Sherlock did so.
“The East End? With a dog yet?” Mycroft complained, already in the cab, taking care to seat himself in the opposite corner from Toby. Meanwhile, Sherlock gave me his hand and helped me up the step as carefully as if I were made of Waterford crystal. Feigning a ladylike repugnance towards poor Toby, I sat next to Mycroft, where he would be sure to whiff my expensive lily-and-lavender scent. Sherlock lounged on the opposite seat, stroking the dog and saying nothing, as the cab rolled off with no more than the usual degree of jostling.
The silence lasted for some time, until seemingly either curiosity, nerves, or my perfume got the better of Mycroft. He swung his impressive head towards me. “What, may I ask, is the nature of your difficulty, Miss, ah . . .”
I merely ducked my head and smiled.
“Everseau,” volunteered Sherlock from the opposite seat. “Miss Viola Everseau, whose parents were great friends of our mum.”
“Which reminds me!” Mycroft leaned across the cab towards his brother. “Have you heard from Enola regarding that communication of which you told me?”
“Not yet.”
“Confound it, Sherlock, I wish you had consulted me before entrusting any such missive to that half-barbarous scarecrow scamp—”
Sherlock glanced at me with an unmistakable twinkle in his eye.
Mycroft ranted on, “—our uncouth sister, all mischief, like a rascally terrier pup barely housebroken—”
I could resist no longer.
“Now, now,” I said in my normal and, alas, quite distinctive voice, “surely she is at least partially housebroken, and no more rascally, uncouth, or half-barbarous than other members of her family have sometimes showed themselves to be—”
As if he were a bellows, all the air seemed to exit Mycroft suddenly as he turned to gawk at me.
“—for instance, by speaking of such delicate family matters in the presence of a complete stranger,” I concluded serenely, fully aware of my Gypsy bonnet at its fetching angle, my lovely pearl earrings, my ruffled collar starched to perfection. I gave him my most demure smile for a moment before I broke into a less ladylike grin.
“Enola?” gasped Mycroft.
“Yours truly, my dear brother.”
“Enola! But—I never! What—how—where in the name of—”
But at that moment the cab stopped, and the cabbie bawled in a bored tone, “Kipple Street.”
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH
HOPPING OUT WITH MY CARPET-BAG IN HAND, I opened it whilst Sherlock paid for the cab and sent it trotting off. Mycroft stood like a stump as I handed him a lantern and some matches. Having planned only for the company of one brother, not two, I kept the other lantern for myself; Sherlock was carrying his heaviest walking-stick, an excellent weapon. As he was managing Toby, I handed him Duquessa del Campo’s handkerchief, then stuffed my Gypsy bonnet along with my gloves and my expensive wig into the carpet-bag, and covered my beacon of a yellow dress with a lightweight black cloak I had brought along for that purpose. Uniformly drab now, with my swamp-coloured hair in an untidy bun atop my head, I turned to my elder brother with a smile.
“Now, Mycroft, do I look more like your very own renegade sister?” As an afterthought, I peeled my little birthmark off my face and tossed it into the carpet-bag.
Mycroft seemed speechless—an unusual condition for him.
“So, Enola, where to start?” Sherlock asked me.
“Down along the Thames.” Carpet-bag in one hand and lantern in the other, I led the way in that direction. “It seems to me,” I explained, “that they would have brought her out of the Underground by one of the old sewers that the mud-larks and toshers use—”
“Her?” Explosively Mycroft regained his power of speech. “Whom—”
“Duquessa Blanchefleur del Campo,” Sherlock enlightened him. “Enola, you think that after robbing her of her finery, they would have returned her to the ditches and docks?”
“I don’t know. But certainly they could not keep her in the shop, could they?”
“Hardly.” Something in Sherlock’s tone made me think he took our search none too seriously, but was thoroughly enjoying himself. I, on the other hand, whilst amused by Mycroft’s discomfiture, felt most determined to find the Duquessa.
