The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets (7 page)

“C
AB
!” I
YELLED IMPERIOUSLY AT THE FIRST
opportunity.

The driver, although no society prize himself, turned incredulously upon being hailed by an apparent woman of the slums. “Yer addressin’ me?”

I tossed him a golden coin, which instantly silenced his doubts and objections. “The Strand at St. Mary’s,” I told him as I climbed in, that corner being close enough to Holywell Street; he must not know where I was actually going. “And another sovereign if you get me there in ten minutes.”

“Yes,
ma’am
!” Plentiful cash-at-hand worked better than ravishing beauty to transform one’s status, under certain circumstances. “I’m your man. Me and old Conductor ’ere, we’ll see you there.” As he whipped his wretched ewe-necked nag into a rapid trot, I tried not to think of anything I had ever read in
Black Beauty
, sitting back, bracing myself against the swaying of the conveyance and disciplining myself to consider instead what lay ahead.

I disliked rushing in such a headlong fashion into I knew not quite what, but I felt I must seize the moment, for in Pertelote’s—that is to say, in Mrs. Kippersalt’s anger I sensed an opportunity that might not occur again.

I was going to have to try to “shadow” her home after all, because she would take her anger along with her when she went there. She would direct her ire at her husband—“What ’ave ye done now?” And I quite wanted somehow, I did not yet know how, to hear the answer.

Moreover, I needed to look at Mr. Kippersalt. I had spent a great deal of imagination upon Mr. Kippersalt, and seeing him would either support or disprove my hypotheses, which were:

Suppose that a man, in war or in some unfortunate accident, had his face maimed, including but not limited to his nose.

Suppose that, in attempting to find ways to conceal the defects in his appearance, he became an expert in face putty, rubber features and the like; might he not open a shop specialising in these things, if only to obtain them readily for himself?

Being quite an unprepossessing man, might he not, for the sake of housekeeping and so on, marry an exceedingly plain woman who had no other prospects?

Perhaps an ambitious Cockney woman?

Having wed him not for love but for self-advancement, might this unusual woman improve herself to the extent that eventually she took over the running of the shop?

Might he not resent being pushed aside? Resent it to such an extent that he—

That he did what? Avenged himself upon Dr. Watson?

Whatever grudge could he possibly hold against Dr. Watson?

But wait a moment. Perhaps he blamed Watson for the loss of his nose? Suppose it had happened during the second Afghan War, in which Watson had served as an army surgeon? Perhaps Watson had amputated his wounded proboscis?

Brilliant
, I congratulated myself mentally, pleased and excited to have hit upon such a plausible connection.

The speeding, swaying, veering cab in which I sat pulled to a jouncing halt at my destination.

I burst out before the wheels had quite come to rest, leaping into a full-tilt run as I threw the cabbie a sovereign even though I had no clock to tell me—had he got me here quickly enough?

He had.

Panting, I poked my head around the corner of Holywell Street just in time to see Mrs. Kippersalt closing the last shutters to secure her shop for the night. Then she went back inside to fasten them.

The last rays of daylight—blessed, sunny light most uncommon in London—lingered on the peaked roofs of the crowded old buildings as I waited, watching the door, expecting it to open and her to emerge with coat and hat, gloves and umbrella, to lock up and start homeward.

Daylight turned to dusk, and I still waited.

Mrs. Kippersalt had not come back out.

What ever in the world had become of her? Perhaps—oh, good heavens, no—she had gone out a back way?

Quite unlikely, for Holywell Street meandered along the edge of London’s most dense, clotted “rookery,” tottering houses shouldering one another, each containing a swarming “nest” of poverty-stricken inhabitants. Spaces—no, indeed, tunnels, for the upper storeys closed together overhead—passageways no wider than gutters separated these buildings from one another, unlighted, and no cleaner than gutters either, with rats abounding, as well as lower forms of human life. Inconceivable that Mrs. Kippersalt would venture alone into such a sewer-above-the-ground unless she looked forward to the attentions of Jack the Ripper or like-minded others.

Inconceivable that she could have slipped away without my seeing her.

Yet with each passing moment it seemed more and more evident that she had done so, and that I was a fool. And I called myself a perditorian? No, I was a mere girl, more fit to cut out paper dolls, I despaired as dusk deepened into dark. Lamplight glowed from rooms up above, but it did not comfort me, serving only to cast me into deeper shadow, for these ancient buildings loomed like a sea-carved cliff, their upper storeys jutting out over the pavement, gables protruding, each floor with eaves and bay windows overhanging the one below, so that they seemed built upside down, larger at the top than at the bottom, and likely to crash down upon one at any moment.

