We were on Baker Street now, and we pulled up outside 221b to find Mrs Turner on the doorstep, obviously waiting for us. I had a few questions for her, but she stopped me.
‘You’ve got a visitor,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Down in the kitchen.’
We went down. There, in the dim light of my kitchen (that suddenly seemed scruffy and dowdy) stood a vision. A woman with black hair swept off her face, under a daring purple hat. A purple velvet ribbon round her throat set off startling green eyes. Her dress swept the floor in swathes of startling pink silk. She shimmered – no, glowed – in that room.
‘Lillian Rose,’ Mary breathed.
Lillian Rose. Last time I saw her (apart from that brief glimpse previously) she had been dressed cheaply, shaking with fear, still earning her living as a prostitute. She had run away to Scotland to hide from the blackmailer. Now she stood in my kitchen, and she looked glorious. It had only been a few months, yet she was a completely different woman – but I had always suspected Lillian Rose had a gift for transformation.
‘I didn’t know you were back in London,’ I said, rather meekly.
‘Was I supposed to keep you apprised of my movements?’ she snapped. The old Whitechapel accent had gone. Her voice was cultured now, though her temper seemed to be the same.
‘But we sent you to Edinburgh,’ Mary said, confused. ‘We wanted to keep you safe.’
‘I came back,’ Lillian told her. ‘Did you think I would let my life rot away in Edinburgh? I belong in London.’
‘You’re . . . very different,’ Mary said, gesturing at Lillian’s clothes, her hair, her very presence. Mind you, she wasn’t that different in demeanour from the proud, clever prostitute we’d met in Whitechapel – but she had transformed her appearance utterly.
‘I should hope so,’ Lillian said, mollified. ‘I’ve put quite a lot of work into becoming a new woman.’
‘You’ve succeeded,’ I told her. ‘Though I thought I saw you the other day.’
‘Quite possibly; I’ve been here for a while.’
‘And earning a lot, too,’ Mary said, with more than a trace of admiration. ‘That dress must have cost a fortune.’
‘Not that much,’ Lillian said, but Mrs Turner had been walking round her, frankly appraising it.
‘Finest silk and velvet, hand-made, very well fitted, I’d say around thirty guineas,’ Mrs Turner said, then blushed as Lillian glared at her.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘No one,’ Mrs Turner said quietly, retiring to the corner of the room where she could gaze at the dress quietly.
‘How did you get so much money?’ Mary asked.
‘I earned it. And not on my back neither!’ Lillian said quickly. ‘I’ve been helping a journalist. He can’t write for himself, nor read any more, so I assist him. Between us we earn a great deal of money. He is teaching me.’
‘Can’t read or write,’ I said softly. ‘Is he blind?’
‘Patrick West,’ Mary realized. ‘You work for him?’ she said to Lillian, with a moue of distaste.
‘Yes, I do,’ Lillian said calmly. ‘What of it?’
‘But he’s a gossip writer,’ Mary said. ‘The nastiest kind of gossip. I mean, he writes these awful columns hinting at all kinds of things, and dredges up all these secrets.’
‘So?’ Lillian said, one hand on her hip.
‘Well, it’s not that different to what you were doing for him, is it?’ Mary snapped back, meaning the blackmailer. Lillian’s hand shot to her throat. The blackmailer had slit her throat once, leaving her for dead. When she survived, he had made her his creature, forcing her to collect secrets for him.
‘I’m getting paid now!’ she said. ‘Good money, and it’s my choice. No one’s holding a knife to my throat! And besides, I was good at it,’ she said, with an odd sort of pride. ‘I succeeded where others failed. I could always find the secrets. Why shouldn’t I use those skills?’
‘But . . .’ Mary said, but Lillian interrupted her.
‘Would you rather I was back on the streets, in men’s beds?’ Lillian said, with scorn. ‘Or even better, starving to death in a garret somewhere, cold and hungry but at least with my honour?’ she went on, mocking Mary. ‘To hell with honour. To hell with everyone else. I survived, and I intend to go right on surviving.’
‘I have no doubt you will,’ I said to her. I couldn’t say I blamed her. What else was a clever woman to do? ‘What do you want from us?’
