Chapter Twenty-Two

Musée du Louvre, 13 June 1870

Monsieur Anctil bowed at the waist and straightened with a grin. Iris blinked to clear the sense of disorientation from her little trip through time, and she noticed he was short for a man, about her height, and he had a bald spot between his salt-and-pepper curls. She took his proffered elbow and smiled through the tightness in her cheeks from wanting to scream at him to leave her alone, let her figure this all out before she moved to something else. Studying the past should allow her to do that, right?

“Did you learn anything interesting?” he asked.

“Perhaps. I always need some time to think about things after I see them to allow my mind make connections.” As they left the gallery, the feeling the waving statue watched Iris dissipated, and she took as deep a breath as Marie’s corset lacing allowed.

“That seems wise,” he said. “So many people talk before thoroughly sifting through the evidence. As an archaeologist you know the importance of finding all the pieces before you make a conclusion.”

“Yes, exactly.” Iris thought she heard something different in his accent but dismissed it as a trick her ears played on her. She couldn’t trust her senses until she felt completely anchored in this time, and the path they took through the Egyptian gallery didn’t help. The sarcophagi in particular whispered to her, and she clenched the fist not on Anctil’s arm in an attempt to dampen the sensations.

What had happened to her?

“Ah, the tombs will not hurt you,” he said. “They are full of dead things. It’s the living you need to fear.”

“Pardon?” Iris asked. They descended a stairwell that wrapped around a pedestal with a headless winged statue on it. She pretended to admire the details in the drapery and wings while checking to see if anyone else was around. She wondered where Bledsoe had gone.

“A recent find in the Ottoman empire,” Anctil said, seemingly oblivious to the strangeness of his previous words and their effect on her. “Firmin was very excited, but I find it a pity we now have to go so far abroad when we could make our own discoveries here at home. There are rooms full of the junk found during the rebuilding and renovations no one has bothered to sort through. I’m sure there are many Roman artifacts from their original construction of the sewers and many items that could shed more light on medieval life.”

“I thought something similar.” Now they crossed a courtyard, and the sun on Iris’s face cleared the residual cobwebs of her strange experience from her mind, which turned to analyzing the situation. Something strange had happened to her. Anctil appeared immediately after and made an odd comment, which he passed over. The likelihood of his accosting her—minimal since she observed workmen and cleaners at irregular intervals, and she suspected some of them might be part of Lucille’s city-wide network of spies. Anctil had information. She would have to play the role of slightly intelligent but not too clever archaeologist to get it from him.

“The emperor has been preparing to start a school.” But before she could ask what kind, he said, “Ah, here we are.” He held open a large wooden door carved with floral patterns, their sharp edges rounded by time and exposure.

Iris walked in and blinked at the brightness of the colors and gleam of the jewels and gems in their glass cases. One cabinet in particular drew her closer. It contained several little cases similar to the one she found in the volcano egg.

“What are these?” she asked. “They’re beautiful.”

“Ah, but also deadly, Mademoiselle. You have found the poison cases used by courtesans and female assassins in the Renaissance.” He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the case, and opened the lid. A rosy hue came to his cheeks pinked as he said, “Their unusual shapes are so they could be hidden on a woman’s body, sometimes inside certain crevices, although that was risky. Some of the poisons were ingestible, and others could be absorbed through the skin, and in such small amounts, they had to be potent. You can imagine the disaster should the containers open accidentally, so most of them had a trick to gaining access to them.”

Iris’s cheeks heated as well. Could she really be here having a conversation about things that could be hidden on, or worse in, a woman’s body with a foreign man? “I see the concern. How did they work?”

“The devices were such that natural and certain other motions of the, eh, person wouldn’t be enough to pop them ajar.” His face reddened more, and Iris wondered if he’d made some sort of innuendo. “So there were often two actions required. This one, for example.” He picked up a jeweled ebony comb, the part that showed thicker than one would expect, but Iris imagined it would not stand out in a tall curly hairstyle. She guessed he chose one that went outside, not—blush—inside a woman’s body, but that wouldn’t help her solve the mystery of the one she found.

“That’s beautiful, but what about this one?” She pointed to a gold one almost identical to the one in her valise.

Now his flush reached to the top of his head. “Ah, yes, Mademoiselle, that one is for the most vicious of courtesans for whom a poison ring or other jewelry would be too obvious. Only four or five of these particular devices are in existence, all having rumored connections to the infamous House of Borgia.”

