The Carnelian Crow: A Stoker & Holmes Book (Stoker and Holmes 4) Read online

  The back of the tiny crow pendant was smooth, brushed gold, and it had a minuscule marking on the back, stamped into place. It took more fiddling with the focus of my magnifyer before I was able to discern the shape of the marking. It appeared to be two Cs, facing each other. Or perhaps an infinity symbol; it was difficult to tell.

  Although I spent many more minutes examining the object, I found no further clues, nor any indication of its origin. The wrappings were simple white string and plain cheesecloth—the sort of which could be found in any household. There was nothing extraordinary about either. Nor did I find any other remnants that might have clung to it.

  Either I had passed my prime as a Holmesian investigator, or there was nothing more to see.

  I was just pulling the Ocular-Magnifyer from my head when I became aware of a thunderous pounding from beyond. It took me a moment to realize it was someone at the front door, and then another moment to remember that Mrs. Raskill had been on her way out when I saw her—heavens! It had been over thirty minutes since I’d come into the laboratory and become absorbed in my examination of the charm.

  I had no idea how long the person had been pummeling the door, but the rattling of the object in its frame had an air of urgency that I decided couldn’t be ignored. Thus, I rushed from the laboratory and to the front door, flinging it open before I quite thought the action through.

  Perhaps Miss Stoker had begun to rub off on me.

  “Inspector…Grayling,” I said faintly when I saw who it was standing on the front stoop…now staring at me in my night frock.

  (Evaline must not have heard this element of the story previously, for she has forced me to stop and has pressed me for minute details on the night rail I was wearing. For some reason, she appears quite gleeful about this particular part of the tale. In favor of expediency, I shall add those details to the commentary herewith.)

  I was, in fact, in no great breach of etiquette in regards to the amount of skin and the shape of any limbs exposed, for the night frock was lengthy enough to skim the tops of my feet. It had long sleeves with ruffles at the wrists, and it buttoned up snugly to my throat. It was, of course, made from warm, heavy flannel and was as loose as a flour sack. The fact that it was simply a garment in which I slept is truly the only reason it might have been considered a moment of impropriety; I had been known to wear a ball gown that exposed more skin and shape than my night rail.

  (Evaline seems disappointed by this confession, but I must press on with the narration. I do believe I’m going to hide this manuscript and discontinue working on it when she is present.)

  “Miss Holmes.” Grayling’s face seemed particularly ruddy this morning; perhaps it was the wintry air. He held a hat in his bare hands, and a thick woolen muffler was wrapped around his throat. He’d shaved closely, and in good light this morning, I observed, and Angus (his beagle, who was not present) had recently acquired a fondness for shoe lacings.

  “It’s freezing out there; either step in or not, but I must close the door,” I said, refusing to acknowledge the fact that I’d answered the door dressed as I was. Though my bare toes were tiny ice cubes, my face was hot as a furnace. And my insides shivered like jelly.

  I also hadn’t seen Grayling since the mortifying chess game we’d played as part of the Ankh’s master plan.

  “Right, then.” He hesitated. Then, with a swift intake of breath, he stepped over the threshold, bringing with him a waft of chill air mingled with peppermint, damp wool, and mechanical oil. A quick glance behind him confirmed my suspicion that he’d driven his steamcycle this morning. It sat near a snowbank, gleaming in its copper and bronze glory. A puff of white smoke still trailed from one of its five tailpipes. Though he was holding a proper hat, the protective head covering he wore while riding the cycle dangled from one of the steering handles.

  “Er…I apologize if I woke you, Miss Holmes.” Grayling glanced pointedly at the clock on the parlor mantel shelf, which read half past eleven o’clock.

  “Oh, no, no,” I replied blithely, swiftly buttoning up the overcoat I’d snatched from the hall hat rack and struggled into. “I was just in my laboratory and lost track of time.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I thought perhaps you’d fallen asleep with your Ocular-Magnifyer in place.” He gave a rueful smile and made a little circle in front of one of his eyes with a finger, indicating the round impression that was obviously imprinted on my face. “It’s a safety hazard, you know—using any sort of tool or mechanism when one is in danger of falling asleep.”

