He cocked his head, a small, tired smile playing about his mouth.
“What is so amusing?” I demanded.
“You. Has it never occurred to you to wonder if I actually do have an alibi for the time de Morgan disappeared? It wouldn’t take long, you know. A few hours to Dover to dispatch him, a few hours back. We haven’t always been in each other’s company. I might have done it.”
He spoke with a casually jocular air, but beneath it I felt the desperation of the question. Do you believe in me?
“After all,” he went on in the same maddeningly calm voice, “I have killed a man. You know that, but you don’t know how or why. Perhaps I am what they say I am. The word ‘monster’ was used. How do you know they are wrong?”
“Because we are the same,” I burst out. “You are not the only one of us with bloodied hands and a death on your conscience,” I reminded him, not bothering to disguise my anger. “Why must you do this? Why must you test me?”
The tight muscle in his jaw relaxed into slackness. “I did not think to test you.”
“Yes, you did. You do it every time you find yourself in danger of relying too much upon me, or hadn’t you noticed? You are so afraid of depending upon another soul that you will burn down your own house rather than risk someone else doing it. You are so determined to believe that your wounds make you less than human that you think yourself a monster when others are merely men. And whatever this bond that is between us, whatever this thing is that makes us akin to one another, you do not trust it. Because you do not trust yourself. But I am tired of the games, Stoker. And I am tired of your little monstrosities when I have atrocities of my own to account for.”
With that I returned to my work and said nothing more, waiting for him to walk away.
He returned to his platypus and I scraped away at my little gonerilla for a while, letting the scales fall away and exposing the crystalline wing beneath. It was exacting, tiresome work, and I found my mind wandering as my hands stayed busy. I turned over all that I had thought of the previous night, carefully pursuing each line of thought out and back again. Stoker stayed at his platypus, pulling bits of it free until sawdust filled the air and the floor was littered with unpleasant bits of fur and padding. Knowing he would be considering our next move as well, I let him destroy it until we stopped for elevenses, at which point he paused in his work and came to stand behind me, wiping the worst of the grime from his hands and face.
“Most people do not realize it is the scales that give a butterfly wing its color,” I told him in a calm voice. “If you strip them off, the wing is clear as water, and the filaments between look like the leading of glass windows. Perhaps I should scale a wing or two for display purposes.”
“Veronica.” He had uttered my name a thousand times, but never before had it sounded like prayer. “There are things I should tell you.”
I paused in the scraping of the wing, not quite trusting my hands to stay steady enough.
“I am listening.”
“I do not know where to begin. And this is not the time.” He thrust his filthy hands through his hair, powdering the dark locks with cobwebs and dust. “We must go to Dover.”
I looked up, blinking. “I beg your pardon?”
“Dover. It is where de Morgan disappeared. I am convinced that she is telling the truth and that he crossed from Calais with her. That means whatever happened to him, it happened in Dover.”
She. He never said her name, I realized. I had never heard him say it except moaned in his sleep and on that singular occasion when he had moaned it against my skin, his breath mingled with mine. Even now he could not bear to speak it.
I set a smile on my lips. “An excellent notion. Very sensible. I will pack a bag. If we leave on the train directly after luncheon we will be there in time for supper.”
He opened his mouth as if expecting me to say something more. I gave him a long, coolly assessing look. “You cannot possibly board a train looking like that. They will take you for a vagrant. Go and wash yourself.”
CHAPTER
12
He said nothing until we were safely aboard the train to Dover carrying a small carpetbag each. George the hall boy had been slipped a copper to feed Huxley, and I had scribbled a note to Lord Rosemorran to let him know we would be away for a night. I gave the vague impression that we were on the trail of an addition for his collection, and there was little danger his lordship would think otherwise. He never read The Daily Harbinger. Lady Wellie did, and that caused a chain reaction of thoughts I did not much like.
“Do you think it possible that Lady Wellie was the one who gave information to the newspaper?” I asked as the chimney pots of London gave way to the back gardens of suburban villas.
