In the atrium the ferns waved a gentle hello in the air she stirred up as she strode into the glass room. Everything was silent. Today there were no bees droning against the glass. Adele liked to invite lost bees into the atrium where she offered them sanctuary in return for visits to her plants. Where she found willing bees in the dead of winter was one of the many mysteries that shrouded the fairy.
“Adele?” Elle said.
There was no answer. She started peering through the plants, lifting fronds out of the way. At the back of the atrium was a pretty wooden fairycote they had bought for Adele shortly after they moved to the house. It was a miniature dollhouse, complete with wooden doors and shutters. Each room was decorated with exquisitely crafted miniature furniture. The outside of the dollhouse house was decorated with intricate fairy patterns. Marsh and Adele had spent hours copying these from a book he had found in his study. Adele was indeed one of the few absinthe fairies in this world who had her very own mansion house.
She peered in through the doors and windows, but all the rooms of the dollhouse were empty.
“We haven’t seen the fairy either. She has disappeared too,” Neville said. The whole household—the professor, Mrs. Hinges and Caruthers—were all with Neville in the breakfast room behind her.
“Shall I send someone to draw you a bath, ma’am? You must be cold and tired from your journey,” Caruthers asked.
Elle shook herself out of her reverie and blinked at the concerned faces who were watching her closely.
“Yes, of course. I’ll be along in a moment,” she said flatly.
She could not afford to go to pieces right now. She owed them all at least that, so she allowed herself to be herded off to her rooms, like some fragile creature in need of care.
In the privacy of the bathroom, Elle sank into the warm bathwater. She turned the bar of rose-scented soap over and over in her hands and watched as it turned the water cloudy around her, in much the same way absinthe taints water with its touch.
They had been so harsh with their words to one another the last time they had spoken. Where was he? Had he gone back to the Council? And if he had gone back to the Council, where did that leave her?
“Oh, where is he?” She asked the voices, but for once they were utterly silent.
She sat in the bath until the water cooled, until Mrs. Hinges tactfully tapped on the bathroom door to inquire whether she needed anything.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Elle called. She rose from the water, shivering and started toweling herself dry.
Mrs. Hinges was waiting for her when she stepped out of the bathroom. “Elle, my dear, why don’t you sit down?”
Elle sat on the stool in front of the mirror in her dressing room. She felt cold and numb and in no mood to take on the formidable likes of Mrs. Hinges.
“I know it might not be my place to interfere, but I have noticed that things haven’t exactly been perfect between you and his Lordship.” Mrs. Hinges picked up one of her hairbrushes and started brushing Elle’s long auburn hair, like she had done when Elle was a little girl. “I’m only mentioning it because I care about you both as if you were my own children,” she said.
If it had been anyone else who said these words, Elle would have been outraged at the impropriety of the comment, but Mrs. Hinges was the closest thing to a mother she had and her concern touched Elle deeply.
“I know, Mrs. Hinges, and now he’s not here. What if he’s left me?” Elle felt her throat constrict at the thought.
“Now, don’t go finding thoughts which have no right to be in your head. He has only been gone a little while. Men sometimes need a little bit of space. And there may be a very good reason for all this.”
“And what if I’ve given him too much space?” Elle said. “Oh goodness, I’ve been such a horrible wife.”
“Oh, his Lordship does not strike me as the kind of man who would abandon his duty,” Mrs. Hinges said.
Duty. There was the word—all ugly and constrictive.
Elle rested her hand against her forehead, suddenly deeply tired.
Mrs. Hinges put her hands round Elle’s shoulders. “I think you should get into bed and get some rest. I will bring you some dinner in a little while. Neville has said that he will go out again this evening to look for him. If anyone knows all of Lord Greychester’s haunts, it is Neville. Who knows, things might look better in the morning.”
For once in her life all the fight and anger went out of Elle and she allowed herself to be tucked into bed like a child. The cup of warm milk Mrs. Hinges fed her later was laced with nutmeg and something bitter she could not quite put her finger on. But eventually, the warmth lulled her into an exhausted sleep.
The morning brought no relief. Elle glanced back from the window when the maid brought in her morning coffee.
She had been sitting on the windowsill in her nightdress for hours, just watching the street outside.
She poured herself a cup and continued her vigil at the window. Outside the relentless drizzle sifted down, turning everything outside into a state of mushy dampness. In fact, the morning was so gray that it was hard to tell where the low clouds ended and the fog mist that rose from the ground began. So much for an early spring, she mused.
Sighing, she left the window seat and wondered across to Marsh’s wood-paneled dressing closet. This was her husband’s inner sanctum, a place she almost never entered and never on her own. The dressing room was immaculately clean and tidy, for Neville was a good valet and he kept Marsh’s things in excellent order.
Elle ran a hand over a cuff-link box. And the row of neat brushes Neville used on his coats.
Then, quite on impulse, Elle opened Hugh’s clothespress. Inside, his jackets, coats and trousers hung in neat rows. She wrapped her arms around the clothes and buried her face in the cloth in order to inhale the scent of sandalwood and him.
