A Soul of Steel (A Novel of Suspense featuring Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes)

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  “Someday perhaps, Holmes, it will all come out.” The Puzzle of the Naval Treaty, my mind formulated. And The Adventure of the CatatonicCobras.

  “Someday, Watson, but not while you and I yet live.”

  “Let us hope that day is long after the demise of the unpleasant Colonel Moran.”

  “Let us hope, Watson,” he answered as he relit his pipe with a series of cheek-hollowing puffs. “And let us ensure that it is so.”

  Chapter Thirty

  A MOTHER NOSE

  The day following our first interview with Sherlock Holmes brimmed with errands. Immediately after breakfast, we again repaired to the Norton sitting room, where Irene declared herself bound for Liberty’s of Regent Street and a fitting for the flowing gowns in the oriental mode for which the establishment was famed.

  “I will go, too,” I suggested.

  “Nell, you know you loathe the fashion for aesthetic dress,” Irene said quickly. “I plan to order a gift for Sarah as well as a few things for myself.”

  Godfrey rolled his eyes at this announcement; Irene’s “a few things” invariably filled trunks.

  “I might reconsider,” I said, glancing at Quentin. It occurred to me that a gown a la Saracen might find favor in his Eastward-oriented eyes.

  Irene was stuffing a formidable roll of pound notes into her reticule.

  “Nonsense,” said she even more abruptly. “We are not suited as shopping partners. You always reject my suggestions and I yours. Besides, we shall all be returning to France soon and I wish to accomplish a great deal in one swoop. I should return before your appointment with Mr. Holmes.”

  With that she swept out, the empty carpetbag she carried certain proof that she intended to collect items for immediate consumption as well as ordering gowns to be sent along later.

  At her exit, Quentin, too, bestirred himself. He had seemed distracted this morning. I fear the afternoon’s meeting with Mr. Holmes and the proposed reunion with his family were occasions for anxiety as well of hope. He also had errands to accomplish, he announced, among them a pressing need to “find fresh food for Messalina.”

  I didn’t offer to accompany him, nor did I inquire into the specifics of this process, being hopeful that it involved the butcher’s rather than the domestic pet vendor’s. He left soon after Irene.

  Godfrey smiled over the Times at me. “Time will hang heavy today, Nell. Perhaps we should arrange an outing of our own.”

  “I have nowhere I wish to go.”

  “Not even ’church’?” he jibed me wickedly.

  “Godfrey, you know that fiction was necessary to deceive you. Quentin’s life was at risk.”

  “Not among that crowd at the British Museum.”

  “It was a charade, was it not?”

  “Still...” Godfrey lowered the paper as if beset by an unpleasant thought. “If Colonel Moran was among those odd folk milling around that exhibition room—and he must have been, given the air gun fired into the exhibit case—he is fully as duplicitous as the incomparable Irene, or even Mr. Sherlock Holmes, or—lately—Miss Penelope Huxleigh.”

  “Godfrey, you do me an injustice to place me in such professionally duplicitous company,” I answered with a mock pout, for I knew that he enjoyed teasing me. “But you are truly worried?”

  He nodded, running a forefinger over his bare upper lip, no doubt missing his mustache. “I fear that Irene underestimates the rapacious nature of Moran. Such men do not lose easily, and never give up if once they develop a grudge. I only hope that we do not become the object of it. She also overestimates the esteemed investigator of Baker Street.”

  “Then you think that Quentin’s difficulties may not be solved?”

  He sighed and folded the newspaper. “I won’t know what I think until the events of this afternoon, but meanwhile I have thought of the perfect diversion for you and me to make the hours fly until you can return here and depart for Baker Street again.’’

  “Oh, really, Godfrey? What is this treat?”

  “The zoo,” he said, with an expression of immense self-satisfaction. “You and I are going to the Regent’s Park zoo.”

  I could hardly tell him that my distaste for dead animals, as displayed in the Museum of Natural History and Modem Curiosities, was only exceeded by my abhorrence for live animals, especially eccentric ones.

  We returned at three o’clock, my vision spotted from gazing upon so many beasts of conflicting patterned hides. Sarah Bernhardt would have been ecstatic.

