Twelve

“I saw you leave the club and go down the street. But you went off in the wrong direction. I did not know what to think.” Charlotte was breathless, not only from the anxiety that had impelled her to leave the carriage, but also from the mad dash along the alley and the climb up the rear stairs.

The shock that she had just received upon finding herself pinned in the dark by a man’s unyielding arm had only made matters worse. The realization that the man who held her was none other than Baxter was a tremendous relief but it was not doing much to slow her racing pulse.

Baxter sounded angry. Very angry. There was an ice-and-steel edge to his voice that she had never before heard.

“I told you to wait in the carriage.”

Charlotte struggled to take several deep, fortifying breaths. “I was concerned. I did not know what was going on. I thought you might need my help.”

“If I had needed your assistance, I would have asked for it.”

“Really, Baxter, there is no call to lose your temper with me. We are in this together, as I keep reminding you.”

“How could I possibly forget?” Baxter released her and gave her a small push toward the door. “We shall go back the way we came. Quickly.”

“But why did you come up here in the first place?”

“To find Hamilton. But that matter must wait. The first order of business is to get you out of here.”

“There is no reason why we cannot go ahead with whatever plan you had in mind.”

“There is every reason why we cannot.”

A burst of muffled masculine laughter echoed from the chamber at the far end of the hall. Baxter stilled. Charlotte felt him turn to glance down the corridor. She followed his gaze.

There was a small, undraped window in the wall at the end of the narrow hall. It provided just enough illumination to reveal the two rows of closed doors that lined the passage. A tiny ray of light winked from beneath the last door on the left.

“Hamilton is in that chamber?” Charlotte asked very softly.

“I suspect that is where the club members meet.”

She was intrigued. “You intended to spy on him?”

“Let’s just say that I was curious.” Baxter reached past her to open the staircase door.

Footsteps thudded on the lower stairs. A fresh dose of alarm went through Charlotte. Someone was coming up the rear staircase. Baxter did not swear aloud but she could almost hear his silent bloody hell.

He closed the door as quietly as he had opened it.

He seized her arm and pulled her down the passageway. She noticed that he did not bother to try the first three doors. Instead, he chose the next one. She breathed a sigh of relief when it opened at his touch. She did not relish the prospect of being caught in the hall by whoever was tromping up the stairs.

It would be not only awkward and embarrassing, but quite scandalous if she and Baxter were discovered there tonight. The fashionable young gentlemen of the club were likely to be incensed at being spied upon by Baxter St. Ives and his fiancée. Word would spread through the ton with the speed of a fire in the stews.

Baxter eased her through the doorway of the small chamber. Charlotte wrinkled her nose at the stale, musty smell that greeted her. It was obvious that the room had not been aired in some time. She moved with great caution, unable to see anything in the dense darkness.

Another distant rumble of laughter sounded from the room at the end of the hall. Baxter quickly closed the door. Charlotte felt him move and realized that he had put his ear to the panel. She knew that he was listening to the footsteps of the person who had climbed the back stairs.

She took a cautious step back and came up hard against another door. She realized it must open into the adjoining room, the one that separated this chamber from the one being used by Hamilton and his friends.

Outside in the hall, floorboards creaked as someone walked steadily past the room in which she and Baxter hid. Whoever it was did not pause. A servant going about his duties, no doubt, she concluded. Perhaps taking claret to the members of the club. She and Baxter would be trapped there until the man went back downstairs.

She touched Baxter’s arm.

“What is it?” he asked in her ear.

“Another door. Leads to the next room. You might be able to overhear what is being said.”

“I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“You keep saying that but we can do nothing until the servant leaves again. And as we are already in the neighborhood, it seems a pity to waste the opportunity.”

She felt him hesitate. She took his hand and guided it to the doorknob behind her.

“Bloody hell.”

But she could feel him wavering. She wondered if Baxter considered her a bad influence. After a few seconds’ pause, he apparently reached a decision. He stepped around her and slowly, carefully opened the connecting door.

