The Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Stanley was reexamining the spots himself. "Do you suspect some kind of villainy, Mr. Holmes?" he asked anxiously. "If only the lady would speak to us!" He grasped her hands and stared into her eyes in frustration. "Why won't you tell us your name?"

  "Because I can't remember it!" she shouted at him in a voice suddenly gone gravelly with anger. Dr. Stanley recoiled. As if frightened by her own outburst she folded back into herself, for all the world like some sea creature retreating into its shell. She buried her face in her hands and hunched unbeautifully.

  Dr. Stanley's eyes met mine in wild surmise. "Amnesia!" he breathed. I could see that it cheered him immensely to finally have a diagnosis which he could write down. There is something about being able to put a name to a thing which makes it immeasurably more tractable to certain kinds of minds; I do not except myself.

  "Her accent," I began again.

  Holmes nodded. "She is either an Englishwoman who has spent a great deal of time in America, or an American who has been long in England. It will become apparent which. Wait."

  Holmes pulled a straight chair up beside the bed; the lady in it regarded him with attentive solemnity and, it seemed to me, a certain hopefulness.

  "Will you talk with me?" he asked quietly.

  "Yes," she said, after a long pause. "You, you have your wits about you. You know things. It has been an evil dream. They," indicating Lestrade and Dr. Stanley with a nod, "kept asking me why I'd tried to kill myself. I could make no sense of them. And they kept asking me my name, and I cannot..." her voice rose, and she showed signs of retreating again.

  "What can you remember?" asked Holmes, cutting across the fear expressed in her voice. "Look at me. Be calm. Don't worry for the moment about what you can't remember; concentrate on what you do recall. Begin at the beginning; speak slowly; tell me all the little details. That's better." He sat back as the lady visibly took hold of herself under his encouragement. She sat up straight as if organizing her posture would help her organize her whirling thoughts, and began an extraordinary statement, haltingly at first but becoming clearer and stronger as she went on.

  "I woke up in a little room. It was.. .the day before yesterday, I think. I am not sure."

  "Can you describe the room?" asked the detective.

  "It was square, about ten feet on a side. There was a brick fireplace, boarded up, with black slate in front of it. The floor was light-colored boards, but it was dirty. There was no rug. The walls were painted green, but it was peeling in several places."

  "What was underneath?"

  "More paint. The top layer was green, then yellow, then white, then pink. The ceiling was high-three feet beyond my reach. There was a sheet tacked over the window. I was lying on a little narrow bed, made of wood. It had some carving on it of grape leaves. There was a little square table beside the bed, wood, very plain. There was no other furniture."

  "How did you feel when you awoke? Did you have a headache, or were you groggy or dry-mouthed?"

  "I felt nothing at first. I lay for a long time looking at the ceiling without moving. I felt numb. I felt as if I had become lost in time, as if I had been there forever and would be there forever. I don't know how long I would have lain there, but the door opened and a man came in. He had a small china bowl with food in it, a kind of sweetened gruel. He sat me up in bed and gave me the bowl and a spoon, a wooden spoon. He was strange."

  "In what way?"

  "Not his appearance. It was ordinary enough. He was a little shorter than I, clean-shaven, bland; maggoty. Brown eyes. I didn't much care about him, but he-he was afraid of me."

  "How could you tell?"

  "He kept his distance. He would not look me in the face. When I moved suddenly, he flinched. When he had to look me in the face, his eyes, they questioned me. It was then that I began to question myself. When I had eaten the gruel he took the bowl and went away, locking the door behind him. I wanted to get up and look around then, but I began to feel sleepy and dizzy. I fell asleep.

  "When I woke again there were two there, the maggoty one and another: tall, older; grey, beak-nosed, with eyes like a hawk, bright and blank and unreadable. They had brought another bowl of gruel. The grey man squatted down by the bed. 'Who are you?' he asked me. I could not answer; I could not think. I lay silent and watched. 'You see,' he said, standing up and addressing the other, 'there's nothing to worry about.' "

  "And what did you think of him?" inquired Holmes. "Was he also afraid of you?"

  "No. He was merely-careful. He made me feel strange, angry. I wanted to memorize his face, so that if I saw him again..." she broke off abruptly.

