I stopped those thoughts and turned to Grayling. “I have a rather delicate project I must finish today. Perhaps we could make an appointment to speak tomorrow?”
That was assuming I’d be alive and able to speak tomorrow.
I shoved that thought away.
He fixed me with a steady look, then gave a short, sharp nod. “Very well, Miss Holmes. Good day.”
We’d hardly returned to the laboratory when Mrs. Raskill thudded on the door yet again. “It’s. Another. Visitor. Ye. ’Ave,” she said, clearly capitalizing and punctuating each word. And the fact that she’d dropped the h in have indicated her extreme exasperation.
The same messenger who’d come earlier stood at the front door. “I’ve got ’nother message fer ye.”
My attention swept over him once again, noting several changes to his appearance.
Gray dusty grit on the outside of left shoe only—he’d been on Pennington-street since he was here last.
A shiny dark green stain low on his trousers, the faint scent of algae—he’d been at the dockyards within the last hour.
A red-and-green paper wrapper peeked from his trouser pocket—he’d recently patronized Shertle’s Meats for one of their meat pies.
“May I see the message?”
The folded packet’s exterior was identical to the first. However, inside was a lock of dark, curling hair. There was no doubt to whom it belonged—Evaline’s curls coiled in a clockwise direction and were a deep, shiny walnut color of this precise hue.
I turned my attention to the message:
You have until nine o’clock this evening to bring
the diadem to Fannery’s Square.
If you do not, Miss Stoker will
embrace Sekhmet for all eternity.
If you do not come alone,
the deal is defunct, and she’ll die.
“Are you to wait for a response again?” I asked.
“Nay, miss. Except I’m told ye’d pay me fer my troubles.”
My mind was so busy analyzing my observations that I didn’t have the attention to spare for being vexed by this assumption. I paid the young man, sent him on his way, and then returned my attention to the message and Miss Stoker’s hair. I sniffed both the letter and her curls, and examined the latter on a piece of white paper.
“Where’s Fannery’s Square?” asked Dylan, who’d been reading over my shoulder.
“She’s very clever. Oh, the Ankh is quite clever,” I said, mulling over all I’d absorbed since the young man returned. “Fannery’s Square is outside London by one hour. But the only way to get there is to take the train. The next train leaves at seven, and there is one more today at half past eight. The latter would get us to our destination too late, so we must take the seven o’clock train.”
“How long will it take us to get to the train station?”
I pinched my lower lip.
The strange churning I always felt when I was getting close to something fascinating had begun in my belly. “This means the Ankh wants to ensure we’re on the seven o’clock train, for some particular reason. That’s why she waited so late in the day to send the message. She wants us in a particular location or on a particular route at a certain time. And everyone knows the Fannery train is precisely on time, so one must be at the station before seven.”
I paced the room. The churning had grown stronger, my belly tighter. I recalled my observations of the messenger, and the churning turned into more of a warning prickling.
I didn’t like it.
“Our messenger—who had to have received this message from the Ankh or someone close to her—was nowhere in the proximity of the Fannery line train today,” I said. “He was at the docks. He spent at least the latter part of the day there, because Shertle’s Meats never serves their pies until after half past four. And his trousers— the gray debris on the left shoe indicates he was walking on Pennington-street. It’s the only location that sort of concrete is being poured this week—I read about it in the Times. That’s one block north of the Yeater Wharf. He didn’t have time to go from Bond to Pennington and Shertle’s after walking along there at noon, for the algae on his trousers is fresh. It hasn’t yet dried.”
Dylan was staring at me as if I were speaking in some slang that was just as incomprehensible as some of the things he’d said to me. “So what does this all mean? In plain English?”
“It means that I have a decision to make.” I realized the churning, which was normally a comforting feeling, had turned into something akin to nausea. “I either follow the instructions herein, or I go where our messenger was—and where he received this message. That’s where the Ankh is.”
Suddenly the image of last night, with Lady Cosgrove-Pitt in her housecoat and her bemused expression rose in my mind like a terrible specter. Along with Grayling’s exasperated, rigid face. The nausea grew stronger.
“I think.”
I don’t believe I’d ever said or even thought those words before. I think.
Dylan watched me. “So you’re thinking we ignore the message and track down the Ankh somewhere . . . where? By the wharf? How will we know what building?”
“I can narrow it down to a block,” I said, thinking of the particular smell clinging to the lock of Evaline’s hair. “The one with the fish-smokers on New Gravel Lane. And as for which building? We’ll look for the one with the airship coming out of the roof. Surely the Ankh won’t risk leaving her Sekhmet statue behind.”
I glanced at him, my palms damp and my insides heavy and rock-like. That was what the facts told me.
But the message—directions from the desperate woman who held my partner and who wanted the diadem above all else—commanded me otherwise.
Yesterday, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I’d have listened to my deductions and ignored the message.
But today . . . I had to decide whether to follow my instincts and my conclusions . . . or to follow directions and possibly put myself into a trap.
But if I didn’t follow the directions, I risked Evaline’s life.
Last night’s mistake had been nothing more than mortifying and inconvenient.
Today’s decision was a matter of life and death.
I looked at the clock, my insides roiling. After six. I had to make a decision.
“I can’t risk it. We’re going—” I drew in a deep breath, fighting my logical mind. I made the decision and immediately felt ill. But I soldiered on. I couldn’t afford to be wrong this time. “We’re following the directions. We’re going to Fannery’s Square.”
Miss Stoker
Miss Stoker’s Decision
With the Ankh gone, I investigated my prison, limited as I was by the length of my bonds. I was looking for weapons or at least something to unlock the chains.
One option was to pull the heavy statue over and unloop the chains from around her. While that would free me from that massive anchor, it wouldn’t unlock my ankles or wrists. I’d still be trussed. And whoever was below would hear the sound of Sekhmet crashing to the floor. There had to be another option.
Two huge floor-to-ceiling windows offered dirty light, but I couldn’t get close enough to draw attention to
