The Carnelian Crow: A Stoker & Holmes Book (Stoker and Holmes 4)

by Colleen Gleason

  “Caw!”

  I started and looked up. A huge crow had settled on the top of Angus’s lamppost, and he was looking down at me with a disapproving eye.

  I couldn’t be certain, but I suspected he was none other than my bold nocturnal visitor.

  Miss Stoker

  ~ In Which the Requirements of Friendship Are Debated ~

  “Well? Did you find it?” I demanded. “The Carnelian Crow?”

  I could hardly believe I’d had to miss out on Mina’s plan to investigate the secret door at the back of Lady Thistle’s in favor of meeting potential husbands. I’d been going back and forth between fuming and sulking ever since Mina poked her long nose into the parlor, then disappeared without even trying to help me escape!

  She was a traitor.

  Fortunately, Florence had been so pleased with how the afternoon had gone, and the number of gentlemen who’d arrived to call on me yesterday, that she’d allowed me to escape from the house early the next morning to visit Mina.

  My sister-in-law might have been pleased, but I alternated between being terrified and shocked at what was happening—and so quickly.

  It felt as if I were in a boat tumbling down a wild river, with no way to paddle or even slow down, let alone get to shore. I’d been trapped for hours with the prospective suitors and whichever of their female relatives they’d drummed up to bring with them.

  Then I had a short while to freshen up before having to accompany Mr. Broomall, his sister, and his sister’s husband’s sister to dinner and the theater. We attended a play at the Lyceum, which in Florence’s mind did double duty by putting ticket sales in Bram’s pocket while bringing me closer to finding a husband. It hadn’t been as dull an evening as I’d feared (Mr. Broomall actually made several witty remarks, and at least his breath didn’t stink like that of Sir Buford Grandine), but it wasn’t the type of thing I wanted to repeat on a regular basis.

  “As a matter of fact, I did not find The Carnelian Crow,” Mina told me. She had a ring around her eye from the magnifying device she often wore while in her laboratory, which was where I’d found her after Mrs. Raskill answered the door.

  I sat up straight. “You didn’t go to Lady Thistle’s—but you left me by myself at the mercy of all those suitors? How could you do that?”

  “And what, precisely, was it you expected me to do, Evaline? I couldn’t very well drag you out of the parlor from under the noses of all those people. Can you imagine the scandal—along with the number of individuals I would have had to push out of the way? Someone—probably me—would have landed in the tea and scones, and that currant jam would have stained everything it touched.

  “I must say, you really do have your pick of the young—and not so young—bucks of the peerage. Everyone who is worth any sort of money was there, drooling all over your elegant hand.”

  “This is not funny,” I snapped, too upset to even appreciate that Mina Holmes had made a joke. “You could have done something. Had your father call me away on important Home Office business”—she scoffed at that—“or you could have—I don’t know—set fire to the house so we all had to vacate. I could have dashed off in the confusion. You’re a blasted Holmes, as you are constantly reminding me. You could have deduced something to do.”

  “Even if I would have extricated you from that situation,” she replied, “what good would it have done? You’d simply be required to meet them the next day, or the next day, or the next day. Evaline, the problem you face is far bigger than simply sitting down for tea on a particular afternoon and missing an adventure. It’s not going to go away if you avoid it.”

  “But I don’t want to get married!” Sudden tears stung my eyes, and I roughly dashed them away. I’d managed to hold them back for over a day. “At least, not now. I’m only seventeen.”

  “Nearly eighteen,” Mina unhelpfully reminded me. “You’re two months away from attaining the age by which most young women have already been wed.”

  “You sound like Florence,” I retorted. “And that is not a compliment.”

  “Evaline. If you want my help… Do you want my help?”

  “Yes! Isn’t that what I’ve been saying? What do you have in mind?” A rush of hope had me sitting up straight again. After all, what was the point of being friends—I supposed we were friends—with a Holmes if they didn’t use their brains to help you when you needed them?

