Sherlock Holmes and the Dance of the Tiger

by Suzette Hollingsworth

  As she had known it would be.

  It was disappointing that it would be over in seconds; tigers were efficient killers, in most instances severing the victim’s spinal cord. She consoled herself with the knowledge that a murder committed quickly was always to one’s advantage, making it much more difficult to place anyone at the scene. Amateurs had no place in the tiger cage and it would be assumed the British gentleman had made a foolish mistake.

  Which he had. He had underestimated her.

  She had wished Beckham would suffer more—she wanted him to know who was responsible for his death and why—but sometimes it just wasn’t possible to enact her revenge as she would like to.

  On the positive side, by the time the lock to the door was opened no one would be able to tell that the extra blood was not Beckham’s. He would be in no position to contradict that notion, being quite dead.

  His secrets would die with him.

  She had made certain that Stanislav, the tiger trainer, would be far away from the scene of the murder—waiting for her at a proposed liaison, which would likewise provide her with an alibi. The only other person who might have been present, Stanislav’s assistant, was even now completely encased in bandages in the hospital.

  Quiet ensued inside the tigers’ cage except for a few low growls.

  My revenge is complete.

  Feeling a strange satisfaction, she knew that she had the power and was the victor. She was always the victor.

  It is as if I cannot lose. She smiled. Just once she would like to come up against someone who posed a challenge for her.

  A flash of lightening crossed the sky—as if she might get her wish.

  She nodded to the heavens. Even control the future do I.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  221B Baker Street

  London

  “Mr. Holmes, please do tell Dr. Watson.” Mirabella gulped, offering the doctor his after dinner sherry in the comfort of 221 Baker Street. She didn’t believe it herself and wanted to hear the news from Sherlock’s lips again—in the company of a witness. “I am going to Paris . . . aren’t I?”

  “Yes. With Watson and myself,” Sherlock stated, taking a sip of sherry.

  “Going to Paris, are we?” asked Watson with the raise of an eyebrow, a slight smile forming on his lips. The good doctor was dressed immaculately, complimenting a physique created by competitive rowing, a sport he had taken up since his injury at the Battle of Maiwand. Rowing only required upper body strength, not the use of his wounded leg. Although Sherlock kept Watson running about London, if the truth be known.

  John Watson is going with us! Mirabella felt her heart jump in her chest even as she made a concerted effort for her expression to remain unchanged. Something exciting had now turned into something wonderful.

  Sherlock leaned back in his wing-backed chair beside the beginning flames of a fire, his open shirt casting his physique in a favorable light. His curls were still damp from a combination of initial perspiration and a light drizzle they had encountered. “I must warn you, Watson, there is a certain danger.”

  “Naturally. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “Grrrrr! ZZZ-Zzzz-ZZzzz SNORT!” Sherlock’s outstretched legs rested on Dr. Watson’s bulldog who vacillated between snoring and growling. Prinnie was a formidable and fearsome hedonist, much like his namesake.

  “But why are we going to Paris?” she asked, picking up the duster and applying it to the marble fireplace.

  “Beyond a doubt I would tell you if you needed to know, Miss Belle. This is a matter of utmost secrecy involving the highest levels of government.”

  Please, please, dear God, don’t let it be another finishing school. What a horrific experience that was, attempting to sit, sew, smile, converse politely, paint, play the pianoforte and be on display in corseted splendor all day. She shivered at the thought.

  And then she remembered being shot at and attacked by men with knives, which was almost as bad as the finishing school.

  “I must protest, Mr. Holmes.” She turned around from the fireplace. His belligerent mood was beginning to wear thin. She said quietly, “I may be your student, and I may be a domestic, but I deserve to know where you are taking me—and, in particular, how much danger I will be in.”

  The good doctor looked up at her from his chair opposite Sherlock’s, surprised, which immediately made her feel ashamed of her protests—although John Watson should be the last person to trust Sherlock without question. She bit her lip and moved to stoke the fire in the black marble fireplace surrounded by dark walnut wood.