Another wave of stale, long-closed-in air wafted out of the adjoining chamber. Charlotte leaned forward to peer around the corner. There was just enough light from a partially draped window to see something of the interior. A sagging bed, the looming shape of a wardrobe, and a washstand stood on the threadbare carpet. A framed picture hung askew on the wall.

Baxter touched his fingertips to Charlotte’s lips. She did not need the warning to remain silent. Only a single wall separated them from Hamilton and his friends.

There was another burst of laughter from the next chamber. Then it faded. Voices, less raucous now, could be heard through the wall.

Charlotte watched, mystified, as Baxter crossed the room to the wardrobe. He opened it cautiously and quickly examined the interior as though he expected to discover something of interest inside.

Plainly dissatisfied, he stepped back, gently closed the wardrobe door, and went to stand in front of the framed picture. After a moment’s close study, he lifted it down from the wall.

A small circle of light appeared. Charlotte stared in astonishment at the hole in the wall. It would, she realized, provide a view into the chamber where Hamilton and his friends were gathered. She made a note to ask Baxter how he had known to look for the peephole.

He put his eye to the opening. She went forward, eager for a peek, and caught a faint whiff of a sweet, smoky, herbal vapor. It reminded her a bit of the incense Juliana Post used. But this was stronger, more intense. She saw Baxter pull back far enough to take a deep breath of the stale air in the room before he turned back to the peephole.

The voices of the club members could be heard more clearly now but they sounded blurred and subdued, as if the men were not only intoxicated, but a bit drowsy.

“Begone, man,” someone said to the servant.

The door opened and closed. Footsteps sounded in the hall.

“It’s time to summon our magician,” one of the men announced in a dreamy voice. “Let us see what demonstrations of the powers of the metaphysical plane he has prepared for us tonight.”

“A test,” another man said in singsong tone. “He promised us a test. Let the great magician show us his skills tonight.”

“Excellent notion,” someone chortled weakly. “Let’s see how clever our mage is. Let him put Norris, here, in a real trance. You’ll volunteer, won’t you, Norrie?”

“Why not?” Norris sounded languid but willing. “Always glad to conduct an experiment on the metaphysical plane. Summon the bloody sorcerer.”

There was a shuffling sound next door, as though the furnishings were being shifted. Baxter took a step back from the peephole to get another breath of air. Charlotte saw the light coming through the small opening abruptly dim to a weak glow. Someone had turned down the lamp in the next chamber. The club members began to chant in an eerie, dreamlike cadence.

The men repeated the chant, their voices thickening. Tongues got tangled. Someone giggled.

Charlotte tugged on Baxter’s sleeve. He hesitated. She gave him a small push and he moved reluctantly aside to allow her a peek.

She took a breath, stood on tiptoe, and put her eye to the hole. She found herself gazing into a dimly lit chamber that was clouded with smoky incense. There was a large wardrobe against the far wall. She recognized Hamilton and Norris. They and the other club members lounged on large Turkish pillows around a brazier. Each had a glass of claret in one hand, but they all seemed more interested in the fragrance of the burning herbs than in the wine.

The words were almost unintelligible now. The men nodded over their glasses. The incense that drifted through the tiny peephole was irksome. It made Charlotte’s eyes water and blurred her vision. She turned her head away to take a breath of fresher air.

“Behold, the magician,” one of the men announced with a small giggle. “He appears before us.”

Charlotte quickly put her eye to the peephole again. She was startled to see that there was a new figure inside the secret chamber. She was quite certain that the door had not been opened. It was as if he had simply materialized out of the wardrobe.

The magician walked slowly across the room to stand amid the languidly sprawled men. He was cloaked from head to foot in flowing black robes. A heavy hood was pulled down very low over his face. Charlotte could not make out his features—because of the shadows cast by the hood, she thought. Then the newcomer turned his head slightly. Light glinted on a gleaming black silk mask that concealed his entire face.

It is only a gentlemen’s game, she thought. An entertainment Hamilton and his friends have invented to amuse themselves. But she could not stop the shiver of dread that feathered her nerves.

“Let us see how strong this power of yours really is,” Norris said with an air of bravado that sounded false.

