‘She’s supposed to keep a logbook, surely?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the official one,’ Nora told me. ‘But she has a second logbook she keeps herself. No one has ever seen inside it; she takes it home every morning.’
That was odd, I agreed. And there was the fact that she only ever seemed to be here at night. I asked Nora about this.
‘I did ask the Sister once why she wasn’t here during the day,’ Nora said. ‘She said the ward was busy during the day, and she wasn’t needed. But at night-time, she said, things happen, and she needed to be there to see. That’s all she would say.’
It had occurred to me that John was making more of Nora’s worries than he really felt, giving me something to occupy my mind so I wouldn’t be worried about my illness, or my home, or Mr Holmes, but Nora had something else to say.
‘There have been some deaths . . .’ she said, hesitating.
‘I hate to press the point, but again, this is a hospital,’ John said, smiling to take the sting out of his words.
‘I am aware of that,’ she said primly. ‘I am aware people die, even die unexpectedly. But there seems to be a higher than usual proportion of unexpected deaths in this ward: people who weren’t expected to die.’
‘Like that woman the first night I was here,’ I said softly.
She nodded. ‘I try to watch all the time, but often I am called to help in other wards. However, Sister Bey rarely leaves her post. I cannot be certain anything is wrong beyond my own feelings . . .’
‘So this is your idea, John?’ I asked. ‘I fell ill, and you saw an opportunity to place me here, in this ward where nothing is right and people die unexpectedly, in the night?’
‘Ah,’ he said, suddenly aware that what he had done might not have seemed like the best choice, presented like that. ‘I didn’t mean for you to be in danger; I just wanted you to observe, from the point of view of a patient. You know, someone who’s here all the time and talks to the others. I am aware of Nurse Taylor’s suspicions, and I don’t mean to dismiss them, I am merely questioning everything, just as Holmes would. I don’t actually believe any of the deaths were unnatural, otherwise I’d never have put you here . . .’ His voice trailed off as he realized Nora was looking at him, shocked. ‘Maybe I should move you to another ward . . .’
‘Don’t you dare!’ I said quickly. I might have been angry at first, but now I could feel something inside me stirring. Something I’d not felt since Mary and I hunted down the blackmailer, an excitement, a fascination, a sense of being truly, fully alive. ‘I’m staying right here, and watching and listening to everything,’ I insisted.
Nora looked at John, then at me, and seemed to make up her mind. She nodded, said she would see me that evening, and left.
‘Sorry,’ John said, sitting back down on my bed. ‘I didn’t really think.’
‘I’m happy to help,’ I reassured him. ‘It will do me good.’
‘Right,’ he said, still not sure what he had done. Of course, he had no idea what had happened back then. He knew Mary had been hurt, and we had been investigating something together, but she had refused to tell him any more. ‘The most important thing is that you get well, though, so don’t—’
I interrupted him. ‘Do you suspect one of the staff?’ I asked quickly. ‘The patients change all the time, surely.’
‘I don’t suspect anyone!’ he snapped. ‘I’m still not convinced anything is wrong here. I’m doing this out of respect for Nurse Taylor, who incidentally would make a fine doctor. Anyway, yes, patients come and go, but some patients have a recurring illness, and so are in and out of here. They get ill, come into hospital, get better, go home, do whatever they were doing to get ill in the first place again, and end up in hospital again.’
‘Who comes in and out of this ward?’
‘Florence Bryson, Eleanor Langham and Betty Soland. Sarah Malone was here often too.’
Well, that was somewhere to start – though as far as I was concerned, Emma Fordyce and Miranda Logan were the interesting ones on this ward. I disliked Eleanor Langham intensely, but I found no mystery about her as I did about Emma and Miranda. She was just a nasty woman. There might be nothing in John’s mystery, but there was certainly a story with those two.
‘The day staff are coming in,’ he said, standing up. ‘I should go, before someone sees me and puts two and two together.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ I reassured him. ‘I’m not helpless, Nora is here in the evening, Mary visits every day. And I hear Sherlock is somewhere in the building. I can always call for him,’ I joked. As if I would call for help from Mr Holmes! It would be an inexcusable lack of control to show such weakness in front of him.
