Irene Adler 08 - Spider Dance

by Carole Nelson Douglas

He finally nodded, and Wilson opened first one, then the other door, gazing anxiously down the hall.

  But no one approached and I was soon on hands and knees, magnifying glass a monocle before my right eye, surveying the hallway stone for any mite of evidence.

  “How often are the floors swept?” I asked.

  From the silence I knew that both men regarded my posture with amazement.

  “I may look as if I’m playing a schoolroom game, gentlemen, but you have no idea how many conclusions may be gathered from the testimony of the trail a pair of shoes or boots may leave on stone and carpeting. I see, for instance, that Mr. Wilson was the first to discover this tragedy when he entered the room before breakfast this morning.”

  “How, sir, would you know that?” he said.

  “Beyond the inequity of the depth in this set of impressions on the carpet, here they are made by shoes with an arch, so only sole and heel show. You, sir,” I noted to the master of the house, “are dressed, but still shod in leather house slippers. These flat, potato-shaped impressions reveal almost the entire foot. Obviously you were urgently summoned here by Mr. Wilson from the breakfast table, where, I also perceive, you enjoyed a finnan haddie in asparagus sauce.”

  “Are you a chef, man, or a detective?” the businessman huffed.

  “That is a very fine-figured smoking jacket, Mr. Vanderbilt, but the paisley can’t conceal the dropped fragments of your final forkful at Mr. Wilson’s obviously urgent summons.

  “Scared the living kidney pie out of me,” Mr. Vanderbilt admitted. “And . . . this.” He glanced at the top of the billiards table with a shudder. “I am a man of industry and a yachtsman, but no hunter or meat dresser. I am lucky that more of my breakfast doesn’t adorn my jacket front.”

  “Indeed. If you gentlemen will remain standing where you are, I’ll complete my examination of the floor. Then you may leave.”

  Mr. Vanderbilt raised an eyebrow at my instructions, but said nothing. I had quickly realized that he was used to heeding domestic directions. I had only to seize the reins and he would go where I led.

  “What disposition do you plan to make of the body when my examination is done?” I asked.

  “No one must know, most particularly my wife. She would wish never to set foot in this house again. It cost three millions six years ago and would cost a million more today.”

  “The body must be removed and an autopsy performed,” I said. “I am not a medical man. And then buried.”

  “Wilson will see to that. I have influence with the authorities, so they will remove the remains discreetly. Fortunately the house is large, with a maze of service areas at the rear. This truly unfortunate fellow will pass out of this house as discreetly as a drunkard from my wife’s dinner party last night.”

  Answered if not satisfied, I bent back to my task, crawling my way around the room’s perimeter in narrowing circles until I came up short on one of the billiard table’s gargantuan legs. One would think I was kowtowing before one of the ancient world’s wonders, the Colossus of Rhodes.

  My labors had given me little more than a pocketful of rye: a few tiny and sere blades of grass tracked in from the nearby park, no doubt.

  I nodded at the master of the house, and a great many more things, as I stood. “I will do the rest alone.”

  Vanderbilt skated on his flat-soled slippers to the door, erasing my tracks as well as his own and Wilson’s, the sizes of which I had paused to record in a pocket notebook.

  “Wilson will wait outside the door until you are done, Mr. Holmes, then escort you to my library, where we will talk. In the meantime I will call those discreet enough to remove the er . . . cadaver.”

  I nodded, or bowed, depending on how the observer wished to take it. Both men left the room and closed the door.

  For a moment I mulled my astounding conclusion: other than the foot marks of Mssrs. Vanderbilt and Wilson, and now my own, there were no other foot tracks in the room. None.

  I glanced at the savaged body on the green felt.

  The feet were bare.

  Ah, now what would Watson title a story on this grisly corpse in the millionaire’s billiard room? An American Conundrum, perhaps, though I feared it would be nothing so tasteful. Perhaps “The Adventure of the Barefoot Corpse?”

