A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  She rose, and Magdalena beamed at her. “You are very much my savior, Miss Lyon-White. I am, and shall be, eternally grateful to you. I will see you tonight. I hope you like squab demi-glacé.”

  “I am very fond of squab,” Sarah replied, though she would have said the same if she loathed the dish. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  Alicia showed her to the door, and once down on the street, she was thrilled to see Freddy Smart lined up with the other hansoms waiting for people to emerge from the hotel. She waved to him, and he waved back, much to the disappointment of the other cabbies, who had been hoping for a fare. As he helped her up into the cab, he grinned. “So, now ye got me curious. What’s your business, if ye don’ mind a nosy parker askin’?”

  “Séances for an opera singer,” Sarah told him, since that was almost the truth. “I satisfied her last night that I can contact the spirit she wishes to speak with. So for the next several nights I will definitely be needing your services. She wants me to arrive at midnight, which is when she returns from the opera.”

  “Séances?” Freddy gaped at her. “Gor blimey! Yew must got nerves of steel!”

  She was just grateful Freddy didn’t scoff at her—or think she was a charlatan. “The lady pays very well, so I will need to stop at Barclay’s on the way home.”

  “Right yew are!” Freddy said cheerfully, probably thinking happily of the substantial tips she had given him on the last rides. “Let’s get yew there, then!”

  • • •

  With supper over, Sarah gave Nan the good news about the latest fee Magdalena had paid her. Nan goggled at the sum on the deposit slip as Neville peered over her shoulder, then, finding nothing to interest him, hopped back down to the floor and went back to his dinner of bits of raw meat. “I think this would impress even Lord A!” she said. “Speaking of whom—I sent him a note this morning that we—or rather you—were going to be engaged in this enterprise for an indefinite time. Here’s his reply, it just came in the last mail.”

  She handed over the note, and anyone who knew stationery would immediately be aware that the writer was . . . very well off. It was beautiful vellum with the texture of cream, very heavy, and with Lord Alderscroft’s crest embossed. Sun pouring in the window only emphasized how rich the paper was.

  Sarah slid the penknife under the scarlet wax seal, opened it, read it quickly, and grinned. “My dear Sarah,” she read aloud. “May I congratulate you on your good fortune. The lady in question has several admirers who are spending obscene amounts of money on her, and she can quite well afford your help. I am extremely pleased that you are doing so much good at the Langham, as it has the reputation of being the most haunted hotel in London. The fact that you are profiting as well is marvelous. I do not need your assistance at the moment, and I believe that the Watsons will be able to continue with the help of Nan alone for as long as the spirits require your aid. Good hunting! Lord A.”

  “‘The lady in question has several admirers who are spending obscene amounts of money on her,’” Nan quoted, furrowing her brows. “How does he know these things?” She looked up at Sarah, who shrugged.

  “Agents everywhere, I suspect. He’s friends with Mycroft Holmes after all; I don’t doubt they pool their resources and information.” Sarah put the note back in the envelope and tucked it with the bank receipt in a little file box they kept for important papers that would need to be put away properly later.

  “Do you think you should get another nap?” Nan asked, but Sarah shook her head. “Well, then, what would you like to do between now and eleven?”

  “I’d like to go talk to the Watsons. We should tell them ourselves what I’m going to be occupied with for a while, it’s only polite.” Sarah glanced at the window. “We’ve plenty of time.”

  “Want to go!” said Grey from her perch, after carefully wiping the curry off her beak onto the side of the cup. Neville tossed back the last bit of raw meat and nodded that he wanted to go, too.

  “I don’t see any reason why not, Mary Watson likes you two.” Nan glanced at Suki. “Will you be all right alone here for a few hours? Your lessons are done, so you can do whatever you like. I know we can rely on you to keep everything safe, but I’d hate for you to feel lonely. We can light all the lamps before we go.”

