That left the woman. We stepped down into an odd stone arch that had been left there, part of a fine estate that had once stood here, and waited.
It wasn’t long. She came down to see where we were. She still hid herself well, but we knew who she was now. Before she could wander past, she was overwhelmed with boys springing out of nowhere, pushing her towards us. They didn’t hurt her, but there was no escape.
‘Stop them!’ she called. ‘Call them off!’
Wiggins whistled, and the boys stood back. She stood in front of me and Mary and Wiggins. Mary did the honours and ripped the dirty shawl from her head.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MIRANDA LOGAN
‘Have you been following us all this time?’ I asked. ‘Since I came out of hospital?’
‘Get rid of those boys,’ she insisted.
‘They won’t hurt you none,’ Wiggins said scornfully.
‘I’ve seen them kill!’ she insisted.
‘No, these are the Baker Street Irregulars,’ Mary said soothingly. ‘Not the Pale Boys.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Miranda said, chastened. Wiggins called his boys and sent them home, but stayed himself.
‘Nicely done,’ I said to him. It had been an exercise I had heard him getting together with Mr Holmes one evening: how to weed out a follower from a crowd. They had practised it once or twice, but never done it with a live subject. When I realized I was being followed, I had suggested that Wiggins try it with me. He had been eager to accept, and I had sent him a telegram that morning to say I was being followed again. Luckily he had a boy – Jim – who knew the Strand streets well. As for the rest, it was just a matter of following and watching at a distance. The Irregulars were good at that.
Mary stood in front of Miranda.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am a private detective,’ she answered.
‘What, a female ’tec?’ Wiggins objected. ‘Never heard of the like.’
‘Mary and I are detectives,’ I said to him.
‘Yeah, but you sort of fell into it,’ he pointed out. ‘Never seen one that got paid for it ’fore.’
‘Shame, I’d love to get paid for it,’ Mary sighed. ‘Now, Miss Logan, I have some questions . . .’
‘Which I’m not going to answer,’ Miranda said, standing up straight against the wall.
Mary shrugged. ‘Don’t answer, then. Let’s see what we can deduce,’ she said, staring hard at Miranda. Wiggins and I took a seat on a nearby bench to watch. I had a feeling we were going to enjoy this.
‘Martha, would you like to start?’ Mary invited me. ‘After all, you knew her in hospital.’
‘Thank you. Your accent’s very good, too perfect,’ I said to Miranda. ‘Not your original accent, and judging by the way you took Sarah Malone’s confession, I imagine you are a Catholic.’
Miranda nodded, smiling a little.
‘And you,’ Miranda said, ‘are no one’s nanny. Could Mrs Bryson have been right about you? Are you Mr Holmes’ housekeeper?’
‘I am,’ I admitted, ‘but I am here for myself, not him.’
‘You do lie well,’ Miranda said softly, and admiringly.
Mary looked Miranda up and down. ‘My turn,’ she said. ‘You know parts of London fairly well, if you’ve been following us for a while, which Martha thinks you have. But not this part, not well enough to follow us from a distance; you had to stick close. Your clothes are from this country, your shoes are not.’ Mary glanced at us. ‘People rarely change their shoes when in disguise because they can’t be adjusted for comfort,’ she explained, quite in a Holmes-style manner. Wiggins winked at me in amusement. Mary turned back to Miranda. ‘Judging by the shape, I’d say they were made in Spain – a friend of mine is writing a monograph on the peculiarity of the shapes of shoes across Europe – so you are Spanish.’
Miranda’s eyes widened, then slowly she took a cigarette case out of her skirt pocket, took a thin black cigarette out and lit it.
‘And so are your cigarettes, judging by that awful smell,’ I said, waving the smoke away. Mr Holmes had tried every kind of cigarette and cigar and pipe tobacco he could get his hands on, for his monograph, and I had had the misfortune to air his rooms out afterwards.
‘But working out your nationality is a parlour trick,’ Mary continued. ‘Let’s see what I can find out about your relation to this case, shall we?’
Mary stepped back and stared at Miranda long enough to make the woman uncomfortable. The sun had come out and it wasn’t unpleasant sitting on that bench. I was quite enjoying Mary and I working together.
