Remember, Remember: a Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery

by Anna Elliott

  In fact, nothing whatsoever happened, except that I was besieged with requests to dance from both young men and men old enough to be my grandfather.

  The after supper set of dances saw me fending off the advances of a black-mustached Frenchman who kept ogling me through his monocle and complimenting me on the color of my eyes.

  They are so very green, chère mademoiselle. They make me think of the dewy green grass on a halcyon summer’s day. Of priceless emeralds. Of the clear sea, near my home in—

  I was tempted to let him keep going—mostly out of morbid curiosity to see whether he would eventually run out of extravagant compliments. But his breath was atrocious, he kept stepping on my feet—and I was horribly aware of the hour having just struck eleven o’clock.

  One hour left. One hour until we evacuated the museum and gave up hope of proving Jack’s innocence—or until violence struck, and an attempt was made on the police commissioner’s life.

  “Excuse me, monsieur.” I curtsied briefly. “This has been delightful, but I am afraid that I must go to—”

  My mind drew a blank, so I murmured something unintelligible and turned away.

  The orchestra was playing loudly enough that it would be difficult for him to hear me in any case.

  I edged my way around the ballroom, avoiding stately society matrons and slightly tipsy gentlemen who looked as though they might ask me for a dance.

  Under any other circumstances, I might actually have enjoyed an evening such as this one. The chandeliers glowed with light, and the music sparkled; the ensemble played waltzes and schottisches, polkas and quadrilles. On the dance floor, men in black evening wear and ladies in jewel-bright ball gowns spun and twirled in time to the melodies.

  I scanned the crowd, searching for Jack’s dark head or Holmes’s ginger wig. But I could find neither. I had seen them periodically throughout the evening, but somehow or other during my interlude with the amorous Frenchman, I had lost sight of both of them.

  I had yet to see Commissioner Bradford, either, or to be introduced to him—but I assumed that he must be here. To the right of the stage area where the other players and I had been singing, there was a wooden podium, draped in red, blue, and white ribbons.

  Presumably before the end of the evening, the commissioner would stand on that podium and give a speech in which he presented his antique sword to the museum.

  I closed my eyes, willing away the traces of a headache that was beginning to beat at my temples. I devoutly hoped that Holmes and Jack were having better luck than I was.

  As I opened my eyes again, a flicker of movement caught my eye in the doorway to one of the adjoining galleries—which was odd. Now that the dancing had begun, ball guests had stopped milling around the museum and congregated here.

  I turned, in time to see a head of black hair and a white waiter’s jacket vanishing into the shadows beyond the ballroom.

  Jack? I only had time for a glimpse, but it looked like him.

  I stood on tiptoe, trying to get a broad overview of the crowd and see whether I could spy Jack anywhere else in the room. I did spot Holmes this time—he was all the way over on the other side of the reception room, serving champagne to a very stout woman whose gown was encrusted with so many pearls and crystals that she looked rather as though she had been doused in glue and then rolled through a trough of gems.

  More importantly, Holmes was too far away for me to signal or attract his attention. Crossing to him would involve circling the entire dance floor—which would take too much time. Already the man who might have been Jack was entirely out of sight.

  I hesitated for another long moment. I was due to sing again in fifteen minutes. Mr. Harris would doubtless burst a blood vessel if I were not back by then.

  But Jack had promised that he would be with me one way or another, throughout the whole course of the evening. If he had left to go into some other part of the museum, he must have had a good reason for it.

  My pulse quickened, beating all the way out to the tips of my fingers as I moved swiftly to the gallery entrance where the male figure had vanished.

  I hesitated in the doorway, peering into the gloom within. The museum lights had been turned down—probably when the ball had begun—and the gallery was in shadow.

  Display cases loomed up, black in the darkness. Huge statues lined the walls like some sort of demonic stone army.

  I stood uncertainly, unsure of which way I ought to go—then realized that a doorway at the far end of the gallery was partly ajar.

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  Holmes would probably despise that aphorism, too.

  I had been singing the part of Patience most recently, and still wore my dairy-maid’s apron and ruffled muslin gown.

  I gathered up my skirt in one hand and moved swiftly down the gallery, trying to step as softly as I could.

  When I reached the door at the opposite end of the room, I pulled it open, and found that it led to a flight of steps that went downwards.

  At a guess, this was a set of stairs leading down to the basement storage areas, where artifacts and antiquities not on display in the galleries were stored.

  I swallowed. Despite what I had told Jack, I was trying very hard not to simply follow my impulses tonight. The stakes were too high for me to make any errors through lack of care.

  I had also been down in the museum basement before. That particular adventure had ended in a confrontation from which I had barely escaped alive.

  I was carrying my evening bag—the small purse I used to hold my gloves and other odds and ends. I edged my way onto the top stair and then turned, using the bag to wedge open the door so that it would not swing shut behind me.

  The stairwell was entirely dark. I had to proceed through touch alone, keeping one hand on the wall to guide me. Though after I had gone perhaps ten or fifteen steps, I realized that there was a faint glow of light coming from down below.

