Chapter Six

Five minutes distance from the house of Lady Thanatou, Ellie and Helia sat behind the frosted glass of the Hoop and Toy’s snug, enjoying an afternoon meal. Not that Ellie had wanted to make the stop, but where Helia was concerned, all delays during an investigation had a purpose.

Before them sat Miss Annie Le Bon, whom Helia had recognised while the woman rode her wheel quickly away from the very address Ellie had all intentions of reaching. Instead, Helia made the driver turn around so she could hail Miss Le Bon, cajole her to halt, and then invite her to the Hoop and Toy. Ellie would have begrudged the delay except for one thing: Miss Le Bon wrote about social injustices, not artists’s garden fêtes. Even if Helia’s suspicion of Miss Le Bon’s purpose in Old Brompton turned out to be incorrect, it at least earned Ellie a porkpie with ale, and Miss Le Bon a tumbler of brandy and a chop she’d yet to touch. Instead, she smoked a cigarette along with Helia and seemed to give Helia—as far as Ellie could tell of the woman’s protective life-glow—a very cool and wary regard.

Miss Le Bon was square of shoulder, with sturdy limbs and hands and a stern aspect, though Ellie thought her attitude less of the street and more tempered by upper-class rearing. And like certain learned, modern women, she was an activist and social reformer, with a special interest in exposing sexual slavery. But unlike the women and men of the rescue missions, her personal crusades were more motivated by secular values. Ellie enjoyed making the flustered Mrs Darby read aloud the educational penny pamphlets Miss Le Bon published, for she thought it very necessary that Elvie and their fellow boarders understand matters like female contraceptives.

“Annie,” Helia said, then exhaled smoke. “You say you’ve never met Lady Thanatou, but you attended this marble garden event because you were mysteriously informed that it would help your present investigation?”

“That was what I was told. I’m in the midst of exposing a charity-girl school here in Brompton, one I suspect of selling girls to despicable gentry like yourself, Helia.”

Ellie coughed on a bite of her porkpie.

“I . . . admit to contributing to certain injustices in the past,” Helia said as she tapped her cigarette into her ash box. “But Annie, I seek to make amends now.”

“All you write about are the antics of those supernatural agents, Helia, and do nothing for our girl captives.”

“Annie, did you learn what you needed at the garden event?”

“I did,” Annie said with satisfaction. “Evidence that confirms Countess Ogfrey for the wicked woman she is. She owns the school, you see, and likes to procure the girls for herself. One of her captives was Rose Batts, whose disappearance from the school I was investigating. Somehow, Rose found sanctuary with Lady Thanatou and has vanished again. But today, a most provocative marble Lady Thanatou has presented, called The Slave, was recognised by Countess Ogfrey as being in the image of Rose Batts. There were many at the party who witnessed her admittance.”

“An interesting public humiliation,” Helia said thoughtfully.

“Yet I doubt it will stop her,” Annie said. “Rose Batts left me a written account of what happened to her before disappearing for good. That is all I have, against a countess’s word! An exposé based on it is no longer enough. I need—”

“Material suitable for blackmail?” Helia said. “You need to ruin her, Annie. Ogfrey will not stop unless you’ve something she cannot deny.”

“I agree. I need another who can expose her. Surely the countess hasn’t kept her cruel hands off a new victim? That is who I need, and she needs to be rescued, now.”

“I agree. And Ellie can help you, Annie.”

“Wot?” Ellie said, putting down her ale.

Helia chuckled and extinguished her dwindling cigarette. “Sneak into her home and use a bee smoker, Ellie! Just like that time I needed to search a certain duke’s home to retrieve damning letters.” She nibbled on her fragment of cheddar and sliver of ham.

“Though I’ve never taken advantage of your bodyguard services, Miss Hench, your reputation preceeds you,” Annie said.

“But liberatin’ a girl is not like liftin’ a packet of letters!” Ellie protested. “I can’t perceive through walls, Helia, behind which you know the poor unfortunate will be imprisoned. We’ll be ejected long before we can find ’er.”

“Not if we use this.” Annie pulled out folded papers from her leather satchel. She laid them out. “This map of the house interior, with instructions and the indication of Ogfrey’s secret room, was drawn by Rose Batts herself. And I’ve this.” She presented a hardwood box with mounted lenses. “One especially made to withstand destruction by angry countesses.”

“Well now,” Ellie said, appraising the camera. “In that, I approve. But I need the map described to me, Miss Le Bon. Helia, I’ve my fee, as you know, and for such an exercise as this, it shall be tripled.”

“Of course, Ellie, I will pay it. But I can’t join in this rescue, I’m afraid. I’ve something else to investigate.”

“I thought you wouldn’t. Why make an adversary of one of your society when your sister is due to be a countess herself?” Annie said coldly.

