My Sherlock Holmes Part 21

"With Sir Roderick dead, I had no need for revenge, and I determined to return home. But before I did I went to the police to tell them what I knew about the Yukon and Mackenzie, thinking I might be able to help the people whose money had been taken. But I made the mistake of telling the police how I'd come to know of Sir Roderick, and instead of believing me when I told them he was one of the villains, they nearly arrested me for his murder."

"Thank you, Mr. Moodie," Mr. Homes said. "Now, I have two questions for you. First, I would ask you to take a good look at this man over here," he said, looking over at Harry and motioning him to stand. "Did you ever see him during your stay in Edinburgh?"

Mr. Moodie turned in his chair and looked at Harry from under his pale eyebrows, for a long moment. Then he turned to Mr. Holmes and said, "No, sir, I have never seen this man before tonight."

"Does he in any way resemble Colfax or Stritch?"

"No, sir. Both of them were considerably taller, and not stout. Colfax, in particular, moved like a military man. I believe I once heard someone call him Major, in fact."

Mr. Holmes nodded, as if satisfied. "My next question to you, then, Mr. Moodie, is in the conversations that you heard among the men involved in the mining company scheme, did you ever hear the name Harry Hudson mentioned?"

Mr. Moodie looked surprised. "Why, yes, in fact." I felt as though my heart had stopped beating. I heard Mr. Holmes say, "Can you tell us what was said about him?"

"Yes. It was in one of the conversations between Stritch and Colfax. Stritch was upset and said something about how the last time he had run a store with Harry Hudson, there had been none of these problems and no d--d-pardon my language, ma'am-amateurs. Colfax answered, 'Well, you're not working with Harry Hudson, you're working with me, and you'll do as I say.'"

Mr. Holmes motioned for Harry to sit. "Thank you, Mr. Moodie," he said. "In case you are wondering, this man is Harry Hudson, and the lady next to him is his wife." Mr. Moodie, looking a bit baffled, nodded to us. Mr. Holmes continued, "Now, if I may ask you one more favor, would you be willing to come with me tomorrow on a visit to Inspector Gregson of the local constabulary and tell your story to him?"

"Yes, sir, I would," Mr. Moodie replied.

"Well," said Mr. Holmes, sitting back in his chair. "Mr. Hudson, if Gregson is an honest man, as I believe him to be, you should be free to remain here unmolested after tomorrow. For now, I think a gla.s.s of brandy would be a good end to this evening.. Watson, if you would be so kind as to bring the bottle and gla.s.ses. I think Mrs. Hudson is a bit indisposed." Because I had fallen into Harry's arms, overcome with joy and relief.

That night, after Mr. Holmes had put Mr. Moodie in a cab to the hotel where he was staying, Harry put his clergyman's disguise back on and left also. "I'm not sure I entirely trust Inspector Gregson," he said as we stood together in the hallway. "If he goes sideways, I may have to skip again. But oh, Jeannie me love, let us hope for the best." And he kissed me once and disappeared into the dark, foggy street.

You can imagine what it felt like to wait the next morning, after Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson left to fetch Peter Moodie and keep their appointment with Inspector Gregson. To see Harry that one time and then perhaps never again was almost crueler than not to have seen him at all. I hurried back from my shopping and got hardly any work done, what with running to the front window at every sound of wheels or hooves on the street. It seemed an eternity before Holmes and Watson returned-and Harry was with them. I thought I would faint. Holmes asked us both up to his rooms, and once we were there, he explained, with an air of triumph, what had happened. "Our conversation went even better than I expected. I knew Gregson had corresponded with the police in Edinburgh regarding the case and was aware of Peter Moodie's story and his identification of Stritch and Colfax. He had already begun to doubt the story told him by the informer, and Moodie's statement made it clear to him that he had no case against Mr. Hudson. So he has promised that Mr. Hudson will not be arrested for Parr's murder, a.s.suming no further evidence appears implicating him in the Yukon and Mackenzie Mining Company scheme. As for Colfax and Stritch, they seem to have vanished from the face of the earth."

