. Make it convincing.”

Watson was getting just a little testy. He had set out to chronicle Holmes’s cases, not spin tall tales. “One thing I wish to question from the start. Speaking as a medical man, I don’t understand how heart failure translates to murder.”

Holmes grew serious. “Sir Charles clearly died of terror. Perhaps not a usual weapon, but effective nonetheless.”

Watson considered that. “Despite the man’s appearance at the moment of death, how can we prove such a thing? What kind of clues, much less evidence, can we hope to find to convict this bogeyman?”

Holmes hunched slightly, as if to fend off the question. “We shall work the same as we always do, my good doctor. No detail will escape our notice.”

Watson was doubtful. “And Evelina?”

“The Gold King is sending Tobias Roth with her, which may prove a nuisance.”

“He shot you not so long ago.”

“Thank you for reminding me.” Holmes gave a short laugh. “Perhaps you should be the one to keep him distracted. I propose that we—by which I mean you—find a
means of sedating the young man, relieve him of the key to her manacles, and get her to safety. Once she is gone, it will be no great matter to lead him off in a false direction as he searches to recapture her. He must leave before the rest of the Baskerville council arrives. And just to complicate matters, Miss Barnes and her friends are installed in the town, waiting for Evelina to join them. They are devoted to the Baskerville cause, and yet not all of the council are friendly to magic users. We have done what we can to ensure the two groups do not mix, for the last thing we need now is a spat between our allies.”

“That’s a lot of stage management,” Watson said uneasily. “A lot of players to keep out of each other’s way.”

Holmes made a face. “Very true. And it would be bad enough if Evelina had come with an ordinary Yellowback, but Roth will make this harder. He is smart, and anything he sees will find its way back to the Gold King.”

“Is it worth the risk to attempt this all at the same time?”

“When else would we have these circumstances? If we can free my niece, then take down the laboratories, we shall have struck two blows against the Gold King. With some victories behind us, swaying others to the Baskerville cause will be easier.”

Watson heard the call to action in his friend’s voice and felt his blood stir. “What made you join in this Baskerville affair?”

“My brother, Mycroft, believes he recruited me.” Holmes gave him a serious look. “But any doubts I had about the cause vanished the moment the steam barons pushed the makers underground. No nation can survive when the free play of thought is outside the law.”

It was a sobering observation. “How did the Baskervilles become involved in the rebellion? I’ve seen their home. It looks ordinary enough.”

The detective looked down the length of the yew walk toward the house. “Prince Albert was a planner. Even after he had suppressed the steam barons, he could see they would not remain obedient to the Crown and so he set up safeguards. If only he had lived a little longer, he would
have strengthened those plans, but he did not. So we are left to work with an imperfect solution—but at least he pointed the way. And he made Sir Charles the keeper of his plan.”