  I bent to the second, more repellent stage of my work, wishing my physician friend were here to put the purest mayhem I had ever witnessed—save for the depredations beneath Paris this past spring—into the distancing drone of a medical opinion.

  4

  CLOTHES THAT MAKE THE WOMAN

  When he tried in vain

  To raise Her to His embrace . . .

  She bounded off . . . as she knew

  He could not touch her, so was tolerant

  He had cared totry. . . .

  —ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, “AURORA LEIGH”

  A knock at the hotel suite door surprised me.

  Irene would have used her key. I confess to feeling a bit uneasy about being left alone in a hotel room in New York City, but Irene had insisted that I stay here and “rest,” from what exertion I cannot imagine.

  So I had occupied myself with brushing our travel-weary clothing. The contents of each of our small trunks had been intended to last for ten days. Now it seemed our exile in America was to extend far beyond that.

  The knock sounded again. No doubt it was some emissary from the hotel desk, seeking boots to polish or to perform some other petty service that required being rewarded with the extravagance of an American fifty-cent piece.

  I swung the wide door open, a no of refusal already formed on my lips. It swiftly transformed into an oh of pleasure followed fast by panic.

  Quentin Stanhope stood on the threshold, his hazel eyes merry with the knowledge of what a surprise his presence was.

  “Nell, you look radiant,” he informed me. I could hardly say that this desirable feminine condition was due to a hard hour of sponging and pressing like a ladies’ maid.

  “Come in.” I stepped back, even as I weighed the propriety of inviting a bachelor gentleman into hotel rooms occupied by a spinster lady.

  But then, this was America, and propriety seemed to have been subdued and permanently confined to the cellar as far as Stateside customs went.

  “Irene is out,” I informed him as he set his hat, a soft-crowned affair, on the nearby table.

  “I know. I saw her uptown.”

  “Uptown?”

  “Farther north on Fifth Avenue.”

  “What did she have to say for herself?”

  “Nothing.” He arched an eyebrow toward the sofa.

  “Do sit.” I was less interested in playing hostess than solving why Irene had snubbed Quentin. She had been mightily put out with him a few days earlier for consorting with Nellie Bly at Delmonico’s, but Irene was the last person to hold a grudge. “She said nothing to you?”

  “She didn’t see me.”

  “Were you trying not to be seen?”

  “Oh, no. This is a spy’s holiday for me. I am not known in this country, and have hardly any duties at all. Except, perhaps, accompanying intrepid ladies to Coney Island.”

  “Oh, Quentin, I was not at all intrepid at Coney Island!” I paused, appalled and confused to the point of momentary speechlessness. He immediately sensed my distress.

  “What is it? An unhappy memory of the Ferris wheel?”

  “Ah, no. I was just wondering, that is, I can’t exactly remember, if we had formally agreed to being on informal terms.”

  The twinkle in his eyes was growing wicked. “How so on informal terms?” Distinctly not unhappy memories of our jaunt to Coney Island swept over me.

  “Meeting unchaperoned in hotels, I mean. Of course.”

  “Of course. You are right, Nell. It does seem a . . . significant step.”

  “Apparently we have taken it,” I pointed out with a bit of annoyance.

  He grinned at me, and I suddenly wished for distraction.


  The only thing that occurred to me would involve my being even more intrepid than going on a ferris wheel ride. I would have to use the black beast crouching on a circular end table.

  “May I offer you some refreshment?”

  He immediately glanced at the decanter by the desk.

  ’Tea, I meant”

  “Of course. Tea.”

  I picked up the ignoble instrument and waited for a human voice to acknowledge my bold move. In very little time one did, barking “Yes?”

  I ordered a tea service for two and gladly relinquished hold on the telephone, for only Irene had used it since our arrival ten days before.

  ’Tea.” Quentin leaned back in the sofa and smiled, closing his eyes. “It will feel just like home.”

  “But you call the odd corners of the entire world home these days. Quentin.”

