“The case is far from solved. I merely identified the murderer.”
“Mrs. Kitchens?”
“I’m relieved to learn that you were listening, Miss Belle. That may have been overstating her role in one of the most heinous murders I’ve ever encountered, but it was necessary to emphasize to Jones that the scullery maid must be found. To be sure, she was the poisoner, whether or not she knew it.”
“If she didn’t know, then why would she run?”
“Whether or not she knew, it is still a possibility that someone else is the mastermind.” He studied Belle’s simple outfit favorably: a cameo at the neck of her white cotton blouse embellished in lace, tucked into a serviceable cornflower blue skirt with no bustle, simply gathered at the waist. Most becoming.
“What is wrong, Mr. Holmes? My outfit is just as you requested, is it not?”
“It’s a bit too fitted.” He looked away momentarily.
“Too fitted? What do you mean, Mr. Holmes? Because it fits me?” She tapped her toe, her frustration obviously increasing.
He really should have Watson examine her: Belle could be perfectly calm and then escalate to volcanic proportions within a few seconds of entering his flat. There was no accounting for it.
As if to prove his point, she continued on her tirade. “Honestly, you won’t allow me to wear anything even slightly stylish to work. And you are so detailed in your requirements, Mr. Holmes, even specifying that I can’t wear a bustle.”
“I am nothing if not specific.” A bustle would accentuate your hourglass figure. That will never do. “You may wear whatever you like when you are not working for me.”
“When would that be? Two hours on Sunday morning?”
“Give or take an hour,” he agreed.
“And why should you design my clothing for me? Most unreasonable—and intrusive. Besides which, I need every fashion advantage as I am not frail or thin as is the style.”
“True, Miss Belle. You are not.” You are much more attractive.
“Then … why?”
I must allow nothing to distract me from my work.
“Do not waste my time, Miss Hudson. It is not your place to question me or to make demands. You know very well that I desire you to be simply dressed while in my employ, wearing nothing that might restrict your movement—and at the top of that list is a bustle. Furthermore, as your employer, I have the right to require you to wear a uniform. If you continue to disrupt my progress, I shall do so.”
It’s all in vain. Sherlock sighed heavily. The lack of a bustle did nothing to hide Belle’s alarmingly attractive figure. He cleared his throat.
“I am sorry, sir.” She sighed heavily. “I merely asked. I suppose your request—actually, your edict—is understandable as I must be ready to run for my life at any time while in the employ of one Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
He stifled a smile. Above all, he must not appear to be amused when she was insubordinate. Which was most of the time.
“I accept your apology, Miss Belle. But might I add that I wish you were in my employ? Particularly since I pay you. If you were, we would be focused on the case instead of discussing ladies fashions, re-visiting a subject I have already concluded.”
“So you’ve identified the murderer for the Yard, but you’re still looking for the mastermind?” she considered, but her manner was decidedly apologetic as she put away the teapot. She truly did wish to assist, but sometimes her youthful fancies got the better of her.
“It is possible that Mrs. Kitchens is the mastermind, that we have to determine. Or was Mrs. Kitchens a pawn, working for someone else? Nor have we caught or stopped the murderer. This is not an isolated murder.” Sherlock moved to get his coat as Belle put on her hat. “There are much darker forces at work here—with bigger plans. And there are still many unanswered questions.”
“Why was the blood taken?” She shuddered, fitting her hat atop her head. “And the teeth?”
“Precisely. And was this a hate crime—or something far different?” Sherlock placed his pipe in his pocket. “And when will our culprit strike again?”
“Heaven help us, I wish we might stop the killer before there is another murder.” She looked to his laboratory table as was her habit, since she was responsible for keeping it neat, and her eyes stopped at a pair of red spats on the table. “Is that the pair Mr. Longstaff was wearing?”
“Very good, Miss Belle. And why do you think I have them?”
“To test for the presence of blood I would wager, as the red color might conceal the fact.”
“Correct again.”
“And did you find blood?” She asked eagerly.
