Remember, Remember: a Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery

by Anna Elliott

  Now I shivered in the chill morning mist that drifted off the river, clamping my teeth together to keep them from chattering.

  “How are we to know where on the Embankment we are to meet her?”

  If Holmes had stayed up the whole of last night, he showed no sign of it today.

  I had dragged myself out of bed feeling as though my eyes were filled with sand and my head was too heavy for my neck. Holmes looked as fresh and well rested as though he had just spent a relaxing day at the seaside.

  He wore his black Inverness coat, a deerstalker cap, and a woolen muffler wrapped around his neck and chin.

  He peered along the row of dolphin-columned lampposts that ran along the edge of the river walk. Their golden glow winked out like fireflies in the mist and pre-dawn darkness.

  “I should say that we have no other alternative but to begin walking, and hope that our correspondent approaches us.”

  Despite the early hour, there were already pedestrians, wrapped in cloaks and scarves and hunched against the cold as they hurried on their way.

  In the streets behind us, I could see the knockers-up making their way from door to door—rapping at the doors and windows of those who were too poor to afford a clock, but needed some way of waking up in time for their shift at work.

  “What does the barmaid from the White Hart look like?” I asked Holmes.

  “She has myopic vision, exactly as you surmised last night. She has a habit of biting her fingernails. Also, she possesses a white cat.”

  “Oh, good. That ought to help.”

  I had had no time to eat anything before coming out—and already my fingertips were frozen. Though that was nothing compared to the uneasiness that was currently twisting my insides into a cold, painful knot.

  Despite the presence of other pedestrians, this lonely river walk felt much too exposed and isolated to be secure—especially when we had no way of knowing who was a friend or foe, or who might even now be spying on us.

  I gave Holmes a look. “All I have to do is accost passersby and demand to inspect their fingernails for evidence of biting and the hems of their coats for stray white cat hairs.”

  As usual, sarcasm bounced off Holmes like dry peas off a shovel. He gave me a serene glance. “She also has a quantity of copper-colored hair and blue eyes.”

  “Noted.”

  I glanced behind us to where Uncle John was lingering at a discreet distance. I did feel marginally safer with him here.

  Becky was back in Baker Street, with luck still asleep—though if she woke, Mrs. Hudson would be there to look after her.

  I straightened up and tried to rub some warmth back into my hands. “All right. Shall we get started?”

  Half an hour later, I could see the graceful curves of Blackfriars Bridge up ahead. My fingers felt as though they ought to be turning blue with cold, and I was seriously contemplating the possibility that the note was an elaborate prank.

  Then, beside me, Holmes suddenly stiffened—just the barest check of his movements, the slightest intake of his breath—but I still felt a jolt of anticipation.

  “What is it?” I lowered my voice, taking care to keep up with our slow and stately progress along the walkway—even though every part of me wanted to stop dead and stare all around.

  “Straight ahead. There, to the right.”

  I turned my head and saw a woman’s figure, wrapped in shawls and standing on the edge of the path. Unlike the other pedestrians, she was not hurrying anywhere but was merely standing, staring out at the misty, dark expanse of river.

  I curled my fingers into my palms. This girl was our lone potential informant—and I knew that we had to go slowly and carefully, for fear of scaring her off.

  But all the same, it took all my self-restraint not to tackle her, seize her by the shoulders, and demand that she tell us everything that she knew.

  Holmes—not terribly surprisingly—seemed to have far less trouble in being patient. His expression calm, he strolled forward, coming to a halt about five feet away from the shawl-wrapped girl.

  For a second, she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice him—but then she gave a gasp and started, whirling to face him.

  Holmes held up both hands palms-out in a gesture of peace. “Pray do not distress yourself. We have come at your invitation—but as you see, we have no connection to the police. And you are free to leave at any time.”

  The girl’s face was a pale smudge in the glow cast by the nearest lamp. Though as I moved closer, I could see the coppery curls peeking out from beneath the shawl that covered her head.

  Her attention whipped from Holmes to me and back again. Her eyes reminded me of a panicked horse’s—darting back and forth, and so wide that I could see the whites. “We?” Her voice came out whispery, hoarse.

  “May I introduce you to … to Lucy James.”

  I stepped closer. The girl looked to be about my own age—maybe a year or two younger—with a round, full-cheeked face and a snub nose scattered with freckles. Her eyes were pale blue—and though she still looked nervous, she did seem a little less frightened as her gaze swept over me.

  Proof—not that I in fact needed it—of Holmes’s abilities to correctly gauge a potential witness.

  The girl turned back to Holmes. “You said there was money in it, if anyone could tell you about that policeman?”

  “Inspector Mallows, yes. You have some information for us?”

  “How much money?” The girl’s voice sharpened. Then she seemed to recollect herself, because she went on in pious tones. “Not that it’s for me. I’ve got a … a younger sister who’s sick. Terrible sick, she is. I need the money to pay the doctor’s bills.”

  Holmes did not bat an eyelash—or question the lie so bald-faced that a child of three could have seen through it.

  “This is for you now.” He handed across a gold sovereign. “With twice as much more for you if you tell us something of value.”

