The Detective and the Spy

by Angela Misri

  Bonhomme ran between the tracks towards the platform, distracting me for a moment from Brian, and something about his large boot prints in the snow captured my attention — a wire had been revealed by his footsteps.

  “What?” I whispered, recognizing the danger. “NO!” I yelled as loudly as I could, my eyes on the constable still running away from my position. “Bonhomme, get off the tracks!”

  And then I was flying through the air, caught by the absolution of darkness.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE SMELL WAS THE first thing I remembered as I woke. Disinfectant. A salve of some kind. Mint? Softness pressing down on me. I tried to open my eyes. Too hard. Darkness.

  I woke again to the same smell, only realizing that it was the second time because I remembered recognizing it before. Someone was prodding me with a needle. I tried to bat them away, but my arms felt as heavy as lead bars, as did my eyelids. Grey.

  A hand shook me awake and a face that couldn’t be here swam into my vision.

  “Papa?” I mumbled, trying to sit up and realizing I was in my toddler bed back in Toronto.

  “Sleep, chérie,” he whispered. “It’s late. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  But I knew we wouldn’t talk tomorrow, or ever again. He would be critically wounded in a battle an ocean away from our little home and his loss would devastate my mother, my grandparents, and everyone who loved him.

  Awake again. I strained my ears and heard nothing. The softness extended over my legs, but my feet felt cold. The smell was stronger now, closer. I faded out again with that thought in my head.

  An explosion!

  My eyes flew open this time, the lids feeling heavy and fixed after who knows how long of disuse.

  Beside what I could now see was my hospital bed slept Annie Coleson and her twin brothers, their blonde heads on their chests, their breathing even.

  I could barely turn my head to see them, and raising my hand painfully, I could feel why. The bandages all around my skull were thick and covered my forehead, ears, and back of my head.

  I watched Annie’s chest rise and fall, noticing the dark skin under her eyes and wondering how long she had been sitting vigil at my bedside. The twins looked better, but I’m sure they would have been more comfortable in their own beds at home. A quick assessment of Annie’s clothes, her makeup, and the notepad beside her told me they had been here a few hours at least. I felt a rush of love for my friend and would have expressed it had the darkness not stolen over me again.

  I woke to a dull thudding sound. No, not thudding, I corrected, but drumming? I struggled to open my eyes, wincing at how dry they felt.

  Through slit eyes I could see Annie, without her brothers this time, her mouth moving in rhythm with the drumming sound. That was not drumming, I realized, painfully squinting at her mouth. That was the sound of her voice! It was slightly higher pitched than the sound coming from a nurse she was speaking to. I could discern no actual words from either of them. It was like listening to a conversation while underwater. How thick were these bandages around my head?

  “Annie,” I tried to say, though it was hard to force my lips to move.

  She heard me and gleefully pointed at me. She flew to my side, scooping up my hand and speaking rapid fire. At least, she seemed to be speaking quickly, judging from the movement of her lips; I still couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

  The nurse, meanwhile, had come to my other side and was fiddling with my IV.

  “Annie,” I said again, the fear starting to build in me as I wondered at my injuries. I couldn’t even hear the words I was saying. “Thirsty …”

  She frowned, stopping her drumming sounds for a beat before she shook her head and said something to the nurse.

  The nurse leaned over and spoke directly at me, her deep drumming a little louder but no clearer.

  I tried to shake my head, but shooting pain arched between my brows and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  Annie’s grip on my hand tightened and her mouth moved again, her eyes concerned. The nurse responded to whatever she said by taking my wrist in her hand again, her other hand holding a syringe.

  I said, “No, please don’t. The pain is bearable.”

  But though they both heard me (I could tell by the way they glanced at me and then each other) the drugs flowed unabated into my bloodstream. I fought against the fog and lost.

  When I awoke this time it was morning — I could tell that even before I forced my eyelids open to see Brian at my bedside.