  “Naturally I wouldn’t be so foolish as to operate any sort of machinery or work with any delicate projects in that situation,” I informed him.

  “Naturally.” He seemed to be having difficulty keeping his eyes from straying to the floor, where my icy bare feet were poking out from beneath the ruffle of my night frock.

  “Perhaps I should…erm…Would you please excuse me for a moment, Inspector?”

  He appeared mightily relieved at this request, and replied, “Of course, Miss Holmes. Take your time. I’ll just peruse your library.”

  As I’d seen his attention flicker toward my father’s generally unused study, where the open door revealed shelves upon shelves of books, as well as a number of interesting devices and objects on one of the long tables therein, I was neither surprised nor put off by his comment.

  I don’t believe I’ve ever washed up and dressed myself so quickly as I did that day—and yet with as much care to my appearance. For when I caught a look at myself in the dressing table mirror and saw the dark red circle that still hadn’t faded around my eye socket, and the state of my loosened braid (frizzed, straggling, and wild were the descriptors that came to mind), I quite literally gasped in horror.

  No wonder Grayling had appeared so taken aback by my appearance. It hadn’t been the night frock or my bare feet at all.

  However, I was efficient and effective at setting myself to rights, and with the help of the Easy UnLacer (which, in spite of its name, was also devised to lace up) I was even able to wriggle into one of my undercorsets in record time. When I emerged from my bedchamber, it was with my hair smooth, shiny, and neatly twisted into a figure-eight knot at the back of my head. I was wearing a perfectly average day dress of sky blue with tiny white flowers and dark blue flounces at the wrists and hem. And I had pulled on stockings and buttoned up shoes, to the relief of my half-frozen feet.

  “Inspector Grayling?” I called out when I didn’t see him in my father’s study.

  “In here.”

  He had invaded my laboratory and was holding the delicate crow charm in his long, freckled fingers. Those digits extended from a strong, wide hand, which in turn came from an equally freckled, equally broad wrist and forearm. As usual, he wasn’t wearing gloves. In fact, I didn’t believe the man owned a pair—except for the white ones he’d worn on two formal occasions.

  “Where did you get this, Miss Holmes?” He’d affixed my Ocular-Magnifyer to his face, and when he lifted his head to look at me with a sharp gaze, its effectiveness was marred by the fact that one gray-green eyeball was magnified into an ungainly appearance.

  “Inspector Grayling. While I’m pleased to see you’ve made yourself comfortable during my toilette, I am still unclear as to why you are here today. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me about that, instead of questioning me about my personal activities.”

  His mouth tightened, and he tore off the eyepiece. To my surprise, his expression had changed to something fierce and very nearly frightening.

  To be clear, I wasn’t frightened of him. Not at all. In fact, I couldn’t imagine anyone with whom I might feel safer. Not even Uncle Sherlock. But there was an unyielding glint in the inspector’s eyes I’d never seen before.

  “Mina, I need to know how you got this.”

  Miss Holmes

  ~ A Corvus of a Particular Color ~

  I couldn’t decide whether to be more shocked by the fact that Inspector Grayling had used my gi
ven name, the flat anger in his voice, or the rude demand that accompanied it.

  Until that moment, I’d always thought of him as a sort of mild-mannered, stiff and proper, more than adequate homicide detective—likely partly because of the way Uncle Sherlock spoke about Inspector Lestrade and the others at Scotland Yard—despite the fact that Grayling had never been the least bit bumbling like Lestrade. In fact, he’d been quite heroic on a number of occasions, and had usually matched me clue for clue during any investigations we’d conducted together.

  But at that moment, I saw him as someone far more frightening and even a little intimidating. Someone with strength and determination that had been previously hidden beneath stilted manners and a cognoggin personality.

