The Butterfly Conspiracy Read online

  Merula asked, “Is it true that Lady Sophia mashed all of her foods?”

  “Yes, but it was just a passing whim like the other things. If someone had told her mashing was bad for her, she’d have stopped it.”

  Royston seemed to be growing irritated with the recital of Lady Sophia’s peculiar manners. He said, “You are here looking for new employment because Mr. Foxwell wants to let you go. Because his aunt no longer requires your care, or because of … the missing earring?”

  Miss Knight flushed. “There never was a missing earring,” she hissed. “Foxwell took it to incriminate me. To isolate Lady Sophia even from her closest servants and make sure she didn’t trust anyone anymore. It was all part of his plan. He took the earring so I would be accused.”

  She wrung her hands. “I’ve been afraid he would be so brass as to put it among my things, where it might be found and I would be turned out into the street. But he hasn’t gone that far. I wondered why. Now I know. He intended to murder my lady and then I would have to go anyway.”

  Another woman might have burst into tears at this point in her story, but Miss Knight seemed too controlled to ever cry. She just stood there, rigid and indignant.

  Merula said, “After this false accusation of theft, didn’t you consider leaving of your own accord? Before the earring did turn up among your things and your reputation was ruined?”

  Miss Knight looked at her with indignant eyes. “Leaving would have been an admittance of guilt. Never! Even now, I don’t want to leave and let that bastard go unpunished.”

  She seemed to reproach herself for her outburst as she continued, calmer, “You must forgive me. Ten years of service should carry some weight, but apparently not with Mr. Foxwell.”

  “We understand,” Merula assured her. “We intend to unravel the mystery of who killed Lady Sophia and bring that person to justice.”

  Miss Knight said, “That is very kind of you. Now, if you have no more questions, I better get back in or I will miss my turn.”

  “Thank you very much for your cooperation,” Royston said.

  Miss Knight smiled at him. “You have asked all the right questions. The police never bothered. Thank you.” And she marched back inside the offices.

  Merula said, “If she is right about Foxwell isolating Lady Sophia from her friends and about him selling off items from the collection, he had enough reasons to want her dead. Not just so he could inherit everything but also so he could cover up what he was doing.”

  “Still, there are problems with that theory,” Royston mused. “People who lent specimens to the cabinet, people like Havilock and Newbury, whom we met this morning, will still want them back. They will not cease to ask for them just because Lady Sophia is dead now. What does Foxwell intend to do about them?”

  “I have no idea.” Merula frowned in concentration. “When we were there at the estate, we didn’t see a single specimen on display. What if Foxwell has been removing them all? Miss Knight just told us that Lady Sophia never came near the mounted animals. She’d never know if he did remove them. He might have sold off some and removed all the others to some safe place. Maybe even abroad?”

  Royston nodded. “And if Foxwell goes after them someday, disappears into the French countryside, the police will never catch him. I doubt they would even try. After all, he owns it all now. It’s his word against that of Havilock, Newbury, and the other duped parties that some items did not belong to Lady Sophia’s late husband.”

  Merula said, “Perhaps not. Newbury told us he had proof that he owned the emperor penguin. If the others have proof as well, an agreement between them and the late Lord Rutherford for instance, then Foxwell will have to return the specimens.”

  Royston said, “Yes, but sorting out the legal details will take time, and if Foxwell has moved the collection abroad and intends to follow himself, he can still escape before the true owners have built a solid case against him. Clever. How unfortunate that we can’t go see Havilock to ask for his side of the story.”

  “If he is the killer, he wouldn’t tell us anything anyway. Consider this: it happened in his house. With his zoological knowledge, he must know about rare poisons as well. I’m still thinking about the poisonous darts Galileo mentioned. Could someone have stabbed Lady Sophia in passing with such a dart?”

  Royston shrugged. “Perhaps, but we didn’t see any such thing on the tables at the lecture. I also doubt that Havilock would leave poisonous darts lying about when guests come over.”

  “If he is the killer, he might have done it himself when he went up to Lady Sophia to greet her and usher her to the front,” Merula said, excited at this idea.

  “He’d be taking an enormous chance. There were so many people watching. Any one of them could have seen something.”

  Merula sighed, acknowledging he was right. “We need to find out what happened in India.”

  Royston nodded. “I should ask Justin when Havilock came back from India. I seem to recall it wasn’t that long ago.”

  “But the companion just told us Lady Sophia was never in India while she worked for her. How can the two be related?”

  “Maybe Havilock wasn’t referring to something that happened when they were both in India, but to something in India that people here know about. Something that happened there.”

  “He used it as a threat, so it must be something ominous.” Merula frowned. “Poor Lady Sophia. She was already fearful, and everybody was working to make her even more afraid.”

  “Still, she came out into the open for the lecture. A lecture about a tarantula too—not the most pleasant creature in the natural world. If she didn’t like animals, why did she come?”

  “Perhaps Foxwell pressed her?” Merula suggested.

  “Then we have to assume he planned her collapse and wanted it to happen with plenty of people around. Witnesses. Especially with your uncle there, whom he could then conveniently accuse.”

