A Soul of Steel (36 page)

“You credit me with too much. I cannot crush snakes with my bare hands,” Quentin said evasively.

“But you did have an accomplice, one who has traveled with you since Paris, and before. One brought with you from India, who escaped that fatal Montmartre garret along with you.”

“Irene! He has admitted to the company of the dead Indian, but no other. Are you accusing Quentin of lying?”

“Not yet, Nell. He has not yet answered me.”

Quentin’s hazel eyes narrowed, which only increased his distinguished appearance, in my opinion. “It is impossible to conceal anything from Mrs. Norton. How did you guess—?”

“I never guess, my dear man! I merely put myself in your place, quite literally. I asked myself who and what I might take with me from India for protection from a madman who would use any means to harm me.

“How, I wondered, would a ‘Cobra’ protect himself against one of similar cunning and subtlety? Of course the empty milk dish was a clue to the presence of some creature, though I was misled by the fact that Nell’s little green snake, Oscar, drank watered milk. On reflection I realized that Oscar was an aberration and only warm-blooded animals drink milk, so the resident of the vacant cage was unlikely to be reptilian.”

Quentin made a resigned gesture, then rose and approached the dilapidated trunk at the foot ‘of the bed. He threw off a torn scarf and opened it, bending to withdraw something—a boa of sorts, a dark fur-piece perhaps two feet long... that wriggled!

“Poor little beast.” Quentin stroked the object he held. “The trunk admits air enough to keep her alive, but it is not home. I had to leave her cage behind in Montmartre. She had killed the first cobra, but I never dreamed that a second was still loose to slay Dalip when he came in after I’d left. Out the window and over the rooftops we fled together with a sack of my belongings and money. I did not want my absence to cause a stir, so I took the cobra’s corpse with me.”

Irene’s eyebrows raised. “And—?”

Quentin looked sheepish. “I... deposited it in a handy drainpipe. This one”—he stroked the dense, coarse fur— “rode inside my tunic front, which she likes to do. I’ve had her for many years.”

He placed his pet on the floor, a long, low, weasel-like creature with clever clawed paws. It pattered swiftly to our picnic, thrusting its ratlike snout among the remains of the game pie.

“Oh, the darling!” Irene laughed and applauded. “I’ve never seen one. Does she bite?”

“Only to eat,” Quentin replied wickedly.

“How would she kill a cobra?” Godfrey asked.

“With speed, daring and skill. She darts in and out at a great rate, teasing the snake until its guard is down. Then a quick twist and a pounce, and she is behind it, the snake’s head caught in her tenacious teeth. A proper shake, and the cobra’s skull is cracked, with one bite.”

“Ah!” Irene sat back and nodded. “Rather like a rat terrier. I thought so. You see, Nell and Godfrey, that explains the deceased cobra in Dr. Watson’s consulting room. One must set a thief to catch a thief. In this case it took a Cobra to forestall a cobra’s killing: a human Cobra and his pet mongoose.”

“Is that what this is?” I inquired carefully. I dared not move, as the creature was nuzzling my lace-edged sleeve.

“Her name,” Quentin said, “is Messalina. I call her ‘Messy’ for short.”

“That is undoubtedly true,” I noted, watching the animal overturn a tin of Irene’s beloved
pâté
and lick it clean. “And Irene guessed its existence from an empty milk dish?”

“And from the empty cage, which we first assumed had been used to contain the snake,” she said, handing Godfrey a fresh tin of
pâté
to open. “But if the cobra had been imported to the premises in order to kill someone, why leave the evidence of the cage behind? Therefore, the cage must have belonged to another—and now missing—animal. Besides, I could not envision Quentin traveling with a cobra, a rather large and infamous snake to conceal, whereas a mongoose might be mistaken for a weasel or a monkey, and accepted as a pet in the poorer quarters he haunted. Still, having the creature forced him to seek even tawdrier lodgings than his finances or inclinations required.”

“She is a remarkable creature,” Quentin said fondly, offering Messalina a bit of boned chicken. “To see her dance with a cobra is to watch an ultimate exercise of beauty and terror. I often feel pity for the cobra.”

“A misplaced emotion,” Irene declared, waving about a pate-smeared cracker, “in a world where cobras abound and mongooses are far too rare. Now that you have finally introduced your accomplice, you must tell me everything you know or guess about this Tiger. Hold nothing back. You do realize that the mysteries of the Montmartre garret reveal him to be a formidable opponent who will stop at nothing?”

