CHAPTER SIX #3
“Too much work, too little time, and too little money.
You were not wrong about my habits.
I sleep when I can and grab the odd bit of food when I think of it to keep myself going.
And there is always gin,” he added with the jaded air of a practiced debauchee.
I said nothing but went to my bag and retrieved the flask.
“Here.
Something I picked up on my travels.
I find it quite bracing.”
He took it from my hand and swallowed deeply, then spluttered so hard he nearly choked.
“Good God, what the devil is that?”
“South Americans have a specialty called cachaca, something like rum but made from sugarcane rather than molasses.”
“I am familiar,” he said with a rueful look.
“I lost the better part of a year to the stuff in Brazil.
But it was nothing like this.”
I deliberately overlooked the reference to his past.
If he had worked so diligently to conceal his true identity, it was not my place to unmask him.
At least not yet.
“When I was butterflying in Venezuela, my host was a gentleman with extensive sugarcane fields in Brazil.
He finds cachaca to be a trifle tame for his tastes, so he distils it twice.
This rather more potent aguardiente is the result.”
He took a second swallow, this one more modest, and wiped the neck of the flask upon his sleeve as carefully as a lord.
He blinked heavily.
“I think I have gone blind.
And I am quite certain I do not care.”
I capped the flask and replaced it in my bag.
He flipped up his eye patch, and to my astonishment, I saw that his eye was whole and unblemished as the other, aside from a narrow white scar crossing the lid.
I noticed also they were blue, not the striking bright blue of a Morpho but the very dark blue of
Limenitis arthemis astyanax, a Red-spotted Admiral I had hunted successfully in America.
Compared to the frivolous Morpho, the Admiral was a very serious sort of butterfly.
“You have sight in that eye,” I said, almost accusingly.
He nodded, pressing his knuckles into his eyes.
“As much as in the other, believe it or not.
But it fatigues easily, and when it does, my vision becomes blurred.
I see two of everything instead of one.
Then I’ve no option but the patch to rest it.”
“Thereby fatiguing the other,” I pointed out.
He replaced the patch and shook his head as if to clear it.
“No help for it if I am to get that bloody elephant finished.”
Just at that moment there came a scraping noise from the doorway.
“I’ve brought the evening papers, Mr. S.,” Badger said brightly.
“And your sweets.”
He handed over the newspapers and a twist of peppermint humbugs to Mr. Stoker, who fell on them greedily.
I turned to the boy.
“I am so glad you’ve come.
I have a bowl of soup that will go to waste if you don’t eat it up, and if I give more to the dog he will be terribly sick.
Would you mind?”
I ladled out the soup into Mr. Stoker’s basin and wiped off the spoon.
Badger washed neither his hands nor his face, applying himself directly to the food.
He slurped as happily as Huxley had, finishing the bowl in minutes as Mr. Stoker flicked through the newspaper.
Suddenly, he sat forward, every muscle in his body so still I knew something very bad indeed had happened.
“What is it?”
I demanded.
He did not speak.
He merely gripped the newspaper, his knuckles turning white.
I came to stand behind him, reading over his shoulder.
“No!”
I exclaimed, dismayed.
“It cannot be.”
The headline was sensational, but it was the details of the story that gripped my attention.
A German gentleman, identified as the Baron von Stauffenbach, had been found dead in his study.
The room had been ransacked and the police were treating the death as suspicious.
There were no clues as to the identity of the assailant.
It ended with a note that an inquest was to be held in two days’ time.
“It cannot be,” I repeated.
“It is,” Mr. Stoker said flatly.
“He must have been murdered just after he returned home.”
“Murdered!”
Badger looked up from his soup bowl.
“Who’s been killed, then?”
I glanced to Mr. Stoker, but he seemed unable to reply, his expression one of frozen horror.
As I watched, the newspaper trembled slightly in his hand.
Clearly he was in the grip of strong emotion, and in no fit state to react.
“A friend,” I told the boy.
“Perhaps you ought to go now, Badger.”
He licked the last of the soup from his bowl and rose obediently.
The action seemed to rouse Mr. Stoker, and he stood, flinging aside the newspaper.
“Not so fast, lad.
I have telegrams to send.”
Having thrown off his torpor, he moved like one possessed, his actions swift and desperate.
He tore a bit of paper from a scientific journal and scribbled in the margin.
“You will send twelve copies of this wire—one to each of these twelve offices.
Send them and wait for replies, do you hear?
Most of them will be in the negative.
You can throw those away.
But the one that is in the affirmative, that one I will have.”
He scrawled another missive and handed it over.
“This telegram only goes to Cornwall, to be delivered by the messenger directly into the hands of the addressee and no other,” he instructed.
He rummaged through a collection of tins and jars to cobble together a handful of coins.
“More when you come back.”
Badger pocketed the coins and ran to the door, saluting smartly.
“You can rely upon me, Mr. S.”
A heavy silence fell then, punctuated only by the crackling of the fire in the stove and Huxley’s damp snores.
I felt quite helpless in the face of Mr. Stoker’s rage, for he was clearly angry, his lips thin, his color high, his hands working themselves into fists and loose again as he strode the length of the workshop and back.
It was right that he should be angry, and grief and horror would have their parts to play as well.
But as I watched him, I realized something else assailed him, driving him to pace like a caged lion—fear.
At length, he abandoned his pacing for action, moving swiftly to a decrepit old Gladstone bag, which he began to pack.
