Chapter 9
Chapter
“My god, Veronica, is that really necessary?” Stoker demanded.
To my surprise, Brisbane merely smiled. “If it is truly a question of murder, best to know up front.”
“You seem decidedly unimpressed by the notion,” I told him.
“My husband and I have made something of a habit of murder—the investigation of it, I should add, not the committing,” Lady Julia corrected hastily.
I stared at her in astonishment. “I have said the same thing, precisely the same thing, about Stoker and myself.”
Lady Julia grinned. “I think we shall get on famously. Did I hear mention of tea?”
I hastily encouraged the butterflies to move along.
Only the one on Brisbane’s nose seemed reluctant to abandon its perch, but I coaxed it with a bit of fennel—emerald swallowtails are exceedingly fond of fennel—and it settled down happily to feed.
Once the butterflies were cleared, I led the way to the Belvedere.
The Brisbanes regarded the place with visible curiosity, and several minutes were spent explaining the work we had undertaken as well as the plans for the museum Lord Rosemorran intended to establish in due course.
Lady Julia seemed particularly taken with the caryatids and a suit of Japanese armour, drawing herself only reluctantly, I thought, back to our discussion.
“But that is not why you’ve come,” Stoker said, bringing the conversation to a close.
A footman had arrived with the tea things in a large hamper and departed again.
I busied myself in setting out the food whilst our guests made themselves at home.
Lady Julia took the camel saddle, and her husband arranged himself atop a plaster replica of the Venetian lion of Saint Mark.
The wings were broken off, affording him a more comfortable seat than he might otherwise have had.
“Yes, we hear from Tiberius you have a murder on your hands,” Lady Julia said in some excitement. “Tell us everything.”
I poured the tea and handed around the plates while Stoker began the narrative.
With a few judicious additional comments from me, the story was soon told.
He described Jameson Harkness’s sudden suicide as well as the discovery of Maurice Quincey’s body outside Highgate—and the unusual markings found upon it.
He also shared our experience calling upon Seward Johnson and our conviction that the fellow knew more than he was telling.
“We have no idea of where to find this Ruthven character or how to locate the Romany child,” Stoker finished.
“Ruthven,” Lady Julia said, furrowing her pretty brow as she looked at her husband. “I know several Ruthvens.”
“Are any of them vampires?” I asked.
Stoker choked on his tea, and Brisbane tipped his head thoughtfully. “Vampires?”
“Maurice Quincey was found with puncture marks in his neck,” I reminded him. “Furthermore, I have discovered a literary link between the name ‘Ruthven’ and vampires.”
“Veronica, we are not basing an investigation on the libretto of a bloody—” He darted a hasty look at Lady Julia and flushed to the roots of his hair. He muttered an apology, but I noticed Lady Julia’s swift grin.
“You mustn’t mind Stoker,” I told her. “He spent considerable time in both a travelling show and Her Majesty’s Navy, and I am not certain which is responsible for his deplorable vocabulary.”
“Most likely it was his brothers,” she assured me.
“I have five of my own, so I know whereof I speak.” She turned to Stoker.
“Carry on, please. And do not worry about my delicate sensibilities. I am no longer the hothouse flower of my youth. I have been hardened by my experiences into Amazonian strength, I can assure you.”
Stoker shied like a pony and looked to Brisbane, who merely shrugged and crossed one long leg elegantly over the other.
“God knows I have tried to protect her from herself, but in the interests of preserving my own sanity, I have given up trying. She has lately taken to experimenting with explosives. She blew up our house a few months ago.”
Lady Julia puffed out a sound of indignation. “How you exaggerate! I blew up one room, and it was not even a very large one. As you were saying, Stoker?”
Stoker looked bemused but made a manful effort to carry on. “I was saying that we cannot build a case for vampirism based upon the lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan.”
“Ruddigore!” Lady Julia exclaimed delightedly.
