Sherlock Holmes and the Dance of the Tiger (19 page)

She hoped she might do so before she was eliminated—by man or beast, neither would surprise her.
 
But there was no way to get word to Sherlock.
 
She didn’t know where he was staying.
 
And John Watson was dining with Miss Janvier.

“Such a magnificent animal in such a small space,” she murmured with a sigh, admiring Major’s orange fur from a distance after pushing the meat into his cage.

“You deserve so much better,” she added in a whisper.
 
Despite her fears, she felt sorry for the animal and felt the cat’s anger to be legitimate.

“ROAR!”

Still, she did not wish to be shredded with that same anger.
 
As much as she hated the idea of leaving Sherlock Holmes’ employ—at the moment she loved the job and hated the man—she was not willing to sacrifice her life for the honor.
 

Or was it loved the man and hated the job?
 
She didn’t know anymore.
 
But she was certain she hated something.

After leaving her delightful meetings with each Sherlock and Veronika, Mirabella had first washed herself followed by washing her satin high heels and her outfit (it was, as yet, unknown if they were ruined).
 
She had then done what she should have done to begin with: put on some serviceable shoes and warmer clothes.
 
Sherlock had been in such a dreadful hurry to speak with her that she had not changed before following his summons.

Mirabella pursed her lips as she thought of Sherlock.
 
She had never met a person with less patience for anything outside of his own agenda.
 

“Yes, yes, I am so sorry to keep you waiting!”
 
she apologized to all the tigers.
 
“I know that you expect to be fed immediately after the performance, but I was with someone with an even louder roar than you!”

RRROOOWAH!!!!

Strange that Sherlock Holmes could have the patience of a saint for a task which might drive anyone else to jump off the London Tower and yet be feverishly intolerant towards anyone who did not share his perceptions and was not on his time schedule.

Mirabella felt a twang of guilt for her own part in Sherlock’s annoyance.
 
If the truth be told, she was not doing that which she was hired to do.
 
As yet, he wasn’t aware that she had learned anything of significance.

Just as Dr. Watson had been instructed to pay close attention to Joëlle Janvier.
 
It was clear that Dr. John Watson had that covered in spades.
 

Evangeline roared, impatient for her dinner.

“Believe me, I feel the same way,” she murmured to the rarest of all the tigers, the beautiful golden, feeling a sudden kinship.
 

Mirabella felt her stomach growling with hunger, hoping to someday purchase something greasy, salty, and fatty from the food stand in the park set up for the circus employees.
 
She placed the meat in Evangeline’s cage on a stick.

It was the height of torture to know that the ever-so handsome and debonair Dr. John Watson was gallivanting about with a woman-of-the-world:
 
a beautiful and
experienced
woman whom she could never hope to compete with.

Did she wish to be like Joëlle Janvier?
 
Ravishing and bewitching, desired by men?
 

Of course I do!
 
Well, not all men.
 
Just one in particular.

She sighed.
 
John Watson.
 
So nice.
 
So uncomplicated.
 
So
handsome
.

Mirabella sighed.
 
The mysteries of attraction went far beyond appearance.
 
Except where Dr. John Watson was concerned—who was far and away the most beautiful man she had ever beheld.
 

“Evangeline!
 
You were resplendent tonight in the ring!”
 
Mirabella returned to admire the gorgeous golden.

“Rajah, you were the best of all the tigers tonight, you will receive an extra treat.
 
You are a perfect gentleman.”
 
She sighed, a picture of the handsome John Watson flashing before her eyes, wining and dining the beautiful Miss Janvier.
 
“Unlike most men!”

As she contemplated the lovely time everyone else in her entourage was having, the difference in their circumstances was glaring.
 
No doubt Sherlock was staying in a local hotel with a
private
toilet and
hot
running water while she slept in a tent with the female circus crew and used a public wash basin filled with cold water to hand bathe herself behind a makeshift curtain, as did all the other ladies, the water so cold that the soap never properly dissolved.

And that is the best part of my day.

Grateful she was to have the soap, even a shared bar.
 
It was a fact that Londoners and Parisians were competitive with their scent.
 
And it was no wonder:
 
the smell of soap or the lack therein was a strong indicator of one’s station in life.
 
A bar of ordinary soap was roughly the cost of a good piece of beef, and a lady’s scented bar of soap well beyond that.
 
To obtain water required effort after a long day of labor; how well she knew since she had had to carry a new bucket to the basin after washing her clothes.

Mirabella glanced at the small cage of the magnificent cat torn from her jungle home.
 
Perhaps one wasn’t so afflicted after all.

“We all have our role to play, don’t we?” she asked Pasha, who, with his big golden eyes, almost tempted one to place one’s hand in the cage, so sympathetic was his expression.
 
She murmured to the tiger, “At least I chose my vocation voluntarily.”
 

It was true.
 
She had wanted to do detective work, which was not an occupation that came with luxurious surroundings.
 
One was to observe for long hours in probable discomfort; that was her job, and the purpose was not to provide her with entertainment—or luxury.

Mirabella was well aware of these facts.
 
But Sherlock bloody Holmes should at least feel something if she were to die!
 
Was that asking too much?
 
Particularly when she was willing to sacrifice everything to perform well
for him
.

“Good Zamba!”
 
She placed the meat in the cage with a stick and then backed up, even though she was a decent two feet away and there were bars between them.

And why?
 
Why am I willing to do so much for Sherlock?

“Don’t eat so fast, Prince!
 
You’ll give yourself indigestion.”
 
His golden fur glistened in the light.
 

Rip! Shred!
 
