‘Aren’t you supposed to be relaxing and recovering?’
‘I am relaxing. They change streets, change towns sometimes. Or they get taken up by the beadle, or the police. Or they end up in the workhouse, or the infirmary.’
‘I do have something to tell you, you know,’ Mary continued, perched on the windowsill.
‘Those boys, however, just disappeared, didn’t they?’ I went on, eager to get my thoughts out. ‘They didn’t leave any clue as to where they had gone, did they?’
‘You’re just like Sherlock,’ Mary said, amused.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked, affronted. Mr Holmes was the rudest man I knew!
‘Once you have a thought in your head, you must follow it through to the logical conclusion, no matter what is in your way,’ Mary told me. ‘In his case that’s usually villains, but in your case it seems to be ordinary conversation.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, lying back in bed. Well, perhaps I had been a little rude. Perhaps a mite over-excited. ‘Good morning, Mary, how are you?’
‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Good morning, Martha, I see you had a letter from Irene. It arrived whilst you were ill, I hope you don’t mind I opened it.’
‘No, not at all, the information was for both of us. We can talk about it now.’
‘Yes, and I have an idea about that,’ Mary said, smiling to herself.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘What are you planning? Tell me, Mary.’
‘In a minute,’ she said, getting off the windowsill and walking up and down, across the foot of my bed. ‘Go on with what you were saying. About the boys, not Irene’s letter.’
‘Intrigued now, are you?’ I asked.
‘I went to the docks last week,’ she told me, serious now.
‘The docks? Alone? Are you insane?’ I exclaimed. The docks were dangerous, especially for a young woman alone. She shrugged.
‘I took John’s gun,’ she reassured me, although I wasn’t reassured. ‘I disguised myself as a Swedish woman looking for her brother.’
‘Why Swedish?’
‘In case I got something wrong. I could blame it on being Swedish,’ she said eagerly.
‘And the accent?’
‘Who knows what the Swedish sound like?’ she told me. She continued to walk. ‘It is glorious down there, Martha. The smell, for a start! All these spices in the air, so heavy it almost chokes you. Spices and tobacco and tea from all over the world, just sitting there on a London dock. And the mast and the ships rising up above you. They’re huge, they make you dizzy just to look at them. It’s like a forest on the water. And the people. All kinds of people from all over the world. You can hear ten different languages in ten minutes. Russian, French, Portuguese—’
‘Swedish,’ I interrupted.
She smiled at me.
‘I wasn’t caught,’ she said.
‘I’d doubt you’d be standing here if you had been,’ I pointed out. ‘All right, go on. You told people you were looking for your younger brother?’
‘Yes,’ she said, leaning on the rail at the end of my bed. ‘So of course, people told me about other boys that had gone missing.’
‘Misery loves company,’ I said.
‘And they had. Three boys in the past two years. Just vanished, poof, like that,’ she said, snapping her fingers. ‘And not left on a ship or fallen in the river because they would have heard something after so long. Bodies come to the surface eventually, sailors return home. No, just gone.’
‘Very mysterious,’ I said, sitting back in bed and wrapping my shawl round me. ‘Just like the Pale Boys.’
‘The Pale Boys?’ Mary said, puzzled. ‘Aren’t they just a legend? A sort of fairy tale for street children? I know I talked about them, but I don’t actually believe they exist.’
‘There is a hound from Hell, and there are painted dogs,’ I said softly. ‘Every legend has a grain of truth.’
‘I see,’ Mary said gently. She didn’t have to say she knew I’d been talking to Mr Holmes. It was blatantly obvious.
‘So what next?’ she asked.
‘Well, I’m going to get dressed,’ I said, flinging back the covers and standing up – then I stopped, and sat back down again heavily. I had felt fine in bed, but now my head spun, my stomach ached and my knees felt they would give away underneath me. ‘Maybe not . . .’ I gasped. Mary was by my side in a second, forcing me back into bed.
‘Don’t you dare get up!’ she snapped. ‘You came out of hospital much too early. You need at least two more days’ bed rest before you can get up.’
