Instead, I found myself most days tucked into some cobwebby corner of the Belvedere, plucking out desiccated butterflies and inking labels. It was not entirely the earl’s fault. He had vastly underestimated the time required to make the collection fit for exhibition, and my own activities had frequently interrupted the work. Stoker and I had developed the habit of murder—the solving of, I hasten to add. Not the commission of, although the earl’s numerous and exuberant children might have tempted me to try. Their mother long dead, the children ran wild despite the best efforts of the earl and his sister, Lady Cordelia. The lady and I had become fast friends regardless of the differences in rank and experience, and I had been deeply honored that she had chosen me as her companion when she sojourned half a year in Madeira. I had anticipated long days spent with my butterfly net, pursuing the enchanting black and white spotted Hypolimnas misippus, but instead I found myself trotting out on endless errands, fetching remedies for morning sickness and swollen feet as the reason for Lady C’s abrupt withdrawal from public life made itself apparent.
I held her hand through the worst of it, but there are scenes indelibly printed upon my memory, scenes of such barnyard specificity that no childless woman should be forced to witness them. But Lady C had delighted in her bovine contentment, so much that she altered her plans to have the babe adopted out. Instead, she arranged for a temporary situation until the child was fully weaned and could travel safely in the company of the French nurse she had engaged to care for it. The infant had been in Paris for some weeks, and Lady C wrote to me in the Alpenwald, requesting that I retrieve it for her, much as one would ask a friend to collect a piece of left luggage from a train station. She cleverly reasoned that, as the child had come from Paris, no one would connect it with her journey to Madeira. Presented as a French foundling, it could be “adopted” by her and raised as her own child, although without benefit of her name. The situation was not ideal, but it was far better than any alternative. I had little use for society and its various hypocrisies, but Lady C was deeply conscious of her brother’s honor and the fact that her beloved nieces and nephews would be tarred with the same brush used to blacken her name should the truth come out.
And so, Stoker and I had stopped in Paris for a few days to enjoy the spring sunshine, pay a lengthy visit to Deyrolle—the taxidermical emporium where Stoker wandered in a state of considerable rapture—marvel at the hypnotic ugliness of the newly constructed tower by Monsieur Eiffel, and collect the child. It came with an abundance of things, rubber baths and traveling cots and tiny chairs and far more clothes than I owned. (I gathered from a conversation with Madame Laborde that Lady C had been lavish in sending presents.) But all the infant’s impedimenta could not rival my own souvenir of the Alpenwald—the cheese. I had purchased it as a gift for the earl in recognition of his many kindnesses and inexhaustible patience with our detectival endeavors. I could never be persuaded from the course of justice, and as a result Stoker and I were forever haring off on some adventure or other. If we were not chasing a resurrected Egyptian god down a sewer or ballooning past Big Ben, we were being variously shot at, stabbed, abducted, or drowned. A nice wheel of cheese seemed a small price to pay for the earl overlooking our frequent absences.
Unfortunately, I had underestimated the most notable of the Alpenwalder cheese’s qualities. It was renowned amongst gourmets for its aroma, earthy, with the slightest suggestion of goat. In short, it stank. And the longer one carried it about, through overheated train compartments and warm spring sunshine, the more pungent it became.
By the time we reached Calais, the odor of the cheese had taken on a sort of personality, a fifth traveler in our merry band, ensuring that wherever we went, porters ignored us and crowds parted. Stoker had been forced to carry it himself, his clothing now permanently imbued with the stink of it. He eyed me reproachfully, but I pretended not to notice.
We arrived back in London on a gloomy morning. A chill fog rolled off the river Thames, blanketing the city and muffling traffic. The odiferous cheese announced our presence, and before a hapless porter could make his escape, I cornered him and forced him to help us shift our baggage to the carriage Lady C had sent. We clip-clopped through streets shrouded in mist, and by the time we arrived at Bishop’s Folly, the estate in Marylebone, we were damp and cold to the bone. Usually our comings and goings were of little note, but this time the entire Beauclerk family turned out to greet us. Lady C took charge of her child and the earl of his cheese, and the children of the quantity of Swiss chocolate Stoker had purchased for them.
Our bags were sent to our lodgings, two of the follies built by previous earls to cluster picturesquely around a pond. Stoker’s was a pagoda while I had chosen to lodge in a Gothic structure reminiscent of Sainte-Chapelle, lavish with pointed arches and stained glass. But at his lordship’s urging, we made straight for the Belvedere itself, our place of work and refreshment.
“I have a new acquisition and it has only just arrived,” Lord Rosemorran announced, rubbing his hands together. Stoker flinched and I gave the earl a look of frank alarm. His enthusiasm was matched only by his fortune, and both were often in service of things only an eccentric nobleman could love. As soon as word of his intended museum spread, his aristocratic friends had taken the opportunity to clear out their own attics and country houses, sending along cartfuls of appalling things. Sorting through the detritus of some of England’s finest families would have been enough to turn my hair white had I not been made of stern stuff, so I had, tactfully but firmly, insisted that his lordship promise to discuss future additions to the collection with us, his curators.
Catching sight of my expression, he hurried to explain. “Naturally, I would have conferred with the two of you, but you were in the Alpenwald, and I had to act quickly, you see. Reggie Anstruther offered me a good deal, but only if I agreed to the whole lot and only if I took delivery immediately.”
Stoker’s sigh was profound, but his lordship’s excitement was undiminished. He threw open the door of the Belvedere and stopped short. Packed almost to the entrance itself was a stack of crates, row after row, and enormous rolls of fabric, painted canvas that had been furled like sails.
“What, precisely, are we looking at?” Stoker asked politely.
The earl seized a pry bar and began to open the crates. “The entire collection from the French opera theatre Reggie owned. A fine fellow of business, Reggie,” he said absently as he tossed aside the first lid. From Lord Anstruther’s reputation, I would have said it was safe to conclude he was not, in fact, a fine fellow of business. Every month was a new scheme, usually something calculated to provide access to comely young women of some talent and flexible morals. He was forever investing in dramatic companies and ballet troupes.
“Lord Anstruther has got out of the theatrical business then?” I inquired. The first crate appeared to be full of costumes, and the earl was busy inspecting his new treasures.
“What was that? Oh yes, at least, no more opera. He says singers are devilishly temperamental. The last one threw a shoe at his head and nearly took out his eye. So, he’s sold off the opera theatre and used the money to invest in a troupe of girls who do tricks on horseback. It’s very popular, he says. He means to take them on a tour of the provinces. Look here!” he called, diving into the crate. He emerged wearing a brown velvet donkey’s head. It was sporting a wreath of flowers and a ridiculous grin. “Hallo, I am Bottom!” he proclaimed happily.