The Adventuress: A Novel of Suspense featuring Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  She turned to the young reporter. “Godfrey is a mere barrister, yet he has ferreted out more facts than a fearless correspondent, and in less time. As for truth, who is to determine it after so many years have passed?”

  “We will come with you to see this doctor,” the young man, unabashed, told Godfrey.

  Irene mutely but eloquently beseeched the heavens for deliverance, but there was none. Our party had acquired a pair of babes in the woods.

  We agreed to meet upon the morrow and seek out the elderly physician. Irene, Godfrey and I departed through the ballroom, our progress halted frequently as admirers offered congratulations on Irene’s singing. We finally stood, cloaked, on the palace steps, awaiting our equipage.

  “A most unsatisfactory evening,” I mentioned.

  Irene smiled. “Really? I thought it went rather well. Especially the Schubert.”

  “I meant our investigation, not your singing.”

  “ ‘Our’ investigation did discover Louise and her fiancé.”

  “And now we are burdened with them!”

  “Better than letting them blunder about on their own and run into danger,” Godfrey said, nodding toward the drive as our carriage clattered to a stop.

  “But is it wise—?” I began.

  Godfrey assisted us both into the conveyance. “It may not be wise, but it is necessary,” he said softly. “One fact only did I keep from Louise and her swain. The official records of her father’s death mention the presence of a tattoo.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A DETECTIVE IN TRANSIT

  FROM THE CASE NOTES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Poor old Watson! Here I sit usurping one of his rare privileges, that of recording my investigative adventures for “posterity.”

  Posterity, I fear, will little mark nor long remember the current case, a straightforward matter of a young woman’s apparent murder. As far as Watson knows, I went to Paris as a courtesy to my colleague in its Prefecture of Police, Monsieur le Villard. This promising detective communicated his distress and eagerness for myself to come and take a look in person.

  In fact, I was also eager to preview his translations of my monographs into French, my works’ debut in foreign print. It is perhaps my authorship of various monographs that allows me to tolerate my friend Watson’s literary ambitions and related vanities.

  Watson would take offense at the notion of my jotting down the facts of my own efforts, but his thus-far-unpublished accounts of my cases convince me of the value of recording events as they occur. Of course, my memoirs are far more likely to see print than Watson’s sensationalized versions, but there is no sense in pointing out the obvious to the oblivious. And he means well, as always.

  Watson seldom inquires into my jaunts abroad, recognizing that they often involve heads of state, some of them crowned, and require strict secrecy. The current journey will draw me into such deep waters, though I dare not even hint at these delicate matters other than to say that they involve hemophilia, the succession of an important European duchy and a certain deadly species of camellia.

  “My dear Monsieur Holmes!” M. le Villard had greeted me from the threshold of my hotel parlor on the evening of my arrival. “How kind of you to come so far to assist in this troubling problem of mine.”

  “And how thoughtful of you to have brought the typeset pages of my monographs,” said I.

  The French detective lifted the parcel wrapped in brown paper that had been tucked under his arm. “But how—?”

  “You would not be bringing me a sheaf of musical scores, my dear fellow. Although I play the violin, you could hardly know that, and besides, my repertoire is written on the staffs of my memory, not on paper. May I see them?”

  “But of course! You did not say that you knew French.”

  “Oh, I speak it enough to make myself understood, but not well enough to translate my own writings.”

  I unveiled the printers’ galleys, not failing to notice that they had accompanied my French friend to lunch, where he had enjoyed a filet of sole somewhat overweighted with garlic and had partaken of a rather inferior sauterne in the company of a one-armed bistro-keeper.

  Of the man himself, neat as a monkey and as genial as a poodle, the particulars were as unexceptional as his lunch. He had served in the French Army until requiring retirement for an injured back; he had been born left-handed, but early and diligent correction had changed him to right-handed in all respects save tying his shoes, an exception of mild interest; he was married and had three children, one of whom was deaf. And he was a fair translator, to judge by a glance at the galleys.

