A hush fell over the room. Tim followed the guests’ avid gazes to the doorway. He nosed his way through the murmuring crowd until he had a perfect view of… a pair of footmen, who swept back onlookers who had ventured in too close, not unlike a more subdued version of the mob outside the Old Bailey. The head butler cleared his throat with the rigor of an opera tenor. A buzz of anticipation flit from guest to guest until a heady swarm of noise heralded the arrival of… who? The Prince of Wales? The Prime Minister? Her Majesty? Surely only someone of royal blood could command a room before setting foot in it.
A figure loomed in the hallway. Silence fell anew. The head butler gave one last great harrumph… and Hieronymus Bash sauntered in with a little wave for his disciples.
He was the most extraordinary man Tim had ever seen. Tall as an oak but sleek as a panther. Bedecked in opulent mauve velour save for the dragon pattern of his waistcoat, the cape he did not remove billowed with his every gesture. A man in constant motion, posing and gesticulating as if life were a grand comedy, and he its star player. He wore the black waves of his hair overlong and lush, skimming his shoulders as if to frame his face in perpetual portrait. His dense but meticulous moustache ill-concealed his pillowy lips. His skin was of a rich brown hue that pointed to foreign origins or ancestry, but his eyes were the main attraction—black as sin and blazing like a dark star, their mercurial glint could bedazzle the Archbishop of Canterbury. That and the clasplike gold earring that studded his left lobe—a wink at piracy that would have had Tim rolling his eyes if he were not too busy wagging his tongue.
He was, in a word, magnificent. Tim felt suddenly as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. He fought to measure his breaths, to slow the percussion of his heart. He stole a handkerchief out of his pocket—not that anyone was looking at him—to blot his hands. If only there was some balm that could dull the tingling constriction in his groin, staunch the flood of shame that suffused him. He hadn’t planned to confront his opponent half-hard and sweat palmed and unbalanced. But that, he would learn, was the effect Hieronymus Bash had on people. At least Tim hoped it wasn’t just him.
It wasn’t. As soon as the footmen retreated, the dam broke. The guests poured over him, by turns flattering and admiring. Those not seeking to seduce him solicited some favor: to find some long-lost bauble, to fetch an absconded relative, to feast as a guest at their table. The star of his celebrity seemingly outshone any reservations they might have about his exoticism.
When at last he tore his eyes away from the dashing Mr. Bash, Tim noticed a bear of a man standing apart from the crowd beside a statue of Osiris. The bushy muttonchops that carpeted his face only added to the menace of his frown. Tim made a mental note to seek the man out later, but for now he had only one appointment. Unfortunately he appeared to be the very last in the queue.
Their host intervened. The guests fell away like heads of wheat as Lord Blackwood sliced through them. This permitted Tim a view of Bash’s two companions: an elegant young blonde woman, likely his ward, and a man with such a regal mien he might have been the Emperor of China, improbably dressed as a manservant. A more mismatched threesome he’d rarely observed.
“Bash,” Blackwood hissed, his spine coiled as tight as a preying cobra. “You are not welcome.”
“Precisely why I came. You are aware, my lord, that a priceless artifact was stolen right under the noses of—” he scanned the crowd, taking in everyone and everything, until his gaze lighted on a startled Tim “—everyone in this room. Save you, sir. Fascinating. Have no fear; I’ll get to you in a bit.” He again confronted Blackwood. “I have been charged with investigating that crime, and since you are hosting a virtual recreation of its circumstances—excepting you are fool enough to display the fang in this very room—how could I fail to attend? Invitation or no. Besides, Goldie will vouch for me.”
“Simply because—”
“—Goldie’s fang was pilfered doesn’t mean, et cetera, et cetera.” Bash yawned theatrically. “My good man, if you’re going to put on a show, you cannot fail to invite the main attraction.” He addressed the crowd. “Is that not so?”
A chorus of “Hear, hear” and unanimous approval rang out.
“You see?”
