The Butterfly Conspiracy Read online

  People rushed to buy the newspapers and stood talking in small groups, pointing out information on the front page to one another.

  “Word is out,” Royston said slowly. “We can’t approach anyone who was at the lecture last night, because they will be reluctant to talk to us and might even try to turn us in to the police. What on earth does it mean that there is a butterfly conspiracy? And why would it reach deep? Do they think more people than just your uncle are involved?”

  “I have no idea.” Merula’s stomach was filled with ice, and she wanted the hansom to turn around and drive away from all those people talking about her uncle and spreading rumors that could ruin her family completely. “Perhaps the newspapers just made something up? I can’t imagine the police giving such statements.”

  “Bowsprit will have seen this and will bring us the newspapers when he returns,” Royston said. “Let us hope he has found out something pertinent about Lady Sophia’s last few hours alive.”

  He glanced at her. “With word of a sensational butterfly conspiracy on the street, your uncle isn’t likely to be released unless we can deliver hard evidence of someone else’s guilt.”

  CHAPTER 6

  When they arrived at Galileo’s via the servants’ entrance and the backstairs, they found the chemist completely engrossed in releasing a clear liquid drop after drop into a vial filled with bluish liquid, apparently waiting for the instant when some momentous change would take place.

  Royston studied his friend’s intense concentration for a few moments and gestured to Merula to go into the other room. In passing, Royston picked up a blackboard and the easel it stood on, maneuvering it into the other room.

  Merula followed at once. There, among the glass cages with the exotic creatures, Royston put down the blackboard, wiped away the chemical analysis that was on it, and started to write in a legible hand: Lady Sophia dies.

  Underneath he made three rows marked Suspects, Motives, and How.

  Under suspects he wrote Foxwell and Havilock. Foxwell’s motive was Money and Havilock’s Return of property.

  The How column remained glaringly empty.

  Tapping his chalk on the board, Royston said, “I guess the start to the how would be to know what exactly caused the death. Poisoning in general is not very helpful, as we have to know how the poison was introduced into Lady Sophia’s body. Food or drink seems most likely. Foxwell assured us that she drank or ate nothing on the spot. Can we believe him?”

  “I didn’t see her eat or drink. But she was not in my sight all the time.” Merula frowned. “She might have slipped a sweet into her mouth right before she entered. My aunt Emma always has something with peppermint with her to suck on during a performance or at a ball. She believes it keeps her mind clear.”

  Royston nodded. “It would be clever to put poison on something she would consume out of doors so the collapse would not happen in the family circle, where suspicion would automatically fall on those closest to her, that is, Foxwell or her servants. What do we know about her servants, anyway?”

  “I assume Bowsprit will be able to tell us more about it once he is back.”

  “Yes.” Royston consulted his watch. “I hope he won’t stay out all day thinking we are at the curio cabinet. Bowsprit is very useful, but he has a mind of his own, and he doesn’t like taking orders.”

  “Then why did you hire such an unusual type as your valet?”

  “I wanted to give him a chance. He’s too clever to just do manual labor at some factory.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “In an opium den. I was asked by a female acquaintance to get her brother out. She had nobody else to turn to, as her friends weren’t to know about the young man’s addiction. She had arranged for him to go abroad to be cured.”

  Royston shook his head. “She had this rather annoyingly optimistic view of his situation. Just a change of surroundings, a little horse riding and vigorous walking, and he’d be himself again.”

  “You do not think it is that easy?” Merula asked. “I know nothing about opium addiction, and to be honest, I don’t understand why anyone would try a drug that can make one aggressive or show one things that aren’t real. I would be too afraid to try it.”

  “Count yourself fortunate,” Royston said. “Those who don’t know such fear and who experiment often find themselves in dire need soon enough. I found the young man in question in the third den I visited. He didn’t want to come with me quietly but put up quite a struggle. Bowsprit came to my aid. I noticed he wasn’t just strong and able but that he also knew how to deal with the matter without breaking anything in the den and getting into an additional fight with the owners. Once we had wrestled our reluctant charge into a carriage, I asked him to accompany me and help me deliver the man safely to his parental home, and he agreed. I won’t shock you with the details of what happened when, upon reaching his home, we came across his father, who had returned early from a business journey to France. Suffice it to say he wasn’t happy to discover the state his son was in. Coming home drunk is not a problem in many a rich family, but opium is a different matter.”

  “Do you agree with that assessment?” Merula asked. “It is far more dangerous, is it not?”

  “In its addictive powers, yes, I suppose so. And while young men can indulge in alcohol and cards at reputable clubs, opium is usually found in places where you can get your throat slit. I talked to the father and tried to convince him that his son needed his help, but he turned the boy out of the house, denying he was even his son. There we were, in the street, with a raving young man and a crying sister who had come out after her father had dashed off in anger, with nowhere to go really. Bowsprit quietly said that he could find a place for the young man to sleep off his haze and we could try to send him abroad anyway, as had been the plan. So we did.”

  “Despite the father not cooperating?”

