Chapter Fifteen
Pyracantha, meaning “firethorn” in Greek, is a genus of thorny shrub in the rose family. While often grown in gardens for their beautiful flowers, the thorns secrete a poison that can induce agonizing pain. In floriography, firethorns mean solace in adversity.
The door to Dr. Gall’s laboratory creaked open, the elaborate lock echoing within the thick steel. Elswyth lurched awake, a thin string of drool sticking to the schematics on her workbench. A greenish smoke wafted from the glass orb to her right, spilling out over the stone floor.
“By god, what is that smell?” Mrs. Rose said. She stepped into the laboratory, covering her nose with a pink kerchief. “It’s like rotting eggs!”
Elswyth, now suddenly very awake, began fanning the smoke away with a nearby book.
The liquid within the sphere bubbled. She snatched the neutralizing agent from the wall, dumped it into the orb, and then watched the concoction hiss its last breath, clumping into a foul green paste.
She capped the orb and then ran to the far wall, climbing up the ladder to the high window and throwing it open; she cranked the hand pump she’d built to vent the gas, and the room began to clear.
Mrs. Rose stepped farther into the room, still covering her nose, inspecting the glass orb.
Percival followed, looking wide-eyed around the room.
It was foul. Half-eaten meals and mugs of stale tea littered the workstation, and loose papers lay scattered over the floor.
She’d barely left the laboratory for a week, burrowing herself into her work, returning home only to scavenge for food and wash her underarms. Suffice it to say she was not welcome at society events after what had happened at Syon House.
“What the devil are you doing in here?” he said, suppressing a cough.
Elswyth cranked once more, and then descended the ladder and collapsed against the wall. Her gown was already stained with ichor and crusted in dirt, so she didn’t think twice about sinking to the floor.
“Another of Dr. Gall’s experiments. The concoction in that orb is a mix of algae and bacteria. Swamp water, essentially. The symbiotic mixture creates flammable gas as a by-product. The idea is to create a device that can produce and store fuel for a steamship. A living battery.”
Percival moved over to the glass orb, looking inside. “Flammable gas—by god, Elswyth, you might as well be building a bomb!”
“And a bomb that smells like flatulence, at that!” Mrs. Rose chimed in.
Elswyth ignored her. “You needn’t worry, Uncle. It doesn’t work. I’ll have to tell Dr. Gall I’ve failed.” She took a rag from the nearby counter and wiped the soot and sweat from her forehead. “Just another thing I’ve made a mess of, it seems.”
Percival and Mrs. Rose shared a sheepish look. Mrs. Rose stepped forward. “Elswyth, we’ve been meaning to talk to you. I understand that the events at Syon House were quite troubling. But it’s been nearly a week that you’ve been locked away. The gossip columns are going wild with speculation—”
Percival cut her off with a withering look. “We’re worried about you, is what Mrs. Rose is attempting to say.”
“I’ve been knocking for an hour, for goodness’ sakes, and you still didn’t answer. I had to have the groundskeeper unlock it! Really, Elswyth, you cannot hide in this dreadful place for the rest of the season!”
Elswyth looked at the door, where Gall’s skeletal butler—Nettles, she thought—eavesdropped shamelessly. “It appears not even three inches of steel can provide me privacy from you, Mrs. Rose,” Elswyth said, scowling. She tossed her rag on the ground and then rubbed her temples.
“Privacy! When you’ve been locked away for a week, inhaling toxic fumes, neglecting your grooming. Green Eden, look at your hair!”
She sounded terrified, like some hysterical actress in the Grand Guignol, exposed to a monster.
As though Elswyth’s face were cause for revulsion.
She turned her scar away, but fresh anger rose up in her when she thought of Lady Forscythe’s last words to her: You shall never show your disgusting face at a ball again.
“Does my appearance offend you, Mrs. Rose?” Elswyth hissed at her. “Am I so monstrous?”
Mrs. Rose stepped back, looking wounded. “No, Miss Elderwood. I only meant—”
“Mrs. Rose, please give me a moment alone with my niece,” Percival said.
“But Lord Devereux, the gossip columns—”
“Please. Only for a moment,” he said, smiling kindly.
Mrs. Rose looked at him, huffed, and then stomped out of the room. Percival didn’t try to remove Elswyth from the floor. Instead, he moved to the workbench, examining her schematics.