“Mr. Bash, this evening’s aim is a serious exploration of the—”
A loud snore interrupted him. Bash startled as if being woken from a nap.
“Blackwood, I assure you, no one is trying to prevent you from dissecting the spiritual ramifications of your underclothes. But a real crime has been committed, a crime that may be repeated tonight, in this very room. No matter what you may think of my abilities, I will not sit at home, quaffing port and smoking cigars, while another house is burgled and these fine people are left at risk.” If the guests were on Bash’s side before, they would now pledge him their firstborn. “May I proceed? Or will you again prove yourself an enemy to common sense?”
Tim could only imagine the expression on Blackwood’s face. Bash confronted it with a cunning smile. In the end no other words were exchanged. Blackwood simply stepped aside to murmurs of approval. Bash and his companions, with an elderly military man in tow, formed a barricade around the giant tooth. Baffled, Tim sought to ingratiate himself with his fellow guests, hoping to ply them for information.
He devoted as much of his full attention as he could spare to them, his eyes lured back to Bash’s mesmeric presence again and again. Though Tim was under no illusions as to the Bash’s true nature—criminal, if not an outright fraud—there was something undeniably magnetic about him. The way he played to the crowd. The way he flouted authority. The pride with which he carried himself. If that was an act, then it was a convincing one.
Tim would take great pleasure in bringing this wild dog to heel.
When will She open Rebecca Northcote’s box?Hieronymus Bash contemplated the question posed by the long, red-lettered banner that blazoned over the otherwise quaint fruit and vegetable stall. A sharp tug of the arm from Callie, his ward, brought him to heel. He’d already been struggling to match her brisk pace, having been dragged from his early afternoon repose in the cozy climes of his study into, of all things, the sunshine, or what passed for it on this weak-tea day.
Rays of piss-yellow sun trickled down over the city, tinting the fumes that oozed up from the Thames. Clouds of smog blurred the distant Albert Bridge into an impressionist’s nightmare. A growing crowd choked the small stage erected just before the river’s edge, scuttling in from both directions of Cheyne Walk like ants over a carcass. A bald man with a white mustache that flapped out to his ears checked his pocket watch for the fourth time since Hiero and his companions descended from their carriage.
At the far end of the stage, a squad of low-rank militia struggled to keep a path clear for the Duke of Edinburgh and his bride, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, only beloved daughter of Tsar Alexander II. The newlyweds were, in the timeless tradition of royals everywhere, unfashionably late to the opening of the Chelsea Embankment, the third and final stage of the sewage system that had transformed London’s riverside.
“Look, it’s Bazalgette!” Callie tugged him forward, doing a fine impression of an excitable hound.
“While I admire your enthusiasm, I do wonder if it’s not a tad misplaced.”
Callie scoffed. “Only you would prefer the arrival of some dippy duke over the architect of this entire endeavor.” She threw her free arm out wide. “Can you not spare a moment to admire this feat of engineering? In the place of muddy banks, pavement has been laid, a fence with lampposts erected, with gardens and greenery to come. And running beneath it, the waste of London, and soon an underground train! How can you be so trout-mouthed in the face of such marvels?”
“Not your most persuasive argument, comparing the face that dropped a thousand trousers to a fishmonger’s wares.”
Callie sighed, relinquishing his arm to chase after her muttonchopped idol. Hiero watched her go, marveling at how much she resembled her Uncle Apollo, Hiero’s long-deceased lover who had charged him with her care in character and spirit. Theirs was an unconventional household, where the lady moonlighted as a detective, the servants were part of the family, and the lord of the manor—Hiero himself—was neither a lord nor owned the manor.
“Come now.” Han, his friend and self-appointed keeper, fell into step beside him. The rhythmic taps of his lotus-headed walking stick slowed their pace to a stroll. “You’re no longer catch of the day with Mr. Stoker about.”
“Perhaps if he were about, someone would defend my honor.” Hiero bristled at the mention of his fair-weather paramour, Timothy Kipling Stoker, a detective inspector with Scotland Yard who shadowed them when there was a mystery to solve but otherwise preoccupied himself with... well, finding them another mystery. His dedication to duty exasperated.