“I did.”
“This is the result you expected then.”
“No, it isn’t. I found only minuscule amounts of blood, which could likewise be from a personal injury. It is not conclusive. Perhaps great care was taken—or perhaps Longstaff was not involved.”
She stopped in her tracks, curiosity alight in her golden brown eyes. Of all her expressions, this was his favorite, curiosity combined with extreme intelligence. “But you’re not disappointed in the results, Mr. Holmes? You appear to take it all in stride.”
“It is mere information. I attach no emotion to the results. To desire a particular outcome might contaminate the conclusions.”
“Particularly in a scientific experiment.” She glanced sideways at him. “I understand your reasoning, Mr. Holmes, but given the importance of the results, I am frustrated, myself. Don’t you attach emotion to anything?”
His eyes returned to her hair. Belle’s nod to fashion was her chestnut brown hair parted in a V-shape in the front, the remaining hair forming a braid on each side and pulled up to meet her hair atop her head. A quite unnecessary concoction of her beautiful hair.
I long to see it loose and falling around her shoulders.
“Certainly not.” He feigned disinterest.
She placed her hands on her hips. “What is wrong now, Mr. Holmes?”
“Your hair is too ornate.”
“Too ornate? Whatever do you mean …?”
“Never mind.” He rose from his chair. “Let us be on our way.”
She glanced at the laboratory table. “I suppose the lack of blood in the spats supports your conclusion that Mrs. Kitchens killed Lord Percival.”
“As the purveyor of the poison, Mrs. Kitchens is certainly culpable, but she was downstairs.” He shook his head. “It would appear that the vampire drained the blood from the body. Otherwise, why the vampire? Unless he was only a diversion.”
“Do you still suspect Mr. Longstaff?”
“I must consider all possibilities.”
***
And yet . . .” He shook his head. “I must admit it was perplexing not to find substantial blood on the spats. This is certainly not a neat crime.” He smiled, a sudden joy alight in his eyes. “Precisely what I like.”
There is the emotion. Give Sherlock Holmes blood and one might observe it.
Honestly she was delighted to be included in this outing, but she wished he might glance upon her with an expression of approval now and again. She worked so hard and truly wished to do a good job.
He was quick to criticize but not much else. She glanced at him sideways as he placed his hat on his head, neatly dressed this morning in black pressed pants and jacket, a white cotton shirt which did nothing to hide his muscular frame, and a grey and white striped silk ascot tie which made his smoky eyes look particularly thunderous.
Sherlock looked best in the gothic colors which were a match to his raven black hair and melancholy expressions. A look which had once been so frightening to her was now somehow dear.
The Great Detective was still intimidating, make no mistake, but it suited him.
“But there was a vampire,” she objected. “At least three of the neighbors saw him.”
“Probably. But it is most convenient, is it not? They believe they saw him. Is it that, or is it the romantic mind playing tricks?”
>
“But we know he was there, Mr. Holmes.”
“And yet you never saw him. Still you are certain.”
“Because I saw the mutilated body.”
“That is not the same as seeing the vampire. Perhaps the neighbors were given the evidence by the police and told what they saw as well.”
“But if there was no vampire, if he was only planted in the neighbor’s minds, that would mean the story originated with the police.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. Or perhaps it was not the vampire who was imagined—but Longstaff. After all, they expected to see the butler, who would have been uninteresting by comparison. Possibly they saw someone resembling Longstaff or dressed as Longstaff.” Having procured his cane and hat he reached for the doorknob. “At any rate, our departure is overdue.”
In no time at all, she and Sherlock were at the Great Peter Street Post Office sending a telegraph. She did her best to look over her employer’s shoulder in an effort to determine the intended recipient. The best she could make out was –“Urgent.”— and –“Come at once.”— and that the recipient’s name began with a “W”. She couldn’t see the name.
Once Sherlock had dispatched his wire, it was not long before they were back in the cab.
“Who was the telegraph to, Mr. Holmes?”