Stoker shrugged. “Possible. But so is everyone else we have spoken to with regard to this business. Sir Hugo, Mornaday, the Tivertons, the Stihls, the Marshwoods, Julien. Any one of them might have let the story out.”
“For what purpose?” I demanded. He made a gesture as if to dismiss the question, then seemed to think better of it.
“As we have already noted, the Tivertons may not like the stories, but they will drive attendance at their exhibition and increase demand for their antiquities. Sir Hugo and Mornaday have their own dastardly political games with Special Branch, and Lady Wellie’s motives are known only to her. She would confound the serpent in Eden.”
“Truly,” I agreed. “What of the Stihls?”
He shrugged. “They could have decided that making the story public would discredit the Tivertons somehow and throw a shadow over their grand exhibition. Julien could have done it solely for money, the Marshwoods to see me tarred and feathered in the court of public opinion again.”
“Surely you do not really suspect Julien,” I protested.
His smile was feeble but real. “No. I include him only for the sake of thoroughness.”
“Besides,” I went on, “those might be motivations to speak to a reporter, but none are strong enough to provide a motive to kill John de Morgan.”
“No, only mine,” he said, then lifted a hasty hand. “I am not wallowing in self-pity. I merely note it for the purpose of argument.”
“Good,” I said, putting out a hand for the pocket notebook he always carried. “Now, let us put it all down logically from the beginning. . . .”
• • •
Due to the vagaries of travel in winter through the countryside—snow on the line, an errant cow—we arrived early in the evening at our destination. We had filled pages in his notebook with our conjectures, but nothing seemed to fit. Who was our female pursuer and why was she shadowing us? Who played the part of Anubis—both at Bishop’s Folly and outside the Sudbury—and was it merely to create excitement or did he have some more sinister purpose in mind? In the end, I flung the notebook from the window in a moment of pique, an action for which I atoned by purchasing a replacement at the station upon our arrival—an inferior replacement, Stoker noted with some degree of injury.
I ignored him and proceeded to the nearest porter to inquire as to the whereabouts of the Victoria Hotel. It was a few steps down a narrow street, a nondescript house in a nondescript street overlooked by the looming bulk of Dover Castle. Only a demure sign posted on the front indicated its status as a lodging house. VICTORIA HOTEL. MRS. R. D. GIDDONS, PROPRIETRESS. Stoker and I stood upon the pavement, taking in our surroundings.
“It would not be my first choice if I were Sir Leicester Tiverton,” he observed.
“It is certainly nothing like the Sudbury for elegance,” I agreed.
A sharp rap brought the sound of shuffling footsteps, and the door was thrown back by a slender, pinch-faced maid.
“We would like rooms,” Stoker began.
“A room,” I corrected swiftly as I trod on his foot. “My husband and I are very tired from our journey.”
> The girl shrugged and stepped back to let us enter, gesturing vaguely towards the front parlor. “Wait here, if you please. I shall fetch Mrs. Giddons.”
We proceeded into the parlor, and the little maid bobbed her head, closing the door behind her. The room was stuffed with the kind of uncomfortable upright furniture that people save too long to buy and enjoy too little when they do. An array of indifferent watercolors was hung on the walls, and every corner was filled with either an aspidistra or a malnourished fig tree.
“Don’t stand still for too long,” I told him helpfully. “The mistress of the house might drape you with an antimacassar.”
He snorted but said nothing as he peered at a bookcase full of dusty sermons. A little brass rack upon the mantel held the proprietress’ cards and I plucked one free, testing its quality. The paper was rather thin and the ink slightly inferior. The proprietress’ name, Rebecca F. Giddons, was prefaced with the honorific “Mrs.,” but I suspected from the absence of a man’s name anywhere about, she had taken it as a courtesy title. Most cooks did so in order to preserve authority over their staffs, a single woman having little prestige, and it seemed hoteliers were likewise hobbled by a solitary marital status. It was maddening that a woman in business for herself should have to resort to such stratagems, but I did not blame her.
