The Adventure of the Lady on the Embankment

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  "You agree that this pile upon which you placed the last card is now odd? Now watch closely as I use my magic powers to switch the piles." She waved her hands gently and totally without effect about a foot over the two piles of cards.

  "Now which pile is odd? Don't let me stampede you into anything."

  Alicia frowned at her mistrustfully, then after a moment tapped the pile upon which she had placed the last card.

  "Are you sure? Count them."

  She counted them twice, and of course found eight cards in her "odd" pile and seven in her "even."

  "How did you do that?" Alicia wailed, as I choked back a chuckle. "Ah, it's all in the mind, you know," said Miss Smith sunnily. Suddenly she frowned, looked down, and pressed her hands to her eyes.

  "What is the matter?" I asked, instantly attentive.

  "Nothing," she said, her frown belying her words. "Except... I just remembered where I learned that trick."

  "Tell me about it," I said with studied casualness.

  "I remember a man," she began in a low voice. "He was a big, red-faced, stringy-necked fellow with a great thick curling mustache. He's dressed in dungarees, long underwear, and a blue flannel vest. He chews tobacco, has bad teeth, needs a bath-you wouldn't want him in your Sunday school. He plays cards like a magician, knows a hundred ways to cheat. He has a crude, physical sense of humor. In a lot of ways he's not a very nice person, but he's not a coward and he stands by his friends. He was a friend to me."

  "Can you remember his name?" "Crazy.. .Callaghan." "When did you know him?"

  "I don't know. I just have this image of him in my mind, sitting at a cheap pine table with his feet up, laughing, saying, 'It's all in the mind, boy, all in the mind.' Where, when...I cannot say. He's American; it must have been in America."

  I pressed her to go on, but apparently the bright and startling vision of her somewhat barbaric acquaintance brought nothing else in its train. I offered to start a card game, but she pushed the deck away sadly. "He taught me cards. I think he is dead now," she explained her lack of enthusiasm.

  I took the opportunity to excuse myself, and returned shortly, bearing the package I had purchased that afternoon.

  "Try this out," I suggested, handing it to her. Her mouth formed a soundless "O" of surprise as she opened it to reveal an inexpensive guitar. She held it a moment, strummed it, then began to tune it by harmonics.

  "Oh, this is better," whispered Alicia to me, getting interested in spite of herself in the process of fishing for memories in my patient.

  Miss Smith played a few scales, then began to play and sing in an untrained but pleasant alto.

  "I am a roving gambler, I've gambled all around, Whenever I meet with a deck of cards I lay my money down. I've gambled down in Washington, gambled over in Spain, I'm on my way to Georgia to knock down my last game. Knock down my last game, knock down my last game."

  Her playing was good, clear and rhythmic, although short of virtuosity. But, like the mathematics, the music trailed no personal memory in its wake, although her accent became pronouncedly more Americanized while singing. She then proceeded (I fear deliberately) to scandalize my wife with a version of "St. James Infirmary," but to my even greater astonishment made up for it by following with a sweet classical study by Carulli.

  As we adjourned for bed, I found myself wishing Holmes had been there. I felt I had uncovered unexpected new facets of my patient's personality, but relate them by a chain of reasoning to the central mystery I could not. For that matter, where was Holmes?

  ***

  That question was answered the next morning when the man himself appeared on my doorstep with a package under his arm. I welcomed him into my study and questioned him anxiously about his previous day's activities. He sat back with a grim, unpleased smile and lit his pipe.

  "One would think, Watson," he said, "that a pair of individuals willing to go to such great and bizarre lengths to conceal their activities and evade the attentions of the police must have something rather remarkable to hide. Aside from that obvious deduction, I am no closer to knowing what than I was two days ago. By the way, we, or rather I should say, Inspector Lestrade found the house in Camberwell. Empty, of course. I spent yesterday morning chasing down cabmen while Lestrade and his merry men made the rounds of house agents. I had hoped to take a shortcut and beat him to it, but was foiled by my quarry Sacker's predilection for changing cabs. I did find the cabman who had driven Sacker and - Miss Smith, you say? it will do - from Bart's to Willesden, and had a look at the park she described. It confirmed her story in every particular, but as I had never doubted it, it did not advance me much. Although at least it will make courtroom testimony, if the case ever gets that far. I also found the cabman who had driven Sacker to Bart's, but he had picked up his fare at Victoria.

