A Study in Darkness (54 page)

“Here it is,” Poppy announced, emerging with a sooty smudge on her forehead.

Alice couldn’t help wondering what had possessed the girl to go looking up the chimneys in the first place. Too many adventure stories? Then again, what was she doing scrabbling at the floor? Finally, a short section of floorboard lifted up. Once that one came up, the next two were easy. And sure enough, a steel box sat nestled in a dusty hole.

“Here.” Poppy handed her the key.

Alice inserted the key into the lock. It turned with a metallic clang, and the lid lifted smoothly. The box was crammed with coins, papers, medals, small gold bars, bank notes, and a lot of odds and ends she didn’t have time to take in.

“You want the bundle with the yellow envelope on top,” Poppy said.

Quickly, Alice rustled through the box until she found what she wanted. She’d just pulled it out when she heard Lord Bancroft’s voice in the corridor. They froze. There were footsteps coming their way.

“Balls!” Poppy hissed. “Cover it up! We can hide in the wardrobe.”

There was no time to think. Alice closed the lid and locked it in one motion, shoving the letters and the key down the front of her stays. Poppy was already replacing the floorboards. Then the carpet went back, and then the plant stand, as silently as they could manage it.

“This way!” Poppy whispered. She grabbed Alice’s wrist, hauling her toward the wardrobe.

“Wait!” Alice pulled free, dived for the fern on the desk, and replaced it on the stand. There was a scatter of dirt left behind, but she didn’t have time to clean it up. She darted after Poppy, climbing into the wardrobe and pulling the door shut just as the brass knob rattled and swung open.

The wardrobe had been filled with coats, ready to hand if Bancroft decided to leave the house in a hurry. Alice and Poppy were squashed together in a sea of itchy wools reeking of tobacco smoke. It wasn’t quite tall enough to stand up straight, and within a minute Alice was feeling a cramp in her legs. She could also smell the perfume Poppy was wearing, which was suspiciously similar to Imogen’s scent.

It would have been tempting to scratch or sneeze, but fear kept her still. Her eye was right by the crack between the double doors. She could see Lord Bancroft unconsciously flick away the crumbs of dirt the fern had left on his desk. Her heart climbed into her mouth, waiting for him to react, but instead he picked up the carved cigarette box that sat on the desk, opened it, and turned to offer it to whoever had come in with him.

Alice felt Poppy pushing against her side, trying to see through the crack as well. But Alice couldn’t move, utterly transfixed by curiosity. But then she saw a hand reach forward to take a cigarette, and she knew the ring on the fourth
finger—a jet stone set with a diamond—mourning jewelry worn since her mother’s death. It was the only outcome worse than Lord Bancroft himself ripping open the wardrobe doors.

A tiny mewl rose up her throat, barely stifled by Poppy’s warning glare.
Oh, dear God, it’s my father!

BANCROFT CLOSED THE
lid on his cigarette box slowly, resisting the urge to snap it shut on his visitor’s fingers. Keating strolled over to the phoenix statue, stepped on its claw, and lit his cigarette at the flame that sprang to life in its beak.

“How goes Reading’s suit of your fair daughter?” Keating asked.

“Imogen will come around,” Bancroft answered, wishing he had more faith in the statement. She watched the Scarlet King as if he were a monster crawling out of the compost pile at the bottom of the garden. “She always does what she’s told in the end.”

Bancroft watched his guest, wondering. He’d noticed the unlocked door, the crumbs of soil on his desk. The intruder had probably been a servant going about household business—the butler, Bigelow, had one of the few keys to the room—but he never ruled out intrusion of a different kind. These days, spies were everywhere, and he was careful to the point of paranoia.

One of the Gold King’s companies was undertaking the repairs on the unhappy couple’s future home, and the work was taking an unnaturally long time. Bancroft half suspected that was a ploy to force Alice and Tobias into Hilliard House. What better way to insert spies than to do it in the character of your own son and daughter-in-law? But of course, he could prove nothing.

Keating made himself at home in one of the brass-studded leather chairs. Bancroft lit his own cigarette and settled into the other. He let the smoke bite his tongue and throat, then he exhaled in a pungent, heavy cloud.

“Did you hear something coming from the wardrobe?” Keating asked.

