“Even better. There’s a trunk and a valise, both crocodile.”
“Dear me. You must specialise in well-to-do clients.”
“I’m not the snob you think. I shot the rascals myself in the Florida Everglades.”
“Everglades,” I echoed. “It sounds a placid retreat.”
“Does it? I must have you join me sometime for a visit.”
On that amiable note we parted. As we made our way to Charing Cross, Holmes lit his pipe. “Interesting fellow; but then, so are most Yankees. He puts me in mind both of the cattle herders of Texas and of that Pinkerton chap, Birdy Edwards.”
“He’s rather familiar for my taste, but I like him well enough, up to a point.”
“Identify the point.”
“‘How much of what this fellow says he can do can he do,’ indeed. I might ask the same of him. It wouldn’t surprise me if those bags of his turned out to have been shot in a shop in Philadelphia, with dollars for bullets.”
“He’s the genuine coin, and no mistake. I may be no hand at stalking ferocious reptiles, but I can sniff out a charlatan with the wind at my back.”
At the station we redeemed the trunk and valise, striking in their scaly exteriors, and when we returned to the hotel were directed by the clerk to an upper-storey suite with a balcony overlooking most of Westminster. The linens were impeccable, and the rugs Persian. Holmes inspected the view, then pushed his way back inside through the heavy velvet curtains. “An inspired choice.”
“Thanks.” Nick Carter had begun to unpack. “Let’s hope the lady doesn’t insist on taking the air.”
I witnessed the transfer of item after item from bags to drawers: a crossbow, a set of tails, several pistols and revolvers, Chinese pyjamas, a knife as big as a hand axe, a collapsible silk hat, a cosh, various cravats, and a twin-barrelled fowling piece no longer than a man’s forearm. “Great Scott! Are you going on safari?”
“I was, in a way.” He worked his fingers into a brass device that turned his fist into a bludgeon. “Sir James’s cable caught up with me in Peru, just as I was set to go down the Amazon. It was blind luck I’d brushed up on both my Spanish and my Portuguese. Fate’s a funny old girl.” He flexed his fingers, then slid the contraption off his hand. “Cannibals. They say you never see them till they’re right on top of you.”
“I should keep it within reach,” I said, “especially if Osbert is in the picture. He looks meek enough, but my wife is no frail creature, and his arms held her as fast as iron bands.”
“So it is with any man who works with his hands.” Carter crushed the oval of heavy brass all out of shape in one fist. “I brought along two sets, if you’re interested,” he said to Holmes.
Smiling grimly, Holmes held out a palm, accepted the mangled weapon, and, using both hands for leverage, prised it back into its former configuration.
Carter whistled, then looked at me. “John?”
I took my revolver from my pocket and showed it to him. “I need my fingers to stitch up cuts and tie bandages.”
“It seems we’re loaded for all manner of bear,” said the American.
Holmes said, “Two talented writers are the best weapons in our arsenal. Should we flush our game, we’ll need a description of La Dona Cristina that no white slaver could resist.”
“Who needs words?” Carter took a cloth-wrapped parcel from a pocket of the trunk and undid the string.
Holmes and I admired the framed likeness of a comely young woman with black hair and lashes so long they cast shadows on her dusky cheeks. “Christine’s uncle was a famous Jewish sculptor. That’s where she got her colouring. Wherever I go, she goes with me.”
“I see now how you arrived so quickly at a Spanish lady,” said Holmes. “Would she not object to being used in such an enterprise?”
“Unfortunately, she’s dead. She committed suicide when her uncle objected to her courtship by a Gentile.”
I felt a rush of sympathy. “My dear fellow!”
“Water under the bridge. Had we married, I’d never have become a detective. She wanted me to enter the bar.”
“That explains the Blackstone.” Holmes consulted his watch. “The editor at La Lengua promised our advertisement would appear before the afternoon post, which has run by now. Watson, would you do the honours?”
I agreed to go to the post office, although none of us expected results so soon. Holmes and Carter were surprised, then, when I returned bearing an envelope with a City postmark.
