by Marvin Kaye
“Madam,” Holmes said quite gently for him, “feel no shame. Your faith in humanity is far from unbecoming. Now do you have more of these hostile acts to relate to us?”
“Yes. On another occasion I was riding in a hansom cab on my way to an appointment in Threadneedle Street, and a man jumped onto the cab’s running board. He swung himself into the carriage and ordered me to avert my face so I couldn’t see his. I simply sat there, terrified, and did as I was told.”
“Not surprising. A ruffianly type, was he?”
“No, that was the odd thing: he was well dressed and his voice was—I can only describe it as gentlemanly.” She shook her head slightly. “When I think back on it I find myself puzzled. That voice—”
“Had you heard it before?”
“I can’t say that exactly, but the tones themselves were somehow familiar, not dangerous—Oh, I know I’m not being helpful, but—”
She broke off. Holmes was strolling the hearthrug back and forth, his head bent. “I assure you that you are being helpful, Mrs. Norton. What exactly did he say, this unwelcome fellow passenger of yours?”
“That is the strangest part of all. He said, ‘Just continue to do what you’re doing and your life as you know it is over.’ ”
“ ‘And your life . . . is over’ In other words he threatened your life?”
She hesitated. “It sounded more like a warning than an actual threat.”
“But he didn’t indicate what it is that you’ve been doing that is so displeasing to—someone?”
“No.”
“Well, it is clear enough to me that the plan against you aims at subtlety, but the mind which evolved it is not devious enough to achieve it. For example,” said Holmes, hands flat upon his thighs as he leaned forward, “I submit that the person or persons who developed this plot are not criminals but people of British background, education and interest and that they firmly believe they are serving their country.”
“Against me?” Even in the dimness one could sense her sudden pallor. “But that would be dreadful! What on earth would lead them to suppose such a thing?”
“They have their reasons. Some strong conviction is moving them, of that you may be certain, since they are hiring various substitutes to terrorize you and being careful to keep their own identity a secret—at least so far. I expect that to change. Perhaps one of these hirelings can be bribed to name a name if only we can lay our hands on him long enough to make him an offer.”
“You mean a bribe.” Her foot tapped the carpet in involuntary protest. Holmes asked abruptly, “Do you have any idea at all what all this could be about? Have you any reason to think you have enemies here in London? Any reason whatsoever?”
She shook her head, her eyes on her own fingers as they smoothed her velvet bonnet ribbons.
Holmes regarded her thoughtfully, the firelight flickering on his gaunt features. Then he spoke. “If you will permit me to put it slangily, this campaign, as you term it, does not hang together. You tell me of a burglary and a threat and physical harassment—no. It offers too many different features, and the picture which they present is like an eccentric portrait, the mouth of which has been painted by Gainsborough, the eyes by Holbein, the nose and chin by Reynolds. You may imagine what the resultant picture would be: utter confusion. But where is the connection, one would ask. There must be, there has to be a connection which will tie these features together.”
He turned to me abruptly. “Do you follow my reasoning here, Watson?”
I have seldom been able to follow his reasoning at the start of a case and he knew it, but he always had hopes. “Not clearly, my dear fellow. I must admit that any connection between the episodes Mrs. Norton has just described eludes me.”
“Exactly so. It has all been deliberately designed to elude us, Watson, because that very important connection will uncover the mystery of this entire unpleasant persecution.”
“I hope so,” Mrs. Norton sighed. The clock struck nine and she rose to leave, pulling down her veil and settling her wool-and-velvet outer garments about her. “I’ve taken up too much of your evening . . .”
Holmes saw her downstairs and walked her to the nearest hackstand, where he put her into a cab.
When he returned to our rooms he said only, “The woman has agreed, but only reluctantly, to offer a generous reward, a bribe, actually, for the name of her enemy.” He shook his head again. “It’s a step in the right direction, but she isn’t being candid with us, Watson. She is holding something back, and whatever it is might very well jeopardize my defense. However, I am determined to triumph in her behalf in spite of her.”
That was all he would say. He then made a beeline for his pipe and his pouch of what I considered inhumanly strong tobacco. Seated in his favorite armchair he sank into such a brown study that I knew myself to be invisible to him for the remainder of the evening, and I retired quietly to my own quarters.
