The Masque of the Black Tulip Read Free

could see was sun-streaked hair, darker at the roots as the effects of summer faded, and an expanse of bent back, broad and muscled beneath an oxford-cloth shirt. A whiff of shampoo, recently applied, wafted up against the stuffy smells of closed rooms, old books, and decaying leather.
    I couldn't see what he was doing, but he must have turned some sort of latch, because the wainscoting opened out, the join cleverly disguised by the pattern of the wood. Now that I knew what to look for, there was nothing mysterious about it at all. Glancing around the room, I could see that the wainscoting was flush with the edge of the shelves above, leaving a space about two feet deep unaccounted for.
    "These are all cupboards," Colin explained briefly, swinging easily to his feet beside me.
    "Of course," I said, as if I had known all along, and never harbored alarming images of being forced to read late-Victorian transcriptions.
    One thing was sure: I need have no worries about having to entertain myself with back issues of Punch. There were piles of heavy folios bound in marbled endpapers, a scattering of flat cardboard envelopes looped shut with thin spools of twine, and whole regiments of the pale gray acid-free boxes used to hold loose documents.
    "How could you have kept this to yourself all these years?" I exclaimed, falling to my knees in front of the cupboard.
    "Very easily," said Colin drily.
    I flapped a dismissive hand in his general direction, without interrupting my perusal. I scooted forwards to see better, tilting my head sideways to try to read the typed labels someone had glued to the spines a long time ago, if their yellowed state and the shape of the letters were anything to go by. The documents seemed to be roughly organized by person and date. The ancient labels said things like LORD RICHARD SELWICK (1776—1841), CORRESPONDENCE, MISCELLANEOUS, 1801—1802. Or SELWICK HALL, HOUSEHOLD ACCOUNTS, 1800—1806. Bypassing the household accounts, I kept looking. I reached for a folio at random, drawing it carefully out from its place next to a little pocket-sized book bound in worn red leather.
    "I'll leave you to it, shall I?" said Colin.
    "Mmm-hmm."
    The folio was a type I recognized from the British Library, older documents pasted onto the leaves of a large blank book, with annotations around the edges in a much later hand. On the first page, an Edwardian hand had written in slanting script, "Correspondence of Lady Henrietta Selwick, 1801-1803."
    "Dinner in an hour?"
    "Mmm-hmm."
    I flipped deliberately towards the back, scanning salutations and dates. I was looking for references to two things: the Pink Carnation, or the school for spies founded by the Purple Gentian and his wife, after necessity forced them to abandon active duty. Neither the Pink Carnation nor the spy school had been in operation much before May of 1803. Wedging the volume back into place, I jiggled the next one out from underneath, hoping that they had been stacked in some sort of chronological order.
    "Arsenic with a side of cyanide?"
    "Mmm-hmm."
    They had. The next folio down comprised Lady Henrietta's correspondence from March of 1803 to the following November. Perfect. On the edge of my consciousness, I heard the library door close. Scooting backwards, I sat down heavily on the floor next to the open cupboard, the folio splayed open in my lap. Nestled in the middle of Henrietta's correspondence was a letter in a different hand. Where Henrietta's script was round, with loopy letters and the occasional flourish, this writing was regular enough to be a computer simulation of script. Without the aid of technological enhancement, the writing spoke of an orderly hand, and an even more orderly mind. More importantly, I knew that handwriting. I had seen it in Mrs. Selwick-Alderly's collection, between Amy Balcourt's sloppy scrawl and Lord Richard's emphatic hand. I didn't even have to flip to the signature on the following page to know who had penned it, but