Harry looked thoughtful. "Well, I can swear that I had no more involvement in the Yukon and Mackenzie scheme than I have told you, so unless another peach comes along with a better lie, I'll cause you no more trouble, at least about that. I hope that Stritch is all right. I've heard of Col fax. He's a cold-blooded, dangerous character, and I don't know why Stritch would have had anything to do with him. But Stritch was rather gullible-an odd thing to say of a confidence man, but true in his case. If I had to hazard a guess, Colfax is back in Canada, and I wouldn't be surprised if poor Stritch was at the bottom of the ocean somewhere-Colfax isn't kind to his partners in crime."

E.F. What a grim story!

Mrs. H. Yes, indeed. But it brought my Harry back to me. And it turned out that Stritch was alive after all. He was nabbed in Canada, and confirmed that Harry had nothing to do with the mining scheme or the baronet's murder. Colfax was never found, as far as I know.

That day I cooked Harry's favorite dinner, roast leg of mutton, potatoes, and turnips. I asked Peter Moodie to join us, but he had been invited to stop with an old shipmate and his family. But Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson dined with us, to celebrate Harry's safe return.

Harry said he was as pleased as could be to be tucking into a good dinner. "The grub in Italy is well and good, if you like that sort of thing," he said, "but oh, how I missed good English meat and potatoes."

He told how Mr. Holmes had met him in Paris and gained his trust-"It was clear to me that he had done more than simply accept Gregson's story. I was amazed at how much he knew about that affair in Edinburgh-a good deal more than I did, certainly." At Holmes's request Harry had had a photograph taken of himself and given it to Mr. Holmes, along with an address where Mr. Holmes could send a telegram to him. They agreed on a phrase by which Mr. Holmes would identify himself as the author. A few weeks later a telegram came from Mr. Holmes instructing Harry to come back to London. Harry did so, and you've heard the rest.

Mr. Holmes told how he and Watson had traveled first to Edinburgh, to speak with the police inspector in charge of investigating the Parr homicide and the Yukon and Mackenzie fraud. He confirmed that no one he had questioned had described anyone resembling Harry among the schemers. Mr. Holmes already knew something about Mr. Moodie from his earlier correspondence, and his importance to the case became even clearer on talking with the inspector. So Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson took a steamer to Lerwick and spoke with Mr. Moodie in person. That interview further confirmed that Harry was not among the men involved in the scheme. Mr. Moodie kindly agreed to come with them to London, and Mr. Holmes sent his telegram to Harry before they left Lerwick.

Dr. Watson ate better than he had in days, and went on about how good the mutton was and how ill he had been on their voyage. "It was a miserable pa.s.sage," he said. "I have never been so sick at sea. And when we got to the Shetland Islands, they were as barren and storm-swept an outpost as I have ever seen. Little stone huts on the moor, peat fires, cold and wind. Even the mutton tasted of fish. I was told the sheep eat seaweed, for lack of good gra.s.s to feed on, and their diet flavors their meat. I couldn't eat it. But Holmes, here, hardly seemed to notice it."

Harry offered to pay Mr. Holmes for all he had done. "It may take some time, because I have to get back on my feet," he said, "but you'll get every shilling." But Mr. Holmes wouldn't take a penny. He said he'd be amply repaid if Harry would teach him some of the techniques of confidence men and give him introductions from time to time to people who might be useful to him. Harry was more than willing to help. In fact, he and Mr. Holmes became fast friends."

E.F. Really! How was that?

