by Amy Thomas
The two passed a few streets over, where the detective knew of a public house that served passable meals. The establishment was small but busy, and Holmes was able to bury himself and the boy in a corner near a grimy window, their speaking masked by the sounds of the rowdy men who were celebrating the end of the day by growing increasingly louder and more raucous.
Once Wiggins had a few mouthfuls of soup in him, the detective leaned close. “I have something for you to do that’s a bit more difficult than usual. I’ll add an extra shilling a day for the others and a guinea a week for you above the regular rate.” Even the distraction of edible nourishment did not keep the boy from looking up at this and fixing Holmes with an interested stare.
“That’s generous, Guv’nor. Is it dangerous?”
“Not to you. I need you to follow a lady.” The detective had asked his Irregulars to follow any number of personages great and small during their time of employment, so he was not surprised that Wiggins looked confused at the idea that there was anything unusual in such an assignment or that he should specifically be the one to carry it out.
“I don’t want you to follow her for her own sake. That’s the material point. I want you to take note of anyone who takes interest in her. I don’t mean incidental interest. She’s an unusually beautiful woman who attracts attention wherever she goes. No, I want you to note anyone - man, woman, or child - who lingers near her or seems inordinately interested in her movements. You will report to me in the usual way. The lady will be aware of your mission, but you must act as if she isn’t, so that anyone who wishes to follow her will be unaware of you. Two things require that you contact me immediately - if you become aware that someone else is following all of her movements, or if someone lingering around her speaks with an American accent. If either of those things occurs, send word to me instantly. I trust you know an American accent when you hear one.”
Wiggins nodded emphatically. “Yessir, all flat vowels and strange ways of saying words that make them sound like something else until they get to the end.”
Holmes smiled. “The lady’s name is Irene Adler. She lodges at the Savoy Hotel.” He handed over a photograph, and Wiggins’s eyes grew wide at The Woman’s appearance. “I will call on her in an hour. You will be situated outside. She will walk out with me, and you will note that as the beginning of your assignment. During the time that you’re engaged in this assignment, leave Lewis to do any of your usual duties that you’re forced to neglect. You may consider the end of each day to be when Miss Adler retires for the night. I have another set of eyes within the hotel itself.”
“What about the others?” Wiggins enquired, coming to the end of his bowl of soup and looking as if he’d have liked it to be three times its size.
“As for the others,” said the detective, “Ayers must shadow Dr Watson with the same instructions as yours; put three of the most observant around Baker Street, looking for anything out of the ordinary, two at the docks, and two at the train station. They can all report to you or to Lewis, unless they discover something of particular importance. Keep watch for groups of Americans or anyone out of the common way - you know what sorts. I will give you more specific instructions in the near future when I am able. You and Ayers must take extra care to be vigilant but not obvious.”
Wiggins had finished his drink by this time and sat back in his chair, nodding with satisfaction. “We’ll do it, Sir.”
“See you do,” said Holmes, getting up and leaving the boy with payment for the food - and enough for another bowl of soup or piece of bread if he should choose to use it for that purpose.
From the public house, Holmes went out to the now-dark street and hailed a cab. The driver was young and smiled widely, but the detective found himself distrusting the appearance of everyone he met. He did not consider the Openshaw case a failure, not completely. The man had made his own choices, and Holmes did not feel responsible for his death. He did, however, retain a sense of dread when he considered the elusive KKK. Those who had actually killed Openshaw had met their fate, but their associates had escaped, and it had never been as neat a solution as he preferred his cases to have. On the other hand, he had acknowledged the logical impossibility of personally eradicating all forms of institutional prejudice, and he knew that the surviving elements of the Klu Klux Klan were examples of an attitude that still pervaded the American South. Apprehending Openshaw’s killers would have been satisfying in its way, but it would not have eliminated the problems that had created them. He had hoped time would do that, but in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it had not yet done so.