  "At that point I got word from Lestrade of his success in Camberwell, and hurried down to have a look. The birds must have flown the nest within a few hours of Sacker's return night before last. Their departure was hurried but thorough, not so much as a scrap of writing or a dirty sock left anywhere. Someone in that partnership has his wits about him. But the Yard now has their fingerprints and a description out, and a warrant for attempted murder on Sacker, not to mention kidnapping and the forgery of passports. I'll wager Sacker's companion was ready to murder Sacker himself when he found out what he'd done. We also obtained testimony, such as it is, from the maid - not a devoted American, by the way, but a Camberwell charwoman who came in half-days to cook, clean, and shop. She had never seen the prisoner upstairs, who had been described to her as Sacker's mad younger brother, but she describes the doctor, who was going under the name of Aloysius Garnett, as always brewing up medicines for the poor lad upon his chemical apparatus. They must have been interesting, those medicines!

  "Following the trail backwards through the passports, the Yard discovered that our trio had arrived in London a little less than three weeks ago from Charleston, South Carolina. They had sailed aboard the American Lines steamship DeWitt Hargrove, where they had passed their prisoner along under the brain fever story. Lestrade wired the Charleston police and port authorities. Their reply was received early this morning. They have nothing- nothing-upon Garnett and Sacker, either by name (not surprising, they are certainly pseudonyms) or by description, but promise to pass the inquiries along on their end.

  "Leaving the official police with their larger resources to follow up the two ends of the tangle in their hands, I went home, sat down, and had a smoke. The results have brought me here. I am increasingly convinced, Watson, that we have the key to the puzzle in the person of Miss Smith. Her mind may be half destroyed, but surely there must be a clue or two left in the other half for a sufficiently alert mind to follow up."

  "Ah, yes. About her mind, Holmes," I said. "I conducted a pretty thorough examination of her yesterday. I'm afraid your pithing idea is a frog that won't jump. She doesn't have organic brain damage to amount to half a thimbleful, I'll swear it. I am convinced her amnesia is hysterical in origin."

  "You have no idea how delighted I would be to give it up," replied Holmes. "Expand upon your theory, then, Doctor."

  I recapitulated in detail the events of yesterday, and my attempts to stimulate the lady's memory.

  "How great minds do think alike," Holmes smiled, and laid his package upon my desk. "I was just going to ask you to release her to me this morning to come along to Baker Street. I have the greatest curiosity to see what she might do with the chemical corner. I have a theory about her connection with the unsavory Dr. Garnett that merits testing."

  "Will the police be able to capture Garnett and Sacker, do you think?" I asked. "Their descriptions are surely distinctive enough."

  "Only as long as they are traveling together. If they are smart, they will split up as soon as possible. Individually, each of them looks like a hundred other men."

  Just then we were interrupted when the door was flung open without a knock by Miss Smith herself. She
had a book from my library in her hand, and her eyes blazed with excitement.

  "Doctor. Mr. Holmes. I've found my name," she said breathlessly. "I knew it when I saw it written."

  I recognized the book as a pocket Shakespeare.

  "It's Cordelia," she went on. "Cordelia. Cord."

  "Cordelia Smith?" I said.

  She fairly danced from one foot to another. "Almost. Almost!"

  "Congratulations," said Holmes quietly, opening his package. "Have a cigar." To my surprise the package contained, in addition to some very fine and extremely expensive thin Dutch cheroots, an old-fashioned American army revolver.

  "Why on earth did you bring that?" I asked, pointing to the gun. Holmes returned his attention to me from Miss Smith, whose peculiar method of lighting her cigar (it involved, among other things, striking the match on her thumbnail) he had been observing closely.

  "For the same reason, my dear fellow, that you brought home that guitar yesterday. I hope to jog her memory with it."