“Not likely.”
“No, I rather thought not.” Hiero pressed a lavender handkerchief to his mouth and nose. Mr. Bazalgette’s innovations would have to work much harder to filter out nearly a millennia of filth, the river being a cesspit into which the city had poured every conceivable kind of rubbish, from human to animal to otherwise. A place where sins had been cast off and bodies buried. A few of Hiero’s personal acquaintance.
“Where has your Mr. Stoker taken himself off to this—” Han considered the urinal murk of the embankment and found himself at a loss of an adjective. “—afternoon?”
“I do not presume to know what impulses rule that man.”
“And yet you are the one who rides his... coattails.”
“Only when he deigns to undress for the occasion. Otherwise...” Hiero huffed, his mood irretrievably spoilt by this line of conversation. “I cannot think where I’ve gone wrong with him.”
“No?” Han evidenced something close to a smirk. “It wouldn’t have something to do with meddling in his work affairs, compromising his relationship with his superiors, forcing him into our fellowship, risking everything he holds dear, and then sharing nothing of consequence about yourself, now would it?”
Hiero peered at him out of the corner of his eye. “Nothing of the sort, I’m sure.”
“Ah. Well, then, it is a mystery.”
“Coo-coo! Mr. Han!” a voice trilled at them from behind.
With a pair of heavy sighs, they turned to heed an all-too-familiar call. A hand waiving a white handkerchief fluttered up and down amidst a dense crowd. A grunt from Han parted the sea of surging revelers to reveal Shahida Kala, the latest of Hiero’s charity cases, hopping with the vigor of a spring hare. Her compact figure contained a carnival of personality.
The instant this bright light had beamed into his study on the arm of her father—who served under Apollo in Her Majesty’s Navy—Hiero recognized her for one of the rare people who could steal his spotlight. So he had relegated her to the least enviable position in the household, that of nurse to Mrs. Lillian Pankhurst, Callie’s permanently indisposed mother. But the long days of attic dwelling and reading Richardson’s Pamela ad nauseam had not snuffed a single spark.
Instead Lillian had transformed from bed-ridden depressive into a semifunctional member of the family. Every morning she and Shahida took a two-hour stroll. They cultivated a rooftop garden. Shahida had imposed an afternoon tea regimen on their household, always leading the conversation as Hiero, Callie, and Han plotted ways to return to their preferred solitary occupations. Dinners were always a family affair, but Shahida’s insistence on more healthful, nourishing fare that conformed to Lillian’s new diet had Minnie, their cook, weekly threatening to resign. Callie was the only other member of the household resistant to her charms.
Even Han, cynical, monkish, seen-it-all Han, danced to whichever melody she played. Hiero watched as he bounded over to her, biting his lip at the comical sight of a surly giant bowing to the whims of a pretty imp, but also to keep from emitting a growl of frustration. He glanced back to search for Callie, but the crowd had swallowed her. By now she’d likely clawed her way to the front of the stage and barked questions at a baffled, bewhiskered Mr. Bazalgette, which Hiero thought should be his formal title.
Schooling his features, he joined Han and Shahida’s conversation in medias res and was somewhat aghast to discover them talking about produce.
“... the plumpest, juiciest berries. Artichokes the size of a fist. Fat aubergines and cabbages and cauliflowers, and cucumbers as long as...” Shahida pressed two fingers to her mouth. Hiero didn’t miss how her eyes flickered down. “Well.”
Shameless, that was the trouble. As if she’d snipped the best pages from his playbook and then had the temerity to improve on his notes.
Han chuckled. Chuckled! Hiero hadn’t seen his friend so much as shrug in all the time he’d known him.
“A religious order, you say?” Han asked.