  Mina, who seemed to be using a different sort of handheld magnifyer to compare the two carnelian crow pendants, looked up at me without raising her face. Just her eyes moved. She looked like an irritated fish.

  “It’s quite simple, Evaline. You have three choices. You either find a man you can tolerate, and agree to marry him—of course, that would then create a number of issues related to vampire hunting and other activities, which we would need to address once the nuptials occur—or you find a way to remove the necessity and urgency for you to marry at all, or,” she continued in a firm voice when I began to object, “you refuse to marry and leave your brother and sister-in-law to handle the repercussions of their poor financial management. And whatever happens happens.”

  I gaped at her. “That? That’s your solution? That’s your assistance? That’s you helping me?” I had the sudden urge to yank the hair out of my head.

  (Oh, that was an idea. If I cut all my hair off, and maybe started dressing in trousers, perhaps that would put off all the interested suitors. Hmm…)

  “I might not be a blasted Holmes, but I know all that already.”

  Mina merely looked at me. “Then why are you asking me for assistance?”

  I did that little scream of frustration inside my closed mouth, but managed to keep myself from kicking the stool out from under her. Just because she didn’t have a family she cared about disappointing, and parents who cared about her—

  I spewed out a long breath. A twinge of shame squeezed my belly.

  I did have a family I loved. And they loved me, without a doubt. And it was true—Mina did not. Her mother had abandoned her, and Sir Mycroft was completely engrossed in his work for the government. Mina even called him “sir” to his face, instead of Papa or even Father.

  And because I had a family I cared about, and who loved me, that meant I really only had two choices: I either had to marry so that my wealthy husband would help settle our debts, or I had to help find another solution. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let my brother and Florence down.

  Time to change the subject.

  “So why didn’t you go to Lady Thistle’s?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t go to Lady Thistle’s,” my ever-exacting friend replied in her precise voice. “I went there, but the establishment was closed.”

  “Closed? Do you mean permanently?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, examining the two crow pendants with yet another tool. “But the fact that the door was locked, and from what I could discern of the interior, it was completely deserted, I do find it more than interesting that the day after I found the secret door, the place was locked up.” She looked back up at me. “And then there’s the fascinating bit of information Lady Thistle shared about my mother going to the back to try on clothing, and being gone for some time. It—”

  “She must have been going through the secret door—maybe even to The Carnelian Crow,” I said. “I wonder how long that establishment has been around.”

  “Indeed. Those are my suspicions as well. Grayling said he’s been hearing about a secret red crow for several years now—five, I believe he said. But the bigger question I have is whether Lady Thistle knew what my mother was doing, and if she was attempting to give me the information without appearing to do so—or whether it was purely the insignificant ramblings of an elderly woman who has few people with whom to speak on a daily basis.”

  “Right.”

  “And there is also the chance that something untoward happened because Lady Thistle was so free with that information, and she was forced to close down the boutique and poss
ibly go into hiding—”

  “Or worse.”

  “Or worse. Evaline, you are always the bloodthirsty one. Regardless, and therefore, I intend to take matters into my own hands. I was hoping you’d be able to assist—”

  “You’re going to break in?” A spike of glee shot through me. “When? Tonight— Oh, blast. Tonight I’ve got an engagement with Mr. Oligary. What time—”

  “Mr. Oligary?” She looked at me with a funny expression. “Do you mean to say you’re being escorted by Mr. Oligary? So you’ve truly caught his attention, then. I only said that in order to dissuade— Right. Er—you do mean the younger Mr. Oligary, correct? Ned, I believe is his given name? That was he who was speaking to you when I arrived yesterday, correct?”

  “Yes.” I frowned. I’d missed something, but I wasn’t certain what, and before I could ponder further, Mina went on.

  “I’m certain Florence is beyond delighted over the possibility of you getting a marriage proposal from Ned Oligary.”

  Delighted was an understatement. Mr. Oligary’s invitation to be his guest at New Vauxhall Gardens tonight had made Florence so ecstatic that I thought she was going to burst her corset with excitement. That was the only reason she’d allowed me to visit Mina this morning without giving me a hassle.