  “I am grateful, Monsieur le Villard, for your interest in translating my monographs. They will no doubt prove most instructive to the French detective force.”

  “My pleasure, Monsieur Holmes. I admit to marveling evermore at your range of esoteric knowledge as I labored over the translation. Unfortunately, pure genius is not to be translated.”

  “You underestimate me. I am a man of science and system rather than one prone to bursts of inspiration. That is always translatable.”

  “That is what is so admirable, my dear Monsieur Holmes!—the consistency with which you approach a variety of problems, and with which you obtain results. Yet it cannot all be method; there must be some passion in it.”

  How like the French to find passion even in science. “My friend Dr. Watson would argue with you. He accuses me of a stunning lack of curiosity about my fellow humans’ deepest emotions. He would call my methods bloodless, however successful.”

  “If your methods are successful, then bloodshed may be avoided in many cases; that is a bloodlessness to be desired. And I hope that shall be true of my current case as well.”

  “What is the problem?”

  Le Villard shrugged, taking the seat I indicated. “I am puzzled not so much by the facts of the case as by my own unease regarding it. The enforcement of the law is my passion, hence my enthusiasm for your monographs. I have watched men whom my work has convicted meet Madame Guillotine and have felt no regret. But in this case, I find myself harboring the doubts that afflict the timid. Perhaps I am wrong in accusing the murderess.”

  “A woman who murders always impales men’s consciences upon the double barbs of law and chivalry.”

  “Madame Montpensier is not a strikingly sympathetic figure in any obvious sense. She is not young and beautiful, although the victim was. She is a suspect primarily because she was last seen with her niece in a clandestine meeting alongside a mere behind the house. A misty, dank, forsaken spot, Monsieur Holmes! From its marshy waters was later recovered the missing girl’s bracelet.”

  “But no body?”

  “No.”

  “And you believe—?”

  “I believe that Madame Montpensier is the most likely suspect, a position she reinforces by refusing to talk to the police. We are not ogres.”

  “Assuredly not,” I reassured him before lighting my pipe. In physical appearance, le Villard was a small, neat man with peculiarly barbered whiskers and a scent of Macassar oil about his person. By no stretch of the imagination—which Watson insists that I do not possess— was he reminiscent of an ogre.

  “If the woman in question will not submit to an interview with you,” I said, “will she see myself?”

  He shrugged again. “She is a woman. She may be intrigued by the famous English detective’s interest.”

  I laughed, what Watson no doubt would have described as “a cynical bark of mirth.”

  “My dear le Villard, no murderer is sufficiently intrigued by even the Queen of Spain to wish to unburden himself, or herself, to a pursuer.”

  “She has insisted privately that the girl is not dead.”

  “She has, has she? What are the facts?”

  “Louise Montpensier is an orphan of decent family. For most of her life she has resided with her father’s elder brother, Édouard, and his wife.”

  “Then the aunt is unrelated by blood.”
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  “That is true, and another reason she is a suspect.”

  “How comforting to know that if Watson, say, were to be found throttled, I would be the likeliest suspect because we are unrelated. I propose to you, le Villard, that relationship is always a more plausible motive for murder than not. She is wealthy, this Louise Montpensier?”

  “No. Nor is her uncle.”

  “And the aunt?”

  “She brought some wealth to her husband. The Montpensier family had money once, but the fortune dissipated. The suicide of the girl’s father, Claude, in Monte Carlo, did not help the family finances. But that was years ago.”

  “Since you have asked it, my friend—and have brought me this excellent reading material—I will attempt to see Madame Montpensier, but not in my own guise.”

  “Yes, I have heard that the art of concealment is another you have mastered.”

  “All arts are subservient to science for the detective. You must let me go about this in my own way. Merely give me the address. I will report when my explorations are done.”

  “But I wished to observe your methods.”