‘I can’t, I have things to do,’ I argued, but wearily.
‘Mrs Turner can do your work,’ Mary told me, plumping my pillows. ‘She’s trustworthy, and competent.’
‘But Mary . . .’
‘You can come down to the kitchen in a few days, if Nurse Taylor says so.’
I didn’t want anyone else interfering, telling me it wasn’t suitable for a lady like me; that I should take up knitting instead.
‘Very well, I’ll rest,’ I said, rather bad-temperedly. ‘What are you going to do?’
Mary leaned over me, tucking in my disarranged sheets.
‘As a doctor’s wife, and as an author’s wife,’ she said lightly, ‘I get invited to join an awful lot of committees. Ladies doing worthy work, that sort of thing.’
‘It sounds like it would bore you to tears,’ I said suspiciously.
‘Oh, it does,’ she admitted, standing up to admire her handiwork, and not meeting my eyes. ‘But they do get a chance to visit an awful lot of influential men. Business leaders, Lords, Members of Parliament . . .’
Her voice trailed off as I realized what she was saying. She looked at me, and sort of smiled, in her special ‘please forgive me’ way.
‘Mary?’ I questioned.
‘Well, it turns out,’ Mary said, quickly buttoning her coat, ‘that one of the many committees I am on has arranged a meeting with Sir Richard Pembury. This afternoon, in fact. And I’ve got myself invited along,’ she went on, not letting me interrupt, as she fastened her hat. ‘I think I can contrive to get myself alone with him, and then who knows what I’ll winkle out of him. Ta-ta!’ she said cheerily, sweeping out in the full knowledge that there was absolutely no way I could stop her.
THE HONOURABLE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
Grace Taylor visited my room soon after Mary left. She looked around, hands clasped in front of her.
Now I could see her properly, I could notice the differences between her and Nora. Grace’s hair was lighter, and she was slightly shorter. She didn’t carry herself with the same authority as Nora, and she seemed quieter, to have less of a presence.
‘Mrs Watson has hired me to live here, and look after you for a while, as you recover,’ she told me. ‘She tells me you are likely to try to do too much too soon, and you don’t like to be dependent on anyone.’
‘That is true,’ I admitted.
‘Well, you’ve been ill, very ill, and you’ll be ill again if you don’t allow me to care for you, do you understand?’ she said firmly, but kindly. I nodded meekly.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked me, coming over to the bed.
‘Well,’ I said. She looked at me dubiously. ‘Weaker than I expected,’ I admitted.
She gently lifted up my nightgown to look at my wound, unwrapping the dressing with her cool hands. She seemed pleased with what she saw, and gently washed the site.
‘It’s quite a coincidence, your sister nursing me in hospital and you nursing me at home,’ I said.
‘Not really,’ Grace said softly. She patted my wound dry and reached into her Gladstone bag for a clean dressing. ‘Nora is acquainted with Dr Watson, and when he said you would need a nurse, she mentioned me. Hold still, please.’
She wrapped a new dressing round my stomach as I sat as still as I could.
‘I didn’t realize they knew each other so well,’ I said, as she pulled the nightdress down. ‘I knew t
hey worked together in the hospital but . . .’
‘Dr Watson is helping Nora to train as a doctor,’ Grace said, as she pulled various bottles out of her bag. ‘He’s lending her books.’
‘That’s kind of him. And brave of Nora.’
‘She’s very determined,’ Grace said, with a sigh, as if Nora’s stubbornness got on her nerves. ‘That’s why she prefers the night shift: she has time to study. Are you in any pain?’
‘A little,’ I told her. ‘That explains why Nora was working there. I had the impression she didn’t like it much.’
‘Drink this,’ Grace said, handing me a glass of water. She had poured two drops into it from a small green bottle. I obeyed, watching her.
‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but Nora liked you,’ Grace said. ‘The other patients could be difficult though. They were all there because their families had made large donations to the hospital, or were friends of the directors. They think of the nurses as their servants.’
‘That must be awkward,’ I said, as Grace opened my wardrobe door and started to inspect my dresses.