  "Go on."

  She took a breath. "I felt the way one would feel about memorizing the pattern on the back of a poisonous snake. That it would be useful knowledge If you want to know," she went on with sudden decision, "he made me feel like an angry ghost.

  "The bird-faced man went away. The other stayed to watch me eat, but I only pretended to eat. It wasn't hard to do. I just stared at him, like this.' She lowered her face, then raised it again abruptly to fix upon me with a stare of icy and fanatic bellicosity. Somehow the expression accentuated her peculiar facial bone structure. My consciousness of the unfeminine squareness of her jaw was intensified, and I noticed for the first time a certain skull-like quality about her features. Her eyes seemed to dilate unblinkingly. The effect was so unnerving and the fixity of her attention upon me so embarrassing that I found myself automatically dropping my eyes and wandering over to the window just to evade that basilisk glare.

  "It worked just like that," she went on cheerfully. "I hid the porridge in the bedclothes and he took the bowl and went away."

  "How did you know to do that?" asked my friend. He was leaning back in his chair with his fingertips pressed together, eyelids half closed, looking as if he were on the verge of falling asleep; by which familiar signs I knew that the lady's narrative had his utmost attention.

  "I don't know how I knew. It was-it was self-evident." There were signs of the return of the lady's frustrated confusion.

  "Never mind. Go on," encouraged Holmes. "What did you do next?"

  "I looked around the room. It was growing dark. I tore the sheet down from the window and looked out. There was a little yard with a wall around it. I sat for a long time in the dark, trying to think; but my mind would not focus. The window was stuck-the woodwork was painted over many times. I could not move it. The room began to feel stuffy of a sudden. I wanted out. Once I had begun to feel afraid, the feeling grew very quickly. I wrapped the sheet from the bed round my arm and broke the window. Then I hung by the ledge and dropped down."

  "You were on the first floor," interjected Holmes.

  "No." Holmes's remark broke her concentration momentarily. "No, it was the second."

  "I see. Go on."

  "I landed on grass. I crouched for a moment, listening, for it seemed to me I had made a dreadful amount of noise. Then all my panic flooded my mind at once. I ran, out the back. I ran and ran, down little alleys, keeping to the dark and shadows. I do not think I could retrace my steps; my mind was all in pieces. Everything around me seemed dirty and strange. I came to a wide river. It seemed to me that there were things behind me in the dark.

  I waded in, fell into the cold water and let it carry me away. I felt better while swimming; the water hid me, held me. I floated for a long time, just paddling gently. Then I fetched up against a stone wall. I swam along it until I came to some stone steps. I crawled up on the steps and just sat. I felt cold and dizzy and sick. I wrapped the sheet around me-I don't know how I came still to have it, for I don't remember carrying it with me. I sat for a long time. A man in a uniform came out of the darkness and began to ask me questions. I could not answer him; I did not know the answers. He brought me here."

  Her narrative trailed off. She shook her head, an unhappy half-smile upon her lips, and met my companion's eyes in a gaze of most earnest entreaty. "Do you think me mad?" she asked quietly.


  Holmes met her gaze unflinchingly. "No," said he.

  She studied his face with penetrating concentration, then sat back with a little nod, as if satisfied by what she saw there. "You are a man of your word," she murmured. Her inward look returned, and she fell silent.

  "Well, Inspector Lestrade," said Holmes, rising briskly, "that should give you something to go on."

  "What?" asked the Inspector in frank bafflement. He had the air of a man who had been promised a treat for breakfast and then presented with a plate of snails; he vaguely saw that he was expected to be grateful, but could not understand why.

  "The next step is not obvious to you? Yet you heard what I heard and saw what I saw. Very well, I will make you a free present of it, since you brought me here to ask my advice, and since you have saved me from a morning of boredom. You are looking for a house in Camberwell that has been rented within the last month to one or both of the two men with whose descriptions this lady has just favored us. It is brick, in a run-down condition, stands in its own grounds with a wall around it, and has a broken window upon the first floor in the back. That window, incidentally, proves this lady to be an American in spite of her ambiguous accent; she may be athletic, but she did not drop over thirty feet to the ground; calling the first floor the second is a pure Americanism."