“How so?” Quentin asked.

“Surely you’ve reconstructed the sequence of events that produced the dead cobra you found, and later left your friend Dalip dead of venom not administered by a snake, as well as a second cobra hidden to attack Nell and me when we arrived after you and Messy had fled.”

Quentin was most sober, almost stunned. “No, Madame, I have not.”

“Ah.” Irene wriggled happily into a more comfortable and therefore less ladylike position on the coverlet. “Allow me. Tiger, seeking your death and unaware of your association with poor Dalip and the mongoose, entered your garret while you were out and left two cobras to ensure your demise. Before he could release them, he was surprised by the return of Dalip, overpowered him, and resorted to a more sinister method of administering venom: via human snake.”

“Tiger is poisonous?” I exclaimed, for I would put nothing past this abhorrent man.

“Not quite literally, but almost. Twice he has used an air rifle to attack Quentin: once in Neuilly and now again in the Museum of Natural History and Modem Curiosities. A famed heavy-game hunter would have a mastery of weapons, would even invent his own. I posit that Tiger has applied the spring-loaded mechanism of the air rifle to a smaller and more subtle form, one that can be silently and discreetly used at close quarters—”

“By Jove!” said Godfrey, sitting up. “Quentin’s poisoning near Notre Dame—a spring-loaded syringe of sorts!”

Irene nodded sagely. “And the same weapon was used on Dalip, to preserve two full measures of cobra venom for Quentin. Of course Tiger could not know of Messalina.”

Quentin confirmed that. “I kept her cage in the trunk, but I found it open when I returned. When I saw the dead cobra, I knew she had escaped in her frenzy to confront the creature; she is clever. But I never saw Dalip dead....”

“My dear Quentin, Nell and I barely noticed him in that dusky garret. I assume the second cobra could have been dormant for some reason, and hidden.”

“Or hiding,” Quentin added. “It had seen its fellow killed by a mongoose and would not wish to repeat the ritual.”

“This Tiger must be the very devil,” I finally put in, “to so cold-bloodedly kill poor Mr. Dalip!”

Irene for once agreed with my estimation of someone’s character, and looked severely at Quentin. “That is why you must be absolutely frank with me now, my friend. Tiger has already marked me and mine for his loathsome interest. I cannot afford to tangle with the likes of Sherlock Holmes while only possessed of a smattering of the truth.”

“What I know is only half-truths and suspicions,” Quentin said.

“They were enough to have stirred you out of Afghanistan,” Godfrey pointed out. “We are all endangered now. And the first explanation you owe is to Nell.”

“Not at all!” I objected in confusion. I would never aspire to claim that Quentin Stanhope “owed” me any attention whatsoever, nor could I bear to have him think that I so presumed.

“Godfrey is right,” he said with a level look at me. “I fell upon your hospitality, upon your friendship, like a starving wolf, and then absconded at the first opportunity. You must understand my state of mind. I was ill when I met you, and half poisoned, if Mrs. Norton’s theory is credible.

“Further—” he regarded me with a troubled gaze “—I had encountered unexpected forces from my past. It was as if I was awakening from a dream that had lasted for almost a decade.

“First my life was attempted in Afghanistan, after years of safe obscurity. Suspicious that the attempt stemmed from the sad events of the past, I attempted to trace this Dr. Watson through the military and medical records, and found that another had been there before me, and had abstracted those very documents.”

Quentin glanced sharply at Irene. “You are not the only person to become addicted to a mystery. I became uneasy in my soul to think that this Watson’s life might be sacrificed because I was moldering in obscurity in Kandahar. I came west, but apparently did not come unnoted. That is why I left Neuilly, Penelope; my self-exile, once voluntary, was fast becoming necessary, enforced by a lethal threat that could destroy all that I knew and loved should I attempt to see England again. The shot from the garden was a reminder that there is no rest for an outcast.”

“But why?” Irene was adamant. “You admit that the events that cause these attacks today are almost a decade old. What does this Captain Morgan stand to lose that he would resort to such desperate ploys—and to attempt to slay by the means of a cobra an associate of the foremost detective in—” she caught Godfrey’s implacable eye “—er, England?”

