The Clockwork Scarab (2 page)

I was aware of the increase in my pulse as I followed my companion across the threshold. Illumination from small gaslit sconces spilled into a passage, bathing me and my companion in a soft yellow light. The door closed behind us.

A low rattle, a soft
thunk
. Then:
click
.

We were locked inside the museum. My breath became shallow and quick as the possibilities assaulted me. What if we were trapped? In danger? What if this was some sort of scheme to discredit the Holmes and Stoker families?

Or
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
what if my most private, desperate hopes were correct?

I held my steam gun at the ready and noted that Miss Stoker had replaced her wooden stake with some slender weapon that gleamed. I recognized it as a traditional firearm.

“Please”—came a feminine voice from a door that opened at the end of the brief corridor—“come in. I am delighted that you’ve accepted my invitation. And I see that you’ve come prepared.” She gestured to our weapons.

I crushed a wave of disappointment and annoyance with myself as I made my way toward the door. I hadn’t
truly
thought it was my mother who’d summoned me so secretively
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
but the absurd possibility had crossed my mind.

Miss Stoker followed me into the small cluttered office. I observed the room’s furnishings and contents, noting heavy walnut chairs with brocade upholstery, books in French, Latin, Greek, and Syrian, and papers organized with curious metal clamps. There were museum cabinets, a jumble of gears, a frayed rug, and the outline of a secret door or chamber behind a painting of Sir Anthony Panizzi, the man considered to be the father of the British Museum. The chamber smelled like age, roses, and Darjeeling tea.

In the center of the room was a circular table around which four chairs had been arranged. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a Deluxe Tome-Selector with gloved metal fingers leaned against the corner, one finger holding a spot in an aged book.

Off to the side there was a desk covered with more books, ivory pens, a lamp, pencils, and a mechanized quill sharpener that seemed to be able to handle three pens at a time instead of only one. A trio of narrow, floor-to-ceiling windows were shuttered against the night though a faint limner of moonbeams shone from between two slats.

Turning from my review of the chamber, I bestowed my full attention on our hostess. She was no longer half concealed by dim light and a door, which allowed me to recognize
her from the portrait Uncle Sherlock had on his mantel. Until now, I’d never met the individual whom he called
the
woman.

Irene Adler.

“Please, sit,” she said, gesturing with an elegant hand and a warm smile. “Miss Stoker, Miss Holmes. It is a pleasure to meet you at last.”

I wasn’t clear on the details, but there had been some scandal involving
the
woman and the King of Bohemia, in which the king had required my uncle’s assistance. The case was resolved, but only after Miss Adler had outsmarted Uncle Sherlock by being one step ahead of him during the entire affair. As he was often heard to say, the people who’d outsmarted him in his life numbered fewer than the fingers on one hand. Three of them were men, and here, now in front of me, stood the fourth. In reluctant honor and admiration for his feminine opponent, my uncle’s only request for compensation from the King of Bohemia had been a picture of her.

Approximately the age of thirty, Miss Adler looked at me from the head of the table, her fingers curled around a pair of spectacles. An air of competence and intelligence emanated from her, and though her dark eyes sparkled with wit, I suspected they could sharpen with thought and determination.

“The pleasure is mine, Miss Adler,” I said, trying not to appear in awe of the woman who had outwitted my famed uncle.

She was a tall woman, slender, dark of hair, pale of complexion. One couldn’t precisely call her beautiful, but I considered her appearance striking and her presence mesmerizing. Tonight she wore a sateen bodice the color of chocolate, striped with bronze and decorated with jet buttons marching down the curve of her substantial bosom. A faint sparkle dusted her cheekbones, hardly detectable unless one was looking for it. And beneath the musty, damp smell of this antiquities-ridden chamber I scented a hint of the perfume that had clung to her message.

“Perhaps you’re wondering why I did not contact you openly,” Miss Adler said, looking from one to the other of us. The faint hint of her American heritage colored her voice.

