by Amanda Quick
“You didn’t know that?”
“I do now. May I ask your name?”
The woman hesitated. “I suppose you have a right to it after what you just did for me. You may call me Evangeline.”
He smiled a little. Everyone kept secrets, he thought. A professional courtesan would almost certainly have a few.
“I assume that Evangeline is your stage name?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, silently defying him to demand more.
“It is a pretty name,” he said. “Was Hurst drunk on that ambrosia you mentioned?”
“Of course,” she said. She waved one gloved hand to indicate the vast gardens. “They all are. The guests enjoy the drug in various forms. It is added to the liquor. Sometimes they smoke it in the form of cigars. The Olympus is the only place in London where it is served, you see. For the most part the ambrosia invigorates the men to the point where all they can think about is finding a female—willing or unwilling. If they take a sufficient quantity they usually enjoy wondrous visions and a great sense of pleasure. But sometimes the hallucinations can be quite intense and frightening.” She glanced at the unmoving man on the ground. “And occasionally the drug affects men the way it did Hurst tonight.”
“The ambrosia makes some of the men violent?”
“Yes.” Evangeline peered at Slater, trying to see him against the glare of the light behind him. “You likely saved me from a beating or worse.” There was a shudder in her voice. “Hurst was behaving very oddly. He is normally a quiet little man but tonight he flew into a rage. Perhaps he took too much of the drug. Some of the other Nymphs have reported similar reactions when their guests overindulged.” She paused. “I should not be speaking with you like this. We are only allowed to talk to men who have been introduced to us by Mrs. Wyatt.”
“I understand. Thank you for answering a few of my questions.”
“Thank you for saving me from Hurst.” Evangeline made a face. “I really don’t know what got into him tonight. There are rumors that the management of the club has brought in a stronger version of the ambrosia recently.”
She turned to walk back toward the ballroom.
“One more question before you go,” Slater said softly.
She paused and looked at him over her shoulder. “Very well, but please be quick about it.”
“Your friend, the one who wound up in the river—”
Evangeline went very still. “Nicole. They said she took her own life.”
“But you don’t believe that, do you? What do you think happened?”
“We’re all quite certain that she broke the rules and left the grounds with a man who went mad after he took too much of the drug.”
“You think her guest murdered her?”
“I cannot say, sir. But as I told you, everyone knows that some of the guests can take odd turns when they’re enjoying the drug. That’s why there are rules and guards. But as you saw tonight, the bloody guards are never around when you need them.”
“What exactly is this ambrosia? Some version of opium?”
“I cannot say, sir. The Nymphs are forbidden to drink it.”
Once again Evangeline collected her satin skirts and turned to leave.
“Are you concerned that Hurst will make trouble for you when he awakens?” Slater asked.
Evangeline’s light laughter whispered in the fog. “It’s unlikely he’ll remember much of what happened, sir, not given the large dose of the drug that he evidently took. But if he does, I expect that it is you who will have left an impression on him.”
She hurried away and soon disappeared behind the hedge.
ELEVEN
There was another mention of a perfume shop.
Ursula contemplated the lines she had attempted to transcribe from Anne’s notebook. She reminded herself that poetry could be complicated and nuanced, not to mention downright oblique. Some poems were notoriously incomprehensible. And then there was the fact that Valerie was not a professional author. She was using the medium of poetry to soothe her shattered nerves.
Nevertheless, most of the verses in the notebook made sense once they were transcribed. The lines that she had just written down on a separate sheet of paper, however, did not. They looked, instead, very much like an address.
It was possible that Anne had grown bored with the dreary poems Valerie had dictated and had jotted down some private notes—reminders of appointments, perhaps, or, in this instance, the address of a perfume shop that someone had mentioned. It would certainly not have been out of character for Anne to shop for fragrances and fancy soap.
Ursula reflected briefly on the empty perfume bottle she had found on Anne’s writing desk. Curious, she flipped back and forth through the notebook. The reference to the perfume shop appeared early on in the notebook, about three weeks after Anne had begun working for Valerie. It had been slipped in between lines of poetry.
. . . The longing in my heart is that of the flower for the sun,
Rosemont’s Perfumes and Soaps. No. 5 Stiggs Lane
Yet tis the night I welcome for in my dreams to you I run . . .
Anne had never mentioned the purchase of perfume to her office colleagues and that was unlike her. She had always been very eager to display any new acquisition. A week or so before her death she had received a lovely silver chatelaine from a grateful client—a delicate aide-mémoire. It featured a tiny silver notebook and pencil attached with silver chains. Anne had worn it virtually every day to the office. Everyone had admired it.
If Anne had purchased some perfume or received it as a gift, surely she would have mentioned it.
Ursula reached for her pencil. A faint, muffled thud on the front steps stopped her cold. The fine hairs on the nape of her neck stirred.
She glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight. No one would call at such an hour.
Metal clanged lightly on metal, the small noise was distinctive, though barely audible. Ursula shot to her feet, an unnerving chill splintering through her. Someone had just pushed an object through the letter box.
