Page 69 of Pandora

“That is no answer.”

For a moment Edward stares into the hearth. There comes the memory of desolation, of being lost, of screaming over and over, in a darkness that seemed to breathe...

“She is trapped,” he says quietly. “I understand that better than anyone. I have to help her. Just as you helped me.”

At Edward’s words Cornelius’ face closes. Then he squints his eyes shut, snaps them open again.

“I simply do not trust her, Edward. As far as I’m concerned she is as guilty as her uncle.”

Edward sighs. There is nothing else he can say—there is no use in trying—and so the pair slip into silence. As the fire crackles in the hearth Edward worries his inner cheek with his teeth.

He thinks of his visit to Gough that morning, how he pushed the little black book that outlined his notes on the pithos across the ornate desk, watched the older man read over them.

“Have you heard from Sir William?” the director had asked.

“No, sir. I wrote to him, but have received no response.”

“He will reply in due course. His return from Italy has meant that he’s in high demand. There are many affairs, so I understand, that he is busy putting in order. He lost a shipment of antiquities in December when the vessel they were being transported on sank just off the Scilly Isles.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Indeed. But I bid you patience. When Greek artefacts are involved Hamilton can’t resist. For the time being, I would continue as you are. What are your next steps?”

It was a test, Edward knew instinctively. A measure, he supposed, of his knowledge and sincerity.

“I would like to have the clay sample further examined, to conclude its geographical origin. I do not feel I can go much further with my investigations without it.”

“Very good,” Gough said, “I shall organize it with our scientists. Have you made any progress in ascertaining how the pithos was obtained?”

Edward hesitated. “I’ve been advised of three men who might be able to shed light on where it came from. That is, how it was acquired.”

“Then make haste, Mr. Lawrence.” Gough handed Edward’s black book back to him. “In matters such as this, time is of the essence.”

Now Edward gazes into the fire. For so long he has wanted his life to have purpose. For too many years he has suffered under his own shortcomings, has feared his own shadow. Those early years in London... they continue to be a taint on him, a pestilence that has followed him like a wraith, that has woken him in the dead of night leaving his skin and bed sheets wet with cold sweat. Dora Blake has given him that purpose. In her lies the key to his success.

Make haste, indeed. It is all now he can do.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The same man who delivered the pithos arrives to take it away. From her position at the shop door Dora watches him and her uncle exchange words in undertones that appear both urgent and threatening. Then Hezekiah turns, brushes past her into the shop without meeting her gaze.

The day is dry but there is a sharp breeze that whistles down Ludgate Street and through its clamor of pedestrians kicking up mud and filth on their heels. The red-headed man waits patiently for a hawker—six filthy urchins trailing behind her—to pass before rounding one side of the wagon. He takes a pile of ropes from the back, gestures to his companions with a grunt.

The two brothers, Dora notes, are not with him. Instead he has brought another man—a Mr. Tibb, she heard her uncle call him—and two others who smell, faintly, of excrement.

Dora retreats into the murk of the shop, loiters near the green chair Edward sat on that first day. As he passes, the hulking man greets her with a small duck of his chin, a barely-there nod, and Dora thinks how much older he seems since she last saw him. There is a tightness to his face, a tense, sick sort of expression that disturbs her.

She watches the men as they haul the pithos up the basement steps using a complicated system of pulleys and the ropes. Dora clasps her hand to her mouth, resists the urge to cry out to them to take care, but Hezekiah has no such qualms.

“Watch what you’re doing!” he snaps, as one of the smaller men—dark-skinned, little more than a boy—buckles under the weight.

“Now, now, Mr. Blake,” the man named Tibb says, tone mollifying, “we know what we’re doing—we got it on the wagon to begin with, if you remember?”

Hezekiah glances briefly at Dora before straightening his cravat.

“Of course I do! But luck was with us that day.”

“Luck,” the large man mutters, shifting the rope holding part of the weight of the pithos on his shoulder, “had nothing to do with it.”

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