A Question of Holmes

by Brittany Cavallaro

  At that, Anwen stopped breathing. For a moment, only, but I was watching for it.

  “And so after that I went home, where no one knew anything about it, and no one would talk to me about it. Including my parents. So fuck them. I did a lot of this”—Theo lofted his glass full of rum—“and cutting class to go boxing with Gael and like, fuck around downtown, and so I got a bunch of Cs in the fall. But fuck it, Laurence Olivier didn’t have to do AP fucking Physics so why should I, especially when I was going to acting conservatory in the fall?” He looked around the room. “Tell me.”

  “I can’t,” Anwen said softly.

  “So then my mom talked to the Boston Players Club about giving away my part in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time—”

  “Oh God, Theo—”

  “—the lead,” he bit out, “which I had auditioned for in the months after I got home from Matilda disappearing, but why does that matter? My parents said I had to focus on my grades, which didn’t matter, because senior spring and the Guthrie conservatory program emphatically did not care. So I understudied instead. Understudying’s the same, right? Totally the same. So yeah, Anwen, my spring was great. Fucking awesome.”

  “That’s cold, Theo,” Rupert said, and he sat down next to Anwen on the rug, tucking one thin arm around her shoulders. “She didn’t deserve that.”

  Theo stared at them, then viciously bit his lip. “Fine,” he said.

  “Do better than that,” Rupert said, with an edge I hadn’t seen before.

  “Fine,” Theo said again, and then, “fine. I’m sorry. Look, I wouldn’t’ve met Gael if—if Matilda hadn’t ended things with me. Her disappearing . . . I couldn’t do anything about that. But it was all I could think about. The only thing, figuring out where she’d gone, that maybe she’d given me some clue and I’d been too stupid to see it for what it was, and then, these last few months, thinking about coming back here . . . I kept thinking, and it was so stupid, but . . .”

  None of it seemed rehearsed. It looked and sounded genuine—the confusion, the grief, the sad, soft eyes.

  But I had seen Theo do Shakespeare that afternoon. I knew what he could do with words.

  “You thought maybe she’d come back,” Anwen murmured to him. “Like magic. Maybe you’d both come back here, to Oxford in the summer, and it would all be the same as it was.”

  It was a wild thing for her to say to a boy in the throes of grief. I expected him to fire back with renewed outrage. But Rupert hung his head, and Anwen turned to tuck her face into his shoulder, and Theo stared up at the ceiling, the vein in his neck still showing, and I watched in fascination, the three of them rearranging their dynamic once again.

  “What was it like?” Watson asked, pulling a leg up to his chest. “Last summer?”

  “It was—” Anwen sighed. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  But she did begin, and Rupert picked up when she trailed off, and even Theo, finally, joined in, his head tipped back on the couch, words spinning up into the air. The three of them together on the floor of Theo’s room, Anwen hemming a skirt she’d bought at a charity shop while Rupert read his economics textbook out loud, asking, periodically, if he had in fact forgotten how to speak English or if the author had. The first time they’d seen Theo perform, not onstage but in the bathroom of their suite, jumping up to balance on the clawfoot tub while he did a blistering monologue from This Is Our Youth, Rupert throwing popcorn at his face to see if it would faze him. It didn’t; Theo caught a kernel in his mouth and yelled so loudly in triumph that their downstairs neighbors hammered at the ceiling with a broom. The second week, when they discovered they could take out punts from the boathouse, Anwen had brought a Bluetooth speaker and played experimental jazz as Rupert maneuvered them through the River Cherwell. They did it every afternoon, the three of them on the water, the three of them at their Italian restaurant, the rituals they developed by accident and then held to because they were theirs. Anwen adding ruffles to her socks, adding a lining to a coat, buying silk scarves from Oxfam and making them into pocket squares for their blazers, all three of them, in complimentary shades of green, paisley. And nights, then, at the St. Genesius theater, where Theo met Matilda.

  “We can show you videos,” Rupert said, tugging his phone from his pocket. “I took a few last summer, back before things went wrong.”

  Theo turned his head. “Go on,” he said hoarsely. “Show them your evidence.”

