By the time Sherlock took a seat on the now-empty bench, he could have scratched an entire sonnet on the back of his vielle, for the mind anyone paid him.
* * *
But it was at Bayswater that Sherlock had two bits of real luck. To start with, almost no one was embarking or disembarking, giving him the run of the platform. And although he found nothing on the benches, in one of several archways, scratched just at eye level, was the next set of symbols.
Then he noticed, still attached to one of the defaced markings, a yellowish particle about the size of a seed. Making certain he was still quite alone, Sherlock carefully collected it, using the tweezers from his shaving kit, then examined it more closely. He felt around the defaced grooves of the older markings with the tweezers until they picked up another smudge of the yellowish substance—enough to discern what it was.
Wax.
At last he understood.
Charles had a padded bag with compartments. He had no need to know anything, other than how to apply a quick-drying wax to the symbols, place each wax impression in a separate compartment of the quilted bag, and be on his way.
He then brought them to “Gin,” was paid his fee, and was gone.
What were they for? What did they communicate, and who was profiting? Still so much left to learn.
In the meantime, it was four stations down, eleven to go.
22
FROM EDWARDES SQUARE, MYCROFT’S CARRIAGE HEADED toward Westminster, where he was to meet Douglas. Outside the window, the gray streets and even grayer sky made him feel as if he were aboard a small, unpleasant ship. Riding in the carriage increasingly made him nauseous. Too much reading while in motion? Or perhaps Huan’s muscular driving?
As they proceeded down Homer Street and its slew of grim-faced, rather shabby Georgian edifices, Mycroft spotted Douglas. It was typical of his friend to arrive first to any rendezvous: Douglas hated the thought of inconveniencing anyone. He had his hands at his sides rather than in his pockets, head slightly bowed, with his tall, athletic frame as still as church—so as to disabuse the residents that he had any but the best intentions.
The moment he spotted the carriage, Mycroft could see him relax appreciably.
Mycroft stepped out and greeted Douglas, and together they knocked upon the door of one Joseph Beeton, chimney sweep, to ask what he knew about Charles Fowler.
* * *
“I takes awl kinds, gents, awl kinds! Boys, gulls, I ain’t no reespekter of persons!”
Beeton turned, licked his lips, and blinked slowly at Douglas. Then he drew back his wet lips in the semblance of a smile, exposing half-rotting teeth at the graying gum line.
“I teaches ’em out of the kindness of me ’eart!” Beeton assured him and Mycroft, as they sat across from him in his stuffy little sitting room, where the smell of soot was as encompassing as incense at Mass, but not so pleasingly scented.
Beeton was a small man, which fit his occupation, but not twisted and gnarled, as Mycroft had expected him to be, and as long-time chimney sweeps often were. Instead, he seemed boneless.
If one were to pluck a turtle out of its shell, he thought, paint him a mottled orange and wrap him in an ill-made suit, that would be Beeton.
And, if a turtle could speak, and if its larynx had been shoved deep inside its long, wrinkled throat so that every word emerged in a hiss, it might match Beeton’s voice.
Mycroft and Douglas had been his guests a good half-hour. Not only had they not been offered so much as a cup of water, they had not yet broached the subject of Charles, alive or dead. For, however improbable, Beeton seemed to love the sound of his own susurrus voice.
“Wot you ’ave to know about chimney flues,” he was declaring, “is that flues ’as several twists in ’em, cuz they’s attached to uvver flues wot shares one openin’. An’ they shares that openin’,” he continued, “cuz of taxes! That’s right, gents, less ’oles equals less taxes! Now. It’s pitch dark in there, an ’ard to navigate. Sometimes a sweep, he’ll misremember which ’ole he shimmied up, makes a bad turn, scrambles back down anuvver flue where they’s a fire burnin’ an’ poof! Up in smoke ’e goes! Issat my fault, I ask? Can I ’elp it, if once in a while, I lose one or two to the fire? An’ does I keep ’em small?” he went on. “I do, for their own benefit! When they git stuck, who ’as to unstick ’em, I ask you? Myself, that’s who!”
He paused and crossed his arms, seeming to want applause for the great care he was taking with his charges. Douglas took the opportunity to finally get a word in edgewise.