“Indeed not,” I replied as I selected the seat nearest her, for I had already deduced the reasons for her secrecy. “When one considers your previous encounter with my uncle, it would be out of the question that you would make an open attempt to contact me.”

“But of course,” Miss Adler said, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth.

“Apparently the two of you are acquainted,” said Miss Stoker pointedly. She’d declined to take a seat, and now she pushed back the hood of her cloak.

Her hair was thick and ink-black. I knew that one branch of the Stokers was a family named Gardella from Italy, which explained the faint olive tone of her skin. Her eyes were dark, and her face very pretty in an arresting way. The sort of girl
young men would find attractive. The sort of girl who danced at parties and shopped and laughed with her friends, and who knew just what to say when she met an interesting young man.

The sort of girl who
had
friends.

I pushed away the wistful thought and concentrated on examining my companion.

Miss Stoker was petite, while I was tall for a woman, and she boasted a much more feminine figure than my own gawky, angular one. Now that she had thrown back her dashing cloak, exposing a simple skirt and bodice without bustles or crinolines, I observed several accoutrements tucked into the waistband. Mostly wooden stakes, as well as a sheathed dagger and a slender wooden device I couldn’t readily identify. Relatively primitive weapons.

“Please forgive me, Miss Stoker,” said our hostess. “I hope you’ll accept my apologies for the manner by which I contacted you and Miss Holmes. If you’ll make yourselves comfortable and allow me to explain, your concerns will be allayed. If not, I assure you, you are free to go at any time.”

She settled into the chair at the head of the table. “First, I’d like to introduce myself. I am Irene Adler.” She pronounced her name the American way, as
eye
-
REEN
. “I’m here in London and in the employment of the British Museum at the direction of none other than Her Royal Highness.”

Miss Adler withdrew a small metallic object from her voluminous skirts and offered it to Miss Stoker. Even from my position across the table, I recognized it as a Royal Medallion,
a token that is bestowed upon someone who has found favor with a member of the royal family. My father was in the possession of several of the peach-pit-sized spheres, each engraved with the seal of the individual who’d given it. If one pushed on it a certain way and released its hidden lever, the contraption snapped open to display the name of the bearer and a full seal and signature of the royal.

In this case, it was clear who had given the token, for
Her Royal Highness
could only refer to the Princess of Wales, the wife of Prince Edward, Her Majesty the Queen’s daughter-in-law. Princess Alexandra had requested Miss Adler’s assistance.

Miss Adler looked at us with a sober expression. “Miss Holmes. Miss Stoker. There are many young men your age who are called into the service of their country. Who risk life and limb for their queen, their countrymen, and the Empire. Tonight, I ask, on behalf of Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales: will you do what no other young women are called to do, and place your lives and honor at the feet of your country?”

“Y
es
.” I should have thought about it more carefully—the risks, the dangers, the commitment. But I was feeling impetuous, spurred by my infatuation with Irene Adler and my desire to
do
something other than rattle about my empty house or sit in my mother’s vacant chambers, and read book after book and study experiment after experiment in the laboratory. I wanted to put my knowledge and deductive abilities to the test in something
real
.

“Yes, I am willing,” I said again.

Miss Adler was offering me a way to prove that, despite my gender, I was a Holmes in more than mere name and the size of my nose.

At the same moment as my response, Miss Stoker said, “Certainly I will. The Stokers have long been in service to the Crown.”

A light of relief and determination came snapping into Miss Adler’s dark eyes. “Thank you. Her Royal Highness shall be more than pleased. But I must warn you that your service to the princess—and by extension to His Royal Highness Prince Edward—must be a secret from the very start.” Miss Adler looked at us both. “Are you willing to keep this arrangement a secret, even to your death?”

I nodded regally and peeked at my companion for her reaction. Miss Stoker nodded as well. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. She didn’t look like the sort of girl who could keep a secret.

“Very well. Perhaps you are wondering how I came to be employed by the British Museum as keeper of the antiquities.” Miss Adler’s eyes twinkled with humor as she met my gaze. “You may be aware of my reputation as a singer throughout Europe. But what you cannot know is that I used my travels as an entertainer to obscure my other work for both the American and British governments.

