The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets

by Nancy Springer

  “That was forty years ago.” Pertelote’s weary voice.

  “Forty-two,” complained the other, and in her ever-so-accurate spleen I recognised, with revulsion, something of myself.

  The way I was holding a grudge.

  Mother. Mum.

  I’d long ago forgiven her for going away, free spirit that she was. She had provided for me. We communicated by code in the personal columns of the newspapers. But two months ago, on one of the coldest days in January, feeling a bit desperate, I had asked her to come into London to meet me. How it hurt, still, that she had not even replied.

  “I was only five years old,” responded Pertelote wearily. “I fell asleep.”

  “And I was only a baby,” retorted the other, “’elpless in the cradle, and ye let the rats crawl on me and nibble me nose off—”

  “Stop it, Flora.”

  But Flora’s drone did not hesitate for so much as a syllable. “—and me lips, and the better part of me cheeks—”

  “Stop it!”

  “—and ye were supposed to be watching me—”

  Yes, she too wanted to be taken care of, living with her sister, how comforting it should have been, sisters together. I’d never had a sister. I—

  Was I about to tell myself I had always wanted a sister?

  Nonsense, Enola. You never till this minute even thought of it.

  As for being taken care of: I had two brothers quite eager to take care of me by have me schooled in the social graces and rendered fit for matrimony. And I had a mother who had taken care of me by giving me freedom and the means to employ myself as I saw fit.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Enola Holmes. You’ll do quite well on your own.

  That inner voice, kind yet firm—it was my own, yet it was as if Mum were still with me. In me. And in that moment quite willingly I forgave her for being the way she was.

  A weight flew away from my heart.

  Meanwhile, Flora was still complaining, “Ye’re my big sister, supposed to take care of me, and ye’re saying I didn’t cry loud enough to awaken ye?”

  Her lament sounded merely wearisome to me now.

  But even though Pertelote must have heard it many, many times before, it affected her. “For the love of God, Flora, stop!” she flared with pain in her voice. “You’re cruel!”

  “It’s me ’oo’s missing a nose, Sissy, not you.”

  Nose.

  Oh, my goodness.

  No longer flattened or trembling, I lifted my head, for I quite wanted a look at Flora. With my mind once again focussed on the present circumstances, I realised that my brilliant theory of a soldier who’d had his nose amputated by Dr. Watson needed to be discarded, even though it was a man who had sent the bizarre bouquets—

  Or was it? I had to see whether Flora might pass as a man.

  Easing myself to my hands and knees, I crept (mentally excoriating my skirt; most difficult to crawl in) along the ledge as silently as I could, towards the window.

  Pertelote said, “Ever since Ma died I’ve done my best for you.”

  Very likely true. From my first acquaintance with Pertelote, she had seemed motherly to me. Evidently she had taken the responsibilities of a mother at an early age.

  At the corner of the window I inched my head upwards until I could see—not much, at first. Lace curtains. But by leaning forward I could peer through them, albeit dimly. I could make out a drab and shabby chamber within, a sitting-room, although neither sister occupied a chair; their passions had levitated them to their feet. Pertelote stood with her back to me, fists on her ample hips, partly hiding Flora from my view. I could tell of Flora only that she was sturdy, like her sister, and plainly dressed in blouse and skirt, like Pertelote again. Although I imagined Flora’s face would similarly be large and plain, I could not see her features.

  And it was Pertelote doing the ranting now. “All my life since, always trying to make it up to you,” she cried, “always! Got my ’usband into the business looking for ways to make you presentable—”

  “Ye were just trying to marry me off and get rid of me.”

  “I were trying to make ye ’appy, and a decent woman, but you ’ad to go and put on a beard an’ trousers—”

  Oh. Oh, my, she was the sender of the bizarre bouquets; she had to be. In a fever to see her face, I pressed close to the outside of the window glass.

  “—gadding about doing the devil knows what,” Pertelote raged.

  “I had to act the part of yer ’usband, now, didn’t I?”

