Affair (27 page)

“Perhaps, but it’s possible that poor Drusilla came across some information about one of the members of the club while she was involved with Norris’s father.” Charlotte frowned. “I cannot think what sort of information would get her killed, however.”

“That, of course, is the great mystery here. What could she have learned that would be worth her life? The club members appear to be dabbling in mesmerism but so are a good many other people.”

“I do not like the feel of this, Baxter.”

“Nor do I.”

“If there is a murderer in The Green Table club, your brother could be at risk.”

He met her eyes again. “We will take this step by step, just as one does any well-constructed experiment. First, I shall confirm my suspicions about the drawing.
Then we shall see if we can discover the name of the owner of The Green Table. Whoever he is, he must know something about this business.”

Charlotte regarded him with an admiration that she did not trouble to conceal. “I believe, sir, that you are going to prove to be an extremely useful man-of-affairs.”

Thirteen

The small book was old, one of the most ancient in Baxter’s library. He had not had occasion to examine it in a long while. It was one of a number of alchemical texts that he had acquired over the years. He was not certain why.

Alchemy was a subject that properly belonged to the past, not the modern age. It was chemistry’s dark side, a devil’s brew of occult studies, metaphysical speculation, and supernatural secrets. It was rubbish.

But there was a sense of deep mystery about alchemy that had always intrigued him, especially in his younger days. The endless, obsessive quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, the search for the basic laws that governed nature, drew him in some deep, elemental fashion that he could not explain.

And so he had collected books such as this one.

The leather binding was cracked, but the thick pages were in remarkably good condition. If he had not been so exhausted from the long, sleepless night, he would have been briefly amused by the title page. In the long tradition of alchemists who chose to write treatises on their subject, the author had assigned himself a flamboyant pseudonym. Aristotle Augustus.

Almost as riveting as Basil Valentine, Baxter thought, the name he had used for
Conversations on Chemistry
. But, then, he’d been only twenty when he had authored the book, just down from Oxford. He’d felt the need of a pseudonym that carried some weight.

Basil Valentine had been a legendary alchemist, a man of mystery. He had delved deeply into the arcane arts of the fire. He was said to have discovered great secrets and learned the nature of raw power.

In short, the name had sounded a good deal more exciting and romantic than Baxter St. Ives.

Baxter liked to think that he had matured a lot since Oxford.

He braced himself with both hands spread wide on the polished ebony desk and studied the slim volume that lay open in front of him. The Latin title translated into English as
A True History of the Secrets of the Fire
.

The drawing, a crude picture of a triangle inside a circle, was located near the center of the slender volume. Unlike Drusilla Heskett’s sketch, this was more easily comprehended. The squiggles were not worms, but various mythical beasts. The dots were tiny symbols that Baxter recognized as having alchemical references.

The drawing was the usual mixture of metaphors and cryptic designs so beloved by the alchemists. The ancients had reveled in the obscure and had gone to great lengths to conceal their secrets from the uninitiated. Baxter knew
that he was looking at a diagram that was meant to be an alchemical key, a pictorial description of a secret experiment that, if conducted perfectly, would lead to the discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone.

There was no doubt but that it represented a direct link with The Green Table. But the questions still remained. Why had Drusilla Heskett copied the diagram into her watercolor sketchbook? Why had someone felt the need to steal the book from Charlotte and why was Drusilla dead?

Baxter closed
A True History of the Secrets of the Fire
and glanced at the tall clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. After taking Charlotte home, he had been unable to sleep. Driven by a need for answers, he had spent what had been left of the night there in the library. He was in his shirtsleeves. The coat and cravat he had worn that evening lay draped across a nearby chair.

Wearily he removed his eyeglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Foreboding sat on his shoulder, a great dark bird of prey. He could sense the gathering danger. A plan of action was required. He would have to formulate one as quickly as possible. The most important goal was to protect Charlotte while the matter got sorted out. But first he needed some sleep.

A thump and a loud voice out in the front hall interrupted his thoughts.

“Get out of me way, you clumsy oaf. Ye cannot stop me. Move, damn yer bloody hide.”

Baxter sighed. The new housekeeper had a mouth on her that would have done justice to a dock laborer. On the positive side, at least she was an early riser. The last one had often slept through breakfast.

Another thud sounded from the hall.

“I ain’t hanging about another moment. I’d have left
yesterday if me sister had been able to give me a bed for the night.”

“If you would perhaps give it another fortnight, Mrs. Pearson.” Lambert’s pleading tones were muffled by the wall. “It is so difficult to find staff. And Mr. St. Ives does pay well, you know.”

“I don’t care how much that madman is willing to pay his staff. All those strange goings-on in that laboratory of his. And right in the middle of the day, too. A lady shrieking as if she was bein’ fiendishly tortured. I won’t tolerate that sort of thing. Get away from the door, ye doddering old fool.”

There was another short murmur of protest from Lambert, a loud exclamation, and a very final-sounding thump. The front door slammed with sufficient force to shake the wall.

Silence fell.

A soft knock on the library door a moment later made Baxter close his eyes in bleak anticipation.

“What is it, Lambert?” He turned slowly to face the door.

Lambert hovered anxiously in the opening. Apparently he had been roused from his bed and had not had time to finish dressing. His sparse gray hair stood straight out from his head. His jacket was unbuttoned and he was wearing only one shoe. He managed to clear his throat with great dignity.

“Begging your pardon, sir, the new housekeeper just gave notice.”

“Bloody hell. There have been no untimely explosions, no flashes of light, no electricity experiments. What went wrong this time?”

