“Mornaday! How wonderful for you!” I clapped my hands and he smiled, preening.
“I shall have a proper office now—and the wherewithal to direct my own investigations upon occasion.” He propped his feet up, surveying the worn tips of his boots. “It comes with a pay rise so I can buy a new suit and a good pair of boots and that new hat I’ve been eyeing in the window at Lock & Co.”
“I have no doubt you will look very smart,” I told him.
“Well, my heartiest congratulations,” Wilfred put in. He had been listening, eyes wide with interest.
“Thank you,” Mornaday said graciously. “And do not think the Metropolitan Police will forget the services you rendered in the cause of justice this night.”
Wilfred blushed a happy scarlet at the praise and took bashful refuge in his teacup just as J. J. wrenched a piece of paper from the typewriting machine.
“J. J., come and say hello to Mornaday. He has just been promoted,” I called.
“I heard. Enough to add the perfect conclusion to my story,” she said, snatching up a piece of string to confine her sheaf of untidy pages. “I described the harrowing events of the night and gave full credit of my rescue from the hands of Eliza Elyot, the fiendish murderess of Lord Ambrose Despard, to Mr. Wilfred Plumtree of Plumtree and Son Mortuary and Detective Chief Inspector Mornaday of the Metropolitan Police.”
I sputtered into my tea. “Yourrescue?”
She smiled a feline smile. “Well, I couldn’t very well say it was you in the casket, could I? You shun publicity.”
I opened my mouth and snapped it shut again. “Touché,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
“Now I must fly to get this to my editor in time for the next edition,” she said. “Wilfred, come with me and I shall introduce you. The editor might want a sketch or two of the scenes of derring-do to accompany the article.”
“Oh, indeed!” Wilfred leapt to his feet.
“I should come along,” Mornaday announced. “If there are illustrations to be made, the artist will naturally want to draw me as well.”
“Certainly,” J. J. said genially.
Wilfred paused at the door. “I shall make arrangements to retrieve the Beauty,” he told us. “I have chosen a nice little plot for her on higher ground, just under a willow tree. I hope that meets with your approval.”
We agreed, and he left with Mornaday and J. J., their departure taking all of the excitement and energy of the past several hours with them. A sort of deflated silence settled when they had gone, and I looked at Stoker.
“It seems young Wilfred has learnt to take initiative at last,” I remarked. “Perhaps he gained something from the experience after all.”
Stoker opened his arms and I went to him, settling myself comfortably on his lap and nestling my sore head against his shoulder. Hequoted Keats then, the words of “Endymion” rumbling gently against my cheek. It was a particular favourite of mine, and Stoker recited beautifully, but somewhere between fair musk-rose blooms and fleecy lambs, my eyelids grew heavy. And by the time the dancing damsels tripped through the vales of Thessaly, I was fast asleep...
CHAPTER
31
The calendar turned its leaf to November, the gilded autumn light having given way to an early blue frost one evening when Stoker and I were settled by the fire after a satisfactory day’s work. The dogs were arranged around us in a peaceful pile, the smaller ones heaped on top of the long-suffering Vespertine. Huxley snored, low and resonant and in perfect accord with the ticking of the clock that stood upon the bookshelf. It kept time poorly—the hands always stood at half past two—but it had belonged to Marie Antoinette and added a certain glamour to our surroundings. The scene was one of pleasant domesticity. I was reading the latest adventure of Arcadia Brown, Lady Detective, and smoking a small Turkish cigarette whilst Stoker mended the pocket of my favourite gown with tiny, precise stitches. The hour was too advanced for casual callers, so when the knock came, Stoker and I exchanged significant looks.
“I will go,” he said, rising too quickly to permit any argument. He may have stated his intentions of supporting my more outlandish and dangerous endeavours, but the perils I had suffered at the hands of Eliza Elyot had tested his resolve, and I had been forced to concede the necessity of a strong arm at my back upon occasion. We had reached awordless understanding that Stoker would be permitted to act the protector so long as he did so discreetly. I would accept no curtailment of my activities, but I would also happily allow him to step in when his nerves were frayed—such as the late arrival of unexpected callers to the Belvedere.
“What in the name of the oozing wound of Christ—VERONICA!” Stoker’s question ended on a bellow, and I leapt to my feet to see what was the matter. The earl’s porters had carried in a pair of wooden crates, each some six feet in length. Stoker had removed the lid from the first along with a drift of excelsior to reveal a glass casket. Inside was the face of a sleeping waxwork, the hair in silken blonde ringlets.
He held out the prybar accusingly. “What is this?”
“An Anatomical Venus,” I informed him.
He jerked the prybar to the second crate. “And that is presumably a second one?”
“Not at all,” I said happily. “It is an Anatomical Adonis. I confess, I should never have thought of it but Lavinia did inquire if such a thing existed, and I was curious.”
“Why are they here?” he demanded.
“For the purposes of instruction, of course,” I said promptly. “It has come to my attention that the Beauclerk children are remarkably ill-informed about biology. I mean to rectify that.”