Gilded: The St. Croix Chronicles (21 page)

“I am asking the wrong questions,” I said from between my clenched teeth. My heart hammered; too hard, too fast. I bent over the parchment, forgoing the chair to stoop over the desk like a vulture eyeing a carcass. “It’s not about
why
alchemy is involved, it’s what. What the formula is purported to
do.
”

“Cherry, my dove,” Fanny said gently; the tone of one approaching a madman, hands extended. One touched my shoulder. I shrugged her away and drew like a thing possessed. A triangle, three circles,
DG
and the newly recognized
Fu
. Not an
E
, not a
y
.
Fusion.
“Cherry, it’s time to come away for a bit.”

I looked up, my eyes wild. I’m sure I looked like the devil himself had possessed me, my hair a ruby corona about my face, smudges of exhaustion beneath my reddened eyes. “Why?” I demanded.

My chaperone, clad already for the day in subdued violet and cream, raised her eyebrows as if she intended to answer.

I sliced a hand through the air, braced the other with the dripping quill against Ashmore’s desk.
My desk.
“Why would you kill a professor?”

“Madam, I’ve her tea ready.”

I glowered at Zylphia, fresh as a daisy in spring and regarding me with the same outward concern as the rest of my staff. Traitor.

I was not mad.
I was not!

I pushed up from the desk, flinging my hands in wild impatience. “Why would you murder a professor?” I demanded again. “The answer is there. The truth is so close, I can feel it.”

I watched Fanny and Mrs. Booth exchange a glance. It was a careful thing, a worried and determined thing.

Snorting my contempt, nearly a growl in my parched throat, I threw the steel-nibbed quill to the desk—splattering ink in indigo drops guaranteed to stain the dark wood if I did not wipe it away.

I didn’t bother. “One kills for obvious reasons,” I continued flatly, circling through fact after fact in my head. “But a body does not change
how
he kills.” A beat; a snap of my fingers. “Unless opportunity provides the motive. But no, that is too random, not suited for two men of the same profession.”

Why kill professors?

“To retain knowledge,” I said aloud, turning for the window without conscious awareness I’d done so. I shook a handful of parchment as if for emphasis. “To keep one’s secrets at bay. For money, or prestige, or power. Bloody bells and damn, there’s too many reasons to kill a man,” I added, an indignant afterthought.

It was as if I remained trapped inside the walking shell of my body. Watching it turn and pace and frenetically dart from one perch to the next like a manic butterfly.

I had never until that moment looked so much like my father; I would not recognize this until much, much later. Maybe if I had seen it then, I would have frightened myself into decorum.

Instead, as I crossed the study on my bare, aching feet, Fanny caught my arm. “Stop,” she said firmly.

I almost didn’t. Indeed, Fanny stumbled once as I careened on my reckless trajectory. But I did stop when her grip tightened; stopped and turned and studied her with very real surprise to find her there, holding on to me, her gaze fierce and mouth in a thin, worried line.

“Yes?” I prompted.

Her features softened to something very like fatigue. “Oh, Cherry.” Such a sad, soft note I’d never heard from her before. Her grip eased, she cupped my cheek in one long, thin hand. “Take a moment, my dear.”

I shook my head, although the part of me exhausted and trembling allowed her to lead me to the overstuffed armchair by the fireplace. There was no fire stocked in it. I hadn’t realized until I sat how cold the study was. “I have no time to breathe, I must solve a mystery.”

Another exchange of glances. Zylphia handed my chaperone the steaming cup of tea she held, but her gaze met mine and narrowed. Censure? Or a warning?

My shoulders slumped.

“Take this, there’s a love,” Fanny crooned softly, like a mother easing the fears of a lost child. She smoothed back my hair from my face. “What can we do to help?”

Help? I blinked. Help! As if I needed it; as if I were floundering in the dark like one of the Ripper’s own  . . . One of . . .

The papers.
Of course. Lady Rutledge was not a woman who thrived on what-ifs and pretending. It would be in the papers. Didn’t she herself ask me if I read them?

A clue.

Was it so simple?

“Brilliant,” I breathed. I reached up, caught Fanny by the hand. “We will make a collector of you yet,” I continued in fervent regard. “Zylla, the newspapers.”