  Miss Smith blew smoke out her nostrils and smiled at him with gratitude and the liveliest interest. In spite of my efforts at nonchalance, my reaction to the unaesthetic sight of a woman smoking cigars in my study must have shown in my face. "I fear I shock the good doctor," she remarked. She did not sound worried about the prospect. "But not you, Mr. Holmes?"

  "I deduced it; I expected it," shrugged the detective. "But pray turn your attention to the revolver."

  She put down her smoke and picked up the gun pensively, then expertly checked the empty chambers. She turned to raise her arm and aim at the wall, squinting to sight down the barrel. "Bang," she said, her finger squeezing the trigger and the hammer clicking. She lowered the gun and shook her head.

  "I must have handled guns before. It seems familiar in a distant sort of way. But where? When?" The inward frown returned.

  "Perhaps if you actually fired it?" my friend suggested.

  "Holmes," I remonstrated cautiously, "this is not Baker Street."

  "Set your fears at rest, Doctor, I am not suggesting indoor revolver practice. An absorbent target set up in your back garden would do nicely."

  A few minutes later found us arranging boards against the garden wall. The rains and fogs of the past few days had been swept away by a new wind in the night, and replaced with a fresh sunshine which created a welcome, if humid, warmth. By placing our makeshift target in the far corner and taking up our stand diagonally opposite, a respectable firing distance was achieved.

  Holmes drew a packet of revolver bullets from his pocket and handed it to Miss Smith. She loaded with the due precautions to safety she had observed before, then stood staring down at the ground for a few moments. She turned in abrupt decision, raised the revolver, and fired six shots one after the other into the foot-wide circle Holmes had drawn upon the board. An extraordinary change came over her face as she fired. Her eyes narrowed, her chin came up, her mouth compressed itself into a thin white line, her nostrils dilated. As suddenly as she had begun, she stopped, dropped the gun, and turned away from us, hunched and tense. Holmes raised his eyebrows at me by way of comment and went to her, placing his hand gently upon her shoulder.

  "Miss Smith. Cordelia. What did you remember just now?"

  She shook her head without looking at him. "Nothing," she whispered, her hands twisting in the fabric of her skirt.

  "Come, now. You are a worse liar than Watson." She looked at him sideways. "It was just a bad dream. That's all." "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" asked Holmes quietly. She snorted a short, unhappy laugh. "A little of both, I guess." "You are shaking. Come, sit down upon this bench in the sunlight, and try to believe we are your friends. Can you believe that?"

  She shrugged helplessly. "Maybe. Maybe I do not wish to lose my friends."

  "Ah, I assure you, we are inured to shock," Holmes said. She glanced in my direction. "Well, perhaps not wholly," admitted my friend in soothing tones. "But the good Dr. Watson, as I have reason to know, does not always require his friends to meet his approval before giving them his loyalty."

  "Yes," she agreed in a small voice. "You may be right. If he were my friend, I should not fear for my back, no matter how ambiguous..." She broke off, digging into the dirt with the toe of her shoe, as if to bury her confusion. "I don't want to remember any more. Let's go in."

  "Let me help you," said Holmes. Then, after a silence, "Whom do you remember shooting?"

  She gazed at him unhappily, as if to read his mood.

  "A man," she replied at last, unwillingly. "A murderer."

  "An American? Was it a long time ago?"

  She nodded.

  "Whom had he murdered?"

  "I can't remember. I really can't."

  "Did he die when you shot him?"

  "He must have. I put six bullets through his chest and head."

  "Was he shooting at you at the time?"

  "Yes. Yes, at me and at someone else. I can't remember who."

  "Someone important to you?"

  "Yes." She turned her face away. It had gone stony.

  "That's enough for now," my friend reassured her. "I would not distress you for random amusement. But your memory, you know, is still buried in your brain. Not lost."

  "Can we not let the dead stay buried?" she murmured, only half to herself. "Exhumation is such a grisly business."

  Holmes studied her profile thoughtfully a moment.

  "You know, I too once murdered a man," he remarked. She turned her face to him. "I threw him into a chasm, bodily. He screamed all the way down. I assure you, it is never far from my thoughts."