  Suki nodded, looking very pleased that Nan had stated their trust in her. “Got lots to do,” she said. And it was true, she did. Nan and Sarah had made sure she had plenty of books, and Lord Alderscroft spoiled her with new toys every time he came by. She had a china doll, which was probably the equal of any in Queen Victoria’s collection, with an extensive wardrobe, a toy theater, a telescope with which she could spy on the street and in the neighbors’ windows, a kaleidoscope, a top, plenty of drawing pencils and watercolors and the paper to use them on . . . and other toys as well, but most of those were better suited for playing outdoors. For a child who’d had no toys until she came to live with Nan and Sarah, this was a dazzling array of riches. She took exquisite care of everything she was given, and the satisfaction in her eyes whenever she surveyed her treasures always made Nan smile.

  “If you spy on the neighbors, make sure they can’t see you,” Sarah cautioned. “It’s good practice for when you will be able to come help us.”

  Suki puffed out her little chest at the thought that she would one day soon be able to help in the “adventures.” “I will, Miss Sarah,” she promised. “And if I see anythin’ rummy, I go tells Mrs. ’Orace, an’ she gets a Bobby.”

  “Exactly right.” Nan, Sarah, and both birds nodded approval. “All right then,” Nan continued. “Birds, we’ll bring you in the carriers, so go hop in.” The birds jumped down off their perches and ran to their own room, where their special carriers waited. It was safer to take them in their leather carriers at night; they didn’t see well in the dark, and if they were startled into flight they could easily come to grief.

  “I’ll get the notes—and your transcriptions for the widow of the late Mister Hopkins,” Sarah said. “I think perhaps I’ll ask John Watson if he can help us with that particular task.”

  The cab ride was utterly uneventful. They carefully timed their arrival at 221 Baker Street to avoid interrupting the Watsons at dinner, and sure enough, they passed Mrs. Hudson in the entry hall bringing down the tray of dishes. They ran past Holmes’ door, up to C, and tapped on the door. Mary Watson opened it immediately, with a look of surprise on her face.

  “Come in, please!” she said, looking happy to see them. “John and I were just settling in with the evening papers and some tea. We heard footsteps but thought they were for Holmes.”

  Nan was very glad that John looked as pleased to see them as Mary; she was a little uneasy about just dropping in on them without warning. She and Sarah took their seats on the same sofa they had used last time and freed the birds from their carriers. Grey went to Sarah’s shoulder, but Neville went straight to Mary, jumping onto her knee and lifting his beak to her face.

  “Give us a kiss, love,” he crooned, and Mary, laughing, gave him a peck on his formidable beak. Satisfied, he lofted back to Nan, who took him on her arm and scratched his head.

  “Am I going to have to be jealous, now?” she asked him. He chortled.

  “Well, Lord A sent us a message about Sarah’s hair-raising adventures with our opera singer,” Mary said, opening the conversation immediately with the subject that was on all their minds. “But not in any great detail. So! Tell!”

  For a moment, Nan was puzzled. How did he—oh, of course. He probably sent the message either by Elemental or by some other magician’s trick. That would certainly come in handy; too bad we can’t learn it.

  Nothing loath, Sarah did. “And now I’m to clear ghosts away for her until they leave her alone,” Sarah concluded. “The only nasty one was the murderer, and thanks to Puck’s charm, he couldn’t hurt me. The ghosts seem to be the usual mix of lost
souls and those who have things they need to do. Two of them had a number of things they badly needed to say to several people who had been important to them, and one—well, John, that is the reason why we’re here.” She took out Nan’s transcription. “I have an extremely complicated set of instructions from a Master Nigel Hopkins to his wife.” She handed the pages Nan had transcribed to John and Mary. John raised his eyebrow over the sheaf of paper. Mary just shook her head, and the two of them bent over the careful transcriptions in Nan’s neat, clear handwriting.

  “Why on earth would anyone hide his money in this way?” Mary asked, after they had perused the first two pages.

  “I suspect he has been asking himself the same question ever since he died,” Nan said dryly. “I know some people mistrust banks, and they do have reasons to, but this was quite past simple mistrust. And here is the problem. Mrs. Hopkins might not believe a strange woman coming to her out of the blue with this . . . well, it looks like errant nonsense. I was hoping you would help us with a way to approach her, and how to explain this without bringing ghosts into it.”

