Sherlock Holmes and the Dance of the Tiger (45 page)

“Mrs. Beauclerk never ate any of the chocolates?” Mirabella asked.

“A most fortunate happenchance, as this was what convinced me of Miss Fairbrother’s innocence despite all the similar scenarios,” Sherlock replied.
 
“And the fact that I don’t believe any of the numerous substances in Miss Janvier’s stomach were intended to kill her.”

Sherlock took a small wrapped package out of his suit pocket.
 
“But enough of this, I have a gift for you, Miss Belle.”
 

“Why? . . . What is this for?” she asked suspiciously, looking up from her endeavor.

“You did an excellent job, Miss Belle, and showed great courage.
 
I was very impressed with your devotion to the case.
 
I think . . .”

“Oh, go ahead, Holmes, ask her!” commanded Dr. Watson, popping a mushroom into his mouth.

“I believe you are now, officially, to be an operative on our cases.
 
If you would wish to be?” Sherlock asked, showing far more shyness than he was inclined to show.

“Are you quite serious, Mr. Holmes?”
 
she exclaimed, letting her fork drop.
 
“Oh, I would love that above all else!
 
You’d let me work on the cases?”

“As needed,” Sherlock said.
 
“Of course, you would still need to keep my laboratory in order and cook our meals.”

“Of course!”
 
she agreed, so thrilled that her status had risen and that there would be more cases.

“It is a very dangerous work, Miss Belle, you must be fully aware of this.”

“Oh, please, Mr. Holmes, I believe I have deduced that by now!
 
If I were so stupid that I did not know this, you would not wish to hire me, I am sure.”

“Are you certain you are prepared to risk your life every day, Miss Mirabella?” Watson admonished.
 
“I advise you not to agree to it.”

“Oh, I am!
 
I love this work.
 
Except when I hate it.
 
I would like nothing better than to walk away from this job—but I find I cannot bear to.
 
I always surprise myself with what I am able to do.”
 
She wanted to hug herself.
 
“And will I be receiving an increase in my salary?”

“Absolutely not,” Sherlock replied.

“I thought not.”
 
She giggled.

“You are a bright girl, Miss Belle, and, I believe you to be capable of anything I shall give you.
 
My only concern is that you are too reckless and lack focus.
 
Also, you are much too prone to intruding into my private life, acting as if I am the employee and you the employer.
 
If you can correct those shortcomings, we shall discuss compensation.”

“So there will never be an increase in salary,” she replied softly.

“Yes, of that I am well aware, Miss Belle,” he replied, pushing the package towards her.

She steadied herself in her chair, unaccustomed to any type of praise from the Great Detective.
 
She opened the package, and there before her was a beautifully wrapped bottle of Lorenzy-Palanca's
Nuit d'Arlequin
perfume.
 
“This is terribly expensive.”

“Terribly.”

She wondered if Sherlock and Mycroft had some family money of their own.
 
Though they didn’t lack for anything, they were clearly working men.
 
She knew that Sherlock made a considerable income from boxing alone—and betting on himself.
 
He was also an investor.
 
In addition to his other skills, he was a shrewd financier.
 

And yet, Sherlock made a considerable amount of money, but her guess was that he parted with a great deal of it as well; his expenses were considerable.
 
The informants on his payroll alone must require a bit of blunt.
 
And so far as she could see, Scotland Yard paid him a mere pittance for his consulting work—if at all.

No, it wasn’t about the money for Sherlock:
 
it was about the work
.

She turned the crystal bottle in her hands, glistening in the sunlight, longing to keep it.
 
“Would it be proper for me to accept it?”

“When have you ever been concerned about being proper, Miss Belle?”
 
Sherlock laughed, his grey eyes alight.

“I am a respectable girl,” replied Mirabella, indignant.
 
Though she knew very well that it was completely unsuitable that a single woman should receive should a gift from any man other than her intended.

“Respectable, yes.
 
Proper,
never
.”
 
Sherlock smiled with more warmth than she was accustomed to see on his face.
 
“As it should be.”

Her hands tightened on the crystal jar.

“It is a gift from Mycroft who made the selection at my request, and I fear I could not catch up with him now,” continued Sherlock.
 

Mirabella knew very well that a slow-moving snail could catch up with Mycroft—and certainly Sherlock Holmes could!

She knew also that the gift was from Sherlock.

“Open it,” he commanded.
 
“Name the scent if you will.”

She obeyed, as she was accustomed to do with Sherlock, however she might argue at times.
 
“Gardenia and black current?” she asked after a moment’s reflection.

“Yes, with secondary scents of pink orchid and vanilla,” replied Sherlock.
 
“Do you like it?”

“Oh, it is heavenly.
 
I
do
.”
 
She looked longingly at the bottle, the nicest gift she had ever received, before looking disbelieving into Sherlock’s intense eyes, so focused on her.
 
She found that she liked it though her heart was a-flutter.
 
She hoped she might not fall over in her seat.

“It is a complex scent which may or may not deserve you.
 
But whatever your feelings, you should wear a scent which reflects you, Miss Belle,” he added softly.

“Very nice,” agreed Dr. Watson.
 
“It does seem like Miss Mirabella.”

“Cheers, then!”
 
Sherlock raised his champagne glass.
 
“To our new lady detective!”

“To Miss Mirabella—” Watson chimed in.

Mirabella raised her glass, smiling.
 
She wondered if she had ever been happier than this moment.
 
She was finally a member of the team.
 
She had been fully accepted by Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.
 
She might not be an equal partner, but neither was she a third wheel who could be discarded at a moment’s notice.
 

They believed in her.
 
They trusted her
.
 
She was valued for what she could do; she had a function and a purpose.
 