  His eyes opened, rebuking my reminder. “That is where I work. Home is where tea is hot and sweet instead of salty, and the servers are charming English ladies instead of squatting Bedouins.”

  “I thought you liked the nomadic life.”

  “I do, when I want adventure. But when I want comfort . . . there is nothing like a good English tea.”

  “I can’t guarantee the Astor House will come anywhere near that standard, although . . . the cooking here is actually quite agreeable.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Nell, you are learning the first lesson of the Englishman or woman abroad.”

  “And that is?”

  “The English can’t cook.”

  “I don’t agree. And I certainly find the reputation of the French in that regard overrated.”

  He just shook his head.

  “So,” I asked, “what was Irene doing when you saw her and she did not see you? It is so unlike her to be oblivious.”

  “She was leaving the B. Altman’s Department Store.”

  “Ah. No wonder she was distracted. Now that we have resolved to stay on in America, I imagine she has decided to supplement her meager wardrobe. You know how naked Irene feels without a full repertoire of clothing to suit every occasion from walking out in gentleman’s guise to playing the belle of the ball.”

  I only then realized that I had used the word “naked” in a gentleman’s presence. I felt the “radiance” acquired from working escalate into a blush that suffused my whole face.

  Quentin, however, was looking down, studying the highly polished boot-toe on his casually crossed leg. “Forced to leave the stage that was her natural arena, she brings it with her, costumes, props, and all. And sometimes supernumeraries like ourselves, Nell.”

  “Oh, we are not mere supernumeraries,” I said hastily as he looked up at my face again. Surely my crimson tide of embarrassment was ebbing by now. “Rather I would think of us as supporting players.”

  “Well,” he said briskly, “she is playing some part today, for she was wearing an extremely plain gown of modest black.”

  “Not when she left here!”

  He shrugged. “I know, Nell, that her quest in this country was to find her mother, who had apparently abandoned her at a young age. Is she . . . in mourning?”

  “Well, I can’t say. We did visit Green-Wood Cemetery and saw the grave of a woman who could have been Irene’s mother. There is also some question that another dead woman may possibly . . . er, have the honor. But I never thought this quest had affected Irene so deeply that she would resort to wearing mourning!”

  “You and I take knowing our parents for granted.” He rose to answer a knock that had given me another start. “How can we understand what it must be like to grow up having no one to call mother or father? Ah.”

  He admitted a waiter bearing a huge silver tray as if it were made of lace instead of metal. This was deposited on the cloth covering the low table set before the sofa Quentin had taken.

  Quentin saw the waiter to the door and skillfully slipped him a coin for his trouble, something I would never have thought of, and never have managed without attracting great attention to what should have been a subtle gesture. Would I never become a woman of the world? That is what comes of being born a country parson’s daughter. Yet, as Quentin had just pointed out, there was comfort in knowing that, a comfort Irene had never felt.

  He took my hand—another “informality” I was not certain we had agreed to—and led me around the table to sit beside him on the sofa.

  “Mourning,” I repeated, pouring tea and making sure Quentin’s had two lumps of sugar. As I poured a few drops of milk into my cup, I couldn’t help thinking of bitter tears flowing. “I had no idea Irene was so affected by this quest. We really can’t believe she is the daughter of ‘the wickedest woman in New York,’ especially now another candidate has reared her, er, headstone, so to speak.”

  “What do you mean, Nell?” Quentin rose and went to the brandy decanter to pour a bit into his tea.

  Before I could lower my eyebrows, he’d brought the decanter to me. “A bit for flavor?”

  “Will it sweeten the tea?”

  “No, but it may ease your anxiety.” He poured some in without further ado. “I must tell you that Irene looked very unlike a woman in mourning when I saw her. She looked most pleased with herself. In fact, she was rushing along the avenue as if trying to catch a streetcar.”

  “How puzzling. She said nothing to me before she left, only that she had some errands and I must expect surprises.” My first sip made me rear back. “This is far more heady than beer, Quentin.”