She went to the window and eased the curtain aside. The fogbound street was very quiet. There were no vehicles but a dark silhouette was briefly visible in the glare of the streetlamp. The figure was that of a man enveloped in a coat and a low-crowned hat. He was rushing away from her front door. As she watched he vanished quickly into the night.
There was no noise from Mrs. Dunstan’s room. But, then, it would take a gunshot or the Crack of Doom to awaken her after she took her bedtime dose of her own special laudanum concoction.
You are letting your imagination run away with reason and common sense, Ursula thought. But she knew she would not be able to sleep if she did not go downstairs to make certain that all was secure in the front hall.
The gas lamps were turned down very low but they cast enough light to enable her to make her way. She saw the small package on the black-and-white tiles before she reached the bottom step. The icy sensation grew stronger, threatening to overwhelm her. Someone had, indeed, shoved a package through the brass letter box—at midnight.
The dread that had been gathering in the atmosphere around her struck with storm-like intensity. It took an astonishing amount of determination just to continue down the stairs.
She picked up the package. The contents felt light and flexible. Papers, she concluded, or a notebook.
She carried the package into her study, set it on her desk and turned up a lamp. Taking a pair of shears out of a drawer she cut the string that bound the parcel and slowly peeled away the brown paper.
She fully expected that whatever she found inside would come as a shock but a strange stoicism gripped her when she saw the little magazine. It was a penny dreadful. The black-and-white illustration on the cover featured a woman in a suggestively draped nightgown, her hair down around her shoulders.
She was sitting in a tumbled bed, clutching the sheets to her bosom. The artist had made certain that a great deal of bare leg was visible.
The woman in the illustration was not alone in the bedroom. There was a man with her. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie and the collar of his shirt undone. His formal evening coat was draped over the back of a boudoir chair.
The woman and the man gazed in stunned shock at the bedroom door, where a well-dressed, obviously scandalized lady stood in the opening. She had a gun in one gloved hand.
The title of the small magazine proclaimed the contents:
THE PICTON DIVORCE CASE
An Accurate Record of the Testimony of Mrs. Euphemia Grant and Others. Adultery! Scandal! Attempted Murder!
Ursula opened the magazine with shaking fingers. A handwritten note slipped out and fluttered to the top of the desk.
You have been discovered. Silence may be purchased.
Await instructions.
Ursula sank slowly down onto the chair. She had always feared that the day would come when someone would uncover her true identity. She had known that if that happened her newly invented life would fall apart and she would once again confront disaster. She had put aside a fair amount of money to prepare for such an eventuality. She’d had some notion of purchasing a ticket to Australia or America to start over yet again, if necessary.
But as she read the note a second time, it was anger, not fear, that stormed through her. She had made plans to leave the country if her past was exposed. But she had not anticipated the possibility that someone would attempt to blackmail her.
She needed a new plan.
TWELVE
That’s an amazing machine,” Griffith said.
The expression on his face was one of intense fascination, perhaps even awe. Slater understood the reaction. He was impressed, himself. Although he had seen typewriters—in recent years they had begun to appear in offices around the world—he had never come across one as advanced in design as the machine Matty Bingham was demonstrating.
“It’s my latest model,” Harold Fenton said. He beamed with pride. “It has a great many new and improved features. But it requires an operator of Miss Bingham’s exceptional talents in order to obtain the best results.”
“She’s certainly very skillful,” Griffith said. He gazed at Matty’s flying fingers, clearly entranced. “It’s like watching a lady play the piano.”
Matty appeared to be unaware of his interest. She maintained her professional air but her cheeks were flushed a deep pink. Griffith was right, Slater thought. Matty’s fingers moved on the keys for all the world as though she were playing a musical instrument. Her hands were elegant and graceful.
Slater took out his pocket watch to check the time. He and Griffith had arrived at the offices of the Kern Secretarial Agency a short while ago and found only Matty Bingham and Fenton.
Fenton was a little gnome of a man. Judging by his rumpled, ink-and-oil-stained coat he had come straight from his workshop. He was going bald. What scraggly gray hair he had left had not been touched by a barber in a very long time. Behind the lenses of his spectacles, his gray eyes glittered with passion for his creation.
“Mrs. Kern and I have established a professional association,” Fenton said. “I advertise that my typewriters are tested here at the Kern agency. That information attracts the very best class of buyer, you see, because of the reputation of Mrs. Kern’s business. My goal is to put a Fenton Modern in every office in the country.”
He whipped out a card. Slater took it and glanced at the wording.
FENTON MODERN TYPEWRITING MACHINES.
Tested by the expert typists at the Kern Secretarial Agency.
Matty stopped typing and smiled. “Every time Mr. Fenton makes an improvement in his machines, he brings one around for us to test.” She patted the new Fenton Modern on her desk in an affectionate manner. “This is the finest one yet, Mr. Fenton. I do believe you have outdone yourself. None of the keys or type bars jammed. I did not have to slow down or pause at any point.”
