A Study in Silks

Nick sucked in a breath, half in wonder, half in bitterness. This was the workshop! Nick had thought Magnus half cracked, thinking His Lordship, his son, or both were playing with machinery. But the doctor was right. Nick had never heard of a toff playing with greasy springs and wheels—dirt might get lodged around his nails, after all—but there was Tobias Roth, dressed for honest work.

Roth stopped in the middle of the yard, falling deep into conversation with another man of his own age. They were discussing some sort of contraption that looked to Nick like a giant metal insect with most of its legs pulled off. It lay belly-up on the ground, a few limbs stuck straight into the air. That must have once been the opera-eating monster.

Look at all those parts, Nick thought. Where did Roth get them? Did he have the Gold King’s permission, or did rich bastards get to build whatever they wanted? And all those resources were being squandered on a gigantic toy—not a generator for light, or a pump to move clean water uphill. He didn’t understand the rich.

Nick pulled back, taking care not to be seen. So, did the Golden Boy go in the front of the tailor’s shop, then out the back door to come here? Maybe Roth wasn’t as stupid as Nick had assumed. But what was Tobias doing, and why was he trying to keep it a secret?

Nick pondered the broken machine, turning what he knew of the young man over and over in his mind, and then adding what he’d read in the papers over the last few days. A slow smile began tugging at the corners of his mouth, finally breaking into a grin. Perhaps the metal monstrosity wasn’t an entire waste. He had to admit, Tobias Roth knew how to put on a show. Not at Nick’s level, but not bad for an amateur. And as an inventor, the toff had a wealth of raw talent.

He knew instinctively that this was exactly what Dr. Magnus wanted to know.

Chapter Fourteen

Murder Most Foul! A local farmer made a gruesome discovery on a remote byway in Hampstead late this morning. Two hale young men were discovered dead on the roadside, bludgeoned and with their throats cut. Robbers are suspected, as the bodies were stripped down to their shirts. When questioned, a local innkeeper claimed he had seen the men driving a wagon loaded with chests several hours before dawn. They had awakened the innkeeper looking for a smith, as one of their horses had thrown a shoe. No sign of the missing wagon, horses, or cargo has been found.

—The London Prattler, evening edition

Evelina had just finished repairing her necklace when the afternoon paper arrived. The two dead men were Lord Bancroft’s grooms. Grace was no longer the only victim among the staff. The papers had made no mention of the men’s names, or where they had worked, but the Peelers had come asking questions for the second time in less than a week. If Evelina wanted to keep Lestrade from finding anything that would hurt Imogen’s family, she had to find answers, and fast.

Now Evelina stood in the dusty gloom of the attic, candle in hand, searching for a clue. The automatons hadn’t reappeared with a sinister clap of thunder. The closest item was a headless dress form with a pincushion topping its neck. And an hour of searching had produced no more information than she already had.

It was time to go back downstairs. Evelina knelt, peering under a trunk. “Time to go.”

A faint whirring was accompanied by the patter of tiny, tiny paws.

“Come on, stop mucking about,” she said impatiently.

A tiny nose popped out from under the trunk. Dust bunnies clung to its fine steel whiskers. I discovered twelve misanthropic spiders and a nest of wary moths, but sadly there is a paucity of information on demon-possessed automatons. Mind you, this is an attic, and I am a mouse. You might have made me a researcher at the Bodleian, able to—let’s be rash here—actually read and turn pages. But, no. You went for cute and amusing, ergo, I am a rodent. If you think I’m going to squeak adorably, you have lessons to learn.

“Oh, do be quiet. And who said anything about demons?” The automatons had dark magic clinging to them, but thankfully they hadn’t been demon-class evil.

I’m improvising.

“You’re whining.” That’s what she got for using another earth deva.

But temperament aside, her latest creation worked beautifully. The mouse had been her idea for indoor spying. Its dark, etched coat looked almost real in the dim light. She picked it up gently, balancing it on her palm.

The lark she’d sent after Lestrade had not come back. She had forgotten to specify when it was to return with news. It might show up tomorrow, or sometime in the next century. A classic mistake when casting a spell. She didn’t have time to wait, so she’d brought her second toy to life with the deva that had found her in the oak tree—a comeuppance for taunting her when she had slipped from the branch.

What did you expect to find here, besides old rags and broken armoires? The mouse sat up, cleaning the dust out of its whiskers. Love letters? Or are you simply avoiding that fair-haired idiot? I’ve noticed your heart thunders every time that one prances by.

“We’re not talking about him.”

Suit yourself.

“I shall.” Evelina watched the creature groom, fascinated by the fact that it could move as if it were made of flesh and not metal. Something about the spirit overrode the reality of their stiff bodies—maybe it was an affinity between the deva’s elemental nature and the metal that had been forged from the earth. She wondered if an air deva would work equally well. “Actually, I was hoping to find something that would tell me about the automatons. Why did the family keep them? Why would anyone kill for them?”

You said they stank of undesirable magic. Maybe they assembled themselves, killed their captors, and walked away to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting metropolis.

That mental image was going to haunt her dreams—if she ever slept again. She glared at the tiny mouse. “Their magic wasn’t like yours. They weren’t alive.”

Then perhaps you need to consult the family archives to discover where they came from. They had to be purchased somewhere.

“Good idea.” It gave her a place to start, anyway. “Though I’m still not sure how Grace is connected.”

The mouse ran up her arm and perched on her shoulder. My dear girl, I’ve been around since that tree outside was a wee sapling and this house was a few blocks on a green meadow. In the end, everything is connected. You must persevere. Dirty linens always show up in the wash.

“Perhaps, but I don’t want to drown in the laundry tubs while looking.” Evelina put the wriggling mouse into her pocket.

The most curious part of the whole affair was Lord Bancroft. Not because he kept a placid mien worthy of a cardsharp—that was to be expected of an aristocrat with an eye on high office—nor even that he forbade the servants to speak of the murders. No master wanted his staff so distracted they burned his toast and overstarched his shirts.

No, it was what the housekeeper had overheard and told Dora, who had then told Evelina. Last night, Lord Bancroft—more than a little tipsy—had promised Lestrade a reward if the police would find his trunks. It was imperative that they were returned untouched.

Why? No one knew. All of his servants had joined the household after Lord Bancroft returned to England. No one seemed to know anything about the trunks’ contents, much less why they mattered. Of course, the mention of a reward had made everyone twice as curious. If Bancroft’s plan had been to keep the trunks and their magic- ridden contents quiet, that was the wrong way to do so. But whisky had never made men smart—and whisky was something she’d noticed on Lord B’s breath more and more of late.

Evelina took one last look around the attic and descended the stairs, pondering her next move. Through the small windows of the stairway landing, she could see that an indigo dusk had just settled on the garden outside.