“Mr. Smythe is curious about one particular boy,” he said, “by the name of Charles Fowler. Do you recall where you picked him up?”
“A orphanage somewhere, ’im an’ ’is bruvver. Government paid me five pounds, two for the bruvver. You see, gents, five pounds is a pretty penny but h’ain’t much when you counts it out. As I says, I does it out of the kindness of me ’eart.”
“I believe Mr. Smythe paid you six pounds per child to release them to him,” Douglas said.
Beeton dismissed this with a wave of his hand and a hearty wipe of his nose. “I ’ad ’em nearly six months by then,” he said defensively. “They cost somethin’ in upkeep, don’t they?”
Douglas assumed that if Beeton spent more than a shilling a month for both boys together, he would doubtless feel robbed. He folded his hands to keep them from doing something untoward to their host and gave Mycroft a meaningful glance.
Mycroft picked up on the cue, for he said: “Have you been informed yet of Charles’s unfortunate demise?”
Beeton’s skin went immediately sallow. For a moment, Mycroft wondered if perhaps he had feelings after all. But, judging from his shrewd and calculating eyes, sentiment played no part in whatever emotion he might be feeling.
“I… knew no such thing,” Beeton said. “When did the unfortunate lose ’is life?”
“Night before last,” Douglas said.
“Dead,” he murmured.
When Beeton did not ask the cause, Douglas volunteered it: “We believe it was from an overdose of drugs.”
Both men watched Beeton’s reaction carefully, but if Beeton knew anything about Charles’s drug use, or cared, his expression revealed less than nothing. “I ’as to get back to work,” he said, standing up. “I gots me charges to look arter…”
Mycroft and Douglas stood and bid him farewell—but had barely made it outside the front door again when they heard the sound of Beeton calling out “Boy!” and then steps hurrying from the back of the house.
Mycroft and Sherlock ducked into a nearby entryway, their eyes on Beeton’s front door to see if anyone emerged.
Their diligence was rewarded when a chestnut-haired ragamuffin peeked outside. He was about Sherlock’s age and height, though he outweighed him by a good stone and a half. His skin was covered with pustules, and he had Beeton’s formless body and hooded eyelids.
Ascertaining that no one was about, he bolted out the front door and lumbered off in the opposite direction.
“Too old and too well fed to be one of his sweeps,” Mycroft said. “Most likely his son.”
“Do we go after him?” Douglas asked.
“No. All we need know for now is that we upset the apple cart. Let us see what else we can discover.”
23
PATRONESS OF FOUNDLINGS ADELE DE MATALIN LIVED IN A grand old building in Piccadilly. The interior was a vulgar declaration of wealth, with Louis XIV furniture, exquisitely thick Persian carpets, gargantuan chandeliers from the island of Murano, primitive sculptures carved out of African ivory and lined with silver, and Ming vases so large that several men could hide therein.
Mycroft and Douglas walked past a silent footman and handed their calling cards to a butler, a man of middle years as silent as the grave and just as expressionless. As they waited in the marble-tiled hall entry for their host, Mycroft whispered: “It’s a wonder that Carrara has any marble left. It all seems to have been brought here.”
As
the clock chimed out the hour, the rain that had been threatening since dawn began to fall in torrents, and Adele de Matalin descended the staircase, leaning on the arm of her butler.
Her dyed black hair was held in a loose chignon by two enormous ivory pins in the shape of orioles. Her dress was garishly colorful and more fitting for a girl of sixteen than a dowager of sixty.
In spite of her man’s assistance, de Matalin tottered on the final step. Her seawater-blue eyes, above two rouged and powdered cheeks, were as vitreous and fixed as a doll’s.
“Ah, my friends! I see you are admiring my tenue!” she exclaimed, indicating her dress—for indeed both Mycroft and Douglas were nearly blinded by the blazing colors. “It is all but impossible to be too brightly attired, n’est-ce pas? We must give the birds of the air and the lilies of the field a bit of competition, must we not? This,” she added, indicating the flounce on her skirt, “is solferino! And the underskirt is azuline, which I dare reveal only because I am a vieille femme and no longer a beautiful young temptress!” she concluded coquettishly. “But when I was young, my trousseau—ah, mon trousseau!—was designed by qui d’autre but the renown Charles Frederick Worth of Paris!”
