The Adventuress (v5)

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Yet I sensed that Irene’s visit to Sarah Bernhardt was another sudden, inexplicable turn of my friend’s own particular genius. Even as I kept alert for encroaching snakes or vines, I knew to my bones that Irene had a serious reason for consulting her acquaintance.

  Someone, or something, tapped my shoulder. I turned to find a blue-and-yellow parrot perched upon my best wool-serge basque with the rather smart new epaulets. The bird’s loathsome scaly feet curled around the extravagant satin braid of my left epaulet as if it were a luxurious perch.

  “Away!” I ordered in my best imitation-Casanova grumble. The bird jumped to a pillow embroidered with La Bernhardt’s ever-present personal motto, Quand meme, “in spite of everything,” upon which it deposited a final exclamation point. Even the odious Casanova would not have so presumed.

  Yet amidst so much clutter, what was one parrot dropping?

  “Ah,” the actress was intoning, “I have played Shakespeare only once. Ophelia in Hamlet, here in Paris, but the run was brief and costly. I was forced to tour South America to rebuild my gold reserves. I took one hundred curtain calls in Rio, and the millionaires of Buenos Aires made a carpet of their pocket handkerchiefs for me to walk on from my carriage to the stage door—so gallant, these Hispanics. And in Peru, the Indians gave me a necklace made of human eyes. I wear it now—”

  She lifted a strand from among the strings of beads swagging her breast, but I hastily averted my... ah, eyes.

  “That was the tour on which I lost both my poor maid and my wonderful impresario, the Terrible Mr. Jarrett—a pet name, you understand. I also fell and injured my knee while trying to avoid a pot of heather on shipboard coming home. Such vile luck, heather. Never let it come near you, my dears.”

  “Fear not,” Irene said, getting a word in at last. “I have had quite an aversion to herbs since I was in Bohemia.” She cast me a sidelong glance and an ironic smile that were quite lost on Madame Sarah.

  “At least I was able to net a delicious Andean wildcat from the tour... and Otto, of course, and two hundred fifty thousand francs in profit, which made possible this new house and my first production of Shakespeare.”

  “You would make a splendid Ophelia,” Irene said politely.

  Madame Sarah’s smile shrank into a pout. “I did, but the audience booed my darling Phillipe as Hamlet. I was forced to close the play quickly.”

  “Well, then,” said Irene briskly, “if your audiences didn’t like your Hamlet, why not replace him?”

  “I could not! Phillipe is... quite close to me.”

  “Sentiment cannot overcome profits. Obviously, your production featured the wrong Hamlet. You must do the play again with a more correct casting.”

  Bernhardt writhed upright within her robes and upon her divan, as slowly as a queen cobra lifting to fan its hood and sway seductively before its entranced victim. She assumed the aspect of an angry empress considering the beheading of her immediate family. She was Theodora, her greatest role. I wondered that Irene should be so bold as to contradict this fiery Parisian wildcat.

  “Whom would you suggest for the title role, Madame?” the Divine One demanded imperiously.

  “Why yourself, naturally.”

  “Myself?!”

  “Indeed. Hamlet is perhaps the greatest role in the English language; why should you not make it the greatest role in the French?”

  “But... my beauty—”

  Was more applied than inborn.

  “My... fabled femininity—”

  Was more stage-managed than inherent.

  “My... youth—”

  Madame Sarah was well past forty.

  “True,” Irene consented sadly. “It would be a violent casting against type. But Hamlet is the pinnacle of leading roles. Remember, my friend, our expedition in gentlemen’s dress to the cafes? How you deceived them all! Why should you play the mere supporting role of Ophelia, no matter how appealingly she goes mad, with her dress disordered and her hair wild? It is a role originally essayed by some shallow Elizabethan young man, when you—you, the toast of the modern world—could take the plum part for yourself and amaze all with your forceful art that overcomes even so great a barrier as sex, hmm?”

  Irene took a grape from the fruit basket and offered it to the parrot.

  Madame Sarah sank back into her rich cloths like a snake coiling into its cast-off skin. Her piquant face had assumed a thoughtful expression that had not a particle of pose in it.