  He smiled when I opened my eyes, his dimples reappearing as he called for someone over his shoulder. His voice was a slightly deeper drum sound than either Annie’s or the nurse’s.

  Brian leaned over me holding a glass of water with a straw and I took a long thankful drink before speaking.

  “Brian, it’s so good to see you,” I said as clearly as I could.

  He got that confused look I was beginning to dread and grasped my hand, speaking urgently to me in that same dulled drum sound.

  The fact that I couldn’t hear might mean I was speaking too quietly, so I repeated my earlier thanks, concentrating and trying to speak louder.

  I still couldn’t discern my own words. He jumped in response and I gripped Brian’s hand, noticing that his left hand was bandaged. Surely he hadn’t been caught in the explosion as well!

  “What happened to your hand, Brian?” I asked, carefully lifting the hand that was holding mine.

  Brian grimaced, looking from his hand to mine, still not understanding my words, but gently speaking in a softer drumming tone. I shook my head, the pain diminishing in direct opposition to my growing panic. Why couldn’t we understand one another? How badly were my ears damaged? Had my vocal cords been hurt as well? I pulled at the bandages around my ears — how thick were they?

  Brian grasped my hands to prevent me from pulling off the bandages and a doctor arrived carrying a dreaded hypodermic needle. I struggled against Brian even more. No! I needed to stay awake to figure out what was happening to me. It was my right!

  “Stop!” I yelled as loud as I could, kicking the blankets off the bed. But even though I could tell they heard me by the surprise on their faces, the doctor pressed on, grabbing for my arm even as I fought.

  Suddenly everyone stopped moving, their attention on the door. I only noticed because Brian’s hand suddenly released mine, and I was struggling against nothing.

  There in the doorway stood my grandmother, Irene Adler. I had never been so happy to see her.

  She glanced at the men in the room, her drumming sound melodic to me even in my current state, but her eyes shot ice at the doctor. Whatever she said to him, he flushed and dropped my arm.

  She waved my boyfriend out of the room with her cane, Brian’s gaze lingering on me before he allowed himself to be driven out.

  I would have asked him to stay had he been able to understand me, but I was proud of the way he met my grandmother’s gaze defiantly before he nodded to her and left. Most people withered under her gaze.

  “Thank God you’re here,” said I.

  Her blue eyes widened at my words. She spoke back to me, causing me to shake my head, still not understanding a word and obviously not being understood.

  The doctor, however, got a triumphant look on his narrow face, pointing at me like I was a defective lab rat and speaking to my grandmother as she stepped to my bed, putting her hand protectively on my bare ankle. The doctor was a gambler who frequented Bethnal Green, if his boxing chit was any indication, and I tried to dismiss him from my case on those grounds, but again, no one understood me.

  They continued to speak to each other, all but ignoring me, and as angry as I was, I felt my mind refocus. Something had happened to my hearing, that much was very clear. Hopefully the damage was not permanent, but what could have happened to my speech? I could feel words
coming out of my mouth, my tongue seemed functional, and I was able to make sound — that much was also clear by the reactions of the people around me. I ran my hands over my throat and found no bandages or injuries, and then did a visual assessment of my body now that it was no longer covered by blankets.

  My hands and my head were bandaged, as was my right knee, but in bending it, I could tell it was not serious. I smelled singed hair, which made sense since I had been in an explosion, and that also probably accounted for the smell of salve coming from the bandages on my hands.

  On the bed, the doctor had put down his clipboard and I eagerly scooped it up to read my health chart. They had diagnosed a concussion. Not severe, but enough of a blow to account for rendering me unconscious. My burns were very minor and they had not operated. They did not believe I had internal bleeding, but there had been swelling in my ear canals from the explosion. The last line of the diagnosis speculated about hearing loss, but nowhere on the page did it say anything that would explain the speech issues I was experiencing.

  Flipping the chart over to a blank sheet, I carefully wrote a message, hoping that the fact that I could read also meant that I could still write. The brain was, after all, a curious organ that medical science did not fully understand. It was possible that hearing was connected to speech and that to lose one through physical damage affected the other. As far as I knew, though, an inability to communicate orally would not be connected to the ability to write.