  Watson and I exchanged a look.

  There it was. Why they had come to us first, before they had even gone home.

  We knew the two of us weren’t entirely anonymous; even before the Lucien Moriarty case ended up in the tabloids, our last names made us conspicuous targets. And it wasn’t precisely a secret that I’d been brought in by Dr. Larkin to help.

  But I didn’t want them to think of me as a detective. Not yet. I wanted them to think of me as a friend. To confide in me as a friend.

  “I’d love to see her,” I said quietly.

  “Aha,” Rupert said, scrolling. Watson pulled his chair forward. “Here’s a good one. At the Parks, last June.” He held the screen out between us.

  The camera shakily panned over a long grassy expanse, trees shimmering in the distance. The light was red and soft, as it was the hour after sunset or before sunrise. Anwen came into frame, her hair an exuberant mess. She held a hand over her face. “Rupert, don’t, I’m a shambles,” she said, laughing, and the camera jerked over to Theo. He was bundled in a letterman jacket, too big for him in the shoulders, and he was turned on his side with his arm thrown over—

  Matilda.

  “Rupert,” she sighed, stretching her arms over her head, “what are you doing?” There were the remains of a picnic basket beside her: cupcake wrappers, a few empty bottles of wine. They’d been drinking.

  “Making something to watch later,” he said. “Tell me a secret.”

  (Anwen and Rupert, on my uncle’s sofa, exchanged a significant glance. Was this the video they thought they’d show me?)

  “You first,” Matilda said sleepily. “I’ve been in the sun all day. I’m wiped clean.”

  Rupert, always obliging: “Sure,” he said. “Let me think. Hmmm . . . ha! How about, when I was twelve, do you know what I asked for, for Christmas?” A triumphant pause. “Backup singers!”

  Anwen giggled, pulling at a bottle of wine. “Too many music videos.”

  “It’s not a secret,” Matilda’s voice said, and she pushed herself up on her arm, her dark eyes knowing. “A secret is something embarrassing. Something compromising, something with power. Secrets are what we make art from.”

  Theo couldn’t tear his eyes off her.

  (I understood it. Her words were pretentious, but the way she spoke them—slowly, deliberately—all I wanted was to look at her. When Rupert’s camera panned back to Anwen, I made a tiny sound of disappointment.)

  “You can’t make art from my secrets,” Anwen said, in an attempt to match Matilda’s tone.

  “Oh?” Matilda, off-screen. “Mine aren’t my secrets, you know. I keep everyone’s secrets. Rupert’s. Theo’s. My parents’.”

  “Your parents have secrets?” Theo asked. “Mine just go to work and go home. Like machines.”

  “My mother didn’t, but now she’s dead,” Matilda said in a singsong voice. “My father spins his art from secrets. And my stepmother has none.” She started laughing, a low, throaty sound, and Theo tugged her to him.

  “You’ve been drinking, lady,” he said, but her laughter was contagious, and he joined in.

  “I’ve been drinking so much,” she gasped out. “Am I just talking nonsense?”

  “Yes,” Anwen said, with a laugh that sounded forced, and she reached up a hand for Rupert’s camera. “Give me that,” she said, “and get a beer. We need to catch up.”

  The video ended.

  I was starting to get a better idea now.

  “She had a way of rearranging a room,” Anwen was
saying, “just by sitting there, making some people nervous, making some people . . . excited, and it was because she was so watchful.” She looked over at me. “You have a little of the same quality.”

  Theo’s eyes opened.

  Matilda, Anwen had said yesterday. It’s all her fault. It would do me no good to repeat it now; the three of them would clamp down, the scene would devolve into chaos.

  “It’s not that I mind you guys being here,” Watson said carefully, “but . . . why? Why come to our flat?”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Theo said suddenly. “You’re James Watson. She’s Charlotte Holmes. I’ve read the news articles. I get it—”

  There it was.

  “Oh, come on,” Watson said, leaning forward. “There isn’t anything to get.”

  But he barreled on. “You wouldn’t be here unless there was a mystery to solve. That’s what you do. I read the Daily Mail article, Jamie, after I met you—I thought your name had sounded familiar.” He glanced over at me. “I’m keeping my ears away from her, for starters.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I do get tempted.”

