Holmes’s right fingers drummed at his thigh. “I would think one hundred and fifty pounds would be sufficient for something simple yet elegant.”
I laughed. “One hundred and fifty pounds! Yes, it would be more than enough, but I certainly do not have one hundred and fifty pounds to spare. Even Michelle, with her flourishing practice, does not earn that much in an entire year.”
“That can be remedied.” He turned and strode to his desk.
“Sherlock, what are you talking about?”
“This is overdue. It had skipped my mind. I shall write you a check.” He sat down and pulled the cap off his fountain pen.
“For a hundred and fifty pounds? I cannot accept such a gift! Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It is not a gift—it is for payment earned. Adam Selton recently sent me a check for three hundred pounds for the successful conclusion of the affair of the White Worm. You well deserve half of that sum.”
“Me? But you worked everything out, not I.”
“No, Henry. Not everything. You determined just what was tormenting Adam Selton. You made his marriage to Diana possible. If he had thought of it, I am certain he would have sent you a check for an equal sum. The least I can do is split my compensation with you.”
“I thought he was going to give you two hundred pounds, not three.”
“So he was, but he was so pleased with the results that he added in another hundred.” Holmes scribbled his name, then tore the check free. “Here you are.”
I stared at it. “I really should not take that.”
“You most certainly should! If not for yourself, then for Michelle. Spend it on that jewelry you were considering just now.”
I slowly drew in my breath, then reached out to take the slip of paper. “Very well—but it is for Michelle and not myself.”
Holmes nodded enthusiastically. “So be it!” He sat back and folded his arms. “There is one good thing to be said about a sum such as one hundred and fifty pounds.”
“What might that be?”
“It is not sufficient to purchase a gem with a curse on it. Those cost far more.”
Two
Holmes and I reached Bromley’s home on Thursday morning just before ten. It sat amidst a row of townhouses on a quiet square. The narrow street was cobbled, and each four-story gray-brick façade had an ornate porch with two white columns and several chimneys above it.
Holmes sounded the bell, then managed to pull off his gloves without setting down his stick. I was carrying my medical bag at his urging. I would have felt half naked without it. The large oak door swung inward, revealing a tiny maid in the usual black dress, white apron and white lace cap.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, to see Mr. Bromley.”
The maid stared up at him, her awe obvious, then curtsied quickly. “You’re expected, sir. Come in while I fetch the master.” Holmes and I took off our top hats and stepped into the cool, dim interior. “I’ll just take those.” She set our hats with our gloves inside on the small table, put Holmes’s stick in a sculpted green ceramic umbrella stand, then raised her black skirts and swept away.
A short but broad-shouldered, big-boned woman soon appeared. Her face was rather plain, slightly ruddy. Her graying hair was parted down the middle and bound up into a compact bun. She wore a practical-looking black muslin dress with a lacy collar and a row of small black buttons which went down over her bosom to her waist. Her face formed a lopsided smile at the sight of Holmes. She gave a slight curtsey.
“Gentlemen, I am Mrs. Carlson, the housekeeper. I shall take you to the master, but I must admit I did so want to meet you, Mr. Holmes! I am one of your most faithful admirers. In fact, I think I was the first to mention your name to Mr. Bromley.”
“Indeed, madam? I am grateful to you, then, for this most interesting case.”
She gave a fierce nod. “I know that you can protect the mistress and the household from whatever deviltry is afoot!”
“I shall do my best, I promise you.”
“This way, gentlemen.”
But she had taken only a step or two when Bromley appeared before us. His curly brown hair looked freshly brushed, and over a white shirt and black cravat he wore a dark-red dressing gown with a black velvet collar, belted at the waist. His lips curled readily into a smile. “Ah, thank you, Mrs. Carlson. I shall take charge of them. Mr. Holmes, Dr. Vernier, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the old manor house, so to speak.” He gave my hand and Holmes’s a quick firm squeeze. “I hope you’ll forgive my informal garb; I’m a trifle behind this morning.”
Holmes nodded. “I have a favorite purple dressing gown I often wear into the afternoon.”
“Ah, you understand, then. Which shall it be first, Alice or the safe?”