  “But if we assume that Havilock wanted her dead because of the specimens, we can’t assume at the same time that it was Foxwell planning an audience for her death.”

  Royston laughed softly. “They might all have wanted her dead, but I agree that probably only one of them did something that caused the fatal collapse. But which one?”

  Merula stared ahead. “The thing is, nobody could have known I would bring the butterfly. It hatched only a few hours before the lecture began, and I decided on impulse to take it.”

  Royston shook his head and said, “For the moment, we must assume that the butterfly had nothing to do with it. It was there by accident. The killer just meant for her to collapse and die and for things to be obscured by people panicking or making wild accusations, which indeed is what happened.”

  “Thanks to Foxwell,” Merula said. “He is at the heart of our case. Miss Knight said that he tried to isolate Lady Sophia for a reason. We have to find out if he did indeed sell zoological specimens from the collection.”

  “I think it’s time we paid Justin Devereaux a visit,” Royston said.

  * * *

  As the hansom turned into the street, Merula saw a policeman standing beside a lamppost, watching everything. He might have just been keeping an eye on the street vendors nearby or enjoying the faint rays of sunshine that broke through the clouds above, but she didn’t trust that.

  “That officer…” she hissed to Royston.

  “I saw him.” Royston called out to the coachman that he had changed his mind and wanted to go to the Strand. He let the coachman drop them off there, paid him hurriedly, and dragged Merula into the crowd. “We’d better walk to Galileo’s,” he said softly. “I have no idea if houses belonging to my known friends or acquaintances are being watched, but we must take no risks. We have to remain free to conduct our investigation.”

  “Do they know Galileo is your friend too?”

  Royston shook his head. “I assume they are watching the houses of my friends from the same circles. People I spoke with last night and oth
ers I am known to associate with, like Justin. Galileo is a different matter.”

  “Good.” Merula forced herself to breathe deeply. She had not imagined that it would be so nerve-racking to be hunted. She had always felt as if London was such an enormous city with so many people going about their business that it would be easy to disappear into the masses, to be anonymous. But it didn’t seem to be easy at all. Her stomach was tight, and she waited unconsciously for a hand to fall on her shoulder.

  It wasn’t the police she was afraid of as such, or of being questioned, or even imprisonment, although she was sure it would be unpleasant. It was losing her freedom to move about and try to prove her uncle’s innocence, as well as her own. If she was locked up and unable to act and just had to sit and wait and worry about her uncle, Aunt Emma, and Julia in this ordeal she had set upon them, though unwittingly, she’d go insane. She had to stay free and actively pursue answers.

  In the street on which Galileo lived, everything was quiet except for a vegetable seller arguing with a woman about the freshness of his leeks. On the corner, a brewery cart had halted and the driver was checking the horse’s hoofs. Some street urchins were gathering to see what was wrong.

  Royston took in everything quickly, apparently searching for something out of the ordinary. As he saw nothing, they disappeared into the narrow alley beside Galileo’s house to get to the servants’ entrance. Going up the stairs, Merula listened to the silence in the house. Was something wrong? Was this a trap? Were the police waiting for them in that room?

  She halted and put her hand on Royston’s arm. “I don’t feel right about this.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s too quiet. What if they’re waiting for us up there? How much do they know?”

  Royston held her gaze. “You must not let the strain get to you, Merula. They don’t know about this house, I’m sure. We have to stay level-headed to push on or we won’t get anywhere.”

  Merula took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Royston walked on ahead of her. She clenched the stair railing tightly.

  Upstairs the door opened, and Galileo looked out. “Hello there,” he called. “The oddest thing happened.”

  Merula froze.

  Even Royston tightened and called out, “What then? Can we safely come up?”

  “Of course you can safely come up. It doesn’t bite.”

  “What doesn’t?” Royston took the steps two at a time to reach his friend.

  Galileo said, “The parcel. It’s a simple brown paper affair, tied up with string.”

  “What parcel?” Royston and Merula followed the disheveled chemist into his room.

  He pointed at a chair. “That there was left on the steps in front. It is addressed to you.”

  Merula’s heart skipped a beat. “To me? But nobody knows I’m staying here.”

  She felt beads of sweat forming on her back.

  Royston muttered under his breath. “Who left it there? Did you look about you? Didn’t you think it could be dangerous when you just took it in?”

  Galileo shrugged. “I guessed it came from Merula’s family. They might want to get in touch with her.”

  Merula looked at Royston. “Bowsprit! Did he tell Lamb where I’m staying?”

  “I can’t imagine he would. He knew he’d have to act as go-between. He also knew the risks of telling her anything.”

  “Lamb can be trusted,” Merula said. “Maybe she left the parcel on the steps.”

  “With your name on it for everyone walking by to see?” Royston shook his head. “That would be madness.”

  He hovered over the parcel, studying the handwriting. “Very neat and legible. The string is dirty, though. Probably already used a few times.”

  “Could come from our kitchens,” Merula said. “Cook is very efficient and never throws out anything she can still use.”

  “Better see what’s inside,” Galileo said.

  “Not just like that,” Royston objected. “Have you got your extra-thick gloves here? I’m not taking any chances with what might be inside.”