  “We’re here because we want to go to university,” Watson said, standing. He was steady, sober. I wondered how much he’d actually drunk, how much he’d stealthily poured into the planter in the corner. “Charlotte’s been here since the winter, living with her uncle. This is his flat. And I’m here because I want to be with her. Full stop. I’m sorry to tell you this, and I’m sorry all this shit has been happening, but we are just trying to live our lives.”

  He said it so firmly I nearly believed it. It might be worthwhile to get Watson some acting lessons; who knew what he could accomplish then?

  “But that’s—” Anwen struggled for words. “We need your help!”

  “I thought you came here because Rupert was somehow cast in a lead role,” Watson said flatly.

  Her lip wobbled, and she buried her face into Rupert’s cardigan. “Real nice, Watson,” he said. “We don’t know what to do next. This is the second time in two years that we’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn’t look like coincidence anymore.”

  “We were in with the police all night.” Theo took a swig of his drink. “And when I got home, I had an email with the cast list. They’re going to put on the fucking show. And—and Rupert—”

  Rupert sighed, his hand on the back of Anwen’s head as she hiccupped. “And Dr. Quigley, bless his stupid heart, insisted that everyone in the theater audition because there was a ‘paucity of male actors,’ and when he hauled me up there, I reminded him that I didn’t have anything memorized, so I just read one of Hamlet’s monologues from a book.”

  “Straight-up ‘To be or not to be,’” Theo said, “and you killed it.” And despite everything, there it was—that thread of appreciation for even his competition’s talent.

  “I just channeled you,” Rupert protested.

  “Really, Rup,” Anwen said. “I know it was a lark to do it, but—”

  “But what?” he asked, his shoulders beginning to rise.

  “But you don’t want to be an actor,” she protested. “Is it really fair to take the role, when Theo didn’t even get to perform this spring? You heard him talk about his part in Boston!”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Rupert said quietly. “But what does it have to do with me?”

  “Stop it, Anwen.” Theo pushed himself off the sofa. “I’m Polonius. It’s a good role, though not exactly what I wanted, and—and, well.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged, shuffling off to the bathroom. “And Charlotte, you’re understudying Ophelia. Not sure how that one happened.”

  At least I had an answer prepared. “I ran my monologue for Dr. Larkin yesterday,” I said. “I wrote her this afternoon and told her I wasn’t well, so she must have counted that as my audition.”

  “There weren’t a lot of female roles this go-round,” Rupert said. “Good work.” Anwen had stilled against his chest.

  Watson put a hand on my shoulder. “We should all sleep,” he said. “Get a handle on things tomorrow. I’m sure you’re all wrecked.”

  “And the police have an appointment with me in the morning,” Rupert said, as Anwen drew away from him slowly. He helped her to her feet, and she held on to his waist, a throw blanket dangling from one hand. Rupert took it from her, laying it with extreme care on the velvet sofa.

  “Shall we?” she asked him softly. “I’m knackered.”

  He looked unaccountably—or, rather, accountably—thrilled. Without waiting for Theo, he took her by the elbow and steered her down the stairs.

  Before she changed her mind, I thought uncharitably.

  “Anwen forgot her raincoat.” Watson looked down at me. “You okay?”

  I didn’t like being handled as though I were glass. I was aware, however, that I still felt quite a bit like glass. “Tired,” I said. “I’ve taken notes for hours in my head. It’ll take some sorting.”

  Theo stumbled back into the living room. He flung out a hand against the wall for balance. “Figures. They leave?”

  “They left.” Watson peered at him. “You okay, man?”

  “Fine. I’m fine, I—” He put a hand to his stomach.

  “Not fine,” Watson said, and when he took a step toward him, Theo took one back.

  “Don’t trust her,” he burst out. “Don’t trust Anwen. She’s not who you think she is, and I—oh God,” he said, and he ran into the kitchen. I flinched half a second before it happened: him retching into the kitchen sink. Watson ran over to help him. The sound of running water, of coughing.