  I tugged on my grandmother’s sleeve, interrupting what had become an escalating drumming sound that signalled a heated argument between her and the doctor.

  Her eyes flew over the message I had written, “I cannot hear any of you. All I hear is a dull drumming sound, like a piano being played with the damper pedal pressed down.”

  Her eyes met mine and she nodded just once, decisively.

  CHAPTER 3

  USING A PENCIL AND paper took a great deal longer than speech, but at least I was able to communicate again.

  My cousin, Dr. Hamish Watson, assigned himself as an adjunct doctor. Through him I learned that the explosion had ruptured both my eardrums and the concussion came from being thrown backwards and into a rail track. He told my grandmother that he had seen complete recoveries from such injuries during the war, but that it was also possible that I would never regain my full hearing. He wasn’t sure what was affecting my speech, but he could see nothing physically wrong with my vocal cords or my tongue.

  My grandmother wrote that recognizable words were coming out of my mouth, but that they were gibberish. I was able to form words, but the words I thought I was saying were not the words I was actually saying. We tested the phenomenon several times with me concentrating on saying my name and Watson as witness.

  Every time I said “Portia Constance Adams” out loud, the words I actually said were different and seemingly random. Once I said “squirrel toast blue” and another attempt came out “spit old under.” My grandmother wrote my words back to me as I said them and I could make no more sense of them than she could. We both looked to my cousin for a diagnosis or a treatment, my grandmother actually providing the question verbally.

  I saw the answer in his body language before he finished writing; he didn’t know. He wrote that the concussion I had suffered may have done damage to the part of my brain that controlled speech, but admitted that was pure speculation. His hope was that as my eardrums recovered, so too would the rest of my physical injuries. He was, however, going to consult with his brother and other doctors on my recovery plan. The Watsons had been very kind to me since I had inherited 221 Baker Street from our shared grandfather, Dr. John Watson, and this was just another demonstration of their love.

  The newspapers covered the train yard bombing, and, upsettingly, referred to my injuries as “extreme problems of the mind” and “a serious blow to the detective of Baker Street.” The London news even quoted a psychiatrist whom I’d never met, but who supposedly had assessed my symptoms as “insurmountable by a delicate female of my class.” At least my condition was relegated to the bottom sections of the paper. The fervent criticism of the king and the government was splashed all over the front page. The photos of Queen Mary being shielded by her staff from rotten food being hurled her way, in this case by an older woman with a fierce look, were especially convincing that the British people had lost patience with their leaders.

  But it was Inspector Michaels and Brian who delivered the worst news of all. Brian, who at this visit was exhibiting pale purple discoloration under his eyes, took the notebook to break the news that Constable Bonhomme had been killed and one other officer I didn’t know by name had lost a leg in the blast.

  Michaels puffed on a cigar by the door during this exchange, finally stepping forward as I shook my head in disbelief at this message.

  He spoke, his drumming sound hesitant, and then, remembering my affliction, threw up his hands and waved towards Brian.

  Brian wrote an explanation, “He’s trying to apologize for calling you down to the rail yard. He’s taking this all very hard. Especially losing Bonhomme.”

  I nodded. Of course he would. I wrote back, “Tell him I don’t blame him, and I’m sure Bonhomme’s family doesn’t blame him either.”

  Brian showed the note to Michaels, who grunted in response, a sound I almost recognized despite my injuries.

  I, in the meantime, wrote, “What happened to your hands? You weren’t that close to the blast.”

  Brian took back the note, Michaels reading over his shoulder, and it was the inspector who took the paper away to scrawl, “You were on fire. Dawes put you out with his bare hands.”

  I glanced up at Brian incredulously.

  “Michaels came a few seconds later with a blanket,” Brian wrote, his face betraying how panicked he had felt in those moments and perhaps how silly he felt when Michaels appeared with the blanket. “The doctor says that your gloves and coat protected you while I have serious burns on my left hand.”

