A Soul of Steel (39 page)

We took the Metropolitan Railway to Paddington. A carriage, Irene said, would attract attention, and we were humble seekers after pence for the poor, unable to afford such grand transportation.

I cannot say I much cared for the ultramodern urban railway. Most of the line ran underground in great steam-choked tunnels, which magnified the racket of the carriage wheels over the tracks to ear-jarring proportions.

What a noisy, dirty method of transport! Yet many respectably attired women milled among the crowds thronging to board these metal monsters.

“Really, Nell,” Irene urged cheerfully as an unattractive area of the city sped past during one of our infrequent aboveground transits, “you needn’t look so sour until we arrive in Paddington. It is true we are on an ostensible mission of good works, but we do not have to look like it quite yet.”

“Nothing good has ever come of a rail journey in my life,” I retorted.

She paused to consider. “That is true. First to and from Bohemia under great duress. Then to Monaco, in the company of the Lascar and Jerseyman—”

She did not, I am glad to say, mention the incident of the yet-unnamed Oscar and the gasolier.

“But the return trip from France was without incident!” she reported triumphantly.

“You did not share my unfortunate encounter with the traveling corset salesman.”

Irene looked instantly chastened. “No, that is true. I did not.” And she said no more in praise of trains.

Once above ground in Paddington, Irene pulled a small sketch from her large handbag and squinted at it through her—that is, my—pince-nez. “Can you read this, Nell dear? I am not used to spectacles. Godfrey has drawn directions to the Watson residence.”

I sighed and took the paper, bringing it to eyelash distance. “It is only a short walk,” I determined. “But what is this phrase in French here in the corner? I do not recognize those words....”

“Nothing!” Irene snatched the map back. “Godfrey has a habit of leaving unanticipated messages. I will, er, interpret it later.”

Luckily, I had seen the map long enough to commit its simple directions to memory since my first jaunt here had been by carriage. We set out, attracting little attention. Apparently Irene’s transformation was dazzlingly successful.

“I still do not see,” I fussed as we neared the Watson domicile, “why you think that the medical bag Dr. Watson carried in Afghanistan is still in his possession, or how you expect to wrest it from him without revealing yourself.”

“I do not plan to wrest it from Dr. Watson, but from Mrs. Watson. There is nothing so reliable as a wife’s innate instinct to dispose of any articles of her husband’s that she believes he has kept for no good purpose for far too long.”

“Dr. Watson keeps his office on the premises. He will not permit you past him.”

“I will not have to ‘pass’ him. Now, where is this establishment that is so attractive to cobras?”

I told her that we were about to turn into the proper street. Dr. Watson’s house was only three doors around this comer, on the opposite side. She pulled us both to a halt before a chemist’s window. While we stared at bunion remedies she doffed the pince-nez and surveyed the quiet thoroughfare.

“I need an idle boy, Nell. Do you see one?”

“Usually the London streets teem with them.”

“This is bucolic Paddington, with fewer enterprising urchins.”

“Will an idle girl do?” I asked.

Irene turned to regard a young miss attired in a navy-blue sailor dress sitting atop the steps leading to a dressmaker’s establishment across the street.

“Even better!” Irene smiled and waved the child over. The little girl gave one cautious over-the-shoulder glance, then decided that her mother would be occupied for some time and that we, despite our painstaking dowdiness, looked much more interesting. Over to us she skipped, poor lamb.

“Oh, my dear,” Irene began, bending down and declaiming in a voice that would wring pity from an oyster. “My uncle is so very ill. I have just stopped at the chemist for a remedy, but he desperately needs a doctor.”

The child started to look in the desired direction. “There is Dr. Watson—”

“Wonderful! Now.” Irene was scribbling frantically on a scrap of paper, using her handbag for a writing desk. “You must give him this note. It will tell him where to find my uncle... Frost. Jonathan Frost. He must hurry! Uncle is having a terrible chill. White as a sheet. And for your trouble—” Irene produced a five-pence piece.

