A Study in Silks (64 page)

Surprisingly, his father answered. “I built them. At first they were nothing more than mechanical servants.”

“I remember that.” Not fondly. The clanking, blank-eyed things had spooked him as a boy. “I remember them being in the house.”

Chopitty-choppity-choppity
.

Tobias wet his lips. Perhaps a seaside holiday was in order for the parents. Somewhere restful. Somewhere far, far away where all the sharp objects were locked up.

“Magnus had ideas about infusing them with his magic. They became tainted, so I was forced to take them out of service.” Bancroft switched off the machine, the last letter reduced to confetti.

As the blades slowed to a stop, Tobias sat back in his
chair, weak with relief. “That was around the time Imogen and Anna were ill.”

His father looked up, eyes guarded. “Yes.”

“Why not simply destroy the automatons? Why bring them back here?”

For a moment, his father looked wistful. “Magnus’s experiments were at first amusing, amazing even. He could make the dolls walk, or dance, or perform household tasks.”

He shook himself, his tone growing harder. “But when they became too independent, I began to fear for the safety of my family. I told him to stop. He claimed that I had asked him to enhance my creations, and he had done it all at my request.”

“And?” Tobias prompted.

“He demanded payment. Exorbitant payment. I didn’t have that kind of money. I threatened to chop them to bits. He claimed the magic he had infused them with would rebound on the family if I so much as chipped the paint. I was forced to drag them from one end of Europe to the other like millstones around my neck. Still, I thought if I could keep them a secret, we would all be safe.”

“And then Magnus turned up here.”

His father slumped in his chair. “When I heard he was in London, I tried to move the trunks from this house to a tiny property I purchased under a false name. And yet, he still managed to steal them from me. Magnus knew what his silence was worth. I didn’t dare anger him, and he used that advantage to the fullest.”

So that was why he showed up at the garden party and as a dinner guest. Magnus had kept his father at a metaphorical gunpoint.
And I trusted him. What a fool. I should be put away in a straight waistcoat to keep me from making a mess of anything else
.

His father got up, walked to the window. “Now he is dead, and I have no idea where they are hidden.”

“He can’t expose you now.”

“Magic is forbidden in the Empire. One word of their existence, and I shall be ruined. The family will be finished.”

“Then we have to find them.”

“Of course.” His father didn’t sound hopeful. Instead, he found two glasses and poured whisky into both. He passed one to his son.

The story of the dolls made sense, and matched what little Tobias remembered from so long ago. Yet for someone trying to keep the automatons a secret, Lord Bancroft had offered a generous reward for their return. This was their tale all right, but not all of it. His father was still holding something back.

Anger singed what was left of his mood. He left the whisky on the desk, sickened by the smell of it.

“There are other things to talk about,” Bancroft said, returning to his chair. “The Gold King was impressed by the brooch you made for your mother.”

Tobias blinked. “When did he tell you that?”

“When he came to complain about finding our knife stuck in his streetkeeper’s leg.”

“Ah.”

“He’s taken an interest in you and mentioned that he may have an opening on his staff. I told him you would think about it. It seems your tinkering might have a use after all.”

“You found me a job?” Tobias asked incredulously. “With a steam baron?”

The pater’s eyes narrowed with the full force of Jovian thunder. “The family needs Keating’s favor. The fact that his daughter has taken a shine to you doesn’t go amiss, either.”

“Ugh.”

“She’s a pretty girl. You just need to be civil.”

It was never that simple, but Tobias was tired of arguing right then.
It seems my value as a pawn is not yet over
. Magnus. Keating. His father. There was not much to choose among them. He had come to hate them all because, despite what he said to Evelina, he could see no realistic way to escape them. Not without throwing his mother and sisters to the wolves.

He’d been surprised to find he possessed a sense of duty. And rather less pride than he expected, too. He had the
makings of a good man, but not a great one. Not the rebel with the burning torch of truth.

In his mind’s eye, Serafina’s chest rose, and it fell. Was that a smirk on those red, red lips?

“In the meantime,” Lord Bancroft said, topping up his glass, “there is Holmes to consider.”

Tobias had nearly forgotten the detective. “Feed him dinner and send him on his way. There’s nothing here to find. Magnus is gone. Let our bad luck die with him.”

Bancroft’s face set. “If only it were that simple.”

The words were an eerie echo of his thoughts.

Tobias left his father’s office a few minutes later, his head pounding and his stomach queasy. Nothing for Holmes to find? Of course there was. Only the great Lord Bancroft wasn’t telling his son what that was, so how the blazes was he going to forestall disaster?

Tobias stopped outside the parlor, listening to the murmur of voices. The last of the daylight was fading, painting the corridor in washes of gray. Inside the room, drinks were being poured, relaxing the guests the way the color was relaxing out of the sky, leaving behind a blurred, twilight mood.

Evelina had said it was someone in the house who had killed Grace Child. It had been a violent, frantic act. Wasn’t that usually done by someone driven to the brink, lashing out like a drowning swimmer? Someone with secrets? Someone under the thumb of powerful enemies and in danger of ruin?

Tobias turned and looked at the study door, wondering.

“
QUITE SIMPLY, MR. ROTH, I CAN SEE AT A GLANCE THAT YOU
are an aficionado of things mechanical by the condition of your fingernails.” Holmes set down his soup spoon, enjoying his display far too much to bother with mere consommé. “And your last mistress was an Italian opera singer. I can tell that by your shirtmaker, who uses a distinctive pattern of buttonhole on your front placket. The only seamstresses who know that trick come from warmer climes and generally work where their skills are most appreciated, which would be near the costume shops of the Italian opera. No doubt you purchased that garment on your way home some morning when your own was the worse for wear. However, you had a falling-out with the lady, and then a contretemps with your valet.”