“Among other things, Mrs. Pearson was apparently overset by the, uh, incident in the laboratory yesterday.”

“What incident? I was not performing any experiments yesterday.” Baxter broke off abruptly as he recalled just what he had been doing in the laboratory. Fiendishly torturing a lady. He felt a curious sensation of heat in his face. Good God. He was turning red.

“The lady’s scream,” he muttered.

“Aye, sir.” Lambert shifted awkwardly. “The lady’s scream.”

Baxter scowled. “I was merely demonstrating the most effective technique for the operation of the blowpipe. My fiancée is interested in scientific matters. She became quite enthusiastic when she witnessed the lively fire that was produced.”

“Indeed, sir.” Lambert looked wistful. “It must be rather pleasant to be able to operate one’s blowpipe effectively. My own has been giving me trouble for some years now.”

“Yes, well, why are you standing about, Lambert? Get yourself some breakfast and then take yourself off to the agencies as soon as they open for business. We must find ourselves a new housekeeper.”

“Aye, sir.” Lambert bowed his head. “Shall I prepare some eggs and toast for you, Mr. St. Ives?”

“Not necessary.” Baxter idly massaged the back of his neck. “I’m going to sleep for a few hours. I had a long night.”

“Very well.”

“Oh, one more thing.” Baxter went around behind his desk and opened a drawer. He removed a sheet of foolscap, picked up a quill, and scrawled quickly. “Please have this message carried to Esherton’s house as soon as possible.”

“Of course, sir.” Lambert frowned as if a thought had struck him. “Speaking of messages, sir, did you see the
one I left in the salver on the hall table? It arrived last evening while you were out.”

“No, I did not get it.”

“From your aunt, I believe.” Lambert hobbled across the hall to the table and plucked a folded note from the silver tray. He carried it slowly into the library.

Baxter glanced at the note from Rosalind while he waited for the ink on his own message to dry.

As if he did not have enough problems, Baxter thought. On top of everything else, Rosalind wanted to set a fictitious wedding date to crown his fictitious engagement to Charlotte.

“Begging your pardon, sir.” Lambert appeared even more dithery than usual. “I shall, of course, attend to the matter of acquiring a new housekeeper and I shall see that the message is sent. But this is the day of my regular appointment with Dr. Flatt. If you do not mind, sir, I would very much like to keep it. My joints are quite sore this morning.”

“Of course, of course. Do not miss your appointment.”
A thought occurred to Baxter. “Does Dr. Flatt utilize any herbs or incense in his therapies?”

“No, sir. He uses the power of the gaze and certain movements of the hands to focus the animal magnetism. Works wonders, he does.”

“I see.” Baxter yawned as he folded the note for Esherton. “I vow, I do not know what I would do without you, Lambert.”

“I try to give satisfaction, sir.” Lambert took the note, turned, and moved slowly, painfully down the hall toward the kitchens.

Baxter eyed the staircase through the open doorway. His bedchamber seemed very far away at the moment. The sofa was closer and much more convenient.

He closed the door of the library and walked back across the room to set his eyeglasses down on the table that held the brandy decanter. Then he sprawled on the cushions.

For a moment he gazed at the ceiling. Above all, Charlotte had to be kept safe. Sleep claimed him.

T
he heavy dark wings of the cloak swirled around the monster in the hall. She was relieved that she could not see his face in the shadows. A part of her did not want to know anything more than she already did about the creature. It was as though some innate sense of decency deep within her resisted the necessity to look upon evil and see its face in human form
.

But her intellect warned her that evil that could not be identified and named was all the more dangerous in its anonymity. She steadied the unloaded pistol in her hand
.

“
Leave this house at once,” she whispered
.

The monster’s beautiful laugh sent ripples of dread through
the darkness. The small waves moved out beyond the past, out into the future where he knew that the pistol was not loaded
.

“
Do you believe in destiny, my little avenging angel?” the monster asked pleasantly
.

The door of the bedchamber flew open.

“Charlotte. Charlotte, wake up.”

Charlotte opened her eyes. She saw Ariel rushing toward the bed. The skirts of her nightgown and a hastily donned wrapper whipped about her bare feet.

“Ariel?”

“You cried out. You must have been dreaming. A nightmare, I collect. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Charlotte struggled to a sitting position against the pillows. Her heart still pounded in her chest. Her skin was damp. “Yes, I’m all right. A bad dream. Nothing more.”

“Brought on by this business of investigating Drusilla Heskett’s death, no doubt.” Ariel paused to light the taper in the stand beside the bed. The flame illuminated her worried face. “Was it one of the old dreams? The sort you had after the night Winterbourne was murdered?”

“Yes.” Charlotte drew her knees up under the quilt and wrapped her arms around them. “It was one of those. I have not been troubled by them in a long while. I thought they had disappeared forever.”

Ariel sank down on the edge of the bed. “What precisely did you do with Mr. St. Ives this evening? You came home so late. I did not see you after you left the Hatrich soiree. Where did you go?”

“It is a long story. I will tell you the whole of it in the morning. Suffice it to say that Baxter attempted to locate Hamilton at his club but we were not able to speak to him.”

“I see.”

Charlotte hesitated. “Has Hamilton ever spoken to you about mesmerism?”

“Animal magnetism, do you mean?” Ariel’s fine brows drew together in a slight frown. “He mentioned it when we went out onto the terrace at the Clydes’ ball. I believe he has an interest in the subject. He seemed to know a great deal about it. He claimed that its potential has been overlooked by most modern scientists such as, ah …”