  “Why?” repeated Sherlock. “When you need to know why I shall tell you, Miss Hudson. Is that clear? This is a highly confidential matter. As to the danger, I thought we had already resolved the matter in the carriage. I have great concerns about your safety which is distracting me from my work—and that I cannot tolerate above all else.”

  He was truly angry now. This was not Sherlock’s usual verbal sparring and his unemotional assessment. It was as if something suppressed had finally burst forth. “You are here to assist with my work and not to distract me from it! You must choose once and for all, Miss Hudson!”

  “Really, Holmes, I don’t think—” John protested.

  Oh, no! I’ve gone too far! As I always do. Please, please let me go to Paris.

  “Mr. Holmes is quite right, Dr. Watson. I am sorry,” Mirabella stated softly. “It isn’t that I don’t wish to go, I merely wish to be informed.”

  Sherlock threw the paper down on the stand next to his chair. She didn’t think she had ever seen him so impassioned.

  “You told me, Miss Hudson, that you wished to make the decisions about your future as opposed to having your family or myself make those decisions,” he continued. “So be it. If you consider yourself to be grown, then act it. I assure you, Miss Hudson, that I cannot re-visit this subject every hour on the hour. I must have the entirety of my energy focused on my work. Do you or do you not wish to work for me, Miss Hudson? If the answer is yes, then we shall not discuss this again and you shall be going to Paris, is that quite clear?”

  “Well, of c-c-course! It just seems unusual that you should be taking me to Paris. Two men and a woman that is.” She searched for anything to say, glancing at Dr. John Watson, whose usual laughter and cordiality had been replaced by surprise.

  “Two men and their assistant, you mean,” Sherlock corrected, who seemed to be regaining his composure and returning to his usual mechanical state.

  “She’s quite right. We cannot, Holmes,” Watson interjected. “It would destroy Miss Mirabella’s reputation.”

  “I do not care a feather for such things,” stated Mirabella, raising her chin. “I do not plan to ever marry. I will be a scientist.” She was indeed saving to attend the University of London. For the first time in England, almost two years ago in eighteen hundred and eighty, four women were awarded Bachelor of Arts degrees. And only last year two more women were given Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of London, precisely the degree she wished for.

  “There you have it, Watson. Scientists are not in need of a reputation.” Sherlock picked up The Globe as if the matter were now finalized. “And I might add that all of Miss Belle’s activities will be in the context of detective work. Surely there can be no objection to that, the highest of callings.”

  “Do not risk Miss Mirabella’s future, Holmes,” Watson commanded. “She is young and may not yet have settled on what she wants.”

  Oh, I know what I want. Mirabella’s eyes rested on Dr. Watson’s blonde-streaked hair, perfectly cut, falling into his concerned eyes in a most stylish manner.

  “Miss Belle is a person of decided opinions. I have every confidence that she knows precisely what she wants,” Sherlock murmured as if reading her mind, his eyes not moving from the paper, adding under his breath, “and will stop at nothing to get it.”

  “I will not bend on protecting Miss Mirabella,” John Watson insisted.

/>   “Very well then, we shall take Miss Hudson’s aunt as a chaperone.” Sherlock glanced up from the paper, his manner now calm but resolved. “Mrs. Hudson will go as far as Paris and from there will return home, as other arrangements have been made for a companion of sorts upon our arrival.”

  “What do you mean of sorts, Holmes?” pressed Watson. “Miss Mirabella will either have a companion or she won’t.”

  “Miss Belle will have numerous companions, Watson, I guarantee it,” Sherlock replied. “Even so, given the nature of our business in Paris, I must disclose that it would appear quite odd for her to have a lady’s maid or attendant.”

  “As long as Miss Mirabella is not alone in our company and there are other females present, I believe it will be deemed acceptable,” concluded Dr. Watson.