  She gave a little nod. "You understand, then. I was not sure. Was he a murderer too?"

  "Yes, among other things."

  At this point, I had to go assist the maid to disperse from my front door the neighbors, police constable, butcher's boy, and neighbors' servants who had gathered there in response to the shots fired a short time back in my garden on a respectable London morning. I returned to find Holmes assisting a somewhat more composed Miss Smith into her coat.

  "With your permission, Watson, we shall be off to Baker Street. Do you wish to come along?"

  "Yes, but I have professional demands this morning that preclude it." I eyed him with misgiving. "You will be careful, won't you, Holmes?"

  "My dear fellow, we're only going to run some chemical tests," he reassured me cheerfully. "I shall bring your patient back safe and sound before dinner. Or send you a note," he added as an afterthought, as he shepherded his charge out my door.

  ***

  I passed by the Baker Street rooms quite late that warm afternoon upon my way home from an unexpected call, and noticing the windows open, suggesting their tenant was in residence, I stopped up for a word with Holmes. The familiar door at the top of the stairs stood propped open, and the slight cross-ventilation so provided served to move the reeking clouds within, compounded of equal parts of tobacco smoke and chemical fumes, gently out the windows, thus creating an atmosphere within only slightly too poisonous for human habitation. To my surprise I found that Holmes was not the only inhabitant; my erstwhile resident patient was sitting in the chemical corner, sleeves rolled up and hair, which had started the day clipped in a kind of wad on the back of her head, escaping to drift in damp untidy strands about her face. Indeed, she looked quite at home amongst the clutter, which seemed worse than usual due not only to the chemical debris but also to the large number of reference books pulled out of the shelves and scattered around in random disarray. She sat smoking and sipping tea, perfectly oblivious to the mess, in the center of which sat Holmes himself with his clay pipe, cross-legged upon the floor, leafing through one of his commonplace books.

  "Ah, Watson, come in," he invited, looking up at the sound of my step. "We are having a very productive afternoon."

  "And evening, too," I observed. "It's past seven."

  "That late? So it is."

  "So what has the afternoon produced?" I enquired, settling
into my old chair and lighting my own pipe by way of olfactory self-defense against the acrid fog.

  "Two cables, one to Boston and one to New York. Miss Smith has almost certainly obtained her scientific education, and probably a bachelor's degree in chemistry, from Tufts University in Boston. Her theory is fair, although it is not her strong point. It is her bench work that is outstanding; she has a butterfly's touch with a burette; you should see it, Watson. We have pulled up a number of memories from her college days in the course of a few little titrations; apparently it was a pleasant period in her life."

  "Thus the cable to Boston," I deduced. "You hope to find someone who knows her history."

  "Just so."

  "And the cable to New York?"

  "That is a longer shot. It has to do with her connection with Garnett. She has almost certainly made her living as a chemist; I think she was Garnett's employee. If Garnett's livelihood was in some esoteric branch of medical pharmaceutics (and I have a notion as to just how esoteric), a narrow specialty, and yet had enough business to force him to hire an assistant, it suggests he was operating in a largish population center, and New York is America's commercial capital. It is also its capital of crime. I have a friend in the New York Police Department who will give my inquiry the follow-up it deserves.

  "But how, in your theory, did she go from being Garnett's employee to being his prisoner?"

  "That I shall allow you to reason out for yourself. Your brain can use the exercise. The other item up for consideration has to do with the story told to Lestrade by our friend Sacker. I smoked a couple of pipes thinking it over, and eventually noticed a curious thing about it. A rather large number of his lies were sprung from truths. Of course, if you're trying to tell a story that is likely to be checked, the closer you parallel actual events the better, but still it was an indication of how his mind worked. Now, in his little play we find these creations: persons born in England who have emigrated; a 'loose screw' who went to South America; a person who, falling in love late in life, allows emotion to overcome reason; and a doctor. Sacker and Garnett are both certainly English, and Garnett is certainly a doctor, apparently between 55 and 60 years old by his description. What about the South American connection?