Carter examined the envelope. “A woman’s hand. I’ve never known a man who could forge it convincingly.” He gave it to Holmes.
“I’ve known two. One is deceased, the other transported to Australia.” After a cursory glance, Holmes slit it open with his clasp knife. He translated the letter aloud:
Kind sir or madam,
This letter is in response to your notice seeking a female companion. I am an experienced social secretary conversant in both Spanish and English, and should like to meet with you to discuss an arrangement.
(signed)
Celeste Flores
Holmes clucked his tongue. “She’s gone back to her earlier alias.”
“Perhaps she thinks enough time has passed,” I suggested.
“Either that, or she’s run out of Spanish synonyms for the firmament,” said Carter.
“Well, a thorn by any other name is just as treacherous.” Holmes looked at the return address. “The sly thing took a box in the same post office we did. You might even have passed her in the foyer, Watson.”
“I passed no woman inside or outside the building.”
“Even so, we’ll ask Oliver Nicholas to post our reply. Anyone might be expected to walk into so busy a public facility, but criminals are wary by nature, and prone to take flight upon encountering a face connected with an unpleasant memory.”
“Any more Spanish and I may have to ask for my fee in pesetas.” Nick Carter drew a chair up to the writing desk and dipped a pen.
XVIII.
We Flush Our Game
“Hadn’t we better suggest a meeting in the restaurant?” I asked. “She is less likely than most women to agree to an assignation with a strange man in his suite.”
“And twice more likely to dodge our net, with only one man to stop her,” said Holmes. “There is no place for you and me to conceal ourselves in such an open place.”
We were silent for a moment. Then our partner spoke up. “We’ll take the bull straight by the horns and invite her to bring a male escort.”
“Capital,” said Holmes. “We may ensnare her accomplice as well. Dona Cristina, of course, prefers that her representative discuss the delicate negotiations in private.”
“We’re a fine trio of liars.” Carter wrote, placed one of Oliver Nicholas’s cards in the envelope, and dashed off to catch the last post.
That night, rather than return to our own respective quarters, Holmes and I made ourselves comfortable in the sitting room. He gallantly offered me the relative comfort of the settee. “Twaddle,” said he when I protested. “We shan’t have your old wound impeding our success.” Whereupon he fashioned himself a bed using two chairs.
In the morning we breakfasted in the suite, then smoked on the balcony to avoid offending our expected guest with the lingering odour of tobacco. We had an excellent view of Hyde Park, with its strollers in light summer clothes carrying parasols and swinging sticks, and Carter regaled us with comparisons to the Central Park in New York City, where he’d once “nabbed a mug,” in his colourful parlance.
A knock came to the door just as the mantel clock struck the hour suggested for the meeting. Carter slipped a Norfolk jacket on over his waistcoat and went inside to answer it, carefully closing the curtains behind him and concealing us both. He had no weapons concealed on his person, lest a suspicious bulge tell the tale. Holmes and I took turns peeping through a crack between the curtains as our drama unfolded.
The housemaid I had known as Gloriana bore small
resemblance to the glamorous creature who stepped in from the corridor, wearing an emerald-green frock becoming to her slender waist and a fashionable hat with a short black veil pinned to it. Under normal circumstances, I might not have recognised her had we passed on the street. Carter, visibly impressed, held the door for her as she entered, followed closely by a man whose face I would have known anywhere.
“Holmes!” I whispered hoarsely.
Gloriana/Celeste’s escort wore the clothing of a boulevardier: grey bowler, patterned jacket and waistcoat, elk’s-tooth fob, grey flannels and all, gripping a bamboo cane; but these things could not dissemble his true identity. Holmes and I had met him as Osbert, the ice-cream parlour proprietor. My Mary had known him as the loathsome cabman Snipe.
XIX.
