Chapter 5
Chapter
J. J. availed herself of the basin twice more before lapsing at last into a sleep so deep I was forced to hold a mirror to her lips to determine whether she was breathing.
She was flat upon her back, a small Galápagos tortoise resting on the pillow beside her.
I had roused myself just before dawn, as is my custom, and made a quick toilette, dressing in a warm gown of violet twill.
The bodice and hem were heavily embellished with black silk passementerie.
I had conspired with my dressmaker to create a costume that would serve for working purposes at the Belvedere as well as more conventional activities.
The cuffs had been stiffened for holding minuten, the tiny headless pins used by lepidopterists to fix butterflies and moths to cards for display.
And deep pockets, useful for killing jars and magnifying glasses, had been inserted cleverly into the side seams. But the bustle at the back was fashionably tiny, and the skirt was elegantly draped to hide the pockets as well as flatter the figure.
I could tend my butterflies in their vivarium as easily as I could pour tea for a vicar.
Stoker was already at work behind his curtains when I arrived at the Belvedere, singing a song I suspect he learnt in Her Majesty’s Navy, if the subject matter were anything to judge by.
I fortified myself with several pieces of hot buttered toast and a pot of tea as I sorted the first post. I had just finished when J.
J. appeared, walking slowly with a hand raised above her eyes as if to keep the light at bay.
“Veronica, I have questions,” she said in a thick, rasping voice.
I did not look up from the letter I had just opened—a request for an essay to be published in the Antipodean Journal of Lepidoptery. “You were thoroughly inebriated, so I permitted you to stay with me.”
“I remember a turtle,” she managed.
“That was a Galápagos tortoise,” I corrected. “Chelonoidis niger. Lord Rosemorran purchased him as a potential mate for Patricia, but he is a juvenile—far too diminutive for the task expected of him. Patricia has been known to wear him for a hat.”
J. J. edged her way gingerly onto the camel saddle we keep as seating for guests. “I did not think it was possible for a head to ache so badly. I believe I am quite literally dying. If I had anything to leave you, I should make a will and name you executrix.”
I put my post aside with a sigh and poured her a strong cup of tea, heavily sweetened.
“Drink,” I ordered. I retrieved a set of tinted spectacles from the box of oddments Stoker and I kept—various bits of costumery that we used upon occasion to disguise ourselves whilst engaged in surveillance activities.
J. J. took them gratefully to shield her eyes from the light.
I shoved a piece of dry toast at her and returned to my letters.
She had shuddered at the sight of the bread, but I heard crunching a moment later.
When she finished the tea and toast, I replenished both. After the third round, she looked a little less afflicted but still fragile, the perfect state for achieving my aims.
“J. J., you remember that you are no longer employed at the Harbinger?” I asked pleasantly.
Her brows snapped together. “I do. I further remember that I shall in very short order no longer have a home either.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “I shall speak to Lord Rosemorran about letting you stay—temporarily, mind—in one of the follies. The Bavarian cottage is presently vacant. And you would be neighbours with Spyridon!”
“Who, pray tell, is Spyridon? Another tortoise?”
“How you jape! No, Spyridon is currently in residence in the miniature Scottish castle on the far side of the pond. He is a Greek philosopher and possibly an assassin—I must admit my command of modern Greek is not as thorough as I would like, and one does get a little muddled in conversation with him. Does your head still ache?” I asked as J. J. put her fingers to her temples.
“Not as much as it spins. You mean to arrange lodgings for me next door to an assassin?”
“A possible assassin. But he was most helpful in our last investigative endeavour,”[*] I explained. “Stoker has known him for many years and vouches for his character. He is a little rough around the edges, but nothing you have not seen before.”
J. J. shrugged—or winced, it was difficult to tell the difference in her current state. I went on. “I shall settle the matter with his lordship this morning. You can retrieve your things from your landlady and be comfortably ensconced by teatime.”
“Provided the old witch hasn’t already sold them in the secondhand market,” J. J. said darkly.
“If she has, I am certain his lordship could be persuaded to offer a commission or two,” I told her, waving a vague hand to indicate the whole of the Belvedere and its eclectic contents.
