The Whole Art of Detection

by Lyndsay Faye

  “When I first heard of Miss Eva, I thought her biography the fancy of some marvelous antique raconteur, but you see, all this had a perfectly logical explanation,” Miss Cooke impressed upon us.

  “She was cursed with a violent aversion to sunlight,” Mr. Slaymaker explained. “From the moment her parents discovered the illness, they put every possible precaution in place to ensure her safety, essentially imprisoning her—to no avail in the end, I fear. It’s a tragic account. Eva Rayment died a maid of twenty after having suffered a fall from her horse during a very early morning ride. By the time help reached her after the day had broken, the burns were so severe that nothing could be done.”

  “Sun poisoning,” said I, when a skeptical sliver of Holmes’s gaze flicked in my direction. “A rare enough allergy, and a deadly enough affliction in the severest cases, though most outbreaks of accidental exposure can be ameliorated through application of Saint-John’s-wort poultice or lemon oil to reduce swelling. Extraordinary. I know of its existence, but I’ve never encountered a patient suffering from the syndrome. All are highly reclusive, and the most sensitive often die from some similar misadventure at a young age.”

  “But you will meet one, Dr. Watson!” exclaimed Miss Cooke. “You will when you accompany us to Bournemouth for the summoning, for she haunts her former home, and I am like her twin come back from the grave, Harold showed me, and when the photochemical process is—”

  “A little slower,” Holmes said with a palm raised, “and with better sense.”

  Swallowing, she nodded, fair curls all aquiver as Mr. Slaymaker cast her an indulgent glance. “A painting of Eva Rayment hangs in the hall of one of the only habitable wings of the estate. You have no cause to credit me until you’ve seen it for yourselves, but it’s like looking into a mirror with my face staring back! Harold took me to make a comparative study, and oh. The likeness—”

  “How long had you been acquainted with Mr. Slaymaker at that time, Miss Cooke?”

  “How long? I believe it must have been about a fortnight.”

  Holmes did not bother to hide a frown. “Indeed. Rather a grotesque outing, but between Mr. Slaymaker’s scientific exploits and the active interests of his immediate family, you must have heard plentiful tales of the supernatural by that time.”

  “Oh, I’ve never met Harold’s family, Mr. Holmes.”

  “No?” my friend said, his languid yet powerful focus aimed square at Mr. Slaymaker.

  “Estrangement is always painful, but they are carnival barkers and shell game enthusiasts,” the fellow answered, spreading his hands wide. “I am a scientist. We are divided upon the subject, I fear. Resentment upon their side, disapproval upon mine.”

  Holmes turned his attention back to the lady. “You say that you resemble the late Miss Eva?”

  “Uncannily,” she returned with pride. “She walks along the edges of the forests and the seashore often, lamenting that she died without ever having loved. Many of the locals have seen her.”

  “And have you?” Holmes inquired blandly.

  “I have sometimes thought so, when the moon was full. Harold, though, always says that I must trust only in reproducible effects, and I always become so flustered when I fancy I really have glimpsed her that I can never swear so to his professional satisfaction. It is a failing I’m attempting to remedy.” She blushed.

  “You did not grow up in Bournemouth, Miss Cooke.” My friend failed to phrase this as a question.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because if the likeness is truly so uncanny, and the legend so widespread, someone would have compared you to Eva Rayment long before Mr. Slaymaker here.”

  “Oh, I see! To think I already know how clever you are, and still questioned you. Forgive me. Yes, my kin live to the west, in Wareham, but I relocated to Bournemouth after being engaged as a typist for Mr. Tiberius Clark, who runs a local law office there. He didn’t want a London girl, and I needed the position badly, Mr. Holmes, in order to help support my immediate family. My parents are not well. . . . My aunt assists with the housekeeping, and my mother’s condition is poorly enough that my sister may as well be a full-time nurse. I was so lonesome there at first, away from them, but very soon after my arrival I encountered Harold down on the promenade.” She beamed at him. “After that glad occasion, I never felt solitary and neglected again. We have been very happy together.”

  “She does me tremendous honor to say so,” Mr. Slaymaker returned, kissing her hand.

