All the while, Watson thinks his best friend is dying. It’s wrenching to read, and even more so as we watch Watson follow Holmes’s orders—the clear product of a hallucinating mind—to the letter. From trust, or affection, or old habit, we’re not sure, but either way, the last of these insane directions has Watson hiding himself in the closet in preparation for Smith’s arrival. Smith comes in. The gaslight is low. Holmes is sweating in feverish agony on the settee. The specialist begins to gloat, thinking he and the detective are alone. That little ivory box? He’d mailed it, fitted with an infected metal spring, hoping to catch Holmes with it unaware. After Smith has confessed everything to Holmes, who he believes to be a dead man, Holmes asks him to turn up the gaslight. It’s a signal: in bursts Inspector Morton of Scotland Yard, who’s been waiting at the door, and Watson, who’s witnessed the whole conversation from the closet. Smith is hauled away to jail.
And Holmes? Not sick at all. He faked his symptoms. Starved himself for three days until he was skin and bone, then applied a convincing coat of stage makeup to make himself appear at death’s door. As for the box—well. He wasn’t in any danger. He reminds Watson that he always thoroughly examines his mail.
Charlotte Holmes had stripped the “Dying Detective” for details and rearranged them to make her own narrative, pulling Lena in on her scheme to sell the story. I wondered who the man in the ski mask was. Tom? Unlikely. Still, it was just the sort of story that our Sherlock-obsessed murderer would’ve seized on and used against us.
The part I couldn’t get over, that distracted me from even this show of Charlotte Holmes’s powers, was remembering how much my great-great-great-grandfather had trusted hers. Oysters, I remembered. Between the instructions he’d given Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes had been ranting, in his “hallucinations,” about oysters.
And his partner had still followed his directions exactly.
I thought about the piped-in interrogation in the police station. About the little notebook that still lay open between us on the table. About how my own doubts about Holmes’s innocence ran alongside my doubt that she could get us out of this mess.
She had just gotten us out of this mess. And no matter what my head wanted to tell me, I knew in my bones that she wasn’t a killer.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” I said to my Holmes, in a low voice.
She shook her head. “I needed your shock to be genuine for me to sell it.”
“I don’t mean about the details. I don’t need to hear the details.” I reached across the table to put my hand on hers. “I meant to say that I won’t doubt you again.”
I watched her catalog me. The planes of my face, the tilt of my head, how I sat in my chair, my fingers’ heat and the ruck of my hair: she took it all in, deduced from what she saw, and came up, in the end, with something she hadn’t expected.
“You won’t,” she said with flat surprise. “You really won’t, will you?”
Next to me, my father cleared his throat. I didn’t spare him a glance.
When Shepard returned from speaking to his team, we gave him the background on the Culverton Smith story. And he told us what we already knew. They had, in fact, found a spring loaded into the ivory box, poised to strike when it was slid open. That spring was coated in an infectious tropical disease; the police lab weren’t sure of its exact origin, but they guessed it to be Asia. Samples of this kind were tightly controlled, and so far, their search into local scientists who had requested access to them had ended in an absolute null.
(I asked Holmes, much later, how she got her hands on the sample. She said something about Milo, an ex-girlfriend at the CDC, and “catching as catch can.”)
“This blows my list of suspects wide open,” Shepard said. “So we’re back to option one. Someone trying their damnedest to frame you two. We’ll need to talk about who out there in the world wants to get you. And I’ll have to notify the station that I won’t be needing a pair of cells. At least not tonight.”
So his plan had been to arrest us.
“Let us help you,” Holmes said. “I’m an official informant for Scotland Yard, and between Watson and me”—I was gratified to be back on a last-name basis—“we’re experts on the killer’s MO. Sherlock Holmes stories? We’re the obvious choice. Not to mention that we can informally question anyone at Sherringford without arousing suspicion, or that you’re getting an excellent chemist and a relatively fearless pugilist in the bargain. We’re not a bargain. We’re luxury goods.”