Lady Judas
He had, to a degree, taken other steps to alter his appearance. A monocle clung to one eye, its ribbon attached to a lapel, he’d dyed his fair hair dark brown, and a mole I had not noticed before drew one’s attention away from the rest of his features towards his left cheek. The unnatural ruddiness which Holmes had attributed to an allergic reaction to greasepaint (encountered in his role as Snipe) was absent, but I had no doubt as to his identity. In his present role he looked like a cross between a circus barker and a racetrack tout; and, as the three made small talk, it developed that he had adopted the pose of Celeste’s somewhat inglorious uncle. Hinkel was the name he gave.
In preparation, we had ordered an extra pot of tea with our breakfast and two additional cups and saucers. “Mr. Nicholas” bade them sit and poured for all.
“I’d hoped La Dona Cristina would be present,” said “Hinkel,” in a tone of mild disappointment.
“I wanted to conduct the interview myself and report,” Carter replied. “Her most recent travelling companion proved to be unsuitable, a fact that cast a shadow on her judgment.”
“You are American, are you not?” Celeste’s accent was more pronounced than when I’d known her as Gloriana.
“I am, miss. I studied law in Philadelphia and finished at Oxford.” This was the story he and Holmes had collaborated upon to explain Carter’s unorthodox British inflection.
“What sort is the lady?” asked the man who called himself Hinkel.
“The very best. She attended the finest finishing school in Barcelona at a young age. She’s learning English, and plays the harp like an angel.” Carter’s smile was disarming. “She almost hired Miss Flores sight unseen when she found out she spoke the language. Any objection to adding ‘tutor’ to your other responsibilities?”
“I should be glad to assist in her education.”
“Let’s not put the cart before the horse,” said her escort. “I should like to visit my niece from time to time, and I don’t mind telling you I’d rather spend the day with two good-looking women. There’s a deal of humpbacks and warts among these inbred continental nobles.” The leer he wore during this confession seemed worthy of Snipe. O, what a studied villain is this, thought I.
Carter affected not to disapprove. “I can settle your worries on that score.” From an inside breast pocket he drew the photograph of the late lamented Christine, removed from its frame.
It was my turn at watch. A spark of naked greed flew from “Celeste’s” face to Osbert’s as the picture passed between them.
Osbert returned it. “Well, sir, I’m satisfied. One doesn’t want one’s prize foal trotting about with a donkey.”
I couldn’t decide whom I despised more, this crude Herod or his Lady Judas, who betrayed members of her own gender to her foul profession.
My impatience was growing. I wanted to lay hands on them both, and let the devil take the hindmost as to my position regarding the fair sex. But as Carter took command of the conversation, drawing one genteel lie after another from Celeste about her background and education, I realised that he and Holmes had charted out this very course, to lull our “victims” into laying aside their highly developed sense of suspicion.
Although I had missed this particular conference, I recalled with clarity the signal they had worked out to draw Holmes and me from hiding. Carter had surreptitiously locked the door to the outside corridor after letting them in. The only other exit was by way of the balcony, four storeys above the street, and we would stand before it.
“. . . La Dona is quite keen to visit Jersey,” said Carter.
Directly he said “Jersey,” Holmes and I jerked open the curtains and stepped out between them, revolvers in hand.
XX.
Flight
We had misjudged our foes’ reflexes. Recognising us instantly, Celeste Flores pounced, pantherlike, from her seat, ignoring my weapon, and sank her teeth deep into my wrist. In the same instant, Osbert launched himself, rugby fashion, into Nick Carter where he sat, carrying man and chair over backwards onto the floor with a smash. Momentum built, the white slaver charged at Holmes, swinging his cane and striking his gun hand. The revolver fell to the floor.
I had only the barest sense of these actions. In my pain and rage, I struck Celeste a smart blow on the top of her head with my revolver; but her hat, a thing of wire and stiff felt, absorbed most of it, though the impact forced her to release my wrist from her jaws and drove her to her knees.
Osbert neither slowed nor stopped. Shouldering Holmes aside in the same movement with the swinging of the cane, he raced across the balcony, leapt onto the railing, and dropped from sight.
Holmes and I darted to the railing. Down on the street, a buzzing crowd had begun to form round a broken thing lying on the cobblestones like a shattered doll.