  “Play Hamlet? I suppose I could. I’ve played a youthful trouser role or two, but Hamlet himself? ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’.”

  “To be or not to be Hamlet. Exactly.” Irene peeled a grape. “I merely mention the idea, of course. Women in opera often play trouser roles. I myself, because of my deeper soprano, have done a few. It is seldom tried of late in the theater; perhaps the concept is too bold for these cautious days. It would be too great a gamble. Better that one go to Monte Carlo and have some fun with one’s money, no?” Irene smiled conspiratorially.

  My ears perked up when the words “Monte Carlo” fell from Irene’s lips. At last! The nub of the matter. I needed to extract my note pad discreetly and transcribe any clues that might fall from Madame Sarah’s painted red lips. I sought a spot upon which to deposit the teacup and saucer I had clutched before my bosom like a shield since our arrival. The maid who brought it had never returned, and there was no flat surface in sight that could be considered a “table”.

  While I was thus fruitlessly engaged, the conversation bounded on.

  “Ah, you like to ride the wheel of fortune, too?” Madame Sarah asked Irene.

  “In a modest sense.”

  “My dears, there is nothing modest about Monte Carlo. Everything is on the grand scale there, like an opera, or like one of my plays. You have been, of course?”

  “No, I have not. To tell the truth, I’m afraid that Miss Huxleigh has dissuaded me from going. She is most adamant that gambling is not only wickedly wasteful, but that it leads to other sensual indulgences, including drink, drugs and, alas, such losses that suicide may seem the only solution.”

  “Lies!” Sarah shouted before I could say the exact same thing.

  Although Irene had properly conveyed my opinions on the pastimes of the rich and idle, I had never sought to stop her from going to Monte Carlo, simply because she had never before expressed a wish to go. Besides, how was I to interfere in the movements of a married woman? It was her husband’s business to dissuade her, and I was sure that Godfrey would indeed quash any such frivolous scheme, much as he had tried to dissuade me almost sixteen months ago from foolishly going to Bohemia on the mere say-so of Irene’s cablegram.

  “Libel,” Bernhardt continued, drowning out my feeble protests.

  I at last set the cup on a low stool upholstered in a jungle print and surreptitiously withdrew my note pad so as to record Irene’s calumnious use of my opinions and my character.

  “Monte Carlo,” declaimed the actress, “is a divine oasis of warm winds, fanning palms and sparkling waters, much like my beloved Rio. You must go! And take Godfrey. Take even this most amusing Miss Uxleigh. Perhaps she will prove lucky; the most unlikely people often do in Monte. The wheel of fortune has strange favorites.”

  “And stranger ways of repaying former favorites,” I finally put in. “Many losing players commit suicide. How can such a hellish place be a paradise?”

  “That is the work of these hostile cartoonists. See how they have pilloried me in the press, and I am nothing like their scandalous rail-thin depictions, no?”

  I was not so sure, but I held my tongue.

  “If we are to go to Monte—” Irene began.

  I braced myself at that “we.”

  “—how would we make ourselves known there?” she continued.

  Madame Sarah took Irene’s meaning instantly. “You will have an introduction from myself to the queen of Monte Carlo herself. Well, princess, not queen, and her position is quite unoffi
cial—as yet. Dear Prince Charles rules Monaco so operatically, although he is allergic to flowers—can you imagine?—and thus cannot spend much time there. You must stay at the Hotel de Paris and eat at the Grand, where Cesar Ritz reigns over the menu.”

  Irene interrupted to nod at me. “You are recording that, Nell?”

  “Religiously,” I gritted through my teeth in English.

  Madame Sarah went on. “You must, Irene, lure that handsome Godfrey of yours into long, open carriage rides along the coast, but bring a sunshade for privacy, my dear; men go quite mad in the subtropical climate. You must be sure to acquire some—” Madame Sarah eyed me “—some attractive clothing for this English wren and find her a rich husband. And you must go first to my dear Alice Blue-gown. She is American, yes! And, like myself, has blonde hair and blue eyes.”