  "But Mr. Holmes," said Lestrade, pulling my friend aside and lowering his voice, "how can we trust her testimony? Her state of mind-" he tapped his forehead significantly. "Why, she can't even remember her own name!"

  "Ah, yes, her memory," responded Holmes. "There is indeed something very unusual about her memory. Did you notice it, Watson?"

  "She's lost it," said I, wondering what in heaven's name he was leading up to now.

  "That, too," replied Holmes. "But just lend me that copy of the Times I see peeking from your raincoat pocket, Inspector, and I think I can favor you a remarkable demonstration."

  He took the paper from Lestrade and glanced through it briefly, then folded it open. "This is nice and neutral, it will do. Madam," he turned back to the patient, "if I may trouble you one more time. Please read this little paragraph here, to yourself, that's fine. Then give the paper back to me. Good. Now tell me what you read, word for word."

  The lady complied readily now with his instructions. She composed her hands in her lap and began to recite as Holmes handed the paper to Lestrade and me and pointed out the paragraph in question, which was a financial report on copra imports.

  "Holmes!" I cried in sudden enlightenment when she was but half through. "She has a photographic memory!"

  The detective smiled benignly upon me, and gave a little nod of his head, as if to take a bow for the performance.

  "But what does that show?" asked Lestrade fadingly.

  "I have no idea," Holmes admitted cheerfully. "But put it in your bag of facts; it may prove important later."

  We prepared to take our leave. Holmes turned back for a last encouraging word to the patient.

  "Madam, do not be afraid. There is every hope that with the information we have gained Inspector Lestrade can bring your case to a speedy and happy conclusion. We shall keep in touch."

  He was rewarded with the first real smile I had seen on the lady's face. Its wistful quality illuminated and softened a face I had at first found too harsh, bony, and tense to qualify for feminine beauty.

  "Thank you," she said. After a silence we left her, eyes turned inward once again, in a pose very like that in which we had first found her.

  "A case not without features of interest, Watson," remarked Holmes in the cab as we were driven back to our respective lodgings. "I hope our friend Lestrade is able to do it justice. No doubt I shall hear from him again before it is done. There are some ambiguous points; more than one interpretation is yet admissible." He paused thoughtfully. "Now, the fair sex is your department, as I think I have observed to you before; what did you think of Lestrade's catch?"

  "As a woman?" I shrugged. "She was in great mental distress, of course. It is hard to tell."

  "You were not wholly taken with her? Unusual."

  I searched for the words in which to put my very vague impressions. "It is unfair to judge her in her present condition; yet I confess I could not warm to her unreservedly. It seemed to me that she lacked that sweet spirituality which is the ultimate hallmark of a woman of refinement."

  "You found her harsh, in short. I fancy you are right. Refinement is probably not her strong suit. And yet she has a remarkable intelligence for a woman, and a certain physical courage most unusual in her sex."

  "You find her attractive?" I asked, surprised at even this guarded encomium from my traditionally misogynistic friend.

  "I find her a puzzle. But I'm afraid it may prove one more suited to the talents of an alienist than to a middle-aged criminal detective. I've had clients who had lost their jewels, their husbands, or their fiances; but one who has lost her past is a new experience."

  "But you said you did not think her mad."

  "She is clearly capable of logical reasoning and a certain subtlety of observation. Amnesia is not necessarily madness in the padded cell and straight-jacket sense."

  "Then you find her problem to be medical, not criminal?"

  "It is medical, surely; however, we cannot yet eliminate the possibility of some criminal connection to it. Indeed we may not. I shall be quite interested to hear what Lestrade digs up in Camberwell. No, I shan't come in with you, Mrs. Watson is much better equipped than I to minister to your current needs. My apologies for keeping you from your much needed rest for so long."

  I got out before my residence, and waved as the cab bore him away. "Let me know how it turns out," I cried.

  ***

  It was close to midnight as I sat in my study in my home in Queen Anne Street. My wife and the servants had all gone to bed. A long nap in the afternoon had made up for the exhaustion produced by the previous night and morning, but had left me too wakeful to join them. The driest article I could find in the British Medical Journal was showing some prospect of lulling me to sleep, when a ring at the door blasted hopes of an uneventful evening. Midnight calls were invariably patients with emergencies. I was considering the charms of the life of a government clerk as I went in my shirtsleeves to answer the door myself.

