The Clockwork Scarab Read Online Free PDF Page B

investigation?” Luckworth choked as I knelt next to the dead girl. “This is not tea time, Miss Adler. Nor is it a woman’s salon nor even a ruddy—’scuse me—suffragette meeting. This is the scene of a crime, and only the investigators will remain.”
    Swallowing hard, I searched through the pockets in the victim’s voluminous skirts as Miss Adler responded to the inspector in her low, even tones. It wasn’t that I expected to find something as obvious as a Sekhmet scarab, but anything could be a clue. She wore no jewelry except for a comb of topazes in her dark hair, and her gloves were missing.
    “Her Royal Highness has authorized you to—” Luckworth bit off his own words as if to keep from saying something regretful.
    As the discussion (I use that term loosely) raged between the inspector and Miss Adler, I used my hand-cranked Flip-Illuminator to examine the wound on the girl’s arm. When he noticed, Grayling made a sharp sound and stalked over to me. This placed his shoes in my field of vision—right next to my legs, where I crouched in voluminous trousers, and I noticed that his footwear gleamed in the mellow light except near the soles where they were speckled with mud. That reminded me of the foreigner and his mud-free shoes. Was he still in the museum?
    “Miss Holmes, this is the scene of a crime,” Grayling said in a tone that indicated clear displeasure.
    “I’m aware of that. I’m making my observations and deductions. Shall we compare notes?”
    He looked down at me, and the light from my small illuminator shone in his eyes. They were still spots of exasperation, spoiling an otherwise pleasing countenance. “If you feel it necessary to share your information with us, I cannot stop you, Miss Holmes. But my partner and I are able to draw our own conclusions.” He crouched next to me.
    I could smell the clean, lemony scent of his skin and see the freckles on his large, square, capable hands. All at once I felt uncomfortable in my dusty men’s trousers and ill-fittingcoat, and wished that I wasn’t dressed like a street urchin. Perhaps if I wasn’t, he would take me seriously.
    Inspector Luckworth and Miss Adler approached. “Well, whatta you found, Brose?” asked Luckworth. He sounded disgruntled but resigned.
    “A variety of things,” Grayling replied. “Death occurred four hours ago—”
    “Closer to three,” I interjected, “based on the morbidity of the fingers.”
    He turned those grayish eyes on me. They were close enough that I could see amber flecks in them. “A temperature reading I took from this device,” he said, producing a slender silver implement from some pocket of his vest, “indicates that the body began to lose heat at least four hours ago.”
    Drat . I closed my mouth and nodded in agreement, trying not to look at the instrument with too much fascination. I’d never seen one so sleek and efficient. And even though mine was more primitive, I would never leave my thermometer home again. It was a much better measure of time of death than estimating rigor mortis.
    “As I was saying,” Grayling continued in a smooth voice touched with Scottish brogue, “death occurred at approximately nine o’clock this evening from an apparent self-inflicted wound on the left wrist.”
    “Suicide?” Luckworth said, his face going sharp and serious.
    “It wasn’t suicide,” I said, just as Grayling interjected, “I said apparent .”
    We looked at each other. His lips tightened, and he said, “Pray go on, Miss Holmes.”
    My heart was pounding as I lifted the woman’s right arm, the unwounded limb. “It would be impossible not to get blood on this sleeve if she used this hand to cut her wrist,” I said. “It’s much too clean; only a few tiny drops. And—”
    “Aside from that,” Grayling interrupted, “she wouldn’t have cut herself on that hand because—”
    “She was left-handed,” we both said in unison.
    “Indeed,” said Miss Adler, her eyes going