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Prologue

Tuesday, October 7, 1879, British Museum, Bloomsbury, London

Iris Delacourt smiled the minute she entered the back halls of the British Museum. Just the scent of the place—old paper, ancient stone, aged paint, timeworn fabrics—soothed something deep inside her.

Quickly, she made her way through the early morning quiet to the office of the Keeper she worked for, Mr. Archibald Kerrigan. He had invited her, two months ago to the day, to assist him with documenting a collection of textiles the museum had recently acquired from a duke who had donated most of the contents of his castle’s attics.

Though the museum employed a photographer to catalog all newly acquired treasures, Mr. Kerrigan, and several of the other dozen Keepers, insisted on capturing the details of acquisitions in color. And that is why a talent for drawing and watercolor painting, that Iris had nourished over years of art tutors and diligent practice, had allowed her to be selected for the opportunity of a lifetime.

She was not paid for her efforts, of course. Remuneration would have caused a bit of a scandal among her family’s upper-class circle in London society. But Iris had no interest in pay, only in purpose, and nothing made her feel more useful than contributing in some small measure to the preservation of history.

Pushing the polished oak office door of Mr. Kerrigan, Keeper of Medieval Antiquities, open, Iris frowned and stopped just beyond the threshold. The cluttered space held its familiar stacks of documents, crates of textiles, and full bookshelves. With the gaslight turned down low, the bookcases loomed tall in the shadows, but the room was eerily quiet.

She expected that someone else would have arrived by now, but the fire grate lay cold and full of yesterday’s ashes.

She’d checked her pocket watch when getting off the omnibus at New Oxford Street. The time was just past nine in the morning, and Calliope Collier usually arrived before she did. Well before nine. Often as early as seven. Her friend, Mr. Kerrigan’s most prized assistant, took great pride in preparing the office for the day’s work.

Mrs. Enid Weeks, one of those who helped clean the museum, passed by with her trolley of dusting and cleaning chemicals.

“Pardon me,” Iris called softly. The back halls of the British Museum had a sort of solemn air that all of them maintained, especially in the early hours before the museum opened to public visitors.

Mrs. Weeks turned, brows high. “Miss Delacourt, good morning to you.”

“Good morning. Have you seen Miss Collier today?” Iris called.

“Can’t say I have. Is she not in the office?”

“She is not.”

“Perhaps there was some obstruction on the road. Saw a tipped produce cart hold up carriages just last week.”

“Yes, I suspect she is merely running late,” Iris admitted with a sheepish smile.

Calliope had become her friend over the past two months, but their temperaments were quite different. Where Iris was scrupulous about getting to the museum at the time she had agreed upon with Mr. Kerrigan, Calliope had once mentioned that Kerrigan did not mind if she rearranged her hours to her own liking. Still, she generally preferred an early arrival and was often in the office before Iris.

Maybe she had simply changed her hours and forgotten to tell Iris. Mr. Kerrigan, who seemed most exacting in matters related to his museum duties, indulged Calliope’s preferences, according to her. The almost paternal rapport between the two was a permissiveness Iris could never imagine receiving from her own father.

She got busy retrieving her art supplies and prepared a cloth and a cup of water at the usual spot where she sat near a gaslight sconce, giving her the most light to work on her watercolor painting of the textiles Kerrigan had chosen for her to document.

Minutes turned to hours when she painted. She had an almost frightening ability to shut out her surroundings and concentrate on her art. But when she finally lifted her head a little over an hour later, the realization that she was still alone in the office sent a chill slithering down her spine.

Calliope had never arrived.

Iris told herself that her friend might have caught a cold or that some other matter might have kept her from coming to the museum at the expected time, yet worry gnawed at her as each minute passed.

Mr. Kerrigan’s hours in the office were unpredictable. He was frequently occupied with meetings, either with others in the museum or in the city. But when he arrived, perhaps he’d have news of Calliope. If she was ill, she might have sent word to him.

But Iris’s thoughts strayed from reasonable explanations to more sinister ones. Fears for her friend that had grown for weeks as she had gotten to know Calliope.

She thought of the fellow museum employee who’d threatened Calliope. Of the prizefighter who had once struck her, though Calliope claimed it was an accident. And then of the man Calliope confessed that she met with in secret, though she refused to tell Iris many other details about him.

Once, she’d expressed her worry to Calliope that perhaps one of her gentleman friends might learn of another, that jealousy between them might turn ugly, but she had laughed Iris’s concerns away.

Now, however, Iris feared her worry had been a premonition.

Chapter One

Wednesday, October 15, 1879, Vine Street Station