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  Death by Silver

  Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold

  Published by Lethe Press at Smashwords.com

  Copyright © 2013 Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold.

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in 2013 by Lethe Press, Inc.

  118 Heritage Avenue • Maple Shade, NJ 08052-3018, USA

  www.lethepressbooks.com • [email protected]

  isbn: 978-1-59021-055-0 / 1-59021-055-7

  e-isbn: 978-1-59021-331-5 / 1-59021-331-9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Cover and interior design: Alex Jeffers.

  Cover artwork: Ben Baldwin.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Scott, Melissa.

  Death by silver / Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-59021-055-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-59021-331-5 (ebook)

  1. Private investigators--England--London--Fiction. 2. Great Britain--History--Victoria, 1837-1901--Fiction. I. Griswold, Amy. II. Title.

  PS3569.C672D43 2013

  813’.54--dc23

  2013006039

  Advance Praise for

  Death by Silver

  “Scott and Griswold have set the bar for gaslamp fantasy to an all-time high with this riveting blend of Victorian magic, romance, and suspense. It should come with several warnings, though: you will not be able to put it down, and once you do, you may have trouble adjusting to everyday life again.”

  —Tiffany Trent, author of The Unnaturalists

  “Friends and lovers become partners as metaphysician Mathey and private detective Lynes are called onto a case that involves both enchantment and murder. Not only does this bring them into closer contact with each other, it also brings up painful memories of their school days and the classmate who abused them. They must balance young manhood between the regrets and misfortunes of the past, and the demands of their professions (not to mention their hearts). You’ll root for them to succeed in all arenas.”

  —L.A. Fields, author of My Dear Watson

  “What a wonderful book. The story is enthralling and superbly told, and the book effectively evokes the Victorian era and its sequestered queer society. It’s the kind of book that so pulls you in that you forget that you are reading and feel that you are experiencing a riveting adventure. Here’s hoping that Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold give us a sequel, so that we may pay another enchanting visit with Ned, Julian, and the delightful Miss Frost.”

  —W.H. Pugmire, author of Uncommon Places

  “This is not the Victorian London you think you know. In Death by Silver, Scott and Griswold have created an eerily familiar world lit by magic of an eminently practical – and occasionally murderous – sort, and a story that gives equal weight to meticulous detection, twisty red herrings, thrilling adventure, and an unconventional, stiff-upper-lip romance. I love this book. Do yourself the favor of making the acquaintance of metaphysician Ned Mathey and private detective Julian Lynes…then beg Scott and Griswold (as I do) for a sequel.”

  —Alex Jeffers, author of Deprivation and

  You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home

  “Death by Silver is a fun, well written, and intriguing mystery. Metaphysician Ned Mathey and private detective Julian Lynes are a winning combination. They will leave you spellbound and wanting more.”

  —William Holden, author of A Twist of Grimm and Secret Societies

  “I loved everything about Death by Silver—the world-building and excellent atmosphere, the characters and their personal struggles, the twisty well-paced plot and the delicious romantic relationship-building elements, all the way to the great ending. I just hope that Scott and Griswold are planning a series because these characters and world are begging for one! Highly enjoyed and recommended.”

  —Impressions of a Reader blog

  To Jo, in all her aliases.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Advance Praise

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Acknowledgement

  About the Authors

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ned Mathey hung up his hat as he came back into his chambers from the square outside, and his clerk Miss Cordelia Frost looked up from her desk with an expression of mild curiosity. “Everything all right?”

  “Nothing very much the matter,” Ned said. “Just a metaphysical experiment gone a bit awry. Mr Simmons and Mr Connor set a tidy blaze in their dustbin, but it’s been extinguished without their setting half the Commons ablaze, so I suppose we should all count ourselves lucky.”

  The chambers and flats on the west side of the square were reserved for metaphysicians, who generally restricted themselves to applying approved methods, but the theoretical metaphysicists across the Commons were sometimes given to experimenting. Usually they confined themselves to writing monographs, which didn’t break windows or start fires, but rising smoke or the sound of shattering glass from the east side of the square wasn’t entirely unheard of.

  “The post came while you were out,” Miss Frost said, seemingly unconcerned now with the averted inferno. She’d attended classes in metaphysics herself, albeit at a women’s college that didn’t grant an actual degree, and took the more curious aspects of doing business at the Commons in stride. Ned found her indispensably useful, despite coming in for a certain amount of teasing from his friends about his presumed motives for hiring a typewriter girl rather than the traditional male clerk.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Bills,” she said, and Ned made a face in what was only partially mock dismay.

  “Eternal but uninteresting. How about promisingly lucrative new clients?”

  “Not yet,” Miss Frost said, still rifling through the envelopes she’d already neatly slit. Her severely tailored jacket showed no ink smudges at the cuffs, despite being light blue rather than the black of his own frock coat; he always wondered if she glamored her cuffs to preserve them, but didn’t think he’d endear himself to her by asking. “Here’s Mr Clark about his garden gate again.”