***
Once he’d reached the Savoy Hotel and paid the cabdriver, the detective found his page very quickly. The unfortunate Billy was standing in front of the entrance, being soundly and loudly abused by a large, red-faced woman in a vast black hat. “You’ve broken my handbag!” she shrieked, while a small, mouse-like personage who was obviously her maid skulked behind, and Billy stood resigned and listened to her hysteria without response.
“Madam,” said Holmes, inserting himself between members of the gathering crowd of onlookers, “I am in charge of this young man. He will certainly be sacked immediately.” Without another word, he seized Billy by the arm and pulled him away from the crowd.
“Your timing is as excellent as ever,” said the page, once they had rounded the corner of the building.
“Fortunate,” said Holmes.
“I don’t suppose you’re here to relieve me of my assignment.”
“Not yet. There’s a possible threat against the lady - Irene Adler - that I told you about.”
“She’s very pretty,” said the page, with extreme solemnity. His manner of utterance was as opposite to what Wiggins’s would have been as it was possible for it to be.
“Quite so,” said Holmes, wondering to what the comment tended. Billy was not given to pointless musings.
“I thought perhaps - I wondered if Dr Watson might be - interested in her. I gathered that was the reason for watching her. I know how he likes a pretty face.” Billy finished, as if the delicacy of the matter gave him a certain amount of discomfort.
Holmes laughed. “You may be assured that Watson’s interests lie elsewhere at this time.”
That matter settled, Holmes tasked himself with explaining the present condition of the case and reiterating the necessity of vigilance.
The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem.
- The Dying Detective
Chapter 5: Irene
The London streets did not frighten me, but I succumbed to paranoia when I reached the hotel. No one accosted me or called my name as I stepped through the wide entrance and into the carpeted vestibule, but I looked around me at every lodger and every member of the hotel staff as if each might be waiting to interfere with me in some way. Perhaps the claustrophobia of the streets had affected me more than I’d realised.
I would not have travelled to London if I had not suspected that the death of my bees had been intentionally inflicted; however, the confirmation that a threat existed, and, even more, that it was, for the moment, without name or face beyond that of a supposedly-defunct American organisation, unsettled me. I was not overly worried for my own immediate safety. The feeling was one of general discomfort at the idea that anything in the whole of London existed that was not under Holmes’s jurisdiction in some way. Perhaps it was a silly way of thinking, but I had come to regard Fulworth as my domain and London as Holmes’s. That I had once been able to fool him did not negate his power. He described his brother Mycroft as the whole of the British government, and I thought of him, perhaps wrongly, as the whole of detecting. It seemed to me that there was nothing in London worth knowing that my friend did not know. The revelation that a network of malevolence existed of which he had been
unaware was deeply troubling - it was as if the rock solid ground had been shaken beneath my feet. Finally, in spite of my morbid thoughts, I reached my room in safety. I did not bother to call the maid, wishing to absorb the tranquility of solitude.
I was settling down with Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, a personal favourite, when a knock at my door set my heart pounding. “Who is it?” I asked sharply, ready to reach for my pistol if need be.
“Sherlock Holmes,” said the unmistakable voice. I opened the door in high dudgeon. “Feel free to dress yourself,” he said coolly, striding in and taking his seat on the sofa. In my alarm, I had failed to recall that I was barefoot and clad in a robe.
“How did you get inside the hotel?” I asked, going into the bathroom and closing the door.
“I acted as if I was a guest,” said Holmes loudly. “The lack of security is shocking.”
“I don’t want to know how you knew which room was mine,” I said.
“Nothing complicated,” he answered. “Billy told me.”
“Whatever you pay him, it isn’t enough,” I retorted. “He’s like Satan, roaming to and fro across the Savoy Hotel.” I emerged, dressed once again, but not bothering to re-pin my hair. Holmes had, after all, seen it in various states of disarray plenty of times when he was a guest at my cottage.
