“In which case, shouldn’t you be serving a sentence for intellectual misconduct?”

“I assure you, it has been served. Now, I think perhaps you should come with me, Miss Tarabotti.”

“Oh, but I was just leaving.”

“Yes, I am certain you were.”

The butler, at a bit of a loss, was looking back and forth between them.

Alexia backed toward the open door, lifting up her parasol in a defensive position and pressing her thumb against the appropriate lotus petal in the handle, arming the tip with one of the numbing darts. She wished she had not left Ethel behind; guns, by and large, were far more threatening than parasols.

Nevertheless, Dr. Neebs looked at it with wary respect. “Madame Lefoux’s work, isn’t that?”

“You know Madame Lefoux?”

Dr. Neebs looked at her as though she were an idiot. Of course, thought Alexia, this is a chapter of the Order of the Brass Octopus. Madame Lefoux is also a member. I did not realize the Order was reabsorbing the Hypocras Club. I must tell Conall.

The scientist tilted his head to one side. “What are you about, Miss Tarabotti?”

Alexia faltered. Dr. Neebs was not to be trusted, of that she was certain. Apparently, he felt much the same about her, for he issued a sharp instruction to the butler.

“Grab her!”

Luckily, the butler was confused by the proceedings and did not understand how his role had suddenly become one of ruffian. He was also holding a glass of water in one hand and a jar of calf’s-foot jelly in the other.

“What? Sir?”

At which juncture Alexia shot the scientist with a numbing dart. Madame Lefoux had armed the darts with a high-quality, fast-acting poison that had some affiliation with laudanum. Dr. Neebs pitched forward with an expression of shock on his face and collapsed at the base of the staircase.

The butler recovered from his inertia and lunged at Alexia. Lady Maccon, clumsy at the best of times, lurched to the side, waving her parasol wildly in a wide arc and managing to strike the butler a glancing blow to the side of the head.

It was not a very accurate hit but it was violent, and the man, clearly unused to anything of the kind, reeled away looking at her with an expression of such disgruntlement that Alexia was moved to grin.

“Why, Mrs. Floote, such indecorous behavior!”

Alexia armed her parasol and shot him with a second numbing dart. His knees gave out and he crumpled to the floor of the foyer. “Yes, I know. I do apologize. It is a personal failing of mine.”

With that, she let herself out into the street and lumbered off, clutching her plunder and feeling very furtive and rather proud of her afternoon’s achievement.

Unfortunately for Lady Maccon, there was absolutely no one to appreciate her endeavors when she returned home. Any werewolves in town were abed, Felicity was still out (not that Alexia could confide in her), and Floote was off tending to some domestic duty or another. Disgruntled, Alexia set herself up in the back parlor to examine her misappropriated loot.