The butler led them into the library, an enormous affair with built-in mahogany bookcases whose every inch was cluttered with Francophile curios, a desk that could have served a prime minister, and a huge hearth with a welcoming fire.
On the end of a long padded divan with a delicate gilt frame sat a bisque doll the size of a five-year-old child. Her raven-black hair and glassy blue eyes eerily matched those of de Matalin herself. The dress she wore over her soft cloth body was every bit as garish and as expensive as the Madame’s, with a clash of colors that Mycroft could not even begin to name. Her bisque hands with their pink fingernails were folded daintily in her lap. On her wrist, tied with a pretty pink bow, was a small tag that Mycroft assumed bore her name.
“Asseyez-vous!” de Matalin commanded the two men, indicating the divan, while she sat in a nearby Louis XIV ormolu chair. “My child, my proper Parisian child!” she exclaimed with a wave of her hand. “You are not dismayed, I hope!” she said, her eyes on Douglas, who sat beside it. “She likes to be in the midst of it all… you know how young girls are.”
“Not at all dismayed, Madame,” Douglas said. “But they are unusual in that size, are they not?”
“I would not call them common, but neither are they rare,” she corrected him. “These bisque dolls have fallen in and out of fashion for the last several years, but they are now quite de rigueur again! She is accustomed to sitting just there, you see, holding court… my orphan, my little bijou. I spent entirely too much money on the girl! Then again, what was once trés chére has become ma trés chére! What was for me quite dear has become quite dear to me,” she translated, in case the pun was lost. “But now, Mr. Douglas, my butler said you had information for me?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Madame, I am afraid we bring sad news. One of the boys that you so kindly saved from Beeton the chimney sweep and sponsored to attend Nickolus House is deceased.”
“Which one?” she asked, still smiling, as if her brain had forgotten to inform her expression of what was apropos when it came to tragic news.
“Charles Fowler,” Douglas said.
Her reaction was altogether unexpected. “Oh!” de Matalin exclaimed, opening those blank eyes wide. “Oh, mon Dieu! I… I feel quite faint!”
She reached for a gold box beside her chair and opened it with a trembling hand. Inside were dried mint leaves, along with a striated leaf of a paler green. She picked out a mint leaf, crushed it between her fingers and placed it like smelling salts just inside her nostrils.
As she did so, the sleeve of her blouse raised up slightly. On the tender white skin of her right wrist, Mycroft noticed small, telltale puncture wounds.
“Tell me how it happened,” she said, her eyes soft and sorrowful, motioning to Douglas. “For he was a favorite of mine. A clever child, was he not?”
“Yes, quite. Forgive me,” Mycroft said, rising abruptly. “But I, I feel a tad unwell. I am afraid I must importune you for the use of your…”
“Oh, of course!” de Matalin said. “We do not stand on ceremony here! You will find the water closet up the stairs to your right! Shall I ask my man to accompany you?”
“That won’t be necessary, Madame,” Mycroft replied politely.
“Mr. Douglas, if you will, tell me the tragic story of sweet little Charles. Leave out no detail—I am not so fragile as I appear! In fact, since my dear husband died, I have become quite the woman of business! Proceed, if you would.”
She snorted another bit of crushed mint and her eyes fluttered closed again.
Mycroft passed by Douglas, who gave him a curious look. Keep her occupied, he indicated with a small hand gesture. Douglas nodded that he understood.
Mycroft slid past the impassive butler at the door, who did not deign to give him so much as a blink or a nod.
Once upstairs, he ascertained that the corridor was free of any prying eyes but his. He reached into his pocket for his watch. Thankfully, the midmorning hour meant that the upstairs servants had completed their tasks, so he hastened down the corridor and peered into a few rooms, but none of them were the one he sought.
At the fourth door, he heard footsteps behind him, and he turned to see the white cap of a chambermaid coming up the stairs. He attempted to turn the handle, but it was locked. She had reached the landing and was coming down the corridor now, her arms so loaded down with bedding that it was a wonder she could see in front of her.