  The Norton suite was not unoccupied, but Irene had not yet returned. Instead, a strangely subdued Quentin greeted us. With him was a lady of such age and frailty that she barely seemed able to sit upright despite the ebony cane around whose golden top her blue-veined hands were curled.

  “Godfrey. Nell.” Quentin paused as if to gather his thoughts. “I should like to present my mother, Mrs. Fotheringay Stanhope.”

  Godfrey and I nodded dazedly at this fragile figure in rich shades of half-mourning: heliotrope, lavender and gray. The white-haired head inclined in greeting.

  Quentin spoke on quickly, as if embarrassed or unusually nervous. “I must apologize for surprising you in this way, but I had given some thought to Irene’s advice of yesterday that it was high time I overcame my shame and approached my family. I decided to visit Grosvenor Square, in suitable disguise to protect the family.

  “Only Mama was at home, and when I gave the name ‘Quentin,’ she saw me at once. Her health has been fragile and she has mostly kept to her rooms upstairs, but when she heard my story, and that you and I, Nell, were to hear the end of it today in Baker Street, she insisted on accompanying me there to personally thank Mr. Holmes for safeguarding my return to England and to her.”

  We stood in shocked silence, Godfrey and myself, as Quentin must have done only hours before in the upper rooms of number forty-four Grosvenor Square.

  For how could anyone deny the request of this lovely little old lady whose hazel eyes—so like her son’s—had faded to the color of old gold?

  “I—I am most pleased to meet you, Mrs. Stanhope,” I said, falling into a sort of schoolgirl curtsy. I glanced quickly at Quentin. “I imagine it will not be necessary for me to accompany you to Grosvenor Square from Baker Street now.”

  “Quite the contrary, Nell!” he replied as if cut to the quick. “Mama must be taken home, and I cannot think of revealing myself to my dear sisters without having at my side the woman who first convinced me to return.”

  “You said that Irene—”

  “Irene suggested that I no longer put off the time of the reunion, but you were the one who made me see that such a thing was possible when we first spoke at Neuilly. I hope I have not angered you.”

  “No. I seldom anger.”

  “And only in defense of her friends,” Godfrey put in.

  He went to the old lady and bowed. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Stanhope. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  The grande dame carefully lifted one slightly trembling hand from the head of her cane, which Godfrey saluted with a very Continental kiss. Then he turned to me.

  “You will wish to refresh yourself before leaving for Baker Street, Nell. As soon as you are ready, I will see you all down to a carriage.”

  “Yes,” I said pointedly before I left. “The zoo was hot and crowded. And... pungent.” I was not angry but I was a bit annoyed.

  One could not blame Quentin for an impulse to visit a mother who thought him long lost, I told myself as I retreated to my rooms to don my Miss Buxleigh garb. Still, I was bitterly disappointed, and could not say why. Perhaps I saw that once Quentin had been reclaimed by his family, his regard for me would pale. I was, after all, only a means, not an end.

  The journey to Baker Street required a four-wheeler rather than a hansom cab, and was quieter than the trip Quentin and I had made the previous day. The lavender ostrich plumes on Mrs. Stanhope’s hat nodded dolefully at me as we jolted along.

  She and Quentin occupied th
e opposite seat. Already the “fiancée” was being usurped by the mother, even in our fictional relationship. I no longer looked forward to my return to the Stanhopes, although I wore the “surprise” dress Irene had suggested I wear yesterday, so I could smarten my ensemble in the carriage with a few discreet adjustments on the way to Grosvenor Square.

  Again the elderly woman admitted us to 221 B Baker Street. Again we climbed the stairs. Again Mr. Holmes invited us in and assigned us seats. This time Quentin and his mother occupied the sofa. I took the velvet armchair claimed yesterday by Dr. Watson, who was absent today.

  “Delighted to meet you, Mrs., er, Blodgett,” the detective said. “I believe I have excellent news for your son.” (Despite her advanced age, Mrs. Stanhope had understood the need to muddy her son’s identity and readily accommodated the charade.)

  She nodded graciously, if a bit vacantly, and withdrew a lorgnette from her ruched violet satin reticule. She gravely unfolded it, then brought the device to her eyes and honored Mr. Holmes with the kind of up-and-down inspection only the very elderly—or the very young—are permitted in polite society.

