Death by Silver
Authors: Melissa Scott
Tags: #Romance, #mystery, #Gay, #fantasy, #steampunk, #alternative history, #gaslamp
Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold
Published by Lethe Press at Smashwords.com
Copyright © 2013 Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in 2013 by Lethe Press, Inc.
118 Heritage Avenue • Maple Shade, NJ 08052-3018, USA
www.lethepressbooks.com • [email protected]
isbn: 978-1-59021-055-0 / 1-59021-055-7
e-isbn: 978-1-59021-331-5 / 1-59021-331-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
Cover and interior design: Alex Jeffers.
Cover artwork: Ben Baldwin.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scott, Melissa.
Death by silver / Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-59021-055-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-59021-331-5 (ebook)
1. Private investigators--England--London--Fiction. 2. Great Britain--History--Victoria, 1837-1901--Fiction. I. Griswold, Amy. II. Title.
PS3569.C672D43 2013
813’.54--dc23
2013006039
Death by Silver
“Scott and Griswold have set the bar for gaslamp fantasy to an all-time high with this riveting blend of Victorian magic, romance, and suspense. It should come with several warnings, though: you will not be able to put it down, and once you do, you may have trouble adjusting to everyday life again.”
—Tiffany Trent, author of
The Unnaturalists
“Friends and lovers become partners as metaphysician Mathey and private detective Lynes are called onto a case that involves both enchantment and murder. Not only does this bring them into closer contact with each other, it also brings up painful memories of their school days and the classmate who abused them. They must balance young manhood between the regrets and misfortunes of the past, and the demands of their professions (not to mention their hearts). You’ll root for them to succeed in all arenas.”
—L.A. Fields, author of
My Dear Watson
“What a wonderful book. The story is enthralling and superbly told, and the book effectively evokes the Victorian era and its sequestered queer society. It’s the kind of book that so pulls you in that you forget that you are reading and feel that you are experiencing a riveting adventure. Here’s hoping that Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold give us a sequel, so that we may pay another enchanting visit with Ned, Julian, and the delightful Miss Frost.”
—W.H. Pugmire, author of
Uncommon Places
“This is not the Victorian London you think you know. In
Death by Silver
, Scott and Griswold have created an eerily familiar world lit by magic of an eminently practical – and occasionally murderous – sort, and a story that gives equal weight to meticulous detection, twisty red herrings, thrilling adventure, and an unconventional, stiff-upper-lip romance. I love this book. Do yourself the favor of making the acquaintance of metaphysician Ned Mathey and private detective Julian Lynes…then beg Scott and Griswold (as I do) for a sequel.”
—Alex Jeffers, author of
Deprivation
and
You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home
“Death by Silver
is a fun, well written, and intriguing mystery. Metaphysician Ned Mathey and private detective Julian Lynes are a winning combination. They will leave you spellbound and wanting more.”
—William Holden, author of
A Twist of Grimm
and
Secret Societies
“I loved everything about
Death by Silver
—the world-building and excellent atmosphere, the characters and their personal struggles, the twisty well-paced plot and the delicious romantic relationship-building elements, all the way to the great ending. I just hope that Scott and Griswold are planning a series because these characters and world are begging for one! Highly enjoyed and recommended.”
—Impressions of a Reader blog
CHAPTER ONE
Ned Mathey hung up his hat as he came back into his chambers from the square outside, and his clerk Miss Cordelia Frost looked up from her desk with an expression of mild curiosity. “Everything all right?”
“Nothing very much the matter,” Ned said. “Just a metaphysical experiment gone a bit awry. Mr Simmons and Mr Connor set a tidy blaze in their dustbin, but it’s been extinguished without their setting half the Commons ablaze, so I suppose we should all count ourselves lucky.”
The chambers and flats on the west side of the square were reserved for metaphysicians, who generally restricted themselves to applying approved methods, but the theoretical metaphysicists across the Commons were sometimes given to experimenting. Usually they confined themselves to writing monographs, which didn’t break windows or start fires, but rising smoke or the sound of shattering glass from the east side of the square wasn’t entirely unheard of.