  “Conversely you, Mr. Slaymaker, are a native,” Holmes surmised. “Though your accents are very similar, as I said, so strong a resemblance to a famous local legend could not have eluded Miss Cooke had she been raised there, whereas you revealed the likeness to her within two weeks’ acquaintance.”

  “You are perfectly correct, Mr. Holmes, and I must make a confession to you: the tale has long held a strange fascination for me.”

  “Ah. What is its connection to your chemical researches, then?”

  “There we hit upon the crux of the matter! I have been devising a method by which ghosts that exist on a plane invisible to us might be compelled to manifest themselves. Countless scholars have postulated that spirits linger in the astral realm owing to lack of completion—be it a regret, an act of vengeance unfinished, a lost love, or in Miss Eva’s case, a sad dearth of true fulfillment in the world while living. Leaving all of that aside, however, I am after much harder data. Granted, there is an emotional variable to my work, a psychic energy if you will, but my studies mainly revolve around particular spectrums of light.”

  “Harold is a genius,” Miss Cooke averred.

  “Constance, pray don’t unduly flatter me, or they shall think us all bluster and no substance,” Mr. Slaymaker admonished her somewhat tersely.

  I already found myself recoiling from the praise this tender creature was heaping upon a man whose theories seemed to me so much chaff in the wind, but I positively dreaded the moment when Holmes would disabuse their treasured illusions and throw them both out on their ears. However, I had again misjudged him, for he leaned forward with a welcoming eye and his elbows resting upon his knees.

  “Describe for me, Miss Cooke, the methods Mr. Slaymaker employs,” Holmes requested.

  Rising slowly, she advanced to the fireplace and then turned to face the room.

  “I dress in a costume of the last century, a pale chemise lined with silver with a white sleeveless robe—every detail perfect, every thread exact.” She glanced from one to the other of us, scarce able to contain her excitement. “It is always the full moon when we attempt contact, for the light is best then for Harold’s methods, and in any case, it is such a spiritual time, don’t you agree? I walk the paths along the edges of the forest,” and here she stepped gracefully forward; “and when I reach a clearing, I cease moving and simply bathe myself in light.”

  Miss Cooke stopped, eyes closed as if in rapture, and held her palms open at her sides in the middle of our sitting room. Mr. Slaymaker looked rapt, I disbelieving, while Holmes’s brows dived toward his superior nose as if he were growing unaccountably angry. I could not fathom why he had allowed the charade to continue for so long—he certainly expected no otherworldly revelation, and surely he had determined very quickly that Miss Cooke believed every nonsensical word she was telling us. My friend and I both have threadbare patience where villains are concerned; but whimsical fools are another matter entirely.

  “I remain motionless for long periods, hoping that Eva Rayment will see me—will see herself as she could have been, flooded in illumination which cannot harm her,” Miss Cooke whispered with her eyes peacefully shut. “Oh, it is so difficult to remain calm at such moments, but Harold has told me that spirits see our world only poorly, and that we must be still. In the meanwhile, he produces light from the dim of the woods, light of a spectrum to appeal to her, and often I sense a . . . a presenc
e lingering at the edges of my closed lids. I can practically feel the glow of her, as I have mentioned, though thus far she has never spoken to us. But she will!” the young lady cried, opening her eyes and clasping her small hands together. “The full moon may be insufficiently powerful, but when it coincides with Winter Solstice, as it will on the twenty-first, Mr. Holmes—oh, won’t you come?”

  And here, I again supposed, all would come crashing to a spectacular halt, for traveling from London to Bournemouth to witness a ludicrous scientific charade would prove distasteful enough to my methodical-minded friend as to cause physical pain. Meanwhile Sherlock Holmes rose, walked to his desk, and drew out his appointment book.

  “December the twenty-first it is,” he announced with a dazzling smile. “We shall be very pleased to meet you at Bournemouth. By the way, Miss Cooke, did Mr. Slaymaker here assist you in any way with your original letter?”

  “Oh! You know so much, Mr. Holmes, quite as much as Harold here, and I must cease being so surprised at it. Why, he was paying a call on me when I wrote to you, and I asked to borrow his pen, for it works so nicely, but the sentiments were entirely my own, I assure you,” she replied.