“Today’s?” she asked, bless her soul, not arguing.

“For the past fortnight. All of them! Levi will take you.” I tried to stand, wavered, flinched when the hot tea rimmed the cup I held and splashed to my fingers.

Fanny rescued the cup and my fingers. “All right, Cherry,” she continued in the same gentle tones. As fine a mother as I’d ever known. “Rest for a spell, and then we’ll get you dressed.” I sat, more because I’d lost all the steam I’d built by night than because I was listening.

As Mrs. Booth, tsking loud enough to hear her clucking from two rooms down, made her way to the kitchens, I looked up at Fanny and frowned. “You look tired,” I told her.

Her smile did not quite reach her pale eyes. She tucked stray curls behind one of my ears and said simply, “Don’t you worry your pretty head for me, my dove. It’s time you allowed others to care for you, instead.”

Was it?

Well . . . perhaps . . . For a little while.

I reclaimed the teacup she placed in my trembling palms and inhaled gratefully the fragrant brew.

Just this once.

Chapter Fifteen

I
slept for a few hours, although I don’t recall drifting off. When I awoke in the chair with my neck stiff, the house was very quiet.

Zylphia dressed me in my bronzed chocolate poplin, but she did not speak much when it became clear I was distracted.

I felt drained. As if I’d spent days soaring on the crest of an energy so vibrant—the kind of golden wave I often attributed to my forays into an opium den—and now paid the cost.

But I had not had so much as a drop for two days, now.

It weighed on me.

It . . .
gnawed
at me.

“I’ll be helping Mrs. Booth today in the kitchens,” Zylphia said lightly, tucking the last pin into my hair. “You don’t go getting yourself into any trouble, you hear? You gave us all quite a scare.”

“I seem to be developing that habit,” I admitted wryly. “I’m sorry, Zylla. I’m just so close.”

“Close or not, won’t do any of us a lick of good if you run yourself into a fit.” Her hand flattened over the top of my head, very dark against my auburn locks. She met my gaze in the mirror, terribly serious for all her levity. “I won’t be telling Cage it was a mystery what done you in.”

Point well taken. The last thing I wanted was Micajah Hawke in my business, above or below the drift. “I’ll stay cozy and warm,” I promised. “There’s too much to study to allow me time to gallivant about.”

She grinned, most cheeky. “As if that would ever stop you,
cherie.
”

I left my bedroom feeling somewhat more the thing; properly dressed and with a bit of tea in me. I hadn’t eaten. I wasn’t hungry. The mere thought of food sent a tremor from the very depths of my stomach to the back of my throat.

It wasn’t food I wanted.

I found Fanny in the parlor, a stack of periodicals and papers beside her. Booth had wheeled in a tea cart, and my insides roiled uncomfortably at the array of treats Mrs. Booth had put together to tempt my appetite.

I had no appetite. I was busy, after all, there were other things than food on my mind.

This reasoning would serve me well for a small amount of time.

“I’ve been searching through these papers for a clue,” Fanny announced, surprising me to the point of openmouthed regard. The paper in her hands—the
Leeds Mercury
, I noted—rustled as she raised her eyes above the print and narrowed them. “Close your mouth, Cherry.”

I did.

“Pour a cup, and enlighten me as to what exactly I should be looking for,” she continued, artlessly commanding as I sank to the settee and blindly obeyed.

It wasn’t until I dropped two sugars into my tea and had the saucer in hand did I manage to put two thoughts together. “If you can take the gossip columns,” I said slowly, “I will read the news that fall under the headlines.”

“For what?”

A good question. But I was sure that Lady Rutledge would not issue this challenge if there were no clues to be had.
All things are remarked upon, Miss St. Croix, somewhere.

This began with a brief article in the newspaper. It was not too far a stretch, to my searching mind, to think I would be able to trace the connections I could all but sense through the same.

“Anything that stands out from the normal gossip,” was the best I could give.

“Hmm.” The low hum was not encouraging, but for a time, we lapsed into a companionable silence, broken only by the occasional snippet of shared information.