“Only the most effective investigative force in the city of London.”
“But the Metropolitan Police is already on the case, Mr. Holmes.”
Sherlock laughed with a rare light-heartedness. It was unusual to see him jovial. He could be in a tortured state between cases, and it was at those times that melancholy and despondency overtook him. “I assure you, Miss Belle, those in my employ are more effective than the police force or they would not long be in my employ.”
She found herself enjoying the unusual camaraderie she was sharing with her employer, as if they were partners. I’d best not become accustomed to it.
Partners. She liked the sound of that.
Mirabella had always thought science was her first love, but now she wondered. She loved the exhilarating feeling of solving the murder and putting the criminal behind bars. In this, she and Sherlock were alike.
Glancing sideways at Sherlock, she wondered why she had never cast her cap after him, particularly as the thought of him with Fantine made her so angry.
Because it is ridiculous to imagine that Sherlock could be interested in me. He is extraordinary, amazing—a force of nature—and I am just . . . me.
Perfect Sherlock was not. His terrible mood swings were almost beyond endurance. Sherlock was just as incorrigible as he was brilliant.
It was his complexity that made him who he was, the other side of the coin. One didn’t exist without the other.
And a world without Sherlock Holmes was, well, not a world for her anymore.
“Who is this remarkable crime-fighting group you seek to hire, Mr. Holmes?”
“The same force I employed in the Jefferson Hope case.”
“But who . . . ?”
He looked out the window for a moment, the determination in his silver eyes evident. His visit to the telegraph office had definitely left him more exuberant, as he always was when he had hit upon a new idea.
Upon returning to the flat, before Sherlock and Watson had finished their toast and eggs, there was a ruckus on the street to compete with the Queen’s fortieth jubilee.
“Hmmm, are we expecting company?” Dr. Watson asked as he spread fig preserves on his toast. “Or is it the organ grinders convention right outside our window?”
“Heaven help me, it’s Satan and the end times!” Mrs. Hudson screamed in the hallway. “I won’t open this door, and so it is. I’ll not let you hooligans in this building over me dead body!”
Mirabella looked out the window to see a dirty, smudge-faced boy with hair the color of wheat flapping his telegraph about.
“I’ve been summoned, I ain’t no vagabond. I’m here on official business with Mr. Holmes hisself. And here’s the paper to prove it.”
Mirabella ran to the door of the flat and called down the hallway where her aunt was standing. “It’s alright, Aunt Martha. I helped to send the telegraph myself.”
“O’ course you did, Missy. Why am I not surprised you had something to do with this tom-foolery?” Mrs. Hudson sighed. “And you used to be such a sensible girl before you fell in with Mr. Sherlock ’Olmes.”
Mirabella couldn’t argue with that; it was absolutely true. “You introduced us, Aunt Martha.” Also true.
Mrs. Hudson made the sign of the cross on her chest. “May our heavenly Father and all the saints above forgive me for creating that tear in the firmament which has since rained purgatory upon us.”
“Are you going to get the door, Aunt Martha, or should I come down the stairs?”
“Let me have a moment of peace before I expire, girl.” Martha Hudson peered around the door to look out the street window. “Auch now, it’s only an army of vagabonds here to kill us all and take our life’s savings,” she continued, regaining her composure. Slowly she opened the door and yelled through the crack, “You’re not too old to paddle, and so it is. Mind your manners.”
Mirabella turned on her heel to face Sherlock. “You can’t mean that you telegraphed . . .”
“The Baker Street Irregulars, naturally.”
“But children, Mr. Holmes? Don’t you think this case is far too dangerous?”
“If there is anything the Baker Street Irregulars excel in, it is in not getting caught. That is their particular area of expertise in fact: to see things others miss, to remain hidden and unnoticed, and to move amongst a crowd and take what they wish without anyone being the wiser.”
“Invisibility, do you mean?” Dr. Watson asked.
“That is their survival.” Sherlock grew somber for an instant.