  “I have not the slightest doubt of it. And now, as we’ve other pressing matters to attend to, I will wish you both an agreeable afternoon. You may expect us in Bournemouth on the twenty-first without fail.”

  When our guests had departed, I turned to Holmes in open astonishment.

  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” he said before I had managed to form a question.

  “But not by their summoning!” I exclaimed.

  “No indeed,” he concurred, gliding into his bedroom and emphatically shutting the door behind him.

  Bournemouth railway station and the entrance to its sloping, well-­maintained pier must have been a merry sight in the summertime, what with the clock tower’s many delicate spires, the low red bathhouses, the buggies for daily rental, and the sun skimming the salt froth that bubbled tenderly against the pale sand of the beach beyond. Had it been July, I’ve no doubt whatsoever I should have been charmed. It was nightfall in December, however, and no matter how cold London may grow, it does not plummet in temperature as does the wind sweeping off the cutting waves of the ocean. My jaw was set against its onslaught, and Sherlock Holmes shot me a significant look as we bypassed unpaved lanes lined with sea grass to rendezvous with our questionably sane clients.

  “You think me frivolous,” he observed, though there was no pique in his tone.

  “My dear Holmes, I have never known you to be so, and do not intend to start now.”

  “Then you think me credulous, which is worse.”

  “Not at all. I may perhaps think you secretive, and close-mouthed, but then I have always thought so; therefore doubtless you are well used to the sensation.”

  “My researches in the past few days have proved most fruitful,” said he insistently. “A final link finishes my chain. Of course I will reveal all to you when the time is right—”

  “Of course,” I agreed drily.

  “—But I have no wish to perjure myself when the possibility remains that I could be mistaken.”

  I knew better than to push him further, and so we walked with a purpose to a rise just above the shoreline, and a yellow-painted pub with a dull grey awning. While a barren enough place during the off season, it did command an enchanting view of the stark winter tides and the slow-spiraling silhouettes of gulls in the desolate distance. Smells of fried fish and spilled ale assaulted my nostrils as we entered the creaky building.

  “Mr. Holmes!” Harold Slaymaker called, jumping up from a low wooden table. Beside him rested a large carpetbag, presumably containing his apparatus. His clever face reflected both gratitude and apprehension, and his sweeping moustache leaped with excitement. “We hardly dared hope that you would really come. Welcome, welcome! Constance, is this not a dream come true?”

  Miss Cooke sat beside her fiancé, wrapped in a long wool cloak beginning to fray at its edges, and her whimsical sprite’s face glowed at the sight of us. “Oh, how splendid! I told you they would keep their word—I could feel it. Now it will be worth it, Harold, you shall see.”

  My opinion regarding whether or not the expedition would prove worthwhile must have been briefly evident upon my features, for Holmes delivered me a meaningful kick below the table just after we seated ourselves. Our clients had finished their modest pints, and Holmes made no overture to arrest the attention of the barman.

  “Miss Cooke, Mr. Slaymaker, the weather is hardly congenial to this sort of trial,” he announced. “Had you not best postpone—”

  “But weather during the Winter Solstice will never be ‘congenial,’ Mr. Holmes,” Miss Cooke chided him sweetly. “Let us brave the elements in the cause of science—after all, I bear the brunt of the work during the event itself, and I am eager to start. You can see for yourself! Oh, do let’s be off.”

  “If you are set on this course, I cannot dissuade you,” Holmes replied. “But you will answer for it.”

  To my pronounced disquiet, he addressed Slaymaker, and in a warning tone which threatened grave consequences. But Slaymaker either did not hear or did not heed, for thirty seconds later we were outdoors, tramping through lip-numbing winter gusts toward a nearby copse, the charming ring of distant trees blasted by the cold and the saline mists of December. In the dimming half-light, they appeared cursed objects rather than merely natural wildlife, though in truth bowed by the elements, not by a centuries-old hex.