Mrs. H. Mr. Holmes, of course, was a student of crime, and he found Harry and his trade intriguing. And Harry was a very intelligent man, though self-taught. They would talk together for hours, each smoking his pipe-especially after Harry left the trade and bought a wine shop with his friend Maurice-Mr. Delagnes. Harry taught Mr. Holmes a great deal about certain kinds of crimes and introduced Mr. Holmes to many people in the London underworld who were of great help to him. Mr. Holmes even called upon him now and then to help him with some of his cases. In fact, Harry and I both taught Mr. Holmes how to use stage makeup. I helped him with some of the disguises Dr. Watson wrote about. Do you remember the case Dr. Watson wrote up as "A Scandal in Bohemia"? Where Mr. Holmes first met Irene Adler?

E.F. Oh, of course.

Mrs. H. I always thought Mr. Holmes had something of a soft spot in his heart for that Miss Adler. Well, I made him up as a Nonconformist clergyman for that one, and Harry showed him how to walk. And we did an out-of-work groom, if I remember aright. Eventually he became quite good at makeup himself.

E.F. What happened to Mr. Hudson? Is he- Mrs. H. Alive and well, my dear. At the moment, he's on an ocean liner to America. I know that sounds surprising, but Harry, dear man, just can't give up the game. He takes a sea voyage every now and then and makes the cost of it back playing cards. Just to keep his hand in, he says. Sometimes I go with him, but I don't enjoy it as much as he does. There just isn't enough to do on a ship. So this spring I decided to stay home and enjoy my garden. But my dear, it's getting late, and you have to walk to the village. Did you take the train from Edinburgh?

E.F. Yes.

Mrs. H. Then I won't keep you. If you start now, you'll be in plenty of time to catch the afternoon train. If you see Mr. Duncan, the ticket master, would you please tell him that the man who sold Otto to Mr. Holmes has another litter of pups for sale? Otto has started a bit of a craze for Baskerville dogs here-not to mention fathering some impressive puppies around the village. Several people in the neighborhood have Baskies now, and it looks as though we're likely to become another outpost for the breed. Good-bye, dear, and thank you for coming by and listening to an old lady chatter. Be careful as you pa.s.s the Murrays' farm. They have a Basky, and sometimes they let him run free on their land. Oh, I think I can hear him now.

It was true. Otto looked up and whimpered at the sound before rising to stand at Mrs. Hudson's side as she saw me out the door and waved a last good-bye. And as I pa.s.sed through the gate again and turned onto the lane, I heard it again in the distance, the long, ascending howl described by Dr. Watson. Even in the clear light of a May afternoon, it seemed chilling and sinister, like the moor which showed darkly at the top of the hills behind me. As I walked back to the village, looking back from time to time to make sure I wasn't being followed by the source of that doleful cry, I thought of the surprises my interview of Mrs. Hudson had revealed, and how, in more ways than one, she had brought the dark tales of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes to life in the serene fields and glens of the Scottish countryside.

IRENE ADLER.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her s.e.x ... there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

-"A Scandal in Bohemia"

by CARA BLACK.

Cabaret aux a.s.sa.s.sins.

NICE, 1914..

Neige Adler's beetle-black eyes narrowed as she paused in the shadows cast by the fringed areca palm. The woman reclined on a wicker chaise, her face sunken, her hands folded in prayer but Neige knew she'd come too late.

"I'm sorry. Very sorry," the nurse said, taking Neige's arm, guiding her across the clinic sunporch. "Your mother pa.s.sed away a half hour ago. Very peacefully."

No matter their differences, she'd loved her mother. And Neige knew her mother reciprocated in her own peculiar fashion. Tears welled in the corner of her eye.

"Merci, sister."

She set down her travel portmanteau and crossed herself. Her mother looked tranquil. At last.

Eighteen-year-old Neige, wearing rimless spectacles and her chestnut hair upswept, sat down. Her shoulders slumped. In the distance, the peach-washed and tobacco-tiled buildings of Nice sloped to the turquoise Mediterranean. Hot air hovered in the cloudless Provencal sky. Outside the hospital window, small lemon-colored finches twittered on the balcony railing. Slants of light, and the scent of orange trees wafted from the garden below.

