The Bartered Brides (Elemental Masters)

by Mercedes Lackey

  But oh, the boredom. . . .

  “When do you suggest I start?” he asked, and Kelly smiled with satisfaction.

  “Leave ’er be ’til arter luncheon,” she advised. “Gal really is peaked. I thin’ she might fall asleep over the knittin’. An’ we want ’er ’ealthy.”

  “So we do, Mrs. Kelly,” he agreed, and leaned toward her, over his knees. “Now, having been so very helpful, what is it you would like in return?”

  “Oh,” she replied, her eyes bright with greed. “I got a list. You c’n pick one.”

  5

  Nan had the feeling when John Watson sent round a dinner invitation that it was not going to be the good news that he’d discovered the identity, or the origin, of the headless corpse and Lestrade had been successfully placed on the hunt. But, well, she figured that they might as well hear the bad news over a good dinner, and Mrs. Hudson was planning “something special,” according to John’s note. Whatever the news he wanted to give, at least they’d have a lovely dinner and please Mrs. Hudson at the same time, which was always worthwhile. Mrs. Hudson was more than just a “good cook” as Mrs. Horace was. She was an extraordinary cook, and it pained her that Sherlock regarded food as mere fuel and would absentmindedly shovel whatever she gave him into his face without noticing what it was. In fact, she had seen him eat his dinner cold, congealed, and conventionally inedible without even noticing the difference, more often than not. When Mrs. Hudson had a group that appreciated her cooking ability, she loved to show it off.

  The invitation specifically included the birds, which relieved Nan. After the scare with the man in the park, she didn’t want to leave them alone in the flat at night. Mrs. Hudson had fed them in the past, so she could be counted on to supply some lovely fresh veg for Grey and raw meat for Neville.

  When they arrived, John’s sober expression confirmed Nan’s fears. But she was determined to put all that out of her head for as long as it took them to eat what promised to be an excellent meal, and so, it seemed, were John and Mary.

  She couldn’t help but notice that all three of the ladies had worn light-colored summer gowns in the Artistic Reform style, but not white, as if they were trying not to echo the headless girls. Mary Watson wore a blue Liberty of London print, Nan was in light green, and Sarah in pink. Not formal “dinner wear,” but then, all three of them cared far more for comfort than fashion. No one said anything at all until the dishes were cleared away and they had all settled down in the sitting room. And then John brought out the brandy, which did not bode well to Nan’s way of thinking.

  “All right,” she said, when John had poured all around, excepting the birds, of course. “What’s the bad news?”

  John sighed. “Another headless body,” he said reluctantly. “Fundamentally identical to the last one. I didn’t bother to call for you for that reason. My own attempts at discovering anything more were fruitless. The Elementals couldn’t tell me anything other than the general area of the Thames where the body first turned up as far as they are concerned. As you know, they won’t go into the worst of the river, so to them it appeared just outside the heavily contaminated area.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Sarah told him, echoing Nan’s thoughts. She toyed with her glass, a little frown line between her brows.

  Grey uttered a heavy sigh, which at least made them all smile.

  “But that is not why I asked you here,” John continued, after a sip of his brandy. “I know we more or less agreed to help Lestrade but . . . there is a limit to what we can do. And I believe we have reached that limit.” He let that sink in for a moment. “We are none of us, neither singly, nor together, the equal of Sherlock. His kind of deductive reasoning is not our forte, and I will be the very first to admit that. He was an excellent teacher, so we are better than Lestrade at it. We are good, very good. But not that good. And so far, utilizing our strengths has had very little result.”

  “I can’t think of anything we missed,” Nan said, shaking her head. “Which probably means we missed seventy five percent of what Holmes would have seen.”