  “He needed not. I provided the money for the crossing, and the girl’s acquaintances would wait for her brother in the harbor where the ship docked. Bowsprit had been a sailor for many years, and he knew a few men aboard the vessel who would look after our imprudent charge to ensure he didn’t get into trouble on the way.”

  “You provided the money. How generous. Did you … know this girl very well?”

  Royston laughed softly. “Typical for a woman to see a romance everywhere.”

  Merula was indignant at his tone. “It is a logical assumption. Why else would you get embroiled in something so precarious to your good name and reputation?”

  “Because I have no such thing,” Royston said with a mock bow.

  At that moment, the door opened and Bowsprit stepped in. His tight expression relaxed when he saw them. “You are back already. Good. I have someone you can talk to right away.” He checked the time on the clock. “He should be in the coffeehouse in half an hour. Lady Sophia’s butler. He can tell you everything you want to know about last night.”

  Royston nodded. “Well done. How about information from the mortuary?”

  “I talked to a man who cleans there and saw them carry in the dead body last night. He said they were talking about it having been suffocation. Poisoning, but they don’t know with what. He will let me know by way of a message delivered to a bookshop if he learns any more.”

  “To a bookshop. How discreet of you, Bowsprit,” Royston said with a smile.

  “I am not using this address, as we have to keep your whereabouts a secret for as long as we can. Have you seen the papers?”

  Royston’s smile died on his lips. “Unfortunately, yes. Have you purchased some for us to read?”

  “Yes, but the information is no good. Just hysteria and no real facts.” Bowsprit gestured over his shoulder. “I put them in the other room.”

  “With Galileo? He might accidentally mistake them for scrap paper and use them to clean his tools or light a fire in the hearth. Bring them in here at once. This is our official investigations room.” Royston encompassed the blackbo
ard with a wide gesture.

  Bowsprit didn’t seem impressed, but he dutifully fetched the papers and spread them out across the faded velvet sofa.

  Her heart beating fast, Merula read aloud, “Last night at a lecture for the Royal Zoological Society, at the home of reputed collector Lord Havilock, a member in attendance died after a poisonous insect sat on her arm. What nonsense. We don’t even know if the butterfly is poisonous or not.”

  “Go on,” Royston said, having closed his eyes, apparently drinking in every word.

  “The lady in question collapsed and died within moments after the insect, a butterfly of inhuman proportions, was released from its cage. It was brought to the lecture by Rupert DeVeere, who is known for his butterfly research and his exotic imports, which he keeps in the conservatory at his home. After the death, the conservatory caught fire. The police are still looking into the cause of this, but it is assumed that frightened servants set the fire in an attempt to annihilate all the poisonous insects before they could kill again.”

  Merula spread her hands. “Can you believe this nonsense? Outsiders stormed in and set the fire, not our own servants.”

  Royston, his eyes still closed, gestured for her to go on.

  Merula read, “DeVeere was arrested on the scene of the death after the deceased’s nephew, Simon Foxwell, accused him of foul play. He insists that DeVeere intended to kill the victim via the poisonous butterfly, as he had recently been embroiled in an argument with her about his daughter’s reputation.”

  Merula cringed at the idea that more nonsense about Julia and Uncle Rupert’s wishes for her to marry well would be spread around, but there the article took a turn in another direction: “Foxwell claims that the death of his aunt is part of a conspiracy to defraud her of the extensive zoological collection built by her late husband, which is kept at her country estate. Although formerly always open to the public, the collection will now be kept behind closed doors and guarded to prevent the butterfly conspiracy from succeeding.”

  “No wonder we couldn’t get in this morning,” Royston muttered. “Foxwell must have sent word out to the estate at once.”

  “Maybe he went there himself?” Merula suggested.

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “He might have been there and seen us, from an upper story window. If he knows we are looking into the death…”

  “Yes, then what?” Royston asked, snapping his eyes open. “He can hardly expect us to sit back quietly while your uncle is accused of murder. This newspaper article implies he planned it. Not an accident, not culpability for letting a dangerous animal fly free, no, a deliberate assault on Lady Sophia. The same as taking a club and bludgeoning her to death.”

  He took a deep breath. “Gross exaggeration or conscious misrepresentation, that is hard to tell. But it’s clear that Foxwell intends to start a war against your uncle and have him convicted by public opinion before there is even an inquest into the cause of Lady Sophia’s death. He is moving very fast, not just pointing the finger, but also locking the zoological collection away from prying eyes. You could be right in your suggestion that it is no longer there, or only partly. We have to find out more about that.”

  “But how? You just said when we saw the newspapers spread all about the city that we can’t openly approach anyone who was at the lecture last night. What sources are then left to us?”

  “I can try Justin informally. He won’t believe just anything that is written.” Royston nodded firmly. “For now, we must focus on Lady Sophia’s butler and find out what she did right before she died. We have to find some other way in which she might have been poisoned.”

  He pointed straight at the blackboard. “The suspects are important and their motives carry weight, but the third column is essential. The how. If we can resolve that, it will lead us to the other information.”

