A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  Eventually, she got the entire page right, and Nan rewarded her with a drawing of fairies to color. The little girl was still carefully filling in the flower-dresses with bright pink and blue when Mrs. Horace came tapping at the door.

  “Miss Nan?” their landlady said, “It’s nearly luncheon, but there is a Reverend Tellworth here to see you. Shall I hold luncheon and show him in, or show him in, bring luncheon and bring up enough for three?”

  “Show him in, and we’ll entertain him, thank you,” Nan replied. “Curates are always hungry.”

  Mrs. Horace giggled. “’Deed they are, miss,” she agreed, and trotted down the stairs.

  A moment later, Holmes tapped at the door, and Nan rose to let him in. And if she hadn’t known it was Holmes, she never would have recognized him. The man stood with a stoop and seemed to be several inches shorter than Holmes. His cheeks were sunken, his nose had a long hook in it, and he peered out at her, not only from beneath his clerical hat, but from beneath a solid bar of bushy gray eyebrows.

  But as soon as he got inside, he stood up straight—and there was Sherlock Holmes, in a crisp black cleric’s suit with the proper dog collar, giving her just a hint of a smile. She smiled back. “Suki, clear the table, it’s time for luncheon. Sir, if you’ll take a seat?”

  Holmes nodded and took one of the chairs as Suki removed her schoolbooks and drawing materials. No sooner was the table cleared than Mrs. Horace appeared at the door with a laden tray. There were a few moments of setting things to rights on the table, then Mrs. Horace was gone, and Holmes finally spoke.

  But not to her.

  “You would be Suki, I believe?” he said, offering his hand to the child. “I am Sherlock Holmes.”

  Suki actually squeaked with excitement. She knew who Holmes was; Nan and Sarah had read some of Doyle’s stories to her. “Gor blimey!” she said, then, remembering her manners, shook his hand gravely, and said, quite properly, “Pleasure t’meetcher, Sir.”

  “Suki shares my abilities, Mister Holmes,” Nan told him. “She’s not ready to show her paces yet, but in a few years we think she will be sharing our ventures.”

  “Then perhaps in a few years you might consider working with my Baker Street Irregulars, Suki,” Holmes said. “You sound as if you know your way about the streets, and there are times when it would be very advantageous to my young scallywags to have someone with Miss Nan’s Talents on hand.”

  “Cor!” Suki said with enthusiasm.

  “She passes very well for a boy now, which is what I have her dress as when she goes out to play,” Nan told him. “If she was to do work for you, away from an adult, you should probably let your Irregulars believe that she is a boy. But that isn’t why you are here.” She ate a bite of the chicken sandwich Mrs. Horace had supplied them. Sunday’s fowl would not stretch as far as a Sunday roast would, but there were always sandwiches out of it on the Monday, and the bones would be the basis of supper’s soup. “Your quarry did not think of his superior’s name, and I am inclined to believe he does not actually know it. The man in question is only known as ‘The Boss,’ as far as I could tell. But I would know his face in a thousand; there were memories of The Boss in several situations and settings, and several partial disguises.”

  “Well, that does complicate matters a trifle, but it is nothing I did not anticipate,” Holmes replied. He had brought with him the sort of leather document case that lawyers—and men of the cloth—often traveled with, and had placed it at the side of his chair. Now he bent down to reach inside and emerged with a thick stack of paper. “If you would be so kind as to interrupt your luncheon while I display some photographs to you?”

  “Not at all,” Nan said, and set aside the sandwich while Holmes laid pictures down on the cream-colored tablecloth between them, one at a time.

  Some were actual photographs, both posed and candid. She wondered how he had gotten those. Some were photographs cut from magazines or newspapers. Some were newspaper sketches. She identified the third one he displayed as being of their earlier quarry, earning herself the accolade of an eyebrow lifted in obvious approval from Holmes. All had one thing in common; they were of men who were, outwardly at least, highly respectable.