We have spent many an hour reliving that moment: Whether the villain intended suicide or hoped to attain the neighbouring rooftop—a good twenty feet away—remains a point of contention. As a practising Christian, I lean towards the former motive, in expiation for Osbert’s sins in this life by way of damnation in the next.
Such was not an issue upon the instant. We spun to assist Carter; but were too late.
When Celeste fell to her knees, Holmes’s fallen revolver was within her reach. Now she stood with her back to the door to the corridor, closing us all inside firing range.
I retained my weapon, but it was at my side. As I raised it, she fired a shot that screamed past my head.
“Let go of it!” she shrieked. “Gauchos taught me to shoot straight!”
My finger tightened on the trigger.
Holmes grasped my wrist, paralysing the tendon. “No, Watson! You may strike an artery, and then we shall never know what became of Jane Chilton.”
For a full ten seconds I retained my pressure upon the trigger. Finally I nodded, an almost infinitesimal movement of my head. He released his grip. I let the weapon fall.
Celeste Flores laughed shrilly, a peal of pure madness. It choked off when she reached behind her and discovered the door was locked. She motioned toward Carter. “The key! Throw it!”
The canny American detective took the key from his waistcoat and threw it low; but Lady Judas had the instincts of a cat. She dipped a knee, caught it with her free hand, and fumbled it into the keyhole awkwardly. At length the tumblers turned.
“Puercos!” she spat. “It would have made no difference if you killed me. You may find me eventually, but not in time. The Chilton wench will be dead in an hour!”
We stood, arms away from our sides, and watched her open the door behind her and step one foot backwards into the corridor.
Abruptly, something in the shape of a grappling hook closed round the wrist of her gun arm and jerked it downwards. A bullet pierced the Persian rug at her feet and buried itself in the floor.
Carter stooped swiftly, grasped the rug, and jerked it from under her, throwing her onto her back. Her revolver went flying, to be caught by Carter one-handed. Only when we both had her pinned down in our crossfire did I feel it safe to regard our rescuer. Mary Watson stood in the doorway, resting the crook of her parasol at shoulder arms.
XXI.
&nb
sp; A Race with Death
“However did you find us?” I asked her.
We had been joined by a constable, there to enquire after Osbert’s fatal leap and the subsequent gunfire. Upon confirming our identities and hearing Holmes’s rapid explanation, he had manacled Celeste Flores to the arm of a chair, where she sat seething between Holmes and Carter, both men now armed; the American with his blunt, wicked-looking fowling piece. Having underestimated her once, they were leaving nothing to chance.
“I won’t be put off by secrecy,” my wife replied. “I went round to Baker Street and spoke to Mrs. Hudson. She is a woman, and we are bound by our gender. She told me you were here. The clerk at the desk gave me the number of the suite. I heard the first shot from the stairwell, but reached the door only as Gloriana was backing out.”
“Intuition.” Holmes shook his head. “It is the X factor in every equation where a woman is involved. No man has cracked it as yet.”
“Call it what you will. When I recognised her voice, I knew what was to be done.”
Our captive sent her a look of raw hatred. She spat a torrent of Spanish too rapid for even Holmes and Carter to follow. They looked at each other and shrugged.
“Best not to know,” said the American. “Well, Miss Celeste-Gloriana-Paraiso-Estrella, what’s this business about Jane Chilton having only an hour to live?”
The rage that had distended her features gave way to a smile of palpable evil.
“She will die gasping. Her last prayer will be for air, and you will be impotent to grant it.”
We pressed her for details, but she had fallen silent, and would not be drawn out by threats or pleas to her humanity or promises to speak to the magistrate upon her behalf. When it was clear to us all that we were wasting precious time, Holmes asked the constable to take her away. In seconds she was manacled to his wrist, instructed as to her rights under English law, and removed from our sight; but not before she turned her head at the door and closed her free hand round her throat in the unmistakable gesture of strangulation.
“My God!” said I, in a shuddering whisper. “Can it be she shares the same gender with the Blessed Virgin?”
The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes Page 24