Mr. Kent looked at Miss Molly and raised his eyebrows without asking the question.
She answered anyway. “That man, he paid for her services first. Then came in here to attack another patron. A gentleman it was. Thomas Cox was his name.”
We turned back around and knocked on the healer’s door. Miss Molly had some words with her and then we were let into the dim bedroom. Two women were in there, one dressed like a nurse, albeit an underdressed one, the other a pretty redhead adjusting her smart little hat in the mirror. “Be a good gent and tell me all your secrets,” she practiced to herself.
“My God, it’s the perfect woman,” Mr. Kent uttered. “But the attire, it’s all wrong.”
As Mr. Kent went to go flirt with the female version of himself, Laura and Emily giggled at the bed. Oh Lord. We were corrupting poor Laura. What was Mr. Kent thinking?
Mr. Adeoti gingerly touched the bed frame and then various places on the wooden floor. He slowly made his way over to a small pile of soiled bedsheets in the corner of the room. His face turned even redder as he set one finger on the edge of a sheet and stared steadily at the ceiling. No one needed to ask what he was seeing because it was written all over his face.
“For the love of England don’t repeat anything … indecent,” I said. “But do you have any sense of where he’d go? Or what else he wants?”
“Well, he killed that Thomas Cox last night for Captain Goode, and they did intend for it to be blamed on Mr. Braddock,” Mr. Adeoti said, shaking his head sadly.
“What motive were they going to ascribe to him?” I asked.
“Well, the man seems to have been some minor aristocrat—” Mr. Adeoti began.
“Baronet.” Miss Molly crossed her arms and stared at all of us suspiciously.
“Indeed. And they, well…” He looked sheepishly at Sebastian. “They want to make it seem like Mr. Braddock is especially dangerous to aristocrats.”
“But … Captain Goode is the one who feels that way!” I was shaking with anger, my fingers vibrating against my skirt, clenched in my fists.
“Bastard,” Miss Chen said, her jaw tense and eyes furious. “Burned the man alive for nothing.”
“On the bright side, he was probably in the worst agony for only a few seconds,” Mr. Adeoti offered. “And then he likely felt nothing.”
“I don’t suppose this Jarsdel happened to leave anything behind here?” Mr. Kent asked.
“He did,” the girl pretending to be a healer was compelled to say, looking unhappy about it. She looked nothing like me, of course, but knowing that she was pretending to be … well, me, in a way, was still disconcerting.
And knowing that the general public was titillated by that was far worse. My stomach gave a little roll.
“And what wonderful piece of evidence did he leave behind?”
“The watch,” she answered, looking at Mr. Kent’s pretender.
The girl sighed and reached into her reticule, pulling out a watch.
“He didn’t tell me the truth,” she explained boldly, putting up her chin a little, as though daring us to challenge her.
“You must not have asked the right questions.” Mr. Kent chucked her chin and handed the watch over to Mr. Adeoti.
“The British Museum, a Lord Lister,” Mr. Adeoti said, eyes closed, then they flew open. “He’s planning to attack a board member this morning, making it look like Mr. Braddock is on a killing spree.”
“If he hasn’t already,” Miss Chen said, glancing out the window for a sign.
“This Mr. Jarsdel,” Sebastian asked. “Does he have red hair, a rather bushy beard? A scar?” Sebastian sounded far too knowledgeable about this person.
Mr. Adeoti nodded throughout. “On his forehead.”
I turned to Sebastian. “You know this man?”
“I do. The Society sent six of us to capture him,” Sebastian replied. “And that was when he wasn’t enhanced.”
*
It took twenty minutes to reach the British Museum, most of which Mr. Kent spent persuading Laura to wait for us in the carriage with Tuffins and that she wouldn’t be missing a secret brothel hidden inside the reading room.
As we crossed the open courtyard toward the grand portico entrance and the imposing Greek columns, Sebastian turned to Mr. Adeoti.
“Mr. Jarsdel’s power isn’t fire, exactly, is it?” he asked.
“Indeed, Mr. Braddock, it’s connected to the sun.”
“And that makes it worse, I assume?” Miss Chen asked.
Mr. Adeoti nodded. “He’s stronger in the sunlight. He can also emit a flash that temporarily blinds anyone looking at him, so be sure to cover your eyes.”
“And how do we not get set on fire with our eyes closed?” I asked.
“Oh, you’ll likely be set on fire!” Mr. Adeoti said. “But hopefully we will learn something new today.”
“I suggest hiding,” Sebastian said, his lips pursed.
We reached the front door, where Mr. Adeoti paused for a moment as he held it open for us, his eyes seeing something beyond us. “Mr. Jarsdel’s here. I don’t think he knows exactly where his Lord Lister is, though.”
“Then that gives us the advantage,” Mr. Kent declared as we entered the main vestibule. He stopped at the first attendant we saw and asked if he knew a Lord Lister who was on the board and currently somewhere in the museum. The attendant had no idea.
“A very slight advantage,” Mr. Kent clarified to us.
We moved from room to room, ignoring the thousands of years’ worth of priceless manuscripts, artifacts, and sculptures. Instead, we headed straight for the attendants with the same question ready. Our path took us through a vast library, the Egyptian wing, and a few Greek and Roman rooms until we reached a staircase where Mr. Jarsdel had touched the banister on his way up.
“He didn’t find him on this floor,” Mr. Adeoti said. “He’s just a few minutes ahead.”
“Then we will just have to find him first,” Mr. Kent said, as if it were the simplest thing.
We climbed the stairs and passed through a room dedicated to oriental artifacts and into another Egyptian room.
Before crossing the threshold, I turned around to find Miss Chen looking at something in a glass curio cabinet. By the time I came upon her, she was pulling jewelry out of a perfectly round hole in the glass front.
“You can’t steal things from the museum,” I whispered.
Miss Chen snorted. “How do you think they got here in the first place?”
“I … fine, steal them after we’re done,” I said, quickly plastering a smile on my face as a passing lady gave us a strange look.
“Excuse me, miss, what is it you have there?” a voice behind us asked with the tone of someone who definitely knew what we had there.
Standing by a cabinet at the entrance was a short, dapper man, squinting at us in shock through his monocle.
“What is it you have there?” Miss Chen shot back, giddy bewilderment on her face. “I didn’t think you English actually wore those. This is incredible.”
The man looked affronted, especially when his monocle cracked from Miss Chen’s thrilled gaze. He spun around to seek help and found it in Mr. Kent and the rest of our group.
“Ah good, you found him. Lord Lister, yes?” Mr. Kent said.
“Yes, that’s me,” the man answered, looking confused. “But these young ladies, we must fetch the police, they are thieves and—”
“Miss Wyndham, Miss Chen! I never would have thought you had it in you. I am thoroughly impressed.” Mr. Kent winked at us both.
“Now, sir!” Lord Lister began blustering.
“Oh, right, yes. I have some news for you, Lord Lister. Someone is trying to kill you, so I suggest you come with us.”
Lord Lister stared at us, trying to suss out the joke, then frowning when he saw everyone’s serious faces. “Who are you? Who is … trying to kill me?”
“Imagine a sun,” Mr. Kent said. “But it’s grown arms and legs and a torso and has decided it doesn’t like you very much.”
Lord Lister stared helplessly. “I … don’t have a son.…”
“Mr. Kent, you’re confusing him more,” I hissed, pushing our group into the Egyptian room, toward an exit. “Let’s go.”