‘Not at the moment,’ John said. ‘Lestrade’s dragged him off to that Richmond case again.’
‘The house in Richmond?’ I felt suddenly sick. John couldn’t know what had happened there, what I had done there.
‘Just a case Lestrade won’t let go,’ he said, suddenly looking closely at me. ‘A house that burnt down, a man died. Lestrade is convinced it wasn’t accidental. He’s been looking into the owner. He keeps popping up, trying to convince Holmes to look into it too.’
‘I didn’t know,’ I said, suddenly weak. ‘Inspector Lestrade hasn’t visited 221b.’
‘No, he likes to accost Holmes in the street; it’s very annoying. Holmes keeps telling him there’s nothing he can do, but you know what Lestrade is like.’
‘Like a terrier hunting a rat. He never lets go,’ I murmured. This time the rat wasn’t a thief, or a murderer. Well, not the kind of person he normally hunted. This time the person he hunted was just an ordinary woman, keeping a horrific secret, thousands of secrets I had sworn would never be told. This time Lestrade’s prey was right under his nose.
‘Is there anything you want to tell me? You and Mary?’ John asked, peering at me. I looked up at him. He knew something. He wasn’t a genius like Mr Holmes, but he was clever. He must have seen how my face turned white and my hand shook.
‘Not yet,’ I whispered. He nodded, just once, put on his hat and left.
I sat back. If Lestrade was out there, hunting me, maybe I was safer in here in the hospital ward – even where people who were meant to live, died.
SECRETS AND LIES
And so the days passed, melting into one another. Sitting in hospital all day is very boring. Oh, it’s busy enough, with nurses and doctors and visitors rushing back and forth all day, but they never stopped and talked – or if they did, it was in low voices I could never hear. There is a lot of activity, medicine rounds and wound dressings and doctor’s visits, but it’s the same routine, day in, day out. Always the same faces and the same tasks all within the same four walls. I was soon bored beyond comprehension. There were books, but even I could not read all day.
Besides, there was John’s task. I was there to observe. What, though, could I see?
I did not like Eleanor Langham. There was no reason for this, at least not at first, just an instinctive, deep-rooted, instant aversion. She watched, too, and talked. She chatted to the nurses all day about their homes and families and pets. I found her intrusive and irritating – especially when I caught her passing stories about one nurse on to another. She was stirring the pot, to see what rose to the surface. When the two nurses argued, I saw Eleanor smile. She liked the conflict she caused.
On this day, a week after I had arrived, Flo and Emma had their heads together over a newspaper, reading bits of it out to each other.
‘I’m not sure I should read this,’ Flo said. ‘It’s an account of the Phoebe Hogg murder and it’s very bloody.’
‘That’s the best part!’ Emma insisted. ‘I do like a bit of blood. Lots of blood. It’s not a good story unless there’s lots of blood.’
Florence winced a little.
‘Perhaps I should read a good detective story,’ Flo went on. ‘The one about that nice Mr Holmes.’
Involuntarily, I snorted. Nice? Eleanor glan
ced sharply at me, but I ignored her.
‘I’ve always found Mr Holmes to be rather attractive, in those drawings,’ Flo said, rather forlornly. ‘I wonder what he’s like in real life?’ John had only published one book at this time, but another was on its way, and John was preparing the short stories for the Strand. Not to mention Sherlock’s name was turning up more and more in the police reports. People were becoming very curious about him.
Well, he’s not nice, I wanted to say. He’s bad-tempered and careless and demanding. Too thin – and a drug addict! He has a terribly bad opinion about women. He never gives a thought to anyone but himself! And he likes to play tricks and games . . .
And yet, he was the most fascinating man I’d ever met. I would, if ever asked, sacrifice a great deal for him. I felt proud that I was his housekeeper.
Perhaps I could understand, a little, the light in Flo and Emma’s eyes when they spoke of him. Just occasionally, he could be devastatingly charming. Not that I was ever fooled, but Emma Fordyce would have been enchanted. And Flo would have melted . . .