Treading softly, silent and alert, I took us downhill, traversing a spiderweb of lanes that led to the river—although truth to tell, so pretty a word as river gives the wrong picture of the Thames, which was more like a stinking brown sewer that swelled or sank with the ocean tides. The brackish, sludgy water concealed drowned rats, dead cats, and, occasionally, decomposing human bodies. The banks were a rotting place where reptilian forms of humanity dwelt.
Heading down a steep, dark alley between buildings that smelled of tar, I hesitated, hearkening to a remembered fear. Sure enough, ahead we could see the vertical lines of ships’ masts against the lighter gloom of a low sky, and we emerged from the alley to cluster on a rickety, rocking dock at the edge of the Thames.
Standing still for a moment, we all listened—and looked, to the extent of our lanterns’ glow—for danger. “I have been here before,” I whispered.
“When?” Sherlock asked, keeping his voice low.
“My first night in London.” In less time than it takes to say it, I remembered those terrible hours held captive along with little Lord Tewksbury in the hull of a boat, my hands and feet tied, my wrists bloodied as I contrived to rub their bindings against one of the steel stays in my slashed corset. Then the fight for freedom, and then running, running through the night, slowed by poor Tewky with his sore, bare feet . . .
“What are you talking about?” Mycroft grumbled.
“I ran afoul of cutthroats hereabouts.”
“How very comforting.”
“This way,” I whispered, turning randomly to my right, fleeing the memory. All along the shore loomed dark warehouses, visible only because of the glaring gas-brackets of corner taverns. Slimy, uneven footing ran along the river’s edge. A villainous place. Just the sort of place where Mrs. Culhane and her thuggish friends might dump the unfortunate Duquessa. “Let us see what Toby can do with the handkerchief, Sherlock.”
One of the things that I liked best about Sherlock was his way with dogs and horses. Regarding Toby, he stopped where he was and crouched to confer with him, caressing and cajoling interest into him before he pulled the square of fine lace-edged linen from his pocket and presented its centre to the dog’s nostrils. When Toby had sniffed thoroughly, Sherlock arose and clipped a very long leash to the shorter one, giving him freedom. With an odd, waddling gait the dog trotted into the night, out of sight of our lanterns.
“Well, at least he is not leading us to you, Enola,” Sherlock remarked as we followed the leash. “Your scent is on that handkerchief, you know.”
“Yes. And yours. And Mrs. Culhane’s.”
“Confound it, Enola, there is something about your presence that hampers my mental faculties. . . . We should have stopped at the Duque del Campo’s residence and asked for something more redolent of the Duquessa’s scent and hers alone.”
“And what do you think they would have given you, her unlaundered drawers?”
“Enola!” Mycroft protested in crimson tones, for I had just mentioned unmentionables in his male presence.
I ignored him, badgering Sherlock. “For what purpose could you say you wanted such a personal item?”
“Explanation would have stirred up false hopes and entirely too many questions,” he replied with a sigh. “You are quite right, Enola. Still, it will be a wonder if Toby does not take us to Mrs. Culhane’s shop.”
“It will be more than a wonder, nearly a miracle, if he finds anything to help us,” I admitted. “But one must try.”
“And I?” came a grumpy voice from the rear. “For what reason am I here really, Sherlock, pray tell?”
“All will become plain, my dear brother. All will become plain.”
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEE
NTH
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, THIS BLESSED CLARITY HAD not yet occurred. With the characteristic willing optimism of canines, Toby led us stumbling along the littered, uneven edge of the Thames, hauling us into every conceivable gutter, stream, undercut, and sewer-mouth, but without satisfactory results. Indeed, he ended up leading us back the way we had come, towards the dockyard upon which centred my evil memories. Only Mycroft’s wheezing, I am sure—for he was unaccustomed to physical exercise—kept him from complaining as we neared a tunnel, actually a dried-up river-bed, we had passed once before—
Toby alerted, but with his head in the air, not with his nose to the ground.
Other than that, I cannot explain my instant alarm, although life on the streets does endow one with a certain warning sensitivity.
“Into the tunnel!” I whispered most vehemently, grasping each of my brothers by an elbow and propelling them thither. “Lanterns out!” There was no need to enquire regarding the dog, for as we stood close together in dense shadow, I felt Toby sitting on my feet, his furred body stiff, apprehensive.
