The Moonstone's Curse

by Sam Siciliano

  “Thank God you’ve come, Mr. Holmes!” He shook his head. “I still cannot believe it. I saw him only a few days ago. I had known him for so many years. I…” His voice broke, and he struggled to master himself.

  “How did you find out?”

  “The newspapers—and Alice, poor Alice—she was the one who first saw it. She enjoys reading a newspaper at breakfast, a habit I have never condoned. She dropped her coffee cup, actually shattering it. She snatched up the paper and brought it to me. ‘The Moonstone!’ she exclaimed. ‘The Moonstone!’ I tried to tell her it was only thieves and had absolutely nothing to do with the Moonstone, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She has been in a state all day long.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Resting in her room.”

  Holmes’s sharp laugh was almost a bark. “Resting? Somehow I doubt that.”

  “Well, trying to rest, anyway. Perhaps you can convince her, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Vernier. Perhaps you can get her to see reason.”

  “I can certainly try,” Holmes said.

  “I’ll see if I can fetch her.” He turned and strode away.

  Holmes had unbuttoned his frock coat, and he thrust his left hand into his pocket. The fingers of his other hand gently stroked the curving side of the violin.

  I shook my head. “She would naturally assume the worst. Could the Moonstone possibly…?”

  “See, they have come to see you, to comfort you, darling. You must not let yourself be so carried away. You will only make yourself sick.” Bromley’s voice was soft, and he had his hand round Alice’s left arm just above the elbow.

  She gave us a ghastly smile. Her face was incredibly pale, but with a bright pink flush at each cheek. Her hair had been bound up, but was something of a mess, pale blond tendrils curling down everywhere, even in front of her eye. She wore a pale-blue silk that emphasized the deeper blue of her eyes.

  “Tell me the truth, Mr. Holmes—was it the Moonstone? Did he die because of the Moonstone—because of the curse?”

  Bromley groaned. “There is no curse.”

  Holmes stared at her. “I do not know, madam.”

  She eased her breath slowly out, and her face relaxed somewhat. “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “It’s unlikely,” I said.

  “But not impossible,” Holmes added.

  I frowned, and Bromley’s eyes widened. Alice could not see his face, and he quickly shook his head. “It was robbery, Alice, nothing more.”

  She was staring at Holmes. “Was it robbery?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “The police are not sure. The store was certainly not emptied. The drawers were still full of jewelry.”

  She laughed once and smiled fiercely even as she clenched her teeth. “Then I’m not simply crazy—I’m not!” She laughed again, a dreadful sound.

  Bromley groaned again. “Alice.”

  Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Oh, I do not want to die—I do not!” She laughed. “It is so odd. My life is a nightmare, I am often miserable, but I am so afraid of dying. What sense does that make? Why should it torment me so? I’m next, aren’t I, Mr. Holmes? The Moonstone will kill me, too. It wants me dead. Just like my mother and father. Well, foolish as it is, I do not want to die.”

  Her fear was obvious, and very disturbing. For the first time I began to question her sanity; this had clearly become a form of paranoia. “No one wants to hurt you, Mrs. Bromley,” I said. “Mr. Harter had many clients. The Moonstone most likely had nothing to do with his death, nothing at all.”

  “Listen to him, Alice!” Bromley gave her arm a squeeze. “Listen.”

  She took a step forward and touched Holmes’s arm just below the shoulder. He drew himself up, but did not step back, which I knew would have been his first impulse. He was not comfortable being too close to a woman. “Tell me, Mr. Holmes, will they murder me next?”

  “You ask me questions which I cannot answer, not yet.”

  “For God’s sake, Mr. Holmes!” Bromley exclaimed.

  Holmes turned to him. “Will you give Dr. Vernier and me a few minutes alone with your wife?”

  “I cannot leave her alone—not when she is like this.”

  “She will most certainly not be alone. Please, Mr. Bromley—I insist.”