“If Morgan is the man I knew as Tiger, he has been abroad. He may know nothing of your Sherlock Holmes.”

“I am sure that by now the reverse is not true. Pity the man or woman who attracts the concentrated attention of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes will not rest until he knows everything, once he is convinced that serious matters are involved. Morgan’s bizarre attempt on Dr. Watson’s life, as well as your equally exotic counter to it, have truly stirred a sleeping cobra.”

“He is an enemy of yours, this man?”

“Call him rather a competitor,” Godfrey suggested. “Still, Irene treads a fine line. To the European public she is dead. Her presence in London compromises her privacy, and perhaps her safety.”

“You have not said why Mrs. Norton must conceal herself.”

“Nor have you said why someone would wish to kill Dr. Watson and yourself,” Irene pounced.

Quentin had the grace to look abashed.

“I have crossed swords with a king,” Irene said. “Oh, not literally, but in a matter of will. He is not a very important king as kings go, but in his little corner of the world his will is law, and he is not used to having it scoffed. He is not likely to forget it. Sherlock Holmes was his agent in England, where our... duel ended. Neither the king nor Mr. Holmes got what he expected—or wanted. Therefore, it behooves me to avoid drawing the attention of either, that is all.”

Quentin stroked the mongoose, which had settled near him, its glossy sides panting with the excesses of freedom, which included devouring all the remaining smoked salmon, the last bits of lobster, and the Parma ham, as well as the first tin of
pâté.

“Turnabout is fair play,” he said. “I tell you my suspicions only because you have encountered risks on my behalf. It was to spare you all that I left Neuilly so rudely. Since you have not allowed me the privilege of disappearing, I agree that you are too involved to remain ignorant. Yet I am not sure where the significance may be found in my tale.”

I shifted my position for what promised to be a long recital. My knees and ankles were aching and one foot had gone completely numb. However Bohemian it may be to lounge on garret floors drinking champagne and gobbling lobster in the company of a mongoose, it is exceedingly hard on the lower extremities.

Quentin Stanhope rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, but his hazel eyes seemed fixed on a distant place and time despite whatever discomfort he felt in the present. Irene leaned forward to offer me a half glass of champagne. I took it, hoping it might have a medicinal effect on my sorely tried joints. I did not want to miss a word of Quentin’s testimony.

Godfrey leaned forward in his turn to offer Quentin a cigarette from his case, and of course then Irene must have one, and there must be an intricate ceremony of lucifer lighting and cigarette lighting and lucifer snuffing and cigarette inhaling, and I must end up smothering in clouds of smoke like an explorer in a camp of Wild West Indians....

“Please,” I suggested, coughing discreetly, “may we get on with it? I am eager to hear Quentin’s story.”

“Spoken like a true adventurer,” he said with a smile. And then he sighed. “You have heard me confess that I had a facility for native languages and that this skill drew me deeper into the landscape than my superiors approved. Yet they were eager to employ me as a spy, and I confess that I preferred that work, despised as it was, to my ordinary camp duties.”

“You must harbor a streak of the actor in you,” Irene said, “and acting under the threat of discovery and death must add an excitement that even the most adoring audience cannot provide.”

He nodded. “I took a perverse pride in going among the natives, be they Indian or Afghan, as one of them. This man Tiger was a British officer in India who also had a taste for dangerous assignments. He would don native dress, as I did, but his aim was to slip through their lines, not to mingle with them. He ranged Afghanistan from the barbaric Russian cities on the northern border to the eastern skirts of China and south to the cool hill country of India. He had a wicked reputation as a hunter of dangerous game. He was older than I and my senior as a spy. The command trusted him implicitly.”

“You did not.” Irene blew a soft plume of smoke into our midst.

“No.”

“Why were spies needed?” I asked. “Surely the Afghanistan troops were not so sophisticated.”

“Afghanistan is the greatest sinkhole of skullduggery on the globe. It has been considered a ‘land’ for barely a century, being little more than a loose alliance of squabbling tribes and lawless brigands. Its ruling families are fraught with brother slaying brother, father betraying son, and vice versa,” Quentin added. “Oriental politics are intricate and utterly vicious. The loser may sacrifice not only his life, but first his eyes, his ears, nose, hands, feet, even—most brutal torture of all—his beard, which is holy to Allah.”