The shrouded figure raised his hand. An object dangled from his fingers, a glittering pendant. The club members stared at it with undisguised fascination.

Frozen fingers traced Charlotte’s spine. The incense had become almost overpowering. She tried to get a closer look at the pendant but it was impossible to make it out from this distance.

She flinched when Baxter’s hand clamped around her shoulder. Without a word she stepped back.

Baxter took a turn at the peephole. Charlotte put her ear to the wall.

“I’ve got it,” one of the club members said. “Put him into a trance that can be tested at some later time.”

“Make Norrie cluck like a chicken tomorrow night in the midst of the Clapham soiree.”

“Have him bare his arse in Pall Mall at the height of the shopping hour.”

“Persuade him to dance with Lady Buelton’s horse-faced chit.”

“There is no power,” Norris declared in ringing accents, “neither in this world nor on the metaphysical plane, that could make me dance with Buelton’s daughter.”

Weak laughter greeted this announcement. And then a hush fell in the chamber.

Charlotte pressed closer to the wall but she heard nothing. She prodded Baxter again. He hesitated and then stepped aside.

She peeked through the hole and was startled to see that the chamber had been further darkened. Someone had put out the lamp. The coals on the small brazier still glowed but the red-gold glare did not illuminate the faces of the men.

The magician lit a single candle and placed it directly in front of Norris.

As Charlotte watched, the cloaked figure moved in the shadows. The edges of his robes swirled around him, flapping gently in the manner of great, black wings. The pendant in his hand swayed slowly, catching and reflecting the light of the candle.

The club members began to chant again, this time in a heavy, throbbing rhythm that echoed the beat of the blood in Charlotte’s veins.

Charlotte strained to watch the proceedings, heedless of the strong scent of the incense. She thought she heard the magician speak but his voice was pitched below the rising level of the chant. Another chill lanced through her but she could not pull back.

She had to get closer, she realized. She wanted to see the pendant. She needed to see the pendant. Nothing had ever been quite so important.

Baxter gripped her wrist and tugged her away from the peephole. Charlotte tried to wriggle free of his grasp. He put a hand over her mouth and forcibly pulled her from her observation point. She started to struggle. He held her more securely. His palm tightened over her mouth. He locked her against his chest so that she could not move.

Angrily she tried to pry at his fingers. Baxter tightened his hold. Charlotte realized her head was spinning. She took several breaths that were not laced with incense. Suddenly the small, moonlit chamber in which she stood came back into focus. She relaxed abruptly against Baxter.

What on earth had happened? she wondered, chagrined by her own odd behavior. His hand still covering her mouth, Baxter tugged her toward the connecting door. She understood. It was time to leave. He was absolutely correct, she thought. Best to remove themselves from the premises now while the club members and their pet magician were involved in their curious ritual.

She touched Baxter’s hand to let him know that she was ready to accompany him. He hesitated briefly and then slowly removed his palm from her mouth. Charlotte said nothing.

Baxter took her hand and guided her back through the connecting door. They emerged into the chamber where they had first taken refuge.

Baxter went to the hall door, opened it, and peered out into the corridor. Then he pulled Charlotte into the passageway.

They went carefully down the corridor to the door that guarded the back stairs. Baxter opened it, glanced down, and then nodded.

“There is no one on the staircase. I’ll go first. We must hurry.”

Charlotte did not argue. She followed him quickly down the cramped, twisted stairs. Baxter paused again, briefly, in the small servants’ hall at the bottom. There was no one about. The noise of the gaming room at the front of the house was a dull roar in the distance.

A moment later they were safely outside. Charlotte saw that the fog had grown far more dense during the time that she and Baxter had been inside the club. It shrouded the garden, glowing weirdly with the reflected lights from the windows.

As they passed the mist-shrouded privy, a man’s guttural voice, lifted in bawdy, off-key song, boomed from the interior.

Charlotte allowed Baxter to haul her out into the alley, where it was almost impossible to see anything at all. The toe of her half boot struck a hard, solid object. She winced and stifled a groan.

“Are you all right?” Baxter asked without slowing the pace.