  “Brandy is for heroes, the saying goes. And heroines.”

  “Then certainly not for me.” I frowned. “So that is why you came here. You had seen that Irene was out and wanted to know why she was wearing mourning attire.”

  “No. I saw that she was out and, clever agent that I am, surmised that you would be here alone.”

  There came another knock, only this was my heartbeat rapping at the cage of my chest.

  Perversely, I longed for the intrusion of an actual knock on the door. A worldlier woman would have asked why Quentin wanted to visit me privately.

  All I could do was rattle the tea things and exert all my will to keep from clearing my throat.

  “Have I upset you?” he asked.

  “No, but you have pointed out that our being . . . closeted here is somewhat improper.” Suddenly my throat was clear and I found my voice, which seemed to be telling me a thing or two, more than him. “Although that is a bit ridiculous, as Irene would point out were she here. I am hardly a young, marriageable female that must be safeguarded at all times, and never was.”

  “I’m shocked. You mean to say that you are married?”

  “No! Of course not! Never.”

  “You seem quite adamant against the state.” He frowned slightly enough to indicate that he was railing me. “Then you must be about to confess that you are not female. I must confess in turn that I won’t believe you, even were you to don Irene’s walking-out clothes.”

  “Of course I would claim no such thing. One cannot deny one’s gender, lowly as it is.”

  “Then you must have meant that you are not young. If so, I am in desperate straits, for I am older than you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was already in the army when I first saw you and you were a governess so young you seemed on the same footing with your charges.”

  “That was years ago, Quentin. And you were startlingly youthful then too. I only meant that it’s absurd for a spinster of a certain age to feel she must answer to some nameless critic for every step she takes.”

  “You did not take many steps here today, Nell. I called upon you. You merely answered the door. But I’m glad you have concluded that you . . . we . . . no longer need a chaperon.”

  Strange how one can find oneself coming to a brand-new conclusion, a revelation, in fact, by the act of speaking to someone else, and hearing yourself as if for the first time.

  In fact, there was no one left in my life to scandalize . . . my pa
rson father, the ladies of the town, people who passed me in the street and knew me not at all, and never would.

  And Irene was impossible to scandalize.

  I took a deep breath. “I quite agree, Quentin, that we do not require a chaperon. Then why do I feel that one is in order, despite everything?”

  He leaned near, so I saw the lines of his smile etched in white against his sun-darkened complexion.

  “Do you know, Nell, that I take that remark as a compliment?”

  Was I woman, or was I mouse? I begrudged Pink the association with Quentin that events had demanded, but when he appeared here, of his own will, I hardly knew what to do with him.

  “I’m sure you deserve many compliments,” I said, “and from persons far more important than I.”

  “I can think of no such person.”

  Gracious. He had contrived that we sit very close together on the sofa, or somehow our positions had merged.

  My heart was pounding as if a Spanish dancer had suddenly become resident. My face felt hot, my hands cold, my feet numb.

  Quentin’s wonderful hazel eyes were looking deeply into mine, and I was feeling such turbulence of emotions, knowing I had to choose whether to trust him or not, for he could as surely destroy me as delight me.

  As if reading my thoughts, he took my hand.

  “Nell, I ask only one question of you.”

  “That’s odd. I have about a thousand for you.”

  “I ask only if you feel anything for me. Anything at all.”

  “Of course I do. My goodness, you are my onetime charge Allegra’s uncle. I saw you as a very young man off to war, and now, here you are a seasoned agent for the Foreign Office, sent all around the world. I am very proud of you, Quentin, and especially of how you have lived such an adventurous life in frightening times and places, and done such good service for queen and country.”

  “That is the former governess speaking. I had something else in mind.”

  “What could there be but my sincere admiration, and gratituder?”

  “Nell,” he rebuked me.

  “And . . . I do indeed feel a certain . . . camaraderie from dangers we have shared.”

  “Nell.”