The Case Of The Cryptic Crinoline Part 6

"Oh, merciful heavens. But I a.s.sumeda"whatever was I thinking?"

Softening my asperity, I acknowledged, "I imagine you had a great many pressing matters on your mind. In any event, as Mrs. Tupper understood not a word you said to her, one can a.s.sume she did not know what the card was for, or even realise she was carrying a message. The blackguards are currently cutting apart the blue dress you gave her, searching for something on paper. Now tell me, please, who are they?"

Florence Nightingale said again, "I don't know."

"But you could venture a guess!"

"As young Lord Whimbrel is just entering the House of Lords, I would guess that his enemies are trying to obtain this artefact in order to embarra.s.s his family name. But equally I could guess that it could be any of the friends or descendants of the officers mentioned in the communication. Indeed, it would be difficult to name any involved person who would not like to find it, including myself." So disarming was this admission that it convinced me of her innocence. "I truly do not know. But I shall find out." She said this in the matter-of-fact tones of a woman who does as she pleases with her life. "I have already taken steps in the matter."

"How so?"

"When I received your note yesterday, it worried me. Even though I could not place Mrs. Tupper in my memory, it worried me exceedingly. So bethinking me of a rather well-known private consulting detective, I sent for him this morning. He should be here any moment now."

It was as if invisible hands clutched me by the throat, trying to strangle me. I felt Miss Nightingale watching my reaction, puzzled yet shrewd.

"Who?" I managed to gasp.

"You might as well tell me your name, dear, for I shall find it out eventually. The gentleman will oblige me, I am sure. I shall employ Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

CHAPTER THE TENTH.

MY BROTHER! MIGHT WALK IN AT ANY MOMENT! AND if he should find me herea"

The kindly reader will please remember that I had been under a great deal of duress, without much rest or sufficient fooda"but truly, there is no excuse. I should have addressed the problem with logic, reasoning it out. I did not.

I blush to admit that, simply put, I panicked. With a yelp I shot to my feet, possessing no rational plan of action, only a blind fervour to flee the premises; without a word of explanation or farewell I darted around Miss Nightingale's bed towards the doora"

But, quite nimbly, Miss Nightingale threw back her covers and jumped out of the other side of the bed, her plump bare feet below the lace hem of her nightgown engaging the floor as if it were a sprinter's starting block; in a few swift strides she reached the door before I could do so, and set her back to it.

This remarkable eventa"an invalid blocking my waya"surprised me so much that astonishment trumped my senseless flight and halted me in the middle of the room.

"Of what are you so frightened?" Florence Nightingale asked.

At the same time I blurted, "What are you doing in a bed if you can walk?"

"Heavens, the impertinence of the younger generation!" But her sweet, low voice did not vary in the slightest. "Return to your chair, dear, and I will endeavour to explain."

Feeling a bit abashed, I did so.

"When I came home after nearly two years of tremendous exertion in the Crimea," remarked my hostess, tucking herself back into her customary seat under her covers, "I fell into total collapse, and quite believed I would die." A sensible enough expectation, as she had been past thirty at the time. "But as the weeks turned to months, indeed, to years, I found myself not only alive, but immersed once more in desperately needed reform, and there was so much important work to be done . . ."

As a rebel myself, at once I understood. "You did not care to spare time for the social amenities." Women of her cla.s.s were expected to go calling, change for dinner, entertain houseguests, attend the theatre, and so on, ad infinitum, spending the better part of their lives serving, rather like epergnes, as useless, decorative objects.

"Exactly." She looked at me in a new way; recognition flew between us. "Now I have told you my secret; you must tell me yours. Why do you conceal your name, and why are you so afraid of Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

I sincerely wished I could tell her the truth: Sherlock Holmes was my brother whom I adored, there was no one whose companionship I would rather have shared; the famous detective wasa"discounting my absent mum, Sherlock and Mycroft were all I had by way of familya"yet their masculine ignorance caused them to feel that they must take me in charge and imprison me in a finishing school or some such den of feminine tortures. Therefore I dared not, could not, must not let them find me.

This was what I wished I could tell the wise and gentle Florence Nightingale, but I knew it could not be so. I said only, "I am terrified that he might find out about me." True enough, although meanwhile, quite desperately my mind cast about for some plausible lie. But at this crisis of all times my imagination deserted me; I could not begin to think what to saya"

Amazingly, Miss Nightingale supplied for me the story I needed. Very gently she said, "It seems to me that the degree of your concern for, ah, Mrs. Tupper, is perhaps a bit unusual if Mrs. Tupper is indeed merely your landlady?"

Oh, good heavens. She thought I was an illegitimate daughter, protecting my (presumably) aristocratic father from the stigma of dalliance witha"

Mrs. Tupper. How absurd. Poor, deaf, penny-pinching Mrs. Tupper, my mother?

Yet not so absurd, for truly, my sweet old landlady was more of a mum to me than my own mothera"

Mum, from whom I had not heard since the incident of the bizarre bouquets, months ago. For whom I dared not search lest I actually find her and learn her true feelings, or lack of any, for me . . . It was not even necessary for me to lie, for long-suppressed injury in that moment attacked my heart with pain so severe, it a.s.saulted my eyes. To my astonishment I found myself crying. The tears running down my face served as my answer.