  * * *

  Merula had never been in a coffeehouse before, as it wasn’t a place young ladies went, alone or in the company of others, at least not if they wanted to keep their reputation intact. She had often longed to see more of London than her visits to Regent Street with Julia allowed, but it had never crossed her mind to go out and venture into forbidden areas just because she wanted to. Her family’s good name was dear to her, and she’d never embarrass them. But today those considerations no longer mattered, and as Merula stepped inside, she took in everything with a long wide-eyed look, wondering what kind of life these people had who regularly met here over the coffee served in wide cups without saucers and fatty pork pies not even offered on a plate but on a crinkled piece of paper.

  In a corner, a nervous-looking man was waiting for them, rubbing his hands together and glancing around as if he didn’t want to see anybody he knew. He got to his feet when they came over and bowed his graying head. “Buckleberry, my lord. Your valet said that if I told you all I know, there is something in it for me.”

  Royston threw Bowsprit a quick glance. “Of course I am willing to reward you for volunteering information in such an important case. I do hope that you will not adorn your tale in the hopes of a bigger reward. We are merely interested in the truth, not in fabrications.”

  Buckleberry’s clean-shaven face flushed. “I swear to you, my lord, that I would never lie in such a case. My mistress’s death is a terrible thing. Especially as she was so afraid of dying.”

  “Of dying?” Royston echoed, with a hitched brow. “She was under threat?”

  The butler sank back on the simple wooden bench against the wall, and the three of them seated themselves opposite him to listen to his tale.

  Buckleberry said, “She wasn’t under threat from people, my lord, if that is what you mean. It was her own imagination. She was always very particular, about food, things she did and did not want to eat. Small items, for instance, like peas, she avoided like the plague. She mashed everything that came onto her plate. The maids often joked she might as well just eat broth all day long, as she mashed everything into this unrecognizable mush.”

  “Was she afraid of being poisoned?” Royston pressed.

  “How would mashing her food help then?” Buckleberry asked.

  “How would mashing her food help in any way?” Merula wondered out loud. “Do you know when she started doing that? Was there a particular incident that caused it?”

  “Not that I know of, Miss, but I have only worked for her for a few years now. And only in the city. She lived at her country house most of the time. I have never been there.”

  “Why did she keep a full household here in the city if she was rarely here?”

  “Her nephew, Mr. Foxwell, is often here. He uses the house as if it were his own.”

  The slight disapproval in Buckleberry’s tone could not be missed, but Royston didn’t pounce on it. “So you had to maintain the house in the city mainly for Mr. Foxwell’s stays there?”

  “He loved the clubs, my lord, and came home late most any night.”

  “Intoxicated too?”

  “Not that I noticed. I think he can either take alcohol very well or he doesn’t drink quite as much as other young men do.”

  “Very wise,” Royston said. “And did Mr. Foxwell eat with Lady Sophia last night before they left for the lecture?”

  “Yes. They ate and drank all the same things. Lady Sophia mashed her food, of course, as she always does, but they both ate from the same dishes and drank wine from the same jug.”

  “Could the poison have been introduced into her glass or onto her plate before food was placed on it?”

  “Not likely, my lord. She always checked her plate and glass as she sat down to eat. She claimed to be afraid something would be on it that she might accidentally swallow. She held up her glass against the light and checked her plate, even running her finger over it.”

  “So she was afraid of poison.” Royston glanced at Merula.

  Buckleberry said, “She was particular in many things, my lord. I heard from the maids who serve in her bedroom that
she never slept lying down but sat upright, leaning back against her pillows. At least three pillows she wanted on her bed, else she’d make a terrible scene. She always wanted water beside her bed. Not just a glass full of it, but a jug with water beside it. She never ate chocolates or bonbons, claiming they stuck to her palate. But she used to love chocolate as a girl, I heard, and even when she was just married, her husband brought her boxes of chocolates often, as gifts.”

  Buckleberry looked pensive. Then, leaning over, he said, “If I can speak frankly, my lord?”

  Royston nodded encouragingly.

  Buckleberry said, “I think she was somehow sick in her mind. I can’t quite define it, but you can sometimes see it in elderly people. They become quite possessive of their things and think everybody wants to steal from them. They claim items have gone missing when none have. I have seen it happen to my mother-in-law. Quite sad. She was such a kind woman all her life, but in her later years she became quite difficult to deal with. She even accused her own daughter, my wife, of stealing from her. Now Lady Sophia, she was the same lately.”

  “She accused people of stealing from her?” Merula asked. In light of the zoological collection, this might prove interesting. Was part of the collection missing and had Lady Sophia known this? Had she not been mistaken in believing she had been the victim of theft? Had she been right? Had it been a motive to murder her?

  Buckleberry said, “Yes, she had a companion for ten years. A very competent woman who could deal well with all of her demands. Out of the blue, Lady Sophia accused Miss Knight of having stolen a gold earring. She threatened to dismiss her if it happened again. I had never seen the good woman out of sorts in all those years, but she was close to tears, confiding in me that with an accusation of theft to her name, she’d never work for a well-to-do family again. I can’t understand how Lady Sophia could make such an accusation lightly. But then, she was changing. Becoming more aggressive and afraid.”

  “And this happened after her husband died?”