Photographs & Phantoms (2 page)

The first she handed him was a glass-plate negative, bleached and given a black velvet backing to create the positive effect. It was one of the newer styles of photography, and moderately expensive, but the exposure took only seconds and the images it created were her finest. Normally she’d have mounted it in a gilt and leather case. This one, though—she’d had to tell the customer that it was spoiled and then retake the shot.

He studied it intently. “I see an older gentleman in a chair, with three young children—his grandchildren perhaps. The youngest, gender indeterminate and about six months old, is on his knee, a girl of three or four stands beside him, and a boy of six or seven kneels on the other side.”

“Correct. Anything else?” She bit her lip, desperately hoping he saw what she had and that she wasn’t simply losing her mind. Or, perhaps, that would be the better alternative.

Lake traced one long finger across the photograph. “There’s a smear of some sort around the gentleman’s head. It almost looks as though a shadowy serpent were wrapped around him in an attempt to suffocate the man.”

“Thank you. Now look at this one.” She took back the Fredrickson portrait and handed him one she’d taken out on location at the pier, where she set up a tent once a week. Since the glass plates had to be developed immediately, when she was outside, she worked with an older calotype camera, which used treated paper for the negatives instead of glass. Once developed, the negative could be reproduced into multiple prints on heavy paper stock.

He examined the cardboard-backed print. “It’s a young couple standing by the pier. This time, the shadow seems to be wrapped about the young man’s chest.”

“Thank you. Now this one.” This final image was the one that had nearly broken Amy’s heart, and the reason she’d given in and written to her great-uncle for help.

“It appears to be a young mother with a newborn babe, but the child is nearly obliterated by a shadow. And is it my imagination, or does that shadow, again, appear to be a serpent, this time, with distinct eyes and a forked tongue?”

“You see it, then.” She sagged in relief. “Mrs. Bennett, bless her soul, didn’t see a thing except the smudge. The same is true of Johnny Lanscombe, who occasionally comes in and does watercolor tinting for me. Neither of them noticed the serpent—or the eyes. They only saw a blurred, ruined photograph.”

“That can’t be what had you sending for help.” His keen aqua eyes studied her face with the same intensity as he’d examined the images. “What else?”

Amy swallowed hard. She tapped the first photograph with one finger. “Three days after that sitting, Mr. Fredrickson died in his sleep. His face was blue, as if he’d been suffocated, but there were no marks on his body.”

Lord Lake didn’t react beyond a slight tightening of his lips. “And?”

Amy touched the calotype. “This young man? He was here on his honeymoon, with no apparent health problems at all. The day after this was taken, he died of a sudden heart attack during—errr—marital relations.”

“I see. And the babe?”

She swallowed hard. “Her name was Daisy. Daisy Merchant. Her mother, Louisa, is a neighbor and a dear friend of mine. I offered the photograph as a christening gift. Two days after the sitting, Louisa woke to find Daisy utterly still in her cot. The physician has no idea of the cause of death.”

“I’m sorry.” One powerful hand settled on Amy’s shoulder. “Have there been others?”

Amy nodded. “Six, total, in the last two months—some friends, others strangers.” She handed over the other photos. One was of an older woman alone in the studio with the snake around her chest, one was of a middle-aged couple at the shore with the shadow serpent around the woman, and the last was an outdoor shot of a large family with the shadow nearly obscuring a young boy. “It’s gotten so I’m terrified to work. But I can’t explain why when I try to cancel appointments, and some clients, like Mrs. Nutt, won’t take no for an answer.”

“And have you looked yet at the photos from that sitting? I thought the woman had a parcel in her hand.”

Amy nodded. “The glass plates have to be developed immediately, so I do it while the customer waits. There were no shadows in this one.” To Amy’s immeasurable relief.

“Have you ever experienced episodes of precognition? Vestiges of your grandmother’s supposed foresight?” He eased himself down onto the stool Johnny used for tinting photos.

“No, never.” She’d tried to think back on that angle herself and came up with nothing. “That would be the easiest idea to bear—that I’m just seeing something that was already destined to happen. My real fear, though, is that I’m somehow causing these deaths by taking the photographs. I don’t think I could live with that.”