‘You were obviously in that hospital ward to watch over Emma Fordyce,’ I murmured, apparently to myself, though everyone could hear me. ‘To harm or protect? You were angry the morning after she died, so I believe you were hired to protect, or listen.’
Miranda said nothing, but she blew smoke in a very aggressive manner.
‘Well, you failed at that,’ Mary pointed out. ‘So, hired by whom? Her publishers? No?’ Mary said, as Miranda, seemingly bored, stared out over the river.
‘Well, Emma didn’t know you were there for her, did she?’ I added. ‘She barely spoke to you, and you took care not to speak to her. No, that was someone else’s job, wasn’t it, to get the secrets?’
Mary and I had gone beyond deduction now, into clever guessing. Miranda’s reactions would tell us if she was right or not. I’d heard Mr Holmes do this a hundred times, but the two of us doing it ourselves was a whole new treat.
‘Newspapers!’ Mary cried, making Miranda jump. She was very tightly wound. ‘A newspaper hired you to protect her – well, a newspaper reporter, hoping for a juicy story before it was printed in her book.’
Miranda glared at her, and sucked the smoke from the cigarette.
‘But who? There’re so many reporters who wanted that story,’ Mary asked. Miranda merely smiled. ‘You’re going to make us work for it, aren’t you? Luckily, I already have that answer. He had another creature on that ward.’
I stepped forward, and whispered in Miranda’s ear, though Mary knew what I was saying.
‘Patrick West,’ I whispered.
Miranda’s eyes opened wide as I pulled back to see the effect of my revelation.
‘Ah, I see we’re right,’ Mary said, a little smugly.
‘Is that what Sarah Malone confessed to you?’ I asked. ‘That she was working for Patrick West?’
‘Confessionals are sacred,’ Miranda said, and I had to respect that she, even as a detective, would not share that information.
‘Not just Patrick West, but another man too? A horrific man, someone she was terrified of?’ I persisted. ‘Someone who’d persecuted others to their death based on the information she gave.’
Miranda nodded only slightly.
‘That man is dead,’ I told her.
‘You are sure?’ Miranda asked.
‘She’s sure,’ Wiggins said shortly.
‘So, back to Patrick West,’ Mary said. Miranda looked at her, almost amused. ‘Emma dead, no revelations, but you think she was murdered.’
Miranda shrugged.
‘And her death was just a mite too convenient, wasn’t it?’ Mary pointed out. ‘Well, maybe not for you, but for quite a few people with secrets to keep. So instead of earning your nice lovely fat fee from Patrick West to protect Emma Fordyce, you’re going to earn it by bringing him the revelation of who killed her.’
Miranda was back to smoking again.
‘Only first you have to find out who it is, and you have no idea, so you are following us because we’re working on that case too,’ I said.
‘Which, quite frankly, is cheating,’ Mary added indignantly.
‘I am not cheating,’ Miranda objected. ‘I am following my suspicions.’
‘Well, you can’t possibly think Mrs Hudson is a suspect,’ Mary said. ‘She’s Sherlock Holmes’ housekeeper.’
‘I once read ’bout a policeman’s housekeeper wot poisoned a whole village,’ Wiggins poi
nted out in a leisurely way, as if we were having a Sunday afternoon chat in the parlour.
‘Where did you read about that?’ I asked.
‘Newspaper my chips came wrapped in,’ he told me.
‘Wiggins is right, of course, no one is above suspicion,’ Mary said. ‘But in this case, it’s not Mrs Hudson. In fact,’ she said, turning and walking away from Miranda, ‘as we’re all agreed it’s Eleanor Langham, we can just get her arrested and . . .’
‘Eleanor Langham!’ Miranda cried out. ‘What are you talking about?’
Mary innocently turned back to Miranda.
‘Well, of course it’s Eleanor Langham. She’s far more mobile than she lets on, she watches everyone, she’s distinctly nasty . . .’
‘Yes, she’s a bitch,’ Miranda agreed. ‘But she is not a killer! She’s far too obvious! What makes you think she’s mobile, as you put it?’
‘Look, my theory is sound,’ Mary insisted. ‘We’re agreed that the Pale Boys are somehow involved in the killing?’