“How do you open it?” Iris asked. She acknowledged the part of her brain that screamed that having this conversation could ruin her reputation. The desire to know, both for her own curiosity and for the purposes of increasing her overall historical education beyond the whitewashed version from school, immolated the lattice of caution so carefully installed over the years by her mother and other sources of Victorian propriety.

Apparently Anctil also decided to go full steam ahead in spite of his growing redness, now almost purpleness. “As you can see, it’s somewhat flat so as to fit more comfortably under a breast—Madame de Venile was particularly well-endowed—or in other intimate places. It required a twist to a specific point to reveal the contents for sprinkling and a pull at another to open it completely.”

He moved the two halves, and they clicked along.

“It seems noisy for a murderous device.”

“That is because it has not been lubricated.” The poor man looked about to explode, Iris was sure of it from the color he turned and the way his hands trembled. “It was much more quiet when the original goldsmith assembled it.”

“How do you know where to twist it?”

“The Italian mistress’s hands were sensitive enough to feel where the points were, but in case they couldn’t for some reason, the craftsmen put clues on the outside.” He gestured for Iris to follow him to where sunlight shone through a window. “See the marks? They are more than mere scratches or carving. They are signals in the language of the poisoner.”

“I see.” Iris ran a gloved finger over the surface, which had been decorated in the pattern of a feather, perfect for the shape of the deadly little gold box. “What is it a feather from?”

Anctil put a hand on his chest, and Iris thought she could hear his rapid heartbeat. “Ah, and the archaeologist’s mind comes forward. I would suspect a phoenix or some other mythical creature symbolizing death and rebirth, for every death one causes results in a change in oneself.”

“Typically not for the better, I would imagine.”

Now Anctil breathed heavily, and he clasped Iris’s wrist. His fingers pressed points of pain through her glove. “Mademoiselle, you must listen to me very carefully.”

Iris tried to jerk away, but he held fast and gazed at her with dilated pupils. “Monsieur, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“Not in the way you might think. You must be très très cautious, for you tread a dangerous path.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a crude drawing and an address.

Iris fell through time again, but in her memory, to the night she’d found the gold poison case in her father’s study. The symbol on the paper, a square inside a circle, resembled the one that had been etched on the window. Now Iris recognized them as both potential Pythagorean shapes symbolizing a combination of earthly and heavenly—or this life and afterlife—paths.

“The cult of Pythagoras is alive, Mademoiselle McTavish, and they do not want their secrets to be disturbed.”

He let go of her wrist, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the ground. The case fell from his fingers, and a gold flash drew Iris’s gaze outside, where a clockwork butterfly flitted against the window.

Johann Bledsoe heard a discordant note to the one he played and put the violin down to examine the strings of his bow. But the sound, more a scream, continued. Before his mind registered his actions, he placed the violin on the chair and sprinted down the hall and across the courtyard in the direction it had come from. He recognized the double doors to the Renaissance art wing.

Iris! What has that girl gotten herself into now?

He found out when he pushed through the doors and found a crowd of workers and Monsieur Firmin around Monsieur Anctil, who lay on the floor, his skin a ghastly shade of gray. Johann discovered Iris at the back of the crowd by the window, which she had cracked open. Wet tracks down her cheeks and her trembling chin identified her as the source of the sound that had interrupted his practice. She clutched his arm when he approached.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

The look she gave him from beneath her wet lashes didn’t say damsel in distress. Rather, it was the cool expression of a master schemer, and he had to simultaneously respect her and remind himself she couldn’t be trusted.

“What did you do to him?” he hissed. “You can’t go burning my bridges all through Europe. Anctil is a decent sort.”

“Was a decent sort, you mean,” she shot back. “And I didn’t do it. He was holding this.” She opened the palm of her other hand and showed him a small gold case, the shape suggestive of something a virginal English girl shouldn’t know about. He reached for it, but she stopped him.

“I suspect it has poison on it or that Anctil was given something slower-acting at breakfast. Possibly something that was meant for me. Either way, he was kind.” Now tears welled in her eyes, and he knew they were real.

Johann wanted to marvel at the crack in her typically solid composure, but there were other problems at hand. He dug a handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to her to wrap the container in. “Make sure you don’t have any holes in your pockets or reticule.”

“Of course,” she replied with a huff that told him his barb hit home.