There was no need to caution anyone to complete silence, except that I crouched to place a warning hand around Toby’s snout.
We heard footsteps shuffling up the riverbank from the direction of the docks.
And voices.
Someone was approaching.
In a moment I heard two voices, one high-pitched and squeaky, the other deeper and huskier, with the phlegm of age in it, but still—a woman? And why did I think the squeaky soprano was a man? Both of them sounded familiar to me, although I could not place them.
Especially not as the deeper voice shocked me nearly witless by rapidly and angrily saying several exceedingly wicked words. “. . . ’ad me bellyful of ’er,” it concluded.
“An’ she of you, I reckon,” retorted the squeaky voice.
“Then why in blazes don’t she go away?” (I paraphrase, blazes being a euphemism in consideration of the sensibilities of the gentle reader.) “Every time I come out of my own ’ouse, there she is, just layin’ like a fish in the filth of the mews—”
“Well, fair enough, for you put ’er there, dincha?” interrupted Squeaky.
Squeaky!
I nearly squeaked myself as I recognised the rat-like tones of the vicious little cutthroat who might have killed me last summer—
“ ’At’s got nuttin’ to do wid it, you—” and oaths fit to char my ears interrupted my unpleasant memories. I would not have thought that any female could curse so, not even—
The two of them hove into view, rounding a bend in the riverside path, the larger, rather tortoise-shaped one carrying a lantern.
Not even Mrs. Culhane.
For unmistakably it was Mrs. Culhane, with the villainous Squeaky at her elbow.
“It is she,” I hissed into Sherlock’s ear, fervidly hoping he understood, for I dared say no more. Shuddering, I cringed deeper into the shadows. Mycroft had managed to quell his wheezing, thank goodness. He and Sherlock kept perfect silence as the two villains trod nearer.
“. . . she ’as the ’ole neighbour’ood talking, an’ dem all if word gits to the police,” said Mrs. Culhane in conclusion to her ranting. The gentle reader will understand that I euphemise the few words fit to repeat. “The dem confounded troublemaker, stayin’ around and playin’ pitiful ’stead of runnin’ ’ome like she oughter.”
By this time they were walking nearly in front of our hiding place. I thought of the dagger sheathed in the busk of my corset, mentally preparing myself, for if one of them happened to glance our way as the light of their lantern fell on us, I would need to pull it out quite quickly.
“So wot d’ye want me to do about ’er?” asked Squeaky.
“Why, get rid of ’er!”
“ ’Ow? Do ye mean plop ’er somewhere else, like, or do ye want me to do fer ’er?”
Kill her, he meant, and his offhand willingness made my neck-hair prickle. Luckily, it also made Mrs. Culhane look straight at him, and only at him, as the two of them passed our hiding place, and he was looking at her.
“Do wot you like,” she told him. “I don’t care. I don’t want to know nothing about it. Just get rid of ’er.”
“After them,” I whispered once the evil twosome had passed our refuge. Indeed, Sherlock was already creeping forward. He wore the softest of kid-boots, always, and possessed a catlike grace upon his feet; I did not fear they would hear him. I did, however, fear that they might hear me, for such situations seem to bring out the worst of my clumsiness. I gave Sherlock a good start before I followed, holding Toby’s leash but leaving my lantern behind in case it might bang or rattle. Mycroft, taking his cues from me (amazingly!), did the same, trailing me at a discreet distance and treading, I am sure, most carefully, for our only light was that of London’s gas-lamps hazily reflected from the low clouds, plus Mrs. Culhane’s lantern far ahead.
Thus in dim, stealthy procession we trailed along the Thames for a short distance before veering away from it, uphill, towards the very place where we had started: that is to say, Kipple Street. Long before we got there I had guessed where we were going. I knew the mews behind Mrs. Culhane’s shop from that same exceedingly unpleasant day the summer before, when I had fled past the cowshed, the donkey’s ramshackle stable, the goat-pen, and through a squawking, honking morass of hen and goose in my desperation to escape from Squeaky and his even more fearsome cutthroat companion.