  In other words, he seemed far more like a serious force to be reckoned with than merely a man a few years older than myself that I regularly attempted (and usually succeeded) to outwit.

  (For some reason, Evaline finds this last comment hilarious. I am definitely putting this manuscript away where she can’t find it; she is terribly distracting.)

  It was only because of this unexpected reaction to Grayling that I actually answered the question (which was not only harshly spoken, but prying—and not at all his business).

  “A crow delivered it to me through my window last night,” I replied.

  A look of incredulity passed over his face that might have been amusing had it not come on the heels of such ferocity—and then was replaced by the same anger as before. I could see that he was struggling with himself; those long fingers were closing and opening into fists as if they were intent upon grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. His face turned grim, and his eyes darkened with determination.

  “Miss Holmes,” he said in a flat, cold voice. “If you don’t see fit to respond with a reasonable answer, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” I retorted, suddenly aware that something serious must be at the root of this uncharacteristic response. “Drag me off to Scotland Yard and toss me into a cell?”

  His fury evaporated instantly, leaving his demeanor like air deflating from a balloon. His eyes widened as if he were in shock, and he exhaled sharply.

  “Miss Holmes, please accept my sincere apology for…for overstepping.” Now the color of his face was more pink than red. “I was—I simply…” He cleared his throat. “I was utterly out of line. My behavior was completely unacceptable. Please forgive me, Miss Holmes.”

  What happened to “Mina”? I wanted to ask.

  Dylan had always called me Mina.

  Dylan.

  No, now was not the time to think about him. Not on top of everything else.

  “Never mind,” I said briskly, pushing away a torrent of thoughts related to Dylan Eckhert, my friend who’d returned to his time a hundred years in the future, and my confused thoughts about the man who stood before me, looking more miserable than I’d ever seen him. “Incidentally, that was the truth.”

  “What?” Grayling responded in a milder tone, but still laced with skepticism. “That a crow delivered this charm to you?”

  “Yes.” I proceeded to explain, and had the satisfaction of seeing both confusion and wonder fill his expression. “The interesting thing,” I added at the end, “is that I heard the crow caw before I opened the window. So he couldn’t have had the item in his mouth at that time.”

  “That means he might have found it on your windowsill while you were deciding whether to let him in your chamber,” Grayling replied dryly.

  “Well I certainly didn’t intend to allow him entrance. But perhaps we could ascertain whether that was the case.”

  “Certainly. I’d be more than happy to look out the window, or climb onto the roof if necessary to see whether there are indicative marks in the snow on or near your window. It should be quite obvious.”

  “Of course.”

  Despite the fact that it was, strictly speaking, wildly improper and completely beyond the bounds of privacy to allow a young man into the depths of one’s bedchamber, I put those qualms aside for the sake of investigative procedure. I was confident Uncle Sherlock would have felt the same way.

  It took Grayling only a few short moments to draw his conclusions after he stuck his head through the open window and looked around from the gable that made up part of the wall of my chamber. When he withdrew and turned to me, he said, “From the markings in the snow, it appears the crow didn’t find the small bundle there, but that he brought it with him—most likely in his talons—and then dropped it for a moment. You can look for yourself,” he added, gesturing to the window even as he closed it, “but I’m certain you’ll come to the same conclusion.”

  “I see no need. I trust your observational skills.”

  His auburn brows rose. “And what would your Uncle Sherlock think if he were witness to a Holmes complimenting a police investigator?”

  “In this case, he would likely have no choice but to agree with me,” I replied, suddenly overwhelmed by the heat rushing up over my face and a stuttering of my pulse when Grayling looked at me in surprise.

  He appeared to want to say something, then thought better of it. “Right, then, Miss Holmes. Perhaps we should—er—return to the laboratory. There’s more—er—space in there.”

  Which was a bald-faced lie, but I wasn’t about to call him on the fact that my laboratory was chock full of objects, while my bedchamber was sparse and neat.