Yes, I’m a cad. She’s obviously upset, and I had to tease her. “And you’re going to have to be careful with those gloves.”

“It’s this one, and it’s kid skin, so whatever is on it should wipe off. However, I want to bring it and the case to Doctor Radcliffe before I do. Perhaps he has some way to determine what was used.”

“So you want to carry a priceless Renaissance artifact out of the museum in the name of knowledge?” He shook his head. “You are cut from a different cloth.” And that’s something Edward would do. Dammit, she is perfect for him.

“Yes, and then I want you to accompany me to…” She rattled off an address that sounded familiar.

“That’s L’Hôpital des Enfants,” he said. “Why there?”

She gestured toward Monsieur Firmin, who approached them. “I’ll tell you later.”

“He is gone,” he said. “The museum doctor has pronounced him dead. The gendarme would like a word with the young lady.”

“I will accompany her to the interview,” Johann said.

“That is not necessary.” Iris stood straighter. “If you would allow me another brief word with the maestro, I will come momentarily.”

“Of course.” He inclined his head and walked away.

“I can’t take this now. What if they search my reticule in the office?”

“Well, I’m not taking it. Your glove will have to do for the poison sample.” He frowned—his favorite mistress had given him that handkerchief, which he couldn’t take back now.

Oh, well, easy come, easy go. Like the woman who gave it to me.

“Oh, and one of the clockwork devices followed us,” she whispered. “It was flitting outside. You must find it and capture it. I don’t want our conversation getting back to your friends in the Guild.”

“They’re not my—” Her words struck him. How did she know about his troubles? “Fine, but be careful what you say.”

“You know I’m good at monitoring my words.”

“All too well.”

“Excellent. Now go. Find it, and I will meet you after I speak with the gendarme.”

Johann watched her walk away and imagined a rod of steel instead of a backbone. His handkerchief fluttered to the floor behind her, and a chink in the case told him she’d dropped the poison holder into it.

His handkerchief was easy enough to retrieve, and he was careful to hold it by the corners. He couldn’t help but be impressed at how Iris strategized the situation.

If she were a man, she would be formidable.

A whirring noise caught his attention, the device flitting outside the window. He glanced around to ensure no one saw him, swung a leg over the sill, and stepped outside.

Iris sat with her right hand curled tightly around her left one in her lap. The museum guard had been joined by a young but dour-looking man, who wore a dark suit and introduced himself as Inspector Davidson. She answered their questions with enough information to be truthful but not enough to give away anything about her and the others’ quest. She wished she knew where Anctil had been poisoned or if that had been the cause of his death.

Death, death, death… It seemed determined to follow her, and she pushed the thought away that she had somehow attracted it after that last argument with her mother before she became ill.

No, I’m not going to think about that now. Those memories will make me look guilty.

“Mademoiselle?” The head of museum security sniffed so hard his entire moustache jumped.

Iris put an automatic polite smile on her face, her best weapon as a woman in a man’s world. “Je suis desolée, Monsieur. It has been a trying day. Poor Monsieur Anctil…” She wiped at her eye with her right hand.

“I believe that will suffice,” the detective, who sounded like he’d gone abroad to study English, said. His clipped tone belied his youthful appearance but matched his aristocratic demeanor.

He seems too handsome to be a detective. And I am too distraught to think straight.

“Obviously the Mademoiselle can’t tell us much in her current state.” He handed her a card, which she took and put in her reticule. “If you think of anything else, please contact me.”

She stood and curtsied, and they let her go. She met Johann outside the front of the museum, where he waited with Monceau’s steamcoach. He held his right hand at an angle away from his body, and water dripped from his sleeve.

“Did you get it without attracting attention?” she asked. She glanced around for signs of Jeremy Scott’s men—somehow she doubted they were far away. With all those people watching them—and now she had to add the Pythagoreans and possibly the dandy detective to the list—she wondered how they were to discover anything and keep it a secret.

He lifted her into the carriage, and she was sure to give him her right hand. “Yes. I managed to knock it into a fountain, and the water muffled the sound of the capture alarm.”

“That explains your sleeve.”

“Indeed. I look forward to Edward and Mister O’Connell figuring out how to play the cylinder so I can hear the conversation you desperately want to hide.”

