The House at Baker Street (13 page)

She was intense in her belief, and she was persuading me. But I needed more than a feeling.

‘Proof, then,’ I said. ‘Which we are agreed is in his home, which we have no way of being invited into.’

‘Then we break in,’ Mary said, a touch breathlessly. She smiled, a dazzling, daring smile, as if it meant nothing to her to suggest committing a crime. Yet the hand that rested on my
arm trembled slightly.

‘How on earth do we break in?’ I asked. Mary had wild, wonderful ideas, but she sometimes forgot the practicalities of putting them into action. ‘If we smash a window, or break
open a door, he’ll know someone’s been there and then he’ll redouble his efforts, punish his victims and find us!’

‘Pick the locks?’ Mary suggested.

‘A skill neither you nor I possess,’ I said, looking down at my hands, lined and small, draped in very proper black gloves, grasping my very proper reticule; respectable hands of a
respectable woman. Yet as I thought about breaking into Sir George’s home, my hands did not tremble. How very cold-blooded I was becoming.

‘It’s time we had some assistance,’ I said.

‘Not Mr Holmes,’ Mary insisted. ‘He would . . .’

I held up a hand to stop her. An idea was forming in my mind – a most delicious idea.

‘Not Mr Holmes,’ I agreed. I raised my head a little. The remaining clouds had drifted away and the sunshine felt so lovely on my face. I decided to remove my gloves, feel the sun on
my skin for a change.

‘The Irregulars?’ Mary asked.

‘I’m not encouraging those children to break the law,’ I said firmly, as I folded my gloves into my reticule. I stretched out my fingers. ‘I know they do break the law,
but I’m not going to give them a reason to. No, I know someone far better. Or at least, I know someone who could suggest an appropriate person. Someone who will definitely not tell Mr
Holmes.’

Oh, what an idea I’d had. What a perfect, thrilling, amusing idea. I almost giggled with the perfection of it.

‘Who?’ Mary demanded. ‘Why are you smiling like that? Tell me who!’

‘I did see in the papers that she has just returned, for a brief visit, from her year’s sojourn in America,’ I said, grinning. It was fun teasing Mary like this.

‘Who? Tell me now, or I’ll burst!’ Mary demanded.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Mr Holmes always calls her “the Woman”.’

After Irene Adler had escaped him, and taken her new husband to America, Sherlock Holmes had stormed round his rooms for hours, alternately raging and laughing. She had changed
him. Before her, he had never really respected women as intellectual equals. We were necessary, he supposed, to the continuation of the human race, and to perform certain tasks, but our minds were
small and narrow. Even Mary, whom, when he met her, he called intelligent and organized, was still castigated as ‘just a woman’. And now, not only was he beaten – a rare occasion
in itself – but by a woman!

From then on, he never underestimated women again. Sometimes I would catch him staring at Mary or me with a puzzled expression as if he no longer knew what to think of us. Occasionally, John
would bring up the subject of Miss Adler, mostly to amuse himself. I, of course, was usually listening, in the kitchen. John had never underestimated any woman, and he found it very funny that Mr
Holmes had been beaten by one. Mr Holmes would shout about her perfidy, or admire her mind, or show John a new cutting about some incident that he swore bore her hallmark. And he always ended these
tirades with ‘And married to a country solicitor. What a waste!’

Once John said, in a rather too carefully careless way, ‘Would you have preferred her to marry you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mr Holmes had said. ‘Emotion is an indulgence of the intellectually inferior. I will never marry. Especially not that woman. We’d be planning
to murder each other within a month. And the worst thing is . . .’ I heard him tune his violin, ‘we are both more than capable of getting away with it.’

And yet he never said her name. She was always ‘the Woman’. It was as if her name were difficult to utter. She confused and puzzled him, she infuriated him, and yet it seemed to me
he took a certain pride in being beaten by her.

And now she was back.