“Stoker and I have been compiling reports on which collections are complete and what pieces are required to round out others. A precís of these reports could be helpful for his lordship’s next trip abroad. ”
J. J.’s expression was one of fervent gratitude, and her thanks would have been effusive, I think, had a nasty little suspicion not wormed its way into her mind.
“Veronica, that is truly so kind—wait.” She whipped off the tinted spectacles and glowered at me—at least I think she meant to glower.
In her depleted state, the most she could manage was a curl of the lip and a small burp.
“It isn’t kindness at all. You want something.
It is to do with Mornaday and his bloody case. What was it again? Vampires?”
“That is unconfirmed,” I told her coolly. “It is a case remarkable in its opacity, but there are one or two promising lines of inquiry.”
“I remember now. The suicide which was not a suicide and the body which was drained of its blood. You are right—it is a ludicrous case. I do not know what you think I can do about it.”
“You were eager enough last night,” I prompted. “You made copious scribbles in that filthy little notebook of yours.”
She groped in her pocket until she found the object in question. She flicked through the pages, squinting at her pencilled scrawl. “I cannot read this.”
I gave her a brief review of the facts as we knew them, and she nodded her head, wincing again as she waved at me. “I seem to recall the Daily Harbinger has an extensive archive,” I finished.
“And you want me to ferret about for some information about the victims,” she deduced.
“Precisely. Gentlemen of that class would not be mentioned in the good newspapers beyond their births, deaths, marriages, and official appointments. We want gossip, some thread we may pluck to learn more about them.”
“I am not finding you a plucking thread,” she said flatly.
“What changed?” I demanded. “You were keen as mustard last night.”
“Last night I was under the influence of imported liquors, which I can only assume are illegal in respectable countries,” she returned. She resumed her tinted spectacles and dropped her head onto my desk.
I did not care for this reply—I did not care for it at all. An indignant J. J., an incandescently enraged J. J., a J. J. ready to fight for her ideals was a happy J. J. This pathetic wretch before me was a shadow of the woman I had known.
“This will not do,” I said sharply. I took up a little silver hammer—once used to strike popes upon the forehead to ensure they were truly dead—and rapped it hard upon the desk. She jolted up, clapping her hands to her head with a moan.
“Veronica, what the bloody—” The rest of that sentence was not worth listening to, and so I did not. I held up a hand.
“Do be quiet, J. J., and stop caterwauling like an offended moose. I have offered you a place to live and a potential story—an excellent tale with great public appeal. In addition to this, you have the opportunity to thwart wealthy men who have conspired to circumvent justice, which—if my memory serves, and it always does—is one of your favourite pastimes. Now, you may feel deflated and dispirited. That is common after a setback of the sort you suffered yesterday. But we are not common, J. J.,” I reminded her.
“We are better than that. We rise above, and we do what we must because carrying on is what we were meant for. And do not pretend that you haven’t the heart for it.
I have seen you, too many times, launch yourself into a precarious situation like an avenging Fury, heedless of the cost. You will do it again.
And again. And again. As many times as you must because that is who you are. ”
She sat, stubbornly unresponsive, and I went on.
“Besides, I do not think you have much choice. There are the practicalities to be considered. You are without employment and shortly to be without lodgings. And you have never struck me as the sort of person to save a bit by for a rainy day, so I suppose your supply of funds is meagre at best. It is either this case or the workhouse, and I do not think you would flatter a pauper’s smock. ”
Of course it would never come to that. J.
J. and I both knew I would shelter and feed her rather than ever let her enter such an institution.
Still, I thought it worth reminding her of the precarity of her situation if only to rouse her mettle.
She muttered something wholly rude in my general direction, but I knew it was only the despair talking.
“When you have finished abusing me, you ought to apply yourself to this,” I said, handing over the envelope received by Jameson Harkness on the morning of his death.
“We have identified the first specimen as wolfsbane, but the second will be much harder. The books here are shelved by subject,” I said, pointing to the gallery circling overhead.
“Botany is the section on the north side of the building with all the clocks. After that, the Harbinger archive, I think.”