A moment later, the guard stormed off the cab and disappeared down along the train. My subject moved on, evidently having decided to plant her sabotaging device elsewhere, and took a quick glance about the platform. I froze and focused on the sketch of a steamship explosion in Prussia, bodies flung everywhere. “Be glad we’re not sailing to Fairhaven,” I told Peony—and looked up in time to see the woman in red duck beneath the ribbon to climb aboard an unguarded passenger car.
I darted after her, arriving at the vestibule mounting block just as a red flounce disappeared inside the carriage. I slipped under the ribbon, shoved Peony’s box before me up the stairs, and sneaked aboard the Ballingall Empress Express.
Whereupon I was momentarily distracted from my quarry. I let out my breath and stared, quite overcome. I’d been aboard trains before, of course, but this was less like a railway carriage than somebody’s overstuffed parlor. Every inch of it was purple—everything that wasn’t polished brass or glittering crystal or burnished wood or gilded fretwork, that is. A glass ceiling arched overhead, hung with electric lights that shone on the plush purple carpeting and plump velvet furniture. Even a piano had not escaped the decorator’s attentions.
Now that I’d followed the saboteur onto the train, the jig was up: she could see me as plainly as I could see her. But she ignored me. She’d dropped her carpetbag and brolly by the piano and was inspecting a cloth-covered case set on a plinth, like in a museum, and she looked downright unhappy about it. Forehead deeply creased, she was jotting in a notebook, shaking her head.
“No, no, and no.” She punctuated this with jabs of her pencil. “Not satisfactory, not at all.”
“Are you supposed to be in here?” I said loudly. The woman in red didn’t even turn around.
“One might ask the same, Myrtle Hardcastle. This is the Ladies’ Lounge, and I am—last I checked—a lady.”
A quiver of surprise went through me. “How do you know my name?”
“It’s my business to know.”
What did she mean by that? “Sir Quentin wouldn’t like you in here,” I hazarded.
She looked up at last, with a laugh. “No, he would not. Come here. Tell me what you think.”
I hesitated. But curiosity got the better of me—about her, and about what was in the case she was so upset about. I crept forward, bracing myself for something ghastly (rattlesnakes? shrunken heads?), and she pulled off the cloth.
Inside was a crown, huge and delicate, glittering with diamonds and vast greeny-purple stones. A placard read:
“Is that real?” The stones’ color shifted as I looked at them, like an enchantment in a fairy story. “What’s it doing here?”
The woman clapped her notebook shut. “That, Miss Hardcastle, is my question. This is not what I agreed to at all.”
“Is it yours?” I took a better look at her. She seemed to be an ordinary sort of woman, and her worn bag and practical suit hardly suggested wildly expansive wealth, let alone a penchant for tiaras.
She gave another laugh. “You might say so! And yet, no. But I am responsible for it, and this arrangement”—she waved a hand at the case—“is entirely unacceptable.”
“You won’t get away with stealing it,” I declared. “I’ll go and tell Sir Quentin that you’re in here, messing about with his—tiara.” That sentence limped to an improbable end, and I heard a judgmental meow from my sidekick in the hatbox.
The woman turned away from the case. “And what will you tell him, exactly, Miss Hardcastle?”
“That you’ve boarded his train without a ticket. I saw you being turned away from the ticket counter. This is a subscription excursion. You can’t just buy a fare at the last moment. And you’ve sneaked aboard the Ladies’ Lounge for obviously nefarious purposes. I can tell you’re trying to figure out how to breach that jewel case’s defenses.”
She broke into a wide smile. “Oh, brava!”
She had no chance to elaborate, for at that moment, the heavy vestibule door squealed open and Sir Quentin himself burst in.
She pounced before he had a chance to speak. “Mr. Ballingall, this is a clear violation of your insurance policy. The tiara is to be kept in the train’s safe at all times—not on display like fruit at a greengrocer’s!”
“Now, Mrs. Bloom.” Sir Quentin wove through the furniture, holding his arms open. His ringmaster’s jacket matched the purple velvet upholstery. “Don’t get your dander up. That case was made for me by the same chaps who supplied them for the Crown Jewels. Or don’t you trust the Tower Guard?” He had a booming voice that echoed above the roar of the steam engine and the expectant shudder of the carriage.
“Not especially,” Mrs. Bloom said. “Even young Miss Hardcastle spotted the faults in your security straightaway.”
“Why do you know my name?” I asked again. It was seeming less likely that she was a thief or saboteur.
“Because she’s an interfering busybody, that’s why.”
Evidently I’d blundered my way into a quarrel and should have extricated myself, but I was brimming with curiosity.
Mrs. Bloom handed me a calling card. “I am a representative of Albion Casualty Insurance, engaged by the owners of this tiara to ensure its protection en route to Fairhaven. Miss Hardcastle, where do you stand on breach of contract?”
This was like standing for an exam I hadn’t studied for, bewildering and a little exhilarating. “Er—against it?”
“Quite right. Mr. Ballingall, I’ll be revoking your policy.” She moved to pick up her carpetbag, but Sir Quentin stepped in front of her, a hand gripping her elbow.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said in a low voice.
He was twice her size, like a mountain standing in her way, but Mrs. Bloom tipped her head up and regarded him coolly. “I think you’ll find it isn’t advisable to threaten me.”
This time his laugh felt forced. “I’m not threatening you, woman! I’m sure we can come to some agreement. Let me show you what I’ve done before you make up your mind.”
Seizing my shoulders, he steered me round the case, thundering in my ear: “Laminated glass!” He rapped heartily on the panes. “Practically unbreakable. And a solid steel frame, so it can’t be smashed.” He gave the whole display a shove, and it didn’t budge. “Bolted down!”
“What about the lock?” I pointed, and Sir Quentin beamed as proudly as if I’d admired his baby.
“World’s most advanced combination-dial lock. Six wheels, and nobody knows the code but me. Absolutely unpickable. You see, ladies? Perfectly safe. You’d have to be mad to try anything aboard the Empress Express! I’ve thought of everything on this train, I have. Mrs. Bloom, if you’ll stick around, we might manage to impress you yet.”