  “Thank you... Mr. Holmes, is it?” Her voice, which I had not yet heard, was one of those that ages like apricots: dry, fruity and shriveled. Her tones wavered in the midst of words, producing an unfortunate tremolo. Quite frankly, it would grate on anyone with any ear for music.

  Mr. Holmes’s features became pained of a sudden, and he took a sharp intake of breath.

  “Holmes it is, Madam, as Blodgett is your name.”

  This statement; and that unlovely, fraudulent name, he left hanging in the air. I was quite unsure what this imperious lady would say in answer. She was perfectly capable of forgetting our pose and telling the truth.

  “Fine, upstanding English names, both,” she finally asserted in her voice so like an ill-sawed violin. “I am relieved to hear that you have released my long-lost Jasper from impending danger. How was it done, young man?”

  Mr. Holmes turned to Quentin and myself with an apologetic look and a conspiratorial smile. “I am sorry to say that the particulars must remain veiled. Certainly you realize that the matter of Maiwand involved persons who are now highly placed in the government. Yet I can assure you that some of these same public and private figures are also in a position to see that this Colonel Moran troubles you no more.”

  Quentin frowned. “Then poor Maclaine’s reputation must remain compromised?”

  “I fear so.” Mr. Holmes strode to the mantle from where he could fix us all with his compelling gaze. “Past injustices must on occasion not only go unpunished but celebrated in monuments. Such is the history of war since the Trojans. Maiwand was a minor battle in a far quadrant of the globe in which our nation no longer invests any real interest. I vouchsafe to say that Russia’s ambitions there are also fading and by the new century will be nonexistent. Colonel Moran only resurrected the past because his current activities were endangered by those who might know of it.”

  “You still do not say how it was done, sir,” Mrs. “Blodgett’s” commanding quaver piped up like a creaky old organ. “I was given to understand that you are some latter-day wonder-worker. A Daniel come to judgment.”

  “Even a Daniel may not necessarily name his lions,” Mr. Holmes returned. He turned to include us in his remarks. “Suffice it to say that I have taken the teeth and claws from the man. No one he was accustomed to dealing with in his spy-work will associate with him. There is no reason for him to protect his past when his future ground has been cut out from under him.”

  “Will not such a beast be dangerous, rather like a wounded tiger?” Quentin’s mother asked.

  Holmes smiled condescendingly, although his tone remained ever courteous. “A terrifyingly apt expression, Madam. No. Colonel Moran will be too busy hunting for his own survival to harass others in theirs.”

  “Humph.” The old lady leaned slowly forward, putting all her weight on those two frail hands folded over her cane top. Then she pushed herself slowly upright, inch by inch.

  We all stood, feeling we should assist her, yet fearing to topple her with the very offer of our aid.

  Straightening gingerly, she began to hobble about the room, the lorgnette at her face, as she inspected the furnishings.

  “That basket chair needs a bit of reweaving, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “I hope that my son has recompensed you sufficiently for your services that you can afford a bit of repair to your belongings.’’

  “Not yet,” Quentin put in hastily, “but I will before we depart.”

  “Speaking of which, we should—” I began, watching Mrs. Stanhope scuttle along the opposite wall toward the cluttered desk.

  She stopped suddenly and pointed with her cane to an object in a dark comer of the chamber. “Ah, a fiddle. Play, do you?”

  “It is a Stradivarius, Madam,” was all Mr. Holmes said, in an icily polite tone.

  She bent over it, viewing the instrument through her lorgnette. “Needs oiling, young man.” Then she was skittering along the well-worn red carpet to pause before the sofa Quentin and I occupied. Her neck craned to study, not us, but the wall above us.

  “Most patriotic, sir,” she trilled approvingly and traveled on around the chamber to a cluttered corner where hand-labeled bottles and vials glimmered in the low lamplight.

  I turned to inspect the dusky damask-pattern wallpaper behind us: what I had taken for some unevenness in the pattern now stood revealed as bullet holes in the graceful script of V.R., complete with a small crown above them.

