Prologue
OCTOBER, 1890, LONDON
Amber light glowed softlyin the darkened room, the smell of chemicals thick in the air as the sheet of paper was dipped into the last basin and the image of a young woman appeared.
She was pretty like the others who carried an air of privilege and wealth, with that certain expectation of young women who were seen in the society pages of the Times newspaper.
There had been no protest, she hadn’t made a sound or cried out. There was only that startled expression, surprise perhaps. But no words came with her last dying breath.
There was only that air of sadness about her, her image caught in that photograph.
“Soon,” she was assured as if she could still hear beyond death as the photograph was removed from the basin and carefully hung to dry alongside the other photographs.
“Soon, the others will join you.”
One
“Good afternoon, Miss Mikaela,”Mr. Cavendish greeted me as I arrived at the office at #204, on the Strand.
“It’s a fine day.”
Finemight be open to argument as the drizzle that had set in earlier in the day, had settled into a steady rain.
Mr. Cavendish, a colorful street person more commonly known as the Mudger, lived in the alcove just below the office on the Strand. He worked with Brodie from time to time, and had become a good friend over the course of our investigations that included the disappearance of my sister.
I stepped down from the cab and immediately felt the warm greeting of a wet tongue on my hand from Rupert, the hound. He kept company with Mr. Cavendish and was also a resident in the alcove on the stairs. Although he was out and about the streets scavenging for something to eat which was usually quite disgusting.
He greeted me with the usual wag of the tail, what appeared to be a foolish grin on his face— I was often reminded by Brodie that hounds did not grin. However, I chose to ignore that. Rupert then dropped to the sidewalk and rolled over onto his back for his usual belly rub much like someone I knew, I thought smiling to myself.
I gave him a biscuit that my housekeeper had sent. Mrs. Ryan was more than familiar with the hound since he was often inclined to accompany me.
Although she considered him to be quite disgusting— covered as he usually was from head to foot in soot and grime, I was aware that she had taken to slipping him food left from a recent meal or one of the biscuits she fixed in the mornings.
When I questioned her about it, she had simply shrugged. “Better than throwing it out.” She was also prone to giving him a scratch about the ears from time to time when she thought no one was looking.
Now, the biscuit quickly disappeared, and there was that grin before the hound set off on his rounds of the Strand.
I handed Mr. Cavendish some of Mrs. Ryan’s lemon sponge cake.
“The woman is a saint,” he replied with a gleam in his eye.
I wasn’t certain about that, since my housekeeper was unaware that I had absconded with a good portion of her cake. Had she known, there would have been the evil eye and a lecture about the time it took to prepare and the suggestion that I might learn to prepare it myself if I was simply going to give it away. However, cooking was not one of my talents.
In fact, I had been known to very nearly burn the house down over a game hen that I had undertaken. It was a lesson well learned and I had crossed off cooking from my list of accomplishments. It was much safer for everyone.
I had spent the morning with my sister, Lady Lenore Forsythe as she now insisted on using our family name after her divorce from her husband following a dreadful scandal and his imprisonment over the affair.
In the aftermath, she had at first retreated to our great aunt’s residence at Sussex Square where we were raised after the death of our parents. However, in more recent months she had recovered from the difficult situation, and had purchased her own residence that she was now renovating.
It was quite obvious from the look about her recently, with a completely new wardrobe, not to mention the attentions of someone we both knew quite well, that her new residence was not the only thing that had been renovated.
Months earlier, concerned that Linnie might be wasting away, closed off from her circle of friends with boring efforts at redecorating, I had determined that she needed to get out more.
I had introduced her to my publisher, James Warren, when she accompanied me to an event for my latest novel. To say there had been an immediate connection was an understatement in the least.
I thought the event might be turned into an inferno as I had attempted to carry on conversation with them and had finally given up. They had been thick as thieves ever since. It was the only way to describe the situation.
I had then attempted to include her for an evening at the theater to see my friend Templeton’s latest performance. However, she had declined somewhat mysteriously.
