A Most Extraordinary Pursuit by Juliana Gray Page A

had only had anything at all to do with Mr. Haywood’s affairs since last winter, when he and the duke first conceived the notion of an institute for the study of ancient objects. I had never known His Grace to be especially interested in such things before, but his passion for the subject ignited at once. Perhaps it had something to do with the nature of these objects, which I understood were of an unusual sort. Mr. Haywood, in the course of his archeological investigations in Crete, had discovered a number of artifacts that—or so he insisted—possessed properties that could not be explained by ordinary science. At the time, I had not inquired what, exactly, those properties were. It was not my business.
    The Duke of Olympia, however, had been intrigued by his grandnephew’s claims, whatever they were, and had spent the past year enthusiastically putting them in the way of further study. Tens of thousands of pounds had already been invested in the institute in Rye, and Mr. Haywood had forwarded regular parcels containing objects for its initial collection. Now, of course, the duke was dead, and Mr. Haywood could not be found. And here I was, roiling atop the sea in my prison of steel, charged with his urgent discovery.
    How the devil was I going to do that?
    I have every confidence in you
, the dowager duchess had said, as we poised on the driveway to make our farewells. She had given me the packet of papers necessary for my voyage and kissed me on both cheeks. The sky had been very black, and her face almost purple in the light from the house. What had she said?
You have a particular talent for detail, my dear, and I know you will not disappoint me.
    An odd way to put things, I thought now, and I forced my torpid limbs to unpick themselves from the cushions and slump to the small writing desk a yard or so away, on which I had placed the packet of papers Her Grace had given me.
    A mistake. The documents swam before me: passports, letters of credit, introductions to people I did not recognize. It was beyond my strength even to assemble the words into meaning. I would study everything later, I thought, and I cast about for my traveling desk, which went with me everywhere, and which I could use, if necessary, while sitting up in bed. Should I ever again commit so foolhardy a maneuver as to raise my head, of course.
    The stewards had stowed my desk on the floor next to the bed, and I had just unlocked the bottom drawer and placed the papers inside, when the deck began to tilt in the slow, magisterial, vertical manner I recognized too well. An especially murderous series of waves followed, one after another, while the metal groaned from within and the wind raged at the portholes. I closed my eyes and anchored myself to the floor. When I opened them again, I saw that a few of the papers had come loose and scattered across the rug.
    For a moment, I simply stared at them. I dislike disorder—my room, wherever it happens to be, remains always in immaculate organization—but I could not summon either the will or the strength to recover these errant sheets. The few feet of carpetseemed an impossible distance, and the ship would go on rolling to one side and then another.
    Go on, then, Truelove
, I told myself.
You cannot leave the duchess’s papers lying on the floor like this. A disgrace.
    I placed both palms on the rug and crawled carefully to where the papers lay, and one by one I gathered them together in a tidy stack. As I did so, I realized they were not documents at all, but photographs, each enlarged to the size of a sheaf of ordinary notepaper.
    I turned to lean my back against the wall of the groaning ship, and I held the first photograph up to the faint light from the porthole.
    If I hoped to find some clue to the new duke’s whereabouts, I was disappointed. The first photograph was of a stucco wall, covered by a series of peeling and disjointed frescoes. I held the photograph closer, but I