The familiarity of the fabric against her skin brought both anguish and comfort in equal measures, before something rustled against her cheek.
Elle looked up from the clothes with a little frown. There was something in the pocket of one of the coats she had just gathered up. She started feeling about until her fingers closed around a folded piece of paper. She drew it out and took it over to the window where she opened it. The paper was crumpled and had disintegrated in one of the corners as if it had had somehow become wet. But the neat copperplate writing was easy to read. It was a letter from the Office of Police Commissioner Willoughby inviting Marsh to meet him at his club. It said nothing about why, but gave the date as the day before he disappeared.
Elle’s forehead crinkled with worry. What had Marsh been up to while she had been away?
He had sworn to her that he wanted nothing more to do with the Shadow politics, but here he was being summoned to meet with the police commissioner. Unwelcome thoughts of their argument sprang to mind again. Had he really been bored and frustrated enough to start working again without telling her?
Elle stared at the letter in her hand. She hated to admit it, but she was going to need some help in order to sort this mess out. And while she generally hated asking anyone for help, she knew just the right person for the task. Someone who would be on her side and who would be able to talk some sense into Marsh.
Still holding the letter Elle she strode over to her bureau and pulled out a telegraphic message transfer form. Quickly she scribbled a note, pausing only to make sure that the message conveyed the urgency but gave away no information to prying eyes.
She put the folded from into an envelope and rang the bell pull. When Edie appeared, she thrust the note into the startled girl’s hand. “Take this to Caruthers. Tell him to go to the post office immediately to transmit the message. It is urgent.”
“Yes, my lady,” Edie bobbed a curtsey and headed for the door, looking somewhat alarmed.
Elle looked at herself in the mirror and let out a startled laugh. Dressed in her nightdress with her hair escaping wildly from her braid, she di
d look rather like a female version of her father when he was in one of his intellectual frenzies. But none of that mattered right now. She finished her coffee in one gulp and set the cup down with determination. Whether good or bad, she was going to find her husband and get to the bottom of things.
But first, she needed to get dressed.
CHAPTER 12
“Here is fine, Neville. I shan’t be too long,” Elle said as they pulled up outside the red-brick buildings of New Scotland Yard.
“I will find somewhere to wait for you, my lady,” Neville said as he hopped out of the driver seat to open the door for her.
The police station was crammed with people of all shapes and sizes thronging just inside the main entrance.
The distinct miasma of unwashed bodies saturated with gin hit Elle square in the nose as she collided with a gaggle of women who were shouting at the hapless police officer was who was trying to round them up.
Elle sidestepped the women and walked straight into a wall of muscle that belonged to a very determined-looking man. He growled at her and stepped on the hem of her dress. Elle heard a most worrying sound of ripping fabric as he pushed past her, shoving her to one side. Elle was suddenly most grateful that she had decided not to wear one of her wide-brimmed hats this morning. Defiantly, she shoved the man aside and wrestled her way into the thronging queue of people waiting to be served at the counter.
Behind the counter a harassed constable was doing his best to help those in the queue. Judging by the redness of his nose, which at that moment he was wiping with a grubby handkerchief, the poor man looked like he needed to be in bed with a basin of soup and a hot water bottle rather than here, fighting the surging tide of humanity before him.
“Next!” he shouted hoarsely.
Elle fought her way forward and righted herself against the wooden edge of the counter. “Viscountess Greychester. I would like to see the police commissioner please,” she said in a low voice.
The clerk’s eyebrows shot up as he took proper notice of her. She was dressed in a fine charcoal wool skirt and jacket, which she had paired up with a velvet-trimmed coat and lady’s bowler hat. She lifted the little black net veil attached to the hat that covered the top half of her face. “It’s extremely urgent, sir,” she said.
“Um. Perhaps you should come this way, my lady,” he stuttered as he opened the fly door to the side of the counter. A few of the people in the queue voiced their objection to the constable abandoning his post but the man ignored them steadfastly.
“Make way, please,” he croaked as he ushered Elle into a waiting room that was situated down one of the little corridors that led off from the main entrance. “Would your ladyship please wait here while I go find someone to assist?” he said. “I will send someone along to collect your ladyship in a moment.”
“Thank you,” Elle said.
“We are extraordinarily busy this morning, so please excuse the delay,” he said apologetically before he scooted off, closing the door behind him.
The waiting room consisted of two wooden chairs and a table. Grateful for the respite from the crowd, Elle breathed in the institutional smell of carbolic and floor wax, willing herself to remain composed.
Minutes ticked by and no one came to collect her, so she waited.
And waited …
… and waited.
As Elle was not a woman blessed with unending reserves of patience, after what seemed like a respectable amount of time, she opened the door and peered out.
Outside the door, chaos continued unabated. In fact, it looked like the crowd of complainants had grown thicker.
The cold-ridden constable was back behind the counter, trying desperately to direct people to various areas, but without much effect. Some of the people were waving portraits and photographs in the air. Others were shouting at the top of their lungs, demanding action.
