by Kim Newman
The woman was one of the original trio. Perhaps the cleverest, most devious operator ever attached to the Agency. Subsequent Angels all pressed him for memories of her. In tight spots, they asked, ‘What would Irene Adler do?’ Ysabel de Ferre, who didn’t care for anyone, wanted to grow up to be Irene Adler.
Irene had fought Countess de Cagliostro and walked out on the Opera Ghost Agency… outshot all comers in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and stolen A.J. Raffles’s cufflinks from the shirt he was wearing… matched wits with Professor Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, and got the better of both of them… gone up in a balloon and down in a submarine, and set the fastest time from Berlin to Warsaw in a Benz Motorwagen… been courted by plutocrats and pirates… had crown jewels pressed on her as keepsakes by besotted royals and showed spirit by tossing them into north Italian lakes. She had played many sides against each other and taken trick after trick for her own.
A husband who could deceive her was more than extraordinary.
Godfrey Norton must be scarcely human. No man at all.
‘He’s done nothing suspicious. Nothing at all. You see what I mean?’
‘That’s what makes you suspicious.’
‘I knew you’d see it. People like us see it. Others don’t. Innocent men seem guilty. All the time. Guilty men don’t. And even they have tells. I’ve known enough of all sorts. Fools and villains, dupes and geniuses, innocent and guilty.’
Irene hadn’t changed that much. She was not a fluttery wife, jealous of every pretty shopgirl.
She was angry, but cool. Angry with herself for being put in this position, but not so furious she’d make more mistakes.
She would not be driven mad. She would not stay at home and watch the wallpaper fade.
After masterminds and monsters, she would not be bested by a husband.
‘God never asks about before… about what I was, what I did. When I was an Angel of Music… and afterwards. My exploits and adventures. He knows, in a general way of knowing. But it’s as if he’s not interested.’
‘Not interested in you? Is he – perhaps – of the other persuasion? You said he went to an English school. Many take wives to conceal such an inclination.’
‘I don’t mean that. He is interested in the bedroom mazurka, like all men. And his interests are aimed at women – at me – not some passing lad. Believe me, I’ve known enough menfolk to spot a three-dollar bill a mile off.’
‘I had to ask.’
‘You did.’
Irene found her cigarette case empty. The Persian had only cigars.
‘What I mean when I say he’s not interested in my past is that he should be. He should be obsessed… to distraction. Any man would be. I’ve known them ask so many questions I get bored and make up all sorts of foolishness. Just to get rid of them.’
‘Surely, your husband is extraordinary?’
Irene shook her head. ‘No. I had my fill of extraordinary. You get tired of it in the end. Don’t you?’
The Persian didn’t answer.
‘I wanted an ordinary man. A fine man, to be sure. But not another damn genius… I love God for what he is. What I thought he was. What he cannot be. I’ve made a mistake…’
‘Which is not like you.’
‘No it isn’t! Thank you for saying so. I’ve tricked myself. After tricking everyone else, it was the only thing left. Without meaning to, I’ve hooked someone so extraordinary I can’t see the join of his mask. And he’s hooked me, deep. Do you know what it takes to frighten me? To put the honest fear into people like us?’
The Persian thought a moment.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have an idea of what that might be.’
‘Will the Agency take my case?’
Could this be a trick? Was Irene setting out to use the Opera Ghost Agency in some way? As an alternative or a preliminary to divorce or mariticide? Were she and this Norton working some scheme against Erik? Against her successor Angels? Against him? He did not think so. He had seen her lie often enough to think her sincere now.
‘I shall advise it,’ he said.
‘I’ll be here tomorrow.’
* * *
‘Irene, this is Ayda Heidari,’ said the Persian. ‘She’s a vampire.’
‘The rooftop kind, not the bloodsucking bat kind,’ said Ayda.
‘She was with Les Vampires, but is on the side of the Angels for the moment.’
Ayda smiled. The young Peruvian was quick-witted and had good instincts. The O.G.A. were fortunate to have her while she was deciding what to do next. She had acquitted herself well in the Matter of the Aquarium Abductions and the Mystery of Roger Mariette.
‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ said Irene.
Ayda was in awe of Irene Adler.
‘I am Mrs Norton,’ Irene said.
‘Erik thought it best not to unloose the whole of our present troika on your husband. Not at first. Ayda, if you would…’
Ayda nodded and looked down at her hand like a policeman giving evidence in court. Angels didn’t take notes, but Erik taught memory tricks. Ayda liked the invisible notebook device.
‘It’ll take a few days’ watching to be sure of his routine, but yesterday your husband left the offices of Liddle, Neal & Liddle on Rue de la Pompe at five o’clock precisely and walked to the apartment you have on Avenue Victor Hugo. He stopped only…’
‘…to buy me flowers. I know.’
‘…to buy flowers. I assumed they were for you.’
‘God’s not a petty cheat, Mademoiselle Heidari. He’s cleverer than that.’
‘He spent the evening at your apartment. The lights went out at…’
‘I know when.’
‘Monsieur Erik likes us to be thorough in every detail.’
‘I know that too.’
The Persian saw Irene was cool towards Ayda. He suspected she’d like the sharp-witted, fiercely moral, beautiful gypsy Hagar even less and the amoral, determined, imaginative Ysabel least of all. Odd – she had liked Christine and Trilby, her Angels. All of Erik’s recruits were unique, so she should not feel herself forgotten and replaced. But each of the women would be reminders of what Irene Adler had been.
It hurt to see Irene in distress.
‘While you were asleep, your husband got up for a few minutes. He used the water closet. He did nothing else.’
Irene nodded.
‘It’s not suspicious,’ said Ayda. ‘He is English. He drank much tea with your evening meal.’
‘I’ve never said God wasn’t English.’
Ayda was cowed. She was reluctant to say more.
‘Go on, Ayda,’ said the Persian. ‘What else?’
‘Not much. This morning, Mr Norton got up, dressed, shaved, breakfasted, kissed you and went to work. He has the English papers delivered to his office, also Le Figaro and Le Matin. I believe he is working to improve his French.’
‘You are a super sleuth.’
‘No,’ said Ayda, tartly, ‘that would be Miss Stanley. I am a spy. I was a thief.’
Irene was being snippy.
‘I brushed against your husband last night and took his wallet,’ said Ayda. ‘It contains nothing incriminating, unless you count a portrait photograph of you as La Belle Hélène in Warsaw. I gave him back the wallet this morning.’
‘He didn’t miss it.’
‘He wouldn’t. I substituted a leather pad of the same size and weight.’
‘You’re a cunning little vixen.’
‘We’re all clever, Mrs Norton. The question is whether we’re clever enough. Clever enough for you. And clever enough for your husband.’
Irene seized on that.
‘You think he’s hiding something?’
Ayda nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘And your evidence?’
Irene was almost angry, as if she now wanted to defend the husband she had turned Ayda loose on.
‘You,’ said Ayda. ‘You think he hides things from you, that he has secrets and dark purp
oses…’
‘Yes?’
‘…and all I know about you suggests you are usually right. You see what I don’t. You’re in the room with him, not shinned up a drainpipe outside the window. If you think he’s false, that’s evidence enough for me.’
Irene blew smoke. She showed her old steel.
‘You are darn tooting right, Mademoiselle Heidari. Ayda. I needed to hear someone say it out loud.’
‘I recommend that Hagar looks at Liddle, Neal & Liddle. They look respectable enough, but they’re bankers and therefore likely to be bigger crooks than the vampires I used to run with. Do you think your husband’s secret is to do with his business?’
Irene chewed it over. ‘It would be dull if it were. I don’t see God as an embezzler or pedlar of crooked stock.’
‘Men like him are the best at it, Irene.’
‘You are good,’ said Irene, directly. Earlier, she had been cold. Now, the Persian saw she meant it.
‘I also suggest that Ysabel take a run at him, if you’ve no objections.’
‘She is your… ah, seductress?’
‘Ysabel de Ferre, Duchess of Jorsica,’ said the Persian. ‘Though good luck finding the place on a map.’