  “A good detective moves mysteriously, Inspector le Villard, like a planet in transit across the heavens. The effects, rather than the process, are all that should be seen. I will inform you when I know more.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE ROSE TATTOO

  “A tattoo, sir, indeed the most bizarre tattoo I have ever seen. I remember it well. To find a tattoo upon a gentleman is most unusual. And then the manner of death....

  Dr. Jamac straightened slowly over a Maréchal Niel rose. Our party stood surrounded by rosebushes in full bloom and of dizzying scent. The white stones of Monte Carlo sparkled on the horizon like a low cloud bank. Below us, the sea snapped at a strand of sand and rock. We were high on a headland, in the garden behind a simple cottage.

  But such a garden! Its small environs illustrated why the Beaulieu coast was called La Petite Afrique. Alongside magnificent roses grew miniaturized examples of the tropical vegetation that only this small, sun-seared slice of Western Europe would nurture: gum and calabash trees, banana trees and date palms, mangoes, prickly pears and Indian figs. Dr. Jamac had pointed out each to us. Godfrey’s eyes had narrowed as he surveyed this lush property, estimating what such a desirable location would bring on the current market.

  “This tattoo?” Irene had drawn her sketch of Louise’s defacement from her handbag. The wind whipped at us; she had to use both hands to hold the paper up to the doctor’s faded brown eyes.

  “Like it, Madame. Like it. I cannot say how much. It was many years ago.” He bent to sniff a full-blown beauty too ripe to pick. “The senses dull with time, but even age cannot blunt the perfume of these lovelies.”

  “The dead man was my father,” Louise said suddenly. “We must know the circumstances.”

  The doctor straightened to regard her with as much tender concern as he did his roses. “Who can know the exact circumstances but God, Mademoiselle? I have lived long enough to know that.”

  He was a small man, and shrunken, so he seemed a strangely elderly child among us. Yet we hung on his words, even Irene, who often disdained to take words at face value. This frail man had arrived upon the scene shortly after Claude Montpensier had died.

  Dr. Jamac offered Louise the Maréchal Niel he had plucked. “Have faith, my child.” He turned to a ravishing scarlet variety. Use-rusted shears snapped through a tough stem. Irene graciously accepted the vivid flower he extended. “And hope, Madame.”

  He faced the roses again. I heard the snip of the scissors. When he turned to me, a yellow rose shone buttercup-bright in his palsied hand. “And you, Mademoiselle, charity.”

  The physician’s courtliness instilled an odd virtue in all of us: patience. We smiled at each other and watched him dodder to a stone bench overlooking the sea.

  He laid his shears and straw hat beside him, sighed, then began his story. “I was already old when I attended the body of Claude Montpensier. It was in the early seventies, I think—”

  “Seventy-three.”

  The old man nodded at Godfrey’s prompting. “Dates blur, but certain particulars remain vivid. Emotions never fade, and I was distressed to see such a fine young man dead by his own hand. I am glad I retired soon after; many more have chosen to embrace the rope after the dice disappoint them.”

  “What of the tattoo?” Irene asked.

  “It was here, over the heart. An odd placement.”

  “Fresh?” Godfrey inquired.

  The doctor tilted his snowy head. Freckles lay scattered like sand beneath his thinning locks and flecked his hands and face. “I doubt it. That is what was surprising, beyond the issue of his station in life. A new tattoo has a sheen; this one had dulled to become one with the skin.”

  “And the marks of death?”

  Dr. Jamac glanced at Irene’s intent face. “That is why I gave you the ruddy rose, Madame; you are implacable in the face of opposition, even death. Yes, he bore all of the marks of his suicide. The rope welt around his throat, the broken voice box, the bruises upon his calves and shins where his feet flailed.”

  Louise made a sharp sound and buried her face in her hands.

  “Were there any other signs about the body?”

  “Other, Madame? Only a bruise at the base of the skull, where the knot had pressed during and after death. Some abrasions at the wrists. Perhaps the poor devil had lifted his hands at the last to fight the rope and his starched cuffs had grazed his skin.”