  Which would only make sense if this criminal genius was managing to work his wiles completely undetected by anyone but Holmes.

  It had crossed her mind that this . . . obsession of Holmes . . . might be some figment of his own highly colored imagination, seeing a conspiracy where there was none. But Watson had not warned her against this, and she rather thought he would have taken her aside if he had not been convinced that Holmes was on to something.

  “I should warn you,” Holmes said abruptly, as he laid down another picture for her examination, “That absolutely no one shares my view about the existence of this criminal genius except for my brother Mycroft, John and Mary Watson, and, I believe, your Lord Alderscroft. And even Mycroft has his doubts. I have not ventured to voice my theory too often, because if the possibility is ridiculed before I can bring the proof, a very dangerous man will have been alerted, and will find means to thwart me.”

  “And . . . people already regard you a bit askance, I suspect,” Nan observed. “Such an assertion that an all-powerful master criminal was behind a great deal of the criminal activity in England would likely be taken as a sign that your mind had finally snapped.”

  Holmes sighed. “That would be more amusing if it were less true.” He laid down the last picture. “So . . . the ‘Boss’ was none of these?”

  She shook her head. “I am sorry—”

  “Do not be,” he interrupted. “I was saving the least likely—and yet, in my mind, the most likely—for last.” He removed a slim, leather-bound book from the case, replacing the stack of photographs inside. She saw it had the unlikely title of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, although Holmes opened it too quickly for her to discern the name of the author.

  He spread it out at the frontispiece, which was an expensively printed photograph of a gentleman standing beside a book-laden desk, hands clasped in front of him, looking straight into the camera lens. If the rest of the men in those pictures could have been described as looking “respectable,” this man was positively a monument to proper breeding and upbringing.

  There was just one problem.

  Nan had not one speck of doubt that this man was the one she had seen in their target’s memory. The one that a violent murderer thought of as “The Boss.”

  “This is he,” she said immediately.

  “You have no doubts?” Holmes replied.

  “None whatsoever. This is he. And I can tell you that even as the man who met with you is absolutely the most cold-blooded killer I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, he looks up to this man as being even more cold-blooded and deadly than himself.” She tapped her finger on the page. “The man you met today, Mister Holmes, fears this man as he fears no one and nothing else on earth.”

  Holmes regarded her gravely. “And yet only you and I, and his lieutenants, would ever believe that Professor James Moriarty is anything but a highly respected professional educator and a genius mathematician.”

  8

  HOLMES was long gone by the time Sarah woke up near teatime, and at that point, Suki and Nan had finished the lessons early. Wrapped in a white cotton dressing gown with blue trim, she joined Suki and Nan for tea.

  Weary of hearing about the fine suppers Sarah was enjoying, Nan had gone out after Holmes left and made a few purchases, so today’s tea was rather generous, with purchased tea cakes of a sort Mrs. Horace was not comfortable attempting, salted nuts, Turkish delight, chocolates, and candied fruit. The chicken made a final appearance as a salad in the sandwiches, but instead of only the one sort of sandwich that they generally had at tea, Nan had gotten enough good things that Mrs. Horace had added jam, egg, and ham sandwiches for more variety. And Nan had gotten proper cl
otted cream to go with the scones. She’d told Mrs. Horace to have some of the bounty herself, of course. It wasn’t fair to pass all that under their landlady’s nose and not share.

  Suki was in heaven. Sarah blinked a little at the amount of food, but did not hesitate to join in. The sandwiches disappeared, and very soon they were making serious inroads on the savories and sweets.

  But then, breakfast was a long time ago, she didn’t eat any luncheon, and it is going to be a very long time between now and when she has that fancy supper tonight.