  “Perhaps you can get Mr. Oligary—since you seem to have caught his attention—to escort you to the fête at Lord and Lady Cosgrove-Pitt’s home on Saturday. Surely he’s been invited.” Mina’s eyes gleamed. “He and his brother.”

  “I don’t particularly want to go to Cosgrove Terrace on Saturday—or ever, to be honest. A fête at Cosgrove Terrace won’t be an adventure. It’ll be filled with stuffy people talking about uninteresting things like politics and fashion and—”

  But Mina wasn’t listening. “Drat. I wish I could find a way to go with you.”

  “I’m not going yet, Mina. And for all I care, you can go instead of me. I’ll let Mr. Oligary know you’re interested,” I added snidely.

  “Believe me, if I could wrangle a way to go, Evaline, I would do it in a minute. So you’ll have to go instead.”

  “Why?” I grumbled. “The last time we were there—”

  “The last—and only—time we were there together was the first night we met the Ankh, as you recall. The reason you should go to Cosgrove Terrace is so you can snoop around. Look for clues.”

  “Clues?” I felt a flicker of interest. I always liked snooping around. But we weren’t really investigating a case at the moment except that of the crow pendants—and Pix’s disappearance. “Wait. Don’t tell me you think Lord or Lady Cosgrove-Pitt know something about The Carnelian Crow. That’s ridiculous. Why would two respected, premier members of Society have anything to do with a place like that?”

  Mina wore a strange expression, and I don’t mean because of the apparatus she’d placed over her head—although it was odd all on its own. It had a large telescoping lens over one eye, and there was a set of tiny clamping hands that extended from the sides of the device and held the two pendants close to the lens. From the top of her head, two small antenna sort of things curved out and down, shining a pair of tiny lights onto the pendants. Mina looked like a strange sort of insect-like Cyclops with hands coming out of her temples.

  She pulled off the apparatus and still wore the odd expression. “Evaline, what I’m about to tell you is of a very confidential nature. I’m aware of only one other person who has this information. If you were to divulge this to anyone, it could seriously jeopardize—”

  “Just tell me what it is.”

  “Lady Cosgrove-Pitt is the Ankh.”

  I gaped and then burst into laughter. “Are you mad? There is absolutely no way that’s true. I know you suspected it for a time—”

  “I deduced it from the very first, from my many observations of both individuals, Evaline. I was certain of it before we even went into the opium den during the scarab affair. However, it’s true there was a time when I began to question what I knew had to be true, and that did frustrate and stall my investigations.”

  “It’s impossible for Lady Cosgrove-Pitt to be the Ankh, Mina. First of all, she was hosting the Roses Ball at Cosgrove Terrace on the night we met the Ankh for the first time. We were underground, on the other side of the city, remember? In the Thames Tunnel? But we saw Lady Cosgrove-Pitt at the ball when we returned.”

  Mina sniffed. “An elementary sleight of hand, Evaline. If you recall, the Lady Cosgrove-Pitt who was supposedly at the ball was standing on a balcony, speaking with someone, and waved to us from a distance. That Lady Cosgrove-Pitt was obviously a decoy, and she was set up at a distance so no one would notice. I suspect she has a maid or some other individual who plays her stand-in in situations like that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t buy it. What about the fact that when the Ankh was flying off with me after the fire in the opium den, and you and Grayling were speeding over to Cosgrove Terrace on his steamcycle? Lady Cosgrove-Pitt—good gad, could she not have a name that’s less than a mouthful?—was there when you arrived.”

  “Once again, simple, Evaline. First of all, there was a bit of a delay before Grayling and I set off on the cycle. Secondly, as I recall, you were blacked out and couldn’t know who was with you and who wasn’t—and for how long—when they abducted you from the burning opium den. And third, it was several minutes after Grayling and I arrived and asked for her that Lady Cosgrove-Pitt was fetched for us.