  I had, thankfully, already done the dishes.

  “You,” Watson said, steering Theo back toward the sofa, “sleep here. Bathroom’s that way, you know that. I’ll get you water. Shoes are off? Good. Lay facedown. Good man.”

  Within moments, Theo was snoring. “I’ll kip in the chair,” Watson said, throwing the blanket over him. “I’ll check in every few hours, make sure he’s all right.”

  “Your accent is back,” I said, charmed despite everything.

  “My accent?” Watson smiled. “I didn’t notice. Do you like it?”

  “Like home,” I told him. “Always like home.”

  He put his arms around my waist. “Anwen, huh.”

  “Anwen,” I said. “Or Theo. But more than that—I have so many questions. The precollege suites are for four people, not three. Who was their fourth, last year? Why don’t they mention him?”

  Watson lifted his head to look at Theo, prone on the couch. “Some poor fucker who tried to stay out of their way? The three of them are a drama tornado.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s something to look into.”

  Dr. Larkin’s death. Matilda’s disappearance. I couldn’t see a way the two couldn’t be connected. I couldn’t see how these three maddening people weren’t at the heart of it.

  “I’ll go see Sadiq in the morning. Please don’t let Theo choke on his own vomit.”

  “The romance,” Watson said. “It never dies.”

  Fourteen

  IT WAS SOME TIME BEFORE I FELL ASLEEP.

  When Dr. Larkin had originally approached me, her worry had been for the health of the Dramatics Society, not her own. She’d wanted her position back as their director, of course, and she’d wanted the attacks to stop. But her main concern had been not knowing who the true target was, whether it was her, her students, or—as tonight’s murder suggested—the institution itself. The killer had had all of last summer to do away with Dr. Larkin, but they waited until now to try. Tonight’s “accident,” then, was meant as a warning—but to who?

  Really, I was searching for the identities of both the culprit and the target, which put me out. I was used to having mystery at one end of my case, not both.

  One detail I found interesting: a light had fallen from the grid the summer before, though no one had been injured. This killer’s bag of tricks, then, had a bottom. It would be worth nosing aroun
d the theater’s lighting rig in the morning.

  I didn’t sleep well. As a child, I found the notion romantic, staying up sleeplessly recounting the day’s events. But the world goes warped and strange in the hours before dawn, as the birds, with their voices, remind you how they spend their days loitering above, unseen.

  A stranger was sleeping in our living room. My uncle wouldn’t be making eggs on the stove. The boy I loved slept away from me, and I resisted the selfish urge to creep into the other room to wake him, to see what secrets I could glean from him in the dark.

  Am I still interesting to you, now that you finally have me the way you wanted? Or, Now that we aren’t running for our lives, is this still enough to keep you?

  Around four, I gave it up. The refuse trucks had begun down the road, and I could smell the morning cold and sharp through the window. I put my cigarettes and a pair of tweezers in the pocket of my robe and took my bag to the living room.

  “Jamie,” I whispered, rousing him in the armchair. He’d been sleeping all twisted up and tangled; he wouldn’t be able to turn his neck in the morning. “Go to bed. I’ll look after Theo.” He mumbled something like thank you before he made his way to my bedroom, and I took up his post watching Theo drool into a towel he’d balled up into a pillow.

  As he slept, I unloaded the scraps I’d collected the last few days—the newspaper pages from the bus, the note from the theater door—touching them only at their edges. Then I went to Anwen’s translucent mackintosh in the closet, and, using my tweezers, retrieved the papers I’d seen in the pockets. Two were receipts, from Blackmarket café and from Pret A Manger, and the last a wrapper from a candy bar. On the coffee table, I lined them up and then turned them over, tweezers in hand.

  There. In pencil, on the back of the Pret receipt, a series of numbers. I held it up in the dark: II.ii.87, IV.v.27, III.i.132. Immediately, my brain began running them through as code. Roman numerals corresponding to certain letters? Periods indicating new sentences? Anwen was far more complex than I’d thought.

  On the sofa, Theo muttered in his sleep, and I placed an unlit cigarette between my lips and settled in to solve a long, satisfying problem.