The Spiritglass Charade (10 page)

By then, the pieces had clicked into place. “It was that individual . . . from the opium den, during the affair with the Ankh. The young man, the pickpocket who lives in the stews. Pix.”

“Right. Apparently he found a way to put electricity back into this.”

“He has a very odd and inefficient way of delivering it.” I tried to forget that the last time I'd seen the shady (literally and figuratively) character, I'd been slung over his broad, half-clothed shoulder as he hauled me from a burning building.

“You're right about that. Pix prefers the dramatic, and he likes to take me—and everyone else—off guard. He has a need to be in control. I wouldn't put it past him to have even arranged the traffic problem. Caused a vendor to overturn in the street, or a sewage canal to overspill or something of that nature.”

“So you brought it to him last evening.”

“Yes. He didn't say he'd be able to fix it so quickly.” Miss Stoker's face settled into a thoughtful expression. “Curious. Last night he tells me there are rumors the UnDead have returned. And today Mr. O'Gallegh speaks to me in a s
é
ance.”

“
Supposedly
speaks to you,” I reminded her. “I'm not yet convinced.”

“Of course you aren't. Either way, it all seems very . . . coincidental. So perhaps it is true. The UnDead
are
back. As you've pointed out too many times to count, there are no coincidences.”

“Indeed. Which is why I shall be visiting Mrs. Yingling first thing on the morrow.”

“Why? And how do you know where she lives?”

“I obtained her calling card and address before we left. Miss Ashton might have sent everyone into a bit of a spin but I, at least, had my wits about me. I made certain to inquire about possible future s
é
ances from our esteemed medium, including information about her rates. As I suspected, her fees can be quite high. As for your second question—why: I intend to determine where and how she got the information about your Mr. O'Gallegh. She's either a fake, and someone provided her with that information, and she wants you to be her next victim, or . . .”

“Or, it really was the spirit of Mr. O'Gallegh speaking through her.”

I rolled my eyes. The medium had played us false, just as she'd been doing to Miss Ashton. I was certain of it.

I had no doubt I would solve this case tomorrow.

Drat.

The next morning, I set out for the British Museum on my way to confront Mrs. Yingling. I had some books to return to Miss Adler's office and was hoping to speak to her . . . and perhaps see Dylan. I kept having this odd fluttery feeling whenever I remembered how he'd leapt into action and saved the Queen two days ago.

I relived the scene in my mind over and over again: his strong arms, propping up our esteemed monarch as if she were hardly more than a rag doll. He'd had a calm, yet intense and determined expression as he went about saving her life. And afterward, he'd been nothing but circumspect and modest.

A true gentleman.

I had just replaced the borrowed items on the bookshelf when the office door opened and he walked in.

“Good morning, Dylan.” I resisted the urge to smooth the front of my skirt and adjust my lace-cuffed sleeves. I had chosen one of my favorite walking ensembles of apple-green and emerald trimmed with snowy white when I dressed this morning, and it looked well even on someone as tall and gangly as myself.

If only I could do something about my Holmesian nose!

“Hey, Mina. That's a really pretty dress.” He wore a crisp white shirt with a dark brown waistcoat and trousers. Prince Albert's gear-ridden cufflink glinted from the knot of Dylan's necktie, and I approved of that embellishment.

His coat and hat were missing, which told me he'd not left the Museum this morning, and his clean shoes bore out that fact. The only element of his appearance that indicated he was a foreigner from the future was his dark blond hair. It was so long it hung to his brows and over his ears, flipping up gently near his square jaw. He'd gotten better at shaving (he claimed the devices used in his time were much different than the mechanized ones employed by gentlemen today). I saw only five tiny nicks in his skin and the small patch he'd missed at the corner of his jaw.

I should explain that Miss Adler had taken Dylan under her wing, so to speak. Because he was reluctant to leave the Museum lest he miss an opportunity to return to his time, she'd arranged a position for him as her assistant. He'd been living on the premises for the last month, and she provided him food and clothing as well.

He pulled out his telephone-device and waggled it at me. “I'm so happy Evaline got this recharged for me. She didn't tell me how she did it, but I'm not complaining. When she dropped it off yesterday, she mentioned you'd gone to Miss Ashton's already.”

“Yes, we attended a s
é
ance at her house. And today I intend to visit the medium who conducted it in order to prove her a fraud.”

“A s
é
ance? We tried to do one once, using a Ouija board, but nothing happened.”

I had heard of the “spirit-talking” boards, for they were all the rage in America and to a lesser degree, here in London, but I'd never had the desire to examine one. “Our medium resorted to speaking in the spirit's voice, and using some rapping sounds to communicate instead of a planchette and a list of the alphabet. Would you like to come with me to interrogate her?”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I felt my face heat. How forward and improper I was!

But it was easy to be that way with Dylan. He didn't treat me or Evaline the way most men treated young women: as if we hadn't a valid thought in our heads, as if we were meant to be little more than pretty or wealthy dolls trussed up in fancy clothing and admired from our perch on a settee.

“Totally. I'm dying to get out of this building and into the sunshine.”

We both glanced toward the window. Gloomy and drizzly—as usual. “At least it's fresh air,” he said with a grin.

A clean, modern horseless taxi took us from the Museum to Glasner-Mews, where Mrs. Yingling kept rooms in a Mrs. Ellner's boardinghouse. Particularly self-conscious about being
alone in the vehicle with a young man, I occupied myself by pointing out sights and landmarks. But I noticed that, unlike during our trip to Marlborough House, Dylan didn't seem as interested in the sights. In fact, he seemed introspective as he held the silver device in his hands, turning it over and over in a random fashion.