“Quite ingenious, I dare say,” Percival said, standing on his tiptoes to look inside. “Was this your idea?”
Elswyth looked at the orb, then back to the desk.
“Dr. Gall’s. The actual formula is my own, as well as the pressurized solar chamber you see there.
Once it works—if it works—the reinforced glass will allow sunlight in.
Photosynthesis should allow the microorganisms to create a self-sufficient source of flammable gas.
But I can’t get the balance of microorganisms right, and it just keeps exploding. ”
Percival let out a brusque laugh. “So it was your idea. You have a way of shying away from the sun, my dear.”
Elswyth stood, brushing off the grime from her gown. She moved to the workbench next to her uncle. “Some flowers do better in the shade. Last time I was the center of attention, I poisoned a ballroom of eligible bachelors. And nearly killed the only one I actually fancied.”
Percival frowned. “You and I both know that wasn’t your fault,” he said. “The Forscythe girl tricked you.”
“Wasn’t it? It was my fault for trusting her.
I was na?ve, and I paid for it. And now I’ve ruined my chances at finding Persephone’s killer.
Not to mention finding a match for myself.
She outwitted me and succeeded in making me a pariah.
My only question is why? She was supposedly close friends with Persephone.
Why go out of her way to ruin my reputation? ”
Percival’s face twisted into a frown. “Elswyth, you worry me. What are you implying?”
“I thought that Persephone’s killer was a nobleman.
Someone with power and status enough to influence the police.
Perhaps a jilted lover or an admirer whose advances she rejected.
Venus insisted they were friends, but I’ve seen the way she treats her friends.
Perhaps Persephone’s killer isn’t a nobleman at all. Perhaps it’s Venus Forscythe.”
Percival looked horrified. “But why? What possible motivation could Venus have?”
“Persephone was just as beautiful as Venus and a thousand times as kind. Perhaps Venus saw her as competition. And then there is the matter of Captain Burr. He was murdered in her house. How simple would it have been to lace his drink and have a servant deliver it?”
“Elswyth, this is madness. You cannot go about accusing every significant person in London of being involved in Persephone’s death. Besides, a girl of eighteen does not have the influence to sway the Metropolitan Police, as you claim.”
“No, but her father does. He has the funds and the title to sway anyone. If his only daughter was involved in a murder, certainly he would help cover it up. Especially if she might one day marry the prince. His grandchildren would be kings.”
Even as Elswyth explained her reasoning, doubt crept in.
What motive did Venus really have to hate Persephone, let alone to kill her?
And what of the Reaper? She doubted that Venus Forscythe was involved in the dismemberment of prostitutes, but she was certain that Persephone was in the Rows on the night she was murdered.
Nor could she discern why Venus might want to kill Captain Burr.
None of it made sense, and yet Elswyth couldn’t vanquish the itching feeling that somehow everything was connected.
Each thread she uncovered twisted up the wall like ivy, tangled together until she could not discern one possibility from another.
“Perhaps, Elswyth,” Percival said, shifting uncomfortably. “Or perhaps it is more comforting to you to believe in a grand conspiracy than it is to accept that sometimes people die for no reason at all.”
An awkward silence settled between them.
Elswyth turned away, not wanting him to see the tears pricking at her eyes.
She took the papers on her desk and began stacking them.
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore.
Half the important people in London were at that dance, and if they weren’t, then they heard about it in the gossip columns.
I’m ruined.” She let the word linger. That word meant failure.
It meant watching her father die because she could not afford the medicine to save him.
It meant failing to find a husband and being cast into the world as a woman alone, to suffer whatever fate awaited her there.
“Elswyth—”
“It’s true. You know it, I know it, Mrs. Rose certainly knows it.
And because I am no longer welcome in society, no one will answer my questions about Persephone, as I’m sure Venus intended.
She has ruined my marriage prospects and my search for my sister in one swing of the blade.
I would almost respect her, if I did not hate her so. ”
Elswyth’s tears fell freely now, staining the papers on her desk. “I would do well to return home and wed Cousin Ficus,” she said quietly, “if he’ll still take me, monster that I am.”
Uncle Percival sighed. He took a seat on the stool near the workbench and exhaled slowly. “You confound me, sometimes, Elswyth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Here you are, worried if these people will accept you on your social graces. What gown you wear, how your hair is done—”
“If I poison them…”