  “There are, as you are well aware, several illicit ways to travel speedily through London: via underground tunnels on motorized vehicles like the one Mr. Pix has, and even small airships—smaller than the black one we saw two nights ago. Either of those could have assisted Lady Cosgrove-Pitt to get back home in a speedy manner. She could have removed her disguise and changed clothing during the travel time as well.” Mina folded her arms over her middle and lifted her nose at me as if to make a challenge I couldn’t combat.

  “Fine, then. Even if all of those things are true, there’s absolutely one thing you cannot argue: Lady Cosgro—I’m just going to call her Lady C-P—was there, in Queen Elizabeth’s Tower of London bedroom, when the Ankh appeared to steal the chess queen.”

  To my chagrin—because I was certain I’d had the stopper for Mina’s argument—she merely smiled like a very satisfied cat who’d found a dish of cream.

  “Actually, Evaline, that incident is how I know with absolute certainty that Lady Cosgrove-Pitt is the Ankh.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You see, when the Ankh was in the tower room making her speech, I looked over and saw Lady Cosgrove-Pitt. I’d told her several times previously—when she was the Ankh—that I knew her identity. Not only was Lady Cosgrove-Pitt watching me, she was waiting for me to look over at her in astonishment. And when I did, she acknowledged, once and for all, that I was correct by nodding at me. She actually smiled with triumph.”

  “But that doesn’t necessarily mean—”

  “She looked right at me and said, ‘Checkmate.’ There was no mistaking her meaning, Evaline.”

  I sagged back onto my stool. My head was spinning. Could it be true? The elegant, demure, wealthy Isabella Cosgrove-Pitt…really the Ankh?

  Why?

  “She’d planned the whole thing—the entire ruse—to make certain anyone who would have any credibility was there and saw the Ankh in the same room as Lady Cosgrove-Pitt. Note that even my father was in attendance, as well as several other important personages.

  “But she made a mistake. What I think will ultimately be her downfall. She had to let me know I was right—but that she had, after all, won. However, now that she’s confirmed what I knew all along, I only need to find proof.”

  “So the Ankh who was in the Tower of London room…that wasn’t the real Ankh?” I was still trying to take in the information.

  “Keep up, Evaline, please. It’s not that difficult.”

  I glared at her. “You’re correct. Deductions are not nearl
y as difficult as fighting off vampires and killing multiple UnDead while being outnumbered by them. And bleeding all over the place.” I shivered.

  Mina sniffed, but she softened her tone. “Right, then. So now that I know Lady Cosgrove-Pitt is the Ankh, I just need to find proof. Which you could do if you get an invitation to Cosgrove Terrace. Hmm. Maybe the idea of you getting married isn’t such a bad one after all—”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Well, Evaline, one must take advantage of all circumstances—even if they aren’t the least bit preferable.”

  I snarled to myself for a moment, then gave in. “What sort of proof do you want?”

  Mina shrugged. “Whatever you find. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  “That’s helpful,” I grumbled. But I had to admit, I felt a bit more interested in attempting to wrangle an invitation to the party. It would be a lovely affair—probably with a lot of really good food. I certainly could appreciate good food.

  I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been to Cosgrove Terrace—with Mina, when we were investigating the missing girls related to the Society of Sekhmet. Pix had been there at the ball, the dratted scoundrel. That evening, he’d been dressed as a waiter. But I’d recognized him.

  It would be just like him to show up again like that. I felt a little prickle of hope at the thought of encountering him unexpectedly. Perhaps even in a dimly lit—

  “Evaline, are you paying attention?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

  “Erm…something about proof? And—oh, yes, Mr. Oligary. What about him?”

  Mina seemed slightly appeased. “Since you’ll be with the younger brother—tonight, is it?”

  “We are going to New Vauxhall Gardens. I’ll try not to fall into the pond,” I added slyly.

  Mina sniffed. “My goodness, your social calendar is becoming quite booked up, Miss Stoker. The theater last night, New Vauxhall tonight, possibly the Cosgrove-Pitt fête on Saturday—”

  I snarled so she could hear me this time, and she stopped teasing me.