  Madame Sarah batted the lampblacked lashes shading those expressive blue-green orbs. “In fact, my dear Irene—” Here she forsook her languor long enough to edge confidentially close to my friend. “—Alice may have some small awkwardness intruding into her future that you may be able to settle. I hear that you have a way with small awkwardnesses. She would be most grateful, and Monte Carlo would be your plum... as Hamlet may yet be mine, no?”

  “Alice—?”

  “Alice Heine of New Orleans, courtesy of the family Heine of Hamburg. Banking interests. The poet, Heinrich, is an ancestor. Now Alice is the young and widowed Duchesse de Richelieu. Her father is my trusted financial advisor, and sometimes a very fierce lecturer, let me say! Despite my ardent attentions to the gaming tables, my dear ‘golden pig’ has a bank big enough to make such things as this house possible.”

  “Then the duchess is prominent in Monte Carlo social circles?” Irene asked eagerly, beaming at me as the opportunity to introduce the true purpose of our visit fell into her lap. “I am most anxious to pursue a rather urgent

  inquiry there. Could she help me, do you think?”

  “Of course. Alice is rich, and pretty. She may soon become the first American princess of Monaco, if poor Prince Albert can outlive his father, Prince Charles. Albert is divorced, a long story and like all long stories, unsuitable for telling. Alice will adore you and your Godfrey and Miss Uxleigh. She has a great love for the opera and art... and for my acting, of course. She will make a splendid princess. I have decided! You must go to Monte and stage-manage this situation, my dear Irene. You will put a crown upon an American head, and—a pity you are otherwise engaged; it’s so bourgeois to be married—you may even snare a princeling. Oh, but Miss Uxleigh is unmarried, no? Ah, we must work upon Miss Uxleigh....”

  Here those piercing blue eyes turned rapaciously in my direction. At that exact moment, I heard a crash of china. We all looked down to see the “footstool” at my ankles undulating over the carpeting through the remains of my shattered tea things. I had never been so grateful for such an odious distraction in my life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ENTER THE DETECTIVE

  FROM THE DIARIES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

  “A sorry business, Watson.”

  My friend Sherlock Holmes looked up. A sheaf of foreign notepaper dangled from his thin fingers as he lounged in the velvet armchair as carelessly as only Holmes could.

  I smiled at the legs thrust straight out, the long arms cast over the chair’s sides; even at rest, Holmes’s figure possessed a tense, geometric energy that implied imminent action.

  “One of your European cases, no doubt.” I nodded to the limp papers. “It must be complicated.”

  “To the contrary, Watson.” Holmes sighed. “A supremely simple matter. It is the police who make it complicated. Still, it requires looking into. I am no Mycroft, who can fabricate webs from a cosy corner at the Foreign Office or the Diogenes Club. I must examine the scene of the crime, and the domestic scenery against which it took place. Legwork, Watson, this will require legwork! Le Villard is puzzled, a sign that there may be one or two interesting threads woven into the patchwork of tawdry passions and familial greed usually present in such a case.”

  “A murder, then?”

  “Le Villard is not so sure. It seems that an English barrister living in Paris has convinced him that the primary suspect may be innocent. And there is no body.”

  “What will you examine, then?”

  Holmes gave that short, sharp laugh so like the bark of a hunting dog about to begin the chase. “You are a physician, Watson, and rely upon physical evidence. I find the absence of a body far greater evidence of crime than its presence. The deed, however, may not be what it appears... or is meant to appear to be.”

  “I suppose this resembles your curious ‘incident of the dog in the nighttime’ not barking in the case of Silver Blaze—more remarkable for what has not happened than what has.”

  “You suppose, Watson! Let us call the matter closed, then: Watson supposes and Holmes disposes. I don’t know why I bother to open my correspondence or answer my door when whatever case may come to me is supposed to be ‘like’ a previous one. Crime can be cut from patterns, then. It becomes merely a question of imposing the particular outline upon a new set of facts?”

  “You know quite well that’s not what I meant to say, Holmes. I merely wondered how you would proceed without a body to study.”