  She was not as full of details about last night’s opera performance, since it was a repetition of the one she had already seen the night before. For her part, Nan elected to remain silent on exactly what Holmes wanted her for. She couldn’t keep the fact that Holmes had visited a secret, Suki was too full of excitement that the great man had said she might one day help him. But when Sarah asked what she had been doing, she simply shrugged, and said, “Nothing like as fascinating as what you are doing. Holmes wanted me to help him determine whether or not someone was telling him the truth—and what they were not telling him. He brought a fellow to the Reading Room and talked a while, and I told him what I had learned when he came by here.” That was entirely true. Holmes did want her help with exactly that. He just hadn’t wanted that sort of help today. “And he and I looked through some photographs to see if I recognized anyone I saw there.” Also true.

  Thank goodness Suki isn’t old enough to be interested enough in what we said to remember it and contradict my version.

  “At any rate, I’ll be spending a quiet evening here at home with Suki,” she continued. “Are you going to the opera again?” She tried very hard to keep her voice indifferent, and her temper in check. The longer this went on, the more unfair it seemed. And Nan couldn’t help but resent the fact that Sarah was in that private box all alone—a private box she could have invited Nan to share without Magdalena being any the wiser. Mrs. Horace could have looked after Suki again, and Nan could have come straight to the opera house by cab and home the same way after the performance was over.

  “I think Magdalena is lonely and misses her sister, even though she pretends otherwise,” Sarah said, apologetically. “Her sister used to sit in that box, every single night, and I think it makes her feel a little better to look up and see that it isn’t empty anymore.”

  It appeared that Sarah was becoming very sympathetic to Magdalena’s situation. Well, good. Perhaps Sarah can get more information out of her that way. “Did her sister attend the opera every night back in Germany as well?” Nan asked.

  “When Magdalena was singing leading roles, yes,” Sarah said. “The whole family attended when they could, but her sister was always there, faithful, and making sure to start the applause.”

  Odd. That doesn’t quite fit with Magdalena’s indifference when her sister eloped with that young man.

  “And her fiancé didn’t object to her going out every night without him?” Nan asked archly.

  Sarah shrugged. “I suppose he was not a great admirer of opera. Some people find it unbearable. Or maybe he didn’t care as much for Johanna as for her father’s connections. Herr von Dietersdorf is not very political himself, but he knows a great many important political people, and I gather the young man has political ambitions.”

  So it wouldn’t matter to him which sister he married. It might even be advantageous to be married to someone like Magdalena. She is unlikely to care about anything but her own career, so the last thing she would do would be to meddle in politics herself.

  “At any rate,” Sarah continued, “I suppose having a great artiste for a wife could do a young politician a great deal of good, so long as when she is off the stage, she is content to be ornamental and be much admired. Being a musician is quite respectable, not like being an actress, especially, I gather, in Germany. If Magdalena gets to the same level of fame as, say, Adelina Patti, she will be regarded as a national treasure.”

  “I can imagine she would like that,” Nan commented, trying not to sound cynical. “The respectability of a gut hausfrau, without having to actually be a hausfrau, with plenty of adulation and politicians anxious to become acquainted with her.”

  She did not mention it might be difficult to maintain that respectability if she was going to entertain wealthy admirers . . .

  Then again, if Lord A’s stories are to be believed, half of the upper crust spends all their time running in and out of bedrooms that aren’t theirs at weekend house parties, and somehow they all manage to keep a veneer of respectability.

  “Well, being the ornament at political gatherings would probably be restful for Magdalena, when you think about it,” Sarah pointed out. “It would be very much like being on stage, without the work of learning music and doing all the performing. I think she would be very good at it. And certainly there is a lot to be admired about her.”

  “Sarah, Suki and I were thinking of visiting Hampton Court Palace while she is studying the Tudors,” Nan said, getting a little tired of hearing Magdalena’s praises sung. “It would be an all-day affair, which would leave the flat quiet for you to sleep; I think it would be possible to take Neville, unless Grey would be lonely without him.”