  Irene inhaled deeply of the crimson rose, as if to perfume her thoughts. “Wrists. I was afraid of that. Perhaps, Doctor, his wrists were bound and later released.”

  “Bound? But why? How could he—?”

  “How could he indeed? And there was nothing on his person? No coins, no cards, no personal effects?”

  “Not even tobacco flakes in his pockets, Madame.”

  “Then how did you determine his identity?” I demanded.

  The doctor smiled sadly. “It was a difficulty. His death was reported in the papers, of course, and his description. No one stepped forward. He was about to be buried in a pauper’s grave when a lascar from one of the ships in the harbor visited my office with a torn clipping of the death report and a note identifying the man as Claude Montpensier of Paris. The police there located his brother.”

  “And he still had a pauper’s funeral,” Louise said thickly. “Uncle would not hear of him being brought back to Paris for burial, or of us coming to Monaco to attend his interment.”

  “There was not time, child.” Dr. Jamac stood. “This balmy air does not permit long delay for the dead.”

  “Do you know where he lies?” the American asked.

  The old man shook his head. “No. It was out of my hands. All I have to offer are my memories.”

  “And they are excellent, Doctor.” Irene advanced to take his hand. “I suppose that there was no signature on the note revealing his identity.”

  “None.”

  “And the lascar?”

  “Gone. Surly, filthy sort of fellow. Looked as if he hardly understood English.”

  After parting with the good doctor, we walked through the gardens and around the simple stone cottage to the front, where our open carriage waited to take us down the winding corniche road to Monte Carlo. Even the sun of a Cote d’Azur day could not banish the chill of early, wrongful death that touched each of us.

  We settled in the carriage, looking, I’m sure, like a party of revelers. Louise tucked her rose at her waist, I fastened mine to a lapel, and Irene thrust hers into her hair at her bonnet rim, a gesture of dash and melodrama that suited her perfectly.

  I remember the drive back, with the sun beating down on our hatted heads, the sea’s endless sapphire sparkling on our right and the rough foothills of the coast hunched at our left.

  “Someone cared for him,” Irene said abruptly, turning from gazing at the sea. She smiled at Louise. “Enough to
alert the authorities to his identity. It was good-hearted, but a mistake. Their first mistake. It has not been their last.”

  “Who,” I asked Irene when we had returned to the Hotel de Paris and were sitting in the Nortons’ suite parlor, “who are ‘they’?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  “Of course I don’t. I don’t even know that a ‘they’ exists. Nor do you.”

  “They move in exceeding mysterious ways, it is true, dear Nell. But so does God, and you believe in His existence.”

  “I will not be diverted into theological culs-de-sac. If you do indeed know something about these puzzling events, be so kind as to share your knowledge. Louise’s happiness may rest upon it.”

  “My opinions are still forming.” Irene lay on the chaise longue, onto which she had thrown herself after donning combing gown and house slippers. She was never one to sit about in corsets and full dress if she could escape such confinement.

  She drew a brown Egyptian cigarette from the small table at her side, inserted it into a mother-of-pearl holder she had bought in Paris and lit it with a lucifer, letting the smoke lift like a thin blue veil past her face before she spoke again.

  “ ‘They’ are vague in number. Certainly the men who tattooed Louise, then accosted you and Godfrey on the train, are two of them. So was the lascar beneath Dr. Jamac’s notice fifteen years ago. And Claude Montpensier was one of them.”

  “Claude Montpensier? Irene, you go too far.”

  “Not far enough.” Godfrey entered the room in a smoking jacket of handsome emerald brocade.

  “You approve of this wild surmising, Godfrey?”

  “I approve of almost anything Irene does, wild or tame.”

  “Almost?” she objected. The glitter in her amber-velvet eyes promised even wilder surmising to come. “Not only are Claude Montpensier’s death and the two seamen who accosted his daughter linked, but so is the tattooed sailor we found dead in London years ago, as well as the one we saw more recently in Paris.”