“I apologize if I took you by surprise with my request for a single room,” I began. “Registering as a married couple is the only way to avoid arousing comment.”
He flicked me a preoccupied glance. “What’s that? Oh, good thinking. Best not to use our real names either.”
“I shall make a note of it,” I said in a dry voice. We were left alone only a moment more before the door opened and a lady entered. She wore a stiff gown of black bombazine and a vague smile. Her hair, once no doubt a bright auburn, had faded a little, and the beginnings of lines had etched themselves at the corners of a pair of watchful fox-brown eyes. The maid trotted obediently behind, awaiting instructions.
“Good evening,” she said. “I apologize for the delay. I am Mrs. Giddons, the proprietress of the hotel. I understand you wish a room for the night?”
“If you please,” Stoker said, taking the lead.
“Certainly. Dinner is included in the price and will be served here in the parlor,” Mrs. Giddons told him. She went to a table draped in a starched cloth and opened the register resting atop it. She held out a pen to Stoker. “Your signature, sir?”
Stoker took the pen and made a lazy scrawl on the page. The proprietress peered at it.
“Lord and Lady Templeton-Vane,” she pronounced, her spine stiffening a little at the title. “An honor indeed,” she murmured. She straightened and turned to the girl, whose eyes had gone very wide. “Take his lordship’s bag—and her ladyship’s—up to the Chinese Room.” She turned back to us. “Our largest and most comfortable accommodation,” she said with a regal nod of the head.
Something in her manner struck me as disingenuous. A touch of mockery, perhaps? Stoker and I certainly made an unlikely pair of aristocrats. We doubtless looked like exactly what we were—an unmarried couple bent upon some illicit activity. How was the proprietress to know we were bent upon sleuthing instead of fornication?
The girl scuttled out with our bags, and Mrs. Giddons turned to us. “If you would care to make yourselves comfortable, dinner will be served shortly.”
She withdrew from the parlor, leaving us alone with the aspidistras, their heads bent together in leafy conversation. “This place gives me the cold shivers,” Stoker said flatly.
“I know. Was it wise of you to give your brother’s name?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Tiberius always enjoys playing a part in an intrigue, no matter how small.” I was surprised. He seldom spoke of his brothers, and Tiberius—in his role as head of the family—was the Templeton-Vane who riled Stoker the most. “Besides,” he added with a smile, “we have almost no baggage, and you have no lady’s maid. I am quite certain our hostess suspects the worst of us already.”
In a very few minutes, the thin little maid crept in to poke up the fire and lay a table. We seated ourselves and suffered through a succession of grim courses. Indifferent fish, inedible stew, and a chicken of such antiquity I feared it would be of interest only to scholars of ancient history.
“I have apples in my bag,” I murmured to Stoker when a particularly nasty dish of creamed turnips was placed before us.
He waited until the maid had scuttled out again to reply. “I shall go you one better—I have smoked oysters and a capon.”
I toasted his ingenuity—the wine was surprisingly good, although it had clearly been watered—and after we poked at the dried-up remnants of a vile rice pudding, Mrs. Giddons appeared to inquire about the dinner.
“Was everything to your liking?” she asked, her brow furrowed in concern.
“Perfectly satisfactory,” Stoker lied.
“You are perhaps kinder than you are honest, my lord.” A sudden smile brightened her features. “I am sorry to say that we have lost our cook and the meal was a meager one. Not at all our best effort,” she said, her voice trailing off. She produced a bottle. “But I have brought a special treat by way of compensation—my homemade turnip wine!”
I looked longingly at the dregs of the French burgundy I had just finished.
“Turnip wine?” Stoker asked in a faint voice.
“Yes, yes.” Mrs. Giddons went to a cupboard and extracted two slim crystal goblets. “My very best,” she said, somewhat shyly. She uncapped the dark green bottle and poured out a murky fluid, handing us each a glass filled to the brim. The aroma was vegetal, and I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose.