I thought perhaps she would return to the house she had known before, that unassuming villa called Briony Lodge in Serpentine Avenue with the convenient secret cupboards tucked
in mantelpieces. I knew exactly where it was, and I disguised myself as a perfectly respectable housekeeper as I made my way there. Not much of a disguise, I admit. My heart still ached for the
green dress in my wardrobe though – I was becoming less respectable by the day. Mary was with me, in a plain grey merino dress, with her hair smoothed back, so she looked just like the
governess she used to be. We caught the omnibus to St John’s Wood and found Serpentine Avenue easily. We walked arm in arm sedately down the street, just a pair of old friends enjoying the
sunshine. An inquiry of a policeman, charmed by Mary’s sparkling yet demure eyes, confirmed our suspicion that
she
was back, her house was indeed still in that street and, what’s
more, she usually came home in about an hour or so.

We walked up and down, just talking, not about the case, but about Mr Holmes and John, and the latest fashion, and what we had seen at the music hall and flowers and the seaside and everything
except blackmail and murder. We had always talked well, not always agreeing but always content to discuss. Some of the happiest hours of my life were spent in Mary’s company.

It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful place just to walk and talk. The street was busy, full of knife-grinders and fruit-sellers and grocery boys, but not crowded. The houses here were clean
and white and freshly painted, and the newly swept street almost shone. There was a large public garden on one side of it, and the scent of the breeze in the trees wafted over us. It was more than
a world away from Whitechapel, just a few miles down the road.

As evening began to fall, Mary squeezed my arm.

‘Is that her?’ she whispered, looking towards the corner of the street.

A woman had just turned the corner and was walking towards us. She was dressed in a trim grey suit, with narrow edgings of purple velvet. She was shorter than I expected, with dark hair and
eyes, and a milky white skin. Her figure was well suited to the hourglass fashion currently prevalent and she walked with a certain sway that was not quite modest. She carried no parasol, and she
turned her face up towards the sun, not caring if her skin tanned, apparently. She held her head high, and watched everyone – not out of concern or worry, but for interest, for she smiled at
the lovers and laughed as the barrel organ started to play and nodded in a friendly way to the policeman. To be honest, she was not, by all the rules we had been taught, beautiful, but she was
attractive and charming and fascinating.

Halfway down the street sat a war veteran, crouched on the pavement. He was old and worn, with one leg missing, the empty trouser leg neatly folded and pinned. His battered crutch lay beside
him. He still wore his uniform, though it was barely more than rags and patches now. He tipped his hat to all who passed by, and nodded to anyone who left money in front of him, but he did not
speak. He seemed to look beyond the street, beyond London, to far-off lands and long-lost friends and scenes we could only see in books.

Everyone who had passed him had given him a coin or two. Everyone knew someone who had been lost in the wars. Mary had brought him two hot pies. She had a special affinity for injured veterans
– after all, her husband was one, and if he had not met Sherlock, who knows if he might have ended up begging for his meals.

The woman in grey paused before the veteran, then knelt down before him, heedless of the dirt on her skirt. She talked to him in a low voice, and gently touched one of his faded medal ribbons,
as if she knew what it meant, and what it had cost. He smiled at her, a soft, sad smile, and she emptied her purse into his lap.

As she stood, I glanced at Mary. She too had seen the woman’s gentle care of the veteran, and she watched intently. She had been captivated.

The woman walked past us, and then stopped. She turned back, and looked at us with a puzzled expression.

‘Mrs Hudson?’ Irene Adler asked. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

She invited us into her parlour. The room was fresh and clean, with simple but comfortable furnishings, and a few beautiful, jewel-like paintings. After the heavy, dark,
velvet-cloaked, ornament-choked rooms of my usual acquaintances, this room felt deliciously cool and relaxing.

Miss Adler unpinned her hat, and placed it on a side table, motioning us towards the sofa.

‘Did Mr Holmes send you?’ she asked curiously.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘He has no idea we are here and I would be grateful if you did not tell him.’

She smiled, and studied me with her dark brown eyes.

