Prelude to a Partnership

by Miss Roylott

  "He thought it might be dangerous, some kind of trap. I said I would be careful, and he kissed me, insisting that I return for supper, or else he would worry. So I disguised myself as old Mrs. Sawyer and I came here for the ring, as you gentlemen know.

  "When I had slipped you off my trail, Mr. Holmes, I changed my clothes again and returned to Jefferson at the hotel. He lifted me up onto his driver's seat with him and kissed me when I gave him the ring. 'Such a clever girl, aren't you?' he smiled, sliding his arm around my waist. I asked him if he had got to Stangerson yet, but he hadn't.

  "'No, I was sure that the man would try to leave for the trains again, but he's cunning and won't budge. He's stuck in that room until daylight anyhow, so we might as well go home ourselves now. I can come back early tomorrow morning. I know his room number now; he's that window there.' Jefferson pointed out one of the hotel windows upstairs, and I said, 'Maybe you can use the cab to reach it.'

  "'Clever girl!' he said, starting to drive us home. 'No, there's a ladder they keep nearby. I can use that, while everyone's still asleep.'

  "Something made me shiver, and I needed his reassurance. 'Then, when you've done with him, will you come back home?' I knew Jefferson had never returned during daylight hours before.

  "He shrugged. 'After I work a bit with my cab. I don't want to raise suspicions.'

  "'But come home and stay awhile. Tell your boss you're ill so he'll let you.'

  "He said softly, 'I'd like that.'

  "So we went home and made love again. Jefferson left me in the morning, and never returned," she whispered. "My heart sunk when I first heard of his capture, and broke when I read of his death. Oh God, if he had only come home!"

  She broke down completely, and this time I did put my arm around her and gave her my handkerchief. Never had I seen anyone so fragile, of either sex. She sobbed against my shoulder, and I almost regretted our capture of Jefferson Hope. But then, he would have died anyway, and Holmes could never have solved the two murders.

  Holmes rose from his chair and began pacing our sitting-room distractedly. He smoked his pipe with great rapidity, and no doubt was still trying to absorb the extraordinary tale we had heard. Perhaps he was also conflicted about harbouring sympathies for Cooper, despite her disturbing zeal to aid and abet a murderer.

  She asked me in her small, vulnerable voice, so incongruous with her short locks and her masculine clothing, "Why did he not come home to me? What had I done wrong?"

  "I am sure that he only wished to protect you, to draw no suspicion by missing work."

  "But he was ill! Why not just tell them at the cab-yard? It was over; there was no more he had to do. No more, but live with me."

  I believe she feared that Hope had not genuinely loved her, that she had been a mere substitute for his dead Lucy, and an expedient accomplice. My heart went out to her.

  I told her, "I was there when the police took down his official statement about killing Drebber and Stangerson. When Holmes mentioned your assistance as Mrs. Sawyer, Hope refused to reveal your identity. He wished to protect you from trouble, and he called you—well, not a clever girl—but a smart friend."

  She pondered that in silence, but seemed little comforted. I refrained from mentioning what might or might not have been a lie—Hope's stated intention to return to America.

  Holmes finally came to an uneasy decision and sat down before us again, clearing his throat. "Cooper. You wish to know what has become of Jefferson Hope? His possessions, his remains?"

  "Yes." She looked to him eagerly.

  "He will be buried within days, but I will not tell you where or when until the event has already passed. If you attended his burial and could not keep your composure, your intimate connexion to him would surely be exposed; no mere reporter would sob over Hope's death. On the other hand, we might be able to obtain his possessions from the police for you, as souvenirs of the case. I don't believe they ever traced any next of kin."

  "No, he didn't have anyone now. Except me."

  "Very well. We shall find some way to ask about his last words as well."

  "Thank you," she said solemnly.

  Holmes remained uncomfortable. "Return here this afternoon, and otherwise try not to think of the whole affair anymore."

  But Holmes knew nothing about the process of grief over a departed loved one.

  "I cannot!" she said, wretched again. "How can I forget him?"