Obviously a practical-minded person, Miss Nightingale responded by reaching into a night-stand drawer where apparently she kept a supply of neatly pressed, lace-edged handkerchiefs, for she handed me one. "Dear," she offered when I had composed myself a bit, "Mr. Sherlock Holmes is reputed to be the soul of discretion."

But shaking my head, once more I rose to my feet, this time remembering to pick up the leather carrying-case I had brought with me. "You'll excuse me, I'm sure."

Very kindly she did so.

Still in a most unmindful frame of mind, I made straight for the stairs.

A grave mistake. I should have, instead, sought out the narrow back steps that the servants used, gone down through the hidden regions of the house, and exited by way of the kitchen and the garden. But my senses had quite forsaken me; like a fool I ran straight down the same way I had come up, through the music-room and the drawing-room to the wide, main stairway, which I began precipitously to descenda"

"But Miss Nightingale is currently engaged. Moreover, she never sees more than one person at a time," someone below was saying.

"She must make an exception in this case," responded a thrilling, familiar voice.

Nearly toppling with shock and in my hurry to halt, I clutched the banister and clung to it, feeling a bit weak.

"Watson is my right hand in these matters."

Sherlock! And the good Dr. Watson, of course, both of them at the base of the stairway, with Jackanapes trying to tell them that only Holmes would be admitted.

And there, halfway down the stairs and no more than twenty feet away from them, I stood in plain sight and in great disarray of feature, gawping like a dead fish.

Dr. Watson, thank my lucky starsa"for had he looked at me and recognised me as Dr. Ragostin's "secretary," that life would have been all over for mea"the good doctor did not see me. He stood staring off towards one of the salons as if Mesmerised, perhaps by the presence of Mr. Gladstone.

But Sherlock's gaze, hawklike, flew to me. "Enola!" he cried with the most intense excitement and fixity of expression.

Because I could not stop looking at him, yet could not stay, I stumbled backwards up the steps, retreating.

But my brother Sherlock did not move. "Enola," he called. "Stop. Wait. Trust me. Please."

But I truly heard his words only afterwards, like an echo in my dishevelled mind as I tore myself away, fleeing like a deer. Back through drawing-room and music-room I sped, and now, belatedly and in blind panic, I thought of the service stairwaya"but I could not find it! Past the grand piano, past the pedestal table, through pa.s.sageways beyond, turning after turning I opened door after door to discover only antechambers, and I could hear Sherlock's energetic footfalls behind me, and his voice: "Enola! Confound the girl, where's she got to?" Evidently he had pushed past Jackanapes to run upstairs after me, and no doubt Watson had done the same, two against onea"at the thought I sprinted even faster. I began to hear doors slamming as they followed my course. "Enola!"

At this point, as lackwit luck would have it, I blundered upon a winding little stairwaya"but it led only upward. So up I went, to find myself once again outside Florence Nightingale's door.

I opened it, shot into the room, and shut the door behind me.

From beneath her silken eiderdown comforter Miss Nightingale asked softly and sweetly, "Goodness. Whatever is going on?"

Without answering, but seeing that the key stood in the keyhole, I locked the door. Then I darted across the room, around the end of Miss Nightingale's ma.s.sive bed, to the windows that provided such a lovely treetop-level view of her back garden, at the same time unfastening my belt and slipping it through the handle of my satchel. Blessedly, the force of my fear had pushed me beyond fumbling and shaking to a state of extraordinary dexterity and energy. Speedily I refastened my belt, thereby strapping my precious baggage to my waist, even as I scanned my prospects for escape. After a hasty look, I chose one window and flung it open wide.

"Enola!" shouted my brother's voice right outside the door, and I heard him rattle the k.n.o.b.

Miss Nightingale might, of course, have answered him, or got up out of bed, walked to the door, turned the key, and let him in. But she did none of those things. Instead, she lay where she was, watching, I suppose, as I clambered up upon the window-sill, leaned out, and launched myself like a monkey at the nearest tree branch.

My fingers found wood; my hands grasped. Three storeys above the ground I dangled, and descent would have perhaps seemed difficult had not worse difficulties goaded me so that I spent no time in contemplation. Like a veritable orangutan I swung, dropped, clutched another bough, dropped again, scrambled down, and so thumped to the ground. There I sped past a vegetable-garden, under a grape-arbour, behind a privy, and through a copse of linden trees to reach Miss Nightingale's wrought-iron fence. As I vaulted it, I caught a glimpse of Miss Nightingalea"her oddly angled white headgear was unmistakablea"at the window from which I had exited. Though I could scarcely see her expression from the distance, she appeared to observe me with serene interest. I saw no sign of Dr. Watson or my brother.

Once I had got well awaya"on the Underground, riding through a tunnel like a pa.s.sageway to h.e.l.l, densely dark and choked with smokea"I finally had time and presence of mind to think.

Shades of perdition, Enola, now what?