  “But that’s not all. To be honest with you, with the exception of his self-appointed mission to destroy Moriarty, Holmes always worked for clients. We don’t have a client. No one has commissioned us officially to pursue this.” John raised an eyebrow. “Furthermore, we are not working for Lestrade. And not to put too fine a point upon it, the one person we do work for is Lord Alderscroft. Not Lestrade. Not Scotland Yard. What we should be doing is standing at the ready for Alderscroft’s call. Well, you two should. I should be seeing to my patients.”

  “I see your point,” Sarah replied as Grey bobbed her head. A profound silence descended over all of them, a silence broken only by the street noises from outside, coming in through the open window.

  Nan saw his point, too. In fact, this was something she herself had been wondering about. With all the good will in the world, what on earth use was she to Lestrade, now that they’d spent their budget of “expertise”? If he had someone whose mind he wanted her to read—not that he would believe in such a thing—that would be one thing. But he didn’t have so much as a hint of a suspect yet. Sarah had done what she could—but without a ghost haunting the body, she was as useless as Nan. Sherlock would have known how to effectively use their talents in ways they just couldn’t see. And that was the problem. They couldn’t see how to do more than they already had.

  And of the two Elemental Masters, only John might have been able to get any information, and he’d tried and failed.

  “Well, let’s at least do this logically and make a list of points for helping Lestrade and against,” Mary said into the silence. “I’ll get paper and a pencil.”

  John shook his head as if he thought the effort was futile, but didn’t stop her. When she returned, she had a sheet of writing paper and a book to use as a desk. “Arguments for?” she asked, sitting down.

  “Lestrade clearly needs help,” John said, with a little laugh. “Always has, once a crime traveled out of the realms of his understanding.”

  “Sherlock would say that was not a very long journey,” Nan pointed out.

  And then there was silence again, as they all tried to think of another reason. “Well one reason could be because it’s possible this may be a crime that involves the occult?” Sarah ventured. Grey bobbed her head.

  “It also could just be a madman,” John pointed out. “We’ve got absolutely no evidence that it involves the occult.”

  “I’ll put that down anyway,” Mary replied. “Two bodies, both headless. The heads missing. The bodies both found in the water—and we know running water washes away signs of magic.”

  “But dumping bodies in a sewer to wash into the Thames is a safe way to dispose of them,” John reminded them.

  “I can think of another reason. Where else is Lestrade going to get help, if not from us?” Sarah asked. Mary noted that, and they all sat in silence. Neville quorked, and roused up all his feathers.

  After that, no one seemed able to think of anything else.

  “All right then, arguments against.” Mary had barely spoken the words when Nan spoke up.

  “We’re not the police, and we’re not consulting detectives,” she said firmly.

  “We’ve already given Lestrade all the information we know how to extract,” Sarah put in, though she sounded reluctant.

  Mary sighed. “We properly work for Lord Alderscroft, and by extension, the Crown, not Scotland Yard.”

  “We seem to have far more reasons against helping Lestrade than for,” John observed.

  Mary put the list down on her lap. “I’ll tell you one more, John, and it goes past this particular situation.” She put her hand on his knee, and looked into his eyes with an expression of entreaty. “I am your wife, and I need to consider these things. I am extremely concerned that if we give Lestrade more help than we have, you will become the ‘new Sherlock Holmes,’ and your life will no longer be your own.” She gazed earnest
ly at him. “Sherlock never had a problem saying ‘no.’ You however, have a much softer heart. How can you tend your patients, who rely on you, and do what Alderscroft asks of us, and go haring off every time Lestrade feels timid about a crime? You can do any two together, but not all three.”

  Nan nodded, as did Neville, as John looked as if he was going to make some sort of retort to that. Nan was the one who spoke, knowing that John knew she was blunt, but never unfair. “She’s right, John Watson. You’ve such a soft heart you can never say no. Especially with women. You’ve seen Sherlock turn weeping women away without a qualm, but all a woman has to do is present you with the merest hint of a tear, and you are putty in her hands.”

  Watson looked chagrined. “Am I that—”

  “Yes,” all three of them answered at once.