  "Holmes!" I began. "What brings you out at this - " I broke off in astonishment at the sight of his companion. It was the lady from the Embankment. She was dressed in a well-fitting but very plain raincoat that swept to her ankles, but of the feet beneath it one wore a slipper and the other was bare. Her damp uncombed hair hung loosely about her white, set face, and her eyes were dark and dilated, producing altogether a wild, disheveled effect. She held one arm with the other in an unnatural manner. The sleeve of her coat was stained with blood.

  "Holmes, what has happened?" I inquired anxiously as I shut the door behind the bohemian pair, for it seemed to me that Holmes himself did not present quite so prim an appearance as he had that morning.

  "It's attempted murder at the very least, Watson," he said quietly, the tone of his voice wholly at variance with the electrifying message it contained. "Sorry to knock you up at this hour, but I need you in your professional capacity. Is Mrs. Watson abed? Just as well. No need to disturb her yet."

  I kept my voice down. "Come into the surgery." I led the way and turned up the gas.

  "It's going to take some stitchery," said Holmes, helping the lady off with her coat and seating her at the table. Beneath the coat the lady was dressed in a simple skirt and blouse. In the light I could see that she was trembling and pale. "She has a stab wound in the arm. Hardly in danger of being fatal, but it has bled like the very devil."

  The blood-soaked towel wrapped about the arm in question told me he did not exaggerate. I gathered my equipment and a basin, and unwrapped the towel and a soaked handkerchief tied tightly beneath it, to disclose a long, straight cut; the length of the lady's forearm, a mere scratch near the wrist but deep near the e
lbow. "How in God's name did this happen?" I asked.

  Holmes gave me this account as I cleansed and stitched the wound. The lady retained her accustomed silence, except for an occasional sharp intake of breath when the operation became unavoidably painful.

  "It was partly my fault. Fool that I was to leave it to that idiot Lestrade!" he began bitterly. "But I should begin at the beginning, after which our lady can tell you her part of the story.

  "I had spent the rest of the day after I left you at my cross-indexing. After supper Lestrade dropped by for a pipe, as is his occasional habit. I asked him how his search in Camberwell was progressing.

  " 'Ah, Mr. Holmes,' said he cheerily. 'What an anticlimax we have had! Not two hours ago the lady's brother turned up to claim her.'

  " 'What!' I cried, amazed.

  " 'Yes, there was no doubt about it. After what you had said this morning I was inclined to take a suspicious view of him, but he was able to establish his credentials quite satisfactorily. By the way, one of your deductions at least came home to roost; the fellow was a naturalized American citizen who had been born in England, as was his sister, and he had both their passports to prove his word. His name is Ormond Sacker; his sister's name is Violet. He was undoubtably one of the two fellows the lady described, though her view of him was so unflattering it was hard to see at first. He was a dark-haired young fellow about 35, my height or a little shorter, with protuberant brown eyes; he dressed quite the gentleman. He had a round, smooth, pale face an a quick way of moving. It turns out the lady had had brain fever in America and had been in rather a bad way. He said they had despaired of her life for weeks. His uncle, who is also their family doctor, this fellow Sacker, and a devoted maid had brought the lady to England in the hope of speeding her recovery, but they'd hardly reached London when she took a turn for the worse. The uncle, by the way, is the one that Violet Sacker called "the bird-faced man." It appears the lady's symptoms take the form of violent delusions in which she does not recognize her family or friends. The poor fellow was quite embarrassed about it. It's a rough thing for a coming young gent to have a madwoman in the family, though he appears quite devoted to her. I'm afraid I pried a bit when I questioned him. "And how did Miss Sacker come by her brain fever?" I asked. I thought he'd crawl under the rug. It turns out there'd been a young man in the picture, wouldn't you know; he'd been rather a loose screw, who'd left abruptly for South America. Well, you know how these women are when they're hitting middle age and not a man in sight. She'd apparently carried on something fierce until she'd finally broke her health, and there you are.'