  “No, you didn’t! You don’t want to let ’im rest in peace, you’re just wicked and full of ’ate—”

  “You try being ’ideous.” Heavens, the afflicted woman pitied herself. She needed some starch. “At least a man is allowed—”

  “—going against nature, ’ow many times ’ave I told you to stay ’ome when I’m working? But now I ’ear you’re up to your tricks still! I’ve ’alf a mind to send you back to Colney ’Atch myself!”

  The other one screeched in rage, lunging at her sister, and—I could see her face now, but I wished I couldn’t, for she snatched off her nose with one hand and thrust it at Pertelote, shaking it like a weapon as she screamed, “You try it and see what ’appens! You just try it!” With her other hand she ripped rags of concealing putty off her mouth and cheeks. Her face, or what was left of it, writhed like a mass of slugs. “You’ll be sorry! You and any doctor ’oo signs an order for you!”

  I barely comprehended what Flora was saying, so terribly did the sight of her unnerve me—to see, instead of a face, crawling flesh; instead of mouth and nose, merest cavities. And her eyes—there was nothing wrong with her eyes except that, I think, they had forgotten how to weep, and murder glittered in their glare. The sight of those sere eyes affected me as much as the sight of her maimed face; I think I must have moved or made a sound, for her crazed gaze swung and caught upon me.

  Caught me at the window like a great stupid fish drawn by a lighted torch to the surface of a nighttime lake.

  She screamed as if she were seeing a—a mass of writhing slugs, I suppose—and pointed at me.

  Just as Pertelote swung around to look at me also, I ducked.

  One of the sisters, I know not which, shouted something quite shockingly unrepeatable.

  I fled. But on that narrow ledge I could not turn quickly, if at all, so I could not go back the way I had come. Instead I scooted forward, around the corner of the building, towards I knew not what. Along the eaves like an oversized caterpillar I wobbled, trying to crawl but hampered, indeed nearly thrown over the edge by my accursed skirt. I firmly believe that the whole reason women must wear long skirts is so that they are unable to do anything worthwhile.

  Behind me I heard the window wham open and Pertelote, I think, bayed in a voice worthy of a whole pack of hounds, “Police! Help! Burglar! Police!”

  A constable’s whistle shrilled from the street, summoning others of his ilk. Answering whistles sounded to the north, west and east. From inside the building I heard the pounding of feet on stairs, going down.

  They expected me to run away the same way. Go down.

  Therefore I would not. I would go up.

  Easier said than done, with a skirt wrapped around my ankles, and no light by which to see. But at the next corner my fumbling progress encountered a drain-pipe, and I seized upon it with both hands, hauling myself skywards like a sailor swarming up a mast. Meanwhile, below me, neighbours took to the street, police arrived and the hullabaloo—shouts, screams, whistles, clatter of hooves and thud of running feet—frightened out of me such strength as I had not thought I possessed. I reached the top of the drain-pipe only to be blocked by yet another beetling overhang of the cliff-like building, but somehow in my frenzy, like a cat when the mastiff threatens, I scrambled up and over it without hesitating.

  And encountered yet another wall. Would I never reach the refuge of the rooftops? For a moment, out of utter frustration, I beat against the ancient
plaster with my hands, but that was a useless waste of time and effort. I turned away from the street and ran along the narrow eaves in the dark. Ran. I did not creep or crawl as I had so cautiously done a few moments before, nor, preferring to remain on my feet, did I edge or inch in any sane fashion such as would have been appropriate to the circumstances. I ran, unable to see upon what my feet were landing. Perhaps lunacy is contagious.

  With considerable force I banged into rough wood.

  I am afraid I muttered something quite naughty as the barrier, whatever it was, inflicted its presence upon my nose, which as usual had arrived where I was going ahead of the rest of me. My hands quite wanted to comfort the nose, but I made them instead explore the structure that thwarted me.

  It might have been the side of a bay window.

  Ours not to wonder why; ours but to do or die; into the valley of death charged—no, onto the rooftop of desperation climbed the idiot who ought to be thankful for possession of a nose however protuberant; onwards and upwards, excelsior! Scrabbling to ascend the whatever-it-was, I clambered to its narrow top and, standing there, took a deep and thankful breath, for I could see now, albeit dimly.