Holmes’s black eyebrows rose slightly. “Mrs. Bromley, perhaps.”
“Fine, she is eager to meet you.” He took a step forward, but Holmes did not move.
“Mr. Bromley, I shall want to spend a few moments with her alone.”
“Alone? We have no secrets, Alice and I.”
“It is not a matter of secrets. We can begin with you present, but I should also like to talk with her in private.”
“And what if she should have one of her spells?”
“Henry will remain with me. He is a physician and can attend to her.”
Bromley shrugged, then touched the right side of his mustache. “As you wish, sir.” He started forward. Holmes followed.
“Spells?” I murmured to myself.
We entered an overflowing sitting room. The chairs and the sofa were of dark wood and a paisley-patterned burgundy velvet; elaborate lace doilies and various knick-knacks covered the surfaces; etchings and painted landscapes hung on the walls. Two women sat at either end of the sofa, a brunette in black, obviously the maid, and a blond in white. Hodges was standing alongside the maid, his hand caressing her shoulder lightly even as he spoke softly to her. His familiarity was such that I wondered if they were either married or engaged. As we entered, he quickly lowered his hand and assumed his military posture. The two women both rose.
Alice Bromley forced a smile. She did look the part of a beautiful languishing female suffering from the vapors. She was thin and unnaturally pale with wan blue eyes, but each cheek had a rosy flush. Her ash-blond hair was bound up, but a few wisps showed about her small ear and another tendril drifted down round her cheek. She was tall for a woman, around five foot ten or so, about the same height as Bromley, and half a foot taller than her maid. Her ivory silk dress with its mutton sleeves was well cut and showed off her fashionably slim waist; elaborate lacework covered a bosom surprisingly abundant in one so slender. The maid was sullen-looking with pouting full lips, a mole near the right corner, and with eyes the same dark brown, nearly black, as her hair. She looked French.
“Hodges,” Bromley said, “see that the trousers of my gray serge suit are well pressed. I want to wear it this afternoon.”
“Certainly, sir.” With a nod, he strode away. The maid’s dark eyes followed him, the corners of her mouth rising slightly.
“Alice, this is Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his cousin Dr. Henry Vernier.”
Mrs. Bromley clasped her hands together, even as Holmes and I bowed slightly. Her fingers were long, thin and shapely; the blue veins showed in the white skin below her bony knuckles. “Oh, I am so honored to meet you both! Who has not heard of you, Mr. Holmes? I have read all Dr. Watson’s stories—read them many times, in fact. But I do not recall…” She frowned slightly at me.
“Henry is not in the stories, madam,” Holmes said, “and you must not take them as gospel. Watson allowed himself great latitude. They are more fiction than history.”
She squared her shoulders, thrusting her chin out slightly, which emphasized her long, slender neck. “Are they now? What of the hound? The incredible hound on the moors? Surely he was not mere invention?”
Holmes shrugged. “That one Watson did get mostly right.”
She s
eemed to relax, and her smile was radiant. “I am delighted to hear it!” She appeared as guileless as a child. “Although the book did give me such a fright when I first read it. It was a dark, stormy evening and…”
Bromley had folded his arms, and he smiled. “Dear, I don’t think Mr. Holmes wants to hear about your reading habits. He is here to help us determine if there is some conspiracy afoot involving the Moonstone.”
She winced slightly, then drew in her breath. “The Moonstone.” She shook her head. “Always the Moonstone—I would much rather talk about your adventures, Mr. Holmes.” This last seemed almost a plea.
Holmes hesitated. “Perhaps later. If there is time.” I knew there was nothing he loathed more than discussing Watson’s stories. His eyes wandered about the room, came to a sudden halt. I turned and saw a violin resting on a nearby bookcase. “Do you or Mr. Bromley play the violin, Mrs. Bromley?”
“I play a little. A very little.”
“Might I have a look?”
She nodded. “Oh yes, of course. It’s hardly the equal of your Stradivarius, Mr. Holmes.”
Holmes picked up the instrument and plucked the strings lightly. “From sometime around the turn of the century, fabricated in Venice. No, not a Stradivarius, but a respectable instrument all the same. The Italians are the masters.”