Holmes was just warming up, but Tobias was nearly at the boil. “How do you know that?”

“Your shoes.”

“My shoes.”

“Indubitably.” Holmes folded his hands over his waistcoat, not even bothering to hide his gloat.

“Is he always like this?” Imogen whispered under her breath.

“Wait for it,” Evelina muttered. “I feel a coup de grâce coming on.”

“Let’s have it.” Tobias waggled his fingers with a come-hither gesture, turning a furious red about the ears. “How do my shoes betray my amorous missteps?”

“There is a scrape of gold paint along one heel. Your valet would have caught it if he paid closer attention to his duties. The mark is a particular gaudy shade used only in one establishment in town that has been—until recent events—devoted to German opera. I would think only a young man banished from the exquisite delights of
bel canto
would resort to the Royal Charlotte.”

Tobias cringed at the name, which meant Holmes had scored.

“Isn’t that the one attacked by a giant crab?” Holmes put in, mischief at the corners of his mouth.

“Squid,” Tobias said.

Everyone looked at him. His gaze darted around the table. “Or so I read.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow in the curious silence.

“What a delightful roast of lamb, Mother,” Imogen said brightly to Lady Bancroft, who fielded the comment with the expertise of a world-class cricketer.

While his wife prattled about mint sauce at the other end of the table, Evelina noticed Lord Bancroft staring moodily at his plate. Flushed with too much wine, he had the air of someone looking for a fight. She picked at her food nervously, never entirely letting her attention wander from him.

However, he opened with an innocuous gambit. “I had no idea a consulting detective would also be acquainted with the musical arts.”

She relaxed a degree. Her uncle liked musical discussions.

“I have my favorites,” he said. “I am particularly fond of Tartini.”

“Violin?”

Holmes took a sip of wine. “
The Devil’s Trill
is a quite magnificent piece.”

“A rather sensationalist title.”

“That does not lessen its beauty.”

“I understand that someone in Copenhagen has invented
a type of closet that will play
Don Giovanni
on a mechanical mandolin while it rotates,” said Lady Bancroft enthusiastically. “One can be serenaded while selecting the day’s wardrobe.”

Holmes looked like he’d accidentally bitten into a lemon.

Bancroft’s silverware clattered on the china plate as he attacked the lamb. “I am not a devotee of the Italian aesthetic.”

The detective forked up a bite of potato. “That’s right. You were ambassador to Austria. Mozart and marzipan.”

“The Viennese tradition has much to recommend it.”

Holmes smiled, but it was disarming. “I’ll grant you Beethoven, but you must keep Strauss out of my path.”

Bancroft grumbled something, but it was muffled by his wineglass. He was drinking a great deal, but had obviously had practice. His speech was barely slurred. Evelina bent her head over her plate, paying careful attention to her peas. Her uncle was a little too fond of his own opinions to make a comfortable dinner guest—at least not when there were other equally dominant men in the room.

She carefully picked up the silver container of mint sauce, aimed it at her plate, and pushed the button on the nozzle. A puff of steam gently curled from the lid, and a dollop of sauce plopped onto her lamb, warmed to exactly the correct temperature. A chased-silver boiler sat in the center of the table, connecting a half dozen such condiment dispensers, including butter, gravy, and red currant sauce. As a consequence of this latest invention for dining
en famille
, there were no servants hovering in the room. A little steam whistle sat atop the boiler, with a dainty pull-chain one could use to summon the next course.

“What did you think of your dance with Captain Smythe last night?” Imogen murmured.

“He’s used to cavalry charges.”

“You didn’t dance after the intermission. You sat with Tobias instead. Mother noticed.” Imogen poked her under the table. “I noticed. Is there something I should know?”

“I wasn’t feeling quite the thing. That was after Dr. Magnus made a nuisance of himself. Tobias was being kind.”

Imogen sobered for a moment, but it didn’t last. “Is that all? Nothing more than that? Did you waltz with him?”

Evelina blinked, feeling her ears going hot as Tobias’s had a moment ago. “Once. Your brother is an adequate dancer.”

“Evelina Cooper, you have no romance in you!”

She looked across at Tobias, feeling her chest tighten. He was so handsome it was hard to keep her girlish thoughts from dribbling into the rest of her brain like runaway treacle. “I beg to differ.”

Imogen rolled her eyes toward her father. Evelina returned her attention that way. The conversation had turned to more serious matters, and the ambassador was pontificating.

“How can you question the prime minister’s decision? You are one of the new men, Holmes. Science all the way. No room for sentiment.”

Her uncle could—and would—argue with anything if it satisfied a point of logic, but Evelina held her tongue. What were they talking about?

Holmes shook his head. “I do not argue with science. I might quibble with its misuse by demagogues.”

Bancroft reacted like a bull spotting a red flag, nostrils flaring. “One of the gentlemen rebels we hear so much about lately?”

Holmes’s eyes went wide for a split second. Bancroft had surprised him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Are you one of those who would see the steam barons blasted from their own engines?”

“As diverting a sight as that might prove, why should I wish that? What would it gain?”

Tobias hitched forward on his chair, visibly inserting himself into the debate. “Do you find it logical that one group of manufacturers has been allowed to acquire so much power?”

Holmes gave a dry laugh. “To play the devil’s advocate, there is precedent. England has seen the great lords of the middle ages and the ascendancy of the Church. The public has simply consented to a different type of feudalism. Regardless
of where my own sentiments might lie, who am I to question the public will?”