  “First we would have to concoct a good story as to how you came by all this information,” John pointed out. “Ah, which of you would be approaching her?”

  “Me, probably,” Nan volunteered. “Sarah is likely to need to be asleep during the day, you see.”

  “Good. Well. You could easily pass for a secretary, Nan. And this fellow seems to have patronized a great many solicitors, so you could be a solicitor’s secretary.” John shuffled the papers in his hands, then passed them to Mary, who put them in order and handed them back to Nan. “Sarah, he did say he was intending to put this in his will?”

  Sarah nodded. Mary put her head to the side, as John pulled on his moustache a little.

  “Then, let’s say when he checked into the Langham, he sent for a solicitor we will just make up out of thin air. He intended to make all this a codicil to his will, so you say. Well, let’s just allow his widow to assume that on his trip into the City he had had an inkling of his imminent demise and called this fictitious solicitor to his hotel room, then dictated all this to him.” John chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully, his brows furrowed.

  “The solicitor would know this was supposed to be a codicil to his will,” Mary pointed out. “You can certainly say that he said that.”

  “Yes, but why wouldn’t this solicitor have gone ahead and done that, had the codicil written up properly and delivered to Hopkins’ regular solicitor? Especially as he’d have found out Nigel Hopkins had dropped dead the next morning?” Sarah objected.

  “Because he dropped dead too?” Mary Watson hazarded, sounding uncertain. “I suppose it could happen. . . .”

  “That does seem rather . . . unlikely,” Nan pointed out. But Sarah laughed.

  “And is the truth any likelier?” she retorted. “We’ve all agreed we can’t go talking about spirits and ghosts, and if our imagined solicitor was an old man, an unexpected trip to a stranger’s hotel room in the middle of the night might set him off, too. All right. So Hopkins drops dead, and so does the solicitor, so the codicil never got written and sent. But why were the papers only found now?”

  Throwing all caution to the wind, Nan added to the tale. After all, why not? “Because they fell behind the desk, between the desk and the wall. I was in charge of dealing with everything to do with the office. The papers were only brought to my attention when the office was being cleared for a new tenant and the desk was moved out,” she declared. “And as I was the late lamented solicitor’s secretary, I was the one put in charge of trying to find Mrs. Hopkins and give her these details.”

  They all looked at one another. “Well. . . .” Mary ventured. “There is certainly one piece of information that will make all of this seem not only likely, but commonplace. That you, Miss Killian, came to see the great Sherlock Holmes to seek advice and discover the whereabouts of the widow. The great Sherlock Holmes made quick work of locating her address, and John has been entrusted with the task of seeing this to the end.” She smiled broadly. “Just think how excited the widow will be to hear she was the goal of a Sherlock Holmes investigation! After that, you could tell her whatever you liked, and she would believe it.”

  “You’re right,” said Grey.

  “Wisdom from the beaks of birds,” chuckled John. “But, yes, I can see that. And for once I don’t mind trading on my connection with Holmes to give something verisimilitude.” He examined the address. “Slough. That won’t be too difficult. We can take the train and then probably walk from the station. Tomorrow morning, then, Nan?”

  Nan glanced at Sarah. “Once we get this started and get the first lot of money into the widow’s hands, Nigel Hopkins will probably be ready to cross over,” Sarah put in. “So it can’t be soon enough for me.”

  Nan shrugged. At least she was doing something, even if it was just to serve as Sarah’s hands and feet. “Sarah will be sleeping, and I can trust Suki to at least do those lessons that involve reading. Tomorrow morning it is.”

  “We’ll meet at Paddington Station,” John said. “Under the clock, at seven. I’ll get the tickets, that will mean one less thing for you to do.”

  Sarah reached for her purse and extracted more than enough money for two tickets, placing it firmly in John’s hand before he could object. “We are paying,” she said firmly. “With the obscene amount of money Magdalena is paying me, it is the least we can do.”