Like my little struggling self-made world. I tried to do things and find missing people, but to what effect? Here I stood in the dark, alone, cast aside by my own mother, feeling wretched enough to mew like a lost kitten—

A glow of lamplight sprang to life in the first storey over Pertelote’s. Light sprang to life in my mind, also, as it were. My melodramatic musings abruptly ceased. The next moment, abandoning misery along with concealment, I ran across the street—unpeopled now that the shop-windows stood dark—and up the pavement to Pertelote’s.

If that were she up there in the room over the pavement, the room under which swung the sign carved in the shape of a rooster—if, as might very well be the case, why had I not thought of it before!—she lived over her shop—

I had to see.

Quickly. Already they were quarreling—yes, it was Pertelote in the upstairs room; I recognised her contralto voice—she and someone else were arguing vehemently. Through a partially open window I could hear their angry tones from where I stood, although I could not catch the words.

I had to get closer.

But how?

I saw within a moment how to start, at least. Taking three quick strides to the shadowy, stinking gutter-gap between Pertelote’s and the next shop, I yanked my skirt above my knees, and by pressing parts of my personage against the opposing walls—truly, I cannot with decency detail how I ascended the narrow space, except to say that up I went rather like a sweep inside a chimney.

After the first six feet or so I felt small fear that anyone who might happen to pass by would spy me, for who would look upwards to notice a girl in such an unlikely position?

As my head neared the level of the gas-lit window, I could hear Pertelote more clearly. “You think I’m a fool? Ye’re up to some mischief, gadding about when my back’s turned. I want to know what.”

“I told you. Taking care of my own business.”

Wait a moment. The second voice, husky and low, sounded almost exactly like the first. Two women. Who was the other?

Where was Pertelote’s husband?

Pertelote scolded, “You got no business but to stay home and don’t plant no more people.”

“I didn’t plant nobody. Just filled out some papers to put ’im where ’e put me. The place ’ll do for ’im.”

I heard a gasp of shock, then Pertelote all but screamed, “You’re mad as a ’atter! Me ’usband was right to ’ave you put away!”

“But you made ’im get me out again, didn’t you?”

“Shut your wicked mouth. You—”

“You made ’im get me out again,” insisted the second woman, “because ye can take care of me at ’ome ’ere. Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, Sissy?”

Something about the voice—not merely its peevish tone, but something as implacable as time—made the hairs prickle on the nape of my neck.

I had reached the limits of my “chimney,” the point at which the buildings’ walls joined together, and the window from which the voices issued remained above me and off to one side. I could hear but I could not see.

I had to see. See who was speaking. See who was so obstinately repeating, “Ye’ll always take care of me, I said; answer me. I know ye’ll always take care of me.”

Like a horizontal wall between me and that window jutted the eaves that sheltered the pavement below.

Quite hard, that pavement. Most unrelenting to fall upon.

Nevertheless…

I took a deep breath. Then I leaned out over the dark abyss, grasped the rounded wooden edge of the eaves with both hands, and kicked away from the safety of my “chimney,” trying to swing myself upwards and onto the confounded obstacle.

I succeeded in throwing one knee over. However, at the same time, one hand lost its grip.

A knee, I quickly discovered, does not function as well as a hand under such circumstances. It slipped off. I had to exercise every iota of self-will not to scream.

“Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, sister mine?” insisted the relentless contralto voice. “Say it. Ye’ll always take care of me.”

Would that someone might take care of
me!
Catching hold of the too-smooth edge of the eaves again with my other hand, I hoisted myself with strength spurred by panic, and managed to get the upper portion of my personage over the top, then my lower limbs, then roll away from the edge. Panting, I found myself lying on a slantwise sort of ledge.

“Ye’ll always take care of me,” that fanatical voice went on, singsong, as I sprawled, gasping for breath, scared half out of my wits, and that voice added frisson to my fear. Each word chilled me. Not only the tone, but the substance:
take care of me, take care of me
—it was, in the heart of my heart, what I had always wanted—of my family…

“Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, sister mine? Say it! Ye’ll always take care of me.”

“Of course I will always take care of you,” Pertelote snapped finally. “I always ’ave done, ’aven’t I?”

Triumphantly the other responded, “Not when ye let the rats eat me face.”

R
ATS
. E
AT
. F
ACE
.

If she’d said it a moment earlier, before I’d gained the ledge, I believe I would have lost my grip and fallen to nearly certain death on the pavement below. As it was, I flattened myself like a squirrel as the falcon flies overhead, trembling, my fingers clutching at the shingles and my thoughts clawing at an even more slippery slope.

“That was forty years ago.” Pertelote’s weary voice.

“Forty-two,” complained the other, and in her ever-so-accurate spleen I recognised, with revulsion, something of myself.

The way I was holding a grudge.

Mother. Mum.

I’d long ago forgiven her for going away, free spirit that she was. She had provided for me. We communicated by code in the personal columns of the newspapers. But two months ago, on one of the coldest days in January, feeling a bit desperate, I had asked her to come into London to meet me. How it hurt, still, that she had not even replied.

