or you wouldn’t be here at Scotland Yard. I shan’t keep you any longer.”
And then, as if it had been I who’d accosted him instead of the reverse, I excused myself to the rest of the group. In doing so, I caught Grayling’s gaze before turning away. His eyes were narrow with wariness and aggravation, flickering from me to Mr. Eckhert and back again.
“I can’t believe that was Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes,” Mr. Eckhert said in an undertone as he walked in step with me. “He really is as brilliant as in the stories.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t suppose it was that difficult for him to make those deductions. You’re wearing my father’s clothing—that, along with the ill fit, would indicate your vagrant state and the fact that I took you in. And as for the details about your bail, well”—I gestured with the paper I held—“I suspect my uncle read the details on your release document. He’s notorious for reading upside down and backward, and he would recognize the type of document used for bail.”
“Wow,” Mr. Eckhert said, pausing to glance over his shoulder as if to catch one more glimpse of my famed relative. “And Dr. Watson too. They both look just as I imagined them.”
“Mr. Eckhert, do you think you could cease fawning over them and hurry along? There’s someone back there I would prefer to avoid. And we’re going to the museum now.”
I picked up my pace, and my companion fell into step with me. Although he was in need of freshening up, I decided it would be best to get to Miss Adler as soon as possible. There would be a place for him to wash up at the museum.
“London,” said Mr. Eckhert as we walked outside of the building, “is so different than I remem—imagined. It’s so . . . close. And tight, and dark. There’s no grass or trees, and it smells. The buildings are on top of each other and so tall. Walking down the street isn’t like being outside, it’s like being inside a really massive building— like a huge shopping ma—uh. I mean, all of the bridges and walkways and everything. And those open elevators —what do you call them? Lifts? It’s always so dark and foggy and gray. And what are those things up there? They look like huge balloons at the tops of the buildings.” He pointed to the sky-anchors. A half dozen of them swayed high above our heads.
Before I could respond, I heard a familiar purring rumble. We both turned to see a steamcycle roar around the building and down the street. Gliding at knee height above the ground, smooth and sleek and fast, it blasted past us in a blur of copper and a tail of white steam. The long, flapping black coat of its driver fluttered in its wake, and he was bent over the handlebars, eyes protected by large goggles, hands by brown gloves. On his head was an aviator hat that I suspected covered ginger-colored hair.
“Sweet!” Mr. Eckhert exclaimed, stopping to gawk after the cycle. “What was that? A motorcycle?”
“It’s called a steamcycle. Usually, they aren’t quite so fast. Or loud. Or . . .” Sleek. Cognogged. “It’s probably an illegal vehicle, at any rate.” I made no effort to hide my exasperation. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some electrical mechanism beneath that steam engine.”
Mr. Eckhert had a strange expression on his face as I started in the direction of the museum, but then he paused and sniffed. Something delicious was in the air, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.
“Something smells good,” he said. “The food they gave me in jail was disgusting.”
“The best street vendors are on the middle and upper levels,” I said. Since one had to pay to ascend in the lift, the better vendors knew where the most profitable customers were.
The enticing scents wafting down from the carts selling items like roasted apple puffs, vanilla-stick coffees, and flaming carrots were all the urging I needed to dig out five pence for our entrance to the street-lift. I had a particular fondness for the soft, sweet carrots on a stick.
Moments later, we stepped off the street-lift and heard the ornate brass door clang shut behind us. Mr. Eckhert led the way to a small cart of the flaming carrots, and I selected the largest of the offerings. I purchased two, as well as an egg biscuit for my companion, who claimed he was starving.
He said something about egg mick-muffins and ate the biscuit in three large bites as I held the two carrots on their sticks, waiting for the flames to burn out. I showed him where to throw the wrapping from his food into the sewer-chute and handed him his carrot with a warning: inside, beneath a thin sugary crust, the carrot would be soft, sweet, and steaming hot.