  "You must," Holmes spoke unwisely. "It is finished, as you said. Dr. Watson here will see to the publication of your manuscript, after some editing to make sure you cannot be traced. You must… live your life again."

  She was of course too distraught to consider that possibility. "I don't have any life without him."

  I quickly halted Holmes from saying anything else disastrous, but found that I myself could only offer trite words. "He would wish you to be happy, Miss—Miss Cooper."

  She was surprised that I had addressed her so. "If… if I am really his Lucy, do you think it will be long before I join him?"

  I was dismayed. "You mustn't talk like that."

  "I don't want to wait years, decades, to see him again! Not even knowing if I will."

  I leaned near to her and finally struck upon words that were of some use. "When we first captured Hope, he fought like the devil to break free. He threw himself out that very window, perhaps trying to reach his cab parked on the street there, but in the end he was resigned to be caught. He no longer saw the point in fighting, not even to return to you. He recognised that his fate is in the hands of a higher power, and he must trust it to make the right decisions. You must recognise this too. Be patient, and live. You are still young yet."

  "He, he tried to come back to me?" she whispered.

  I nodded.

  That assuaged her pain. "At least I will have his locket to keep, and the ring to bury." She looked on the mend now, although she remained mournful. "I will be lonely without him."

  "Of course, but you will have the memory to comfort you." I pressed her hand. "Try to compose yourself. You have to go home as… as you are."

  She took my meaning and swallowed, aware of her deceptive exterior. She knew that she must be even somewhat manly again in public; she must be strong and aloof enough to avoid attracting attention or suspicion.

  After that extraordinary person left us, Holmes and I sat there alone, exhausted by the encounter.

  Holmes asked me if I really believed what I said about trusting a higher power.

  I glanced at him. "Who knows what was in his head at the time? Hope did seem amazingly serene after his capture. In any case, a suicide on top of everything else would be a tragic, unnecessary end to your supposedly simple mystery." I sighed. "I'm inclined to keep checking up on her, with one excuse or another, to be sure that she'll be fine. Perhaps we ought to suggest to her when she returns that she give up journalism for a thespian career. She has the talent for it."

  Holmes did not comment on the pronouns I used, and he merely poured himself another brandy. "Or Cooper might move to a country with less restrictive laws.[23]"

  "Yes, anything to put her less at risk. You don't suppose that she'll come under anyone else's influence as strongly as she did Hope's? I can hardly believe setting aside all law, being willing to kill for the one you love."

  Holmes sat back in his chair. "Hope wished to kill for Lucy Ferrier's sake, to avenge her death and her father's."

  "Yes. I suppose… Rose saw it as reciprocal."

  Holmes repeated quietly, "It is finished now."

  We were both silent for some time, and I could not help but contemplate the matter further.

  "Do you suppose Hope loved her?" I ventured at last. "Or just used her?"

  "That is something only he could answer." Holmes looked at me, then kissed me before rising. "Take care what you write. What you publish."

  He exited and went down to Scotland Yard.

  Chapter 12

  New Beginnings

  H
olmes came back with a parcel of things from Scotland Yard and set it aside upon my desk, before joining me for lunch.

  I asked him if he was entirely recovered from last night's activities yet.

  He smiled, and reached to kiss me. "Do you anticipate prolonging the illness?"

  "Only if you don't object." I caressed his leg with my foot under the table.

  He laughed, then cautioned quietly, "Later."

  "I know, not while the servants are up. I have had an illicit affair before, Holmes," I reminded him, "and hid it well enough to not have a dishonourable discharge!"

  He was nonchalant. "Ah yes, Murray. I have some recollection of your mentioning that name last night."

  "Some!" I could not help being irked. "I wish that I had not mentioned him at all, for I had no idea you'd tell it to the next person you met."

  "Oh, Watson! Are you still annoyed about that?"

  "You could at least assure me that you won't be so thoughtless about my private life in the future."

  "Oh, very well," he shrugged, then quirked an eyebrow upward. "Really, I should have thought you'd object more to my disclosing a recent affair, rather than an old one."