“Play something for us, Alice,” Bromley said. “I’m sure Mr. Holmes would like to hear it.”
She seemed genuinely horrified. “Oh, I could not! Do try it, Mr. Holmes.”
Holmes hesitated, then took up the violin and the bow. He spent some time tuning it, plucking, then tightening and loosening strings in turn. At last he drew in his breath resolutely, set the violin under his chin, and played a long soaring melody which I recognized as Bach. It was enough to show both his skill and his panache. He played for two or three minutes.
Mrs. Bromley clapped her hands together. “Oh bravo, Mr. Holmes, bravo!”
“Thank you.” He nodded. “A very pleasant tone. This is a first-rate instrument.”
Bromley set his hand on her shoulder. “Please, Alice. Play that tune from the opera, the one I like so well. Just a little of it.”
She shook her head again. “Oh no, no, no.”
“Please—just a little. For me.”
Holmes took the violin by the neck and held it out to her. “You are not auditioning for an orchestra, madam. Play for us. I am not a music critic. No report of your abilities will appear in The Times.”
She laughed. “I’d rather not.”
“Alice…” Bromley made her name almost a sigh.
“Oh, very well. But just a little.” She took the violin, set it on her shoulder, hesitated, then began.
The pitch wavered about as she found the melody, lost it, found it, lost it, found… I did vaguely recognize the piece. She was scowling as she played, her smooth white brow all knotted up with concentration. My eyes shifted to Holmes. His mouth remained fiercely neutral, but his gray eyes briefly showed his dismay. She was definitely not a musical prodigy like his former clients Rose Grimswell and Violet Wheelwright. She could not seem to keep either pitch or time.
The melody rose, faltered, quavered, then stopped abruptly. “Oh that is enough!”
Bromley gently clapped his hands together. “Bravo, my dear. I know you are nervous, but it was quite beautiful. Thank you.”
Her mouth curved stiffly upward at the corners, and her blue eyes shifted to Holmes.
“The theme from Massenet’s Thaïs,” he said. “You play with great feeling, madam.”
I quickly nodded. “You certainly do.”
She was relieved, but not quite convinced. “Thank you.” She quickly set the violin back on the bookcase, then turned to the woman in black standing nearby. “Oh, I haven’t introduced you—this is my maid, Sabine Pascal.”
The last name made it clear that the maid was not married to Hodges, not yet, anyway.
Sabine held her black skirts and curtsied slightly. “How do you do?” Her accent with just those four words revealed that she was indeed French. Alongside her mistress, the difference in their heights—and in their faces and noses—was striking. Sabine was dark-complexioned with a fleshy throat and rounded chin, and her prominent Gallic nose dominated her visage. Mrs. Bromley was pale and almost gaunt with high cheekbones and a thin, slight upturned nose. A rosy flush of embarrassment still showed. “Please sit down, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Vernier.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bromley.” He stared at Bromley. “As I said, if you would allow us a few moments in private, sir.”
Bromley drew in his breath resolutely. “Very well.” He set his hand lightly on his wife’s shoulder. “Answer any questions he may have. I shall be in the library should you need me.”
Holmes glanced at Sabine. “Perhaps your maid would enjoy a few minutes of liberty?”
Mrs. Bromley looked puzzled for a second. “Oh yes. Sabine, you may leave us. I shall call for you if I need you.”
“Very well, madame.”
Holmes waited until Mrs. Bromley had sat, then swept back the tail of his frock coat and sat on the other end of the sofa. I took one of the chairs. “I fear the Moonstone is not an agreeable subject for you, Mrs. Bromley,” Holmes said.
“No, it is not.”
“Exactly what are you afraid of?”
She stared at him, her eyes opening very wide so you could see the pale-blue circles round her black pupils. Her mouth stiffened, then she put her hand over her mouth, even as a sharp laugh burst free. “What am I…?” She began to laugh in earnest, stopping to shake her head, and she again put her long slender hand over her mouth to try to block the sound.
Holmes’s eyes were wary. “Madam?”