‘It is,’ she admitted. ‘You won’t be able to wear corsets or a bustle for a while, I’m afraid.’
‘I’ll feel undressed without a corset!’
‘At first, but you’ll get used to it,’ she said, taking down an old dress – black, of course. ‘You’ll heal faster without a corset.’
She turned to face me.
‘I’ll stay overnight for the first week, in the room next to yours. For the second week, I’ll be here from when you wake until you go to bed. After that, all being well, I shall be here three times a day to administer your medication and change your dressing. Is that acceptable?’
‘Perfectly,’ I told her. ‘I’m not sure what you’ll find to do all day anyway.’
‘There’s plenty for a good nurse to do,’ she said calmly. She hesitated for a moment, then added, ‘Nora said I was to tell you anything about the ward you wanted to know, if you asked.’
‘Well, I miss it,’ I lied, convincingly.
‘Patients often do,’ she agreed. ‘It becomes a home from home, and the other patients become like family.’
The kind of family that dislikes, distrusts, hates and possibly murders each other, I nearly pointed out. Instead I asked about Betty, Flo and Eleanor. Were they still there?
‘Eleanor Langham has gone home,’ Grace said. ‘She has a recurring chest infection which affects her heart. She comes in to recover, then goes home as soon as possible. She doesn’t like to be away from home too long. She’ll be back soon, though.’
‘She’s that ill?’
‘She never seems to recover. Betty Soland has gone home too, since you left. Flo Bryson is still there, though.’
‘I never understood what was wrong with Mrs Bryson,’ I admitted. ‘She was supposed to have a lung infection, but to be honest, she showed no symptoms. Not even a cough.’
‘No, Nora never understood her presence there either,’ Grace said darkly. ‘Maybe Flo just liked the company. Now, you must stay in bed, but if you rest and eat, I think you’ll be well enough to come downstairs in a few days.’
I slept and thought and slept some more, until the next morning, when Mary swept in, looking exquisite in blue.
‘Good morning,’ she said, standing at the foot of my bed.
‘You met Sir Richard Pembury?’ I asked eagerly. She nodded, and moved over to the window, perching on the sill.
‘It’s a long story, so listen, and don’t interrupt,’ she told me. ‘The committee I chose was one to rescue fallen women. There seem to be a lot of them. Sir Richard interests himself in social issues, so he was an obvious person to meet. The title is earned, not inherited, by the way. He rose from being the youngest son of a clergyman. That shows his determination. He has a certain strength of character.’
‘This isn’t the story,’ I said, impatient. She nodded, and looked out of the window at the blank grey sky, already smudged with smoke.
‘There were four of us who saw him, all painstakingly respectable. We visited his home, in Mayfair. It is exactly the kind of home you’d expect a man like him to have, right down to his terribly stiff butler. It felt like an ancestral town house that had been in his family for years, but that’s not right, is it?’
‘No, it isn’t,’ I confirmed. ‘I read a profile on him in The Times when he took on his present position in the government. His family were never rich; he himself started as a clerk in a shipping office.’
‘Well, he hides it well. He has big old furniture, soft, well-worn carpets, servants that act like they’ve served him for generations. We were shown into his study which, again, was exactly how you’d imagine it to be, with a huge mahogany desk, a Turkey carpet, books lining the walls floor to ceiling, and Sir Richard himself, holding out a hand to us. He seemed pleasant, old, of course, easily in his seventies, but upright. His hair has gone white, and is just a shade too long, he has pleasant brown eyes, and is neither slim nor fat.’
‘Just what an MP ought to be,’ I commented. Mary nodded.
‘We sat down and drank tea and ate tiny sandwiches and talked and he agreed with everything we said, and he pointed out the difficulties, and how we could get over them, and promised he would help, and everyone went away satisfied and utterly charmed,’ Mary said, shifting her position so she could look right at me. ‘Everyone felt like they’d achieved something good that day, and he made us feel like that.’
‘I see. He’s a good man then,’ I said, disappointed.
