A Curious Beginning

“Then I must thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Stoker. And you must grant me my pride as well. I should like to be of some use whilst I am here. Perhaps some tidying up would be in order,” I suggested hopefully, regarding the chaos of his surroundings.

“Touch so much as a hair of a sloth’s head, and I will have you shot,” he said darkly. “But you may continue to help me mount the elephant. It is a bastard of a job for one man.”

I ignored his profanity. I had grown accustomed to it in the previous hours, and if I was perfectly honest, it provided a bit of spice to conversation when one had spent so much time listening to the chatter of women.

“I wonder that you took it on without a proper assistant,” I mused aloud.

“I have not the means to engage an assistant,” he reminded me.

“Nor the common sense to decline the commission,” I added. He started again, and I held up a hand against the tirade I could see building within him. “It was not a criticism, Mr. Stoker. There is no shame in a man’s being ambitious. In fact, I find it rather necessary in this day and age. A gentleman cannot always depend upon his birthright to support him. Sometimes circumstances demand that he make his own way in the world, and I applaud such spirit.”

His gaze narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘gentleman’?”

“I mean that you are quite clearly a person who has suffered some reverses in the world. Whether they are unique to you or whether your entire family have suffered, I cannot say. But I know that you are not a man who was born to drink his tea from a peach tin or wear patched boots.” I looked pointedly at his feet. “I happened to notice that your boots are from John Lobb. They are old and well-worn and patched with care, but they are of excellent make and extremely expensive. This speaks to a man who is not what he seems.”

He stared at me in slack-jawed mystification. “How the bloody hell can you possibly know that?”

“I knew a charming young Belgian who insisted upon ordering his boots from that establishment. He instructed me on the finer points of gentlemen’s footwear. But it was you who betrayed your birth, I am afraid—by way of your vowels, Mr. Stoker. You are careful with them, as only a gentleman bred from the cradle can be. While your vocabulary may be colorful in the extreme, your diction is impeccable.”

He said something thoroughly profane then, and I merely smiled into my cup. He subsided into nursing his tea, and we fell to an oddly restful silence before I spoke again.

“Why do you not fund your own expedition, Mr. Stoker?”

He gave me a nasty smile. “I believe we have discussed my financial affairs already, Miss Speedwell. You are conversant enough upon the matter to know the answer to that question.”

I shook my head. “I suppose it was to be expected that you would lose your nerve.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You must believe me sympathetic. I quite understand, Mr. Stoker. Such experiences as you have suffered whilst on expedition would temper the sharpest enthusiasm. But we are scientists, are we not? We understand the difference between base and precious metals. Some things are purified and strengthened by trial, others destroyed.”

He ground his teeth together against my compassion. “I assure you, your sympathies are quite misplaced. I have not lost my nerve, you insufferable woman. I am doing what I can with what I have.”

I shook my head. “I think not. You have placed your trust in the Royal Museum of Natural History, an institution we both know to be corrupted both by ignorance and greed. And yet you appear to have collected their rejections with the same verve you collect your tragically flawed specimens. Tell me, how many times have they turned you down?”

“Two dozen,” he ground out.

“Good heavens, Mr. Stoker. I am sorry to add pigheadedness to your list of faults, but I suppose I must. Why do you persist in applying to them to aid you when it ought to be the other way round?”

He had opened his mouth upon the insult, but my last sentence must have proved too intriguing to ignore. “Explain,” he ordered.

I smiled. “I thought you would never ask.”





CHAPTER SIX


I launched into an explanation—although less charitable types might have been inclined to call it a lecture. “The Royal Museum of Natural History is dependent upon explorers to collect its specimens, to chart new and undiscovered lands, and to bring back new species. You are such a man, and yet they do not want you—doubtless because they are familiar with your uncertain temper and execrable personal habits. Nevertheless, you are a scientist of considerable gifts. One has only to give this place the most cursory glance to realize you have assembled a collection that is both thoughtful and instructive, no matter how wretched its condition. There is real brilliance here, Mr. Stoker. If you were to mount your own expedition, on your own terms, the museum would have no choice but to come to you, begging for the specimens you acquire. You have simply put the cart before the horse,” I told him.