And to add to the general mayhem, a gaslight troll was actively resisting arrest for fighting in the street. Not known for their intelligence, trolls could be relied on for brute strength and the ability to perform repetitive tasks without growing bored, no matter the weather. Because they were tall and had long arms and knobbly elbows, trolls were especially gifted at lighting lamps . The only problem with them was the fact that they had very short tempers and were extraordinarily strong. And from the look of the three officers it took to subdue the current troll in question, the charges were not unwarranted. The creature was braying at the top of his lungs and thrashing wildly as he was shackled and led away.
Elle frowned. She was not in the habit of waiting at police stations, but even she could see that something very strange was going on here. The question, though, was what.
She sat down on one of the chairs and glanced at her little silver pocket watch. She had been waiting for nearly two hours and midday was approaching. As if in answer, her stomach growled in protest. If the police commissioner were anything like most gentlemen she knew, he would be departing for lunch soon. And if lunch was followed by cigars and brandies, there was no way of knowing when he would be back, if at all.
Elle stowed her watch and straightened her jacket. It was time to take action. She was not going to allow herself to be treated like a problem that might go away if ignored for long enough. It was time to take matters into her own hands.
Carefully, she opened the door and slipped out of the little room into what looked like a long corridor. To the left was a flight of stairs that led to the upper floors. And if she knew anything about official buildings, the commissioner’s offices would be upstairs and as far away from the hubbub as possible.
She lowered her head and strode purposefully along. One or two people stepped out of the way for her, but no one stopped to question her presence. It was a trick Patrice had taught her. Walk with purpose and look like you know where you are going and people will assume you belong somewhere.
You must forget about Patrice, the voices interrupted her. To him, you were nothing but a means to an end. You should never have trusted him in the first place.
“Oh, do be quiet,” Elle hissed at them as she walked along. “You are never there when I need you and when I don’t, you interfere. Your constant whispering is enough to drive anyone round the hat shop. I have no privacy. No room to think. Even when I’m with my husband, I feel like you are peering over my shoulder. I wish I could banish you away forever.”
If you ask us, we will go … we had wanted to wait to tell you this, but the power to command us lies within you.
She suddenly felt the strangest surge of anger-fuelled energy rise up within her. She was sick and tired these voices intruding on even her most private of thoughts. They were always there, watching and whispering; judging her every thought and action. In fact, she had not known one moment of solitude since they appeared almost half a year ago. She had even heard them whispering on her wedding night. And Elle was tired and overwrought with worry. “Fine! Then please go away and leave me in peace. I am better off without you,” she said.
The voices did not answer.
The large bubble of frustration and resentment that had been building up in her chest for the longest time finally burst. Before she could stop herself a stream of words formed in her head. “Voices of the Oracle. You are hereby and forever more banished from my presence. Turn your eyes away from me and do not trouble me ever again,” It was the strangest sensation, because it was as if she was speaking to them inside her own head.
Two officers looked at Elle as she had stopped in the middle of the hallway and when she found herself again, she realized that she was staring into space as if she were simple. She ignored their puzzled glances and walked on.
You have ordered us and so we must be away. Are you sure? For when we are commanded to go, we may not return.
“Yes, I am sure. I am sick and tired of you haunting me. I want you to leave me alone!”
But you need us …
“No I do not. All I want is for you to leave my head
. Immediately. Enough is enough.”
If that is your wish, we will obey. Farewell, our dearest one. You are forever in our hearts …
Elle didn’t answer the voices as they faded from her. Annoying useless things. They were always too melodramatic anyway. But fear not, they would be back soon enough. The interfering busybodies would not be able to resist for long.
Elle shook herself out of her reverie. Right now she needed to concentrate on where she was going, because the inside of New Scotland Yard was a maze of corridors and offices and there was no more time to waste. After a few false turns she eventually found a door with a brass plaque that read COMMISSIONER on it.
She was wearing a pair of black kid leather winter gloves and she rapped on the door sharply with her knuckles.
“Come!” a voice said from within.
Oh good. He was in, she thought with small measure of relief and opened the door.
Police Commissioner Willoughby was a man with highly impressive whiskers. They sat on the side of his head like a pair of stately caterpillars, all combed and trimmed in their lush and silver glory. He looked slightly surprised as she entered, but good manners won out and he rose from behind his desk.
“Madam,” he said.
Without giving him a chance to inquire, Elle held out her hand to greet him. “Lady Greychester. How do you do, sir,” she said.
“How do you do, my lady. Please do sit down. And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he said smoothly.
The hair in the back of her neck rose as she noticed his gaze narrow ever so slightly when she sat. She would have to play her part carefully if she was going to get anything out of this man, she realized.
“It’s my husband. The viscount,” Elle said.
Willoughby shifted in his chair. He looked like the kind of man who was not entirely at ease when it came to dealing with women. Perhaps that was the way to approach him.
Elle fished out a small lace handkerchief from her reticule. “You see, he’s been missing for almost two days now. And I really don’t know who to turn to,” she said, keeping the pitch of her voice slightly higher than normal.
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