“Only in part. We have Father’s journal, which might help develop us a cure for Edward, but it’s written in code. The codex is hidden in the letters he sent your father. We need you to steal the letters.”
I glanced at Balthazar, who was sitting calmly on the crooked back steps of the church, nudging a sluggish moth with his big forefinger toward a sugar cube he’d taken from his vest pocket.
“Papa’s out of town for the rest of the week,” she said. “And Mother hasn’t gotten out of bed since the attack at the masquerade. Have your man flag us down a carriage, and I’ll have the letters for you in a half hour.”
LUCY WAS TRUE TO her word. We hadn’t waited in the cabriolet more than twenty minutes before she reappeared at her front door, walking briskly with a leather satchel tucked under one arm. As soon as she was safely in the carriage and Montgomery signaled to the driver to go, she let out a deep sigh and tossed the satchel to me.
“I daresay I’m not cut out for all this,” she said. “It’s one thing to sneak about when it’s for a gentlemen’s kiss, but letters from a madman, and my father caught up in all of it . . . and that bloody brain is still in the hatbox!”
She rested a hand on her forehead as though she might be faint.
“You’ve done incredibly well,” I said.
“You have no idea what it’s been like living in that house, knowing what Papa is doing. Thank god he’s gone for the week. I wouldn’t be able to face him without my stomach turning. Whatever you all are planning, I hope it resolves this. I suppose it will be prison for him, or banishment just like your father. Mother will be crushed.”
Balthazar leaned over and patted her hand reassuringly. The color rose to her cheeks at this kind gesture. She adjusted the cuffs of her dress and was silent for the rest of the trip.
We arrived at the professor’s around noon, and I knew something was wrong the moment we crossed the threshold. Elizabeth sat at the dining room table, polishing an ancient musket that must have been from the sixteenth century. A bottle of gin sat beside her along with a half-empty glass.
I paused in the doorway. “Why do you have that musket, Elizabeth?” I asked.
She looked at us with half-wild eyes, then glanced toward the kitchen, where from this angle I could just make out the cellar door, closed now, with the buffet table pushed against it.
“Did something happen while we were away?” I asked hesitantly.
A second after I spoke a crashing came from downstairs strong enough to shake the house. Lucy shrieked, and I grabbed the table to steady myself.
“He’s been making a din like that that all morning,” Elizabeth said, throwing back the rest of her gin. “Raising the dead with his prowling about. I went down there earlier to check. . . .” Her face drained of color, and she returned to cleaning the old musket with renewed vigor. “Well, see for yourself, but I’d advise you to take a pistol just in case. And you needn’t worry about Inspector Newcastle or the police. I gave them quite a story, and they’ll be halfway to Dublin by now looking for you. It’ll be at least a few days before they figure out the truth.”
I set down the satchel. “I hope that will be enough time. We found a way to solve a code that Father used in his journals, and it might help us cure Edward.”
Another loud crash sounded from downstairs, and Elizabeth started to refill her glass.
I glanced at Montgomery. “We’d better check on him.”
He gave a single nod, and told Balthazar to help Elizabeth. Balthazar took a seat across from her happily, pulling a rag from his vest pocket with a flourish.
“Stay here too, Lucy,” I said.
She shook her head violently. “I want to see him.”
Montgomery turned to her before I could speak. “Miss Radcliffe, I’ve spent the better part of a year tracking the Beast. It isn’t Edward down there now, I can assure you. His alternate personality won’t care that you had him over for a lovely tea at your home. To him you’ll be blood ready to be spilled. Nothing more.”
Lucy’s face paled, but she still stood tall. “I said I’m coming with you. I’m not afraid.”
Montgomery stared her down, until at last he sighed. “I did warn you, Miss Radcliffe.”
With straining muscles, he pulled the buffet away from the cellar door. Old townhouses like the professor’s had been built before gas lighting, so a system of makeshift pipes ran down the length of stairs, ending in a single gas bulb at the bottom. Its flame reflected on the heavy metal chains on the cellar door.
Footsteps sounded from within the cellar. Tap-tap-tap. A familiar sound that took me back to the island: claws on a stone floor.
“I’ll go first,” I said, though my voice came out thin. “He might go wild with rage again if he sees you, Montgomery. And Lucy, you stay back too.”