Griffith leaned over Matty’s shoulder to get a closer look at the keyboard. His brows scrunched together. “Why are the keys arranged in such an odd fashion? Q, W, E, R, T, Y come first. Shouldn’t it be A, B, C, D, E?”
Fenton snorted. “Sadly, after the success of the Remington typewriting machines, everyone has grown accustomed to this keyboard design. Damned shame but that’s what you get when a manufacturer of firearms turns its attention to other products.”
Slater looked at him. “A trigger?”
“No, mass production.” Fenton looked deeply pained. “So many Remingtons out there now with the QWERTY keyboard that it’s become the standard, as far as the public is concerned. I’ve given up trying to persuade people to change over to another arrangement of the keys. None of my competitors have been successful with new designs, either. But that’s not to say that there isn’t room for improvement in the machines.”
“Mr. Fenton is constantly increasing the efficiency and striking speed,” Matty explained. “So many typewriters jam when one works too quickly. I’ve even heard that’s the real reason the keyboard is designed in this odd manner—to slow down the typist so that the keys and type bars won’t get tangled up with each other.”
Fenton brightened. “I’m actually working on a device that will get rid of the basket arrangement for the type bars altogether. All the letters and numbers will be on a ball that rotates, you see. It is quite revolutionary—”
He broke off as the office door opened. Slater turned and saw Ursula. He knew at once, even before she removed her hat and veil, that something had happened. Her shoulders were rigid. Her eyes were cold and grim. It was obvious that she had not slept well.
When she saw him, he could have sworn he caught a flash of near panic on her face. But it disappeared almost instantly behind an aura of cool reserve.
“Good morning, everyone,” she said. She stripped off her gloves and set them aside. “We don’t usually have so many visitors at this hour of the day. I see you have brought us a new model, Mr. Fenton.”
“Much improved,” Fenton assured her.
“The action is extremely smooth,” Matty said.
Fenton glowed.
Ursula nodded at Griffith and then looked at Slater with an air of challenge.
“What brings you here today, Mr. Roxton?” she asked.
They were back to Mr. Roxton. Something had most certainly happened during the night, he thought. He wondered how long it would take her to get around to telling him what had upset her.
“I am hoping I can persuade you to accompany me to an exhibition of some antiquities at a museum this morning,” he said. “I wish to do some research in preparation for our cataloging project.”
She looked first startled and then wary. “I’m afraid I have work to do today.”
“I believe your other client, Lady Fulbrook, will not be requiring your services until tomorrow. You may consider the visit to the museum a professional outing. I plan to make some notes which I will dictate to you. You’ll need your stenography notebook.”
She stared at him for a couple of seconds as if she was about to argue but when he slanted a meaningful glance at Matty, understanding dawned in her eyes. Matty knew nothing about the investigation.
“Very well.” Ursula took a breath, as though marshaling her forces. “In that case, let us be off. I’m sure Matty can deal with whatever comes up in the office today.”
“Yes, of course,” Matty said eagerly. “There’s nothing unusual on the calendar today. I’ll be fine. Oh, and by the way, I hired Miss Taylor. She will start training tomorrow.”
Ursula nodded once, a crisp little acknowledgment of the new hire.
“Excellent.”
Slater glanced at Griffith, who was still hovering very close to Matty.
“Griffith,” he said. “If you don’t mind?”
Griffith straightened quickly. “Right, then. A pleasure to meet you, Miss Bingham. Thank you so much for the demonstration.”
Matty smiled. Her cheeks turned a little more pink and her eyes were very bright.
“You’re very welcome, Mr. Griffith.”
It was, Slater reflected, very likely the first time that Griffith had been addressed as Mr. Griffith. He appeared dazzled by the honor. He stood in the middle of the room, gazing at Matty, evidently struck dumb.
Amused, Slater cleared his throat. “Mr. Griffith, if you don’t mind—”
Griffith pulled himself together. “Right, sir, the carriage.”
He tipped his cap to Matty and headed toward the door. Matty’s gaze lingered on him until he disappeared into the hall.
Ursula retrieved her hat and gloves. Slater took her arm. She stiffened briefly but she did not pull away. He had been right about the tension radiating from her. He could feel it now that he was touching her, a small electrical current shivering throughout her body.
He started to steer her toward the door.
“Ursula, wait,” Matty said. Her chair scraped as she got to her feet. “You forgot your satchel. You’ll need your notebook and pencils if you are to assist Mr. Roxton today.”
Ursula stopped. “Yes, of course, thank you, Matty.”
Smiling, Matty collected the satchel from Ursula’s desk. She winked when she handed it to Ursula.
“Enjoy the museum,” she said with a knowing look at Slater. “I’m sure the antiquities will be fascinating.”
Ursula looked quite blank. Slater steered her out into the hall. He waited until they were seated in the carriage and headed toward the museum before he spoke.
“Am I mistaken, or were Miss Bingham and Griffith looking at each other as if they were both interested in something a good deal more personal than the new typewriter?” he asked.
Ursula was momentarily bewildered. “What are you talking about?”