  “I see.” Galileo looked about him, located the gloves, which were stained with chemical spills, and threw them to Royston, who caught them deftly and put them on. Then Royston used a knife to cut the string and took care unwrapping the paper.

  Merula wasn’t sure what he expected to be inside, but she couldn’t stand the tension building under his careful approach. Even the rustle of the paper jerked her tight nerves. She wanted him to open it fast so they could see what was in it.

  It was a small cardboard box.

  Royston folded the flaps open. The box was filled with straw. He pulled out a handful, spreading it across the table. It looked very ordinary. Digging his hand back into the box, his expression tightened. “There’s something in here,” he reported, carefully pulling it out and holding it up to the light between his gloved fingers.

  It was a glass bottle, marked with a skull and crossbones, the warning symbol for poisonous materials. Underneath was written in the same neat handwriting as the outside address label, Stay away from the butterfly conspiracy.

  Merula went cold. She felt as if the room around her expanded for a moment, turning into a wide universe in which there was a roaring sound that blasted in her ears. Then the room turned small and suffocatingly close around her and she believed she could not breathe.

  Someone knew she was here and had sent her a threat. Stay away or else …

  “What is in the bottle?” Galileo asked. His expression was tense.

  Royston tilted the bottle to the left, then to the right. He scrunched up his face. “Nothing, it seems.”

  “Nothing? But it’s marked to contain poison. Let me see it. I can do tests on it. I can determine what residue is in it.” Galileo clapped his hands together. “The killer sent us the bottle in which he kept the poison used to murder Lady Sophia. He is daring us to analyze what it is.”

  Galileo laughed softly. “You reckless bastard. But I’m taking you up on the challenge. I’ll find out what it is and we’ll hang you with it!”

  Merula shook her head. She heard her own voice in the distance as she spoke, “You will find absolutely nothing in it, not a drop, a crystal, a trace. It’s clean. The killer sent this bottle to taunt us. To show us that his method is so ingenious that we can never detect it. He’s certain he’s safe.”

  “If he’s so certain he’s safe,” Royston said, pale with anger, “then why does he feel the need to warn us to stay away from the butterfly conspiracy, as he calls it? He must think we can discover something or he would not warn us. The murder happened not even a day go. What can he think we have discovered already?”

  “Maybe we touched a nerve somehow.” Merula was staring ahead. “Maybe we’ve come close to a vital bit of information already. But where? How? This morning at the country estate? Does the killer know we went there? Is that dangerous to him somehow? Or did it happen here in the city? Our meeting with Buckleberry? With Miss Knight? Is the killer watching us? Does he know our every move?”

  Her voice broke as she said the last words. Nerves filled her to the point of shaking.

  Royston took her arm and directed her onto the sofa in the corner. “I’ll get you a drop of brandy.”

  “I’m fine. I just wonder how much the killer knows. Is he following us? Does he know what we’re doing, what we know? Is he keeping track of every move we make?”

  “How would that be possible? I didn’t see a carriage follow us to the estate. I saw no one I know when we spoke to Buckleberry.”

  “No one you know, no, but what if whoever it is has a person following us? Someone inconspicuous who just blends in wherever he goes?” Merula shivered as she thought of the people in the coffeehouse, the newspaper vendors and the telegram boys, so many people she would never look at twice because their presence was natural, nothing to feel suspicious about.

  Royston shook his head with conviction.
“A killer who killed so ingeniously would not involve other people who can then betray him. It must be a shot in the dark, trying to scare us.”

  “It worked.” Merula pushed her hand to her throat. Her heart beat heavily in the artery running there. “I feel as if he is very close to us.”

  “In any case, he knows you are here,” Galileo said softly. “And in sending you the empty bottle, he said more than that you do not know how he killed Lady Sophia.”

  They both looked at Galileo’s serious expression.

  The chemist continued, “He’s also saying that, if he wants to, he can use this unknown method to kill again. To kill you.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “Are you sure you want to continue investigating?” Royston asked.

  Merula sat on the sofa, her head in her hands.

  Galileo’s words had shocked her to the core. The idea that she herself could suffer the same gruesome fate as Lady Sophia was terrifying. She had no idea how the poison had been introduced to Lady Sophia, so she could not defend herself against an attack on her own life.

  Did she have to give in to the killer’s demands?

  Did she have to stay away from the case, leave London, flee into the countryside or wherever she might be safe? Abandon Uncle Rupert in prison, Aunt Emma and Julia devastated at their home?

  Could she abandon them after her butterfly had played such an unfortunate part in the whole affair?

  As if Galileo knew she was thinking of the butterfly, he said, “Your cocoon hatched, by the way. What a gorgeous creature. I have not been able to study it in detail yet, but it has fascinating aspects I have never seen before. It doesn’t seem to have a mouth or anything like a mouth. That means it can’t feed and it will live only a short period of time.”

  “Does it also mean it can’t bite or sting?” Royston asked eagerly.

  “A sting can be given with other body parts. I’m still looking closer. And in the end, I will have to use tissue to look for poison.”

  “Meaning you will have to kill it,” Merula said softly.

  Galileo nodded with a sad expression. “It’s the only way.”