He rummaged amidst the various trunks and shelves, extracting sundries that he threw into the bag, including the florilegium of Romantic poets and a stack of enormous scarlet handkerchiefs.
After a moment’s hesitation, he returned to one of the trunks.
He made a grimace of distaste as he plunged his hand into it, and I could not see what he withdrew, but he tucked the item into the pocket of his trousers and slammed the lid of the trunk closed with vehemence.
I went to him and put out my hand.
“Mr. Stoker, you have been very generous to extend your hospitality to me, but I am clearly intruding upon a time of quite personal grief.
I will take my leave of you now and thank you.”
He whirled on me, his anger as palpable as a lash.
“Leave?
Oh, I think not, my girl.
You and I are bound together, at least until this is finished.”
Appalled but sympathetic to his strong emotion, I strove for patience.
“Mr. Stoker, I understand you are naturally distressed at the death of your dear friend, and I extend my deepest sympathies to you.
I am clearly in the way and have no business here.
I must leave you.”
“You do not understand, do you?”
His voice was frankly incredulous.
“You
are my business now.”
“I?
That is impossible.”
He threw a rusty black suit into the moldering bag and strapped it shut.
“Think again, Miss Speedwell.”
“Mr. Stoker, again, I am sorry for your loss, but I must insist—”
He reached out and clasped my wrist.
He was demanding, not coaxing, and I could feel the weight of his emotion to my bones.
“My dearest friend and mentor is dead, and as nearly as I can comprehend, you are the reason.
Until I discover why, you do not stir an inch from my sight.”
“Be reasonable, Mr. Stoker!
How can I possibly be the cause of that poor man’s death?
I was with you from the time he left me here until he was killed.
You must see that.”
“The only thing I see is that he brought you here, convinced you were in mortal danger, and that was the last thing he ever did.”
“I will not go with you,” I said, pulling my wrist free and folding my arms over my chest.
“I think you will.
Max told me to guard you—with my life if need be—and I do not intend to let him down.
Now, whoever murdered him has almost twelve hours’ advantage on us.
We must leave as soon as Badger returns with replies to my telegrams.
I am arranging for us to depart London and meet up with friends of mine who will provide us with a sort of refuge until the inquest is concluded and we have answers.
At this moment, I am not certain if you are a victim or a villainess, but believe me, I will discover which.”
“In that case, why not simply go to the authorities—” I began.
“No!
That is not a possibility,” he thundered, his features suffused with rage.
I adopted a patient tone of the sort nurses use with very small boys or deranged men.
“I understand your distress, Mr. Stoker—”
“I do not think you do,” he cut in swiftly.
“But you will.
Now, sit down and be quiet until Badger returns.”
He pushed me towards the sofa and I sat heavily.
“Mr. Stoker—” I began, rising to my feet.
He loomed over me as I pressed back against the sofa, bracing his arms on either side of my shoulders.
“If you think I will not bind you hand and foot like a pig on a spit, I beg you—I
beg you—to try me.”
I subsided into silence, my bag on the floor at my feet, butterfly net resting atop.
He resumed his pacing, and I sat with my hands folded, counting his steps.
Clearly there was no arguing with him, seized as he was by his sentiments, and I decided to wait for a more propitious time.
You did long for a fresh adventure,
I reminded myself.
And perhaps this was the beginning of one, I supposed, for I did not believe myself to be in any material danger from Mr. Stoker, no matter how filthy his temper.
I relied upon my instincts, excellent as they were and sharply honed by years of travel among uncertain folk.
Not everyone was content to let explorers traipse about their property in the pursuit of butterflies, and my excursions had brought me among some quite uncivil characters.
A certain bandit chief in Corsica came to mind.
But I had eluded his attempts either to murder me or make me his wife, and we had parted on excellent terms.
In fact, he had even been gracious enough to give me a series of lessons on how to defend myself with some skill.
I was entirely convinced I could enjoy similar success with Mr. Stoker.
Besides, he clearly had very little experience in menacing women.
He had not even thought to confiscate my hatpin.
So I resolved myself to be cooperative, and for several minutes Mr. Stoker busied himself about the workshop, rummaging through various boxes and tins to scrape together the remaining coins that comprised his modest treasury.
He ruffled the pages of several books and a few banknotes of very small denominations fluttered free.
He pocketed the money, then doused the lamps and the fire in the stove, leaving only one slender candle to banish the gloom.
He slipped a knife into a leather sheath depending from a lanyard that he looped about his neck, buttoning it securely under his shirt.
I might have raised an objection, but again came that instinctive certainty that no matter how angry, no matter how enraged he became, his fury—even armed—would never be directed in any meaningful way at me.
I resumed counting as he walked.
I had just reached six hundred and eighty-two when Badger returned, brandishing a pair of telegrams.
“I have them, Mr. S.!”
Badger thrust the papers into Mr. Stoker’s hand, and he read them over swiftly.
“Good lad.”
He handed over another palmful of coins.
“There’s a good fellow.
I know I can rely upon you.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. S.!
And I will take care of Huxley, never fear.”
The boy coaxed the bulldog out from under the sofa and tied a bit of string to his collar for a lead.
Mr. Stoker took up a slouchy, low-crowned hat, which he jammed upon his head before hefting his bag.
He turned and gestured sharply to me.
“Come on, then.”
I made a point of pausing to scratch the dog behind the ears before we left.
It was better for Mr. Stoker to comprehend fully that I was no one’s captive but my own.