But neither could she see Mycroft—at least, not yet.
Mycroft came to the fifth door and jiggled the doorknob. Though unlocked, the knob was stuck. A good, hard twist and it gave. He slipped into a small bathroom and closed the door again behind him as softly as he could. His heart was pounding so radically that he thought for certain the maid would hear it as she trotted by, carrying her unwieldy load.
Barely breathing, he waited until he could hear no more sounds, then tiptoed back into the corridor, trying several more doors until he found the one he sought: Madame de Matalin’s bedroom. Its enormous windows had been opened slightly to let in air. And though the rain had halted as suddenly as it had begun, the weather was continuing gray and blustery, which meant a servant would likely be back at any moment to shut them.
He would have to be quick, as time was of the essence.
He glanced about. Given who she was, Madame would surely be drawn to expensive accouterments and small rituals when it came to her habit, but she seemed too far along to be completely clandestine about it. The butler had assisted her impassively, anticipating her movements, and so well knew her secret. And if he knew, then so did the housekeeper and her lady’s maid. No other member of the household staff would matter, for they would not be likely to meddle into her personal effects.
On her long bureau, among countless costly knick-knacks, he spotted a small Limoges box encrusted with emeralds and aquamarine. It was the correct type: a container in which a hypodermic syringe could fit snugly, one that was “worthy” of the appeal her habit had for her; it was within easy reach, and yet did not elicit undue curiosity.
Mycroft opened the box. It was lined with green silk. Tucked inside was a glass vial filled with reddish-brown liquid, a hypodermic syringe with a spare needle, and a delicate opium pipe sculpted in ivory, in the shape of a dragon with coiled tail.
The liquid, he knew by sight: laudanum. He smelled the pipe. Given the consistency of the residue and the potency of the odor, he assumed it had been used within the last twelve to fourteen hours. He smelled the hypodermic too but picked out mostly the alcohol used to clean it, along with a hint of something he could not quite identify: the closest he could come was an alkaloid of some kind.
These all rested on a false bottom. Mycroft tapped the underside of the box, popping the panel out of the way. Hidden below it, he found a magnifying glas
s and six calling cards made of silk stock with a name embossed on them: William Angel. The cards all bore smudge marks, tiny finger marks or friction ridges; some darker, some lighter, but quite clear on each.
Mycroft turned them over, then back again. Smudged cards, however costly, were not something a lady like de Matalin would keep in a Limoges box in her boudoir, along with the tools of her habit.
The magnifying glass was as big a mystery, one he had no time for at the moment.
Another noise in the corridor gave him a start.
A moment later, he collapsed to the floor.
24
WHEN MYCROFT OPENED HIS EYES, THE ROOM WAS SPINNING around him like a demented carousel. He was nauseated and his tongue felt thick, as if he had been wandering through a desert for days without water. He planted both hands on the floor and eased himself up as quickly as he could without vomiting.
From what he could deduce, an unexpected noise had caused his heart to leap wildly in his chest, causing him to lose consciousness.
He reached into his pocket with a shaking hand and checked his watch. He had been insensate for seven minutes. He thanked Providence he had not been discovered, until a less pleasing notion came to mind: What in heaven’s name is the matter with me?
A sudden suspicion that he was being poisoned reared up like a cobra. The tiredness, the melancholia, the too-tight shoes—were they symptoms of something he had ignored?
Now’s certainly not the time to mull it over! he thought irritably as he scooped up his hat from the floor and smoothed down his clothing. Then he headed downstairs, ready to tender whatever apologies his strange and excessive absence would require.
But he found that no excuse was needed. The butler was still standing at attention at the door to the library. As for Adele de Matalin, she appeared to be deep into a monologue to Douglas about demons, and the sway they sometimes had over her. She did not acknowledge Mycroft, nor did she seem to be taking Douglas’s presence into account as anything more than a sounding board as she described her travails in a fretful, childish voice: “They are malignant spirits, fierce succubi. You cannot know quel tourment they cause me! Demons are the shade of toadstools, do you see? Or, better, of charcoal, because of the constant scorching they are subjected to. It is only bright, shining color that keeps them at bay. Mon Dieu, I must be so very diligent, so very diligent…”
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