Iris’s cheeks warmed. “I do not mind you listening to it, truly, for I have a favor to ask you related to it. But I’m glad you captured the clockwork spy device. It will be something else to keep Edward occupied during his convalescence.” She wanted to ask if they would return to the hotel during his allowed visiting hours, but she didn’t want to push it. Although she possessed a secret of his now, she had something bigger to ask for. “Since we’re done at the Louvre early, perhaps we can visit the address poor Monsieur Anctil gave me. You said it was a hospital?”

Bledsoe squeezed the end of his sleeve, and water dripped on the floor of the steamcoach. It didn’t add much to the already humid atmosphere. He gave her a skeptical look. “Perhaps you should go back to the hotel and rest. You just witnessed a man’s death, after all. Or are you unhappy he did so where you could see him and therefore you can’t pretend he’s alive?”

“That’s not fair. Now the world has lost two of its brilliant minds in archaeology and history.” She gazed out of the window to quell the desire to slap him, especially not with her possibly poisoned with her left glove. As much as he infuriated her, she didn’t want to have anyone’s death on her hands, not Edward’s best friend’s. And having death literally on her hand caused power and a sense of entrapment to war in her chest. She returned her gaze to the musician, who studied her with a crease between his blond brows.

“What?” she asked.

“I’ve encountered many women in my time—”

“Don’t be crude.”

“—but I’ve never met one who could switch her emotions off and on like you. Not even the best of the actresses, who admittedly never made it as far as treading the boards in London. But I could always tell what they’re feeling no matter how hard they tried to hide it.”

“What are you saying about me? That I have no feelings?”

“No, but that you have a strange ability to shut them away. A man died in front of you.” He gestured to the floor in front of her as though Anctil’s body lay there. “At your feet! And here you sit, cool and hard as one of those marble statues you’re so fascinated with, and you want to follow some vague clue—from a man who died giving it to you, no less—that may put you in more danger, which you’re not worried about in the least.” He stopped and ran a finger under his collar. Iris’s stomach wanted to bust through her corset to take enough of a breath for the response she wanted to make, but Marie had laced her in too tightly, so she had to settle for icy disdain.

This explains Adelaide’s typical response when I angered her. She never allowed sensible corset lacing.

“Make no mistake, Mister Bledsoe,” Iris said. “I mourn my father. You have no idea how badly I miss him and wish every day I could ask his opinion about this crazy quest and the things we’re finding out.” She almost said, “About ourselves,” but she didn’t want to give away anything about the strange events of the previous night until she’d puzzled through them herself. “I feel flawed, cracked down the middle and held together by the need to survive all humans seem to have whether they’re slave girls about to be sacrificed in a temple or the most powerful philosophers or kings. I know my strength, which is to solve problems and figure out riddles given to me by the past. I cannot control my gender, but I can do what I can to keep it from hampering me. I will not apologize for not meeting your low expectations and melting into tears in your arms like your typical female companions, but I have a job to do, and you do too.”

He sat back, and his mouth opened and closed like a drowning gargoyle. “That’s not at all what I was saying, and I certainly have no desire for you to be in my arms. You’ve too many hard and flinty bits for me.”

“If you’re trying to insult me, you failed. I wouldn’t be soft and gentle for Jeremy Scott, and I won’t be for you!”

“What does that milquetoast have to do with anything? Now you’re arguing like a woman.”

The steamcoach stopped in front of the hotel, and the driver opened the door.

“Hopefully that will satisfy you. Now if you will excuse me,” Iris told him, “I shall return to my logical self, find Doctor Radcliffe and see what he can tell me about Anctil’s death, what substance may have been responsible.” Her throat burned with tears at the thought of the little man’s kindness to her that morning—at least compared to Bledsoe’s and Firmin’s harshness—but she’d be damned before she allowed Bledsoe to see her cry now. She liked her flinty bits. “And then I shall change gloves, find Marie, and go to L’Hôpital des Enfants and satisfy Anctil’s final wish. Do be sure you don’t catch cold with those wet clothes. Dead men can’t pay their debts.”

And with that, she swept up the stairs and nodded to the doorman, who tipped his hat at her like she was the queen. She walked into the lobby, chin tilted at a most confident angle, and searched the faces for Doctor Radcliffe. He wasn’t hard to find, and she approached him with a determined stride.

When he saw her, his expression wasn’t the welcoming one she expected. Instead, he stood, crossed the distance between them in two steps, and said in a low, curt tone, “We need to talk about something. You’re engaged?”