  “I will study the bodies available to me, notably the person of the suspected murderess, Madame Montpensier—a heretofore respectable woman who is aunt by marriage to the vanished girl.”

  “A woman is thought to have murdered her own niece?”

  “Crime grows apace in France.” Holmes rubbed his hands together. “I confess that a foreign environment may prove stimulating. Also, I’d like to see how le Villard’s translation of my monographs gets on. Yes, time for a sea voyage, even if only a humble channel crossing. A pity you are wrapped up in your practice at the moment.”

  “My banker does not consider it so,” I said dryly. “But as a doctor confined to physical evidence, I must admit that I rejoice to see you in high spirits again, Holmes. If I may make so bold, I could think of no better prescription for you, were you my patient, than a short sojourn abroad.”

  “So Watson not only supposes, but approves! With that benediction, I will embark tomorrow. I don’t want to flatten your hopes, but I doubt I shall retrieve a story suitable for your burgeoning literary efforts. These foreign crimes are all too often cramped, tangled matters in which pride plays a leading role. More the stuff of opera than your brand of breathless journalism.”

  “Breathless! I hardly would describe my reports as breathless.”

  “Hmm. It takes a certain melodrama to find a way into print these days, to judge by the newspapers. Just look at how they go on about the Whitechapel business. Compared to that, the Montpensier disappearance should merit no more than a footnote even in your records of my exploits.”

  “This opinion is based, I suppose, on deduction.”

  “Heavens, no, Watson! It is based, like most opinions, on no reasonable basis whatsoever. For that very reason, I must go to France; although that sounds like a contradiction truly worth investigating. Hand me the schedule for Waterloo Station, Watson; just as a child must crawl before he can walk, so even the world’s greatest consulting detective must go by rail before he can set sail... or rather, get up a head of steam.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  SNAKES IN THE GRASSE

  “I am so glad we are leaving Paris!” Irene commented fiercely as our train rolled out of the gloomy terminal yard toward the sunny south of France.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Godfrey answered for her. “It’s best to withdraw from the Montpensier investigation before le Villard realizes that we know more about the matter than he does and that we have concealed facts in the case. The police in any country become abominably testy about such things.”

  “And we must not forget Louise,” Irene added. “I doubt she is in immediate danger in the company of her fiancé, but that may change. She has been abd
ucted and brutalized once already. Until we know why....” Irene settled uneasily against the burgundy velveteen seat.

  I did not see how Louise’s presence in Monte Carlo, an obvious attempt to learn more of her father’s death, would clarify any of the matters before us, but I was glad enough to be leaving Paris myself. It was entirely too French for my tastes.

  Our iron steed for this mission was a charger in the Ouest line; the train would speed southward through the soft, fertile lands cupped between the long arm of the Loire and the trailing fingers of the Seine—and later the Rhone—rivers. We would traverse some four hundred miles, roughly the length of Irene’s and my escape route from Bohemia eighteen months before.

  I settled against the seat’s upholstered back, assured of viewing only tranquil countryside. Even the towns through which we would pass were sleepy in the extreme, bland yet fabled communities that the French interior hoards like fallen apples—Dijon, Lyon, Avignon, Arles. Then, at last, we would reach the bustling Mediterranean seaport of Marseilles.

  I felt a nervous flutter about entering this unsavory city. I also harbored misgivings at leaving Casanova and Lucifer in the care of Sophie. Our maidservant was reliable but no match, I feared, for those devious creatures, each the archdemon of its species. Not that I would miss the beasts’ bedeviling company, of course, but I do take my responsibilities seriously. And among them was Irene Norton, nee Adler.

  Irene remained pensive, watching the confluence of tracks near the station dwindle to a single set of rails alongside our own and then vanish utterly. No doubt she was troubled by abandoning Madame Montpensier to face false accusations alone. Godfrey also seemed distracted, his pale gray eyes as dull as steel. His forefinger lifted absently to smooth his mustache, something I had never previously seen him do.

  I wondered if events deeper than I suspected unsettled my friends. Both were too unlike themselves to note the other’s abstraction. That is the advantage of being a third party; I alone could offer the objective viewpoint.