  He looked from one to the other of them indignantly . . . then the indignation faded, and he sighed. “I hate to admit this . . . but much of my reason for helping Lestrade was that the victims thus far have been young women. And that brings me to my objection.” He looked around at them all again. “I am not so much concerned about the danger of the cases that Sherlock and I solved. I know all three of you, and I know you are brave, skilled, able to defend yourselves, and above all, prudent. What does concern me is the sheer nastiness of some of the cases. The ones I have not written about, because the public would shrink in horror. Some of them I have not even confided to you, my darling.” He glanced over at Mary, who compressed her lips, but nodded. “I was a soldier, and I witnessed many terrible things in Afghanistan, but they pale beside some of the horrors I have dealt with at Holmes’ side. I am not trying to protect you. That would be foolish of me. I am trying to spare you, and if you were all young men, I would be saying the same to them.”

  “I think we are all agreed, then,” Sarah said at last. “We have no business doing Lestrade’s work at this point. We’ve done all we can.”

  “Perhaps Sherlock himself will turn up and give us some information to give him,” Mary said at last. “One would think it is macabre enough to pull him away even from something as pressing as hunting down the last of Moriarty’s minions.”

  John reached for her hand. “I hope you are right, my dear,” he said. “I hope you are right.”

  * * *

  With the birds in their travel boxes, John put the girls into a cab and bade them good night. Nan felt . . . perhaps a little more depressed than just merely “sober” or “subdued.” She knew in her head that they had made the right decision in deciding to let Lestrade know they couldn’t help him anymore, but . . . it felt like giving up. And she hated giving up.

  But what else were they to do? They certainly couldn’t take on every case that Lestrade had difficulties with. And Lestrade knew Sherlock’s methods, he had to. He had certainly listened to Sherlock explain them often enough. And they were at the limit of what they could do for him.

  So why did it feel as if they had abandoned something?

  Because we have. And we should take no shame in that, she told herself. There is no shame in admitting when you are bested.

  Sarah seemed a little depressed over their decision, too. So as they ascended the stairs to their flat, Nan decided that they both needed something to lift their spirits.

  “I think we need a treat,” she said, as Sarah put her key in the lock, and Mrs. Horace peeked out to make sure it was them. “I think we should visit the theater tomorrow night.”

  Mrs. Horace nodded, as Nan glanced down at her. “I agree. You two ’aven’t been out in ages.”

  “But the birds—” Sarah objected.

  “Oh bring down their perches and I’ll let ’em doze in the parlor, ducks, while I mend.” said Mrs. Horace cheerfully. “They’ll be no trouble at night.”

  Mrs. Horace did not ask them why they were suddenly concerned about leaving the birds alone when they never had been before, and Nan was just grateful that she had volunteered to watch them. “Shall we come tell you all about the performance when we come back, then?” she asked instead.

  “That’d be lovely, as long as it’s something cheerful, like Gilbert and Sullivan, or a pretty ballet,” Mrs. Horace replied. “Just not one of those dreary operas where everyone dies.”

  Nan had to laugh at that. “Cheerful it is, then,” she promised.

  When they closed the door behind them, Nan felt a smile coming on. “You’re going to wear the locket and bring along Caro, aren’t you?”

  “You don’t—”

  “Actually I am strongly in favor of this. Unless you have other information for me, she’s been helpful about the spirits in this neighborhood, she did her best to find out about the headless girls, and I think she deserves a treat,” Nan said decidedly, as she took off her hat.

  The transparent form of their resident ghost manifested next to the cold fireplace. “The resident spirits in this neighborhood are all cozy ones,” Caro pointed out. “Sarah has taken care of anyone troubled or troublesome. But thank you for thinking of me! Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know yet. I think we should consult the paper. Of course, we can always have our fun vulgar and go to one of the big music halls,” Nan said, picking up the evening paper from where Mrs. Horace had left it for them and settling down next to Sarah on the couch. Caro leaned over the back of the couch between them as they turned to the advertisements for various theaters.