“No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
Holmes shrugged; she’d anticipated this response. “Then I’ll conduct my own investigation, and deal with the culprit, after I catch him or her, as I see fit.”
“You actually think that threatening vigilante justice will make me want to take you two on?” Shepard demanded. “You’re a child. I don’t know how desperate the police are across the pond, but we play it by the book here. Isn’t it enough that you’re not suspects anymore? I don’t see any reason to put you and Jamie in the line of fire.”
“Really. Then perhaps call Scotland Yard again and ask them about what transpired after I sat through this exact conversation with DI Green. If she’s reluctant to speak to you, tell her you know all about the deep freezer, the meat hook, and how I found her two minutes before the killer returned. Honestly, I might’ve gotten myself there sooner if she hadn’t been such a cow about it. Just the year before I’d recovered three million pounds’ worth of jewels and given her all the credit.” She yawned. “Do it in the morning, though. I’m knackered.”
“But—”
“Mr. Watson, this was a lovely dinner. Would you mind taking us home now?” Without waiting for a response, Holmes disappeared into the garage, her gown trailing after her.
In her flair for the dramatic, she’d left behind my jacket and her phone. I collected them, trying not to feel like her valet.
“That girl is a piece of work,” Shepard said, somewhere between admiration and despair.
“Holmeses.” My father laughed, and reached for his car keys. “Would you know she’s one of the nicer ones?”
seven
IT TOOK SHEPARD LESS THAN A DAY TO AGREE TO HOLMES’S terms.
“You have until Thanksgiving break,” he said to us; I had him on speakerphone. He’d spent all that morning sleuthing in Holmes’s and Lena’s room, and come up empty-handed. I wasn’t surprised. Holmes, of course, had been thorough. “That’s a little less than a month. We’ll share information. Share it, do you understand me? DI Green warned me about how you like to play the magician so you can do the big reveal at the end. That won’t fly here.” A long, scratchy pause. “The only reason I’m allowing this Encyclopedia Brown business is because I don’t want any more hurt kids. You two are included in that. So, Jamie, I need you to keep an eye out for her. I’ve heard you’re a brawler. I’m okay with that.”
“Do you honestly think I can’t take care of myself?” Holmes asked, draped over the love seat like a boneless cat. “I’ll have you know I’m an expert at singlestick and baritsu.”
“Yes, and sometimes a pair of fists is much more useful,” I said, “if less dramatic. I’ll keep an eye out, Detective. Will you clear us publicly?”
“Terrible idea,” Holmes put in. “It might lead to escalation on the murderer’s part if they think they need to reconvince the police of our guilt. No, tell the school privately, but don’t let anyone release a statement.”
“Fine.” More crackling. “I’ll send over what we have so far on the snake.”
“And a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” I said.
“Fine. You should know that we found the ski mask the intruder used in a garbage can outside Stevenson Hall, but we weren’t able to lift any prints off it.”
“These people are too good for that,” Holmes said. I coughed. “But yes, send over the bit about the snake. And I want access to the personnel files of all of Sherringford’s students and employees, including
any EU immigration information.”
“I’d lose my job.”
“You’d lose your job anyway when they find out you’re letting us help.”
Static.
“Done,” he said finally. “Charlotte, Jamie—just keep your mouths shut.”
“Yes, yes,” Holmes said, “thank you,” and hung up on him.
It was Monday at lunch. I’d hidden away in Holmes’s lab in an attempt to finish writing my poem for Mr. Wheatley’s class that afternoon. It was already going badly, but then I watched Holmes finish her calculus problem set in the ten minutes between concluding some frothy, smelly experiment and picking up her violin for a spin through Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata as if it were “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
She threw her bow down. “I have to wait until the school day is over to investigate. Two hours!” she said. “Do you think, if I set fire to the maths building—”
“No.”
“But—”
“Still no. Why don’t you help me with this poem?” I asked, an attempt to derail her. “It needs to be one that’s ‘difficult for me to write,’ whatever that means.”