  He nodded. “All right, but I hope you know what you are doing. I shall be in the library if you need me.” He glanced at me, then left the room.

  I stared at Holmes. “Sherlock?”

  Alice had let her hand drop, and an odd smile pulled at the right side of her mouth. “You will not lie to me, Mr. Holmes. You will not lie. I know it.”

  “No. I shall not.”

  She bit at her lip, laughed once, her eyes opening wide. “I’m afraid. I’m so afraid.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Holmes was still staring at her. “I cannot tell you for certain what will happen, but I will not let anyone harm you. That I can promise you.”

  Again her breath came out in a long sigh, and I felt some of the tension go out of her. “Can you really?”

  “That is my business, madam. People come to me because they are afraid, and I protect them. I find out who the culprits are and have them put away where they can never hurt anyone again.” The familiar sardonic smile appeared. “You have read the stories. Isn’t that what usually happens?”

  “And you will do that for me?”

  “I shall do my best.”

  She laughed once, and then her eyes seemed to overflow, tears running out. “I need to sit down for a moment.” Still holding her arm, I directed her to a chair. She pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped at her eyes. “Nothing worse than a hysterical female. I wish I wasn’t hysterical—I wish that more than anything. It is all so tiresome. Life is very strange. I just wish I didn’t feel so… alone.”

  “You are not alone. You have a husband who loves you very much.”

  She looked up at me. Her eyelids were puffy and her eyes red. She brushed some hair out of the way. “Does he really?”

  “Of course he does.”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. She covered her mouth with her hand, then let it drop. “I wish my heart would stop beating so hard.”

  “Let me have a listen.” I took up my bag, pulled out the stethoscope and put the ends in my ears. I set the bell on the silk near the curve between her breasts. The heartbeat did sound a little more forceful and rapid than normal, but nothing unusual for someone emotionally upset. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said.

  The muscles to the right side seemed to pull unconsciously at her mouth, forming a half smile. “Sometimes I feel like I could jump out of my skin.” She took a long deep breath. “But I’m so tired.”

  “I think a walk would do you some good.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  Holmes nodded. “An excellent idea, Henry. The day is a fine one, and we might walk to Kensington Gardens. Why don’t you tell Mr. Bromley that we shall be back in about an hour and that I shall want to talk with him briefly when we return.” I felt my forehead crease. “Please, Henry.”

  I went down the hall to the library door, rapped once, and opened the door. Bromley sprang up from his chair. “Is she any better?”

  “Yes. We’re just going to take a brief walk. When we get back Sherlock wants to talk with you.”

  He frowned. “Can’t I join you?”

  “I think he still wants to be alone with her. He…” I tried to think of some excuse. “I think the fewer people with her at this point, the better.”

  He nodded gravely. “I see.”

  “We won’t be longer than an hour, at the very most.”

  Holmes and Alice were waiting for me in the entranceway. She had put on a blue hat with a broad brim and an enormous plume. Her eyes were still red and puffy, but she did seem better. She smiled at me. I took my hat as Holmes opened the door.

  A face in shadow framed by sunl
ight: two dark brown eyes under the brim of the black top hat, a broad nose, the curly black hairs of that thick beard and mustache set against somewhat olive skin—“Alice”—he said softly, and then the brown eyes shifted minutely, saw me, and his lower jaw thrust forward as his expression changed.

  “Dr. Cowen.” She sounded happy to see him.

  “I came as quickly as I could. It has been a busy day, and I had a hard time getting away.” His stare made his disapproval obvious enough.

  “We were just going for a walk,” I said.

  He looked at me, then at Holmes, and he stepped back so we could come outside. Even with a top hat on, he looked short next to Alice.

  “I feel so much better,” she said. “Thank you for coming.”

  I hesitated. “I listened to her heart. Nothing out of the ordinary.” I realized I had been right to hesitate.

  He gave me a black look, even as he nodded. “It sounded urgent. Are you certain you are up to a walk?”