  The girl’s eyes dropped to the coin in her hand, and I saw her bite her lip.

  She was frightened, I realized—badly frightened. She might not actually have a sick younger sister at home, but something was preying on her mind.

  “You’re saying you’ll give me two pounds more if I tell you what I know?”

  “If the information is useful to us, certainly.”

  The girl stared down at the gold sovereign and seemed to debate with herself. Her eyes were downcast, but I could still see the greedy, hungry expression on her face.

  Holmes’s gold sovereign was probably the most money she had ever held at one time in her entire life.

  Finally, she exhaled shakily and looked up at Holmes. “All right. I’ll tell you. The name’s Gl—” she stopped herself. “I mean, Alice. I’m been barmaid at the White Hart for more than a year.”

  My skin crawled with impatience. I could not fault the girl for not wanting to tell us her real name. But I did wish that she would get on with it.

  “That man—Mallows—he started coming into the pub maybe a month ago.”

  “He only started coming a month ago? You had never seen him before?”

  “Never clapped eyes on him.” Alice shook her head. “But he started coming a month ago, same as I said—regular as clockwork, he was. Every night, there he’d be at the bar. Nasty piece of goods he was, too.” The edges of her mouth turned down. “I spilled a drop of his drink once, and you’d have thought I’d set him on fire, all the shouting and the cursing he did. And he was a mean tipper. Never got so much as a copper out of him, even when everything was just how he liked it. Some of the other girls said he’d tried to get rough with them, too.”

  I nodded, and Alice’s gaze landed on me. “You’d met him?” she asked.

  “Only once. But what you say about him does not surprise me at all.”

  “Well, then.” Alice stopped, moistening her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  Both Holmes and I waited. From somewhere out on the river, a boat ble
w its horn.

  Finally, Alice said, her voice jerky, “Can I have my money now?”

  Holmes’s eyebrows rose. “Unfortunately if you expect to be paid in more gold sovereigns, you will have to give us something of more value that the unhappy sergeant’s stinginess as a tipper or his propensity for mistreating bar girls.”

  Alice scowled at him—and for a second, I thought she was going to bolt. Her shoulders tensed, and she darted a look past Holmes, towards the streets beyond the embankment.

  I held my breath, wondering whether I would do more harm than good if I tried to persuade her to stay.

  Holmes was probably wiser. He did not bother to speak, but casually—almost carelessly—drew out another coin from his pocket, holding it between his forefinger and thumb.

  The overhead glow of lamplight caught the sovereign’s golden sheen.

  Alice licked her lips again. “He played cards.”

  She spoke the words so quickly that for a second, I was not sure whether I had heard correctly.

  “Cards?”

  Alice bobbed her head. “Sat with some other regulars and played cards—or dice, sometimes.” Her throat contracted visibly as she swallowed. “Thing was, he always won. Always. Used to come away from the table with a roll of banknotes that could choke a horse.”

  Holmes studied her, seeming to consider his next question.

  When he said nothing, I asked, “The other men that he gambled with—you said they were regulars? What did they look like?”

  Alice gave me a quick, scared look, followed by a shrug. “Just—you know, regular. Ordinary men, nothing special about them.”

  I opened my mouth, but she hurried on. Her eyes were darting back and forth again, anxious and hunted-looking.

  “Right, can I have the money, now? I’ve got to be getting along.”

  She practically snatched the coin out of Holmes’s hand—nor did she even wait to demand the promised third gold sovereign. Clutching her shawl more tightly around her, she plunged past us, moving back towards Westminster Bridge.

  Holmes let her get several steps distant. Then he raised his voice, calling out after her, “Éire go Brách!”

  At least, that was what it sounded like. I could not remember ever having heard the language or the words before.

  The effect on Alice, though, was as if she had been shocked by a jolt of electricity. She whirled around and stared at Holmes, her mouth opening and closing and her hands clasped at her throat.

  Then, without another word, she turned and ran blindly away.

  I opened my mouth, about to apologize for having frightened her off. But Holmes—evidently reading my intention—spoke first. “It was not your fault. She had merely reached a crisis point in the internal struggle that brought her here: her own greed waging a war against loyalty to whoever it is that she betrayed by speaking with us.”

  I stared. “You think that she is part of this? You honestly think that girl is a German spy?”

  Holmes gave me a look that he usually reserved for Uncle John—when he was too slow-witted to reach the same conclusion as Holmes.

  “She need not know the whole of the organization’s business. But she is linked to it somehow. A lover, perhaps? Or a brother?”

  “I suppose.” That would explain the girl’s nervousness.

  “The card games must have been a ruse,” I said. “A means of passing extortion payments over to Inspector Mallows. But why go to the trouble? Surely it would have been easier to just hand him the money somewhere in secret?”

  “Mallows was a policeman—which means that he had to exercise care. Corruption amongst our police force is all too common. Commissioner Bradford has of late been at some pains to stamp it out. Suddenly betraying evidence of having come into unexpected wealth might have brought Inspector Mallows under uncomfortable scrutiny. He might have been questioned, or followed and spied on—as in fact, he was, by Constable Kelly. The ruse of the card games was a simple yet effective one. If questioned by his superiors, he could truthfully claim that his sudden affluence was a result of being lucky at cards. A slightly unsavory pursuit for a police officer—but one that would have likely earned him no more than a reprimand, followed by an end to uncomfortable questions.”