“Probably mice,” Bancroft said, wishing for a whisky to go with the cigarette. “We’ve seen a little gray devil running the halls. Bigelow has ordered traps to be set.”

“Hm.” Keating resettled into the oxblood leather. “So back to the matter of Alice’s emeralds. The police found them during a raid at a less-than-reputable establishment in Bethnal Green. It appeared that they were on the verge of being dismantled and the stones reset.”

“Thank heavens they were found.” And, fortunately, after the jeweler had already secured a buyer and a tidy sum was in the hands of the Schoolmaster’s men. For once, the gods were smiling on his efforts. Bancroft tipped his ash into a silver ashtray that wheeled about on clockwork feet. A tiny brush swept out, flicking the ash into a reservoir hidden beneath the tray.

“Indeed.” Keating picked a crumb of tobacco from his lip. “My question is, who would have access to a private affair in Mayfair and yet have connections in a place like that?”

“Hotel employees?” It was a safe suggestion. Bancroft had paid a staff member of the Portmore Hotel to leave the door to the display of wedding gifts unguarded, but he’d also arranged for the man to take a long vacation to America.

“We’ve had them questioned already—the ones we could find. We got confessions of all manner of things, but not the theft of my daughter’s jewels.”

Bancroft recalled the men in black coats patrolling the wedding breakfast. A sick feeling fluttered through his stomach, almost like remorse. But he hadn’t felt that for so long, he couldn’t be sure. “It has to be one of them, or a thief who looks sufficiently like one of us that he would not be remarked among the other guests.”

“I imagine he might look like a gentleman,” Keating said evenly.

Bancroft didn’t like his tone at all, and aimed for a fork in the conversational road. “The stones might have passed through several hands.”

“And probably did. The current theory is that they were
sold to fund rebel activities. The shop where they were found has known connections to a network of rogue makers.”

A seeping, anxious nausea raised a prickling sweat between Bancroft’s shoulder blades. “Did they question the jeweler?”

Keating narrowed his eyes, regarding Bancroft speculatively. “He did not survive the experience long enough to name names. A damned inconvenience.”

Bancroft ground out his cigarette, giving up on the idea of a relaxing smoke.
Magnus was right about one thing. Keating must die
. “The rebels must be desperate if they are reduced to robbing brides.”

“They are desperate enough to have hired on pirates. They seem to stop at nothing.”

“Pirates?”

“A vessel called the
Red Jack
. The wretch who commands her is one Captain Niccolo, who by all reports is the same piece of trash who stole the remains of Athena’s Casket.”

Bancroft crossed his legs, wondering if the conversation was about to turn in his favor. A week had passed since Magnus had blighted the wedding, and the man had written nearly every day demanding either the casket or Keating’s head. Bancroft, however, wasn’t about to spoil his shot by rushing in too soon. “What makes you think there is a connection?”

A pinched look came over the Gold King’s face. “The ship flies higher and faster than it has a right to. Its navigational capabilities are unsurpassed.”

Bancroft put on his best musing expression. “All this from an ancient lump of melted metal? It still seems strange to me.”

“The ancients knew some secrets that we have forgotten.” Keating ground out his cigarette. “And now the rebels have that knowledge, and we do not.”

Bully for us?
But Bancroft was dubious about the value of those secrets. No one with any wits messed with magic, and sailors—even pirates—had to be practical men. Still, he wasn’t going to argue.

Instead he put on a comforting smile and spun what he
fervently hoped was a lie. “Perhaps if they’ve lost the emeralds, they will not be able to pay the pirates, and they will be right back to where they began—a handful of disgruntled makers and political rabble-rousers.”

Keating gave him that searching look again. “An interesting theory.”

“A realistic one.”

“Aren’t you forgetting that the highest ranks of society are infected with the blight of these malcontents? The so-called Baskerville connection?”

Bancroft spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “There are always romantics, but are these high-society poets going to thrive if the insurgents are dug out? A vine won’t flower without roots, no matter how high it climbs.”

“We’ll see,” said Keating. “Some prefer a snake metaphor, and speak of lopping off its head. The Steam Council has dealt the serpent a blow. This morning Mycroft Holmes was taken into custody.”

The news raised the hairs up the back of Bancroft’s neck. He reeled, but tried to cover his look of shock with a laugh. It didn’t sound convincing, even in his own ears. “You got into the Diogenes Club? With all those guards?”