  "You did hint at us, too."

  "Obliquely."

  I reached for his hand. "Well, don't hint at either affair, without my consent." Then I smiled. "You know, if we include that time in the closet, our affair is older than mine with Murray."

  "Oh?" he said. "In that case, you have been wilfully cheating on me for years. Shame on you! I suggest you make it up to me tonight."

  "I will," I assured him.

  I am pleased to say that my ardent look made him blush.

  We finished our lunch, and I had a peek inside the parcel.

  "Watson!" he chastised. "Those are not your things to rummage through."

  "I'm checking that you got the real ring, not just your facsimile."

  "I checked that myself," he answered. "This was the ring found at the murder scene. There was not another one on Hope, so he may have buried it already."

  "Oh." I remembered Miss Cooper's anxieties about why Hope had stayed away the morning of Stangerson's murder. "Well, let her bury the real one, then," I shrugged.

  "Ahem, hadn't you better leave the parcel alone, then?"

  I confessed that I actually wanted a glimpse into the locket she'd mentioned.

  He tsked at me. "You might be patient and ask when the owner is around."

  I glanced inside anyway and saw the faded image of Lucy Ferrier née Cooper, who sadly never became Hope. The lovely maiden did indeed greatly resemble the young creature we had met today, and I was amazed once more by the transformation I had witnessed.

  Holmes seemed to read my thoughts in my face, and he remarked as I restored the locket to the parcel, "In my work, I occasionally don disguises myself, Watson, but it seems that I could take lessons from Cooper in the art of deception. Although," he cleared his throat quickly, "I don't think I shall follow our young friend's example in all matters."

  I took his meaning and returned to his side, kissing him. "I love you as you are."

  He smiled briefly, before resuming his stern demeanour. "Later," he said, and I returned to my desk with studied indifference.

  I do not think I went too far by using the word "love" so soon between us, for he seemed unfazed by it and understood it to mean both our friendly affection as well as our perverse intimacy in his bed. I think he has enjoyed this transition we have made from teasing friends to wicked lovers, and only seeks to recover his usual composure again.

  Holmes may be the most extraordinary man I have ever desired, let alone had, and he seems flattered to know it, since he saw already how picky I am about men when we visited the molly houses together. I know that some sodomites enjoy effeminacy in themselves or their partners, but I have personally found it only mildly arousing at best. It still confounds me to imagine a virile man like Jefferson Hope engaging in a relationship with a person of complicated sex, but men are all different, I suppose.

  We expect Cooper's return anytime now, and I vaguely wonder how she will be dressed.

  Still the male garments, though when she caught my look, she said to me that I could call her Rose, instead of Miss Cooper.

  Anyhow, she looked in better control of herself now than this morning, and was grateful to have Hope's last few belongings as keepsakes of him. I also told her briefly about the duplicate rings, and she was cheered to think that Hope's last errand had delayed him rather than any hesitation about their affair.

  She then asked me about Holmes's earlier remark that I would edit and publish her Mormon manuscript, and I explained that I was putting together my own account of the case. "It's probably better in your hands," she said, lamenting that she herself would have no chance at publishing such a project. "I wish you luck, Doctor, and look forward to having the public know Jefferson's noble motives."

  Holmes mentioned to Rose our ideas about a change in her profession or her country of residence. She replied that she wished to simply mourn Hope at present, and I apologised for any presumption on our part, to interfere in her life.

  "No, that's all right, Doctor. It's only your kindness." Rose's smile was so soft and feminine at that moment, that I wondered more than ever how she daily managed to fool her colleagues in the press that she was a man. Her body might technically classify her so, but her spirit did not.

  Holmes asked Rose how she had become so adept at disguise, and if she had ever genuinely used her skills in an investigation, for such a talent would be invaluable to a reporter or a detective. Rose blinked her fair eyelashes at him, and I think his proposal that she instruct him in the art intrigued her. She was flustered and said that she would think about it.

  She rose to leave us again, and we said good-bye to her, hopefully not for the last time.