  I quickened my pace, emerging into one of the storage areas I remembered from my last visit to the museum’s basement floor: row upon row of wooden and metal shelves, all stacked with crates, boxes, and baskets—some labeled, others simply crammed in and caked with what looked like years’ worth of dust.

  A dark-haired man in a white waiter’s coat was just disappearing down the end of one of the aisles.

  “Jack?” I kept my voice low—too low, apparently, for him to hear me, because he didn’t turn or come back into view.

  I ignored the creeping, crawling sensation across the back of my neck.

  The first time I had sung before an audience, I had been terrified before the performance—so petrified that I had nearly been unable to make myself walk out onto the stage.

  My head was crowded with all the possible disasters that might occur, all the ways that the performance might go wrong.

  Maybe it is simply human nature to fear the unknown.

  However, in this case, I knew exactly where I was: in a dusty, crowded storage area beneath The British Museum.

  I knew exactly what awaited me here, too. Jack was—must be—somewhere up ahead.

  I tried to breathe from the bottom of my lungs, the way I had been trained to when I sang. I always found that it calmed me. Although tonight, it was helping less than usual with slowing my galloping heart.

  I slid my hand into the pocket of my skirt, tightening my fingers into a fist—then before I could change my mind, sped down the long aisle of shelves, turned right—

  And came face to face with Frances Ferrars, holding a gun.

  37. TRAPPED

  I stood motionless, afraid even to draw breath as I stared at the barrel of the gun.

  Ferrars’s thin lips curved in a smile. “I knew you’d follow me down here.”

  His voice was the one I remembered: slightly high for a man, and—since he was not bothering to be charming—with cockney undertones.

  “Your father’s not the only one who can put on a wig.”

  A jolt
of shock went through me, moving inch by inch down my spine.

  Ferrars was still wearing the white waiter’s uniform jacket—and the head of dark hair that had made him look like Jack from behind. Though as he spoke, he pulled the wig off, letting it fall carelessly to the ground.

  His own golden-fair curls sprang out, released from their confinement—and I studied his face.

  Jack was handsome, with carved, masculine features and a hard, sometimes dangerous edge.

  Ferrars, on the other hand, was beautiful. There was no other word. His eyes were large and blue, his features so finely drawn that they might almost have belonged to a lady. At first glance, at least, he looked like a painting of a Botticelli angel.

  It was only on second glance that one noticed the shallowness in his blue gaze—the spoiled, petulant set to his mouth.

  I moistened my lips. “Very well. You have gotten me down here—I assume for some purpose. What do you want?”

  A flicker of something like disappointment crossed Ferrars’s gaze. He would probably have enjoyed this far more if I had swooned in proper maidenly fashion, or at the very least shrieked.

  But he recovered, gesturing with the gun.

  “Turn around.”

  “So that you can shoot me in the back? I don’t think so. I would much prefer that if you are going to kill me, you do it face to face.”

  Ferrars’s mouth twisted. “I’m not going to kill you, you stupid cow. Not yet, anyway. I want you to turn around and walk.”

  There was a tightly strung edge to his voice. His brow was beaded with sweat, and his jaw was clenched so hard that I could see a muscle ticking in one cheek.

  There was a limit to how far I could push him before he snapped.

  I held up my hands in a pacifying gesture and turned around. “All right.”

  “Now go straight ahead.”

  On edge or not, he had enough sense not to come close enough to jab the barrel of the pistol against my spine. If he had, I might have tried to get the gun away from him.

  The gun might not have been physically touching me, but I could still feel it, like a weight pressing coldly between my shoulder blades.

  “Move!” Ferrars snapped.

  I quickened my pace, walking past rows of pottery jars and baskets filled with what looked like chips of white marble. My mind was racing, rifling through my available options. But as far as I could see, I had only one truly viable one: to stay quiet, do as Ferrars asked, and wait for any chance that might come my way.

  “That door,” Ferrars said behind me. “Open it.”

  We had come to a plain metal door, set in the wall at the end of the aisle. A brass key was in the lock. My skin prickled at sight of how closely the metal panel fitted its frame. The room inside must be nearly soundproof.

  I pulled on the handle and the door swung silently open. The hinges had been oiled so as to make no sound.

  Light spilled out from a camping lantern hung on a hook on the far wall. The rest of the room was small, windowless, and extremely dirty.

  And sitting slumped against the wall, with his hands bound behind him, sat Jack.

  His head had fallen forward onto his chest, so that for one horrible moment, I thought that he might be unconscious—or worse.

  But then his head lifted at the sound of my footstep in the doorway. His dark eyes met mine.

  “Hello, Trouble.”

  His words came out slightly blurred. His lower lip was bloodied, as though he’d been struck in the jaw.

  I dug my nails hard into my palms, and mentally added another item to the already lengthy list of reasons I had to dislike Frances Ferrars.

  “Are you all right?”

  Jack shrugged—as well as he could, with his arms immobilized behind him. “Might be tempted to stab myself, out of boredom. But otherwise I’m fine.”

  “Get in!” Ferrars shoved me forwards into the room—though when I recovered my balance, he was still in the doorway. Still too far out of my reach to safely try for the gun.