At this very moment, I miserably surmised, my dear Sherlock was talking with my dear Miss Nightingale and putting too many twos and twos together. He would tell Miss Nightingale that I was his missing sister. Miss Nightingale would tell him that the missing Mrs. Tupper was my landlady. Heavens. With a helpless, sinking feeling that traversed the whole of my interior, I realised that I could not go back to Mrs. Tupper's house, for surely Sherlock, as part of his investigation, would find out where she lived.

Therefore, I now had no home.

Nowhere to go, really, for if I were followeda"I could not really say, after all, where Sherlock was, or more villainously, he of the Cla.s.sic Profilea"certainly I must not chance leading either of them to Dr. Ragostin's office.

So I had no refuge.

And no plan.

Seldom had I felt so wretcheda"

Now come, Enola, this will not do.

The voice within my head was Mum's, yet mine. Even if I never saw my mother again, she lived on within me.

You are in danger of losing your freedom, but Mrs. Tupper is in danger of losing her life. After you have found your unfortunate landlady, then you may worry about yourself.

Taking a deep breath of the Underground's acrid air, I shut my eyes to the external darkness.

Now think.

Very well.

Who had kidnapped Mrs. Tupper?

Any of "the people involved," Florence Nightingale had said, might wish to secure the message so as to prevent scandal.

What "people involved"?

And what turn of events had involved them? Mrs. Tupper had lived for more than thirty years in peace with her crinoline crammed into her wardrobe; why now, suddenly, all this turmoil and trouble?

I had no idea.

However, thanks to the leather case which I had long since freed from my belt, I did still have the message.

I ought to finish decoding it.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.

I NEEDED A COPY OF THE MORSE CODE.

Where could I go to find one? The British Museum? Pfui. Den of nasty old men. I needed a haven, a sanctuary. I also, badlya"as I had partaken of none of Miss Nightingale's sconesa"needed something to eat.

Finally my mind resumed functioning properly, for such a welcome thought occurred to me that I actually smiled. Exiting the Underground at the appropriate station, I sought a secluded corner and tidied myself a bit, then walked out again into London's streets, looking smartly about me. There was no sign of the pleasant-faced villain who had been following me, or of any other danger.

Making towards a main thoroughfare, I hailed a cab.

"High Street," I told the cabbie, for I did not wish to sing out for all the world to hear my precise destination.

A bit later, with a sigh of relief, I walked into London's, and perhaps the world's, first Professional Women's Club. I had not been here before, but I knew of the place by reputation. Just as men's clubs admitted no women, this small fortress admitted no men. But whereas men's clubs require new members to be sponsored by the old, the Professional Women's Club democratically welcomed any female who could pay the membership feea"which was quite substantial enough to keep out the undesirable cla.s.ses.

After writing a cheque and receiving my membership card, I went on in, had a look around at the comfortable appointments of this sanctuary, nodded at a few other members (the younger ones, I noticed, clad much as I was), ordered tea and sandwiches, and settled myself in the library with volume M of the encyclopaedia.

Several hours, more tea, and another tray of sandwiches later, turned out as follows: HAVE PROOF WREFORD SELLING SUPPLIES CONSTANTINOPLE MARKET APPEALED CRUIKSHANKS HALL RAGLAN NO AVAIL OFFICERS CALLOUS OR WORSE PROFITTING WHILE MEN FREEZE STARVE DIE BEG YOU USE INFLUENCE VR DESPAIRING FN.

F.N. was of course Florence Nightingale, and V.R. was Victoria Regina, that is to say, Queen Victoria, but Wreford? Cruikshanks? Hall? Raglan?

"Crimean Conflict," in volume C of the Britannica, gave me to know that Cruikshanks was a general in that war, Hall the chief medical examiner, Wreford the army's remarkably inefficient purveyor, and Raglan the charming but utterly incompetent commander of the whole b.l.o.o.d.y mess, as exemplified by the Charge of the Light Brigade, hundreds of cavalrymen sent galloping into death due to an error in orders.

Looking up my suspects individually, I discovered that, like Lord Sidney Whimbrel, they were deceased, beyond my reach to locate or question.

What, therefore, was I now to do?

I had no idea, for presence of mind was difficult to maintain. w.i.l.l.y-nilly, even though I knew it was most unlikely that he could have traced me here, nevertheless I kept imagining Sherlock Holmes waiting to pounce upon me the moment I set foot outside the door. So disturbing were these thoughts that I could not sit still; I roamed the Professional Women's Club, the pleasant modern Oriental furnishings of reading-room, card-room, tea-room, and morning-room lost upon me as I fretted, imagining the most grotesque scenarios involving my brother Sherlock, Miss Nightingale, Mycroft, Dr. Watson, Scotland Yard, magistrates in white wigs, and ghoulish boarding school matrons, ad infinitum.

Enola, this will not do. I needed to think about Mrs. Tupper.

In order to force myself to do so, I realised, I must make a list.

So, taking the nearest seata"on a chintz-upholstered camel-back sofa, very chic, for I found myself in a charming little drawing-room where a few older women had gathered to chata"with paper and pencil in hand I began to write: Where is Mrs. Tupper?