  “Oh yes—I just want to get out—I want some air.”

  “Very good. If you like, Mrs. Bromley, I can stop by later and check on you after my appointments are done for the day.”

  She smiled at him. “That would be very kind.”

  He nodded at Holmes and me, his lips set as if they had frozen together. “Good afternoon, Vernier, Mr. Holmes. I shall see you Saturday evening, I suppose.” He turned and walked away, swinging the stick in his right hand, while his left held the medical bag of black leather. His driver hopped down to open the carriage door for him.

  Alice took a deep breath and looked up at the blue sky. “There are at least a few clouds. One can always hope for rain.”

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  She laughed. We had come to the sidewalk and turned right. “I told you how I hated sunny weather, remember? I much prefer the rain. Too much light, too much yellow, too cheery altogether. To live in London one should love fog, drizzle and rain, and I surely do.”

  Holmes smiled faintly. “I also have a certain partiality for the rain.”

  “Well, I don’t!” I exclaimed.

  “That is your French upbringing,” he said. “Let us walk toward Kensington Gardens. I hope, Mrs. Bromley, that you do not feel the same way about trees and lawns as you do about sunshine.”

  “No, I like trees and flowers—especially rhododendrons.” She laughed. “But then, I always associate them with wet, cloudy spring weather. Their blossoms are so exuberant, so extravagant.”

  She and Holmes walked side by side, he swinging his stick, while I followed just behind them. I felt a slight breeze on my face. The temperature was probably around seventy degrees, a perfect summer day—perfect, to my mind, regardless of what Alice thought.

  “Mr. Holmes,” she said, “do you think I am wrong to fear the Moonstone so?”

  He did not hesitate. “No.”

  “No?” She was surprised. Like Bromley, I hoped he knew what he was doing.

  “A jewel with a history like that of the Moonstone should be at least respected, if not feared.”

  I saw her shoulders move upward. “And am I wrong to think of it as almost alive?”

  “That, I think, is an exaggeration. It is a lump of compressed carbon, a hunk of mineral. It may glow and shimmer in the light and change color, but it is not alive. That is only an illusion.”

  “Only an illusion. I am glad to hear it.”

  Holmes had hold of the stick in his right hand, but even as he walked, he brought that hand round and grasped his wrist with his left hand. Ahead of us at the end of the street, we saw the greenery of Kensington Gardens. Kensington Road, which fronted the gardens, was a busy street with much carriage traffic, but we crossed it and took the less busy path through the park. A few pedestrians passed us by. Because of the weather, some of the men wore lightweight suits and straw boaters rather than the usual frock coat and top hat. A tall woman wearing an elaborate hat with plumes, flowers and fake birds loitered behind two small boys who ran in a zig-zag, chasing one another. Ahead of us on the left we could see the spire of the Albert Memorial.

  “It is good to be out of doors,” Alice said. “Thank you for taking me. Sometimes when I am in my room… I grow tired of it, that is all.”

  “Walking may not cure melancholy,” Holmes said, “but it is a distraction.”

  We came nearer to the Albert Memorial, a towering structure of bronze, gold and marble, evoking Gothic cathedrals and spires with a cross at its top. Below the flèche’s arched interior and above the elaborate bas-relief along the bottom, was a glimmering gilt-bronze statue of the seated Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, who had died in 1861. To my mind the memorial was hideously ostentatious and overblown, a Gothic concoction out of place among the spacious green lawns and tall trees. We slowed as we approached it, then paused before a sweeping rise of steps.

  “The Queen must certainly have loved her Albert,” Alice murmured. “I wonder what that structure cost.”

  “About one hundred and twenty thousand pounds,” Holmes said.

  “My goodness,” she exclaimed. “I never knew it was quite so much. He died before I was born. How old was he, Mr. Holmes?”

  “His early forties, I believe.”

  “Oh, so rather old, after all.”

  Holmes laughed. “That does not seem so old to me, madam.”