“You must tell me what you think,” she said, turning expectantly to Stoker.
I moved a little to the side, ostensibly to study a print of Dover Castle hanging upon the wall.
Behind me I heard Stoker take a deep sniff and then down his glass in a gulp. Mrs. Giddons gave a little gasp of delight. “Oh, I do like to see a gentleman enjoy his spirits,” she said, her voice suddenly girlish. “Another glass, my lord?”
“I really shouldn’t,” Stoker replied, choking only a little.
“Nonsense! A gentleman of your inches can hold his liquor,” she told him. While she played the coquette, pouring out another full glass and explaining the fermenting process at length, I took the opportunity to tip my glass into the nearest aspidistra.
“Oh, my lady,” she said, suddenly glimpsing my empty goblet, “you must have another.”
I thrust the glass behind my back. “I am afraid I couldn’t possibly, Mrs. Giddons.”
She gave me a narrow look and her manner was suddenly aggrieved. “Well, I only meant to be friendly, I’m sure,” she said. “I will send Daisy to show you to your room.”
She swept out, taking her vile concoction with her, but not before she had stared at Stoker so pointedly he gulped down his second glass to mollify her.
“I think you have wounded her feelings,” he said.
“Better her feelings than my digestion,” I remarked. “You will regret drinking that.” At that moment, Daisy appeared and guided us up the stairs to the Chinese Room, taking her leave after Stoker pressed a coin into her palm.
The room was papered in pale green with furniture of light bamboo and an iron bedstead. A few prints of vaguely Eastern style and a single piece of cheap porcelain in the shape of a pagoda were the concessions to the name.
“This could not have been John de Morgan’s room,” I said quietly. “According to Sir Hugo, he was given a back room and it was papered in forget-me-nots with a green carpet. This must have been Caroline’s accommodation.”
“No doubt,” he said, ferreting in his bag for his victuals.
“Don’t you mean to investigate?” I demanded.
“Not yet,” he said, calmly tearing the leg fro
m a roasted capon. “There’s no point creeping about until we know the proprietress and that sad little maid have retired for the night.”
I fretted at the delay, but he was correct. He held out a capon leg and I took it, grateful for the sustenance. We stripped the bird completely and threw the bones out the window. There was a narrow yard with a few outbuildings—the washhouse and other more necessary conveniences, I realized. A low fence separated the yard from the neighbor’s, and I could see washing still pegged out on the line in spite of the late hour. The garments flapped, ghostlike, in the darkness, and I gave an involuntary shudder, turning back as Stoker peeled the apples, slicing the skin off in a single luscious red strip which likewise went out the window. We followed that with hard biscuits and a healthy nip of aguardiente, that potent South American liquor, from my flask.
While we ate, we waited, listening to the sounds of the household settling in for the night. They retired early, closing up shutters and bolting doors before ten o’clock.
“Provincial hours,” I observed. Stoker nodded, and we waited another hour before we dared to emerge from our room. We moved on stocking feet over the threadbare carpet until we reached the door of the back bedroom. I extracted a pin from my hair, but before I could apply it, Stoker reached out and turned the knob. It gave easily in his hand, and he looked back at me with a shrug. We slipped inside and closed the door behind us, breathing heavily.
The draperies were closed tightly, admitting no moonlight, and it took several minutes before our eyes adjusted enough that Stoker could extract his case of vestas and strike one. The flame leapt to life, a tiny thing in the pressing blackness of that room, but a welcome sight. He applied it to a lamp on the mantelpiece, and I hurried to lay a pillow across the threshold, blocking the glow from anyone who might venture upstairs.
Our preparations in hand, we surveyed the room. It was like any other accommodation in any other third-rate hotel: impersonal and immutable, waiting for its next inhabitant. A thousand travelers could come and go, but they would never leave an impression on this place. It was home to none.
A Treacherous Curse Page 18