  “Back”—he gestured with the pistol. “Get back against that wall. And don’t try anything,” he added, narrowing his eyes.

  I would not have credited Ferrars with remotely acute powers of observation, but right now it was as though he was reading my mind.

  “Or I’ll shoot yer pet bluebottle over there in the gut.” He waved the gun in Jack’s direction. “I saw a man shot there, once.” Ferrars’s lips pulled in a thoroughly unpleasant smile. “Took him a whole week to die.”

  “What is it you want?” I tried to keep my voice calm, steady, as I moved to do as Ferrars had ordered—standing over against the left hand wall of the narrow little room, the one opposite Jack.

  Now that I had more time to observe, I could see that the room seemed to be a supply room of some kind, or maybe a disused janitor’s closet.

  A bundle of mops and brooms stood propped up in one corner, and an assortment of pails and buckets lay in a haphazard pile next to me.

  It looked as though the janitor had once been in the habit of making tea here, too. There was a low wooden counter that ran along part of the wall above Jack’s head, with a rusty-looking gas ring, a battered tin kettle, and a biscuit tin that, to judge by the droppings around it, had clearly provided meals for several happy mice.

  Only when I was standing safely against the wall, several feet away from the doorway, did Ferrars edge his way into the room.

  I had grappled hand-to-hand with him once before, and succeeded in not only escaping from him, but also knocking him to the ground.

  In a way, it was gratifying that he had gained enough respect for my abilities to be so careful. But it also left me with a disturbingly narrow window of opportunity—particularly with Jack here, bound and immobile.

  How quickly could Ferrars get off a shot in Jack’s direction? Too fast. Too fast for me to risk it.

  “All right.” Ferrars’s voice was still tense. But his gun hand was absolutely steady as he kept the barrel of the pistol aimed at me. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next.”

  I risked just a quick glance across at Jack—but then kept my expression neutral, my gaze fixed on Ferrars’s face.

  “This”—with a flourish, Ferrars stepped aside, revealing a black box with a plunger on top. Wires traveled from it upwards into a vent in the ceiling—“is the detonator for a bomb.”

  I held myself tight in check to keep from recoiling. Not that I had anywhere to go, with my back pressed up against the mortared wall. “A bomb?”

  “That’s right. You press that there”—Ferrars waved a hand at the plunger—“And then—bang!”

  His lips curved again in a smile of genuine pleasure that almost made me shiver.

  I risked another quick glance at Jack. But even if his hands were free, he was too far away to safely make a grab for Ferrars’s gun.

  Jack was watching Ferrars with a completely flat expression, his jaw set.

  “Whom are you planning to blow up?” I asked. Ferrars laughed—a sound like knives scraping across rock. “Not me, luv. You.”

  I felt my eyebrows rocket up. “Me?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Ferrars’s gun hand still remained perfectly steady.

  Drat.

  “You’re going to blow up the police commissioner for us.” He seemed slightly less nervous, now. Calm enough that I could safely push him for more information?

  It did not matter what I thought—I had to risk it. I needed time, above anything else. Time to gain myself and Jack an opportunity to escape. Time for a miracle to occur.

  I swallowed against the dryness in my mouth. “Why would you want to blow up Commissioner Bradford? He seems like a good man.”

  “A good man?” Ferrars’s face twisted in an ugly sneer as he mocked my tone. “He’s a pig. A filthy pig sitting on top of a whole sty of pigs.”

  On the last word, he hauled back, driving a hard kick into Jack’s outstretched leg.

  Jack grunted, but
made no other sound. I bit my tongue and tasted blood.

  I needed time. But not if it came at the cost of getting Jack’s bones broken.

  “I’ve just been upstairs. There aren’t any wires connecting to a bomb in the ballroom.” Holmes, in his guise of waiter, had made a search of the room.

  Ferrars frowned.

  That’s right. Look at me. Pay attention to me. Definitely don’t bother with looking at Jack.

  “’Course there ain’t. The wires down here are just for show,” Ferrars said. “Once the bomb goes off upstairs, everything’ll be blown to smithereens. No one’ll be able to tell that the detonator down here wasn’t connected.”

  My heart dropped. There went any hope I had of getting past Ferrars and yanking out the wires.

  “Why bother with the arrangement down here, then?”

  “Because, like I said, you’re going to blow up the police commissioner for us. Or that’s how it’s going to look.” Ferrars laughed gratingly again. “I’m just waiting for the bomb upstairs to blow. Then I’ll shoot the both of you. He’s already wanted for murder of the fat inspector.” He jerked his head in Jack’s direction. “It’ll look like he shot you, set off the bomb, then killed himself.”

  My heart pounded. “How long?”

  Ferrars shrugged. “Ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes. Ten minutes until Jack was as good as dead—we were both as good as dead—and countless people upstairs died.

  I widened my eyes, trying to look both shocked and frightened. Which was unfortunately all too easy. “Do you mean to say that it was you who killed Inspector Mallows?”

  I held my breath as I waited for Ferrars’s reply. Come along, take the bait. Don’t pass up this opportunity to crow about how clever you are.

  Every second that passed brought us nearer to the bomb exploding. But I also needed to buy us time.