‘I know her by reputation.’
‘She has one of those, all right.’
‘So had I.’
‘I don’t mean Ysabel should throw herself at Mr Norton,’ said Ayda. ‘Just see if she can intrigue him. Is he intriguable?’
‘I should think not. I’ve intrigued him. He’ll stay intrigued.’
‘Ysabel likes a challenge.’
‘You know I once beat Annie Oakley and Frank Butler in a shooting contest? The best shots in the world, or at least in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.’
‘I had heard that.’
In Dressing Room 313, the Persian read aloud the account in the Illustrated London News. He liked to keep Irene’s legend alive.
‘Shooting isn’t my game. Intrigue is. If I can beat the best in something that isn’t my game, how likely is it that I can be beaten in something which is?’
Irene was even teasing now.
‘I didn’t mean to suggest…’
Irene laughed. ‘I’m not offended. Let your doxy drop handkerchiefs and lift her hem and pop her blouse buttons for all the good it’ll do. God stays on my side… of the bed.’
The Persian hoped Irene would not come to regret becoming a client of the Agency.
* * *
After three weeks, the Persian knew more about Godfrey Norton than his own brother did.
The Englishman had done nothing dishonourable in his life.
Given a prime opportunity by Ysabel to do something dishonourable, he made his excuses, put on a bowler hat and left. The Duchess had laid out the possibility for a financial coup as well as an afternoon’s dalliance. Godfrey Norton sent a stern cable to the eighty-five-year-old ‘Young Mr Liddle’ advising the bank not to take on Ysabel de Ferre as a client.
He even told Irene about his brush with an adventuress.
Was he a new product of the Système de M. Coppélius et Sig. Spallanzani? The patent mechanical husband. Unless the doll-making process was very much improved, it was unlikely. Still, he had Hagar check up on the fabricants de mannequins. Both had died years ago. Another token of leaves falling from the calendar. Olympia, the Clockwork Angel, was still on display in Erik’s lair. Occasionally, he would wind her up and have her dance. She was even useful to the Agency from time to time.
Irene came to the Café de la Paix for regular reports. The Persian looked forward to the meetings, but was always disappointed. When she wasn’t there, he believed in the Irene of old… but when she was sat in front of him, puffing on cigarettes, it was a blow to the heart to see her so fractured.
She was not reassured by the progress of the investigation.
The more innocent Godfrey Norton proved to be, the guiltier he seemed to her.
Ayda, who had been following the man all this time, whispered that their home life was becoming chilly. The Nortons didn’t argue, but didn’t get on as before either. Mr Norton was puzzled, but patient. On his daily walk home, he stopped frequently at the florist’s and the chocolatier to buy gifts. Then, he had a spring in his step, and quivered with what Ayda read as eager anticipation, but disappointment waited at his hearth. Only he was too polite and decent to let it show to Irene.
Even in this state, he wasn’t tempted by Ysabel – who was furious enough to want to be off the case entirely.
Ayda reported that she might as well drop the boy’s clothes and oversized caps she’d been wearing. Godfrey Norton didn’t notice women who weren’t his wife. Ayda could wear a can-can dancer’s costume and walk three paces behind him for weeks and he wouldn’t turn round to see who was rustling feathers.
Hagar went over the books of Liddle, Neal & Liddle – abstracted from their offices as a special favour to the Agency by Ayda’s old comrade, Irma Vep of Les Vampires – and found not a centime in the wrong column. The gypsy was a genius with figures, and – without setting eyes on handsome, upright Godfrey – cultivated a platonic admiration for the bank’s beautiful books, with their infallibly correct tallies and carry-overs. If Hagar Stanley had her way, Godfrey Norton would be put in charge of everything to do with money. When this case was resolved, she would move her personal accounts to the firm of Liddle, Neal & Liddle.
The Angels found nothing to Godfrey Norton’s discredit.
Irene frowned. And bought more cigarettes.
The Persian had only one recourse. He sent a telegram to another alumna of the Opera Ghost Agency, now re-established under her own shingle.