Holmes was certain where he wanted to begin his investigation. On the following morning, he and I visited the lobby of the Hotel __________, which Mrs. Norton was making her temporary London home. She had been vague about her future plans as well as the whereabouts of her seldom mentioned husband, Mr. Godfrey Norton. Privately I wondered what had happened to that marriage but personal gossip rarely interested Holmes and he had not pursued it.
I was therefore the more puzzled when he moved directly to a table near the front desk that held the latest newspapers for the convenience of the hotel’s guests. He picked one up and turned his attention to, of all things, the society pages.
“My dear fellow,” I protested, “may we not at least sit down to read?”
Absently and without setting aside his paper, Holmes moved to a nearby banquette which could seat the two of us, and we sat there side by side, he reading, I silent. He was completely unconscious of his surroundings, or so he seemed. He continued to absorb every frivolous word of the engagement notices, entertainment descriptions and birth announcements, and I continued to wonder why.
At last he nodded to himself, folded the paper and looked about him with interest, although there was little of interest to be seen, to my way of thinking. A tall man stood a few feet away leaning against the desk, smoking and conversing with the clerk; a cleaning woman knelt in a far corner working at removing a fresh stain from the carpet; a young couple on a neighboring banquette spoke together in low tones, and various other guests or visitors moved about in different directions. All seemed very ordinary.
It was not to remain so.
Holmes rising, I rose also and accompanied him as he walked over to the desk, waved the clerk to one side, and to my embarrassment addressed himself to the tall man without a moment’s hesitation. “I am Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend, Dr. Watson, who is, like you, a veteran of the sunnier climes of India.”
The stranger looked uncertain. His gaze moved from one to the other of us. “Do I know you gentlemen?”
“No,” Holmes said baldly, “but I believe we know you. Late of Her Majesty’s Service, I should say at a guess: perhaps too fond of gambling but far from lucky, which has been an unfortunate combination for you. It probably got you cashiered and brought you to your present level of threatening women for money.”
“Sir!” He was tall enough to stand eye to eye with Holmes, which he did, and his look was not cordial. “It is too early in the day for public drunkenness but I can attribute your behaviour to nothing else—”
“How much were you paid to abandon your standards as a gentleman, ex-Captain, or is it ex-Major?”
The man paled and seemed to lose an inch or two of stature. “I don’t understand—you must take me for someone—I deny—”
Holmes cut him off. “Your denials will serve no purpose. What I propose instead is more practical, a gift of money, a generous gift, for the identity of your employer.”
The man stood silent, his tongue moistening his lips.
“Well?” Holmes, sharp-voiced.
“I cannot oblige you with any names, sir,” the ex-officer said stiffly.
“You refuse?”
“I repeat, I cannot oblige. The simple fact is that I myself do not know the identity of my employer. The instructions regarding my—er—meeting with the lady were slipped under my door along with a sum of money, and the source is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. So I can be of no help whatsoever in the matter of naming names.”
Holmes’s expression did not alter. He merely reached into his pocket and withdrew a small tip. The other man’s eyes did not meet ours as the coins slid into his own pocket.
Holmes was shaking his head as we left the hotel.
We next made the rounds of a few jewelry stores in the vicinity of the Hotel ——— and in the third one Holmes’s questions brought results. Yes, the proprietor did occasionally buy valuable pieces from private parties. No, never from doubtful sources, only from persons whose obvious quality justified their claim to ownership. He was certain that Mr. Holmes would understand how careful one must be of one’s business reputation. Yes, he had in his cases just such pieces as the gentleman described: the diamond sea horse, the emeralds. Magnificent, were they not? Worthy of Her Majesty herself, although naturally she would never wear such inappropriate pieces with her mourning. But alas, no, the lady who had sold them to him had remained incognita. Yes indeed, her quality had been unmistakable, but he had no idea of her identity and no description to furnish. One must understand that with the heavy veils the ladies wore nowadays . . .
“Failure again, Holmes,” I commiserated with him as we regained the sidewalk.