  Nan could not help thinking how strange, and yet how droll this was, to be perusing the advertisements for theatrical productions with a ghost. And yet, Caro really was a great deal of fun to be around. She had even found a way around the fact that she could not turn pages in a book to read to them in the evening—she had somehow got Neville to do it for her! He would carefully pick up and turn the page with a twist of his head, then quickly run his heavy beak down the crease to make sure it stayed.

  “Well, all the music hall productions look equally enticing to me,” Caro said finally. “And you’d have a lot to tell Mrs. Horace about.”

  “We could arrive and leave when we pleased, too, which is an advantage,” Sarah mused. “There really isn’t much else that we haven’t already seen.”

  “It’s not really theater season,” Nan pointed out. “There are some smaller companies doing plays I don’t much care about, but no ballet and no opera.” She sighed. “I wish Lord A would send us to Blackpool.”

  Sarah cast a startled glance at her, and Caro a quizzical one. “Blackpool! Why on earth?”

  “Because, according to my actor friends from Beatrice’s little gatherings, there’s a great deal going on in holiday season in Blackpool. Not only big music halls, but little halls on the pier, with concert-parties—”

  “What are those?” Sarah demanded.

  “Like music halls, only with much smaller groups. There’s usually one handsome young male dancer and singer, the same for female, most of the group can play instruments, so they can do small concert numbers, there’s generally a comedian and someone who sings ‘serious’ songs, and from there it can be all sorts of acts, a juggler, or an acrobat or two, or even a dog act. Sometimes they’re called ‘pierrot troupes,’” Nan told her triumphantly. “They’re all up and down the seaside. My actor friends pretend that it’s a great comedown to be in one, but secretly they’d much rather be in one of those than starving in the summer.”

  “If I’d had any idea Beatrice’s evenings were that entertaining, I’d have come along,” Sarah said. “I thought it would be all cigarette smoke and ego.”

  “Well, it is, but you do pick up things,” Nan admitted. “Anyway . . . we could go see those, and at night there’s the illuminations. I think Caro would love it.”

  “Oh, I would,” the ghost sighed.

  “Well, in absence of that, I think a music hall is going to be our best venue,” Sarah sighed. “Which means we need to find one that is respectable after dark.”

  Nan laughed. “Why? Don’t you think we can take care of ourselves?”


  She expected Sarah to respond with something like “No, I’m worried about the mess we would make,” or something of the sort. But Sarah said, soberly, “If Moriarty’s men are truly looking for us, a rowdy music hall with ladies of ill fame would be a good place to do away with us.”

  “Bother your logic,” Nan sighed, but nodded. “All right then. The Alhambra. They have very good ballet dancers and nothing could be more respectable.”

  “Lovely. We’ll go tomorrow night. And meanwhile, Caro, perhaps you can tell us the latest ghostly gossip.” Sarah set the paper aside.

  “Nothing you want to hear about,” Caro laughed, then sobered. “I have asked about after your headless victims, but thus far, no one has brought me any information. It’s a bit frustrating, and a great deal like the children’s game of ‘Whispers.’ I have to ask someone who is at the limits of where I can go, who has to ask someone at the limits of where he can go, and so on. And then information will only trickle back, and one has to decide just how much it has been distorted, based on the number of hands the information has passed through.”

  “Except that you’ve gotten nothing, so there is no information to distort,” Nan stated.

  “Alas, yes.”

  Nan glanced over at Sarah. “Then we have absolutely done everything we can, to the limits of our abilities. We have earned a respite from the work, and tomorrow night we shall have it!”

  Caro applauded.

  * * *

  With the birds safely in Mrs. Horace’s care, they caught a hansom cab just after dinner, and directed the driver to go to the Alhambra Music Hall, Caro’s locket safely around Sarah’s neck on a strong steel chain. Once there, they joined the pleasure-seekers that streamed inside, having secured tickets for a very advantageous spot in the first row of the first balcony.