  I could see the logic of what Holmes said. “But if they were going to kill him in the end, why bother with paying him at all? According to Alice, he had been coming into the White Hart to play at cards for nearly a month now.”

  “One might reasonably hypothesize that our unfortunate inspector was in some way making himself useful to the organization, such that they allowed him to remain alive.”

  “And then his usefulness ran out?”

  Holmes made a vague gesture. “Presumably.” His eyes were far distant, his thoughts seemingly miles away from the embankment and the wakening city of London all around us.

  “What did you say to Alice there at the end?” I asked him. “Ere go—”

  I had sung songs in everything from German to Italian to Latin and French. But I tripped over the unaccustomed syllables I had heard Holmes utter.

  “Merely verifying a theory. And now, I am afraid that I must leave you—in pursuit of verification of another line of thought.”

  “But—”

  Holmes paid no attention whatsoever to my half-uttered protest. He was already striding rapidly away, following the same direction that Alice had taken.

  “Meet me at Holloway Prison at ten o’clock,” he called back over his shoulder. “But if I am not there, do not wait. I shall leave word at the guard house that you are to be admitted to see Constable Kelly.”

  “Wait!” I called after him.

  Holmes did not turn this time—only raised his hand in a wave and strode off, with the deceptively casual gate of his that could cover ground far more quickly than a run.

  I bit my lip in frustration. Short of tearing after my father, tackling him, wrestling him to the ground and demanding that he answer my questions—an admittedly tempting prospect—there was nothing to do but let him go.

  Though as I watched his tall figure disappear around a bend in the river, the folds of his cloak flapping about his legs, it occurred to me that by the time this case was over, I might have a whole new sense of sympathy for how Uncle John must have felt all these years.

  32. IRELAND FOREVER

  “Mary, what does—”

  I broke off speaking abruptly as I entered the front door of the flat and realized that Mary was not alone.

  Not only was she not alone, she was with a young man. They were sitting in the flat’s outer room, Mary on the sofa and the young man on a nearby chair. Their heads were together, and they had plainly been deep in conversation until I interrupted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I—” I was not usually so tongue-tied.

  In all the time Mary had shared the flat with me, I had never known her to bring a friend home. Certainly not a sweetheart.

  Beyond deploring the bad manners and poor acting of the young men in the opera company, I had never seen her express interest in any member of the opposite sex.

  Though on second glance, I had to revise my initial impression: her current caller could not be a sweetheart after all.

  The man jumped to his feet, turning to face me, and I saw he was wearing the white collar and the long black cassock of a Catholic priest.

  “You must be Miss James.”

  He was somewhere around thirty, or a year or two more, with a similar coloring to Mary’s: black hair and blue eyes. He had a deep voice, with an Irish accent that was stronger than Mary’s. “I have heard so much about you that I feel as though we are acquainted already. But of course we have never met. Let me introduce myself. I am Keenan Mulloy. Mary’s brother.”

  I stared at him—even more astonished. He did look like Mary. Even without him saying anything, I would have guessed at some family relationship between them. But sister and brother?

  I had never heard Mary mention any siblings.
/>   “Mary never told me—” I began.

  Mary interrupted, jumping up off the sofa and crossing to stand beside Keenan. “I never told her that you were coming today. Of course, I didn’t know it myself.”

  Mary’s voice was hard, clipped-sounding, and she looked upset—even for someone whose habitual expression was one of vexed discontent. Her lips were pinched tight, and bright spots of color burned in both her cheeks.

  “Unfortunately, Keenan has to be going now.” She landed even harder than usual on the emphasized word.

  Keenan’s face was not angry, like Mary’s. His expression was more pained as he turned to his sister. “Mary, I must—”

  Mary did not let him finish. “I have to go, Keenan. I’ll be late for the theater. And anyway, you’ve already said what you came here to say.”

  I had the impression that if they had been alone, Keenan might have argued. I actually opened my mouth, about to offer to leave and give them privacy to finish whatever talk I had interrupted.

  But before I could, Keenan bowed his head. “I shall pray for you, Mary.”

  His voice was soft. Then, without another word, he moved to the door.

  He stopped, though, with one hand on the doorknob. His fingers tightened, as though he were struggling with himself, or debating. Then he swung back around—to me, though, not to his sister.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss James.”

  I almost drew back at the look in Keenan’s intense gaze. His eyes were hollow and bitter, completely devoid of the peace one usually associates with a man of the cloth.

  “I hope that you will not think me forward in asking. But you occasionally stay elsewhere, with relatives, do you not?”

  I had not told Mary of my connection to Sherlock Holmes—but I had to offer her some explanation for where I slept on the nights when I did not come back to the Exeter Street flat.

  “Yes, that’s right.” I had no idea why Keenan Mulloy should care where I slept.

  “An admirable idea. To spend time with your family, that is. Family”—his gaze flicked briefly to his sister, the edges of his mouth twisting—“family is all any of us have in this sad world of ours.”