“Did you know, Miss Mirabella, that fully one-third of London is comprised of children? Those who are not among the gifted, do not survive at all.” Dr. Watson buttered another piece of toast, completely unmoved by the chaos formerly outside the window and now heading for their rooms, his and Holmes’ haven away from the shadowy and darker side of London, their retreat where pipes were smoked, clients entertained, books read, sherry sipped, fires burned late into the night, clues examined, scientific experiments performed and published, and the most perplexing criminal cases discussed and solved. Perhaps John thought there was a protective bubble over this Baker Street flat due to the transforming power it had enacted on him.
Hearing footsteps trampling up the stairs, Mirabella wondered if that bubble was about to burst.
“Or, as in the case of Lady Graham’s Orphan Asylum where I volunteer, they survive but do not actually live.” Mirabella smiled; nothing seemed to discompose the good doctor. He gave everything an air of calm, one of his endearing qualities.
He had been in Afghanistan, after all, which had made every attempt to claim his life, exhausting every angle when one method proved futile. She sometimes wondered if John Watson lived under a lucky star, spreading some of that light on all of them. At any rate, there was nothing this earthly plane could do to John Watson that hadn’t already been done.
She turned to Sherlock. “So . . who was the wire to, Mr. Holmes?”
“To Wiggins, of course.” His eyes captured hers for a moment, challenging her in some way she didn’t understand.
“The leader of this children’s detective force?”
“The very same: the lieutenant of the Baker Street Irregulars as well as their fearless leader.” He frowned. “I wish you will offer the proper respect, Miss Belle. This is not an amateur group. Wiggins is a twelve-year-old of remarkable talent, ingenuity, and leadership skills. And punctual as well. We have not yet concluded our breakfast and here they are. I’ll wager you would not see a response to match it from the Yard.”
The clomping of feet on the stairs was getting closer.
“Perhaps this is a bit more response than is to be de
sired.”
“I begin to wonder that myself, Miss Mirabella,” Dr. Watson murmured.
“Glory be, who did you steal this from?” Mrs. Hudson could be heard in the hallway with the boys, apparently examining the telegraph. “You ain’t no ‘Mr. Wiggins’. You can’t be more than thirteen years old.”
“I’ll ‘ave you know I’m twelve, and big for me age,” Wiggins said proudly.
“You need to watch your mouth, and that’s a fact, Mr. Big.”
Even before the long-suffering landlady had finished her sentence, the air was filled with the slap of bare feet reaching the top of the stairs, accented with the whooping and hollering young boys tended to—along with a mixture of unpleasant odors. Mirabella opened the door to the flat, only to be hammered against the wall by the influx of a dozen street-urchins in rags, their faces covered in soot.
The toast from their breakfast table disappeared in a matter of seconds, with the exception of the piece in Dr. Watson’s hand remaining so.
“Give back the toast,” Wiggins commanded, at which point three grubby hands revealed half-eaten pieces of toast, even as the three culprits continued licking the jam off their dirty fingers.
“You may keep them at this point,” Sherlock said with disapproval, lighting his pipe and examining the boys before him. “Stand at attention.”
Two of the pieces of toast fell to the carpet, jam side down. Instantaneously the boys formed a straight line, or as straight a line as could be obtained in the not over-large flat.
“Here we are, sir!” Wiggins announced.
“As if that could be missed,” Sherlock said. “Henceforth, you shall come alone, Wiggins, and impart my directions to your troops. I cannot have the house invaded in this way.”
“Yes, guv’nor!” cried Wiggins.
“Yes, sir!” they all squealed.
“And prior to your leaving you shall all return anything you have picked up while on the premises,” Sherlock continued, taking a puff on his pipe.
“Yes, guv’nor!” yelled Wiggins, his voice growing even louder.
“Yes, sir!” the boys all howled.
“However, it’s just as well you are all here. This is a particularly dangerous villain we are after. Under no circumstances are you to approach him, do you understand?”
Sherlock Holmes and the Vampire Invasion Page 7