“The Daughters of Eden.” Shahida leaned in, gave him her most conspiratorial smirk. “And I think they might be.” She didn’t even have the grace to straighten when she spotted Hiero. “Oh, Mr. Bash! Mrs. Pankhurst and I don’t mean to spoil your fun. But if you wouldn’t mind, we’ll stay here for a while. We’ve discovered the most—”
“Impressive cucumbers. So I heard.”
“Mrs. Pankhurst is just beside herself. We’ve big ideas for our garden, but this...”
Hiero was unmoved. “And what is it you want?”
“We’ve done our third crate and could fill two more. The crowd is bit much for Mrs. Pankhurst, so I thought Mr. Han might take us back to Berkeley Square? We’ll send the carriage back for you.”
“As it is my carriage, I rather think it will return for me regardless.”
That got her attention. “Of course. If you’d like us to stay—”
“Let us see these berries from heaven.” With a sweep of his hand, Hiero directed them back toward the stall that had earlier piqued his interest. “Their Majesties will wait upon our leisure.”
A long line of enterprising vendors hawked their wares along the edge of Cheyne Walk, hoping to entice royal watchers to purchase a bit of refinement for their life. One stall lined up its dainty little bottles of oils and perfumes like Russian nesting dolls. A mini royal portrait gallery sold likenesses of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their progeny in a variety of poses. The gentleman scooping iced lollies for the children had his work cut out for him on such a tepid day, Hiero thought. The pub with a street-side stand offering hot tea and cider already did brisk business. A few watercress girls fought against the crowd’s undertow, but their wares looked shriveled as seaweed compared to the glorious bushels of the Daughters of Eden.
Even Hiero had to admit, upon inspection, the quality of their produce astounded. Fat and luscious, their fruit allured like the bosom of an opera diva, ready to smother and enthrall. Their vegetable stalks evidenced a virility that would put most molly-houses out of business. Little wonder their customers meandered around the baskets like lovestruck swains. Their bounty conjured images of orgies culinary and carnal. Hiero didn’t doubt there were more than a few serpents lurking about this tiny Eden, eager to defile a peach or two.
All of this was overseen by a trio of women dressed in immaculate white uniforms that somehow defied the city’s grime. Hiero drifted away from his companions to better observe these wyrd sisters. The tallest was also the least remarkable, a stout but cheery woman with farm-worn hands and hard-earned streaks of gray in her brown hair. She milled through the customers, answering questions and nudging reluctant buyers toward the register.
A skittish dove of a girl dutifully kept the ledger and the cash box, cooing her thanks before slipping some sort of pamphlet into people’s baskets. Her crinkly hair had been woven into two winglike braids that perfectly framed her heart-shaped face. A sprinkling of dark freckles contrasted with her pale-brown skin, all but disappearing when she blushed.
Which she did whenever the third sister glanced her way. “Willowy” did not do this petite, flopsy woman justice. A willow branch would look as leathery and stiff as a whip compared to her wispiness. Near-translucent skin and stringy cornsilk hair completed the otherworldly effect. Hiero almost questioned whether she was really there, such was the nothing of her regard. She appeared to have no occupation other than to pose under the sign in a demure attitude. The crowds gave her a wide berth, and little wonder. Nobody wanted to mingle with a possessed scarecrow.
Except possibly meddlesome not-detectives stuck on a boring outing with friends who had abandoned him for some phallic parsnips and a walrus architect.
Just as Hiero made to pounce, the waif leapt as if lightning struck. Eyes ravenous, mouth agape, hair billowing in an invisible breeze, she stared into the buzzing hive of customers. Transformed in an instant from trinket to spear, her astonishment gave color to her cheeks and heft to her bearing. She appeared somehow taller, bolder, a colossal spirit crammed into a compact package: a genie unleashed from its lamp.
All the better to bedazzle you with, my dear, Hiero thought.
Hieronymus Bash, professional cynic, knew a performance when he saw one. He read again the red sign that screamed above her head: When will She open Rebecca Northcote’s box? But there was no box he could see, and if this woodland sprite was Mrs. Northcote, he’d eat Han’s walking stick. These Daughters had lured in quite a crowd with their sensuous produce. Was she the serpent come to tempt them? And if so, to what end?
