“Very well. I say Lord Ambrose is harbouring some nefarious secret.”
“And I say he is a gentle soul with some tragedy in his past which haunts him still.” I put out my hand. “The wager is struck. Shake on it?”
He moved past my outstretched hand to slide an arm around my waist.
“I have another idea.” He dipped his head to my ear, murmuring details of that idea in a delicious whisper.
“Very well,” I said in a hoarse voice. “You fetch the feathers, and I will join you as soon as I have warmed the oil.”
In the end, I was forced to agree that Stoker’s idea was a much more satisfactory means of sealing a wager than a handshake. Much more satisfactory indeed.
CHAPTER
12
Of necessity, some days passed before we heard news from either of our would-be colleagues. J. J. had been assigned a story about an outbreak of influenza in Poland, and Mornaday, in retaliation for some perceived slight by his acting superior, was relegated to copying reports. As for Stoker and myself, we covered up the Beauty once more and turned our attentions to the work at hand. I was involved in cleaning and remounting a particularly valuable set ofPapilio aristodemus—I had a soft spot for Schaus’ swallowtails as they have the rare ability to fly backwards to elude predators—whilst Stoker applied himself to the restoration of a great horned owl. It was not an especially remarkable specimen, but the pose was interesting enough to make the work a challenge. It had been mounted in flight, the wings fully outstretched into the full width of the four-and-a-half-foot span.
At last, it was Mornaday who turned up trumps. He scribbled a note with a scant few lines:
Body of a young woman, aged approximately eighteen years, pulled from Regent’s Canal. No identifying marksand never claimed. Taken to Plumtree and Son Mortuary. February 1873.
I stared at the note, frowning. “1873. Surely that cannot be our Beauty.”
Stoker, streaked with glue, the odd feather tucked in his hair, shrugged. “It is possible.”
“Fifteen years! I hardly think so,” I protested. “She is in exquisite condition for a corpse of that age.”
“Drowning produces little immediate disfiguration. If she were pulled from the canal quickly after death and the process of preservation begun at once, it is just possible. Particularly as the method used upon the Beauty is so singular. She was fixed in an attitude of life by an artist’s hand with the brain of a scientist. He has employed techniques of which I was entirely unaware, and I am in the business of restoration,” he reminded me with a gesture towards the completed owl.
“I suppose,” I said reluctantly. “At least we have a clue in the name of the mortuary, albeit a slender one.”
“So slender as to be nearly invisible,” Stoker replied. His expression was sombre, and I did not care for this solemnity. I longed for him to be surging once more with vitality, eyes agleam with the fire of the chase. And I vowed then to do whatever necessary to see that he was restored to his customary high spirits.
“Do you know this firm?” I studied the few lines again. “Plumtree and Son?”
He shook his head. “Never heard of them, but there are hundreds of small establishments in London. They mayn’t even be in business after a decade and a half.”
“We shall soon see,” I said with an air of perfect decisiveness. “Conclude your intrusions upon thatBubo virginianusfor now, my love.Tomorrow morning we shall take ourselves off to call upon the good Mr. Plumtree and his son. And if they have knowledge of our Beauty, we shall discover it.”
***
I dressed for the visit in my smartest town ensemble, a well-cut affair of blue silk trimmed in astrakhan. The dressmaker had suggested a matching toque of astrakhan, but I could not be dissuaded from a black velvet tam-o’-shanter with a modish pair of black and white spotted feathers. The weather was chill enough to require a cloak and muff, and it was with a sense of rising anticipation that I set out with Stoker on a jaunt from Marylebone to Chelsea. Mornaday had not provided the particulars, but a few inquiries had revealed the firm was still in trade at its original location and founded nearly thirty years before. It required little imagination to suppose the business had been established during the height of the mourning hysteria surrounding the death of Prince Albert. The loss of the queen’s beloved consort had plunged the capital—nay, the country itself—into a paroxysm of public grief the likes of which the Empire had never seen before. Public buildings from Caithness to Canberra, from Prestonwick to Pondicherry, had been draped in black bunting. Mirrors were covered in crêpe and society figures in bombazine, every inch of fabric designed to dull the lustre of the living. The richest caparisoned their horses in ebony ostrich plumes whilst the poorest managed a scrap of black pinned to a sleeve in acknowledgement of the prince’s passing. Even jewels were not spared, rubies and emeralds laid aside with the bright silks and sumptuous feathers in favour of jet and obsidian. Miniature portraits of the consort had done a roaring trade along with various mourning jewels and even imitations of his hair, curled into lockets and sold as genuine souvenirs to the gullible. Not a single sphere of public life, from the presentation ofdebutantes to the reception of ambassadors at the Court of St. James, was spared the weight of Victoria’s grief.
But misfortune often brings opportunity to the bold, and a number of mercers and mortuaries had sprung up like mushrooms. The fashion for lavish mourning had taken hold, and those who were clever and quick had learnt to profit from it. Some even went so far as to rent the essential accoutrements of a fashionable funeral in order to satisfy expectations without sending a grieving family into insolvency. Full warehouses had been established for containing everything from casket palls to the apparel for mourning mutes, but it was apparent upon our arrival that Plumtree and Son was no such vast endeavour. The building stood in sober dignity on a quiet street suited to the sombreness of its purpose. The sign above the door was handsomely lettered but slightly faded, Time having clearly worked a little wear upon the edifice. The door cried out for a fresh coat of paint, and if the brass fittings could speak, they would have doubtless complained of being polished indifferently and infrequently. Whatever the circumstances of Plumtree and Son’s establishment, however much it may have prospered to have built such an edifice in years past, it had clearly come down a little in the world, although its shabbiness was not so much off-putting as endearing, as when an old friend appears in a twice-turned frock.
We were admitted to the premises by a robust, harried-looking young man with an extremely pleasant bespectacled face and a demeanour of such bonhomie that one was put instantly in mind of a genial and shambling sheepdog.
“Do come in,” he urged, ushering us into an interior office and shutting the door firmly behind us. “Only a little chill seems to be rising, and I do so hate to be cold.” The atmosphere inside could best be described as sultry. The windows were firmly shut, each heavily curtained and fitted with draught extruders. The floors were covered in layers of carpets,and every door was hung with a set of portieres to keep out any particle of fresh air. In the corner, a fat iron stove was throwing off an extraordinary amount of heat. In spite of this, the young clerk—for such I supposed him to be since he had greeted us at the door—was wrapped in a series of shawls and mufflers, each one a different testimony to the knitter’s art. Seed stitch, cable stitch, herringbone stitch—the garments had been fashioned with great care and dexterity, although I wagered from the young man’s use of all, he favoured them more for warmth than the elegance of their designs.
He settled himself behind his desk, propping his feet upon a tiny brazier that smoked gently from the heap of coals inside. Stoker, who could never bear being cooped up when fresh air was to be had, gave a soft wheeze at the close atmosphere.
“How very cosy,” I remarked with a smile.
The young fellow nodded. “Oh, yes. One can never be too careful of a draught, you know. Killing things, draughts.”
“You ought to know,” Stoker remarked.
The young man blinked behind his spectacles, as if considering whether to take offence, and I hurried to make amends. “My colleague merely means that in your line of work, one must be well acquainted with death.”