A Study in Sable

by Mercedes Lackey

  Johanna went a little limp with relief. “Herr Holmes, that is very kind of you.”

  He waved it away. “Think nothing of it. I will take care of all of the necessary details. Even if I were not owed more than enough favors to make this trivial, Mycroft has but to wave his hand and all is made smooth. I suggest you return to your suite at the Langham. I will find you there, and together we will make the rest of the arrangements for your return home.”

  “Fraulein Killian, would I be correct in assuming that Sarah would probably prefer to return to London with you, rather than with me?” Johanna asked.

  And that was what finally persuaded Nan that it really was Johanna in there, and not the former occupant of the body. After everything she had just gone through, and with the possibility that Johanna’s spirit, backed by Sarasate, could return to attack her at any moment, Magdalena would not have allowed Sarah out of her sight for a moment. There was no chance that it was Magdalena feigning to have been driven out. The diva might well have bidden farewell to Willie. She might well have left to return home to Germany. After all, she could still build a fortune and an immense career on the Continent, given her vocal and arcane talents.

  But she would never, ever, have released Sarah. In fact, her need for Sarah would have been greater than ever.

  “I think she probably would, but why not ask her yourself?” Nan replied.

  Johanna smiled. It was a sweet smile, and nothing at all like the expression Magdalena used as a smile. “I have, and she said it was up to you. I think she is afraid that she has somehow disgraced herself in your eyes.”

  “Bosh,” snorted Nan. “I’ll go and tell her myself.”

  She didn’t need directions, since she had explored that part of the manor in her maid disguise yesterday. Was it only yesterday? It seems like an age. She marched straight to Magdalena’s suite and knocked on the frame of the door, since the door itself was open. There was a pile of luggage in the middle of the sitting room, and Alicia entered carrying a hatbox just as Nan knocked.

  “Yes, miss?” Alicia asked.

  “I’m looking for Sarah Lyon-White,” Nan told her. “I’m her friend, Nan Killian. Magdalena sent me.”

  “Oh, she’s packing the last of her things. Over there—” Alicia inclined her head to the right, and Nan took the unspoken invitation to enter and headed for the door in that direction.

  She found Sarah in the third bedroom, fastening the food and water bowls into Grey’s carrier. “Well, you look ready to go with us,” Nan said, startling her.

  “Oh!” she replied, her hand to her throat, as Grey looked on from the dresser. “I am . . . unless you’d rather I traveled with—”

  “Us, of course,” Nan replied. “I just hope Holmes and Watson have figured out how we are going to manage your mountain of things. Didn’t you ever learn how to pack lightly?”

  Epilogue

  JOHANNA’S suite in the Langham looked strangely bare. There were no masses of flowers, no silk shawls tossed idly over the backs of chairs, no framed photographs or boxes of sweets or other trifles from admirers left lying about. Most of Johanna’s luggage was already aboard the ship back to Germany. So was the sad little white casket that held the remains; Johanna had actually had the temerity to look at what was left of her old self before the new coffin was sealed, and the white metal casket sealed over that.

  Johanna had elected to say her goodbyes here, in the hotel, rather than on the dock. “It will be too crowded and chaotic at the dock,” she had told Nan. “Besides, I won’t be able to give you my presents.” She had hesitated. “I hope you will not mind that they are not precisely new. . . .”

  Nan had laughed. “So long as they aren’t any of Magdalena’s dresses. Sarah is too short for any of them, and I am too tall.”

  The birds were back in the flat; neither Nan nor Sarah felt inclined to subject them to their carriers after all the time they’d had to spend in them lately. And the birds themselves had shown no interest in saying goodbye to Johanna, who was not in the “flock” that they considered “friends.”

  So Holmes, the Watsons, Nan, and Sarah were waiting in the sumptuous sitting room as Johanna put the finishing touches on herself and came out to say her goodbyes. Alicia was already at the steamer; she had elected to come with Johanna and remain as her personal maid in Germany. “It won’t be as exciting,” she’d told Nan. “But Mistress is much kinder these days. And she says there is not the stigma to being a ladies’ maid there that there is here, and I just might find myself with a handsome blond gentleman of my own.”

  Finally the lady emerged, clad in mourning, as she had been since she “got the news,” although truth to tell, she had probably been putting on the acting performance of both lifetimes, pretending that she mourned for and missed her sister. She had everyone convinced but the people in this room that discovering her sister’s death—which had been ruled an “accidental drowning,” thanks to Mycroft—had left her prostrate with grief.

  She surveyed them all with a smile. “I must say, it seems peculiar to be in mourning for myself,” she observed.

  “I can see how that would be rather disconcerting,” Holmes agreed. “And probably most amusing, if it were not for the real grief this will cause your parents.”

  “I intend to use my powers to ease their grief,” Johanna declared. “And when I think they are sufficiently recovered, I shall marry my Helmut, and when he calls me Johanna I shall not correct him.”

  “Forgive me if I have been occupied with another case,” interjected Holmes, looking morbidly curious, “But just what Banbury tale did my brother concoct for you?”

  “A great many people apparently ‘fall into the Thames,’ he tells me, and he found an unidentified young man to stand in for the specious Canadian lover.” Johanna’s mouth thinned a little in something that was not quite a smile. “He concocted a tale of an accident whereby they both ended in the river on the way to the railway station—and I know this makes absolutely no sense to a Londoner, but we are not attempting to fool Londoners. My parents are not likely to enquire even so much as looking for newspaper stories about the accident. I have it all beautifully written out by a purported police inspector.”

  “Who is, in fact, Mycroft,” stated Holmes.

  She nodded agreement. “I think that Helmut will not care. Magdalena entranced him completely; by the time the entrancement wears off, he will be in love with me all over again.”