“Quite the reverse, my friend. We are beginning to make rapid progress: in fact we are two-thirds of the way to the answer we seek.”
I looked my surprise. “Oh, come now, Holmes! The single fact which you’ve ascertained is that a lady presented Mrs. Norton’s jewels for sale. It could even have been Mrs. Norton herself. Has that occurred to you?”
“It has even occurred to me that it could have been a man dressed as a woman. Remember, Watson, ‘with the heavy veils the ladies wear nowadays . . .’ ”
The winter wind drove against us as we walked, and I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. Holmes, however, seemed serenely unaware of the cold. He had lost himself in his puzzle, and although I usually respected his moments of distraction I was now curious enough to break rather rudely into his thoughts.
“What on earth led you to believe the man in the hotel was Mrs. Norton’s fellow-passenger in the hack?”
“Eh? Oh, as it turned out that was fairly easy. By sitting near the desk, I could note the speech patterns of anyone addressing the clerk. Those patterns were important to listen for: You’ll recall that Mrs. Norton had not felt threatened by the man in the hack simply because his speech had been similar to that of her friends, her peers, so that she was unconsciously almost comfortable with him. That in turn indicated that the man presumably had been well educated and seen better days. Another expected factor: Our man in the hotel seemed almost to be stationed there in the lobby. Did you notice how casually he leaned against the desk? What better place to watch the comings and goings of the woman? There had to be someone assigned to do that. I suspect he’s probably paid a crown or two a day to keep a watch on her.”
“Assigned? By whom?”
“Well, yes, ‘whom’ is our problem, Watson, isn’t it? But not for long. As I told you, we’re closing in.”
“But did you have no other clue that he was the man who had jumped aboard the cab when you confronted him so—so brusquely?”
“You mean so rudely, Watson. Say what you mean precisely. Yes, naturally, I did have other clues: He was obviously a man who had lost his place in society, else he would never have been seen conversing so familiarly with a hotel employee. That in itself was highly indicative. And of course you must have noticed that the garments he wore, although once expensive, now have the seedy look of the over-worn and over-brushed, sure signs of a man’s comedown in the world.
“So: Here we have an officer, ostracized by his own class, too young to be retired and athletic enough by the look of him to have swung himself aboard a moving carriage; and down on his luck besides, which in the army always means gambling; but one whose pride persists in trying to keep up appearances. Not exactly unusual, I’m afraid.”
“Well, that all sounds plausible, I must admit, Holmes, but my curiosity is up over something you said last evening, something to the effect that your client was not being candid, as you put it, and her defense being in jeopardy.”
Without answering, Holmes suddenly swung about so abruptly that I was startled, for with my coat collar pulled up about my ears I myself had noticed no sounds behind us. But he had.
“Aha!”
Following us was a small shabby group of small shabby boys. Woollen mufflers were secured about their necks and hung down to their broken-down boots, and running noses were the order of the day. They had stopped in their tracks at Holmes’s “Aha!” and now they stood their ground, impudent and unafraid, or so I had to deduce from the fact that they made no attempt to sheer off.
“You’ve been following us for several hundred paces,” my friend accused the tallest of the group. “Why? What do you mean by it? What do you imps of Satan hope to gain from trailing us, hmm?”
“Wot do anybody ’ope to gain from toffs like you? Not no hinvitation to tea, we don’t. Wot we wants is to sell you sumfin. Got money on you, gents? Paper money? We seen you give ’im back there in the ’otel some o’ your brass, but we don’t take nuffin’ wot rattles. So ’ows abaht it, gents? Make it worth yor wile, we will.”
“I’ve been waiting for this,” Holmes told me out of the corner of his mouth. “Now we’re in business.” And to the young bargainer, “I’m no banker and you’ll get no pound notes from me, boy. But here . . .” He reached into a pocket and withdrew a few crowns. “Very well, then, if you’re about to begin, begin. What is it you have to sell? We already know all about your jostling-about of a certain lady a few days ago, so don’t think to sell us that; but on the other hand if you can tell us who put you up to it—” He jingled the coins in his hand and there was some muttering among the boys, but after a moment or two the leader stepped forward, almost tripping over his own muffler as he did so. I shall not attempt to reproduce more of his hideous Cockney sounds on paper, however.