But first came Kipple Street, intermittently illuminated by the few street-lamps which remained unbroken. Reaching the pavement, rather than step out into the gas-light, Sherlock stopped in the shadow of the corner building to wait for me.
And, I suppose, Mycroft. But in my haste I had no thought for my stout, trailing brother. Peeping around the corner of the building, I watched Squeaky and Mrs. Culhane turn, a caricature of a promenading couple, onto Saint Tookings Lane. “I know how to cut them off. Come!” I panted to Sherlock, and with the dog by my side I darted straight across Kipple Street to the alley that led directly into the mews.
Behind me I heard someone, I think Mycroft, expostulate, “Disgusting! Has the girl gone mad?” For as is the nature of such alleys, this one was strewn with the odiferous dung of all the domesticated animals aforementioned and many more. A most undesirable place to slip and fall. I tried not to do so as I ran forward into what would have been nothing but stench and darkness if it were not for a glimmer of lantern-light approaching from Saint Tookings Lane. Mrs. Culhane—
I failed to complete the thought that she and her consort had taken the slightly longer way of better footing. I gasped.
In the faint light I could see a pale something—or someone, for it seemed to be a human personage—recumbent in the muck.
Motionless.
Indeed, as still and pallid as a shrouded corpse.
Dear God, if it was—Blanchefleur, frail filament of womanhood—was she yet alive?
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
I COULD NOT TELL!
Not even as, a moment later, Mrs. Culhane and her murderous companion walked into sight, then halted to stand over her. Not even as the light of their lantern fell full upon her could I discern any motion.
Running towards them, my footfalls muffled by the most unspeakable muck, I tried to hold my breath and listen, but I was not yet near enough; I could not hear what they said. But I saw Mrs. Culhane set down the lantern, turn, and leave at her usual waddling gait.
I saw that the form on the ground, whether alive or dead, was a woman, unusually slender, clad in nothing but a chemise.
I saw her move slightly as if attempting to lift her head.
Alive!
And I saw Squeaky draw his knife to kill her.
“No!” I shrieked, dropping Toby’s leash to free my hands, increasing my already reckless speed to sprint towards him. “Stop!” Rapidly closing in on him, yet I was not near enough to restrain him by any means other than my voice. “Murder! Police!” And as he jerked around,
quite startled, to look for the source of the commotion, I threw my carpet-bag—for lack of any better weapon—I hurled it with desperate force at his head.
He ducked, and it missed, of course, but it gave me enough time to come face-to-face with him, with my dagger drawn.
His lip drew back in a mongrel-dog snarl as we crouched, blades menacing, shuffling our feet in a slow circle. He recognised me. “You again. Ye’re dead,” he said.
“Help,” implored a faint voice from the ground. “Please help me.”
The distraction very nearly “did fer” me. As I glanced downward, Squeaky struck.
Too late I attempted to parry. The cutthroat’s knife flashed towards my undefended neck—but at the crucial instant, a walking-stick descended with great force upon Squeaky’s hand, and he cried out as his weapon dropped from his fingers. Within the next moment, Sherlock had a firm hold of the puny villain, twisting both of his arms behind his back.
I opened my mouth to thank my brother, but there was no opportunity, for just then a huge form in a truly hideous bonnet lunged at Sherlock’s shoulders. Mrs. Culhane was back. Staggering from the impact of her weight, Sherlock very nearly fell. Alas, he lost his grip on his prisoner, who at once took to his heels. I tried to detach Mrs. Culhane from my brother; she swatted me aside and sent me sprawling. But someone nearly as large as she grasped her flailing arm. Mycroft wrenched her off of Sherlock, hurling her to her adipose posterior into the muck.
I failed to enjoy this scene to my satisfaction at the time, because my concern was all for another faint cry from the ground. Kneeling beside the lady, I grasped her filthy hand in mine. “Your Grace?”
Looking up at me, she nodded, and indeed, even layers of grime could not obscure the flowerlike beauty of her face, although her glorious tresses were gone, leaving only an inch or two of stubble stiffened by mud. It was Duquessa Blanchefleur.
“Help me,” she whispered.
“We have come to do so,” I assured her. “But what—are you injured?”
The Case of the Gypsy Goodbye Page 8