“No, miss,” the child trilled. “I’m not allowed to take pay for a good deed.”

Off she trotted, all officious, Irene’s note clutched in her hand. Irene grasped my arm and bustled me into the chemist’s, which smelled of wintergreen and mothballs.

Through the murky window glass facing Dr. Watson’s domicile we watched the plain and simple pantomime: child reaching up to ring the bell. Maid answering. Child vanishing within. Child reappearing, sans note. A few moments later, the door opening to disgorge Dr. Watson.

“Hastily, Nell,” Irene hissed. “We must both get a good look at the bag. If we have sent him off with the one we want, a different scheme will be necessary.”

She thrust my appropriated pince-nez at me. I was able to position it in time to see the doctor’s bag swinging beside him as he trotted past us toward the underground station.

“Brass!” I gasped.

“What?”

“I saw the glimmer of bright brass fittings. Surely a new bag.”

Irene nodded. “I thought so, too. Then we wait until our little miss leaves.”

This looked to take some doing. The child had returned to her step across the way. I scouted the chemist’s and found some French pastilles—the only thing of French manufacture for which I had developed a taste—but Irene hailed me to the window again.

“Gone inside to watch Mama’s fitting at last, thank God.”

We scuttled around the comer like thieves, Irene donning my pince-nez again despite my warnings. There are none so blind as those that will not see. Soon we were poised before the door that Godfrey and I had broached but three days before.

I rang the bell. When the maid’s broad pale face appeared behind an opening door I recalled that this poor unsuspecting soul must have been the one to “discover” the dead cobra. For a moment I was tongue-tied with shame.

Into the breach leaped the golden tongue of my shameless companion. “Is the master or mistress of the house in? We are seeking donations to St. Aldwyn-the-Bald’s-on-the-Moor. A most worthy cause.”

The maid’s lips folded in undecided reluctance.

“What is it, Prudence?” came a kindly voice.

“The doctor is out on a case,” the speaker continued, drawing the door wider to see us and thus revealing herself to be Mrs. Watson.

“That ith quite all righth,” I found myself saying, “you would do nithely.”

Irene had decided that pretending to a catarrh would allow me to press a handkerchief to my lower face, and the concurrent lisp would serve to disguise my voice. All I need do was breathe through my mouth, as I had on one key occasion in France....

“Do?” The poor lady looked utterly puzzled.

Irene made a great business of glancing at the brass plate proclaiming the resident’s name and business. “Mrs. Watson, is it? We would most appreciate speaking with you in your husband’s absence. We are parishioners of St.-Aldwyn-the-Bald’s-on-the-Moor, a church in nearby Notting Hill, which has suffered from a fire.”

“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Watson frowned at the notion of the mythical fire. “I have not heard of your congregation... or your conflagration—”

“Of course not,” Irene said sadly. “The fire has grievously reduced our numbers and resources. That is why we must go door-to-door seeking what charity we can.”

“I suppose I could—” the good woman began. “But, how rude I am. Come in, ladies.”

Thus we entered the Watson house, I for a second occasion. We were led into a charming little parlor, with a lace-covered table in the street-facing window. A stereopticon upon it caught a stray beam of sunlight.

“Now,” Mrs. Watson said, once we were seated. She was a tiny, fine-boned woman; it would be unforgivable to lie to her transparent blue eyes. I cringed on both our behalves. “I can spare a few coins—”

“Oh, no!” Irene raised a forbidding hand. “Please. We do not seek money.”

“Then how can I help you?”

“If you have some unused item about, something that could prove useful to our congregation... old books, for instance, that you would rid yourself of anyway.”

“Books? I do not think John would care to donate those. Nor would I... I could never part with my Mrs. Gaskells, or the Waverlys, or Miss Austen....”

“Since your husband is a doctor,” Irene said briskly to stop what promised to be a complete catalogue, “perhaps you could spare some older medical books, even a medical bag he no longer uses.”