Her job, though extremely difficult, demanded something of all aspects of her being.
 
She loved having a position which utilized all that she was instead of a small fraction of her abilities.
 

I wish this moment might never end.

“What ho?” murmured Sherlock, his eyes suddenly alighting on a fashionable lady with dark hair only just seated next to the street.
 
A magnificent purple feather protruded from her maroon velvet cap which matched a fitted walking maroon satin suit.

Who is she?
 
Curious, Mirabella turned to look in the direction of Sherlock’s gaze while tipping the rim of her large modish hat so as not to be seen—she was learning
always
to be on the case as Sherlock had taught her.
 
And more importantly, she was enjoying tipping the chic hat, only just purchased from a Parisian milliner with Mycroft’s assistance, so she knew it must be quite the thing.

A slow smile began to form on Sherlock’s lips.
 
The dark-haired beauty turned to smile at Sherlock while chatting amiably with her companions: a man of average appearance in a brown tweed suit, and another woman with strawberry blonde hair wearing lavish sapphires and diamonds, also splendid in a lavender gown.
 
How did such a plain man as that, who looked like a bank examiner and intensely boring, warrant two such ravishing beauties?

Even more disturbing was Sherlock’s reaction.
 
His expression was wistful, and the air was, well . . .
charged
.

The air was always charged when Sherlock was present, but this was different.
 
The electrical field currently was between him and the woman in red.

“Who is the lady in red?” asked Mirabella with only a moment’s hesitation.

“The woman,” Sherlock replied with obvious admiration.

“Yes, I can see it is a woman, but whom?” she asked as cordially as she could muster.
 

“
The
woman,” he repeated himself, not meeting her eyes, as if it were a matter of complete indifference to him whether or not she were there.
 
When only a moment ago he was focused on her, giving her an expensive bottle of perfume as if they were an item.

Which, of course, they were not, but she was not averse to the attention from the great Sherlock Holmes—or the kindness.

That moment was past.
 
Little had she known how short-lived it would be.

John Watson was now truly indignant, slamming his hand on the table as Mirabella would have liked to do.
 
“Holmes, you have been fooled by Miss Adler since the moment you met her!
 
You have never seen her for what she is!”

Mirabella had never before seen Sherlock distracted by anything outside of a case.
 
In astonishment, she studied Miss Adler whom she now recognized from the photograph, a brunette, small and petite, so unlike herself.
 
She was elegantly dressed, with dimples which made her face light up when she smiled.
 
Irresistible
.
 
Mirabella swallowed hard.

“Believe me, I know precisely what Miss Adler is.”
 
Sherlock pursed his lips, as if the knowledge were ambrosia to him.

Detestable!

“I wonder, my dear Holmes, would you consider Miss Janvier and Miss Adler to be of the same cut?” asked Watson in an apparent attempt to bring Sherlock back to this planet.

“Oh not at all,” Holmes replied vaguely, his eyes still glued to the table without attempting to hide that fact.
 
“And—Miss Adler is much more intelligent than Miss Janvier—who was not lacking in intelligence.
 
We never would have caught Miss Adler, she would not have died, and we would very likely all have gone to jail to pay for her crime.”

“Most deserving of our respect and awe, indeed—one who would betray her friends and sacrifice innocents to serve her ends,” muttered Watson.

“I respect nothing more than intelligence,” Sherlock stated simply.

“It is the heart that matters,” said Mirabella.
 
“The brain is only wiring, and combined with the wrong heart will go terribly wrong.”

“The heart more important than the brain?”
 
Sherlock turned to look at her, shaking his head.
 
“I think not.”

“And who is the woman with Miss Adler?
 
And the gentleman?” Mirabella asked, pointing to an auburn-haired bearded man, who was strangely familiar to Mirabella.
 
Where had she seen him?

“Oh, my heavens!
 
It is the man with the strawberries,” she whispered, aghast.
 
She had been so focused on the woman commanding Sherlock’s attentions that she had not fully seen him.

“As I suspected, a gentleman of some renown.
 
The woman, if I’m not mistaken, is a concert violinist,” Sherlock said.”

“Do you recognize the gentleman?” whispered Mirabella.

“Indeed I do.”
 
Sherlock shook his head in contemplation.
 
“Professor Moriarty.”

“The fiend!” exclaimed Watson, standing up in his chair, apparently ready for battle, but Sherlock motioned to the good doctor to return to his seat, which he did begrudgingly.
 
“And if Miss Adler is such a saint, why is she with Moriarty?”

“Oh, I believe it is the other woman who interests Miss Adler, my good doctor, not the professor.”
 
Sherlock took his pipe out of his pocket and began to fill it with tobacco.
 
“It appears, my revered associates, that we have yet another case.”

Sigh
.
 
“And I thought we might rest for a bit, Mr. Holmes,” Mirabella said.

“Rest?
 
Ha! ha!”
 
Sherlock laughed.
 
“We shall rest when we die.”
 
He glanced at the table of three.
 
“Which, from the look of things, might be sooner than we think.”
 
He turned to her.
 
“Are you quite certain you wish to be a detective, Miss Belle?
 
It is a dangerous life, but I have finally reconciled myself to the fact that it is your choice.
 
You are a woman fully grown who will make your own decision, and I clearly have nothing to say to it.”

“I don’t object to being in danger,” she considered, swallowing hard as his words sunk in.
 
“Naturally I would not wish to be, but it comes with the position.
 
Still, isn’t there some puzzle we might unlock which is
safe
?
 
Must we always rush in where fools fear to tread?”

Sherlock returned his gaze to her, a smile forming on his lips, which she found strangely alarming.
 
“Charming girl, you have only just been promoted.
 
You are now a detective, with all the advantages and disadvantages which are associated with the profession.”