‘How intriguing,’ she said lightly. ‘So why are you here? Is Mr Holmes well? Not in any kind of trouble?’ There was a momentary expression of unease on her face. Taunt
him, tease him, defeat him, escape him she might, but Miss Adler had a liking for Mr Holmes.

‘He is perfectly well, as well and safe as he ever is,’ I reassured her, aware that Mary sat next to me staring with unabashed wide-eyed curiosity at Miss Adler. ‘He is busy,
very busy. I . . . we . . . are here for our own reason, Miss Adler,’ I stammered, suddenly nervous. I had just realized how impertinent it would look to ask Irene Adler if she knew a willing
burglar to help us rob a house.

‘Mrs Norton, now,’ she reminded me gently, as a sweet-faced little maid entered with the tea. Irene held the door open for her, and glanced up at me. ‘Yes, I am still
married,’ she said, and that was when I realized I had been assuming she was not. ‘I love my husband, and he loves me. He is currently in America, but when we are together, we are still
a honeymoon couple. Given both my past and my nature, no one is more surprised at this turn of events than I, but I am happy.’

Irene thanked the little maid and dismissed her, and sat on the sofa opposite Mary and me.

‘My husband is also understanding enough to indulge my sudden craving to visit London alone. I mean to revisit some memories, transact some business, see some old friends. Milk, Mrs
Hudson?’

There was always something about the way she spoke – as if her words said one thing, but everything else about her was saying something else. Not that she lied to us, or dissimulated
– though often she did! – but what she told us was never the whole story. Still, even then, I knew better than to ask her outright why she had returned to London. Besides, another
question had just struck me.

‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘But as I recall, we’ve never actually met before. I know who you are, from Mr Holmes, and from the newspapers – but how do you know who I
am?’

She poured the golden tea into the thinnest of china cups.

‘I researched my adversary well, Mrs Hudson,’ she said. ‘I knew Mr Holmes was a formidable foe, and if I was to defeat him, in the matter of the King of Bohemia’s
ridiculous photograph, and I did defeat him thoroughly, I had to know him. Not just his strengths and weaknesses, but the people around him. Have you heard that a man can be judged by his friends?
Therefore I had to know about the few friends he had, his family . . .’

‘His housekeeper,’ I finished for her bluntly. I hadn’t meant to. Something about Irene Adler – Norton – brought out the brutally honest in me. It always would. She
liked that.

‘More than just a housekeeper, so much more,’ Irene said, her dark eyes meeting mine, a wealth of knowledge in them. I smiled, almost blushing. I could not help it. It felt so warm,
to be thought of as more than just Mr Holmes’ housekeeper.

‘You I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Irene said, turning to Mary and holding out a cup of tea. Mary, who had been watching the exchanges between Irene and me with a delighted
fascination, suddenly realized she had been silent until now.

‘Oh, how rude of me!’ Mary said, taking the tea. ‘I’m Mary Watson. John’s wife. Dr John Watson, I mean. Well, of course, you know who I mean.’ Mary was
babbling, but she stopped herself by drinking her tea.

‘Really?’ Irene looked at her steadily, examining her top to toe. Mary met her inquiring glance frankly, staring back over the rim of tea cup with her fierce blue eyes. She put the
cup down, and smiled. Very few people could resist Mary’s smile. Irene smiled back. ‘I approve,’ she said. ‘A perfect match.’

‘I think so,’ Mary said. ‘I am very excited to meet you, Miss Adler – I mean Mrs Norton. John has told me all about you – well, all he knows.’

‘And is his opinion of me good or bad?’ Irene asked dryly, handing me my tea. I noticed it was made exactly how I like it, though I had not got round to telling her if I wanted milk
or sugar.

‘All good,’ Mary told her. ‘He appreciates the way you fooled Sherlock. And approves, too. He thinks Sherlock being beaten by a woman did him the world of good.’

‘You call him Sherlock? Does he call you Mary?’ Irene asked, intrigued.