“Stubble the whining,” retorted the earl. He wasn’t any happier than his valet at the ungodly hour. His mood was never at its best before a pot of coffee. “You pick a lock faster than I do. I want to have a look around Drummond’s laboratory while he is not there.”
“I’mexpected to break the law? How jolly.”
Wrexford didn’t answer. Quickening his steps, he marched past the watchman, who didn’t dare issue a challenge, and headed up to the top floor of the building. Rank had its privilege. Even if Drummond walked in on them, he didn’t think the chemist would dare to accuse him of foul play.
The corridor was quiet as a crypt. The tattoo of their boot heels as they started down its shadowed length echoed loud as gunfire off the dark wood wainscoting.
“It seems the Institution’s acolytes of science keep gentlemen’s hours,” quipped Tyler. The aristocracy rarely rose until after noon.
“Unfortunately not all. Mr. Drummond appears hard at work, despite the early hour.” Wrexford spotted a pool of oily light up ahead. It was leaking out from beneath the door of the chemist’s laboratory.
So, too, was a tendril of smoke.
At the sound of glass exploding he broke into a run.
The door was ajar. The flames licking up from a large crucible had set the wall shelf on fire, and the burning wood ignited another loud bang as several more jars of chemicals exploded.
Hunching down, Wrexford covered his nose with the tails of his cravat and darted toward the long workbench, looking for something with which to smother the flames. There looked to be a second blaze rising at the far end of the room. Heat swirled through the air, punctuated by an ominous hissing and crackling. He could just make out books and papers were piled in a pyramid....
What the devil is going on?
A cloud of smoke, dark and gritty, was fouling the room, making it hard to see. Tyler, he noted, had found an overcoat, and had set to work extinguishing the crucible. Choking back a cough, he spun around and started for the other fire, only to trip over a fallen chair.
Cursing, Wrexford put out a hand to break his fall . . . only to hit hard up against an outstretched boot.
Drummond was lying faceup, a peaceful expression on his face, as if he were sleeping. When a hard shake didn’t rouse him, Wrexford abandoned the effort and hurried to deal with the bonfire erupting out of the books.
“Here, take this!” Having put out the fire at his end of the laboratory, Tyler tossed Wrexford the singed coat. “I’ll go warn the watchman and have him fetch help.”
“Tell him to send for a doctor as well!” shouted the earl. Whether Drummond had been overcome by fumes from an experiment or had come to the laboratory befuddled with narcotics, he was going to need medical attention.
Opium seemed the only logical explanation, thought Wrexford grimly, as he fought to bat down the fire and keep it from spreading to the cabinet of chemicals. Why else would Drummond have wreaked such havoc on his own work if not in the grip of drug-induced delusions. A glance around showed several drawers had been upended and the contents doused with what looked to be lamp oil.
The sparks finally sputtered out, and after gingerly rubbing the soot from his raw palms, Wrexford was about to turn his attention to the unconscious chemist when a fluttering of fire-curled paper atop the smoldering books caught his eye. There looked to be several pages of notes, though much of the contents had been reduced to ashes. He recognized Drummond’s handwriting from having thumbed through the man’s ledger of chemicals on his previous visit.
Observations from his experiments? Perhaps another failure had pushed the chemist over the brink.
Curious, he leaned closer. The paper had toasted to a nut brown color, and the letters had a nervous squiggle to their slant, making the words difficult to decipher.
Hearing footsteps in the corridor, Wrexford looked up. Tyler must be returning, though by the sound of it he was alone. Seeing a magnifying glass by the cabinet, he grasped the still-hot handle and focused the lens on the writing, sure that he must be mistaken.
But no, winking larger than life in the polished glass was the same strange phrase—The Golden One is the Devil and must be stopped from destroying . . .A charred patch, and then,Dangerous! The Philo. Stne.
The rest of the message was burned to a crisp.
“The watchman is organizing the porters to bring up buckets of sand,” called a breathless Tyler as he hurried back into the laboratory. Water was known to be dangerous around chemicals.
Wrexford turned, and set down the glass. “The fire is out here, so I think things are safe enough for the moment. It’s only by the grace of God that no sparks fell into the spilled oil. The place would have turned into a raging inferno.”
The acrid smell of smoke and singed sulfur hung heavy in the air.
“Let us see if we can revive Drummond,” he went on, “and learn what happened here.”
His valet was already kneeling down by the chemist. “He doesn’t look to be injured, and yet I can’t detect any sign of breathing.”
“Perhaps if we shift him . . .” Wrexford dropped to a crouch and slid a hand under the chemist’s shoulders. Feeling something sticky, he pulled back, and found his fingers were covered with blood.
Tyler exhaled sharply.