‘You never had illusions about me, did you?’ Lillian said, turning to me. ‘Never thought I could be saved.’
‘You’re alive, and he’s dead. That’s saved enough for me,’ I told her, sitting down at the table. ‘He did die, you know, in the end.’
‘Yes. That’s why I came back. Did it hurt him?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes. It hurt,’ I told her. Him and me both.
‘Good,’ she said viciously. ‘I’d ask who killed him, but you wouldn’t tell me, would you?’
‘No,’ Mary said shortly. ‘What do you want?’
‘Patrick wants to see you,’ Lillian said. ‘Right now.’
‘We may not want to see him,’ Mary said, sitting down. ‘Cheap little gossip writer.’
‘Oh yes you do,’ Lillian said triumphantly, pulling on her gloves. ‘You think we don’t know you’ve been investigating Emma’s death? And everything else, too. We know you want to talk.’
‘We’re not selling him our story,’ I said quickly.
‘Think of it as more of an exchange of information,’ Lillian said. ‘Oh, and Patrick said to tell you something else. He said he hasn’t always been a gossip writer. He used to cover the crime stories too.’
‘Why would he tell us that?’ Mary asked. ‘Oh, I see, he’s going to tell us a few crime stories too.’
Mary and I glanced at each other. There were a few questions I wanted to ask. Sometimes crime reporters knew more than the police, thanks to their network of informers. A lot of what they knew was never printed. Patrick West could be a mine of information. But what would I have to give up in return?
We decided, with not a word spoken but in silent agreement, to go with Lillian.
‘Lead the way,’ Mary said, and the two of them left.
‘But what about Mr Holmes?’ Mrs Turner asked. ‘What if he wants something?’ She was genuinely nervous. I found it hard to believe she had anything to do with the Pale Boys other than searching for her son, but I had been fooled before.
‘Well, give it to him,’ I told her. ‘He probably won’t disturb you; he’s cataloguing his newspaper archive.’
‘What if he asks where you are?’
‘Tell him I’m hunting my Hound,’ I told her, as I followed Mary and Lillian. I only hoped I wasn’t following it into my own personal Grimpen Mire. I was going to have to tread carefully with Lillian Rose and Patrick West.
DARK AS INK
Patrick West’s home was in a tiny court off Fleet Street. Fleet Street itself was always noisy, packed and filthy. It was a street of ink, papers and books. Men and women rushed by, weaving expertly in and out of the crowd, fingers and faces and clothes smeared black with printer’s ink and writer’s ink and newspaper ink. Between them ran clerks, all in black too, and telegraph boys bolting up and down the street. Newspaper boys hauled piles of papers as big as they were to their jealously guarded spots, trying to outshout each other. Meek and frightened men and women waited shyly outside the Courts of Justice, avoiding the gaze of the cocky, careless habitués of the place. This street was never silent. The great presses underneath it thumped day and night. Fleet Street was a constant, turbulent flow of people, echoing the filthy river beneath it.
Patrick West had previously lived in Kensal Rise, but, missing the smell of print, and the excitement on the streets around the presses, had moved to one of the numerous courts off Fleet Street. The houses were of black-encrusted red brick, with tall, narrow windows. The court was lined with black railings, and gas lamps, but
seemed shabby, covered in dried leaves blown in and caught in the corners. The fierce roar of Fleet Street was subdued to a whisper here.
I had tried to talk to Lillian on the way there. I asked her how long she had been with Patrick West, and she said three months. I told her she had changed quite a bit in that time, and she said she was used to changing herself to suit other people, and now she was changing to suit herself. More than that she wouldn’t say.
Patrick West saw us in a large, dusty room, lined with books – not novels, but biographies, not all of them flattering. He sat in a large red leather armchair before a spluttering fire. He looked old now, his hair white and standing up all over. He wasn’t thin, his cheeks were plump, but he gave the impression he was recovering from an illness. His eyes were milky with blindness. He wore a frogged purple smoking jacket, and his hand rested on a stick held upright by his chair.