  “Holmes, if there is something you are not telling me that could have a direct bearing upon Miss Cooke’s well-being, now is the time to bare your soul, regardless of your flair for the dramatic,” I whispered.

  “Never fear, Watson,” he replied in clipped tones. “She is in no immediate danger.” This reassured me, but I could shake neither my agitation nor the cold which had sunk its talons into my bones.

  When we had reached a narrow path with a good view of the gentle, sandy slope which divided the mournful forest and the beach, Miss Cooke turned to me.

  “Will you be so good as to hold my cloak, sir?” she inquired. “Harold will have his hands quite full producing the necessary light.”

  Reluctantly, I acquiesced. A small garland of flowers adorned her crown, and she wore the archaic clothing she had described to us at Baker Street, pale wrists gleaming brittle as ice shards in the gloom. I could have thought her a portrait study from a sentimental artist’s brush, all fey glimmers and ethereal coiffure. Miss Cooke wasted not a moment, but walked slowly toward the copse, adopting the same reverent posture she had used when enacting the scene at Baker Street.

  “What a vision she is,” Slaymaker exclaimed softly. “If this doesn’t summon the Lightless Maiden, my researches must be reevaluated comprehensively. No man of my devotion to pure logic can possibly wish for luck at such a time, and yet I find I can’t help myself. Excuse me, gentlemen, but I will be only a dozen yards or so off—the powder I employ to reveal any spirits present is extremely delicate.”

  I shall never forget it. There stood Holmes and myself, arms folded into our breasts and necks tucked into thick scarves, watching the lady slowly advance upon the trees. To our right hovered Harold Slaymaker, readying what looked to me like a flat pan and a simple flash charge. The moon by now shone in earnest, painting the crests of the waves as white as Miss Cooke’s chemise, as white as the curve of her shoulder where the robe had slipped, and it shone full upon her when she suddenly reached up and began to unfasten the locks of her hair.

  Ivory curls billowing, Constance Cooke neared the tree line. Slowly, almost mesmerically, she pivoted, turning her palms upward as if she were an Egyptian queen worshipping the sun thousands of years in the past. Several chemical flashes went off in our periphery and we perceived that Harold Slaymaker was illuminating the scene in brilliant punctuation
s. I sensed my friend stiffen beside me, and indeed I knew not what to make of such a seemingly fruitless tableau. I knew only that Constance Cooke’s tiny features and her wide cobalt eyes, grey now in the moonlight, were beautiful, and that she must have been suffering terribly from the cold.

  “Enough of this travesty,” Holmes snapped, turning upon his heel.

  Hastening after him, entirely confounded, I paused when I heard Slaymaker’s shout from behind us. I glanced back to see Miss Cooke—no longer an apparition, merely a disappointed girl—now standing on the sand path, marking our departure with dismay. My friend never hesitated, however, abandoning the scene as if fleeing blindly might prevent his transformation into a pillar of salt.

  “Holmes, please,” I urged him. Gaining no reply, I gripped his elbow. “Is that poor young woman at risk? If there is a crime in contemplation—”

  “No crime in the smallest,” he snarled, “save for the crime of being an utterly callous creature humanity at large would be well rid of.”

  “Wait, but,” I stammered, “you cannot mean that Miss Cooke—”

  “Harold Slaymaker is a disgrace to the species.” Holmes cast a ­minute glance at my bad leg and then continued at a much more measured speed toward the train station. “I can tell you without fear of hyperbole, Watson, I dearly wish that were a punishable crime. As it happens, however, all we gain is confirmation of what I suspected from the first—that I can do less than I would like to. I will do something, though. You may take me at my word that he will pay. Apologies for dragging you out on such a night, but I had to be certain of my facts. Shall I find a serviceable inn, or are you hale enough for us to cart ourselves back to London?”

  “Well, certainly—I’m no more frozen than you are and considerably less so than Miss Cooke. But Holmes, what are we to do?”

  “We are to return to our fireplace, my dear fellow, and hot toddies, and stimulating conversation, and every good thing two gentlemen require when their daily toil is at an end. And tomorrow,” he added on a growl, “I shall do several other things. They will give me, I can say with complete confidence, enormous pleasure in the execution.”