  “I must advise you, Watson, that if Miss Hudson continues in our service—and that is a very big ‘if’—” he glared at her as if issuing a warning, “it can only be a matter of time before she is found to be a person in our employ. Servants are generally not afforded the same requirements as a lady of quality without occupation. Miss Hudson will have to be the final judge if the risks to her matrimonial future are worth the benefits of an apprenticeship. It would be very unlikely that she should marry outside her class anyway. Maids marry footmen, and so on, and they adhere to a different set of rules regarding chaperonage than the upper class.”

  “To the contrary, Holmes, maids and other women in service are held to much stricter rules of conduct than upper class ladies,” remarked Watson. “Female servants might be allowed one dance per year only to mix with eligible young men—outside of conniving to meet the butcher’s son at the servants’ door in the back of the house. That or a chance conversation with the footman might be a maid’s only stolen moments.”

  “I bow to your superior and no-doubt first-hand knowledge on the different ways which female domestics might contrive to engage in liaisons, Watson,” remarked Holmes, setting down the Globe and picking up his pipe from the marble end-table beside his chair.

  “I have no objection to occupation,” interjected Mirabella, finding some difficulty being included in the conversation purportedly about her as she continued to dust. “I wish to be included on the cases. I didn’t mean . . . I merely asked . . .”

  “Why are you always asking questions, filling the air with pointless sounds and otherwise obstructing the functioning of my mind?” Sherlock sighed heavily, pressing the tobacco into his pipe.

  “When are we leaving?” asked Mirabella, suddenly turning from the fireplace. “Or is that too much of a drain of your superior resources to bestow that information upon the lowly and undeserving likes of myself?”

  “Beyond a doubt it is.” The beginnings of a smile fought to be formed on the Great Detective’s lips, causing his mouth to twitch as if he were determined not to be amused.

  Sherlock motioned to her to light the candles on the mantelpiece as the last light was now coming through the open window. Between the hand-held gas lamp, the various kerosene lamps in the apartment, the candlelight and the wallpaper of questionable taste in rose and dark brown with hints of purple in the triangular design, the study had a warm glow in the evening. Mrs. Hudson had refused to install gas lighting saying that Mr. Sherlock bloody ‘Olmes didn’t need any help blowing up the building.

  Mirabella herself often sat in front of the fire with Sherlock and Dr. Watson after their dinner—she was a decent cook though one would never know it by Sherlock’s matter-of-fact response to all meals, they were mere fuel to him—before retiring to her Aunt’s quarters on the first floor.

  “Do you have a headache this evening, Miss Belle?” Sherlock directed his attention towards her again.

  “Yes . . .” she replied slowly. “How did you know, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Your coloring is not at its usual glow. And you are not wearing your glasses and yet are engaged in close-up work. Generally you forfeit your glasses when you have the headache.” He pulled a jar out of his pocket. “Here, take one of these. It will help your headache. And it will help you sleep.”

  She took the jar, reading its contents aloud. “Barbituric acid.” She glanced at Dr. Watson, who shook his head. “No thank you. I’ll manage.”

  As she returned the jar to Sherlock, a ringlet of her hair fell forward.

  “I see you’ve tried a new shampoo, Miss Belle.”

  “W-w-why, yes.”

  “From your expression, it is not clear to you how I know.”

  During this interchange, Dr. Watson handed her a bottle of aspirin, from which she took a tablet.

  “Thank you, Mr. Holmes, but you needn’t trouble yourself.” She felt a grave apprehension rising.

  “It’s no trouble at all, Miss, Belle, I assure you. For one thing, your hair is curlier, as if it is less encumbered,” Holmes continued, undeterred. “You now have curled wisps about your face. I certainly hope none of that hair finds its way into my specimens.”

  “I am ever watchful, Mr. Holmes. And now, if you have no further need of me—” All of her instincts told her it was time to retire for the evening.

  “And for another,” he continued, “I am accustomed to the smell of tar about you, which I presume would not be your perfume. And I am acquainted with the smell of your laundry soap as it is my own.”

