Her ring! Griffin’s eyes snapped open. It had just occurred to him why he’d felt uneasy with Miss Pepper. As he was falling asleep, the image of Charlotte Pepper’s gloved hand unpacking the tea popped into his mind. He remembered seeing a large lump beneath the glove on the third finger of her left hand, the same exact place he’d seen such a ring-shaped lump before. It was strange that she’d said she wasn’t married, and yet she wore a ring like a married woman would have.
And not only that, but the woman in the carriage had had a ring just like it.
He could recall in vivid detail the shooter’s left hand as it held the trigger of the Gatling gun. And as he compared the images of her hand and Miss Pepper’s in his photographic memory, the sizes and shapes of the ring-shaped lumps were identical.
Suddenly, a loud bump from downstairs startled him. He stared around wildly in his darkened room.
What was that?
It couldn’t be his uncle. Rupert was notorious for getting to bed on time, often quoting the American inventor Benjamin Franklin’s favorite line, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
And besides that, something Griffin sensed told him an intruder was in the house. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly how he knew it, but there was a definite wrongness about the sound, and it sent chills up his spine. Griffin’s hand automatically reached to his bedside table, where, since his last near-fatal adventure, he’d always kept his Stinger. But as his fingers brushed the empty surface of the table, he was reminded again of his lost luggage and the bag that had contained his unique weapon.
“Drat,” he murmured. His thoughts flicked to the wall of futuristic weapons downstairs, and he desperately wished that he’d thought to bring one of them, any of them, upstairs when he went to bed.
Griffin heard another rustling sound downstairs and then the sound of the front door closing. With his heart thumping wildly, he pulled aside his bedclothes and retrieved his dressing gown. Then, gripping his walking stick, he crept out of his room as quietly as he could, trying very hard to avoid stepping on any creaky floorboards.
Because of his keen observation skills, Griffin knew which spots on his bedroom floor made the most noise. As he tiptoed slowly toward his door, navigating in the near-pitch-black darkness, he pictured the room vividly in his mind.
Five steps to the right, now a big step over the floorboards bedside the wardrobe, shuffle to the left, then another big step forward . . .
Navigating around the creaky spots, he made his way soundlessly to the stairway and cautiously descended the stairs. He held his breath, aware of no sound but his pulse thumping in his ears.
As Griffin reached the bottom stair, he carefully slid the sword from inside his cane. It was the first time he’d unsheathed it with the intention to defend himself, and as much as he hated the thing, it seemed his only choice for protection.
With one hand using the cane scabbard for support and the other gripping the three feet of razor-sharp steel, Griffin rounded the corner and walked toward the living room. He felt cold and couldn’t tell if it was because the temperature in the house had changed, or he was afraid.
He squinted in the darkness, trying to discern any unusual shapes or movements that would alert him to the intruder’s presence. Then, just as he walked into the living room, a voice sounded from behind him.
Griffin was so startled that he wheeled around and swung the sword at the source of the voice. There was a tremendous CLANG! and a shower of sparks as the weapon glanced off something hard and metallic. Then two figures leapt from the shadows and rushed past him. He swung his sword wildly at the smaller of the two shadows and heard a sharp cry. But the wound wasn’t enough to stop the intruders as they leapt out of the window and fled the scene.
Moriarty’s henchmen! he thought, imagining the woman who had shot at him in Boston. He rushed to the window but was too late to catch sight of the thieves. All he could hear was a clatter of retreating footsteps on the cobblestone streets.
When he turned back to face the room, he saw the bluish glow of Watts’s incandescent eyes staring back at him in the darkness, and Griffin thought that if there was any way a machine could look at him reproachfully, this would be it.
“Would Master Griffin require anything?” Watts’s flat, mechanical voice said. Griffin noticed that Watts’s metal derby had a large dent in it, apparently made when Griffin had wildly swung his sword.
Feeling embarrassed, Griffin dropped his sword arm to his side. “Sorry, Watts,” Griffin said. “I didn’t know it was you.”
The gas lamps flared to life all around him. Rupert stood there, looking wild-eyed and disheveled, his thinning hair pointing up in all directions. Griffin supposed that the sound of his sword hitting Watts’s metal head must have startled him awake.
“What the deuce is going on?” he shouted.
But before Griffin could answer him, his uncle’s eyes automatically flicked to the opened window. With the lights on, Griffin could see for the first time just how disordered the room looked. Someone had definitely been there. “A prowler?” Griffin said, half to himself.
