“Hmmm?”
“I was offering you and your lady friend some privacy,” I told him.
He straightened. “Veronica, you cannot be serious. You are not jealous of a wax doll.”
“Not jealous,” I assured him. “But a trifle concerned. You do seem preoccupied.”
His lips twitched as if he were suppressing a smile. He came near towhere I stood, folding his arms across the breadth of his chest as he looked down at me. “You think me distracted by the beauty of the waxwork?” he inquired.
“Distracted. Intrigued. Obsessed,” I muttered. “You appear thoroughly enchanted with her.”
“Veronica, if I am enchanted with her, there is a very good reason,” he said, moving closer. “Take a look at her. Intently.”
I huffed a sigh and regarded her with a scientist’s scrutiny. “Yes, a compelling project, I grant you, but—”
He interrupted me. “You mean you do not see it?”
“See what? That you find her beautiful? Yes, I do.”
The twitching lips curved into a full smile. “I find her beautiful, my irrational beloved, because she is the very image of you.”
I peered more closely at the figure in the casket, running my gaze from the tumbled black hair to the pale skin and rosy lips. “I cannot say that I see it. There may be a superficial resemblance, I grant you.”
“Veronica, you cannot be serious. She might be your twin.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I am already in possession of a doppelgänger in the form of the Hereditary Princess of the Alpenwald. A second would be a coincidence too far.”
I paused, briefly recalling the events of the previous spring that had led to my impersonating Her Serene Highness during one of the unlikely and enchanting adventures upon which Stoker and I so often and so unexpectedly embarked.[*] Being dressed up in tiaras and ballgowns and priceless parures had been tiresome—jewels areextremelyheavy, being rocks after all—but I drew the line at being abducted and nearly murdered at sea. The fact that our detectival endeavours frequently ended in our near-demise was unfortunate and unavoidable. Peril was not our business, but it was most definitely our vocation.
I drew my attention back to the slumbering waxwork. “Will it be much trouble to fit her with the clockwork mechanism?”
Stoker shrugged. “It depends entirely upon what sort of figure she is. If she was created as an anatomical model, then she will be hollow and fitted with models of various organs which may be easily removed.”
“And if she was intended as a fairground attraction?”
He stroked his chin as he considered. “Then she would be solid wax. A more difficult task, but straightforward, I think. It should be a simple enough matter to incise around the torso to create a panel that will float freely,” he explained, sketching the actions with his hands. “In either case, when the mechanism is installed, the panel comprising the belly will be replaced and secured but not tightly fixed so it may move with the action of the clockwork. That is how Curtius fashioned the Sleeping Beauty of which Lady Rose is so enamoured. It is a rather ingenious design but not a complex one.”
“When do you mean to begin?”
He shrugged. “No time like the present. I shall have to open her up to take measurements for the mechanism.” With my help, he lifted the lid from the casket. It was a single, remarkably heavy sheet of glass banded in brass. Tarnish had turned the gilt colour of the metal to a sickly greenish hue. “I shall give that a polish when I am finished,” Stoker observed. We put the lid aside and worked together to lift her out. She was heavier than I had anticipated, and I was panting slightly when we shifted her to the worktable. The velvet of her dress rippled in the lamplight, creating the illusion of movement, and I shivered a little in spite of myself.
I bent and gave a deep sniff. “What a curious odour. I cannot place it. Do you think mice have got at it? Or perhaps it is the wax?”
I looked to Stoker, but he did not reply. He looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I don’t suppose you would—”
He gestured vaguely towards the figure’s clothing.
“You want me to undress her?” I asked.
“Well, yes. It hardly seems appropriate for me to do it,” he said, his colour rising adorably.
“Stoker, you are a naval surgeon. Surely you have seen the female figure in a state of undress.”
“There are precious few female sailors in Her Majesty’s Navy, Veronica,” he reminded me. “I know it is irrational, but it somehow feels impolite. Perhaps because she is so unnervingly lifelike.”
I considered the figure on the table. “I know what you mean. I almost expect her to open her eyes and speak.”
He gave me an imploring look. “Indulge me.”
