When Eleanor and I reached the bustle of the lobby, the hum of conversations and clack of shoes pulled me from my thoughts of Mamá.
Eleanor pulled her pocket watch from her uniform and glanced at the time. Now that I wasn’t distracted by my vault, the swirling silver design on her watch caught my eye.
“That watch...” I hesitated, trying to place where I’d seen that design before. “Does every employee get one?”
“Only those who work with the vaults have this pocket watch. It serves as our staff identification for which division we belong to.”
Considering I’d never even been to this bank, I wasn’t sure why the watch looked familiar. Maybe I was imagining things.
She slid it back into her pocket. “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“No, thank you.” I’d have to deal with the mystery of her pocket watch later. For now, I needed to hurry back to Cogs and Corsets.
“Thank you for your patronage,” she said as I turned toward the exit. A hat resting on a head of blond hair caught my eye.
Detective Atwood disappeared through the revolving doors onto the street, the swish of his short cape trailing behind him.
I rushed across the lobby after him and caught up to him just outside the bank. “Detective!”
He turned around, and his eyes widened, drawing my attention to the faint silver scar on his left temple. “How did you find out about this, Poppy?”
“Find out about what?” I asked. “I was just visiting my vault.”
“I guess I’m just used to you making all sorts of unfounded yet accurate connections.” He turned to the officer next to him, who had an oiled handlebar mustache. “Return to the station ahead of me and add today’s information to the report. I’ll be along shortly.”
The man saluted, then disappeared down the crowded street.
“We found a lead.” Detective Atwood lowered his voice as he leaned toward me.
“Mind if we walk and talk?” I asked. “I need to be somewhere.”
He smiled briefly, giving me a glimpse of his single slightly sharp incisor, and started walking beside me. “Same, actually.”
“So, what did you find out?”
Detective Atwood stepped closer and lowered his voice so I could barely hear him over the clanking of gears and soft hissing of steam-powered engines as a steamcab passed. “We finally ID’d the first victim and discovered that she was an employee here. We just finished interviewing some of her colleagues.”
My heart jumped with hope. “Did you learn anything helpful?”
“My gut tells me that we’re on to something, but I’ll need to go through our notes again and cross-reference it with the other case to see if I can find any similarities.”
I gazed up at a massive dirigible cruising overhead as I thought. Its propellers cut through the air while the sunlight winked off the copper sides. “Does she have some connection to the college?”
“Not that we know of, but if we can figure out the motive for killing the woman, it could tell us a lot about the perpetrator.”
“I wish I could help more.” I looked up, only then realizing how close we were. It brought the memory of us in the storage closet to the forefront of my mind. How inappropriately close we’d been then. Whatever happened, I couldn’t be disloyal to Desmarc... Even if Detective Atwood shared my passion for helping the Lower Chimes.
I took a surreptitious step to the side to put more space between us.
“You’ve already done plenty.” Detective Atwood shook his head. “In fact, I should thank you for your service and tell you not to—”
“Thank you for your service.” The familiar words rang in my ears, bringing back the terrible memory of the woman’s murder.
I gasped. That was it. I’d seen that pocket watch when Slipping. The woman had it on her when she met the killer.
I grabbed Detective Atwood’s arm, bringing us both to a stop.
“What’s wrong, Poppy? You look pale.”
I swallowed and met his worried gaze. “You said you found the rest of the woman’s valuables in the fountain that night, right?”
“Right.”
“Did you find a pocket watch among her things?” My heart pounded loudly in my chest, each beat begging him to confirm my theory even though I didn’t want to consider what it might mean.
“A pocket watch?” He wrinkled his nose in thought. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“That’s what the man was after,” I whispered. “He took her pocket watch and scattered the rest of her valuables to hide his trail.”
“Why would he want the watch?”
I let out a slow breath, trying to catch my bearings while I pieced together all the clues I’d missed. “Because they’re necessary to open the vaults.”
“Poppy, you’re so amazing that I could kiss you.” The tips of his ears turned red, and he cleared his throat. “That’s just a figure of speech, of course.”
I couldn’t tease him about how his ears were red since I could feel my own cheeks heating. It brought back memories of my kiss with Desmarc.
“They aren’t worth our time.”
I shook my head to rid it of Desmarc’s words about the Lower Chimes and continued down the street, turning down the alley that led to Cogs and Corsets.
“If that’s true, this could be the break we need.” Detective Atwood seemed to follow me without realizing where we were going. “So the question is, whose vault was he aiming for?”
“And does he already have the key?” Trying to figure out the vault owner wouldn’t be too difficult as long as they got a warrant for the bank, which could mean we were only a few clues away from cracking the case. I came to a stop again as we made it to the back door of Geneve’s shop.