Mrs. Watson shook her head. “There is nothing of that sort that I could give away in his absence. You must admit that a husband’s possessions are sacred.”

“I am sure of it,” Irene said.

Mrs. Watson looked politely to me.

“I would nod know.” I sniffled sadly into my lacy bit of Irish linen. “I am not married.”

“Oh,” she said sympathetically. “And you?” she asked Irene.

“Oh, yes. That is why I asked if there were something lying about that you could spare. My own husband is so determined to cling to every old pair of hunting boots or souvenir of his youth, things he would not possibly use in a hundred years! But there it is. Men must have their clutter.”

Mrs. Watson smiled. “The doctor is remarkably neat about his possessions. It comes from his sharing lodgings with a bachelor friend in the days before we married. Excellent training.”

Irene joined her in a wifely laugh at the expense of the absent spouses. “Your good fortune is our misfortune,” she said lightly, rising and blinking pitifully behind my pince-nez.

“We must look elsewhere. A cast-off medical bag would be just the thing for parish sick calls, but if you are wed to a wonder of organization we will have to seek elsewhere.”

“Wait!” Mrs. Watson cried as we neared the doorway to the passage. “There is some musty old thing at the bottom of the wardrobe. I believe John had it with him in Afghanistan. He has had no earthly use for it since... would not even miss it after all this time, I am sure. I will fetch it. If it is in any proper condition—”

“Oh, bless you, Mrs. Watson,” Irene murmured fervently (and most sincerely), clasping her gloved hands. “You are an angel of mercy.”

The poor woman flew up the stairs, returning shortly with a battered brown leather satchel.

“It is not new looking,” she said, turning it over in her hands. “It survived a war, after all. If you think that it would serve—?”

“It will serve magnificently.” Irene clutched the flattened old bag to her bosom. “You have no idea how delighted we are to see this. How... useful it will be. I vouchsafe to say that you and your husband will walk safer these next few days because of this good deed. Heaven has a way of helping those who help others.”

Mrs. Watson’s faced showed sudden anxiety. “How odd that you should say that. I have been worried, actually. We had an... incident at the house recently. But I’m delighted to help St.-Ethelwed-the-Bold’s-on-the-Mire. Are you certain that a monetary donation—?”

“No, no,” I said firmly. “To take mere money is begging.”

“To take cash is to take trash,” Irene paraphrased
Othello
shamelessly, and somewhat disjointedly, on our exit, “but he—or she—who offers hard goods will always have a sterling reputation.”

We stood again on the stoop. Mrs. Watson, shadowed in her doorway, still looked puzzled, and even slightly worried. Perhaps the recent incident with the cobra troubled her.

“There is a sign in the Bible,” Irene said, abruptly employing a serious tone. “To find a dead snake upon one’s doorstep signifies that a powerful protector is watching over you and yours.”

“Truly?” Shock paled Mrs. Watson’s complexion even more. “How odd you should say that.” A sudden smile made that poignant face radiant. “Certainly my husband does have such a benefactor—the most mentally powerful man in London.”

“Doubtless the Good Book had other, unseen allies in mind, Mrs. Watson,” Irene said, “but an honest soul can never have enough angels on its side.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

SHERLOCK HOLMES'S LAST CASE

Irene spent
the next evening brooding.

This she managed with the panache of Sarah Bernhardt on the stage. First she attired herself after dinner in a close-fitting crimson velvet gown of the princess cut. A heliotrope taffeta caftan over her shoulders swept to a wide train in the back and was edged in snowy ermine along the front floor-length reveres.

This garb was ideal for pacing, which she proceeded to do, the hotel’s rococo decoration fading to a dull backdrop indeed for her formidable foreground presence. Mind you, I do not claim that this performance was planned; merely that Irene’s nature required the properly dramatic setting before her mind could explore its most creative and instinctive territories.