But then Griffin saw something that made his heart freeze. As he walked slowly over to the fireplace mantel, he focused on a new object that hadn’t been there before.
He reached up and took down Charlotte Pepper’s elegant teapot, the same one that she’d brought to tea earlier. And there, attached to the teapot handle and tied with red string, was a prettily folded note.
It took a moment for Rupert to register what had happened, but when he did, his eyes grew wide and his skin paled. He gestured shakily for Griffin to hand him the note. Griffin felt sick. Someone had clearly broken into their home and stolen the time machine right out from under their noses.
After opening the letter, he and his nephew stared at the beautiful handwriting, unable to believe what they were reading.
Messrs. Snodgrass and Sharpe,
I hope you’ll accept in trade for your remarkable teapot this one of my own. I do appreciate you inviting me in and leaving me to care for the premises in your absence this evening.
The location of the time machine has eluded me for several weeks. Until tonight, I feared that you had hidden it so well that I could never hope to find it.
However, when you hurried back into the parlor before you left, I felt that perhaps what I sought was within reach. I had just deduced its location when you returned, and had to put off taking it until you were asleep.
Please do not hold anything against dear Mrs. Hudson for helping me break into your apartment. She was compelled to do so, by means that I am not free to discuss. I have left the key she gave me on the kitchen table.
I shan’t be needing it any longer.
Mr. Wells was helpful in describing the invention’s function, but he failed to mention the charming container in which it was housed. I must offer my compliments on using something so decidedly British to contain the greatest invention of the modern age.
I must insist that for your own safety you do not try to follow me. You are up against forces that even the great Sherlock Holmes would find daunting, if not impossible, to prevail against. In a few hours the world as you know it will have completely changed. Professor Moriarty plans on rectifying the years of thwarted plans and failed capers that have plagued him so.
He insists that a new history begins tonight and that the hands of the ancient clock will be turned and the very stones themselves will be rearranged.
Oh, and a second word of warning. Very few have met Miss Atrax in battle and lived to tell the tale . . . Your escape will be duly noted by the entire Sisterhood of the Black Widow.
And now I must be off. TIME is, indeed, of the essence.
With warm regards,
Charlotte Pepper
Rupert finished reading the note aloud and let it slip from his fingers. Griffin, feeling weak, eased himself down onto one of his uncle’s threadbare chairs. It was terrible, too terrible to even think about. With the time machine at their disposal, Professor Moriarty and Nigel could wreak havoc. By changing the events of the past, they could effect for themselves a future where justice couldn’t prevail.
“We’ve lost,” Rupert mumbled. “We’ll never find her. She’s too good . . . She took me in and fooled me completely.”
Griffin’s heart nearly broke when he heard the hurt and despair in his uncle’s voice. His uncle had barely gotten to know Charlotte Pepper, but it was evident that he’d fallen quite hard for her. To have such a beautiful young woman suddenly seem so interested in him must have been an unexpected and exciting twist in Rupert’s life.
Griffin had to admit, his first impression of Miss Pepper was hard to shake. She seemed so nice! But he was reminded strongly of the story of Lucifer, an “angel of light” who, against all appearances, was capable of great evil.
Griffin’s dad had often told him the old saying “One shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” and in this case it was certainly true.
Griffin picked up the note and read it a second time. As he scanned the lines, his eyes suddenly widened in surprise. There was something there that he hadn’t seen before—a clue! A clue that told him that even when it seemed all was lost, there was still hope of tracking down the stolen device!
But even as he discovered this information, Griffin was also acutely aware of the danger they would be walking into. If what he thought was right, then the words Charlotte had written about Sherlock Holmes thinking twice before pursuing her were probably true.
Griffin rose from his chair and, taking his uncle gently by the arm, said, “Uncle, I think I know where Miss Pepper went.”
Rupert Snodgrass gazed down at his precocious nephew uncomprehendingly.
“What?”
“Miss Pepper,” Griffin repeated. “I think I know where she’s taken the time machine.”
Rupert suddenly snapped to attention, his eyes focused on his nephew with a desperate, hopeful expression. “Where?” he demanded.
Griffin paused before replying, “I’d rather not say just yet. But if it’s where I think it is, then I’m pretty sure we’re going to need assistance.” He gazed up at his uncle with his sad, blue eyes. “And there’s only one person in all the world that I think we can trust to help us.”