“Oh, how I enjoyed that show. Brisbane loathes operetta, but I do love it, and Ruddigore is a particular favourite of mine. And in that show, Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd is indeed the vampire. In fact, there is a whole line of vampiric Murgatroyds. How clever you are, Miss Speedwell.”
“It is not just Gilbert and Sullivan,” I said, producing the notes I had compiled earlier.
“In 1816, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and Lord Byron took a villa at Lake Geneva. The weather, I have discovered, was foul—1816 was known as the ‘Year Without a Summer’ after a series of volcanic eruptions in 1815, notably Mount Tambora, altered the climate patterns, resulting in extensive rainfall and much colder temperatures than was the norm. To pass the time that Byron and Shelley and their guests were forced to spend indoors, they embarked upon a competition to write ghost stories. We all know, of course, Mary Shelley’s contribution. ”
“Frankenstein,” Brisbane put in.
“Exactly so. Now, at the same time, Byron scribbled a bit of a vampire story that was eventually published as a fragment. But a fourth member of their party, Byron’s physician, John Polidori, published a full novel, also a vampire story.
And his vampire, modelled on Byron himself, was called Lord Ruthven, a name borrowed from Lady Caroline Lamb’s own skewering of Byron in her novel Glenarvon.
” I produced another page from the file.
“After Polidori’s vampire story, the name ‘Ruthven’ runs through European literature for the rest of this century—always associated with a vampire.
France, Sweden, Germany, all of them have vampire tales featuring a Lord Ruthven as a character.
He has been the focus of multiple operas and plays, even Alexandre Dumas wrote of him! ”
“What are you suggesting, Miss Speedwell?” Brisbane asked.
“I do not yet know. A natural scientist’s method is to gather information before forming a hypothesis,” I told him.
“Very wise,” he replied.
“And thoroughly misleading,” Stoker put in. “Veronica, you will see ‘a’ and ‘b’ and hypothesise an alphabet.”
“ ‘A’ and ‘b’ are the foundational material of the alphabet,” I retorted. “You have simply proven the validity of my method.”
“I have proven that you sometimes strike it lucky. Like those prospectors in the Yukon who put a pan into a river and come up with gold. Most often, they have only mud to show for their efforts.”
“Mud! When I have just comprehensively demonstrated to you—”
“Comprehensively! You have demonstrated nothing but your own not inconsiderable stubbornness—”
Our ripostes had overlapped, perhaps a trifle more animatedly than we had realised, and I suddenly noticed the Brisbanes watching us with open-mouthed interest.
“I do apologise,” I told them.
“I am terribly sorry,” Stoker began.
To my surprise, Lady Julia looked at her husband, who was smiling broadly, and at the sight of his face, she laughed.
“I know precisely what you are thinking, my love.” She turned her attention back to us.
“You sound exactly like us when we are in the throes of an investigation. There is nothing like murder to heighten the passions.”
Her complexion pinkened delectably, and I realised then that the Brisbanes had much the sort of relationship that Stoker and I enjoyed, a partnership of equals based upon mutual understanding and affection, with a healthy dose of intellectual curiosity and physical attraction added to the mix. A heady brew indeed.
I cleared my throat. “To my point, I am not necessarily saying this Ruthven character is a vampire. Only that—”
“Balderdash! You wagered only today that a vampire must have been involved—” Stoker countered.
But the door opened then and the dogs rushed in, all seven of them.
They were in a state of excitement, tails upraised, barking and howling and romping rampageously.
For some inexplicable reason, they made a beeline for Lady Julia, upsetting the tea things to get at her.
As one, they leapt up, noses twitching as they made directly for her décolletage.
I was certain that they meant her no harm, but the mere sight of them as a pack in full cry was enough to stir Brisbane to action in aid of his spouse.
It took several minutes to extract the lady from their hairy attentions, but at last Stoker was able to lure them away with cake.
I helped Brisbane to settle Lady Julia on her camel saddle once more, brushing the worst of the dirt and dog hair from her gown.
“I am terribly sorry,” I told her. “I cannot think why they were so fixed upon you, Lady Julia.”