“I understand.” His absurdly handsome face softened. In his simple brown trousers and tweed coat, without the cane and top hat, he seemed somehow even larger, more dominant than he had before. Instead of intimidating, though, she found him almost unbearably attractive.

“We’ll get to the bottom of this somehow,” he promised. “I do know some people who can run some tests to get an idea of whether or not you’re precognitive and channeling it through your work. First, though, I’d like to rule out the idea that what we’re seeing here is an actual spirit.”

“And how will we do that?” She perched on her own work stool, bringing her face up, more level with his.

“I know people,” he answered. “Just as there are those with the ability to see the future, there are also those able to detect and speak to ghosts.”

A bell chimed above the table and Amy sighed. “We’re being summoned for luncheon. That is, I am. I’ll assume you stopped at the front door and Mrs. Bennett invited you to stay. The woman’s calling is seeing that as many people as possible are well-fed.”

“She did. Judging by the scents wafting out of her kitchen, she’s good at it, too.” He stood and held out his hand. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Not at all. You won’t find a better meal at the Bedford Hotel. More elegant, perhaps, but not tastier.” She took hold of his hand and let him help her down from the stool. He’d left his gloves with his coat, so their bare flesh touched. The warmth of his skin sent a shiver down Amy’s spine.

He picked up his gloves, hat and walking stick as they passed through the reception room, but didn’t put them on. Instead, he took Amy’s arm as they crossed the small garden to the back door of Mrs. Bennett’s house.

The meal was no less delectable than Miss Deland had promised, and despite his expectations, Kendall found himself enjoying the company. Aside from Miss Deland, the lodgers included a pair of elderly sisters, a bookseller who’d apparently left his assistant in charge of the shop so he could return home for the afternoon meal, an ex-soldier with one mechanical arm, and a retired merchant marine.

“While my home may be too simple for your refined tastes, Lord Lake, I’ve one room vacant if you’re in need of a place to stay the night.” Mrs. Bennett passed him the platter of succulent slices of beef for the third time, batting her eyelashes and all but simpering. “I keep my male and female tenants strictly segregated, of course. Ladies are on the second story, gentlemen on the third.”

“And in the attic.” Sergeant Peterson helped himself to another serving of cauliflower. “Though that’s just me. I keep a small workshop up there, a hobby to keep me busy. Little automated toys for the local children and such. Clarence here sells a few in his bookshop.”

“Yes, they’re quite clever,” Miss Deland agreed. “I keep some in the studio to entertain children while they’re sitting for a portrait.”

“At any rate, my lord, the vacant room is right beneath my workshop,” said the sergeant. “And since I rarely tinker at night, you needn’t worry about noise.”

“Thank you.” Kendall nodded at Peterson and smiled at the landlady. “I hadn’t really thought too far ahead—I suppose I was planning on getting a hotel for a day or two, but this would suit nicely.” Being close to Miss Deland would certainly make his investigation easier.

“You haven’t said what brings a marquess to our humble establishment,” said Mr. Saunders. The elderly sailor’s keen eyes skewered Kendall from a leathery, wrinkled face.

“Miss Deland’s uncle is a friend of my family,” he answered easily. As an agent of the Crown, he often had to think up explanations on the spur of the moment. Though he could lie without a thought, it was generally best to stick as close to the truth as possible. “He’d heard I was going to be nearby and asked me to stop in and check on his niece.”

“Why, Amy, I didn’t even know you
had
an uncle here in Britain.” The red-haired Sergeant Peterson turned to look at her with a vaguely proprietary air that made the hairs on Kendall’s neck stand up.

“And he’s acquainted with nobility no less.” One of the Misses Stapleton—Kendall couldn’t tell them apart other than one wore blue and the other pink—simpered. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a lordship join us at the table, have we, sister?”

“Oh, no,” agreed the blue-clad twin. “Never, ever, sister.”

Kendall almost missed the giggle that Amelie suppressed. It was clear she was fond of her fellow lodgers, even if she was probably from a somewhat more rarified background than the others—assuming the American branch of the Drood family was anywhere near as wealthy as the British one.

“He’s my great-uncle, actually, Sergeant.” She laid her fork aside, while the men, for the most part, continued eating. “I finally came around to writing him, at the behest of my grandmother in her last letter.”