* * *
‘La Marmoset is the greatest detective in Europe,’ said the Persian.
‘Really?’ said Irene, stubbing out a cigarette. ‘What can you tell from this ashtray?’
‘That you smoke too much,’ said La Marmoset.
The woman who had joined the Persian and Irene at his table in the Café de la Paix did not look like anyone he’d ever met before. She had short, dark hair and large, tinted spectacles. She carried an umbrella with a fox-head handle and wore a long red coat.
‘Mrs Norton has concerns about her husband,’ said the Persian.
‘Husbands,’ said La Marmoset, biting down on the word.
‘Just the one,’ said Irene.
‘I was referring to the species, not the specimen,’ said La Marmoset. ‘Little good comes of husbands.’
Evidently, the memory of Mr Calhoun was still fresh.
‘You have been beaten?’ ventured La Marmoset.
‘No,’ admitted Irene. ‘Not at all.’
‘Robbed?’
‘Decidedly not.’
‘Deceived with other women?’
‘I wouldn’t need a detective if that were the case.’
La Marmoset smiled. ‘No, you would need Sophy Kratides…’
Irene knew the name. ‘The assassin? No. I wouldn’t hire out murder.’
‘Nor should you. It’s inefficient.’
‘I don’t want God killed,’ said Irene.
‘God?’
‘Godfrey Norton,’ explained the Persian. ‘Her husband.’
‘You married God? All women think so, then discover the Devil in their home.’
‘Are you married?’ asked Irene.
‘Not at present.’
‘But you have been?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry to say.’
‘Then you’ll understand. It’s not that God has done anything… has given cause for suspicion… has ever been anything but transparent and kindly and loving. It’s that…’
‘Yes, I understand perfectly.’
Officially, Mr Calhoun had abandoned his wife and disappeared.
The Persian was unnerved by the way Irene and La Marmoset were together. They stoked each other’s fires.
‘May I have a cigarette?’ asked the detective.
* * *
After a mo
nth, La Marmoset turned in her report and her resignation.
‘I thought there was no such thing as a blameless husband,’ she said. ‘I was wrong. I have torn up my bill. There is no mystery to solve.’
Irene was near tears.
La Marmoset apologised again and left the café.
The Persian attempted to comfort Irene.
‘He is a monster,’ she said. ‘He must be.’
Nothing would break her conviction.
Even the Persian now saw only freakishness in Godfrey Norton’s decency.
It must be a mask.
The Angels, skilled and dispassionate, had drawn a blank. La Marmoset, predisposed to think the worst of husbands, had failed.
‘I hesitate to bring it up, but Erik has a suggestion. A last resort, as it were, but still a resort.’
‘Anything,’ said Irene.
The Persian didn’t want to say more, but Erik had spoken.
‘If you will consent to be hypnotised…’
Irene was horrified. The Persian knew how she felt about submitting to a mesmerist’s will. It was why she had left the Agency.
‘Under the fluence, Erik can sort through your memory,’ said the Persian. ‘He can turn up things you know that you do not know you know. You may have seen a clue others have missed. Ayda, Hagar, Ysabel, La Marmoset. They’re talented, but you’re closer to Godfrey. Something in the picture of your life together is wrong – a splash of dark where there should be colour. Erik can help you find it. He has done it before, with clients. I have seen a man sketch in detail a face glimpsed and forgotten years before. A woman recall in accurate particular the figures set down in a ledger which lay open on a desk in a room where she was attacked. In both cases, crimes were exposed and criminals brought to justice because of this.’
Irene was still unhappy about the idea.
In her day as an Angel, Erik used his skill to control his protégées – to make dolls of them. If he had set aside such methods, it was at least partially because using hypnotism meant he could not have Irene – or anyone with her spirit – as an agent.
It was only with her departure that the Persian realised Erik could change his mind.
Yet, the matter had come up again. Did Erik relish the chance to bring his errant Angel to book, to make her submit to him?
For Irene, the loss of control was terrifying. Perhaps the most terrifying thing she could think of.