  “It needs replacing, not to be patched up again.” Ned was starting to despair of Mr Clark’s garden gate, which had been badly enchanted to start with and had been repaired in the past by at least three different metaphysicians of varying skills. It now remained stubbornly latched for welcome visitors, swung open invitingly for random strangers, and had more than once swung shut of its own accord abruptly enough to knock Mr Clark’s long-suffering terrier off its feet.

  “How would you like me to put that in a reply?”

  “No, don’t, I’ll take another look at it,” Ned said. He hated feeling that a yard-square piece of ironmongery was defeating him, and besides, Mr Clark had paid promptly for his previous attempts to sort it out.

  “Here’s a new one, a Mr Edgar Nevett about his silver.” Miss Frost handed him the letter, and he took it with a frown.

  “I was in school with a Nevett,” he said. “More than one of them, but I don
’t recall an Edgar.”

  Upon examining the letter, that minor mystery at least resolved itself.

  I understand you attended Sts Thomas’s with my son Mr Victor Nevett, the elder Nevett wrote. My inquiries find you satisfactorily recommended, with a more up-to-date approach to the profession than Mr Fitzgibbons.

  “Satisfactorily recommended,” Ned murmured under his breath. “That’s enthusiastic.” He waved Miss Frost off as she looked up from sorting out bills and the occasional more welcome cheque, and resumed reading.

  I therefore intend to retain you to investigate the matter of a curse upon certain pieces of silver long owned by the Nevett family. All other remedies have failed, and the assistance of a metaphysician has become obviously necessary.

  Ned hoped any other remedies applied had been entirely ineffective, rather than partially and unpredictably effective. An amateur could do more harm than good messing about with patent kits, their sigils already written out on printed magical squares and their accompanying directions promising guaranteed success. From the complaints of his clients who’d tried them, whatever was guaranteed, it wasn’t their money back.

  I await a reply at your earliest convenience, and have the honor to be –

  Edgar Nevett

  Ned drummed his fingers on his desk, wondering whether to charitably take the dash as implying “your humble and obedient servant” or not. The letter was peremptory in its tone even so, and he found himself tempted to toss it in the dustbin, despite how welcome another client would be. He’d bought the practice less than a year ago, and more than one of old Fitzgibbons’s clients had decided to go to a more established man rather than a new metaphysician just up from Oxford.

  He remembered Victor Nevett perfectly well, and the invocation of his name didn’t precisely recommend his father as a client. Still, business was business, and at this point he was in no position to refuse it out on account of schoolboy quarrels. “I’ll see Nevett about his silver,” Ned said. “Write and see if tomorrow afternoon is convenient for him.”

  “It’ll have to be Thursday,” Miss Frost said. “You were taking tomorrow afternoon as a holiday. Marylebone vs Yorkshire at Lord’s, I believe.” She looked a bit amused.

  He let out a resigned breath. “I was indeed, but I won’t. A new client takes precedence.”

  “Even over watching cricket?” She was definitely teasing, now, and he smiled in return, pleased that she’d apparently decided by now that his intentions toward her as an employer were honorable. As they were entirely so – by virtue of her sex alone, although he could hardly say so – he appreciated a warmer climate in his chambers.

  “Sadly so,” he said.

  “I’ll write and see,” Miss Frost said. She was setting up her pantograph for making out receipts, its upright pen enchanted to trace a perfect copy of her own writing. “You look forward to the opportunity, etc.?”

  “All that sort of thing, yes,” Ned said, and left it to her.

  Nevett replied promptly by the first morning post, saying that an afternoon appointment would suit him, and after lunch Ned took himself off by cab to the man’s house. He tapped the knocker firmly against the door and then straightened his coat sleeves, trying to project the dignity expected of the profession.

  A scrubbed-looking little parlormaid answered the door, looking as if she couldn’t have been long in her situation herself, unless she’d started as an infant. He felt an amused pang of fellow-feeling.

  “My name is Mathey,” he said, presenting her with his card, on which was engraved Mr Edward Mathey, MMA, The Commons. “Mr Nevett should be expecting me on a business matter.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Take your hat and your bag, sir? You can wait in the parlor, sir, I’ll tell Mr Nevett you’re here.”

  He surrendered his hat but not his leather case, seeing little point in having to fetch it back again once he could get down to work. The parlor was cluttered with a variety of decorative objects, rather more of a variety than Ned thought strictly necessary; he wasn’t sure that a cage full of stuffed birds with baleful expressions really contributed to the appeal of a table already laden down with wax flowers and a crystal dish of lavender sweets.

  None of the ornaments visible in the parlor was silver, which he did note.

  “Mr Mathey, I presume?” Nevett said, appearing at the parlor door. He was ruddy-faced and solidly built in a way that suggested he had been athletic in his youth but had put on weight with age. Though his dark hair was thinning, Ned could see the resemblance to his sons; they’d all been cut from the same pattern, dark and sturdy.