  The fact was, my bedchamber had seemed to shrink to a smaller size the moment he walked in. And my neatly made bed had seemed to grow to disproportionately dominate the room, even though I knew that was a fanciful thought. I was relieved he hadn’t appeared to notice anything about the room—including a pair of silk stockings I’d left hanging over a chair—but went directly to the window in question.

  “Apparently you’ve seen something like this charm before,” I said, once back in the laboratory. “And it appears to have caused you some consternation.”

  He gave me a brief, abashed glance, his cheeks pinkening a little. “Miss Holmes, I was unforgivably rude earlier. I simply… I didn’t expect to see something like this in the possession of someone like y—what I mean to say is, as a proper young lady, you have no business— I—er. Ahem.”

  Grayling must have noticed the stiffening of my spine and the flattening of my lips—not to mention the chill in my eyes—as he stumbled about his explanation, and so decided to cut his losses. So to speak.

  “I have no business what?” I asked. “As you’re well aware, I’m not a typical proper young lady.”

  “One cannot argue with the fact that you seem to attract dead bodies with the same alacrity as the bodies in question lure flies.”

  “What is the charm?” I demanded, tired of this shilly-shallying. He was clearly attempting to come up with a dull story that would explain his violent reaction as well as appease my certain curiosity, knowing full well that my curiosity had been roused far beyond a mild interest.

  He sighed. “It represents a sort of establishment. Not that sort of establishment,” he added quickly when my eyes bolted wide. “At least, as far as I know. But The Carnelian Crow seems to be a rather…unsavory place dressed in the garb of a well-to-do dinner club.”

  “The Carnelian Crow,” I mused. “It sounds intriguing.”

  “I was certain you’d have that reaction,” he replied with a sigh. “Miss Holmes, believe me when I say this is not a place for a young, well-bred lady like yourself.”

  I peered at him carefully. “And what do you know about it, Inspector Grayling?”

  “It’s been in business for quite some time—several years, perhaps more. There have been whispers about a secret red crow for more than five years. From what I have been able to ascertain, the establishment is a place where very seedy activities happen—of a sordid or—erm—vulgar nature. Most likely illegal or criminal efforts, or a place where those who undertake that sort of enterprise might meet each other in private.”

  I frowned. “That
all sounds rather vague, Inspector.”

  He grimaced. “Gaining access to or information about this particular club has been quite challenging for myself as well as my Scotland Yard colleagues. Until recently, I wasn’t even certain it was a place rather than some other entity—such as a criminal sort of person or even an object. We didn’t even quite know what we were looking for. But within the last few months, there have been more—shall we say, louder and more discernible—whispers about it, which enabled me to learn even that much.”

  “Have you ever been to The Carnelian Crow?”

  He pursed his lips. “I have not. Only because…well, I don’t precisely know where it is. Apparently, the entrance or entrances are well hidden, and they have been known to change as well. The only ones who know how to access the club are those who have gained admittance through some sort of membership process or invitation. And I’ve yet to find anyone who has—or, at least, who is willing to admit it.”

  “That makes it even more intriguing,” I said, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

  He sighed, but he was also fighting a smile. “Again, Miss Holmes…I was certain you’d have that reaction. The more intriguing, inappropriate, and inexplicable a topic, the more fascinated you seem to be.”

  “How well you’ve come to know me.” I found myself looking up at him for a moment. My gaze connected with his as we shared a brief interlude of amusement. But I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away…and I didn’t really want to. I felt as if I were beginning to tumble into some deep, warm, intriguing depth, and—

  “Right, then, Miss Holmes,” he said quickly, shattering the moment as he looked away, back down at the small carnelian crow he still held.

  I recovered myself immediately, furious that my cheeks felt warm and that my palms seemed to have become damp. “Incidentally, Inspector Grayling, you haven’t seen fit to advise me of the reason for your call this morning. Surely you had no idea a crow—an ebony one, not one of carnelian stone—had delivered this mysterious pendant to me last night; therefore, you must have had a reason for interrupting your day to come all the way here.”