Well, that was time well spent, teaching dining etiquette to a hungry tiger.

“He is magnificent animal, nicht?” she heard a voice behind her ask.
 
“You see Evangeline, in small house.
 
She is of large size for female.”

Mirabella turned suddenly to see a girl covered almost entirely in bandages with crutches under her arms.

Angels above!
 
Mirabella stared at her visitor stupefied, unable to reply.

“I saw you in show today—you looked frightened,” the mummy girl continued in a shy voice.
 
“You must come to love them.”

“How were you injured?” asked Mirabella abruptly, finding her voice somehow.
 
It sounded so rude, but the words seemed to erupt from her mouth.

“It was mine fault.
 
I was with tigers when—”

“Heaven save us all!”
 
Mirabella reached out to brace herself, the sight of the bandages and crutches dissolving what little remaining courage she possessed.
 
“The tigers did that to you?”

“It was my fault.
 
I lost my footing in a muddy arena, and it startled tigers when I fell.”

“H-h-how is that
your
fault?” Mirabella asked, remembering how recently she herself had had such a fall.

“It is their instinct to attack when you run or become like prey.
 
There can be no sudden movements, you see.”

Gasp!
 
“They attacked because you fell?”
 
Mirabella repeated, wrapping her arms around her waist, thinking of the high-heeled shoes she was required to wear which were so difficult to walk in.
 

“Ja.
 
They go in for kill when they see one who is weak.
 
It is instinct.”
 
Mummy Girl nodded her head.
 
“So don’t trip and you will be fine.”

Mirabella felt her head spinning.
 
“Even as the presenter, I thought I was merely supposed to stand about and look pretty, maybe crack the whip about.
 
I thought Mr. Afanasy took care of the tigers.”

“That is true.
 
All you must do is not fall.”
 
The girl moved forward, waving her right crutch in a circle, adding, “And do not look like prey.”

Mirabella felt herself hyperventilating as she clutched her throat with her hands.

“Do not worry.
 
You have only to be presenter.
 
I want to be trainer.”

“Whyever would you wish to do that, Miss?”
 
Mirabella exclaimed, her terror momentarily displaced by shock.
 
Have you lost your mind as well as your body?
 
Mirabella thought the wise course would be to run from the circus and to take the first boat for London.

“Ich liebe sie,” the girl replied tenderly.
 
I love them
.

“After they did . . . this . . . to you?” Mirabella motioned to the girl’s body, entirely covered in bandages.

“Of course.
 
They do what they are made to do.”
 
Mirabella thought of the singularly disturbing Sherlock Holmes, doing precisely what he was made to do—solving crime.
 
The world’s first consulting detective.
 
If Sherlock were any less annoying that he was, he would not be
the best
.
 
The mummy girl added, “And usually—they do whatever I ask them to do—even though they don’t wish it.
 
The tigers they are my friends.”

“Who are you?” Mirabella asked abruptly.
 
She did not wish to be impolite, but she had never before talked to a girl covered in bandages bearing tidings of her imminent death.
 

“Ashanti Van Horn.”
 
Somehow the mummy girl’s strange accent was comforting in that it was distracting Mirabella from the fatal prophecy.
 
The girl spoke English but as if her native language were something close to German.

“And what is your name?” Ashanti asked.

“Mirabella.”
 
But you can call me ‘Dead Girl’.

“Is your accent . . . German?”
 
Mirabella asked.

“Dutch,” she replied.
 
“But I know a little German.”

“And you work in the circus?”
 
Studying the poor girl, even through the bandages Mirabella could tell that her guest was tall and muscular, with an athletic build.
 
Her bone structure was slim but shapely and her legs were unusually long like her own.
 
Standing out in an appearance which was surprising in every way was her visitor’s puffy lips.
 
Possibly the girl’s mouth was accentuated because the mummy girl was covered in bandages and it was one of the few parts of her body visible.
 
Or possibly she was swollen from head to toe and her lips were no exception.

“I will never leave circus,” the girl murmured, moving towards Pasha’s cage.
 

Oh, you may leave quite suddenly
, Mirabella reflected.
 
But not in the way you imagine
.

Pasha began pawing at the cage.
 
Ashanti put her face very close to the cage and the tiger licked her bandaged cheek.

“Stand back!”
 
Mirabella commanded in a whisper through gritted teeth.
 
“You shouldn’t get that close!”
 
Clearly the girl had no concept of danger, had lost her mind, and was, in all likelihood, insane.

The mummy girl put her hand next to the cage—which one was never to do!—and Pasha licked her hand.

“You must nicht be afraid.
 
Your fear they can see.”

“The blind in Siberia can see my fear,” Mirabella murmured.

“They’re so big.”
 
The mummy girl said, stating the obvious.
 
“Even when they love you and play with you, can hurt you without meaning to.
 
You know damage a ten-pound housecat can do.
 
Pasha, he is Bengal tiger and weighs four hundred pounds.”

“That makes me feel a great deal better.”
 
Mirabella swallowed.

“They’re
tigers
,” Ashanti giggled, which was a strange sound emanating from a mummy just risen from the dead.
 
“Look at tiny cage.
 
In wild tigers are most territorial and roam the large spaces.
 
A cage would make any creature miserable, but it inflicts particular suffering on tiger.”

Mirabella looked at Pasha’s huge head, gazing lovingly at Ashanti.
 

She was coo-ing at a wild beast
.
 
Such a bizarre sight.
 
Particularly since one moment ago the girl had been shy and cautious in front of a harmless female laboratory assistant.
 
How odd that the girl should feel more comfortable with the ferocious beast who had attacked her than with a human being.