“Yes. Just a discarded crate, I believe.”

He did not reply. Together they rounded a corner and emerged into the street. Carriages came and went in the fog, their lights gleaming with an unnatural, faerie quality in the mist. Shouts and drunken laughter echoed from the steps of The Green Table.

Charlotte tugged the hood of her cloak more securely around her face. Beside her, Baxter removed his eyeglasses, tilted the brim of his hat, and pulled up the high collar of his greatcoat. The simple adjustments made a remarkable change in his appearance. He led Charlotte across the street.

A moment or two later they were safely seated inside the carriage. Charlotte exhaled deeply and fell against the cushions as the vehicle clattered into motion. She watched Baxter light the carriage lamp.

“What was that all about?” she demanded.

“I believe Hamilton and his friends were about to observe a demonstration of mesmerism.” Baxter finished his task and lounged into the corner.

Charlotte studied him intently. The fiery glow of the lamp created a fierce mask out of his hard features. It glittered on the gold frames of his spectacles and flashed on the lenses. She could almost see him sinking into the vast depths of his own thoughts. Cold intelligence replaced any hint of emotion in his eyes.

“Animal magnetism, do you mean?” she asked.

“Yes. The effects of which were supplemented with some sort of drug in this instance.”

“Of course. The incense.” Charlotte frowned. “I may have inhaled a bit too much of it myself there at the end. It was the oddest thing, but I was overcome with a sudden desire to get a closer look at the pendant the magician used. It was as though I simply had to see it.”

“I know,” Baxter said dryly. “You were most insistent.”

She flushed. “Rest assured, it was only a temporary effect. I feel quite restored to my usual self now.”

“Charlotte, my dear, the word usual can never be applied to you.”

She did not know how to take that remark, so she allowed it to pass. “About this mesmerism nonsense. I have read accounts of Dr. Mesmer’s work and I’ve studied descriptions of those who claim to use similar techniques to achieve remarkable medical effects. But I have always assumed the whole business to be nothing but the worst sort of quackery.”

“So have I, but the poets are quite taken with it. And so is my butler, Lambert, for that matter. He is receiving treatments for his aching joints from a Dr. Flatt.”

“But what we witnessed tonight had nothing to do with medical treatments.”

“No.” Baxter contemplated the mist-shrouded street through a gap in the curtain. “But there are those, including some followers of a man named de Mainauduc, who are said to experiment with mesmerism as a means of investigating occult matters.”

“Occult?”

“Alchemy, for example.”

“The chanting,” Charlotte whispered. “I thought I caught some alchemical references in that strange poem the club members used to summon their magician. ‘Mercury, sulphur, salt.’ ”

“You are correct.” Baxter did not look at her. He seemed to be absorbed by the darkness outside the carriage. “Mercury, sulphur, and salt were once held by the ancient alchemists to be the basis of all things, including gold. There was a theory that if one could separate the supernatural essence of those substances from the material form in which they are found, one would possess, among other things, the secret of transmuting any metal into gold.”

Something in his voice riveted Charlotte’s attention. “Among other things? What more could any alchemist want beyond the ability to turn lead into gold?”

Baxter looked at her then. The dangerous fires burned behind the lenses of his glasses. “For a true alchemist, the secret of transmuting base metal into gold was no more than a sign that one was on the right track.”

“I don’t understand. What was the real objective of such experiments?”

“The alchemists sought the Philosopher’s Stone, the secret, fundamental knowledge of the world that would unlock unlimited power.”

Another of the strange chills went through Charlotte. It was not unlike that which she had experienced earlier when she had watched the magician. She studied Baxter’s face, transfixed as she so often was by the cold fire that burned in his eyes.

This was different. Baxter was different. He had nothing in common with the black-robed magician she had just seen.

But a powerful intellect coupled with an unshakable will was always a dangerous combination. And Baxter possessed both.

The sounds of the streets receded into the distance. The fog and the night seemed to absorb everything until the interior of the carriage was the only solid place left in the world. All else was composed of insubstantial mist.