He was pleasant and polite, but back in his day this man had a reputation for seeking out secrets – not for his own amusement like Sherlock’s friend Langdale Pike, or even for blackmail, but to print. His god was circulation figures, and his had once been the highest. Great men and women of the Empire had alternately avoided and courted him, hoping for a secret concealed or a kind word of praise. He treated them both the same, and always told the truth, no matter who it hurt. His truth, however, was tinged with hints and assumptions that could lend a green tinge of suspicion to the most innocent remark.
Lillian sat behind him on a stool, a pad and pencil in hand, ready to take notes. I took the seat opposite him. Mary disdained to sit, and instead wandered about the room, peering at the bookshelves and leafing through the books.
‘I have information, and questions, and so do you,’ Patrick West said, in a cultured voice that sounded like it belonged in a drawing room of fifty years ago. ‘Shall we make a deal? I answer a question, and then I ask one. If you want the next answer, you must answer my question.’
‘Very well,’ I agreed. ‘Who do you think killed Emma Fordyce?’
‘Straight to the point,’ he said. ‘Good. I am not sure Emma Fordyce was murdered. Miranda Logan, who I believe you’ve questioned already, insisted on it, but I cannot see how a woman can be murdered in the middle of an English hospital. My turn. What were you doing in that ward?’
‘I was ill, and I was rushed in for surgery,’ I said calmly. He looked sceptical. Well, so be it. I don’t think either of us was telling the full truth at that moment. ‘I have the scars, if you wish to see them.’
‘Quite a coincidence, Sherlock Holmes’ housekeeper in the same ward as an allegedly murdered woman,’ he said.
‘Was that a question?’ Mary said sharply, turning from the bookshelf.
‘No, my dear, merely an observation,’ he said politely. ‘Your turn.’
‘Why did you hire Miranda Logan?’
‘I believed Emma to be in some danger,’ he said softly. ‘Please understand, I knew the exact nature of the secrets Emma held. I knew the price some would pay to stop those secrets being revealed.’
‘And it would be wonderful publicity,’ Mary said, pushing a book firmly back onto the shelf. ‘Former courtesan whose secrets are so dangerous she must be kept under guard, speaks exclusively to Patrick West. Except she didn’t, did she? She didn’t like you.’
‘Is that a question?’ Patrick asked, his blind eyes turning towards her.
‘No, merely an observation,’ she said sweetly, turning back to the books.
‘Why do you believe she was murdered?’ Mr West asked me. Very well then, truth for truth.
‘I saw it,’ I said. Lillian looked up suddenly and met my eyes. ‘I woke up and saw a shadow by her bed. The shadow bent down and suffocated her. She fought, and scratched him. There was blood on her bed the next day. To save you a question, I didn’t tell anyone because it was a ridiculous story. A shadow by a bed. I was drugged and ill and no one would have believed me.’
‘Who do you think did it?’
‘A boy, working for someone else. I’m not sure who,’ I replied.
‘That’s two questions,’ Lillian Rose pointed out. Mary looked at her in surprise. Lillian refused to look back.
‘So it is,’ Mr West agreed, with no malice. ‘We must be fair. Ask away.’
‘Did you hire Sarah Malone?’ I asked.
‘I did,’ he said regretfully. ‘I had no idea she really was very ill. She had been working for me for years, ever since she was a lady’s maid. We had pulled the hospital trick before. People talk to anyone in hospital, just to relieve the boredom. And your second question?’
‘Were you aware you weren’t Sarah’s only employer?’ I asked. It was a dangerous question to ask, but I had to know if he knew about the blackmailer. They were, after all, both in the same profession: the acquisition of secrets, even if they had different outcomes.
‘No,’ he said, and his surprise seemed genuine. ‘Who else was she working for?’
‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘We found letters in her room to someone else.’
Patrick West leaned forward, one hand on his stick. He couldn’t see me, I knew, but I felt as if he watched me.
‘Is she lying?’ he asked Lillian Rose. She looked at me, peering at me, watching me for a twitch or a blink. I looked back with the impassive face twenty years of housekeeping has taught me. I thought of telling her, just for a second, that Sarah had been trapped just like her, but I didn’t want to reveal her past in front of Patrick West. She had, after all, managed to escape. Besides, it was my secret to tell when I chose.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Lillian said. ‘She’s very good.’