Growing up, Neige had spent little time with her mother, an actress, who once sang at La Scala but developed nodes on her vocal cords. Her mother took up acting and toured constantly. The Urals, Baden-Baden, Leipzig, but never Piccadilly or Broadway, where her schoolmates' parents attended the theater. At least that's what she'd told Neige. Neige, raised in a convent boarding school, had spent holidays with Leonie, her mother's housekeeper, or school friends.

Yet her mother's last telegram promised to answer questions about her family. The ones she'd so often asked. Finally. But now she'd never know.

Sad and disappointed, Neige pinned a stray hair into her chignon and fanned the stifling humidity. Below the window, the awninged trolley bus trundled over the cobbled street fronting the clinic.

"Sister," she said, "perhaps we should discuss funeral arrangements."

"Your mother left this for you." The sister handed her a tapestry covered bag. "She gave this to me last week in case ... ."

Inside lay a leather tooled journal, a sagging alb.u.m of photographs and frayed theater programs. As Neige opened the journal, folded paper writ ten in dark blue ink with her mother's concise clipped script fell out. She picked it up, smoothed the thick sheets; and began to read. Her eyes widened in surprise: My dearest daughter, if you are reading this, I am unable to tell you this in person. So must do so in a journal. Not my first choice, but coward that I've been, perhaps it's for the better. My darling, I know you disapprove of my lifestyle and I'm sure you'll disapprove even more as you read but then life isn't what we deserve. And thank G.o.d for that. I will get to your father but I must explain in my own way, convoluted as it appears.

Before you were born dearest, I worked as an agent for the ministry in Paris. For quite a few years later as well. And now, after all this time, the government wants to present me with a medal for my part in L'Affaire Dreyfus. A man truly the victim of infamy. So, dear Neige, please accept the small honor from the Conseil d'etat on my behalf. Who knows ... they may give you a position.

But why, you ask, a medal for an itinerant actress?

Suffice it to say, you weren't even a gleam in your father's eye when all this began. I'd fallen on my luck after the nodes developed on my vocal cords, ending my opera career. But, as my wont, I landed on my b.u.t.tonhook boots in the frigid, wet Parisian winter of '96. I was a widow in dire financial straits and certain ministry officials knew I'd once outwitted Sherlock Holmes. I was the woman, as Holmes referred to me, after our encounter in the scandal in Bohemia.

Dr. Watson's later accounts never mentioned my involvement in the Dreyfus Affair with Holmes. But Watson didn't like me-such a jealous and crafty man in a simian way! And he left out much of my story. If the truth be known, he made himself look good most times. I never cared to find out much of Watson's odd relationship with Holmes. But only a fool would trust their luck twice to outwit Holmes.

Thoughts of the man, as I often thought of Holmes, had crossed my mind ... the only man, besides my dear, departed husband, Norton, whose mental acuity matched mine.

But I digress.

The Dreyfus case was a cause celebre for years. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, as you probably know, was the only Jewish officer on the French General Staff in 1894, and he was accused of offering French military secrets to the Germans. He was court-martialed behind closed doors, convicted by a unanimous verdict, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guiana.

But I've jumped ahead in my saga. In that grueling winter in Paris, after auditioning at the Theatre Anglais, I'd landed the role of Mrs. Daventry in Oscar Wilde's play ... then the talk of London. But it barely helped ends meet.

Holmes was in the audience. Thank G.o.d I didn't realize it until after the curtain call.

After the performance, a distinguished gray-haired man in a black opera cape appeared at my dressing room door bearing a huge bouquet of rare Canaan lilies.

"Madame Norton, please accept a modest bouquet and my compliments, past and present," he said. "Your performance ranks with the lilies in the field; pure and unsullied." The unmistakable deep voice alerted me. However, the man stood very tall, taller than I remembered Holmes. And more rounder figured. His face, wider-that of a different man.

"Why come in, Monsieur ... . ," I said, puzzled.

"Duc de Langans," he interrupted. Swiftly he moved inside the door, belying his bulk, with a finger raised to his lips. His black eyes glittered and my heart hammered.