“What did you mean earlier about electrical mechanisms being illegal?” Mr. Eckhert asked, then was distracted by the sight of a Refuse-Agitator. The self-propelled vehicle was doing its duty far below at ground level by rolling through one of the small sewer canals, likely pulverizing the trash he’d just discarded. Little clouds of black smoke puffed from a duo of pipes as it chugged along.
“ ‘The generation, utilization, and storage of electrical or electro-magnetic power is prohibited,’ ” I said, quoting directly from the Moseley-Haft Act.
Mr. Eckhert stopped there on the sidewalk and nearly got himself run over by a knife-sharpener and his motorized cart. “Are you saying that electricity is illegal?”
“Yes, of course. It’s a widespread safety threat.”
“That’s crazy! Haven’t you people ever heard of Thomas Edison?”
“Yes, of course I’ve heard of Thomas Edison. Everyone’s heard of him. It’s because of him and his unsavory activities that the law was passed.”
Mr. Eckhert gaped at me. “What year did you say this was?”
“It’s 1889,” I said, finishing the last bite of my sweet, warm carrot. “Victoria is Queen. Lord Salisbury is the prime minister. Lord Cosgrove-Pitt is the leader of Parliament. Now, shall we walk? I don’t wish to dawdle any longer, and, Mr. Eckhert, the sooner you get to a washroom, the—er—less attention you’ll be drawing to yourself. Which I deduce was the reason you borrowed my father’s clothing—so that you could blend in with other Londoners. Incidentally, a gentleman never goes about without gloves.”
“Okay, I’m walking,” he said, looking at his hands as if to see whether gloves had magically appeared. “Tell me about this law. I don’t remember learning anything in school about a law making electricity illegal.”
At his cryptic words, a funny shiver went through my insides. Despite the fact that I’d been immersed in the problem of Miss Hodgeworth’s death and the Sekhmet mystery, questions about Mr. Eckhert and his origins had never been far from my mind. I’d analyzed the facts over and over and had only come to one conclusion.
An unbelievable conclusion.
But my uncle’s favorite maxim had been pounded into my head from a young age. When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
I turned to answering his question. “Seven years ago, there was a time when it seemed as if the civilized world would adopt the use of electricity to power everything mechanical. But it became clear how dangerous it is when fifteen people were electrocuted by a wire in New Jersey during a rainstorm. Mr. Edison tried to cover up the incident, but Mr. Emmet Oligary, one of the foremost businessmen in London, made certain it was written about in the papers. The scandal was exposed, and it became obvious that widespread use of electricity was a real danger to society. Mr. Oligary led the charge to make certain all of England was aware of the insidious dangers of electrical power. His brother-in-law, Lord Moseley, consulted with Parliament to craft and pass the law in 1884.”
“Let me guess,” said Mr. Eckhert as we approached the wide flight of steps to the British Museum. “Mr. Oligary had a bunch of factories running on steam engines.” His expression was grim. “Probably manufacturing the parts to them, even.”
“Of course he did. The steam engine was just becoming popular at that time. And now we use that technology for everything. Good afternoon, sir,” I said to the guard at the door of the museum.
He looked with suspicion at the disheveled Mr. Eckhert, but when I glared at him with a level gaze of my own, the guard gestured us through. The heavy glass doors, framed in brass, clicked and whirred as they folded open. I led the way through the Banksian Room to Miss Adler’s office. It was nearly quarter past two.
“Good afternoon, Mina,” said Miss Adler when we were given entrance to her office. She was sitting at her desk, with a small mechanical device poised over an open book. It appeared to be a magnifyer of some sort and was clicking in a pleasant rhythm. “And . . .” She looked at my companion, then back at me and rose to her feet.
“Miss Adler, I have an abundance of information to share with you in regard to the events of last night, but first I’d like you to meet Mr. Dylan Eckhert. You might recognize him from our previous encounter, over Miss Hodgeworth’s body. I’ve learned he came to London in an unlikely fashion. I am going to help him find a way to return home.”