  Neville and Grey exchanged a long look. Nan heard a kind of whispering in her mind, like conversation too far away to make out. “Stay,” Neville said, with a very definite nod. And she got the very strong image of the time she and Neville had gone to a tea shop, where, although she had eaten at one of the outside tables, the waitress had made a great nuisance of herself, trying to shoo him away.

  “All right. I’ll make sure you both get something special, and some new toys to play with,” she promised. “If I can convince Mrs. Horace to soak digestive biscuits in blood for you, you shall have that. And I’ll make sure to get Grey some grapes and nuts.”

  Neville made an approving, purring sound, and Grey bobbed her head with excitement.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Sarah said wistfully.

  Well, now you know how we feel, being left out of all your fun. Nan couldn’t help it. It probably wasn’t a very nice thing to think, but . . . Well, at least I didn’t say it out loud.

  “Wisht ye’d go with us,” Suki replied, also wistfully. “It ain’t gonna be the same without you.”

  For one moment, Nan thought Sarah just might give in and “sacrifice” a day of Magdalena—

  But, no.

  “I’m sorry, Suki,” she said, leaning over to kiss the little girl. “Another time. Right now Magdalena needs me.”

  Suki sighed, but didn’t indulge in a fit of temper as some children might have. “Jes’ ’member we needs ye too,” she said, “Kin I be ’scuzed?”

  Sarah gave her permission, and she retired to her room to play. Nan reflected that, for a child who had had such a terrible beginning, she was positively angelic most of the time. Someone must have given the little mite the love and affection children needed in order to learn to show love and affection in return. The period of nightmares and panic fits had finally passed, but then again, she had two adults she trusted who were able to see and understand her nightmares and knew exactly what had to be done to wake her out of them and soothe them away.

  Nan gazed thoughtfully at the door to Suki’s room. “Do you think we ought to send her to Memsa’b?” she asked.

  “Suki? That is a very good question.” Sarah pondered it, and Nan savored a moment of inner rejoicing that she had finally found a subject that would take Sarah’s mind off the opera diva.

  “She has a quick mind, and has been asking me questions that I frankly cannot answer,” Nan continued. “About the stars and the moon, for instance, and she doesn’t want fanciful answers, she wants the scientific ones. When she first came to us, it was out of the question, of course.”

  Sarah nodded, remembering Suki’s night terrors. “Memsa’b would love to have her. An
d we can afford to pay for her schooling, or rather, Lord A can, which would not come at all amiss. It would do the other children no end of good to have someone from her class among them.”

  Nan had to laugh at that. “It would, wouldn’t it! Some of the ones that are slacking would start putting some effort in, seeing a little street Arab excelling while they fell behind.”

  “And you know there are always some who put on airs; Suki would put them right straight in their places.” Sarah giggled. “Remember when you told Arabelle that she needn’t put her nose in the air, because if she ever went outside, you knew pickpockets that would take one look at her and laugh at her for being such a know-nothing, pompous little ass.”

  “And they would have, too,” Nan agreed. “Let’s ask Suki about it. I’ll abide by her decision.”

  Rather than call the girl in, they went to her room, by way of emphasizing that she had as much to say about this as they did.

  Suki listened gravely to what they had to say about going to live at the Harton School, both the advantages and disadvantages. “The chief advantages, really, are that you will get much better teachers, and there will be other children there to play with,” Sarah concluded.

  “But what if Mister ’Olmes wants me ter run wi’ th’ Regulars?” Suki wanted to know.

  “That will not be for at least three years,” Nan told her firmly. “And the reason for that is that we want you to learn how to fight just as Sarah and I can. The best people to teach you that are Karamjit and Agansing. If you are going to be doing the sort of dangerous tasks the Irregulars sometimes do, we want you to be able to defend yourself.”

  Suki thought about that, and nodded. “Kin I come live ’ere on the ’olidays?”

  “We would be very put out if you didn’t want to!” Sarah exclaimed. “And actually, since the summer term has already started, you would not be joining the school until September.”