“Why are you here?” I asked, sitting on the other end of the sofa from him. “You had better have a good reason for making me dress myself and risk all attempts at propriety by letting a bachelor into my hotel room this late in the evening.” At such times, I felt that teasing was my last defence against the ridiculous rationality of my companion.
“I have come to explain my plan to you,” he said.
“A plan that could not have been told when I was in Baker Street three hours ago, or waited until a decent hour of the morning?” I asked irritably, thinking of the long, tranquil evening I’d anticipated.
“No,” he said simply. “I wished to arrange things before I brought the information to you, and if anyone is watching your movements, I wanted them to see you return here at a reasonable hour.”
“If they’re watching me, they’ll have seen you,” I observed.
“Unlikely,” said Holmes. “Billy admitted me by the staff entrance, and I made sure to intermingle with a large party of guests.”
“What is your plan, then?”
“I’ve instructed Wiggins to shadow you. He’s the leader of the Irregulars, a boy of fifteen, with a very keen mind.”
“Perhaps my mind is slow this evening, but I hardly see how following me will solve the mystery, unless you believe I am the perpetrator, in which case telling me would hardly be prudent.”
Holmes did not respond to my teasing. “You are to act as if you don’t know he’s there, so that anyone else who may be watching you will think you lack vigilance. Wiggins’s purpose is to observe everyone around you. Of course, if you see anything unusual, come to me. The perpetrators already know we are in contact with each other. I have also placed Irregulars around Watson and Baker Street. I intend to cast a net that will choke anyone who comes into it with evil intent. Unfortunately, I do not yet know what their full purpose is.”
“Sometimes I feel that I should be writing down everything you say, like a schoolgirl transcribing a lecture,” I answered, irked at his pedantic tone.
He looked at me oddly for a moment. “Sometimes I forget,” he said, “how different you are from Watson.”
I laughed, but I was interrupted by the sound of heavy feet in the hallway outside my room, followed by excessively loud knocking. I opened the door, glad I had dressed after all.
The unexpected sight that greeted me was a uniformed policeman who was tall and slight and seemed extremely nervous, judging by the shake of his hands and darting eyes. “I’m Sergeant Keating. Is - is Mr Sherlock Holmes with you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“In - inspector Lestrade sent me to fetch him. There’s been a murder.”
“There are murders every day,” said Holmes, coming to stand behind me. “Why this one in this haste?”
“It was - she was found with a note the inspector wanted you to see,” the policeman answered.
“Very well,” said my friend, following him out into the hallway, while I hurried to keep up with the two men and rearrange my dishevelled hair. Several other guests had opened the doors of their rooms and stared out at us like startled rabbits as we passed. No doubt the Savoy was unused to having its guests rousted out by the police at late hours. Keating made no comment on my presence, and Holmes helped me into the police conveyance before climbing in himself.
***
A drive of fifteen minutes brought us to the place where the body had been found - an alley in central London, which was crowded with policemen and onlookers. As we approached, I felt Holmes’s body tense in the seat next to me, and I looked over at him, but his face was as inscrutable as ever. Sergeant Keating was stiff and said nothing until we stopped.
As soon as we alighted from the carriage, Holmes was approached by a short, slight man with dark brown eyes and pointed features. “Lestrade,” said my friend, from beside me.
“Holmes, thank goodness you’ve come! You should leave information about your whereabouts at your flat. Dr Watson’s list of possible places has lost us three quarters of an hour finding you.”
My friend stared down at him. “I don’t believe you’ve met Miss Irene Adler.” Lestrade stood barely taller than I. “Good evening,” he said tersely, obviously less pleased than his associate that Holmes had brought me along. He handed Holmes a sheet of paper, originally white, but covered in dirt. I stood next to my friend, overcome with curiosity about what it said
What I saw was a drawing - six-pointed shapes, some coloured in with dark ink, others empty. I immediately recognised it as the representation of a beehive infected with foulbrood. Below, it simply said Holmes K.K.K.
