“But if she had been turned out of service for an illegitimate pregnancy, who would have noticed? Or cared?” J. J. asked. It was a sobering thought, but not an uncommon story. A slip, the threat of a scandal, and a girl’s life over before it had truly begun.
Mornaday stroked his chin. “Is there any indication of when she died? How long ago this may have been done to her?”
Stoker shook his head. “Without knowing the particulars of the process, I cannot begin to hazard a guess. All I can tell you is there is no strong smell of preservatives, which suggests the processes were not completed recently.”
“And there is no indication given to his lordship of how long the casket had been in the warehouse?” Mornaday pressed.
“No,” I told him. “But I conclude it must have been a few years at least. The casket had apparently been in the warehouse for some timebefore the payments fell into arrears and Mrs. Raby felt obliged to sell it on.”
“Well, that’s a beginning,” Mornaday said. “So, we are looking for a young woman who most likely disappeared at least two years ago, but likely some time longer.”
“If her employers turned her out, they would not have reported her missing, but perhaps she had friends who asked questions,” J. J. said thoughtfully. “Mornaday, will you look in the archives?”
Mornaday groaned. “I suppose, but do not think it is a small thing you ask of me. The archives are not easily accessible, you know. They are located in a series of warehouses along the river, each damper and more dismal than the last. And there are rats.”
J. J. flashed him a rare and radiant smile. “I believe you are more than equal to any challenge presented by a rodent,” she assured him.
He was not mollified. “They smell of mould and despair,” he grumbled.
“But they may hold a clue to the identity of our Beauty,” I reminded him. “Besides, J. J. has archives of her own to search.”
J. J. blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
I offered my most winsome smile, a perfect parody of the one she had just given Mornaday. “TheDaily Harbingerhas archives of its own, has it not? And surely newspaper archives are just as rich a mine of information as those of the Metropolitan Police.”
“But they are also in warehouses,” she said feebly. “In Rotherhithe. With mildew. And black beetles.”
“Then neither of you shall have an advantage over the other,” I said happily. “And if Mornaday is more than a match for a rat, I have no doubt you are more than woman enough to triumph over a black beetle.” She whimpered in response, and Mornaday gave her a look of pure triumph.
“Touché,” J. J. muttered.
They left us soon after, and Stoker turned to me with a knowing glance. “You told them nothing of our friend Lord Ambrose.”
“Do you suspect him of anything untoward?”
He shrugged. “He has an affinity for Anatomical Venuses, and he behaved with excessive peculiarity when I suggested the very possibility that a human might be preserved like a waxwork.”
“But he sent us such charming gifts!” I protested.
“He sent you a gift,” Stoker replied. “He sent me a commission—one I clearly wanted. Together, those have the hallmarks of a man bent upon keeping us thinking well of him.”
“Which is how most human beings conduct themselves,” I reminded him. “Not everyone shares your tendency to scorn the company of others.”
“Scorn the company of others! Thanks to you, I speak to entirely too many people, entirely too often.”
“Exactly. You were practically a hermit when I met you.”
“I was not a hermit,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was a professional man with work that I was actually permitted to do rather than being dragged into murder investigations because I had not yet met a woman whose very raison d’être seems to be falling over dead bodies.”
“That is hardly fair. This one,” I said with a nod towards the Beauty, “was none of my doing.” He muttered a few profanities which I chose to overlook. I went on. “I still do not agree with your assessment of Lord Ambrose. He is eccentric and a little shy. I think perhaps he has been disappointed in love.”
Stoker stared at me in disbelief. “You cannot be serious. There is no possible way for you to have inferred that from the time we spent with him.”
“Of course there is,” I replied coolly. “I have a scientific mind, which means I have applied observation and logic to the situation. He is an attractive and wealthy man of refined tastes and good fortune. He has amassed a collection of beautiful female figures, in wax, alabaster, stone. Everywhere you look in his house, you are met with femininebeauty. He surrounds himself with it in art because he does not have the pleasure of experiencing it in life.”
“That is the most preposterous load of plangent poppycock I have ever heard.”
I grinned at him. “Care to wager on the matter?” Stoker and I had a long tradition of wagering a guinea on various subjects, often the outcome of our investigations, but sometimes over matters as inconsequential as the weather.