Sherlock Holmes!

"Pray enlighten me ... Duc." I grinned. "My role merits not such lilies, so rare in winter. I find little comparison with myself and hothouse flowers. A hardy desert scrub, tenacious and wild, battling the wind and blossoming with the rain seems more apt."

"So would a wise man agree." Holmes smiled back. His eyes lingered. "Yet when could those of my s.e.x be accused of wisdom?"

I glowed; I could not help myself. Such a man with wit and charm stimulated me, all outward appearance forgotten. Such a long time had pa.s.sed since I'd felt this intensity of attraction. What possessed me I know not, yet when the stagehand poked his head in announcing "Encore curtain call, Madame Norton, quickly please!" I pulled Holmes or Duc de Langans close, in full backstage view, and kissed him. Hard and quickly. And more to my surprise he responded. "You're not an easy woman to forget, Irene," he said, breathing in my ear. "And you're making it more difficult." An odd look pa.s.sed in his eye, whether of regret, longing, or a mingling of both I couldn't decipher.

The backstage boy tugged my sleeve, pulling me out to the wall of applause. I felt a thrill such as I had not felt since my opera triumphs at La Scala. I cared not why Holmes wore such disguise or whether his machinations involved me, which they clearly would portend to, but only for the blaze of pa.s.sion and intrigue which had entered my work-sore and dull life.

Visions of a late bra.s.serie supper with champagne and oysters danced in my mind. But when I returned from the several curtain calls, Holmes had disappeared. Curious and more disappointed than I cared to admit, I picked up the bouquet from the dressing table, littered with pots of powder.

Outside the backstage entrance, no hansom cab lay in sight. Only the yellow glow from the gaslight and wet, slick cobblestones greeted me. Depressed, I pulled the cloak around me for the trudge to my room in hilly Montmartre. Especially long and arduous in the chill drizzle. Why had Holmes appeared in disguise? Using me in a ruse, perhaps, to exit the rear of the theater. Rumors had abounded of his narcotics use but I knew he abstained when on a case. I clutched the flowers, heavy and ostentatious, ready to throw them in the trash heap ... . I didn't relish struggling with them on my upward trek through the steep streets to Montmartre.

And then I felt the thin gla.s.s tube, capsule-like, among the lily stems. Under the rue du Louvre gaslight, I bent to relace the top of my boots. I shook out the white paper rolled inside. On it was written in small, black spidery writing; Wait for me in place Goudeau, s'il te plait.

How unlike Holmes to say please.

I knew this square, where the tree-filled place fronted the old washing house now an atelier by artists. And it lay a block from my apartment. Stuffing the paper in my boot, I stood up and hurried towards Montmartre.

Place Goudeau's dark green fountain, topped with spiked domes held by four maidens, trickled in the night. Veins of water iced the cobbles, caught in the flickering gaslight. Anxious, I found a dark doorway, and huddled in my cloak against the cold. The circular place lay deserted under the one skeletal tree, barren of leaves.

From an open skylight in a sloping rooftop drifted m.u.f.fled sounds of laughter and dancing yellow light. A tall figure stole along the building. The he stood before me, silhouetted against the fretwork of black branches canopying the starless sky.

"Why the secrecy and disguise, Holmes?" I asked, catching my breath and trying to keep my excitement in check.

"Bear with my pretense, Irene, for I have only a moment." His eyes bore into me. He took in my wet bedraggled appearance so different from the costumed performer in makeup accepting accolades just shortly before.

"I had not the time to tell you before," he said. "Marie-Charles-Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy."

"You say this name as if it means something to me, Holmes," I said, perplexed in my tiredness. My breath became staccato bursts of frost.

"Perhaps you know him as Comte Esterhazy, the paramour of Bijou the contortionist?"

"Bijou? We perform in the same revue, Holmes," I said, taken off guard, "but apart from that ..."