“We was walking along that big crooked road in the park when along comes this great carriage, shiny and mostly bright black it was, with a gold picture on the side of it of one of them ’orrible animals sorta like a tiger with horns but not ezzactly. There was a lady inside and she called to us. Wasn’t nobody else around, not no bobbies nor nothin’, but we wasn’t scared so we went closer to ’er. She leans out and tells us about the hotel lady and how to know her when we sees her, and how to pester her and follow her and bother her good when we gets the chance, scare her but not to hurt her, we wasn’t. And then the lady in the carriage hands over paper money with her fingers held all stiff like she didn’t want to touch us with her gloves on, even. She said for us not to tell nobody and looked at us bloody hard down her nose but like I said, we don’t get scared easy. Expeshully not by no woman. Now ain’t that good enough for yor bloody crowns, mister?”
“Almost good enough, Oliver Twist,” Holmes told him. “Only one more thing: Did the man who drove this ‘bright black’ carriage wear a uniform? That is to say, special clothes?”
“I well remember he did that, mister. All black and yellow like the carriage, it was.”
“So,” Holmes murmured aside to me. “And since everyone recognizes the Fitzbarry colors as well as the crest on her carriage it would seem she’s decided to come out in the open at last. Perhaps now she’ll dispense with the unpleasant pranks.”
“Lady Fitzbarry? Isn’t she the one they say is so close to the Queen?”
He cut me off. “No names, please, my friend. Not now, not ever. We are stepping close to the edge of pe
rilously high places here, and we’d best watch our footing.”
Turning back to the boys, Holmes began doling out crowns to each of them, which the leader promptly confiscated despite a momentary buzz of protest from the ranks. Another moment and they had all disappeared at top speed.
Holmes frowned after them absently. “It’s time for us to begin pulling her chestnuts out of the fire—if we still can. At least now we know the ‘whom’ involved.”
“But first,” I said, “tell me this: will she be in danger? I mean Mrs. Norton, of course.”
“I hope not, I intend not, but didn’t I tell you she was not being candid? And mark my words, it could cost her dearly.”
“Not her life, Holmes! Don’t tell me that—”
“Oh, no, not her life, but her musical career as well as her entrée into Society, not only here but everywhere on the Continent. Remember the soldier’s prediction? ‘Life as you know it will be over.’ He was speaking the truth. Actually, for a woman like her it would be as much murder as if they had slit her throat. A kind of bloodless assassination.”
“Do you believe she’s fully aware of the trouble she’s in?”
“No, because like all beautiful women she is overconfident, and in this case the admiration of a very highly placed Personage would serve to keep her safe, or so she thinks. She is wrong, of course.”
“Holmes, I’m freezing . . .”
Inside the welcome warmth of a small nearby coffeehouse we loosened our coats, placed our hats on the shelf under our chairs, and over the coffee’s steam and the smoke from Holmes’s cigarette I prodded him to continue his character description of the woman who was his client of the moment.
“I was talking about how unaware she is of the depth of the trouble which threatens her,” Holmes replied. “She is hiding behind her previous successes and she will go on hiding behind them until I can pry her loose from her delusions. You see, Watson, in order to understand Irene you must realize that her beauty is the currency of her life: It’s what she has always used to buy everything she has ever wanted and it has never failed her. And now she’s using it (and this time unwisely) to enjoy the favours of a very highly placed Personage. Why not? Her personal history tells her that she never fails, so she employs her wit, charm and beauty (and for this particular conquest a talent for playing cards and an eye for horses as well)—all irresistible to him. Small wonder his people are worried, eh, Watson? He has already been cited more than once in the divorce courts. Why does he persist in persisting, as it were, only with married women? His mother is quite naturally furious. His wife turns her eyes away like Patience on a Pedestal while I’affaire Norton is endlessly discussed in the society pages of newspapers such as the one I examined this very morning. It told the world that he and she are seen everywhere together: at the Cowes Regatta, weekending at Sandringham or Blenheim, the races at Ascot—Truthfully I cannot blame his mother for her attitude towards the woman.”