She gave a soft surprised laugh, obviously startled by my quick deduction. “You recognize me? You have the advantage, then, Miss . . . ?”
“Holmes.”
“Miss Holmes?” Dawning comprehension was present in her voice. “Right, then. . . . It appears we’re to go through here,” she said, gesturing to an unobtrusive door. “I arrived only a few moments ago and was given this by a street urchin. Before I could question him, he ran off.” She showed me a second piece of the same creamy paper.
There will be two of you. When the other has arrived, enter together at the door with the diamond cross.
“Very well, then,” I said.
Miss Stoker found and slid a hidden lever, and the door opened, accompanied by the soft hiss of escaping steam and the grind of well-oiled gears.
I was aware of the increase in my pulse as I followed my companion across the threshold. Illumination from small gaslit sconces spilled into a passage, bathing me and my companion in a soft yellow light. The door closed behind us.
A low rattle, a soft thunk. Then: click.
We were locked inside the museum. My breath became shallow and quick as the possibilities assaulted me. What if we were trapped? In danger? What if this was some sort of scheme to discredit the Holmes and Stoker families?
Or . . . what if my most private, desperate hopes were correct?
I held my steam gun at the ready and noted that Miss Stoker had replaced her wooden stake with some slender weapon that gleamed. I recognized it as a traditional firearm.
“Please”—came a feminine voice from a door that opened at the end of the brief corridor—“come in. I am delighted that you’ve accepted my invitation. And I see that you’ve come prepared.” She gestured to our weapons.
I crushed a wave of disappointment and annoyance with myself as I made my way toward the door. I hadn’t truly thought it was my mother who’d summoned me so secretively . . . but the absurd possibility had crossed my mind.
Miss Stoker followed me into the small cluttered office. I observed the room’s furnishings and contents, noting heavy walnut chairs with brocade upholstery, books in French, Latin, Greek, and Syrian, and papers organized with curious metal clamps. There were museum cabinets, a jumble of gears, a frayed rug, and the outline of a secret door or chamber behind a painting of Sir Anthony Panizzi, the man considered to be the father of the British Museum. The chamber smelled like age, roses, and Darjeeling tea.
In the center of the room was a circular table around which four chairs had been arranged. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a Deluxe Tome-Selector with gloved metal fingers leaned against the corner, one finger holding a spot in an aged book.
Off to the side there was a desk covered with more books, ivory pens, a lamp, pencils, and a mechanized quill sharpener that seemed to be able to handle three pens at a time instead of only one. A trio of narrow, floor-to-ceiling windows were shuttered against the night though a faint limner of moonbeams shone from between two slats.
Turning from my review of the chamber, I bestowed my full attention on our hostess. She was no longer half concealed by dim light and a door, which allowed me to recognize her from the portrait Uncle Sherlock had on his mantel. Until now, I’d never met the individual whom he called the woman.
Irene Adler.
“Please, sit,” she said, gesturing with an elegant hand and a warm smile. “Miss Stoker, Miss Holmes. It is a pleasure to meet you at last.”
I wasn’t clear on the details, but there had been some scandal involving the woman and the King of Bohemia, in which the king had required my uncle’s assistance. The case was resolved, but only after Miss Adler had outsmarted Uncle Sherlock by being one step ahead of him during the entire affair. As he was often heard to say, the people who’d outsmarted him in his life numbered fewer than the fingers on one hand. Three of them were men, and here, now in front of me, stood the fourth. In reluctant honor and admiration for his feminine opponent, my uncle’s only request for compensation from the King of Bohemia had been a picture of her.
Approximately the age of thirty, Miss Adler looked at me from the head of the table, her fingers curled around a pair of spectacles. An air of competence and intelligence emanated from her, and though her dark eyes sparkled with wit, I suspected they could sharpen with thought and determination.
“The pleasure is mine, Miss Adler,” I said, trying not to appear in awe of the woman who had outwitted my famed uncle.
She was a tall woman, slender, dark of hair, pale of complexion. One couldn’t precisely call her beautiful, but I considered her appearance striking and her presence mesmerizing. Tonight she wore a sateen bodice the color of chocolate, striped with bronze and decorated with jet buttons marching down the curve of her substantial bosom. A faint sparkle dusted her cheekbones, hardly detectable unless one was looking for it. And beneath the musty, damp smell of this antiquities-ridden chamber I scented a hint of the perfume that had clung to her message.
“Perhaps you’re wondering why I did not contact you openly,” Miss Adler said, looking from one to the other of us. The faint hint of her American heritage colored her voice.
“Indeed not,” I replied as I selected the seat nearest her, for I had already deduced the reasons for her secrecy. “When one considers your previous encounter with my uncle, it would be out of the question that you would make an open attempt to contact me.”
“But of course,” Miss Adler said, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth.
“Apparently the two of you are acquainted,” said Miss Stoker pointedly. She’d declined to take a seat, and now she pushed back the hood of her cloak.
Her hair was thick and ink-black. I knew that one branch of the Stokers was a family named Gardella from Italy, which explained the faint olive tone of her skin. Her eyes were dark, and her face very pretty in an arresting way. The sort of girl young men would find attractive. The sort of girl who danced at parties and shopped and laughed with her friends, and who knew just what to say when she met an interesting young man.
The sort of girl who had friends.
I pushed away the wistful thought and concentrated on examining my companion.
Miss Stoker was petite, while I was tall for a woman, and she boasted a much more feminine figure than my own gawky, angular one. Now that she had thrown back her dashing cloak, exposing a simple skirt and bodice without bustles or crinolines, I observed several accoutrements tucked into the waistband. Mostly wooden stakes, as well as a sheathed dagger and a slender wooden device I couldn’t readily identify. Relatively primitive weapons.
“Please forgive me, Miss Stoker,” said our hostess. “I hope you’ll accept my apologies for the manner by which I contacted you and Miss Holmes. If you’ll make yourselves comfortable and allow me to explain, your concerns will be allayed. If not, I assure you, you are free to go at any time.”
She settled into the chair at the head of the table. “First, I’d like to introduce myself. I am Irene Adler.” She pronounced her name the American way, as eye-REEN. “I’m here in London and in the employment of the British Museum at the direction of none other than Her Royal Highness.”
Miss Adler withdrew a small metallic object from her voluminous skirts and offered it to Miss Stoker. Even from my position across the table, I recognized it as a Royal Medallion, a token that is bestowed upon someone who has found favor with a member of the royal family. My father was in the possession of several of the peach-pit-sized spheres, each engraved with the seal of the individual who’d given it. If one pushed on it a certain way and released its hidden lever, the contraption snapped open to display the name of the bearer and a full seal and signature of the royal.