A Study in Silks

the house rumbled, and then a cloud of thick black smoke belched from the upstairs study window. There was a female shriek behind Holmes.

“Mrs. Hudson!” Evelina cried, and Holmes turned to check on his landlady.

The man on the ground chose that moment to spring to life. He rolled away from Evelina, coming to his feet in a practiced move. She saw the shape of a gun as his coat swung wide with the motion. Acting on instinct, she thrust the point of her parasol into his spine, the force of the blow splintering the wooden handle of her makeshift weapon. He staggered forward with a grunt, but then he used the momentum to sprint toward the door, drawing the gun as he ran.

Panic bit hard and fast, freezing a cry of outrage deep in her throat. Evelina grabbed for the man, but her fingers just brushed the back of his wool coat. She followed as quickly as a bustle and corset would allow, skirts swinging like a bell, but he was already through the door. She grabbed the frame and hauled herself forward, narrowly avoiding a fall as her heel caught on the sill. She skidded to a stop in the dim light of the front hall. She was alone.

Her uncle had vanished, as had his attacker. Evelina turned slowly, taking in her surroundings. Smoke hung in the air like stinking black breath, but there was no damage she could see. The explosion—for that was surely what had caused the disturbance—had been confined upstairs. And where was Mrs. Hudson?

For a moment the only sound was the clamor of voices outside. A man with a booming voice was explaining that the detective who lived upstairs was a chemist, fond of smelly experiments. An old gent with a wheezy tenor was sure the radicals had struck. No one barged in with offers of help.

“Mrs. Hudson?” she asked in a stage whisper.

“I’m here.” The housekeeper materialized at the door leading to the lower apartments. She was still a handsome woman, straight-backed and neat as a pin, but now her face was ashen. “That man chased your uncle up to his study.”

Evelina edged toward the foot of the stairs. Pausing for a moment, she listened to the sudden, ominous silence. Her brain wanted to lunge forward, but her feet were obstinately glued to the carpet. Evelina didn’t like the fact the armed man had the higher ground and the staircase offered no cover, but there was no alternative— except to do nothing.

A gunshot cracked overhead, echoing ferociously in the tiny front hall. Somewhere on the second floor, a window smashed. Evelina looked up at the sweep of the staircase that led to her uncle’s suite. Feet thundered overhead. Evelina grabbed her parasol more tightly, and then noticed its splintered handle. It drooped like a wilted tulip. She tossed it aside and picked up the no-nonsense broom that Mrs. Hudson had left beside the door.

“You’re not going up there, young lady!” Mrs. Hudson announced, grabbing Evelina’s arm. “I’m fetching the constables.”

The landlady was being perfectly reasonable, but the voices inside Evelina were not. She had lost her parents, and Holmes was the one remaining relative who had shown her any understanding. She wasn’t about to squeal and run away in a flutter of ribbons—and after growing up in a circus, she had more skills than the average debutante. “You go. I’ll do more good here.”

“Miss Cooper!” the landlady protested.

“I’ll be fine.” Evelina heard her voice crack with doubt, but somehow speaking the words broke her stasis. Lifting her skirts in one hand, she took all seventeen stairs in a single, silent rush, the broom poised for action. She crept toward Holmes’s study door, staying close to the wall. The smell of gunpowder was thick enough to make her nose run.

Crack! She heard a bullet hit the plaster on the opposite side of the wall, from within her uncle’s study. It punched through the wall just above her head and dust rained down, tickling her face. Evelina hurried the last few steps to the study entrance, peering around the carved oak of the door frame. A quick glance told her the path to Dr. Watson’s old desk was clear. Watson had always kept his service revolver there. She wondered whether her uncle, who adapted to change with as much ease as rocks learned to fly, had replenished the firearm drawer when the doctor had left.

But the thought went by in an instant, pushed aside by the tableau directly ahead. Holmes knelt on the bearskin rug before the fireplace, facing Evelina. The stranger stood with his back to her, his gun aimed at Holmes’s head. Swirls of black particles sifted through the air, eddying on the warm August breeze and settling on the litter of papers and other debris scattered across the floor. The room—never exactly tidy—was in a terrible state, but she didn’t take the time to thoroughly catalogue the damage. That could wait.

“We were having a conversation before you threw me out,” the man growled at Holmes.

Evelina noticed the accent sounded neither working class nor quite gentry. That made him one of the many in between. These were hard times for men like that, so many trying to scrabble upward while most slid further behind. And that fit with his clothes—tidy, but inexpensive, his shoes in need of patching. In any other circumstances she might have taken him for a clerk or a lesser type of tutor—almost middle aged, non-descript, and the type one would pass without a second look. Of course, that might have been the whole idea.

Holmes said nothing, his entire body as communicative as the fire screen behind him.

“There’s no point in keeping quiet.” The man shifted his grip on the gun, as if his hand was growing tired. At the same time, he was using one foot to move the papers around on the floor, taking quick glances to see what they were. More correspondence had landed on the nearby basket chair, and he picked up a handful, quickly scanning the letters and tossing them aside. Clearly, he was looking for something.

At least that meant he was fully occupied. Silently balanced on the balls of her feet, Evelina eased into the room. She saw a minute tightening of her uncle’s mouth, but he gave no other indication that he saw her.

Now what? She took another glance around the room. Some of the furniture had tipped over in the blast, but other pieces, like the table and desks, were still miraculously upright. Watson’s desk was directly to her right, just past the dining table. If she moved in utter silence, she could open the drawer, grab the gun she hoped was there—and loaded—and shoot the intruder before he shot her or her uncle. If she remained utterly silent and if she were fast enough, her plan might work.

Or she could creep up and knock him unconscious with the broom handle. She might get shot that way, too, but the whole scheme sounded simpler.

“Even if you think your way out of this with that big head of yours,” the man went on while throwing more papers to the floor, “someone else will come. I won’t be your only visitor, I can promise you that. The Steam Council is on to you.”

The Steam Council? That was what the men and women who ruled the great utility companies called themselves. She had met one of these steam barons—Mr. Jasper Keating, the one they called the Gold King after the yellow-tinted globes he used to mark all the gaslights his company supplied. They all indicated their territories like that—the Blue King, the Violet Queen, and the rest. At sunset, the multicolored globes turned London into a patchwork glory of light. It was a beautiful sight, even though it was evidence of the stranglehold the council had on London and all the Empire.

So what did the steam barons want with her uncle? As far as she knew, Holmes was in favor with Keating after he had exposed a forgery scheme that had robbed the Gold King of a fortune in antique artifacts. If they survived the next hour, she would have to ask.

Lifting the broom high, Evelina ghosted forward, walking slowly so that her skirts didn’t rustle.

“Your brother knows who the members of the shadow government are. But he is a hard man to catch outside the walls of his home or club.”

Holmes finally spoke, only the quickness of his words betraying his nerves. “If you believe that I have my brother’s complete confidence, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Putting a hole in your head might draw him out.”

A derisive smirk flickered over Holmes’s face. “I think not.”

Evelina raised the broom high above her head.

“I’ll give it a try anyhow. Unless you want to talk.” The man snatched up a calling card, read the name and flicked it aside. Then he adjusted his aim a fraction, focussing completely on Holmes. “The council has heard the name Baskerville. They’d like to know something about that.”

Holmes lifted his brows slightly. “The steam barons have played you for a fool. Your only function here is to startle me into betraying my hand. It won’t work, and you won’t survive this.”

Evelina struck. There must have been a noise—a whistle of air through the bristles, perhaps—because the