"Comte Esterhazy has gambling debts," he interrupted. "Serious ones." Gambling debts ... is that what this was all about? My excitement on seeing Holmes crumbled.

"Keep an eye on him, Irene; find out his work habits at the Military ministry. Get invited to the gambling den on boulevard de Clichy. The den above the printmaking shop. Irene, do this. You outsmarted me once but help me now."

"But, Holmes, why ..."

"Only you can be my eyes and ears there. No questions. Please. Do this for me. I won't ask another favor."

He palmed a wad of sous in my coat pocket. For a brief moment he found my frigid hand, clutched it with his own warm one and kissed it.

"I'll find you again," he said. And with a swirl of his cape he was gone.

His aura of intrigue and immediacy were hard to dispel. And truth to tell, Holmes's magnetism clutched me, perturbed as I felt. It always had.

This involved more than gambling, I was sure as I paused at the cafe below my building and purchased a few lumps of coal. The night and the long walk had chilled me to the bone. In my small garret, I stuck the Canaan lilies in a chipped decanter on the table, lit a small fire, and banked the coals. From my window the metal railing of the stairs mounting my hilly street crusted with ice. My Montmartre garret, with the slate-gray Paris rooftop view, nestled against the bricked fire flute and kept toasty. A bonus since charcoal prices soared in the frigid 1896 winter. And even in my fatigue, I felt the garret emanate a welcoming warmth. After putting my apprehensions aside until the next day, I slept.

I awoke to dead coals and tinny music coming from the street.

The barrel organ grinder, with his grinning half-wit son turning the crank, stood below on the cobbles. Many nights they slept in the nearby viaduct. I tossed them a few sous and shivered washing my face in icy water from a pitcher.

The only employment I knew was the stage. Drinking my weak morning coffee, I fingered my parents' obituary. They'd perished in a Trenton bliz zard some years before. My only tie to America was gone. Back on the boards again, my old washhouse Ma would have said, your grandmother, had she lived. But it was a long way from the New Jersey sh.o.r.e to the Right bank of Paris. Sometimes, it felt too far. Other days, not far enough.

But that was a lifetime ago. No one's left in America for you, Neige. France, my adopted country, is your country.

I lodged in Montmartre, the bohemian center of painters, socialists, and writers. Not only did art and anarchy appeal to me. The cobbled and packed earth streets made it cheap. Dirt cheap. At that time, Montmartre was still a village ridging Paris.

But that morning I discovered an envelope under my door which I'd overlooked. Inside was written, "Finally a job for you ... expect me in the morning. Meslay."

Startled, I rubbed a cloth over the table, put my few belongings to rights and pinched my cheeks for color. Why was this happening now ... did it somehow connect to Holmes? These thoughts crossed my mind but I found no answers.

What Holmes didn't know, and how would he, was my connection to the French Ministry. Tenuous at best.

My first husband Norton's tragic death under the wheels of runaway carriage in Trieste had reversed my fortune. Norton's brother-in-law, Meslay, an French Army officer, had recruited him for occasional missions. Only after Norton's death did I learn, rest his soul, he'd a.s.sumed the part of unofficial liaison in Paris for an emissary to King George. But, widows without means were not included on the King's payroll.

I still had my looks; the waters in Baden-Baden were to thank for that. But I was approaching what the French politely refer to as a woman d'un certain age. A bleak outlook of genteel penury in coastal St-Malo teaching drama to vacationing English children or amateur theatricals loomed.

Faced with such mundane prospects and reasoning it would be my last chance at theater before such a quiet retirement would alas, be enforced upon me, I'd renewed my connections in the demimonde.

This twilight world of courtesans, artists, dance halls, and cafe-cabarets offered sporadic employment. Yet it gave me time to audition for the "proper" theater. If only the role of Mrs. Daventry could have supported me I would have given the rest up.

But it was my brother in-law, Meslay, the young military attache who'd approached me some months before. We'd met once in the Tuilleries gardens and he'd mentioned he might be able to help me. But no word since then.