Hiero shuttered his natural radiance to watch the spectacle unfold. The pale sister glided, arms outstretched, into the maze of crates, eyes fixed on her prey. Hiero hissed under his breath when she stopped at Lillian Pankhurst. In a state of docile confusion at the best of times, Lillian continued sorting out a mess of string beans, oblivious to this starry-eyed suitor. Han, ever protective, moved to Lillian’s side just as the sister shrieked...
“Daughter! You are found!”
The woman at the ledger jumped to her feet. “Juliet?”
“I’ve heard your spirit call to us these long nights, and now you have come home!” Juliet continued at eardrum-splitting pitch, making herself heard to all in the vicinity and probably those across the Thames. “Welcome, Daughter, into Her grace and light! Welcome home!” She hugged a startled Lillian with impressive fervor for one so slender. Lillian, looking to Shahida for a cue, patted her on the back.
A frowning Han caught his gaze from across the way, but Hiero signaled he would play Polonius behind the curtain. Hopefully without the knife in his gut.
“Don’t fear, Daughter. You are among friends,” Juliet nattered on. “We have come to shepherd Her back to Eden through our good works, and, by your pallid cheeks and trembling hands, I can see that you are eager to play a part.”
“Oi!” Shahida hollered, shoving her way between Juliet and Lillian. “Mrs. Pankhurst gets three square a day, and her arthritis is much improved. I dare anyone here to say otherwise.”
“But her spirit, dear girl, droops like a flower too long out of the sun.” Juliet backed away a step to address the customers, every one of which stood rapt. “She knows how this frail woman has struggled. She has heard her prayers and her anguish. She has shone Her glorious light into her, lit her like a beacon for her sisters to find. She is a Daughter, called upon to continue Her good work and bring about a second Eden!”
Shahida let out a trill of laughter three octaves too high. It effectively pierced the balloon of hot air Juliet had been huffing and puffing.
“Angel with a flaming sword you’re not, ma’am. Sorry.” Shahida locked an arm around Lillian. “Stick to the fruit and veg.” A pointed look directed Han to escort their charge away.
“But I haven’t finished the beans...” Lillian muttered as they disappeared into the gaggle of onlookers.
“Shame!” Juliet bellowed, beseeching the yellow sky. “Shame! It is the burden of womankind.” The customers moved into the space vacated by his friends, and Hiero followed, curious as to how she would spin such a public defeat. “The prophet Rebecca Northcote warned against it in her great bible, The Coming of the Holiest Spirit. Too often we ladies wait upon the actions of others. Are made to feel shame and guilt and worthless when we do act. Allow others to lead us astray, away from the truth in our hearts. We pay the price for the sins of our fathers and brothers and husbands. But She... oh, She is coming to deliver us from these injustices, from our fears and torments. As our Holy Mother Rebecca divined, if we join together, Daughters, and build the garden, She will come to save us all. She will gift us with her light!”
“Amen!” the ledger-keeper cried, having abandoned her post to shove pamphlets into the hands of any who would take them.
“Thank you, Mother!” the other sister seconded, lifting a basket of golden pears for all to see.
Juliet scanned the crowd. “You reap of the bounty we offer, but you do not know of how we labor in Her name. To prepare for Her coming, our prophet Rebecca chose each of Her Daughters with care. And though a shame-filled few will deny Her, everyone is welcome to hear Her message and to contribute however they can.” Hiero swallowed a snicker as she gestured to the donation tin. So transparent. “If you are committed to peace and prosperity, if you would see heaven retake the Earth, then I invite you to heed our prophet Rebecca’s call. And She will shine Her light upon you for all the days of your life.”
Juliet seemed to resist taking a bow, but only just. She gave each customer a final angelic smile, then returned to her perch beneath the red sign. A few of the curious chased her with questions; a ragdoll sag and a vacant stare shut them out. Instead the ledger-keeper, who introduced herself as Sister Nora, gathered them around the donation tin before addressing any queries.