“ ‘
The visit to London of the great Houlier, the celebrated Paris detective, has caused quite a stir in Scotland Yard
,’ ” Fanny read aloud.

“No, too big and too . . .” I flicked my paper. “Unrelated. Detective Houlier won’t care much for anything beyond the Ripper, I’m sure.”

Again, a companionable silence fell over the parlor. I combed through article after article, many about the terrifying Whitechapel murders and others about politics in Her Majesty’s Parliament, various reforms, the latest on the travails with the Irish Home Rule—I admit to being more than a little impressed with the now infamous three-hour speech given by the disgraced Mr. Gladstone some years ago—and various carry-ons reported below the drift.

I found once more the article regaling readers with the death of Professor MacGillycuddy—poison was not once mentioned—and set that aside.

“Ah.”

I glanced up, my head full of so many useless facts, it took me a moment to place the sound. “Yes?”

Fanny studied her paper, now folded for easier reading, and glanced at me through her spectacles. “There was a scene at the Athenaeum Club nearly a fortnight ago.”

“The Athenaeum,” I repeated slowly. A fine establishment, and one of very few gentlemen’s clubs in London that had converted to electrical lights. A remarkable feat in and of itself. I’d often dreamed of stepping foot within, yet the membership was limited to a mere thousand, and the waiting list long.

And, of course, while the charter welcomed all who were of distinguished renown in literature, science or the arts, it would never, ever allow a woman. No matter how wealthy, well-bred or brilliant.

I grimaced. “What set them on their ear, then?”

“An unwanted guest,” Fanny replied, her gaze once more flicking at me, but over her spectacles this time. “It seems a woman was found wearing the guise of a man. In fact, a member’s very suit.”

I stared at her for a long, unblinking moment.

Fanny raised her chin, looking down at the paper as if even her spectacles were no longer quite so helpful. “I see the names of the gentlemen involved with evicting her from the premises.”

“Either MacGillycuddy or Lambkin?”

“Neither.”

I chewed on my lip for a moment, lost in thought.

A woman braving the depths of a club known particularly for its patronage of science and the arts.

A link? I tossed aside the articles I skimmed in favor of one I remember viewing some days ago. Was it over a week, now? “Does it say what she was there to accomplish?”

“No,” Fanny said after a moment’s reading. “Cause trouble, I’d wager.” I ignored her scorn, hastily rifling through the now jumbled pages.

“Why was the woman there?” I repeated to myself. “To what purpose? Thievery? Espionage? An illicit tryst?”

“Cherry, really.” She sighed. “Although it seems the gentlemen of the club have been much more arduous about checking the identity of its patrons since.”

“They would, wouldn’t they?” I muttered. I’d often considered pulling the same prank on the Athenaeum. Or the Gresham, or even the Travellers’ Club, who retained the most distinguished personages from across the globe. Whoever this woman was, she beat me to that race. Soundly.

Of course, as far as I knew, I retained the distinction of remaining the only female collector. I would take that win.

Although, I certainly would like to meet the woman who’d been so bold. “A name, then? Of her?”

“Ah . . .” Fanny frowned at the small printing. “Yes. A Miss Hensworth. She has been delivered a citation.”

“Eureka!” The word snapped out of me, a triumphant cry emphasizing the sudden flash of illumination Fanny’s delivery achieved.

Miss Hensworth. Of
course.

“Good gracious, Cherry,” sighed my chaperone as I shook a folded newspaper in triumph. “What does this have to do with your . . .” She paused delicately. “Your
mystery
?”

I flipped to the requisite page, muttering to myself until the now-familiar header caught my eye. “A letter,” I explained, though it wasn’t much of an answer to my exasperated companion.

“What letter? Cherry, slow down and clarify.”

I could barely endure to remain seated. I took a deep breath, skimmed the words once more, and laughed outright. “Oh, Miss Hensworth, you are so clever,” I crowed. There her name was, once more affixed with fiery bravado to the words that demanded the Master of Admissions permit women to study the same courses that allowed men to be licensed by the boards of medicine. “ ‘
Allow this
,’ ” I read aloud, “ ‘
or be removed from a post that continues to be mired in the stench of male hubris and fear
.’ ”

“Oh, my.”