  I put my bandaged hand over his bandaged hand and tried to express my thanks that way. His eyes met mine and then he glanced away and winced. How much pain was he in?

  “Wired bomb?” I wrote, watching Brian’s face.

  Michaels nodded brusquely over Brian’s shoulder, a steady stream of drum sounds flowing out of his cigar-clamped mouth. Brian quickly wrote and handed me the note, “Yes. Bonhomme hit the trip wire.”

  I looked from the note to the men, surprise evident on my face, to which Michaels nodded grimly.

  “Russian? From war?”

  Brian wrote back, “Still identifying. Box 850 helping.”

  “Why didn’t it go off as the train passed over the tracks?” I wrote.

  Brian showed the note to the inspector, who said something Brian wrote down. “Train was wired too. Digby was passed out drunk on the floor of the train and never even woke until the train hit the platform. Intent was to blow up the train. Digby released.”

  I shook my head again. Who would wire a train to explode before it was in service? And what did Bonhomme do to that trip wire that a train did not? He was lighter by far … he must have literally pulled a wire free. Or maybe the snow had frozen the wire to the track.

  “None of this makes sense,” I wrote after a few moments’ thought.

  Michaels wrote back, “Get well fast and help us figure out what is going on before it happens again.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A WEEK LATER THE nurses finally removed my bandages. Annie sat beside me as they did so, my grandmother standing behind the doctor. I watched Annie’s face as the last of the bandages were unwound and the relief on her face helped my stomach unclench slightly.

  She spoke to me and then Dr. Watson and my grandmother. They must have agreed to whatever she asked because as he used various instruments to peek into my ear, she pulled out her little pocket mirror.

  Hesita
ting, she fumbled, writing a note on the ever-present pad on my lap, “Bruises heal and hair grows back.” Only when I’d read it and nodded impatiently did she hand me the small round mirror.

  She needn’t have worried, the yellow and orange-coloured bruises around my eyes and cheeks didn’t concern me at all and the few actual cuts on my face were minor and healing. My forehead looked reddened from the fire and my hair would need to be cut much shorter because of the burnt parts, but considering the fate of the others who had been hit by the blast, I had been lucky. Brian was in a lot of pain and his hands would bear the scars of fire for the rest of his life. And Bonhomme …

  Unfortunately, the removal of the bandages had made no discernible difference to my hearing and I wrote a few lines for Watson, asking what he had seen in my ears.

  He stepped back to peer into my ear again before he spoke, Annie transcribing, “Your ears are improving. The scabbing over your eardrums has gone down. Are you noticing any improvement at all?”

  I shook my head, having understood none of what he had said aloud.

  Watson shrugged and spoke again. Whatever he said got Annie tearful and she shook her head several times. Annie wrote, “He says it will take time to fully recover.”

  “Perhaps my hearing will return as my concussion improves,” I muttered, shaking my head at Annie as she wiped away her tears. It was gibberish anyway. Both my speaking of it and Watson’s reassurances as far as I was concerned.

  * * *

  “I WISH YOU WOULD go to a private hospital. You would have the best care and the finest doctors. The Watsons are adequate physicians, but their side of your family tree is known for loyalty and friendship, not brains.”

  It was just the elegant handwriting of my grandmother, but even without the sound of her voice to punctuate it I knew her tone was one of resignation, not accusation. Looking up at her face, I added a tinge of coercion to that tone. She hoped she could wear me down through careful applications of guilt and concern. A long time ago, Irene Adler was a lauded soprano, only catching the eye of Sherlock Holmes when one of her paramours, a king no less, convinced the great detective to steal an important photo from her. She had outwitted Holmes and applied her skills to the wrong side of the law — half to dare him to catch her and half out of boredom. After fifty years of dodging and catching Sherlock Holmes, the woman was a formidable foe. One that I didn’t intend to get on the wrong side of — grandmother or not.