The Spiritglass Charade (Stoker & Holmes 2)

“I believe it happened once while I was present.” I found the small mechanism fascinating and yet eerie.

“Last night, I was down there in that basement room and it connected for a long time. Almost three minutes. I texted—I mean, I sent a message to my parents to let them know I was okay. They’re back home in Illinois, and as far as they know, I’m still at school here in London.”

He drew in a deep breath, as if to collect his thoughts. “I also had the chance to do some quick research on time travel, to see if there was anything science had discovered from my time that might help. There’s this thing called string theory, which says that space and place are always constant, always the same. But time is different—like strings hanging in one space. So we’re each on a string that hangs or floats or whatever, in our time. It seems like I might have gotten bumped over to your string, which brought me from my time to this time, but kept me in the exact same place.”

I nodded, understanding the elements of what he was saying (unlike Miss Stoker, whose blank expression indicated how little she comprehended). “And the question is . . . how did you move from your string to ours?”

“Exactly. If we figure that out, maybe that’s a way to send me back. Scientists in my time say time travel is impossible. But . . . well, here I am. Proof that it isn’t. Unless it’s all just a bad dream.” His expression sobered and the light faded from his eyes. “It has to be some sort of mathematical calculation, I think. That causes a vibration or something that makes the time-string move. . . . I don’t know. I don’t understand much of it. And I know you’re working on it, Mina,” he said earnestly. But that sadness lingered in his eyes.

I bit my lip. “But perhaps not as hard as I should be. Instead of studying face powders and—”

“Don’t feel bad.” He reached over to pat my arm. “If the greatest scientists of my time can’t figure it out, I don’t know how you could expect to in only a few weeks. But that’s why this is really important to me, and why I need this thing charged.” He turned to Miss Stoker.

“I’ll take good care of it. But I can’t let you come with me. It’s too dangerous—not only because it’s in Whitechapel, but also because I have to protect my . . . um. . . .” Her cheeks turned a shade pinker.

“Your source?” Dylan supplied.

“Right. My source. I like that word.” Evaline smiled and held out her hand once more. “I’ll protect it with my life. I promise.”

I had misgivings about Miss Stoker’s ability to keep the device safe, for she’s an impetuous young woman who doesn’t often think before she acts. Not only that, but she had more than once given me the impression she would rather seek out danger than find a more thoughtful, logical, safer way to solve a problem. But I didn’t see how our friend had any choice other than to entrust her with it. After all, the device would no longer be useful to Dylan if he didn’t get more electricity for it. And since the use or generation of that dangerous commodity had been criminalized by the Moseley-Haft Steam Promotion Act, such a source of energy was illicit and highly illegal.

Just as Dylan allowed the object to slide slowly into Miss Stoker’s palm, the door opened once more. This time, it was the expected, elegantly garbed woman who entered.

Irene Adler is an attractive American woman of stage talent (mostly song). She is more famously known, at least to myself and my family, as the only woman to ever outsmart Uncle Sherlock. Thus, he calls her the woman.

To commemorate the occasion, he keeps a picture of her on his mantel—along with several other mementos of previous adventures. The photograph was the only compensation he accepted for the case, which had involved a scandal with the King of Bohemia.

Miss Adler subsequently married Godfrey Norton, at least according to what was published in the papers. However, during the time I knew her, she was always Miss Adler rather than Mrs. Norton, and she never referred to her husband. I suspected there might have been a divorce . . . or perhaps he never even existed. Regardless, for unknown reasons, the vivacious Miss Adler left the European stage (where she had quite a following) to take on the role of the Keeper of Antiquities for the Museum.

“My apologies for being late,” Miss Adler said as she swept briskly around to the seat behind the desk. Dylan had vacated the chair as soon as she appeared, and now he stood, leaning against the wall. “One of the cog-carts blew a gasket and stopped traffic in the Strand. And now we are behind schedule.”

“Do you have a new assignment for us?” Evaline asked before the poor woman had even settled into her seat. I glowered at my counterpart, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Perhaps,” Miss Adler replied, seeming not at all nonplussed by my companion’s impatience. She turned her arm to check the wide-banded wrist-clock she always wore. “But we must leave immediately. It’s later than I thought.” She hadn’t taken a seat at the desk, but instead reached behind it to pull out a small reticule and an umbrella, then marched back around toward the door.

“Where are we going?”

“You might join us as well, Dylan.” Miss Adler slung the umbrella’s curled handle over her pristinely gloved wrist and eyed him critically. “You’re dressed well enough to be presented to Her Royal Highness, now that you’ve put on the new clothing I bought you.”

“Her Royal Highness?” A prickle of interest and excitement swept over me. “Are we going to Marlborough House?”

During our first meeting, Miss Adler confessed to Evaline and me that, although she was employed by the Museum as prescribed, she was also using her contacts and expertise in Europe to work for Alexandra, the Princess of Wales and daughter-in-law of the Queen, on a variety of tasks related to royal and national security.

That was how Evaline and I came to be called into service for our country as well. Miss Stoker and I had been approached because of our family legacies, and because we were young women. In short, no one would ever suspect us of working as secret agents for the Crown. Young women, claimed Society’s conventional wisdom, lacked the intelligence or the skills for anything other than marrying and raising children.

That school of thought was a delicious joke, in my opinion. After all, weren’t England’s two greatest monarchs—Queen Elizabeth and now Queen Victoria—women?

A faint smile curved Miss Adler’s lips, but I observed weariness and shadow in her normally bright eyes. “Indeed. The Princess of Wales wishes to meet you and Miss Stoker, and I suspect she may have something else about which she wishes to speak to you. And as we have an eleven o’clock appointment, we are in danger of being late, so we must be off. One cannot keep a princess of the realm waiting.”