‘I haven’t finished,’ Mary said, smiling slightly. ‘Somehow, as the others left, I got myself behind the door, and when they had all gone and he had sat down, I stepped out and said to him, “Emma Fordyce”.’
I really should have told Mary she was reckless. I should have told her she shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. Mary even paused for me to say that. But I had learnt that Mary was the sort of person who happily walked into dangerous situations, not out of bravado, but simply to see what would happen next. I merely nodded at her to continue.
‘“Who?” he said. “Have you forgotten something?” I stepped forward, trying to look a bit menacing.
‘“Emma Fordyce is dead,” I said.
‘“I’m afraid I don’t know that name,” he said, and he took up a piece of paper, but he was lying, I knew it. Do you know what Sherlock says – if you pretend you know everything already, nine times out of ten they’ll end up confessing.
‘“You do,” I insisted. “And now she’s dead.”
‘“I’m sorry about your friend, but I cannot help,” he said to me. “Now let me show you out.”
‘He moved towards me, but I stepped aside, and said, “But she left behind a manuscript.”
‘He froze. I continued.
‘“I’ve read it,” I said. “It’s very interesting. And I should imagine very expensive.”
‘“I don’t know . . .” he started to say, but he faltered, and I knew I had him, Martha. I had him!
‘“But maybe Patrick West will pay more,” I said, and then he snapped. He darted towards me, fast as a snake, and grabbed my wrist and twisted it up behind me, and pushed me against the bookcase. It hurt, and I was terrified, but I had scored a blow, Martha.
‘“You tell no one,” he hissed, and I twisted so I could see his face. He wasn’t the polite old man any more. He was vicious and cruel. I could see it in his eyes, and the spittle at the corner of his mouth and the way he ground his teeth as he snarled at me and that trace of pleasure in my pain.
‘“People know I’m here.”
‘“Who, a blind old gossip writer no one listens to any more?” he mocked, and twisted my wrist a little higher.
‘“Sherlock Holmes!” I gasped out. I hate to use his name, Martha, but it was useful then. He let go and stepped back, and pulled his coat straight.
‘“She’s dead,” he said, panting as he regained his control. “It’s just the rambling of an old
woman. Whatever that bitch wrote was a lie, do you understand?”
‘“I understand,” I said. I wasn’t in any state to argue.
‘“You publish, and I’ll find you,” he said to me, his eyes still evil.
‘“Will you?” I asked, trying to be insouciant, as I’m sure blackmailers are in these circumstances.
‘“I found Emma,” he said, and he smiled, and it was horrific, the smile of a shark before it eats its prey. And yes, I know sharks don’t smile, but if a shark could smile, that’s exactly what I would imagine it to look like. I left, quickly. And that was that.’
‘And that’s his secret,’ I said softly. ‘His temper.’
‘More than a temper,’ Mary said ruefully, rubbing her wrist. ‘His Mr Hyde. But many men, and women, are like that. It’s not enough to kill for.’
‘It could be, if he did something in that temper,’ I said. ‘It could certainly be enough to hold back his career if it was known he was prone to that kind of violence.’
I lay back on my pillows. It could be enough. For it to be known you could get so angry you could hurt, maybe even kill. Cabinet ministers were supposed to be calm, fatherly examples to us all. I closed my eyes.
‘You’re exhausted,’ I heard Mary say. ‘I’ll leave you alone.’ Her voice drifted as I slipped back into sleep.
I woke later on that same day to find John leaning over my bed, checking my pulse. I think he had been talking to me some time, but I had not been aware of it.
‘Mary’s getting rather caught up in this “missing boys” story,’ John said to me, in a low voice.
‘What?’ I said sluggishly. I must have been awake for a few moments: I had been vaguely aware of John checking me over and talking to me, but I was still feeling rather drained. I had slept badly, my dreams full of hospital wards and angry men.
‘You think it’s just a story?’ I asked, when John repeated himself.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he admitted. ‘It’s just – she’s becoming obsessed by it. She talks about it all the time, and when she’s not talking, she’s thinking. I’m worried it may be too much for her.’
The Women of Baker Street Page 9