She was trapped in this moving sphere of lamplight with her lover, a man whose own unacknowledged hungers rivaled those of the ancient alchemists. A shattering realization struck her in that frozen moment. If Baxter did not discover that love was the true name of the Philosopher’s Stone he sought, they might both be consumed by the flames of their passion.

“What is it, Charlotte? You have an odd expression.”

The sharp question broke the small spell. She blinked and then looked away from Baxter’s intense gaze.

“It is nothing,” she said. “I was merely contemplating the other alchemical references in the chant. What does the phrase laborers in the fire’ mean?”

“That was an old term for alchemists. It came about because all of their work was done in a crucible heated with fire.”

“And the reference to Hermes?”

“Hermes Trismegistos. Many believed that he was the source for the laws of alchemy that were supposedly inscribed on an emerald tablet.”

“The Green Table,” she whispered.

Baxter’s smile was devoid of any humor. “Yes. The name of the hell itself. It would seem that Hamilton and his friends have made mesmerism and alchemy the cornerstones of their secret club. They have added some rituals and herbs and found themselves a suitably dramatic magician to amuse them.”

“Perhaps he found them,” Charlotte suggested.

“Quite possibly. An amazing number of charlatans have become extremely wealthy after attracting patrons from the higher social circles. Most of those who move in the ton claim to be stricken with perpetual ennui. Their never-ending boredom leads them to seek out the strange and the exotic for entertainment.”

“I suppose there is no great harm in Hamilton’s choice of amusements,” Charlotte said slowly. “His secret club appears to be less recklessly inclined than some. At least he is not out risking his life in neck-or-nothing phaeton races conducted at midnight. Nor does he descend into the worst sections of the stews in search of novelty. The Green Table is not a noble establishment, but there are worse.”

“True.” Baxter gave his attention back to the foggy scene outside. The silence swirled around him.

“What disturbs you, Baxter?”

“Connections.”

“What do you mean?”

When he turned his head to meet her eyes, Charlotte once more felt the icy touch on her spine.

“Drusilla Heskett’s little sketch.”

“What of it?”

“I know now why it appeared vaguely familiar. I’m almost certain that I saw it a long time ago in one of the ancient alchemical texts in my library.”

Charlotte stared at him. “You believe it is related to alchemy?”

“I cannot yet say for certain. I have not been able to locate it yet. It may take some time. It has been years since I noticed such a design and I do not recall which book contained it.”

“Dear God.” Charlotte let the news skitter around in her brain while she struggled with the implications. “That would mean that there’s a connection between The Green Table club and the murder of Mrs. Heskett.”

“It’s only a possibility,” Baxter emphasized quietly. “An unlikely one at that. But I will grant that it should be researched.”

“Why do you say unlikely?” Charlotte felt almost feverish with the excitement of the discovery. “It is a direct link. Do not forget that Mrs. Heskett was involved in a liaison with Lord Lennox, whose son, Norris, is a member of the club. He was the one undergoing the mesmerism experiment tonight.”

“Yes, but it was Lord Lennox, not his son, who was Drusilla’s lover.” Baxter smiled briefly. “I think I can state unequivocally that Lennox has nothing to do with The Green Table. Not his kind of thing at all. In any event, only young men of Hamilton’s age appear to be members.”

“Perhaps, but it’s possible that poor Drusilla came across some information about one of the members of the club while she was involved with Norris’s father.” Charlotte frowned. “I cannot think what sort of information would get her killed, however.”

“That, of course, is the great mystery here. What could she have learned that would be worth her life? The club members appear to be dabbling in mesmerism but so are a good many other people.”

“I do not like the feel of this, Baxter.”

“Nor do I.”

“If there is a murderer in The Green Table club, your brother could be at risk.”

He met her eyes again. “We will take this step by step, just as one does any well-constructed experiment. First, I shall confirm my suspicions about the drawing. Then we shall see if we can discover the name of the owner of The Green Table. Whoever he is, he must know something about this business.”

Charlotte regarded him with an admiration that she did not trouble to conceal. “I believe, sir, that you are going to prove to be an extremely useful man-of-affairs.”