  Mrs. Stanhope had paused before the hearth. Her cane tapped the head of a brown bear that lay prostrate before the fender. “You are more partial to bears than tigers, it appears, Mr. Holmes. A pity this Colonel Moran who has caused my dear boy such grief cannot be trapped and turned into an object of use, if not beauty.”

  She eyed the jackknife stuck into the middle of the wooden mantel to pin down a fan of papers and cocked her head in a most uncouth manner to try to read some of the text thereon. I glanced at Quentin, feeling wretched for his mother’s appalling behavior.

  And he was worried that his family would find his life abroad irregular and spurn him! So much for a house on Grosvenor Square, apparently no guarantee of gentility.

  “Now,” Mrs. Stanhope croaked in a tone all too reminiscent of Casanova, “there is a lively-looking lass. A mother could not ask better than that for her son to marry. Your sister, sir, no doubt? Perhaps you will introduce my boy when he gets his feet on the ground.”

  I gasped, for the old woman had stopped before the photograph of Irene. The very idea of proposing Irene for Quentin as a fiancée in my presence was too appalling to entertain for even one moment. Did this dreadful old busybody have no limits?

  Mr. Holmes’s expression hinted that he, too, had been goaded beyond his endurance. He went to the mantel and lifted the frame from the elderly woman’s rapt gaze. “A lady of my acquaintance,” he said coldly, “a rather private person.” He paused. “Of my ‘late’ acquaintance,” he added finally.

  Mr. Holmes had also discovered how admirably mention of death deters impertinent inquiries. Mrs. Stanhope recoiled at this implied rebuke, but a moment later lifted a hand from her cane to jab a crooked finger at Mr. Holmes’s midsection.

  “Now that is a lovely charm, sir. No doubt a memento from a grateful client, eh? Jasper, son, you must find Mr. Holmes something suitable, too. A sovereign would hardly do, as he has one already.

  “Why, sir,” she jibed him slyly, “if you are as successful in the detection business as they claim and receive a small token from every satisfied client, you will hardly be able to walk, your watch chain will be so laden with booty.”

  He drew his jacket over the chain with great dignity, like a man closing a curtain, or perhaps veiling a wound unsuitable for public viewing.

  “Please be seated, Mrs. Blodgett. I fear you will trip upon a wrinkle in the rug; though your eyes seem remarkably sharp, you are somewhat uns
teady on your feet.”

  With that he took her elbow and guided her back to the central table and into a chair beside it, bending his remarkably penetrating, almost fierce, gaze upon her.

  “Now,” said he, “our business is concluded. Ah, thank you, Mr. Blodgett, an entirely satisfactory commission.”

  “I hope,” Quentin said, “that pound notes will not inconvenience you, Mr. Holmes. Being newly arrived in the country, I have not yet had time to establish credit.”

  “Not at all, not at all. I have accepted gold coin as happily,” he added, with a sharp look to the elderly lady.

  Mrs. Stanhope looked a bit taken aback and began her pained rising once again, the cane wobbling between her clasped hands until every eye was fixed upon her in the same breathless way one watches rope dancers at a circus.

  Her trembling hand paused on Mr. Holmes’s forearm.

  “Sir,” she said, “I hope you will accept a mother’s full measure of joy at witnessing the restoration of her son’s safety and freedom.”

  “Indeed I will, Madam,” he said swiftly, guiding her once again with such courteous skill toward the door that for a moment he almost seemed a courtier escorting a great lady to a moment of mutually lamented farewell.

  Quentin and I followed, mortified; at least I was.

  And then it was over—the charade. We stood on the threshold. I could glimpse beyond Mr. Holmes a room that had become, after two visits, familiar in an odd way. What bizarre experiments unfolded under the bright glow of those gaslights high on the walls! What high- and low-born clients passed over this very threshold, bearing problems of every description like gifts to the strange man who lived there!

  I saw the chamber for an instant as an exotic private railroad car hurtling through time with its cargo of crime and punishment. I felt I would never be able to return to Baker Street with quite the innocence with which I had first viewed it, just as I would never be able to return to Saffron Hill or Shropshire.

  And then I realized that I was the train, and that my life was the tracks that were hurtling me away from my past into an uncertain, an ever-mysterious future. I began to understand Irene’s fascination with the curious and the criminal; these things were the velocity that made the journey fast and frightening and... interesting.