‘If that is what you call that strange group of boys I have seen on the streets outside the hospital,’ Miranda conceded. ‘I never see them come or go, they are just there one minute and gone the next. They are disturbing.’
‘They’re just boys,’ I snapped. ‘But yes, rather disturbing boys. But you see, we know they’re connected to Eleanor Langham,’ I continued inexorably, ignoring Miranda’s rising anger. ‘She has strange fancies, she is obsessed with her dead son, we have proof that she sneaks out at night . . .’
‘Well, so does Florence Bryson!’ Miranda countered, suddenly pushed into defending her theory.
‘Florence Bryson is your suspect,’ Mary said, smiling softly. ‘Thank you so much for telling me.’
Miranda sagged as she realized she had been tricked. It had been very neatly done. Mr Holmes would have been proud. He always said people cannot help correcting others.
‘So, Flo sneaks out of the hospital, does she?’ I said. ‘I understood she practically lived there.’
‘I saw her twice,’ Miranda admitted. ‘She does it quite openly. She claims to be going home for an evening or two – but then she disappears into the streets.’
‘She could be going home,’ I pointed out. I had quite liked Flo, though I found her unsettling at times.
‘She has no home I can find,’ Miranda said.
‘Maybe an hotel, then,’ I said. ‘Just to get away from the smell of the hospital.’
‘It’s not just the sneaking out that is suspicious,’ Miranda said. ‘I do have other questions, for her and for you.’
‘Flo did talk to Emma a lot,’ I said to Mary. ‘They always had their heads together.’
‘I never trusted that story about her dead son,’ Miranda admitted. ‘She talked about him all the time, but would never say how he died.’
‘Maybe it was too painful for her,’ I said. I still felt a sharp stab of pain when I talked about my boy.
‘No, she endlessly discussed every tiny detail of his life and habits and his love for her. Only when it came to his end was she silent,’ Miranda said, throwing her cigarette on the ground and grinding it out. ‘And that’s all I will tell you. Thank you,’ she said, looking at Mary. ‘This has been quite an education. You don’t give anything away, do you? Either of you. You are quite unexpected.’
‘A good detective needs to learn to make his face his mask,’ Mary said. ‘Or so I’ve heard.’
‘I see,’ Miranda said, turning to leave. Then she turned back, her face troubled.
‘We are agreed the Pale Boys are mixed up in this,’ she said, ‘and you are investigating them.’
‘We are,’ Mary said, straightening up, suddenly defensive.
‘Stay away from them,’ Miranda warned. ‘I have heard rumours of their part in deaths.’
‘Why would they do that? They’re just children,’ Mary insisted.
‘They are a secret society. In my part of the world, some secret societies demand a sacrifice of blood from new members to show their loyalty. They have to kill for the society.’
‘Yes, but this is England,’ Mary said coolly. ‘London. That sort of thing doesn’t happen here. They play a few games with animal blood, but I refuse to believe they are actually dangerous.’ Mary had forgotten or dismissed the fear she had felt in that house on Henry Street. She still wanted to save them.
‘As you wish,’ Miranda said, shrugging. ‘I still think you should tell that woman to stay away from them.’
‘What woman?’ I asked.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
‘She’s just trying to find her boy,’ Mary pleaded.
‘Maybe she never lost him,’ I replied. We were all three in a hansom cab heading back to Baker Street. Wiggins was very quiet. Mary and I had disagreed about Mrs Turner: I wanted to confront her right away, but Mary favoured a gentler approach.
‘What about you?’ I asked Wiggins. ‘Have you seen Mrs Turner on the streets at night?’
‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘Looking for her boy. She’s been doing it for years. Ain’t no harm in her. I thought you knew when she moved into 221b.’
‘It’s a perfect disguise,’ I said, sitting back against the cushion. Quiet, harmless Mrs Turner and her loss. No one would question her being on the streets at night, the same streets as the Pale Boys. And if anyone ever saw her with them, she could claim just to be questioning them about her son.
Well, I’d started the day with one suspect, and now I had three. I wondered if Mr Holmes ever found his list of suspects getting out of hand?