“What do you have so far?” she asked.
“‘The.’ Or maybe ‘A,’ I’m not sure.”
“I’m bad with words.” She sat down next to me. “Too imprecise. Too many shades of meaning. And people use them to lie. Have you ever heard someone lie to you on the violin? Well. I suppose it can be done, but it would take far more skill.”
“Speaking of lying,” I said. “Who played your masked man, the other night?”
“One of Lena’s on-and-off hookups. I knew I needed a failsafe, and Lena was willing to play along. We’d laid the groundwork up a week ago. All she needed was the go-ahead. She’d been telling him she loved scary movies, and being afraid sort of turned her on, and asking him if he had a ski mask—that sort of thing. All she had to do was mention that I’d be away on Sunday night. He didn’t question it at all when she screamed and chased him out, and after, I had her put a fresh mask I’d taken from the athletics shed into the bin outside. Really, it’s a good thing she’s so completely insane. It means she can get away with anything.”
“And how is she holding up, after her ‘scare’?”
“Oh, fine,” she said airily. “I think she’s counting the days until her new handbag comes in the post.”
I put my pen down. “I thought you might pay her off. With what money?”
She bit her lip. “She wouldn’t take any. Which, to be honest, makes me nervous.”
“The fact that she likes you enough to help you for free? That makes you nervous?”
“I’d rather deal in quantifiable transactions,” she said. “But she said she’d made a killing at poker and reminded me that her allowance is staggering. After that, she sat me down in front of her laptop and made me help her pick out something called a minaudière. It looks like a bejeweled toad.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering what it meant that Holmes had never once offered to pay me.
“I have a rainy-day fund, you know,” she said, not quite looking at me. “Until recently, it was raining . . . rather a lot. But I . . . I’ve been trying to use an umbrella.”
“See, and you say you’re bad with words. I’m stealing that.” I scrawled it down.
She drifted over to her bookshelf and lit a cigarette. With the toe of her shoe, she tapped her copy of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes before she leaned down to pick it up. I could tell I’d lost her to her thoughts.
It seemed as good a time as any to do the thing I’d been avoiding.
The hospital corridors were empty when I arrived, carrying a bunch of flowers. It wasn’t hard to find the right ward. They had it guarded like Fort Knox. Thankfully, Detective Shepard had had the wherewithal to put my name on the visitor list, and after showing my ID to two separate policemen, I was allowed into her room.
I’d been told that she was awake, but her eyes were closed when I came in. She looked terrible. Her blond hair was matted to her head with sweat, her arms wound in tubes and tape. Strangely enough, she was clutching a whiteboard to her chest in the way you would a teddy bear. As quietly as I could, I put the flowers on the table beside her bed and debated writing her a note. Was that what the board was for?
While I stood there, Elizabeth opened one eye, then the other.
“Hi,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind that I came.”
She shook her head no, though I wasn’t sure if it was No, I don’t mind, or No, actually, leave.
“May I sit down?”
A nod.
“How long until you get your voice back?” I asked. When Detective Shepard said that Elizabeth had been unable to speak to the police, I hadn’t thought he meant it literally.
Slowly, achingly, she pulled a marker out from the folds of her blanket and scrawled something down on the board. I peered over at what she was writing. Don’t know, it said.
I didn’t mean to interrogate her. That wasn’t why I’d come. Besides, Shepard had told us that Elizabeth’s parents had asked the police for a few days’ grace for their daughter. They said that she had been through enough without being forced to relive it all.
“I’m sorry,” I told Elizabeth, looking down at my hands. I’d come to apologize. It was why I hadn’t brought Holmes. Apologizing was the kind of thing that made her break out in hives.
A scribbling sound. For what?
“For what happened to you. You didn’t deserve this. Any of it. I’m sorry.”
I don’t remember all of it. But the detective told me you found me and got help. Thank you. Her exhausted eyes met mine. Exhausted, and gentle. I didn’t deserve that gentleness.