“Is something bothering you, Dylan?”

He looked up from the seat opposite me. Even though the light was sketchy in the taxi, I was easily able to read his expression. Uncertainty and sadness. My insides shriveled a little. What a silly question. Of course something was bothering him. His home, his place, his
world
, was a hundred and twenty years in the future. He didn't belong here.

Before I could say anything else, he spoke in a low, musing tone. “I can't stop thinking about it. . . . 
I saved Queen Victoria's life
.”

“It was brilliant, Dylan.
You
were brilliant. How did you know what to do?”

“It's basic first aid training where I come from, especially if you're an Eagle Scout like I am. Plus my father's a doctor. He works in the emergency room—the part of the hospital where they bring people who need to be treated urgently. I've heard all sorts of stories from him over the years. Guess I've even learned a few things too.”

I decided I could ask later about what an eagle scout was. Dylan didn't seem to be the type of person to be interested in
ornithology. Instead, I focused on his other revelation. “Your father is a physician?”

“Yes.” He grew quiet again, and I searched in vain for something to say.

Did he miss his father as much as I missed my mother?

Was it worse for Dylan, knowing that he'd left his parents, albeit not by his own volition—or was it worse for me, whose mother had left with no explanation and little communication in a year? At least
she
could come back if she wanted to.

My throat hurt and my eyes threatened to sting. I was relieved when Dylan spoke again.

“But the thing is . . . I saved the Queen's life. And I was the only one who could have done it. Yet I didn't change the course of history. The Queen doesn't die—I mean, she wasn't supposed to die yet. And she didn't.”

“So you did something that only someone from the future could have done, but you didn't change the course of history.”

It just occurred to me that Dylan knew when Queen Victoria would die. What else about the future did he know? A shiver rushed over my shoulders, ending in an unpleasant twist in my belly. That was dangerous. And fascinating.

“Yes. Isn't that weird? But there are a lot of strange things about this whole mess anyway,” he muttered.

“I should think. Time travel is quite strange in and of itself.” And yet there was a part of me fascinated by it, and
its implications. Imagine if one could go back in time to the scene of a crime—just when the deed was being perpetrated?

“But it's not just that,” Dylan mused. “It's . . . well, there are things in
this
London of 1889 that are very different from what I learned in history books. And so maybe . . . maybe I
did
change history—your history, this
alternate
history—by saving the Queen's life.” Dylan's expression was miserable. “And if I'm in an alternate history, how in the hell am I
ever
going to get home?”

For once, I didn't have the answer. “You saved someone's life. That's the most important thing. It's always the most important thing.”

Dylan seemed particularly moved by my words. “That's exactly what my dad always says. Saving a life is the best work a person can do.”

Forestalling any further conversation, the taxi lurched to a stop. We'd arrived at our destination.

The driver engaged the vehicle's side-lift. I appreciated these mechanized platforms, for it kept the chances to a minimum that I would trip on my skirts or catch a heel on the edge of the vehicle. The small lift was smooth and silent as it lowered me to the tiled walkway and the driver handed over my umbrella as I stepped down.

Glasner-Mews was a clean, well-kept neighborhood filled with shops, residences, and boarding houses at all five street-levels. While it wasn't a particularly affluent area like
Hyde Park or St. James's, it certainly wasn't the dingy, dangerous Whitechapel where that character Pix resided.

“We have to go to the third level.” Managing my umbrella, I led the way to the nearest street-lift while avoiding puddles of water, mud, and other waste. A demure young lady would have waited for the gentleman to offer an escorting arm, but as has been previously noted, not only did Dylan usually forget to do so, but I lacked the propriety Society requires of its young women.

After I nearly decapitated him while digging for a ha'penny in my bag, Dylan liberated the umbrella from my clumsy grip. He held it over my head as I placed the coin on the street-lift's small metal tongue. The tiny tray clicked back as the mechanism gulped down my fare, belching and coughing the whole time.

The ornate brass gate opened. Taking care to gather up my skirt, which was always in danger of being trapped by the closing doors, I stepped into the grillwork-sided platform with my companion. It was a tight fit, placing me in pleasant, close proximity to Dylan. He gave me the warm, crooked smile that always made my insides swish pleasantly. I was relieved that he seemed to have pulled out of his doldrums.

The gears groaned and chains rattled as we rose above the street-level with little jerks. Moments later, we alighted and began to walk along the narrow upper walkway toward 79-K.

In this part of London, the buildings rose so tall and wide above the throughways they seemed almost to connect over the street. The balloonlike air-anchors attached to the cornices of each roof bumped and shifted in the sky as their weightless pull helped keep the corners of the brick structures from crashing into each other.

Street vendors called out at all levels, hawking their wares. Because the raised walkways were so narrow, allowing hardly enough room for two people to stroll abreast, the sellers were relegated to parking their carts so half the vehicle hung out over the street below, anchored by brass manacles the size of wagon wheels—which was why the vendor-balloons were such a welcome invention. Carriages clattered along on the ground below. People shouted, dogs barked, shutters thudded, a church bell clanged . . . and feathered through it all was the familiar hiss of steam.

“Something smells really good.” Dylan wielded my umbrella like a gentleman's walking stick as he took in the sights.

It was a rare event in which he wasn't hungry, eating, or at least thinking about food. But in this case, I couldn't disagree with the sentiment. The scents of flaming carrots, shredded-meat pies, puffed plums, and frothy vanilla teas filtered through the air.