“Indeed.” I chuckled, waving the paper now over my head. “This is a declaration of war, by our very own Miss Hortense Hensworth.”

Fanny stared at me blankly. “Who is she, dear?”

Oh, of course. I lowered my evidence, set it aside for research purposes later. “A suffragette, it appears. One who all but demanded Professor MacGillycuddy’s head on a platter, if not by name.”

Fanny frowned, looking between her gossip columns and my small stack of articles. “It’s not enough, Cherry.”

“What?”

“It’s not enough,” she repeated firmly. “There is no evidence to mark her as the murderer, much less the villain you wish to paint her as. Good heavens, you would vilify her for speaking her mind and doing what you would do, indecorous though it might be.”

Had I? An outspoken woman, suddenly painted by own hand as cause for concern?

Damn and blast, she was right.

Our innocent wallflower could be just that.

I needed more. Was either professor a member of the Athenaeum? How would I go about finding out? “There must be something else,” I said, more to myself than to her. I reached for the next paper, leafed through them at a rapid pace. Silence fell for another hour, broken only by Booth’s limping step as he replaced our now cold tea with fresh.

I found nothing. Only another letter, same as the others but lacking in threat, names or link to the murdered men.

I leaned back in my chair, crossing my ankles under my skirt as a man often did, and stared at the ceiling in blank thought.

Perhaps I’d leapt to this conclusion. Miss Hensworth certainly had a mind of her own; I could respect this easily. But was she a murderer?

I couldn’t see it. Quiet, genteel Miss Hensworth, hardly the face I’d draw when confronted with such impassioned words of suffrage, or the derring-do required of a woman in a man’s garb.

A coincidence?

The word stuck in my throat and would not make it fully formed beyond my skepticism.
Coincidence
was not a thing I believed in.

“Here are the facts,” I said aloud, uncaring if Fanny heard me or not. “One, Miss Hensworth demands Professor MacGillycuddy’s capitulation on the twenty-fourth of September. Two, she is forcibly removed from the premises of a gentlemen’s club. Three, said professor is murdered shortly thereafter, ostensibly by poison.”

“Goodness me.”

I laced my fingers together, tucked them under my chin as I stared at the light played over the pale ceiling. “Four, Professor Lambkin takes his own life, some days after his colleague. Or he is dispatched, like his predecessor, by someone else.”

“Why someone else?”

“Entirely different method,” I explained, patient for all I’d mentally moved past this detail. “Murderers tend to follow a pattern, a method by which they are most comfortable. Women often select poison, but when pushed, we choose to go for a knife rather than, say, a garrote or simple strangulation as a man would. Pistols, by the majority, are also a man’s domain.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Fanny huffed, rising in a rustled fall of silk and linen. She set her paper down in a neat pile, so at odds with my chaotic nest, and glowered at me. “Why on earth would you be mired in such a sordid affair as this?”

I did not straighten from my lackadaisical sprawl. “Lady Rutledge set the challenge.”

“Really.” Another sigh, and back ramrod straight, she crossed to the tea cart and poured another cup. Yet she paused before setting the pot down once more. “Perhaps,” she said slowly, “you aren’t looking at it with the right set of eyes.”

Now, I straightened. “I beg your pardon, Fanny?”

When she turned, her mouth was set in a pursed line that suggested she was deep in thought. “Perhaps,” she continued in the same contemplative tone, “you should look less at the professors, and more at . . .”

“At?”

“Well.” She gave herself a small shake, her smile rueful. “This is hardly my forte, you understand, but you should look at something else. You’re not looking past the professors.”

Past the professors?
What the devil did that mean? Of course the professors were key, if I could learn why they died—

I froze, suddenly stiff as the thought flared like a beacon.

Alchemy.

Whether the notes had been Lambkin’s or MacGillycuddy’s, it did not matter. They referenced some kind of alchemical study, a formula or series of them. To what end?

Perhaps the professors weren’t the key.

“That means the formulae are,” I said suddenly, and leapt to my feet. I whooped loud enough to wake the dead, grabbed Fanny and spun her madly in a circle before planting a kiss on her cheek. “You are brilliant,” I swore, and hurried for the hall.