“I can,” she said, her voice burbling with laughter.
She reached into the neckline of her gown and drew out a bundled handkerchief.
She opened it carefully to reveal a pair of bright, bead-like eyes staring back at me.
Its mouth was open, its teeth small and sharp as needles, prominently on display as it chittered a scolding in my direction.
“This is Snug,” she informed me with the same cordial ease she might have made any introduction.
“A dormouse! How very unexpected,” I said. Impulsively, I pulled a tiny grey velvet mouse from my own pocket.
“This is Chester. Not so animated or adorable as your little fellow, but he has great sentimental attachment for me.” Chester was my constant companion and had been since my father slipped him into my cradle shortly after my birth.
The fact that my father had failed to recognise my existence afterwards did not allay my pleasure in the gift.
It was to be supposed that being the Prince of Wales did take up much of his time, even if he were inclined to acknowledge his semi-legitimate daughter.
But I revealed none of that to Lady Julia. Her eyes shone as she regarded my little treasure. “How very enchanting! And what exquisite stitching on the nose.”
“He was very nearly lost at sea once,” I told her.
“Stoker restitched him. He has exceptional skills with a needle.” I turned to her dormouse, putting a fingertip to its head.
It was inexpressibly soft. The gesture seemed to agitate the tiny creature more, for it turned and applied those needlelike teeth to my appendage.
“Snug, that is very rude,” Lady Julia scolded. “It is my turn to apologise for my pet. He is an incorrigible little beast, but I dare not leave him at home. My raven might eat him.”
“You keep a raven?” I asked in delight.
“That is as nothing to a March,” Stoker told me darkly. “Her sister Portia wore a snake as a bracelet to dance classes.”
Lady Julia grinned as she replaced the dormouse into her décolletage.
“You were an utterly abysmal dancer, Stoker. Two left feet wading through treacle.” She leaned closer to me.
“It did not stop me from forming the most tremendous attachment to him. I used to doodle the words ‘Lady Julia Templeton-Vane’ in my notebook.”
“Did you indeed?” Brisbane’s black eyes gleamed dangerously, and I thought then that the lazily sophisticated posture he adopted was perhaps more of a mask than I had understood.
“I was eleven. The following month I had a passion for our new footman,” Lady Julia assured him. “But my heart truly belonged to no one until I met you, beloved.”
Her smile was pert, but the one he returned was so full of adoration, I felt a tug at my heartstrings. “You were saying about your raven?” I prompted.
“Grim, he is called. He was a Tower raven, but one of my brothers won him in a wager, and we could not return him without causing a terrible dustup, so it was decided we should just quietly keep the fellow.”
“But surely the Tower knows how many ravens they have,” Stoker protested. “Didn’t they notice you’d taken one?”
Lady Julia shrugged. “He was stolen from the Tower by someone else, so there was nothing to connect us to the matter, and besides, I cannot think the Tower ravens are happy there. It is rather bleak and so very exposed, right on the river. That sort of dampness isn’t good for ravens, you know, to say nothing of keeping such a creature at sea level.
” She returned her gaze to me. “Ravens like altitude.”
“I think, my darling,” Brisbane said indulgently, “we ought to bring the discussion back to the matter at hand.” He turned to me.
“I do believe your theory about this Ruthven having a vampire connection is intriguing, Miss Speedwell.” I preened a little as he went on.
“But without more information, I think your best course of action is to pursue the boy who was witness to the discovery of Mr. Quincey’s body. ”
“Do you have connections within the Romany community to whom you might recommend we speak?” Stoker asked.
Brisbane’s smile was thin. “Not if I wanted to keep my skin. And you’ll not get within fifty feet of an encampment without someone to vouch for you.” He sighed and set down his teacup with a gesture of resignation. “So we had best be on our way.”
“Now?” Apparently I had been right to suspect that Brisbane’s posture of languor was a ruse. He was clearly a man of action.
“My dear Miss Speedwell, there is no time to lose. As you said yourself, it is a matter of murder.”