I could not see him, but I could feel the heat emanating from his body, and I knew he was shatteringly angry. I rose on tiptoe and put my lips to his ear.
“I had no choice,” I began.
He shied back. “Your moustaches are tickling me,” he said coldly. Without preamble, he reached down and tore them from my lip.
“Ow!” I began to remonstrate with him, but he put his hand to my mouth again.
“Hush!” he rasped into my ear. “This cabinet is a passageway. It leads to Madame’s private quarters.”
I was confused. If Brisbane meant to expose her, why not do so during the séance itself, when she was bringing forth ectoplasm? Why wait until she was alone in the privacy of her own rooms?
I raised my brows at him, and even though we were in darkness, he must have sensed my curiosity. “I do not care about her medium’s tricks,” he explained. “Altogether bigger game is afoot here.”
I felt a dull thud of dismay. He was on the trail of something more important and I had ruined it by blundering in. I touched his hand and he removed it.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “I thought you were in some sort of trouble. I came to help.”
I felt him cant his head sideways in the darkness. “You thought I was in trouble?”
I nodded. I felt him begin to tremble in my arms, and it was only after a long moment that I realised he was laughing, great silent belly laughs that he was having difficulty suppressing.
“You may amuse yourself at my expense, Brisbane, but I did come to help,” I returned.
He wiped at his eyes, and when his lips grazed my ear, I felt the anger in him had ebbed. “I have no doubt of that. You aren’t wearing any more moustaches, are you? I got them all?”
I felt my upper lip, still tender from where he had wrenched them from me. “I am myself again. Why?”
“Because I cannot kiss you properly with those absurd things glued to your lip.”
“Oh,” I murmured. “Oh.”
He did not release me for some minutes, and when he did, it occurred to me that I ought to make him angry more often if this was the result.
“Ought we not continue your investigation?” I asked as I tucked my shirt back into my trousers. “We cannot stay here all night.”
“We might,” he offered, his voice thick in the darkness. “It occurs to me there are distinct advantages to your not wearing a corset.”
I smoothed my waistcoat. “I was rather proud of this disguise and my arrangements to elude you,” I told him, studiously ignoring his importunate hands.
“It was very well done,” he conceded. “How did you manage to get out of the house party?”
“I bribed Morag with five pounds,” I told him. “How did you discover me?”
“I bribed her with ten.”
I smothered an oath and Brisbane bent once more to my ear. “I must press on. Draw yourself up as tightly against the wall as you can so I can move past you.”
I did as he bade me, making myself as small and flat as possible. It was a very snug fit, and I was not at all certain he would manage it, but he slid at last to the other side of me and turned back.
“I am making my way to the end of the passage and I dare not leave you behind. You will follow hard upon my heels, and you will make no sound. Beekman should be in the cellars drinking off the best of the port, but I do not wish to take any chances. Understood?”
By way of reply, I gripped the back of his coat and he gave a small grunt of approval. I felt his hands pass over the joining between the back and side walls and the back wall sprang open as if obeying a conjurer’s commands. I felt a rush of cooler air as we moved into a slightly larger passageway beyond and the panel slid closed behind us, clicking neatly into place.
Some distance ahead, a faint glow showed the way, and I continued to grip Brisbane’s coat as he moved forward. After a moment, I saw that the light came from the top of a steep flight of stairs that twisted once upon itself. The hidden stair was so narrow Brisbane was forced to climb sideways, leading with one shoulder. At the top, we found another small passageway that seemed to end abruptly at a wall.
Overhead, a single dim electric bulb cast its feeble light, throwing harsh shadows and putting Brisbane’s face into diabolical relief. He pointed to the wall.
“Behind this is a looking-glass in Madame’s boudoir,” he mouthed against my ear. I did not ask him how he knew. He stepped forward and touched another hidden mechanism. The panel yielded but did not swing open, and I saw that this was to our advantage as Brisbane was able to slide one finger into the gap and ease it aside just enough to put an eye to the opening. I slipped below him to see for myself and immediately he clamped a large hand to my neck to hold me still. He could not speak then, but I knew to expect a lecture once we had quit the place.
I could see the merest sliver of the Madame’s room, but what I saw did not surprise me. It was furnished in more of the same heavy theatricality of the chambers on the main floor, with the addition of several bouquets of flowers, doubtless from her admirers and clients. There was a second looking-glass, smaller than the one we crouched behind, and Madame sat before it, combing out her long dark locks. Agathe scurried about the room, sometimes visible to us, sometimes not, attempting to bring order to the room. She began by tidying up lengths of very fine muslin, placing them into a box with a series of curious rods and other accoutrements of the spiritualist’s arts. I noted trumpets and armfuls of scarlet roses fashioned of silk. Most surprising of all was a little bottle that Agathe uncorked. Suddenly, the whole bottle seemed to glow with an unearthly luminosity, pale gold and heavenly. She gave a nod of satisfaction and placed it into the box with the other things. After she finished gathering the medium’s tools, she busied herself collecting discarded clothes and papers, chattering in French all the while.
“It was a very poor show tonight, I think. You did not produce any apports or speak with your spirit guide. You did not even let me blow breath upon their necks or touch them!”
Madame seemed not to listen as Agathe chattered on.
“You should not have spoken in such a fashion to Sir Henry! He is a valuable client and he will not wish to come again when you have scolded him like a little child,” she complained.
Madame waved a languid hand. “It matters not to me. What care I for pences and pounds?” She took up a jar of expensive-looking skin crème and began to apply it to her hands with slow, methodical strokes.
Agathe gave a snort of derision. “You will care very much when we cannot pay the butcher! Always it is the same. Always you with your head in the clouds, and me with my feet upon the ground.”
Madame massaged in the crème, paying close attention to her décolletage, lifting her chin this way and that as she stared at her own reflection. “Is that a wrinkle starting there, do you think? No, just a shadow. God, the trouble one takes to stay young!” She gave a sigh and regarded her sister in the looking-glass. “Oh, stop fretting! Sir Henry deserved it, Agathe. He is no friend to our kind. He has no romance in his soul, no understanding.”
“He has money,” Agathe pointed out sourly. She bundled the clothes into the wardrobe and tamped the papers into a neat stack and handed them to Madame.
The lady drew a slender chain from her bodice. At the end dangled a key, and she used it to unlock a coffer standing upon her dressing table. She placed the papers neatly inside, then relocked the box and replaced the key as Agathe continued to tidy the room. She opened a box and removed a length of cobweb-fine French muslin. It was the whitest muslin I had ever seen, and so light, a spider might have felt at home upon it.
“For the next session,” she said, handing the stuff to Madame.