  “Tar?” she repeated indignantly. “Well, I never! I’ll have you know that I finish every rinse with rose water. Of all the rude remarks you have made to me, Mr. Holmes, which are innumerable—”

  “Yes, the rose was the overall scent, no doubt contrived to hide the smell of the tar. You went to great pains, and most would never have noted it.”

  “I never detected it,” remarked John.

  “It was very faint,” agreed Sherlock. “Therefore, I must conclude it is your prior hair shampoo for the purpose of controlling the flaking of the scalp, which I can assure you is a problem you do not have. Probably a long standing habit from childhood initiated by your well-meaning country mother.”

  “My mother is a very intelligent woman with a wide range of helpful remedies.” Mirabella raised her chin. “Why, everyone in the Dumfries parish went to her when they were sick—“

  “She also has outmoded ideas of feminine behavior, surprising since your curate father is obviously very forward-thinking in educating his girls. I must say, I put your being spoiled and brash at his door. But that is a different topic to be sure.”

  Thank the heavens for small miracles.

  To her dismay, Sherlock continued. “The lavender shampoo you are now utilizing is a decided improvement over the tar shampoo, Miss Hudson. Which I presume was also chosen to help you sleep. If you would but take the Barbituric acid . . .”

  “I can’t sleep because you’re playing the violin at 3:00 a.m., Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” exclaimed Mirabella, wincing as she managed to swallow the aspirin with her hot tea, the bitter taste dissolving in her mouth.

  “Playing helps me sleep,” remarked Sherlock in surprise, looking up from placing the tobacco in his pipe.

  “And wakes everyone else up!” chimed in Watson.

  “Do accept my apologies, Watson. I didn’t realize.”

  “How can someone be so observant and yet so oblivious?” asked Mirabella.

  “An interesting question,” considered Sherlock, taking a puff on his pipe. “And one which deserves reflection. But first, there is another matter which concerns me.” His eyes rested on Mirabella.

  Heaven help me. She had completed the lighting and moved to stand beside the door. What was keeping her from running for her life? A full day in Sherlock’s company had long since grated on her nerves. She asked reluctantly, “Yes?”

  “It appears that you have taken up drink, Miss Belle.”

  Dr. Watson stared at her in alarm.

  “I certainly have not!”

  “There is a certain melancholy to your personality of late and a tendency towards being annoyed.”

  “I assure you
I had no such tendency before meeting you, Mr. Holmes.”

  “To drink or to annoyance?” he asked innocently.

  “I do not drink spirits!” she exclaimed. To excess anyway. An occasional sherry with my Aunt Martha. In fact, I will very likely have one tonight.

  “Yes, clearly there has been a change in your chemistry in the last six months.” He continued, ignoring her as if she hadn’t spoken as he was wont to do. “Naturally we can rule out the change of life for a young girl or an older woman as you are neither. Next to consider would be a change in sleep patterns or a lack of proper nutrition. We can all be assured it is not the lack of good food, you have the appetite of a horse. You have only just informed me that your problems with sleep are musically rather than chemically related. Therefore, there can be only one other explanation for a person of your gender and age if you have not dipped into drug use.”

  “While we’re on that topic, let us discuss your drug use, Mr. Holmes,” she seethed, raising her eyebrows at him even as she placed her hands on her waist. “There we actually have some facts to support the theory.”

  “And what is the explanation for Miss Mirabella’s purported mood changes, Holmes?” asked Dr. Watson, bending forward in his mahogany wing-backed chair of rose satin, a smile on his lips. It appeared both men were completely ignoring her this evening.

  How charming.

  “Please don’t answer, I beg you,” pleaded Mirabella, placing her hand on her head. “I don’t wish my headache to grow.”

  “Elementary, my dear Watson. Miss Belle’s is the behavior of a young woman in love.”

  Oh, my aching head! She bit her lip and closed her eyes, quickly discovering that his stating the truth was far worse than his hurling unfounded and false insults at her.

  The truth. This was the reason people hated Sherlock Holmes. It was all becoming vividly clear to her now. He always spoke the truth.