  “And I suppose you must know how many children he and the queen had?”

  “I think it was nine, many of them becoming queens or princes in their own right.”

  “Nine! So many. I wonder…”

  “What do you wonder?”

  “Nothing—nothing at all.”

  “I think the children are a more fitting memorial than that thing,” I said.

  Holmes laughed. “You do not approve of such extravaganzas, Henry?” He raised his stick, turned and pointed in the other direction. “There is perhaps a more fitting memorial—the Royal Albert Hall.” In a gap between the trees we saw the domed building of red brick. It also had a frieze of bas-relief Grecian-style figures just below its dome, then a series of tall, arched windows; the main entrance had a grander arch still. “The memorial is for the dead, but the hall is very much for the living. Do you go there often for concerts, Mrs. Bromley?”

  “I have never been inside the Royal Albert Hall.”

  “What? You must go sometime—you should try a performance of Handel’s Messiah on Good Friday. The music is sublime, even if the acoustics are not truly ideal.”

  She was staring at the Hall, and her lips rose at the corners. “I don’t like crowds. Which should hardly come as a surprise.”

  “They scare you, I suppose,” Holmes said.

  She laughed. “You are truly coming to know me, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Sometimes a little fear is the price we have to pay for a good time,” I said. “Generally it is the anticipation that worries us most.”

  She shrugged. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

  “Once the music begins, I always forget the crowd.” Holmes pulled his watch out from his waistcoat pocket. “I suppose we had best start back. I need to talk to your husband.”

  Alice sighed. “I must come here again. I must walk in the gardens all day.”

  “Michelle will be happy to join you,” I said.

  She smiled and then grew thoughtful. “One more day, and then it will be gone—locked away forever.” A sudden shiver seemed to overcome her. She turned round, paused, facing the memorial again. “How she must have loved him.” We began to walk again, back toward the house. “I really loved my mother. She has been gone over four years. I miss her so.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She shook her head. “The memorial doesn’t belong here, after all—it does not. What’s the point of always reminding us of death? It’s hard enough to forget about it as it is.”

  I frowned. “But we are alive. We can breathe in the air and walk and feel the breeze on our face.”

  She drew in he
r breath deeply. “Yes, I suppose we can.” She smiled, then laughed softly. “But I still wish it wasn’t so sunny.” In spite of myself, I laughed too. Holmes and I were walking on either side of her now. “You and your wife love each other deeply, Dr. Vernier. I could tell that from the way she spoke of you. It’s obvious. Has it always been that way?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long have you been married?”

  “About three years.”

  “So little? That’s not much more than Charles and I. I wonder… I wonder…”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She turned toward me, the enormous brim of her blue hat shading her thin face. “Sometimes I wonder if Charles really loves me—”

  “Of course he does.”

  “—and if I really love him.” She stared at me. “Can you really be so certain? Can you see inside his head?”

  “No, but it seems obvious.” She paused for a second, turning her head back toward Holmes. “And you, Mr. Holmes, do you think he loves me?”

  “I could not begin to say. I hesitate to judge the interior emotions. Henry may be able to see inside people’s heads, but I surely cannot.”

  She laughed at this. “I cannot deny that he has been kind. He never shouts at me like father did. Although sometimes it can be difficult.”

  “Why is it difficult?” I asked.

  “If someone is always the same, even if you are upset or angry… it is confusing.”

  “He likes it when you wear the diamond, doesn’t he?” Holmes asked.

  “Oh yes. He says it makes me appear even more beautiful. That’s how I know he must care for me—I mean to say, he wouldn’t be willing to lock it up in a bank vault if he didn’t care for me. Father would never have done such a thing.”

  “There, you see,” I said.

  “I suppose I expected too much. When I was a young girl, I always thought that once I was married, everything would change, that my melancholy would go away and I would be happy. That was like believing in fairy stories.”

  “We are born with a certain fixed temperament,” Holmes said. “Come what may, that never truly changes.”