“And?” Han appeared beside him, sudden as Banquo’s ghost. “Showstopper or second-rate?”
Hiero rubbed a thumb over his knuckles. “Better than a pair of poncy royals cutting a ribbon, but only just.”
“Fit for a return engagement?”
“Perhaps. Their setup is commonplace, but she does have a certain je ne sais quoi.”
“Enough to en savoir plus?”
“Time will tell. You know how religion turns my stomach. But their focus on Lillian was...”
“Agreed. That Sister Juliet read her too easily.”
Hiero nodded. “Could have been instinct.”
“Or she saw a mark.”
They shared a look weighted by their years of friendship and experience, a partnership of equals who knew, without another word, how to protect their own.
The man who entered might not have been a king, but no noble in Hiero’s acquaintance possessed half his presence or suavity. Hiero immediately recognized a creature of like habits: his manners meticulous, his grooming soigné, his dress haute couture, his bearing leonine. His silver mane had been sculpted into a pompadour that would have turned Napoleon green. The force of his magnetism bulked up his withy frame and gained him a foot in height. Hiero nearly swooned over the blade-sharp edges of his sideburns and the curlicued tips of his moustache. Before him stood a one-man shrine to the Byronic ideal.
Hiero despised him on principle. He vowed that this man, this titan of fashion and class, would be kept far, far away from his Kip.
“Please forgive my sudden arrival," the Vicomte said. "Events have conspired such that I had no choice but to seek out your counsel and, I hope, your services.”
“It is my honor to receive you, monsieur.” Hiero gestured toward a pair of wingback chairs before the hearth. “Please.”
The Vicomte inhaled a deep breath. “Are you an amateur de théâtre, Monsieur Bash?”
“I enjoy the occasional sortie, yes. The same as any man of culture.”
“For me it has always been a grand passion. It began when I, like most young men, played escort to my mother. From there a fire took hold, and I have burned ever since. This led me to purchase the original Théâtre de la Gaîté—”
“Ah! On the Boulevard du Crime.” Hiero smiled. “What a pity they demolished it.”
“A tragedy of the highest order. And one from which we are still recovering.”
“I believe you were among the few to move house?”
“Oui, to rue Papin. But we struggled to recapture the magic. And so, two years ago, the cochons I invested with voted to turn managerial duties over to Monsieur Offenbach.”
Hiero fought not to let his feathers ruffle on the Vicomte’s behalf. “A similar case to the management shift at our own Gaiety.”
“And with this you have divined the very event that brought me across the Channel. The current owner of The Gaiety, Monsieur Gerry Tumnus, hastily assembled a skeleton troupe. Through an acquaintance I discovered that he had a theater without a company, and since I had a company without a theater, a deal was struck. The grand opening of our first double bill, a Don Juan burlesque and the melodrama Abelard and Heloise, was to occur this very evening.”
“How delightful,” Hiero said. “But I’m not clear on what role you mean for me to play?”
“For a month we have been settling into our new home. The troubles began almost at once. A mislaid prop. A ruined backdrop. One of our crew tripped on a suddenly wet floor and cracked his head. Several rehearsals delayed because furniture was glued to the storage room walls. Nuisances, at first. A period of adjustment to a new stage, I thought. Or perhaps the petty revenge of the few from the original company who had stayed on.”
“Or someone who does not care for foreigners.”
“Précisément.” Croÿ-Roeulx sighed. “Childish, but not unforeseeable. But then the rumors started among my own actors. A shadow, they claimed, pursuing them through the backstage. Strange gifts. The sensation of being watched, even when they were alone in their dressing rooms.” A slithery sense of dread coiled around Hiero’s spine. “I thought it nonsense, but the incidents kept piling up. Everyone in the company was buzzing, distracted, missing cues, dropping lines. And then today…”
Hiero felt his stomach drop. “Today?”
“A murder. Our leading man.”