  “And singing?” Nan asked. “You do have a great gift. . . .”

  “Which I shall employ at charity concerts,” she said firmly. “And perhaps, recitals. It would be different if Magda had not . . . gone into so many beds. I do not want to be looking out at an audience and wonder how many of the men gazing down at me from the expensive boxes had seen me in theirs.” She blushed, nearly stammering that last, then recovered. “So, before I leave for the steamer, as you know, I wished to bring you all here to give you something to remember this adventure by. Several things, actually.”

  She turned to John Watson. “I know that every man would like to shower his wife in jewels at some point.” She picked up a jewelry case from the mantelpiece and put it into his hands. “Now you can.” She smiled at him—amazingly, Johanna produced a little dimple that had never appeared when Magdalena had smiled. “They are some gifts of Willie’s. He would not take them back, and I did not feel right about keeping them. May they bring both of you joy.”

  She turned to Sarah and Nan. “I have gifts for you, but these are for your birds.” She picked up a pair of what Nan had thought were black velvet pillows from the sofa, behind her, and handed them to Nan and Sarah. But when Nan took the object in her hands it proved to be a sable muff, lined with wool plush. “I know that the grey parrot, at least, is delicate to the cold. If you must take her in her carrier in winter, have her crawl into that as into a nest and stick her head out, then p
ut the whole into the carrier. It should keep her warm as toast. If you are still concerned, there is a pocket inside it with a smooth granite stone that you may warm on the stove to add to the heat. I think that the raven will enjoy the heat of a muff, too.”

  “Oh, this is wonderful, Johanna!” Sarah cried. “It’s perfect—”

  “But it is not all,” Johanna replied, and went into the other room. She returned with her arms full of sumptuous black fur. “Here,” she said, depositing a sable cloak in the laps of each of the three women. “Magda would never be seen without her cloak of sable, and her admirers gave her far too many. May they keep you warm, and remind you of my gratitude.”

  Already the fur was warming Nan’s lap, and she could only think of how wonderful it would be in the dead of winter.

  “And last of all, Herr Holmes, I have two things. The first—” She put an envelope in his hands. “I have pried from out of your brother your usual fee. You will find this is rather more than that, but how could I put a price on my life, which you have given back to me?” Before Holmes could say anything, she picked up a long, slender case, and handed it to him. “And this is by way of a souvenir, from myself, and from Maestro Sarasate.”

  Holmes tucked the envelope in his breast pocket and opened the black leather case.

  There, lying like a jewel on the black velvet, was an ivory-white bow, strung with golden-yellow hair.

  This was the bow that they had all last seen in Sarasate’s hands.

  “By Jove—” said Holmes, taken aback.

  “I know you are not the squeamish sort,” Johanna told him, calmly. “And we both felt it was better not to destroy it, as he ordinarily would have done with such a thing at the end of a task. So, let it be a memento of one of the cases that Herr Doctor Watson dares not write about. Ja?”

  “Jawohl,” Holmes replied, closing the case, and casting a glance at Watson. “Because if he dares so much as hint that I paid heed to his superstitious twaddle, I will not be responsible for my actions.”

  “Really, Holmes!” Watson said, affronted. He might have gone on to say more, but all four women burst into laughter.

  “Come along John,” Mary said, throwing her sable cape over her arm and standing up. “You should know better by now. Let’s be on our way and allow Johanna to be on hers, or she might miss her steamer. And then what would you do?”

  She and John left; Holmes was the next to stand. He took Johanna’s hand and bowed a little over it. “I wish you well, and a long and prosperous life,” he said with feeling. “Surely no one could have earned it more than you.”

  “But it was gifted back to me, thanks to you,” Johanna replied. “And if I ever may be of service to you, you have but to call on me.” She smiled. “Even if it is to assist you with something naughty my countrymen are attempting against yours. I think that you have more than earned that sort of aid.”

  With the bow case tucked under his arm, Holmes left, his step brisk and his brows furrowed in thought. But not, Nan would wager, over anything having to do with Johanna. No, in his mind, he was already contemplating the next case.

  “Well,” said Nan, getting to her feet. “This—”

  “Was strange for all of us,” said Johanna. “And I am sorry it brought you two grief. Come, I am done here. Let us all go down to catch our cabs.”

  “Not nearly what it brought you,” Nan pointed out, as they made their way down the hall to the elevator. “The one thing nobody’s quite said is that you were dead. And if it hadn’t been for your not giving up on bringing Magdalena to justice, I don’t think she would have stopped at murdering just you.”

  Johanna looked at both of them, soberly, as they waited for the elevator to arrive. “She would not. Her memories and thoughts are fading the longer I live in this body, but I can tell you, Fraulein Killian, if she had thought for a moment that you were going to interfere with her wishes, she would not have scrupled to find a way to make you vanish, too. And if she had known that Sarah’s Grey was more than just a pet—well.”

  The elevator turned up just at that moment, and they all stepped inside. They held silence until it had reached the ground floor, then picked up their conversation as they strolled across the lobby.

  “Then it’s just as well she didn’t find out,” Nan replied, and nodded at the doorman as he held the door open for them. “And speaking of Grey and Neville, ’tis time we got back and found out what mischief they’ve been into while we were gone.”

  “I expect to find the biscuit-case dismantled and all the ginger nuts reduced to crumbs,” Sarah sighed. “Living with Magdalena spoiled Grey. She may never be content with humble digestives again.”

  “Then I shall have to see to it that a box of lebkuchen and pfeffernusse comes to her every Christmas,” said Johanna with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Oh, I know what she would have to say to that idea,” Nan laughed.

  “And what would that be?” asked Johanna, curiously.

  “Clever bird!” Nan and Sarah answered in chorus.

  They were all still laughing as they parted to catch their cabs.

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