“Nonsense, isn’t it?” said Lestrade, “but I thought I should contact you in any case.”
“Quite so,” Holmes murmured. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I knew he’d understood the message, just as I had.
“Dr Watson is with the body.” Lestrade turned, and we followed him through the mass of people. My slippers crunched on the dirt of the street below, and I felt like I was in a nightmarish dream.
The victim was a girl of no more than seventeen at my estimation. She’d been pretty, in spite of her matted hair and the pinched look of hunger on her face. The reason for her death was obvious - a knife wound to the chest.
I had never seen Holmes look as he looked then. Intense shock, horror, and anger flashed across his face in succession, their origins unknown to me, though Dr Watson looked as if he was less mystified.
“What about the child?” Holmes asked suddenly. “She had an infant.” In spite of his face, his voice betrayed none of his agitation.
Inspector Lestrade stared at my friend as if he had uttered some foreign tongue. “I suppose you have some way to divine such a thing by looking at a girl, but goodness knows I’ve no idea how you do it. The officers who first came to the body heard a baby crying nearby and found the little lad tucked under an old newspaper a hundred feet away. No one knew he belonged to her until now.”
“Show me the place,” Holmes said, and he and Watson followed Lestrade. I trailed behind, conscious that I did not belong.
“Miss Adler, Sergeant Keating will accompany you wherever you wish to go,” said the inspector, stopping for a moment to look back at me. For once, I did not mind being dismissed, as reluctant to accompany them as he was to have me. The only thing I regretted was being parted from Holmes.
Once before, after the murder of James Phillimore, I had seen my friend in the presence of the dead. He had been like a doctor or a policeman then, clinical
and detached as he went about his work. This was something entirely different. I knew that Holmes was not without compassion and feeling, but he usually regulated them strictly, allowing them free reign only through his music, keeping tight control over his passions whenever he was engaged in his profession. I had never before seen him so visibly affected by emotion.
During our acquaintance, I had touched Holmes once in a way that went beyond the common courtesy of a hand under the arm or accidental brush in a crowded space. At the end of the Florida case, my feelings of gratitude had led me to embrace him, a man I had only known as more than an opponent for a matter of days. I now wished to embrace him with the comfort of a friend.
***
I had Keating take me to Baker Street instead of the Savoy. It was, by now, nearly eleven o’clock, but I no longer cared. All I wished was to be waiting when the flatmates returned. I did not know if it was for their sake or for my own.
“Please go to bed, Mrs Hudson,” I said, when she came in for the third time to ask if I wanted a pot of tea or something to eat. She looked tired. The beginning of her acquaintance with my friend had come in her middle age, but now she was elderly, and I was concerned that a sleepless night would be needlessly taxing to her.
“Nonsense,” she said. “I’m always unsettled when they’re away at this hour. I feel a little uncomfortable taking liberties in 221B. Would you like to come into my flat?”
Somewhat shocked by this unexpected offer, I complied. She led me upstairs and into a set of rooms that was exactly the same as Holmes’s, with, from what I could tell, two bedrooms, sitting room, kitchen, and bathroom. “Please sit down,” she said, and I did so, on an overstuffed blue sofa with a white crocheted doily upon it. The carpet was worn and the curtains faded, but the place was scrupulously clean and did not show signs of want.
My hostess disappeared into her tiny kitchen, and I thought with amusement of the horror my housekeeper, Mrs Turner, would have experienced at the thought of me taking my ease in the camp of the enemy. I did not know of the origin of her distrust of Mrs Hudson, but I suspected it originated from a fear that her cooking or housekeeping would be deemed unworthy by comparison, an entirely unfounded worry, given how meticulous she was. She had often expressed a wish, since the Phillimorecase, that she might rescue Dr Watson from Mrs Hudson’s clutches, and it seemed to have an expediting effect on her willingness to accept his advances.