She drew in her breath deeply through her nose, raising her head very high. “Forgive me, sir. It is only… It is not truly funny, but…” Her mouth twitched into a grotesque smile, then recovered again. “Your question struck me as amusing, that is all. What am I afraid of? Sometimes it seems to me that I am afraid of everything. I know it is not reasonable—Dr. Cowen and I have often talked of it—but I am afraid of so many things. Afraid, for example, of germs. I wish I had lived in earlier times before Monsieur Louis Pasteur and Dr. Lister. Our forbearers did not know they were surrounded by thousands upon thousands of tiny unseen and malevolent creatures that could spread sickness and disease! They did not know that their food and water were crawling with microbes, that even a pure white linen pillowcase could be swarming with invisible creatures. How lucky for them! Truly, ignorance is bliss.”
Holmes glanced at me, and I said, “Mrs. Bromley, microbes are not malevolent. They are just smaller forms of life. Many are harmless. They are not actively conspiring against us.”
“No? Then how do you explain disease?”
“Some are harmful, that cannot be denied, but just as, in general, there are good and bad people, good and bad animals, so there are good and bad microbes.” This idiocy was the best I could come up with. I looked at Holmes. His mouth twitched into a smile, which he fought to restrain.
“I suppose so, but…” She laughed. “Oh, I know I must seem quite ridiculous to you! Sometimes I seem ridiculous to myself—often, in fact. How can anyone possibly be afraid of so many things? It makes little sense. I am afraid of thunderstorms and dark cellars and fruit with bluish mold, and rats and insects—especially black beetles and spiders. That is not uncommon, is it, Dr. Vernier—to fear spiders, anyway? They can be poisonous, after all.”
“Not at all. Most women seem to fear spiders.” Except for Michelle. On one occasion, a throng of spiders hidden in a cake had terrified me but left her untroubled.
“But I’m afraid of cats, too, and most of the animals in the London Zoo, especially the snakes. And I’m afraid of tramps, gypsies, and men who speak loudly with deep guttural voices whom you cannot really understand because their English is so bad. And just lately I am afraid of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Have you read that, Dr. Vernier?”
I
was still staring at her. “Read what?”
“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Holmes said. “It is a short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson about a respectable English doctor who discovers a potion which releases his evil side and transforms him into the bestial Mr. Hyde.”
“You have read it!” She was delighted.
“Yes. Most interesting, if quite fantastical. The idea that evil exists even in the best of men is hardly very original, but the story has rarely been told so well.”
She nodded. “I think so, too.”
Holmes’s forehead had creased. “I think we are becoming somewhat distracted. I doubt it is useful for you to catalog all your fears, Mrs. Bromley.”
I shook my head. “Most assuredly not.”
“Let us return, briefly, to the Moonstone.”
She sighed wearily, her smile fading away. “I suppose we must. I am afraid of it too, you know. Perhaps it was because my mother also feared it. My father would dangle it before me and say that someday it would be mine, and that would make me cry, and then he would be angry. In general, I don’t like bright shiny things: I don’t like jewels.” She looked at me. “That, I realize, is very strange for a woman, but it is true. And I so much prefer a cloudy, rainy day to a sunny one. There is something so glary and false about the yellow sun shining everywhere and glowing off everything. It hurts my eyes. Yes, I much prefer the rain.”
She raised her right hand apologetically. “Don’t say it, Mr. Holmes. I am wandering again. Let me simply say that I am absolutely convinced the diamond is evil. That understanding came to me at a young age—the impression was seared into my consciousness. Grandiloquent language, perhaps, but the experience… The force of that impression has never left me.
“I was ten years old. I was staring into the diamond. Normally I would have looked away, but it hypnotized me, captured me. The sun caught it a certain way, and a red glint flashed. The spark came again and grew until it filled the diamond, setting it all aglow, a harsh and vivid scarlet. I realized it was the color of blood: that the diamond was swimming in blood—drowning in blood. I was so afraid I could not breathe. My mouth seemed filled with parched cotton. I wanted to look away, but I could not. I closed my eyes at last, but the red haze followed me into the darkness. I turned, staggered, and ran to my room. Alarmed, my mother followed me, but she could not comfort me. Do you understand now why I fear the Moonstone?”
The Moonstone's Curse Page 3