“After some recent events, including my brief marriage to Mr. Godfrey Norton, I’ve chosen to retire from the stage. Since then, I have been engaged by the director of this great institution”—here she indicated the walls around us—“to catalogue and study the large number of antiquities that were acquired from Egypt in the fifties and sixties. But in reality, I am here at the request of the princess and am serving her in a variety of ways. The two of you are well suited to one of the problems currently of concern to Her Royal Highness.

“But before I tell you any more, perhaps I should further acquaint you with one another, for you shall be working together very closely.”

I detected a faint sniff from Miss Stoker, but resisted the urge to look over. Miss Adler nodded to my companion. “Miss Evaline Stoker, granddaughter of the famous Yancy Gardella Stoker, great-grandniece of Victoria Gardella—both vampire hunters of excellent repute.”

I was familiar with Miss Stoker’s family, whose legacy of vampire hunters from Italy had been written about in an old, rare book called
The Venators
. Mr. Starcasset’s book detailed the story of her ancestors and how they were given the responsibility and skills to keep the world safe from the blood-feeding demons. Her elder brother, Bram, happened to be an acquaintance of my uncle’s, and I understood Mr. Stoker was writing a novel about a vampire named Count Dracula.

“Vampires are nearly extinct,” Miss Stoker noted. “My great-great-aunt Victoria and her husband killed off most of them more than sixty-five years ago, in the twenties. That has left me and other chosen members of my family with little to do in recent years.”

“You will find plenty to do in service to the princess, even if it doesn’t involve slaying vampires,” said our hostess. “Now, you’ve already met Miss Alvermina Holmes. Niece of the famous Sherlock and daughter of the indispensable Sir Mycroft Holmes.”

“I’m familiar with your uncle, of course,” said Miss Stoker. “But I know nothing of your father.”

“Uncle Sherlock claims Mycroft is even more brilliant than he and would be his greatest competitor should my father ever bestir himself to action. But he refuses to go out in public or to social events. He is never found anywhere but at his office or his club, even sometimes neglecting to come home to sleep.”

That was in part the reason my mother had left us. The other reasons were best ignored, even by someone as practical as myself.

“Mina is just as brilliant at observation and deduction as her uncle and father,” said Miss Adler. I was relieved she’d used the shorter version of my name, for, in the tradition of the Holmes family, my given one is ridiculous. Even Mother couldn’t convince my father to give me an unassuming name like Jane or Charity, and instead I was encumbered with the hideous appellation Alvermina.

Miss Adler continued, “I am certain you understand why the princess and I chose the two of you for this
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
well, shall we call it a secret society? But let me be clear—your invitation is not only due to your families’ loyalty and service to the Crown. It’s also because of who you are, and the talents and skills you have.”

“Of course,” I said. “As young members of ‘the weaker sex,’ we would be dismissed as flighty and unintelligent. Never mind that males our age go to war and fight for our country.
Women haven’t even the right to vote. Our brains are hardly acknowledged—let alone our brawn.”

I glanced at Miss Stoker. According to
The Venators
, the vampire hunters of her family were endowed with superior physical strength and unnatural speed. I wondered if it was true. She certainly didn’t appear dangerous. “Thus we two would be considered incapable of doing anything important, of being any sort of threat. In addition, I am an excellent candidate for secretive undertakings because I am fairly independent and”—I hesitated, then forged on—“somewhat reclusive.”

I saw wariness in Miss Stoker’s expression and a twinkle of humor in Miss Adler’s, so I finished my thoughts. “In other words, we’re both relatively solitary individuals who haven’t many other obligations of family or friends who might ask questions or be potential recipients of our secrets. We’re eccentric wallflowers.”

“It might be true for you, Miss Holmes,” Miss Stoker said, “that your social obligations are few and far between, but that’s not the case for me. I have a stack of notecards and invitations overflowing the platter in the front hall of Grantworth House.”