Patrick West sat back, and I thanked my lucky stars they hadn’t had to test Mary. She never could lie.
‘My turn,’ I said. ‘Emma talked almost exclusively to Florence Bryson while in hospital. What do you know of her?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, aggrieved. ‘Miss Logan mentioned her name to me too, and I regret to say I can find nothing about her in previous newspapers. Her family must have been very private. Nor can I remember anyone with that name, and I have a prodigious memory. What is it like living with Sherlock Holmes?’
Ah. The questioning had taken a different tack. Well, I expected this.
‘I really don’t have much to do with him,’ I said. ‘I cook his meals, send his shirts to the laundry and dust his rooms. That’s all.’
‘My husband’s book gives a far fuller picture,’ Mary said, turning back to us. ‘And he will be publishing some stories in the Strand Magazine very soon for everyone to read.’
‘Oh, of course, you’re Mary Morstan,’ Lillian said.
‘How do you know?’ Mary asked. ‘John hasn’t published that account yet.’
‘We don’t have to wait for the news to be published to read it. Tell me, will they ever retrieve the Agra treasure from the bottom of the Thames?’
‘If they do, I shall send it back to India,’ Mary said promptly. ‘I have all I need.’
‘You are not involved in Mr Holmes’ cases, Mrs Hudson?’ Patrick said, disbelieving.
‘I am not,’ I said firmly. ‘And he has nothing to do with this current investigation of mine.’
‘Well, he doesn’t like women, according to Dr Watson,’ Lillian said. ‘Is that true?’
‘Quite true,’ Mary said. ‘Not even the clever ones.’ Mary moved to the next bookcase. It might look as if she was just randomly looking at the books, but I knew differently. We had known houses where vaults had been hidden in a secret cupboard behind bookcases. Mary was secretly hoping to ‘accidentally’ stumble across a similar arrangement here.
‘What about Ruth Bey?’ I asked Patrick West. He shook his head.
‘Florence and Ruth . . .’ Lillian said slowly. I turned to look at her.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I thought that meant something, but no. It must have been a book I read.’
I turned back to Mr West.
‘Eleanor Langham?’
He started to shake his head, but Lillian whispered to him, ‘Crime.’
‘Ah, of course!’ he cried. ‘I occasionally did crime reporting, under a different name, of course. I find it so grubby. Lillian, would you find the relevant cuttings, please?’
Lillian swept out of the room, followed by Mary. I walked over to the window to look out into the courtyard. It was quiet down there, but through the entrance I could see men and women hurrying down Fleet Street.
‘I do miss that life,’ Mr West said wistfully. ‘Reporting, I mean. Finding out stories. But when I went blind, I had to give it up.’
‘But then you found Lillian,’ I said. ‘And she became your secretary.’
‘So much more,’ Patrick said. ‘Oh, not my lover! Far closer. My apprentice. She is very skilled. She is already earning far more than I pay her.’
‘How did you find her?’ I asked disingenuously.
‘Don’t play innocent with me,’ he said softly. ‘I know what she was before and I know you knew her. She won’t tell me what happened.’
‘Neither will I.’
‘I can accept that,’ he said. ‘She came to me. She told me she knew how to find secrets, and I knew how to make money from it. And so a partnership was born. She’s actually a very good reporter. It wouldn’t surprise me if she moved on from the gossip columns one day.’
‘She’s changed a great deal since I knew her,’ I said. ‘Not just her clothes. Her voice, her bearing – everything, in just a few months.’
‘Oh, you and I both know how clever she is,’ he said softly. ‘She always had a gift for altering herself to fit the situation. I’ve known her play the innocent and the whore in barely an hour, merely by altering her voice and her walk. She has an unrivalled gift for transformation. It is a prostitute’s gift, is it not, to be exactly what the client requires? All the best can change at will to suit.’
‘Lillian is no longer a prostitute,’ I said. ‘Who is she suiting now?’
The Women of Baker Street Page 18