  “Mr Nevett,” Ned said, and shook hands. “I understand you’ve been having trouble with your silver.”

  “It’s through here,” Nevett said without further ceremony, and led him across the hall to the dining room.

  An impressive array of silver platters, serving dishes, and boxes of cutlery were laid out on the long mahogany table, with an elaborate tea set that might have poured for an entire regiment having pride of place. A few heavy candlesticks, clocks, and curiosities of various sorts crowded in at the edges of the table, some precariously balanced.

  The proliferation of specialized but matching pieces suggested the silver was fairly new, although unquestionably of good quality. Ned opened a pair of ornamented tongs curiously, wondering precisely what they were intended for. The shape suggested asparagus, although he doubted it mattered, unless Nevett was suffering specifically asparagus-related misfortunes.

  “Tell me what first made you suspect a curse,” he said.

  “It’s an old family trouble,” Nevett said. Ned wondered if he was imagining the note of satisfaction in the man’s voice. “It’s always been said that it brings ill luck to have too much to do with our family’s silver. The story is that there was an ill-meant wedding gift to one of my ancestresses, from a jealous suitor. Of course there’s no telling for sure if it’s true or not, but I suppose you’ll be able to find out.”

  “I expect so,” Ned said. “Have there been any recent incidents?”

  “There’s definitely an unsettling feeling when you handle the stuff,” Nevett said, which wasn’t exactly an answer to the question. He ran his fingers along the rim of a chafing dish, leaving a smudge behind. “And one of the kitchen maids slipped and twisted her ankle the other week. Carelessness, but when you look at it a certain way, you could say it’s bad luck as well.”

  “You certainly could,” Ned said politely, although he was beginning to feel an annoyed suspicion rising that he wouldn’t find a thing wrong with the silver except its lack of an impressive history. He wasn’t entirely above being paid to be the equivalent of a physician dispensing colored-water tonics to ladies who liked to be thought delicate, but he preferred being actually useful. “I’ll need to make a proper examination. It’s not very entertaining to watch, I’m afraid.”

  “Quite all right,” Nevett said, but made no move to volunteer that he had other business he could attend to while Ned worked. Ned hoped Nevett didn’t seriously suspect him of intending to pocket the forks. Probably he just wanted a bit of theater for his money. Ned shook his head in what he hoped passed for serious consideration of the metaphysical problem before him, and set one of the smaller platters flat on the tablecloth in front of him.

  It was the ideal piece to work on, having a large, flat surface. He forbore from pointing out that it was probably the only piece that needed to have been brought out of the kitchen; if they were dealing with a true malediction, it would have long since spread to affect every piece of silver in the house. An ordinary curse would have remained centered on a single object, but it also would have likely produced results more dramatic than an atmospheric sense of unease.

  He made an effort to master his annoyance. He suspected much of it was actually that it still rankled that Nevett had described him as “having been at school with my son Mr Victor Nevett” as if that were what established his respectability. Reginald Nevett had
been the one in Ned’s year at Sts Thomas’s, a good enough sort if generally found in the middle of a crowd following along like a genial sheep. He wouldn’t have minded if Reggie had put him up for the job – would have dropped him a note to thank him, probably.

  Victor was a different matter. He’d been a prefect at Toms’ when Ned was a New Man, and had exercised his authority enthusiastically and without any apparent sense of fair play. It was hardly reasonable to hold a grudge over schoolboy punishments, at least not on his own account – it had probably built character – but all the same he didn’t like the idea of being assumed to be Victor’s friend.

  He dismissed unprofitable thoughts and opened his case, which contained a well-worn copy of the second volume of the De Occulta Philosophia, carried more out of lingering schoolboy habit than any likelihood that he’d need to refer to it, a memorandum-book with his own notes on recently coined vocabulary, and lead pencil and paper in case it was necessary to use any of the truly elaborate metaphysical squares. All he wanted to begin with was his wand, a plain one in the Oxford style with no decoration other than the sharp silver cap at each end.

  Best to begin with the standard series for curse detection, even if he suspected the result. The first sigil in that series was “light,” one of the simplest, but he made himself focus properly, envisioning the square of the sun superimposed on the flat silver face of the platter. The square of the sun was the alphabetic square, its thirty-six numbers standing for the thirty-six letters of the metaphysical alphabet; he’d memorized it at thirteen, through dint of effort he’d thought painful at the time.

  The metaphysical word for “light” was only two letters, the letter that itself meant “light” and the one that meant “end,” tacked on as shorthand to make single-letter words possible to draw on a square. Right to left across the bottom row of the square, then, a short horizontal line that acquired its particular meaning through concentration on the numbers that began and ended it. He sketched the line, his pulse quickening as he completed it; there was always that slight exciting element of danger, a chance that he was dealing with one of the rare enchantments that would react disastrously with the standard tests.