  I could see intimations of sky freckled with stars.

  And against it, interruptions in the form of peaks and chimney-pots.

  At last!

  One more mad scramble over one final confoundment of jutting eaves, and I had achieved the roof.

  Panting, I let myself lapse onto the steeply angled shingles, lying flat.

  Safe.

  No one could possibly find me now. I would simply rest here until daybreak.

  But even as I thought it, in the street far below a sergeantly voice bawled, “Wheel it around this side! Over ’ere! ’Ow do you work the fool thing?”

  The next moment the most extraordinary blinding-bright white sword of light stabbed the darkness, slashing it wide open and routing night into fleeing shadows. I had read in the newspapers, of course, about Scotland Yard’s new electric search-light, but reading is one thing and being struck by such lightning is another. I am afraid I screamed aloud. However, so did everyone else in the world, or at least everyone in the crowded street below—so I think no one heard me.

  “Tilt it up towards the roof!”

  “’E’s crazy,” some other man announced. “No one could ’ave climbed up there, much less a woman—”

  But I did not stay to listen. Much shaken and feeling a trifle weak, I did not attempt to stand and run on the steep rooftop, instead worming my way up the shingles—a most fortunate if unreasoning reaction; I realised afterwards that they might have “spotted” me otherwise.

  However thin I might be, I do not make a very good snake. Still, somehow I reached the peak of Pertelote’s building and, hugging the housetop, slipped over it to the other side.

  That fearsome sword of illumination passed where I had just been. Safe on the shadowed side of the roof now, I watched it slice the night.

  No, not safe. Next they would wheel it around to this side.

  The thought, quite as electric as the light, galvanised me; I must reach another building, and another after that, and so make my escape. Springing to my feet, I ran across the steep slope of the roof towards the rear, away from that dreadful search-light, so bright that even in the shadows I could somewhat see where I was going. There! This rooftop joined directly into another not so steep. Gladly I sprang upon it—

  Crash, and I plummeted straight down as if I had stepped off a ledge into air.

  CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

  AMIDST A CASCADING CHORUS, UNMISTAKABLY the sound of broken glass, I plunged. Without my permission my mouth opened to scream.

  But before it could do so, my benighted fall ended, whump, in something that cushioned the impact quite effectively.

  I landed on my feet, buckled to my knees, and stayed that way amidst—what?

  Some poufy, airy, springy substance like a giant bustle-pad. Much harder to identify in total darkness than the glass showering around me with a muffled splashing sound.

  I tasted some salty, rather sticky liquid in my open mouth. Ordering the latter to close, I applied my sleeve to the former; yes, it hurt a bit. Blood. A shard of glass had cut my face, evidently. I felt some similar cuts, stinging so that I knew they could not be dangerously deep, on my hands.

  All in all, however, it seemed to me that I had come off rather well. My bleeding, although upsetting, was not significant. The search-light would not find me here. I had fallen, I realised with a pang of annoyance at myself for being so stupid, through the roof of Mr. Kippersalt’s hothouse, which of course occupied the very top of the building.

  Mr. Kippersalt’s? But Flora spoke as if he were dead. Moreover, if she were the origin of the bizarre bouquets, one must deduce that this was her hothouse.

  As these thoughts arranged themselves in my rather disordered mind, I stayed perfectly still, listening in case someone came running to see what the noise had been about. But I heard nothing except my own pounding heart and panting breath, both gradually calming as nothing alarming happened. After a bit, it seemed safe to think that my pursuers remained on the street, and had not heard breaking glass amidst the hubbub there.

  Well. Being in a hothouse, I must have landed in a large plant, blessedly pliant—I could feel its stems bending under me—not a giant bustle-pad at all, although its spidery fronds all around me itched and tickled like so much horsehair.

  Still listening for any danger approaching, I explored with my hands, finding nothing within arm’s length anywhere around me except more poufy vegetation. Quite large, this plant, whatever it was, brushing my face whilst my knees rested upon the potting soil in which it grew.