  • • •

  Nan met John Watson promptly at seven in the morning; she had waited for Sarah to come home then taken over her cab to go to Paddington. The day was overcast, damp, and threatened rain. Beneath its arched roof of iron and glass, the station was noisy, crowded, and no one seemed particularly happy to be there as they hurried, bent over, to and from railway carriages. Nan was, but then, she enjoyed train rides. Before she’d been taken in by the Hartons, depending on where she and her mother were living, if there were tracks near, she would find a perch overlooking the train tracks and daydream about where those trains might be taking people, daydream herself into one of those coaches. Suki was the same; the child had sighed with disappointment at not being allowed to come along, and Nan decided she’d buy a penny chocolate bar for her from one of the machines at the station. Somehow, railroad station chocolate had always meant something special to her, and it did to Suki, too.

  It’s not as if I’m going to find something labeled “Souvenir of Slough” . . .although you never know. Suki had a little collection of such things; thimbles, teacups, embroidered pillows, seashells, paperweights. Nan was looking forward to the day when the child would be old enough to help, if only to relive her own excitement at travel through Suki’s eyes.

  The next train to Slough and beyond left at 7:15, which left plenty of time for the two of them to stroll to their platform and their carriage. John had thoughtfully bought newspapers, so they sat together in the carriage and passed the time tolerably enough, with Nan spending more time looking out the window than John did. She was rewarded with a fine view of Windsor Castle as they approached Slough. When they arrived at Slough Station, which was rather fine, Nan waited while John consulted with a local porter about the address of Mrs. Hopkins.

  “It’s farther than I care to walk,” he said, on returning to her side. “You would probably think nothing of it—”

  “On the contrary, it’s looking like rain, and I don’t fancy a soaking,” Nan corrected. “If there is anything more miserable than soaking wet skirt hems, I don’t know what it is.”

  “Cab it is then,” John agreed, and went to hail one.

  The cab let them out on a street of pleasant, genteel houses, mostly brick and stone, with neat little front gardens and some young trees, exactly the sort of suburban houses prosperous businessmen might buy. The rain had not yet begun, so after asking the cabbie to wait, they approached the door of a three-story brick home that loo
ked very well cared for and John used the door knocker.

  Given the size of the house, they expected the door to be opened by a servant, but instead, it was answered by a slight, gray-haired woman in deep mourning; her hair was parted in the middle under an old-fashioned flat cap. She peered up at them, a little shortsightedly. “May I help you?” she asked, uncertainly.

  John immediately removed his hat. “Have I the honor of addressing Mrs. Nigel Hopkins?” he asked diffidently.

  Now she looked a little startled. “Well, I would not say it is much of an honor, young man, but yes, that is I,” she replied. Her hands, clasped together, rose to the level of her chest, and Nan saw she was wringing them a little, as if expecting bad news. “Might I ask why it is you wish to see me?”

  “Mother?” came a male voice from inside the house. “Is it a—”

  “Mrs. Hopkins, may we please come in?” John asked, putting on his most charming smile. “I promise you, we have come to bring you good news, rather than the opposite.”

  At that point, a ginger-haired man in, perhaps, his midtwenties appeared behind the woman. “Listen, my man,” he said, putting on a brave front. “If you are here to collect for someone, I assure you that there is nothing to collect, but we intend to—”

  “Not at all!” John cried, holding up his hand. “We are not here to collect, but to give. Please, may we come in and explain?”

  “Let’s have them in, Neddy,” the woman implored. “What harm can it do?”

  Neddy seemed uncertain, but he bowed to his mother’s will. She conducted them into a very pretty parlor decorated in gold and brown. Or it would have been pretty, if everything had not been draped in black. Prominent was the black-draped picture over the mantelpiece of a middle-aged man and what looked like the middle-aged version of their hostess. She offered them seats on a horsehair sofa, which they took; she settled herself in a chair across from them, while Neddy stood protectively behind the chair. Nan had already decided, as they had planned, to let John do most of the talking, at least at first; they’d listen to him, and they might not to her.