“And thus was I dispatched to assure she was in good health and good hands.” Kendall nodded toward Mrs. Bennett. “Which I can see she clearly is.” Now if only they could finish this interminable, albeit delicious, meal so he could get on with his work.

It was nearly an hour later when Kendall escorted Miss Deland down toward the shore, to the King’s Lane, where he’d been told the nearest public teletext machine could be found.

“You honestly believe this person can speak with ghosts?” she asked. The late afternoon was pleasantly warm for June, so she didn’t wear a cloak or shawl. She’d added a white straw bonnet, tied beneath her neck with a navy scarf, and her white-gloved hand lay neatly on his elbow.

“I swear on my honor, he really can.” Clive Garrett, one of the Order’s employees, wasn’t a full Knight, with the attendant spell-casting abilities and combat skills, but he was also a powerful medium.

Amy—he’d started to think of her the way her housemates did—sighed and shook her head. “I’m still not sure I believe in any of this.”

Kendall chuckled. “Sometimes neither do I, and I’ve been in it my entire life.”

The waterfront hotel was one of the smaller ones, but it did boast a public teletext chamber, and after a small bribe to the operator, Kendall was able to obtain exclusive use of it for an hour. Amy sat quietly in the small waiting room while he sent the first message.

In just a minute or so, the machine dinged and began to spit out a roll of tickertape with the typewritten words “CG unavble. Ckg for altvs. T.”

“Damn.” He looked over at Amy’s expectant face. “The medium I asked for isn’t available. My father’s searching for someone else. We may be here a while.” The Duke of Trowbridge himself had responded, suggesting things were busy at the London headquarters.

She gave him a whisper of a smile and set down the magazine she’d been perusing. “I’m a photographer, my lord. I’m good at holding still for long periods of time.”

“Kendall,” he said, somewhat to his own surprise. “My name is Kendall, and I’d be honored if you’d use it.”

“Kendall, then. And I’m Amy, but you already knew that.”

“It suits you—Amelie seems a little too staid and proper for an independent artist like yourself.” He gave it the French pronunciation and was proven right when she graced him with a smile rather than correcting him. Her face, always pretty, became stunning when she smiled, and he had a moment of panic when he realized he could become rather addicted to trying to coax her to do so. He consoled himself with the thought that the attraction was purely physical. Perhaps he should have accepted the offer from the hungry bridesmaid last week. It had clearly been too long since he’d been with a woman.

“I always thought so. Aside from that, when I came here to study, the other students distrusted the French Canadian import. Deland is common enough and pronounceable enough, but the more English nickname made fitting in a bit easier.”

“So why England? One would think Paris, or even New York, for art school.” Talking to her reminded him that she was related to Drood, and therefore utterly off-limits.

“Having visited both London and Paris with my family as a child, I found I preferred England, though I couldn’t say precisely why. I went to a small girl’s school in Kent, as it was before Lady Lovelace and others opened the universities to women.”

Kendall nodded. It had only been in the past two years that Lovelace College had been opened at Oxford, allowing women to enter and study the sciences and engineering. As Lord Babbage’s partner in developing the analytical engine, Lady Lovelace had had a profound effect on the status of females in the professions. A similar college at Cambridge had soon followed.

Amy continued, “By then, I’d fallen in love with the English seaside. I came to Brighton to apprentice with Mr. Constable, and here I stayed. My grandmother claims I’m a throwback to her side of the family.”

“Yes, well, that may be true in more ways than you thought if what your camera is showing us is some kind of foresight.” Kendall couldn’t rule out the possibility.

“Lord, I hope it is.” Her hands remained settled in her lap, but her whitened knuckles gave away her nervousness. “I’m giving strong consideration to closing my studio and switching exclusively to landscape photography. There are several shops here in town that will sell my prints for me. The tourists buy them to take home as souvenirs.”

“Can you make a living with that?” He didn’t know for sure if her side of the family was as rich as Lord Drood, and her neighborhood certainly wasn’t a wealthy one.

She shrugged. “My paternal grandparents left me quite comfortably settled. I stay at Mrs. Bennett’s out of affection and because she allowed me to totally renovate the carriage house. My work is for my own satisfaction, not necessary for my survival.”