“A warrant against treason is an effective passport.”

Smug bastard
. And the reason Keating brought it up was obvious. He suspected Bancroft of rebel sympathies just like Bancroft suspected Keating of spying on his every move. The conversation was a warning.

Feeling his face heat, Bancroft rose from his chair and plucked another cigarette from the box, needing something for his nerves. He wanted a drink so badly his bones hurt. He turned to the phoenix, forcing himself to stall as he lit the cigarette. He needed a moment to gather his wits.

Mycroft Holmes, taken. Others had ignited the fires of rebellion—when it came to objecting to the Steam Council, those fires rather lit themselves—but the elder Holmes brother had emerged as their guiding intelligence. Bancroft had no idea if those sympathies extended to Sherlock. The two brothers were not close, so there was no reason to assume, and Bancroft was too recently admitted to the inner
circle to know. He had only become aware of Mycroft’s involvement in July, when the man had invited him to attend the Stranger’s Room at the Diogenes Club. Bancroft’s steady financial support of the rebel makers—often at the cost of his own family—had at last paid off.

Bancroft admired few men, but he respected Mycroft Holmes. He had turned unfocused anger into measurable gains. He had crafted the shadow government that would step in to rebuild after the rebellion was done. He had vision and organizational acumen. Best of all, Mycroft Holmes wanted no power for himself. Too much work, he said. He just wanted the fun of redesigning the Empire.

The invasion of the Diogenes Club was a wholesale disaster. Bancroft dragged smoke into his lungs, trying to wipe the dismay from his features before he turned back to his accursed guest.

“So that is one fire halfway to put out,” Keating said speculatively. “Not a bad week all told. My daughter’s emeralds recovered, a rebel leader taken. There’s the pirate ship to capture, but we came close. We’ll do better next time. There only remains the situation in the Blue King’s domain.”

“What’s that?” Keating asked, but he already knew.

“The Whitechapel Murderer. The rebels are using terror and police incompetence to whip up a riot. I can feel it in my belly.”

“But isn’t that your colleague’s problem?” Normally, one steam baron seemed to enjoy the discomfort of another. They were like a savage species of fish, each prone to eating its fellows.

“It’s a big enough threat that the entire council has taken an interest. Must protect innocent citizens, you know.” Keating gave a cynical smile. “We didn’t start the murders, but I almost wish we had. Money can’t buy the kind of goodwill catching the killer will provide.”

“Isn’t that the job of the police?”

“The Yellowbacks and Blue Boys are at their disposal. King Coal has hired the other Holmes. He’s my man, though. If he cracks the case, I’m not letting the Blue King take all the credit.”

“Sherlock Holmes?” Bancroft spat, the name like dirt on his tongue.

“His niece is missing.” Keating frowned, but to Bancroft’s trained eye something was off. “Apparently he thinks she’s in the Blue Territories and he wants King Coal’s help to find her. He’s offering his detective skills in trade for their goodwill.”

“Really?” This was news to Bancroft. “I’d heard rumors that the girl had run off, but I assumed it would be someplace more pleasant. Why Whitechapel?”

“To be honest, I’ve expected the girl to come crawling home by now, but she’s either truly lost or has more fortitude than I expected.”

Once, Bancroft had underestimated Evelina Cooper. That wouldn’t happen again. “I would think you’d be helping Holmes to look for her. I thought you rather valued their services.”

“The girl overstepped her welcome at my country house. I pointed that out to her, and she chose to run rather than repair the wrong.”

So that was why Keating looked so shifty. Bancroft’s gut grew cold.
The little foolish chit
. He didn’t like the girl, but he knew Evelina’s loyalty to the family, and to Imogen in particular. Keating used that kind of love like a weapon, and her fall from favor meant nothing good for Bancroft’s children, whatever other alliances they might make.

But realistically, if Evelina Cooper had lost herself in Whitechapel, she was gone forever, a lost cause. Bancroft knew grown men who wouldn’t set foot in certain streets there. And even if she survived, her reputation was dust.
Keating has to go
.

It seemed the man read his thoughts, as he was getting to his feet with the air of one who had stayed long enough. He pulled a black velvet case from his pocket and set it on Keating’s desk. “The emeralds are in there. See to it that they’re safely returned to Alice, will you? I don’t have time to visit with her today. I’ve work to do.”