  Just as I realised I was now safe—comparatively speaking—my entire personage was seized by a fit of trembling that would not listen to reason, and I felt as if I could no longer remain upright. Allowing myself to slump to the ground, I burrowed between stems that gently yielded to me while the feathery fronds closed overhead. Stretched out at full length, still I found no end to—what? Most perplexing, as if I had somehow fallen into a jungle.

  Wherever I was, I quite needed to rest for a few minutes. Just a little while, until my fit of “the shakes” ceased, and then I would get away. Quaking, I lay with both hands on my chest—that is to say, on the hilt of my dagger—and closed my eyes.

  “Bloody blue blazes!” someone screamed. Or something of the sort. I think that’s what she said. One hesitates to admit that one could have fallen asleep; indeed, one almost wishes to say that one fainted, except that it could not possibly be true, as I never faint…in any event, I opened my eyes to find myself looking up at the wan light of dawn filtering greenly between a great many delicate fronds of—simple enough to tell what it was now that I could see it. I lay engulfed in bushes and bushes of asparagus.

  “My babies!” some woman, presumably Flora, was shrieking. “My ’awthorn, my trumpet flowers, my ’arebells, glass everywhere and the cold wind gusting in!”

  While ashamed to confess that I’d let myself be taken so off guard, I can at least say that I retained the sense to lie utterly still—except that my fingers tightened around my dagger hilt—and make no sound.

  Meanwhile, footfalls pounded up a nearby staircase.

  “The villain!” continued the shrieker. “She broke in ’ere! My ’ot’ouse!”

  “Flora, calm yourself.” Pertelote’s weary voice. “She’s long gone.”

  Would that it were so.

  “Who the ’ell is she?” Indeed such was the profanity with which Flora spoke. “What’s she want with us?”

  “I don’t know.” Pertelote sounded unsurprised at her sister’s language, but quite grim as she added, “I wish I did know.”

  “I’ll kill ’er! I’ll find ’er and I’ll kill ’er like I killed—”

  “Flora!” The force of Pertelote’s rebuke commanded a halt to such talk, and received it. “You are to kill no one. No one ever
again. Do you ’ear me?”

  Flora muttered some sulky reply, inaudible to me.

  In heightened tones Pertelote demanded, “What was that? What ’ave you done with Dr. Watson?”

  “Nuthin. ’Oo said I done anything?” Flora whined like a child who, denied a tantrum, resorts to tears. “Why you got to bark at me after what ’appened to my ’ot’ouse?”

  “Oh, for the love of mercy, that’s easily remedied. Send for the glazier.” Pertelote sounded exhausted and disgusted. “You’d better not ’ave anything to do with whatever ’appened to Dr. Watson. My breakfast is getting cold.” The sound of heavy steps signalled her departure.

  “Thinks she can turn ’er back on me,” Flora said, sniffling, to her “babies,” I suppose. “Breakfast, indeed. I’m not finished, I’m not.” I heard her thump off after her sister, slamming the hothouse door behind her.

  Leaving me hidden, yet trapped, in a great deal of asparagus, where once again I started trembling.

  Enola, this will not do.

  But—the brusque, almost offhand mention of killing, and of Dr. Watson—

  Think about that later. Think now how to get out of here.

  My shaking increased.

  In order to calm myself, as I had done so often before I closed my eyes and envisioned my mother’s face. Of course she was saying, “Enola, you will do quite well on your own.” Blessedly, the thought of her no longer hurt my heart, only warmed it, and stopped my quaking at once, so that I was able again to think clearly, to plan what to do.

  It was, after all, not so difficult. I merely sat up amidst the asparagus, removed my boots so that I should be able to walk silently in my stocking feet, then got out of the asparagus, which grew in quite a massive, eight-foot-long galvanised steel container supported above the floor by several sawhorses. This I saw after I had climbed down and stepped softly away. I saw also the hole I had made in the roof by my involuntary entry, and broken glass scattered on asparagus, red hawthorn, white poppies…but I could not spare much attention for the hothouse, because I found myself swaying on my feet—understandably so, I realised. I had not eaten in twenty-four hours. And, reaching into my skirt pockets for the strengthening sugar candies I customarily carried with me, I found none; I had been in too much of a hurry, and had forgotten them.