I caught myself smiling at the image, as Eleanor Langham continued to watch me, and I schooled my face to remain still.
‘I like stories about royalty,’ Emma said wistfully. ‘They remind me of myself.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Miranda Logan pause in her writing.
‘You seduced a king?’ Flo asked breathlessly. Emma laughed.
‘Several kings. Kings are easy.’
‘I knew a woman once . . .’ I started to say. ‘She seduced a prince,’ I finished, remembering not to say Irene’s name. Although no one knew she knew Mr Holmes.
But my discretion was in vain. ‘Irene Adler,’ Emma said immediately, her face glowing with reminiscence. ‘Do you mean her? She still writes to me,’ she said, nodding gently at me, enough to say Irene had mentioned me, but Emma wouldn’t tell. ‘I knew her when she was a little girl, in France. Oh, I know she says she was born in New Jersey, and maybe she was. But I knew a skinny, awkward girl with the voice of an angel living on the streets of Paris. I would pay her to sing for me, and with her voice, and my charms, no man could resist me.’
‘She learnt a lot from you,’ I said.
‘There was a lot to learn. If you have to make your living seducing people – and no singer can live on their voice alone – make sure you only seduce the very best. You see, dukes and earls are never quite sure of their place. They need comfort and support, but done very delicately,’ Emma explained. Flo’s eyes widened to the point they almost popped out. ‘But kings,’ Emma continued, confidingly, ‘are in charge of everyone. They know exactly how powerful they are. What they really want is someone to take charge of them. To say no before finally saying yes. It’s very simple, you see.’
Betty had stopped sewing and now she flung her work down on her bed.
‘I don’t think we want to hear details of your disgusting, Godless life!’ Betty snapped.
‘I do,’ I murmured. This was the most fun I’d had since coming here.
‘You’re nothing but a Jezebel, worse!’ Betty spat, shaking with anger. ‘A vile, foul creature that should never have been placed in a ward with decent people! You should be in the stocks rather than in a comfortable bed!’
‘I may be a Jezebel, but at least I don’t make the worst clothes ever worn by a woman!’ Emma said back, grinning. She wasn’t in the least upset by the stream of invective. ‘Honestly, if you want to speak about “vile”, what was that green woollen dress your oldest girl was wearing the other day? You do realize dresses are supposed to fit, not hang there like an empty sack?’
Betty really was remarkably angry. It was astonishing to see.
‘You shouldn’t be here, polluting my girls!’
Ah, of course, her girls, who visited every day, and might be tempted from the path of pure righteousness by this vision of sin, fun and fashionable clothes.
‘Let he who is without sin . . .’ Miranda murmured, though she still had her head down, seeming to be concentrating on the letter she was writing.
‘Sin!’ Betty practically screamed. ‘Don’t you talk to me about sin, you . . . you . . . Catholic!’
To her mind that was almost as big a sin as being a prostitute. Miranda merely looked at her with an expression of mild surprise for a second, then looked away. One of the nurses – who’d all been studiously ignoring the argument – hurried up to calm Betty, who was now extremely agitated.
‘What’s wrong with Catholics?’ Flo asked, surprising everyone. Up until this point she’d been sitting back and thoroughly enjoying the argument.
‘They lie and cheat and kill and say it’s all right, because they can confess and be forgiven. No, I don’t want that!’ Betty said, as the nurse tried to get her to drink some medicine. ‘They keep secrets!’
‘Well, if you want to talk about secrets,’ Eleanor Langham said, ‘what about Mrs Hudson?’
My heart sank. I had wondered when Eleanor would enter the fray, and now it turned out I was her target.
‘She claims not to know Sherlock Holmes, just to share a name with his housekeeper. And yet, first thing this morning, in a most secretive way, before any of us were awake, she was visited by a man who the nurse addressed as Dr Watson!’ Eleanor said triumphantly. ‘Now isn’t that stretching a coincidence? Mrs Hudson being visited by Dr Watson? And not openly where we all can see, but in secret.’
‘It wasn’t in secret,’ I said. ‘He was just early.’
‘Is that true?’ Flo asked breathlessly. ‘Are you actually the Mrs Hudson? And he is the Dr Watson? From the story?’