Of course he did. How I felt now exactly explained those evenings where he had sworn, long and volubly, sometimes in several languages, and stamped around his rooms all night throwing papers about and performing vile-smelling chemical experiments.
‘By the way,’ Wiggins said, ‘got Billy’s latest report here.’ He handed me a filthy scrap of paper. ‘Sorry ’bout that, he threw it out the window and it landed in mud. Anyway, he’s fine, and he’s made friends with the nurse. Let me out, will ya?’
Wiggins jumped out and the hansom carried on as I read Billy’s report.
I’ve made friends with the Langham boys, he wrote. It wasn’t difficult. They’re not allowed to see anyone but their nurse and their mother. Even their father is kept away. If he comes in to say hello, just for a minute, the nurse has to remind him of Mrs Langham’s orders. Sometimes the nurse is kind and forgets, but Mrs Langham is very strict. They’re not allowed to be alone together. Well, I fixed their toys and taught them to swear a little and now they tell me everything.
They had an older brother, before they were born, who died of typhoid fever. He was ill in bed and Mrs Langham was with him all the time. Eventually Mr Langham persuaded her to go to her own room and rest, and that’s when the boy died. So she blamed him, although she can’t have blamed him right away, because they had two more children. I met her when I started and she was very strict on keeping the house locked up tight and not talking to strangers and not allowing the boys to talk to anyone they’re not supposed to. She’s a bit scary. I always feel like she’s watching me, even when she’s at the top of the house and I’m at the bottom. The others feel like that too. You can tell by the way they keep looking over their shoulder.
She hardly ever goes out, but she gets visitors. I don’t see them, but they’re important men, I know that. You can tell by the noisy way they walk, as if nothing is more important in the world than they are, not even peace.
Mrs Langham will probably have to go into hospital again soon, they say. She’s always in and out. That’s all I’ve got to report, except I miss your cakes. The cook here isn’t a patch on you.
‘What does he say?’ Mary asked.
‘He has indeed made friends with the boys,’ I said, perusing the paper. ‘Here, read it.’ I handed it to her.
‘Billy’s got a gift for making friends,’ Mary said, smiling.
‘He’s spoken to the boys too, though not f
or long. Eleanor doesn’t like them talking to anyone,’ I told her.
‘Well, lots of mothers don’t like their precious darlings talking to members of the lower classes,’ Mary said, looking out of the window. ‘Afraid they might get contaminated by poverty, or bad manners or something. Though Wiggins’ boys have the nicest manners I’ve ever seen.’
‘That’s because I bribe them with cake,’ I continued. ‘No, Billy says that they’re not allowed to talk to anyone, not even other children. Just the mother, their tutor, who doesn’t live in the home, and their nurse.’
‘What, no one?’ Mary asked, turning to look at me. ‘Why ever not?’
‘I know their older brother died,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she’s afraid of losing them? Perhaps she’s afraid they’ll catch something?’
‘Well, they’ll have to talk to someone eventually,’ Mary pointed out. ‘Children can’t grow up speaking to just their parents and their nurse.’
‘Not parents,’ I said, reading the letter again. ‘Just mother. They’re not allowed to spend time with their father either. Not alone. He tries to meet them in the park but . . .’
‘But Eleanor can see them with her telescope,’ Mary finished. ‘That’s sad. Why . . . you don’t think . . .’ She turned to me, her face full of dread at what she had just imagined. We knew more than ordinary men and women did. Thanks to Wiggins, and Mr Holmes, we knew some of the horrors on the streets for unwary children. We knew about the men and women who tried to lure them away into dark corners, we knew about the houses of children for men with a certain taste. We knew the worst that could happen.
‘No, I don’t think anything of the sort,’ I said firmly, folding the letter away into my handbag. ‘Do you think I’d allow Billy to stay there if I thought he was in danger of being molested in some way?’
And yet I felt distinctly uncomfortable about leaving Billy at Eleanor Langham’s house. He was so proud of being able to help, and his information was useful, and he wasn’t alone, but I wanted him out and at home with me. Although I also recognized that Billy was growing up fast, and he might never forgive me if I swooped down and swept him away like an over-protective mother hen. Besides, he had Wiggins to keep him safe.
The Women of Baker Street Page 17