“I was only five years old,” responded Pertelote wearily. “I fell asleep.”

“And I was only a baby,” retorted the other, “’elpless in the cradle, and ye let the rats crawl on me and nibble me nose off—”

“Stop it, Flora.”

But Flora’s drone did not hesitate for so much as a syllable. “—and me lips, and the better part of me cheeks—”

“Stop it!”

“—and ye were supposed to be watching me—”

Yes, she too wanted to be taken care of, living with her sister, how comforting it should have been, sisters together. I’d never had a sister. I—

Was I about to tell myself I had always wanted a sister?

Nonsense, Enola. You never till this minute even thought of it.

As for being taken care of: I had two brothers quite eager to take care of me by have me schooled in the social graces and rendered fit for matrimony. And I had a mother who had taken care of me by giving me freedom and the means to employ myself as I saw fit.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Enola Holmes. You’ll do quite well on your own.

That inner voice, kind yet firm—it was my own, yet it was as if Mum were still with me. In me. And in that moment quite willingly I forgave her for being the way she was.

A weight flew away from my heart.

Meanwhile, Flora was still complaining, “Ye’re my big sister, supposed to take care of me, and ye’re saying I didn’t cry loud enough to awaken ye?”

Her lament sounded merely wearisome to me now.

But even though Pertelote must have heard it many, many times before, it affected her. “For the love of God, Flora, stop!” she flared with pain in her voice. “You’re cruel!”

“It’s me ’oo’s missing a nose, Sissy, not you.”

Nose.

Oh, my goodness.

No longer flattened or trembling, I lifted my head, for I quite wanted a look at Flora. With my mind once again focussed on the present circumstances, I realised that my brilliant theory of a soldier who’d had his nose amputated by Dr. Watson needed to be discarded, even though it was a man who had sent the bizarre bouquets—

Or was it? I had to see whether Flora might pass as a man.

Easing myself to my hands and knees, I crept (mentally excoriating my skirt; most difficult to crawl in) along the ledge as silently as I could, towards the window.

Pertelote said, “Ever since Ma died I’ve done my best for you.”

Very likely true. From my first acquaintance with Pertelote, she had seemed motherly to me. Evidently she had taken the responsibilities of a mother at an early age.

At the corner of the window I inched my head upwards until I could see—not much, at first. Lace curtains. But by leaning forward I could peer through them, albeit dimly. I could make out a drab and shabby chamber within, a sitting-room, although neither sister occupied a chair; their passions had levitated them to their feet. Pertelote stood with her back to me, fists on her ample hips, partly hiding Flora from my view. I could tell of Flora only that she was sturdy, like her sister, and plainly dressed in blouse and skirt, like Pertelote again. Although I imagined Flora’s face would similarly be large and plain, I could not see her features.

And it was Pertelote doing the ranting now. “All my life since, always trying to make it up to you,” she cried, “always! Got my ’usband into the business looking for ways to make you presentable—”

“Ye were just trying to marry me off and get rid of me.”

“I were trying to make ye ’appy, and a decent woman, but you ’ad to go and put on a beard an’ trousers—”

Oh. Oh, my, she
was
the sender of the bizarre bouquets; she had to be. In a fever to see her face, I pressed close to the outside of the window glass.

“—gadding about doing the devil knows what,” Pertelote raged.

“I had to act the part of yer ’usband, now, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t! You don’t want to let ’im rest in peace, you’re just wicked and full of ’ate—”

“
You
try being ’ideous.” Heavens, the afflicted woman pitied herself. She needed some starch. “At least a
man
is allowed—”

“—going against nature, ’ow many times ’ave I told you to stay ’ome when I’m working? But now I ’ear you’re up to your tricks still! I’ve ’alf a mind to send you back to Colney ’Atch myself!”

The other one screeched in rage, lunging at her sister, and—I could see her face now, but I wished I couldn’t, for she snatched off her nose with one hand and thrust it at Pertelote, shaking it like a weapon as she screamed, “You try it and see what ’appens! You just try it!” With her other hand she ripped rags of concealing putty off her mouth and cheeks. Her face, or what was left of it, writhed like a mass of slugs. “You’ll be sorry! You and any doctor ’oo signs an order for you!”

I barely comprehended what Flora was saying, so terribly did the sight of her unnerve me—to see, instead of a face, crawling flesh; instead of mouth and nose, merest cavities. And her eyes—there was nothing wrong with her eyes except that, I think, they had forgotten how to weep, and murder glittered in their glare. The sight of those sere eyes affected me as much as the sight of her maimed face; I think I must have moved or made a sound, for her crazed gaze swung and caught upon me.

Caught me at the window like a great stupid fish drawn by a lighted torch to the surface of a nighttime lake.