“The post came while you were out,” Miss Frost said, seemingly unconcerned now with the averted inferno. She’d attended classes in metaphysics herself, albeit at a women’s college that didn’t grant an actual degree, and took the more curious aspects of doing business at the Commons in stride. Ned found her indispensably useful, despite coming in for a certain amount of teasing from his friends about his presumed motives for hiring a typewriter girl rather than the traditional male clerk.
“Anything interesting?”
“Bills,” she said, and Ned made a face in what was only partially mock dismay.
“Eternal but uninteresting. How about promisingly lucrative new clients?”
“Not yet,” Miss Frost said, still rifling through the envelopes she’d already neatly slit. Her severely tailored jacket showed no ink smudges at the cuffs, despite being light blue rather than the black of his own frock coat; he always wondered if she glamored her cuffs to preserve them, but didn’t think he’d endear himself to her by asking. “Here’s Mr Clark about his garden gate again.”
“It needs replacing, not to be patched up again.” Ned was starting to despair of Mr Clark’s garden gate, which had been badly enchanted to start with and had been repaired in the past by at least three different metaphysicians of varying skills. It now remained stubbornly latched for welcome visitors, swung open invitingly for random strangers, and had more than once swung shut of its own accord abruptly enough to knock Mr Clark’s long-suffering terrier off its feet.
“How would you like me to put that in a reply?”
“No, don’t, I’ll take another look at it,” Ned said. He hated feeling that a yard-square piece of ironmongery was defeating him, and besides, Mr Clark had paid promptly for his previous attempts to sort it out.
“Here’s a new one, a Mr Edgar Nevett about his silver.” Miss Frost handed him the letter, and he took it with a frown.
“I was in school with a Nevett,” he said. “More than one of them, but I don’t recall an Edgar.”
Upon examining the letter, that minor mystery at least resolved itself.
I understand you attended Sts Thomas’s with my son Mr Victor Nevett,
the elder Nevett wrote.
My inquiries find you satisfactorily recommended, with a more up-to-date approach to the profession than Mr Fitzgibbons.
“Satisfactorily recommended,” Ned murmured under his breath. “That’s enthusiastic.” He waved Miss Frost off as she looked up from sorting out bills and the occasional more welcome cheque, and resumed reading.
I therefore intend to retain you to investigate the matter of a curse upon certain pieces of silver long owned by the Nevett family. All other remedies have failed, and the assistance of a metaphysician has become obviously necessary.
Ned hoped any other remedies applied had been entirely ineffective, rather than partially and unpredictably effective. An amateur could do more harm than good messing about with patent kits, their sigils already written out on printed magical squares and their accompanying directions promising guaranteed success. From the complaints of his clients who’d tried them, whatever was guaranteed, it wasn’t their money back.
I await a reply at your earliest convenience, and have the honor to be –
Edgar Nevett
Ned drummed his fingers on his desk, wondering whether to charitably take the dash as implying “your humble and obedient servant” or not. The letter was peremptory in its tone even so, and he found himself tempted to toss it in the dustbin, despite how welcome another client would be. He’d bought the practice less than a year ago, and more than one of old Fitzgibbons’s clients had decided to go to a more established man rather than a new metaphysician just up from Oxford.
He remembered Victor Nevett perfectly well, and the invocation of his name didn’t precisely recommend his father as a client. Still, business was business, and at this point he was in no position to refuse it out on account of schoolboy quarrels. “I’ll see Nevett about his silver,” Ned said. “Write and see if tomorrow afternoon is convenient for him.”
“It’ll have to be Thursday,” Miss Frost said. “You were taking tomorrow afternoon as a holiday. Marylebone vs Yorkshire at Lord’s, I believe.” She looked a bit amused.
He let out a resigned breath. “I was indeed, but I won’t. A new client takes precedence.”
“Even over watching cricket?” She was definitely teasing, now, and he smiled in return, pleased that she’d apparently decided by now that his intentions toward her as an employer were honorable. As they were entirely so – by virtue of her sex alone, although he could hardly say so – he appreciated a warmer climate in his chambers.
“Sadly so,” he said.
“I’ll write and see,” Miss Frost said. She was setting up her pantograph for making out receipts, its upright pen enchanted to trace a perfect copy of her own writing. “You look forward to the opportunity, etc.?”
“All that sort of thing, yes,” Ned said, and left it to her.