“I hope you feel better soon,” I said, standing to leave.
Scribbling again. Detective said “blue carbuncle” to my parents. He thought I was asleep. Explanation?
I sat back down. “Do you know the story?”
A headshake. She scrubbed her board blank with her hospital gown and wrote Talk fast. My parents went to get takeout. They won’t tell me anything but I need to know. She furiously underlined the last four words.
I understood what it was like, being kept in the dark.
“It’s a Sherlock Holmes story,” I began, “about a rare missing diamond. A blue carbuncle. One that a policeman finds in the throat of a dead Christmas goose on the street. Holmes and Watson trace the goose back to its breeder, and from there, to the breeder’s brother. He’d stolen the gem from a countess and hidden it in a goose’s craw.”
It was the quick and dirty version, the boring one—all facts, no flair. It left out all the details that made the story something I loved. But Sherlock Holmes’s strategies and Dr. Watson’s observations didn’t have a place in this guarded hospital room.
Even so, Elizabeth listened avidly. When I’d finished, she held up her whiteboard. So I guess I’m the goose.
I hesitated, and she lifted her eyebrows in a challenge. “Guess so,” I said.
Fucked up.
“Yeah.” It was, impossibly so. “How much do you remember about that night?”
Not much. Seeing you. Making out with Randall. They showed me the thing that was in my throat.
“Did you recognize it?”
No. Her eyes were imploring. Do you know anything about it?
“The police are trying to solve this as fast as they can.” I took a deep breath. “Did Randall do this to you? Do you remember?”
She shook her head, blushing a little. I don’t remember his face, but I DO remember what the guy said. “Give my regards to Charlotte Holmes.” I don’t think Randall would say that.
There was a commotion outside the door. “Who did you let in to see my daughter? A friend? What’s his name?” I didn’t hear the police officer’s reply. Hastily, Elizabeth rubbed her board clean and then started writing something else.
Elizabeth’s mother barged into the room, her arms full of Chinese food. “Don’t tell me,” sh
e said in a dangerous voice. “You’re Jamie Watson. You’re the one that found her.”
She might have said found her, but it was clear what she meant was attacked her. Elizabeth’s eyes seized on mine.
“No,” I said, extending a hand. “I’m Gary. Gary Snyder.” He was a poet we were reading in Mr. Wheatley’s class, one I vigorously hated.
“And what exactly are you doing here, Gary Snyder?”
Elizabeth tugged on her mother’s sleeve. She held up her whiteboard: a half-completed tic-tac-toe game.
Charlotte Holmes would have been proud.
Her mother deflated. “We’ve just been so worried, sweetie,” she said, and burst into tears over her daughter’s bed.
I took that as my cue to leave. I think I have some leads, I texted Holmes in the elevator.
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to find Detective Shepard waiting for me on the sofa in Sciences 442.
“So, next time, tell me when you’re planning on pulling something,” I said, hanging up my jacket. “Her parents were conveniently gone? Oh, Elizabeth couldn’t talk to the detective, but she could easily talk to me. What, did you wait until I stepped out the door and then had the hospital cafeteria closed?” The last was directed at Holmes.
Across the room, she poked at her vulture skeleton until it spun in circles. “For the record, I merely waited until you left and then had Emperor Kitchen offer free takeout to all the families in the ICU. I’ll make Milo pay for it. I told you he’d go either today or tomorrow,” she said to Shepard. “You should trust me more often, you know. I am the world’s foremost Jamie Watson scholar.”
“Look, I’m happy to question her, but next time, I want to be in the loop. Otherwise I’m just going to build my own chessboard and let you move me around it.”
“Stop being dramatic, and tell us what happened,” Shepard said, sounding like he wanted to get out of 442 as quickly as possible. I couldn’t blame him—Holmes had lit up her jar of teeth from behind, probably in anticipation of the detective’s visit. It was, I thought, her version of hanging fairy lights.
A Study in Charlotte Page 13