She screamed as if she were seeing a—a mass of writhing slugs, I suppose—and pointed at me.

Just as Pertelote swung around to look at me also, I ducked.

One of the sisters, I know not which, shouted something quite shockingly unrepeatable.

I fled. But on that narrow ledge I could not turn quickly, if at all, so I could not go back the way I had come. Instead I scooted forward, around the corner of the building, towards I knew not what. Along the eaves like an oversized caterpillar I wobbled, trying to crawl but hampered, indeed nearly thrown over the edge by my accursed skirt. I firmly believe that the whole reason women
must
wear long skirts is so that they are unable to
do
anything worthwhile.

Behind me I heard the window wham open and Pertelote, I think, bayed in a voice worthy of a whole pack of hounds, “Police! Help! Burglar! Police!”

A constable’s whistle shrilled from the street, summoning others of his ilk. Answering whistles sounded to the north, west and east. From inside the building I heard the pounding of feet on stairs, going down.

They expected me to run away the same way. Go down.

Therefore I would not. I would go up.

Easier said than done, with a skirt wrapped around my ankles, and no light by which to see. But at the next corner my fumbling progress encountered a drain-pipe, and I seized upon it with both hands, hauling myself skywards like a sailor swarming up a mast. Meanwhile, below me, neighbours took to the street, police arrived and the hullabaloo—shouts, screams, whistles, clatter of hooves and thud of running feet—frightened out of me such strength as I had not thought I possessed. I reached the top of the drain-pipe only to be blocked by yet another beetling overhang of the cliff-like building, but somehow in my frenzy, like a cat when the mastiff threatens, I scrambled up and over it without hesitating.

And encountered yet another wall. Would I never reach the refuge of the rooftops? For a moment, out of utter frustration, I beat against the ancient plaster with my hands, but that was a useless waste of time and effort. I turned away from the street and ran along the narrow eaves in the dark. Ran. I did not creep or crawl as I had so cautiously done a few moments before, nor, preferring to remain on my feet, did I edge or inch in any sane fashion such as would have been appropriate to the circumstances. I ran, unable to see upon what my feet were landing. Perhaps lunacy is contagious.

With considerable force I banged into rough wood.

I am afraid I muttered something quite naughty as the barrier, whatever it was, inflicted its presence upon my nose, which as usual had arrived where I was going ahead of the rest of me. My hands quite wanted to comfort the nose, but I made them instead explore the structure that thwarted me.

It might have been the side of a bay window.

Ours not to wonder why; ours but to do or die; into the valley of death charged—no, onto the rooftop of desperation climbed the idiot who ought to be thankful for possession of a nose however protuberant; onwards and upwards, excelsior! Scrabbling to ascend the whatever-it-was, I clambered to its narrow top and, standing there, took a deep and thankful breath, for I could see now, albeit dimly.

I could see intimations of sky freckled with stars.

And against it, interruptions in the form of peaks and chimney-pots.

At last!

One more mad scramble over one final confoundment of jutting eaves, and I had achieved the roof.

Panting, I let myself lapse onto the steeply angled shingles, lying flat.

Safe.

No one could possibly find me now. I would simply rest here until daybreak.

But even as I thought it, in the street far below a sergeantly voice bawled, “Wheel it around this side! Over ’ere! ’Ow do you work the fool thing?”

The next moment the most extraordinary blinding-bright white sword of light stabbed the darkness, slashing it wide open and routing night into fleeing shadows. I had read in the newspapers, of course, about Scotland Yard’s new electric search-light, but reading is one thing and being struck by such lightning is another. I am afraid I screamed aloud. However, so did everyone else in the world, or at least everyone in the crowded street below—so I think no one heard me.

“Tilt it up towards the roof!”

“’E’s crazy,” some other man announced. “No one could ’ave climbed up there, much less a woman—”

But I did not stay to listen. Much shaken and feeling a trifle weak, I did not attempt to stand and run on the steep rooftop, instead worming my way up the shingles—a most fortunate if unreasoning reaction; I realised afterwards that they might have “spotted” me otherwise.

However thin I might be, I do not make a very good snake. Still, somehow I reached the peak of Pertelote’s building and, hugging the housetop, slipped over it to the other side.

That fearsome sword of illumination passed where I had just been. Safe on the shadowed side of the roof now, I watched it slice the night.

No, not safe. Next they would wheel it around to this side.

The thought, quite as electric as the light, galvanised me; I must reach another building, and another after that, and so make my escape. Springing to my feet, I ran across the steep slope of the roof towards the rear, away from that dreadful search-light, so bright that even in the shadows I could somewhat see where I was going. There! This rooftop joined directly into another not so steep. Gladly I sprang upon it—

Crash
, and I plummeted straight down as if I had stepped off a ledge into air.