‘Of course not,’ I told her, but she didn’t believe me. She didn’t seem able to make up her mind whether she was disappointed or excited.
‘Why won’t you tell us? Are you here to spy on us?’ Eleanor demanded.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Miranda Logan snapped. ‘Watson is a very common name. So is Hudson. There are probably a dozen Dr Watsons talking to a dozen Mrs Hudsons at this very moment. Are we to accuse them all of being characters in a story?’
‘As I said, I was a nanny, not a housekeeper,’ I said firmly. ‘And yes, Dr Watson is an old family friend. We were quite amused when we read A Study in Scarlet and realized both of our names appeared in it! But I can assure you, neither of us knows Sherlock Holmes.’
I could only hope that Sherlock would not choose to visit me whilst I was in hospital. Mrs Hudson and Dr Watson were quite ordinary enough to be anyone, but Sherlock Holmes was utterly unmistakable.
But, for now, that seemed to take care of that. Flo sat back, obviously giving up, and Betty had taken her medicine and lay down quietly.
Miranda hadn’t quite finished yet. ‘As for secrets – Mrs Langham, didn’t that nurse tell you of her engagement, and ask you to keep it secret? And didn’t you then tell the Sister? Causing the nurse to be sacked? You know perfectly well a married, or even affianced, woman is not allowed to work here.’
Hot red colour flushed up Eleanor’s cheeks. She had been caught. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The nurse by Betty’s bed stiffened, and turned to look at Eleanor.
‘It was my duty,’ Eleanor insisted uncomfortably.
‘It seems to be your duty to tell a lot of people a lot of things that were told you in confidence,’ Miranda said calmly.
Who was this woman? She had taken control of the argument and the ward in moments. And yet I felt as soon as this crisis passed, she would subside again into her silence.
Eleanor Langham didn’t speak. The colour had faded now and she had gone dead white. The nurse went over and straightened her bed sheets, making the point she would do her duty to this woman, horrible as she was. I suspected the nurses would be silent around Eleanor from now on.
Emma and Flo turned back to talking to each other in low undertones. Miranda looked at me once, nodded, and went back to writing her letter. The argument was over.
‘I have a letter for you,’ a nurse t
old me, handing me a long white envelope. I recognized the large, spidery handwriting: it was from Mr Holmes. What would he make of this place, this particular room, crossed with lines of hate and affection and secrets and contempt?
I know exactly what he would say. He would say it was ripe for murder.
SEEING, NOT OBSERVING
I tore open the letter. It was not the first time I had received a letter from him, but it was the first that was not simply a list of instructions.
Dear Mrs Hudson,
Mrs Watson has informed me that a letter from me to you would be gratefully received at this time, though I can’t think why. However, she is usually right in such petty matters. Therefore, I wish you well, hope you recover soon etc etc, whatever the usual sentiments are in this situation.
Watson has told me something of the reason you were placed in that particular ward. Whilst I approve the action, I cannot approve the reason. ‘A disturbing atmosphere’, ‘unexplained tensions’ – these are not conducive to clear, rational thinking! I understand that as a woman you are prey to such fanciful notions, but you are one of the more intelligent of your gender, and I hope able to rise above supernatural imaginings.
Having said that, however, some of my recent experiences have altered my perception of such fancies. Dartmoor is old, and dark, full of strange noises and shadows. It is littered with the remains of those who believed in a literal devil, and ghostly hounds and the dead rising from the grave. I can see that there, away from gaslight and people, it is easier to believe. Perhaps a certain atmosphere can lend verisimilitude to stories we would otherwise dismiss, and perhaps, conversely, a real danger we cannot see can express itself as something more nebulous.
Therefore, perhaps there is something in it. Perhaps the hound will turn out to be real after all, in one way or another. Both ghost and real hounds bite, after all! So observe. Learn. Watch. Inwardly digest. Take care to note what happens in the background. Remember the tricks of magicians who tempt you to look at one hand whilst they perform the trick with the other. Take care to look into each and every shadow whilst the light is pointed elsewhere.
The Women of Baker Street Page 5