  I looked at Holmes when she had gone, and he murmured with fascination that he had not believed he could still be surprised by any form of deviance in existence. "Clearly, however, education never ends." He glanced at me then and remembered our lovemaking with a smile. "As I learned last night."

  I kissed him and said he would learn more tonight.

  Such passion in his arms last night. He is young and green, but a quick study. I took him in my mouth like I did years ago, and my method had improved a great deal, judging from his ecstatic response and his swift show of gratitude. The sight of him on his knees before me was incredible, transporting me back to what I had felt but not seen in the dark of the closet. It seemed that we were reliving our past again, though with more skill. I think I might say "I love you" to him someday and mean it sincerely.

  Unfortunately, such a feeling of closeness was not to last. All today, Holmes has been aloof and rigidly composed, with hardly a glance or a smile for me. I fear he is veering again into silence and vacancy, and I have tried to rouse him out with conversation, but am succeeding less and less with each attempt. This morning he worked briefly on some abstruse chemical experiment, all the while lamenting the lack of any new mystery to solve. He seems quite bored of the world, and perhaps of me too.

  So I asked him to a concert with me, and he humoured me in a content, but drowsy way. Afterward he was irritated that I had not the stamina to accompany him to the British Museum as well, and we parted.

  While Holmes remained out, Gregson and Lestrade stopped by this afternoon and asked specifically to speak to me privately. Apparently Holmes had mentioned to them my intention to write an account of the Brixton Mystery, as an excuse for his asking for Hope's possessions, so they had generously brought me their own notebooks from the case.

  I was quite surprised and delighted. "Why, thank you both! You don't mind," I coughed delicately, "if I reveal Holmes's part in the investigation?"

  "Not at all!" Lestrade clapped my shoulder heartily. "We shall have plenty more cases in the meantime. By the way, did you happen to have a word with Holmes about us?"

  "A word?"

  "Y
es," Gregson said. "Something about abbreviating his lectures?"

  "Oh! Yes, I may have said something to that effect. Did Holmes mention that?"

  "Yes!" Lestrade laughed and nearly wrung off my hand with gratitude. "I tell you, Doctor, when we saw him at the Yard yesterday, we were sure that he had come down to gloat some more about the Hope case, and to rake us over the coals for our faults again. But he did not. He was amazingly subdued."

  "Amazingly," Gregson echoed with enthusiasm. He was practically beaming.

  "We could hardly believe it. When we asked him why he did not greet us with his customary diatribe, he warned us that he would not stop his lectures altogether, since we must learn in future cases, but he would abbreviate them to a minimum, as had been suggested to him by a certain impartial witness."

  Gregson chortled happily, and shook my hand as well. "Thank you, Doctor." So they left me, still chattering and laughing between themselves.

  I spent the afternoon examining their notebooks and writing a little of my account of the mystery. Perhaps I can gain Holmes's interest in my project when he comes home.

  Holmes returned late, with numerous mud splashes on his trousers that spoke of another long walk. He described to me his journey as we dined, but soon became bored and quiet. He yawned and lit his pipe, then devoted himself to his scrapbooks, which seem to consist of numerous clippings from newspapers, interspersed with his own notations. I tried to ask him about the books, for they had often attracted my curiosity, but he would not reply nor let me examine any of them. I felt rather snubbed and lonely.

  But as soon as the night grew later and safer, Holmes showed interest in me again, reaching to kiss me. When I did not respond to him, he teased me with a smile. "Did I not warn you of my inconstancy, Doctor?" The only sure-fire cure for it, he said, would be another night with me, or did I not want to combat his ennui anymore?

  We locked ourselves in his bedroom again.

  He is not bored with our lovemaking, at least. His eyes came to life at last and he even growled with pleasure as we explored new variations and techniques. Sex with him is better every time. I am thoroughly enjoying his lean flexibility in my arms, and appreciating all his differences from Murray. For his part, Holmes still seems fascinated by my scarred body, and I wonder if I should ask him again about the scars upon his arm from his "medication," but he seems not to trust me that much yet. We shall see what happens when I delve deeper into his vulnerabilities.