“Helene is quite prepared to don male dress so that she might be addressed as ‘earl,’ Annie, whenever that time should come. But I’m leaving you two because of this.” She held up a key dangling a metal tag, engraved with a hotel name and room number. Ellie knew the sighted alphabet well enough to discern the grooved marks: Osborne’s.

“What will you be doing in Westminster’s Adelphi?” Annie said.

“I hope to be questioning a man named Stavros, from whose pocket I picked this, whilst you and Ellie are ruining Countess Olgfrey.”

***

The sculptress’s garden event, rather than winding down, became more gay with the flow of wine. Elvie heard the liquid poured and smelled it in the air while someone strummed a stringed instrument. The guests talked animatedly, their tongues loosened not just by wine but by the incident with the countess. Propriety lessened; conversations touched on vulgar subjects. Before Corrina could introduce her to others, Elvie asked to be led aside instead. Though some discussions were humorous, resulting in blasts of laughter, Elvie felt uncomfortable with the meanspirited chatter. She’d hoped for more intellectually engaging conversations for such an artistic gathering, and if there were intellectual minds about, they harboured their wit and kept silent. She smelled fruity, heady smoke stronger than cigarettes and learned water pipes were present. Corrina offered her cheese and grapes, but Elvie declined, unable to dismiss a certain, sad conclusion occupying her mind.

“I feel terrible, Corrina,” she finally blurted. “Though it was simply her likeness, I did explore the one called The Slave. I now feel I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Please do not feel so. You were the sole person allowed to touch her, miss,” Corrina said.

“I . . . really?”

“Yes, for I desired that you know her,” the sculptress said, filling Elvie’s senses with her voice and the scent of roses and frankincense.

“I didn’t even hear you approach,” Elvie softly exclaimed. She shuddered as a thrill ran down her back.

The sculptress gave a curt command in Greek and Corrina left Elvie’s side, explaining that she would fetch her a wrap. Elvie would have protested but she was listening to—measuring—the sculptress’s nearness and the way she moved.

The sculptress had announced herself in the museum when she had deliberately stepped closer to Elvie, then again at Thana’s statue. But in reality the sculptress did not travel like others did, much in the way Ellie did not when she went into action, immersed in her fluid world. Elvie suspected then, with an alarm and curiosity that outweighed caution, that somehow her hostess was something more than what might be considered ordinary. But what? Various clues had already been given her: The strength she’d felt in those hands, a pair seemingly imbued with more power than Elvie’s touch had ever known. And the manner in which the sculptress moved, more silently than Ellie, who was such a master of her own body. And more quickly. And so perfectly.

Ellie’s encountered other kinds amongst us, she recalled, her heart hammering at the thought. She hoped Lady Thanatou wasn’t one of the fabled vampyres. She held out her hands, and the lady took hold of them.

No, her fingers are truly warm, Elvie thought in relief, once more experiencing a thrill. She marvelled at the heat in them and wondered if there were such beings as cat people, like those of Bastet, perhaps. She liked cats. “You are quite perfect,” she said. “And I shan’t be a startled bird, chirrup, and fly away.”

“Elvie?” the sculptress said.

“What rose scent are you wearing?” Elvie asked. “It is richer than any I’ve known.”

“It is the Anatolian rose.”

“Anatolia.”

The sculptress’s fingers caressed her own.

“Come experience my studio,” she said, her voice low.

“Oh yes.”

“Tomorrow. I will send Corrina for you.”

“Yes.” She had classes to teach, more stockings to knit. But she would rid herself of all obligations to visit the sculptress again. She raised her hand, desiring to touch the lady’s face. The sculptress led her searching hand, and her fingers contacted—

“A mask,” Elvie said in wonderment, touching the metal. She caressed along it and brushed where hair would be. Instead, she encountered fabric; a snood heavy with contained hair, just as Ellie had described.

Something hissed at her, the sound muffled.

She drew back her hand, surprised. “What?” she softly exclaimed.

The sculptress grasped her hands. “I keep . . . snakes,” she said.

“Do you?” Bewildered, Elvie tried to comprehend how the sound had been so near. The lady’s hands withdrew. Corrina took Elvie’s arm and laid a wrap around her shoulders, then her stick was placed in her hands. Corrina led her away, and Elvie heard the laughing guests left behind while her footsteps and Corrina’s echoed in the vestibule.

“It is time to depart, miss,” Corrina quietly said.

“Lady Thanatou?” Elvie called.

“Hypíaine, Elvie. Until tomorrow,” she heard the sculptress bid behind her, and Corrina led Elvie down the vestibule. The entrance doors creaked open, and Elvie listened, even though she knew she would detect nothing more of the sculptress’s presence.