Spider Dance (31 page)

“Two large ‘ifs,’ Nell. While I am never one to scorn rightful endowments, I’m far more concerned about the jewels and what religious opinions of a long-dead adventuress would lead to the death of a humble retired priest in New York City this summer.”

“Obviously, he knew something others killed him to keep anyone from finding out.”

“No . . . I’m afraid someone killed him to find out
what
he knew, specifically. I suspect his death was accidental, in that such brutal treatment of one his age had an unexpected result. Not that his tormentor, or tormentors, would have freed him afterward anyway.”

“What difference does it make? His death was horrible beyond imagining. I wish we could go home and forget about it.”

“So do I, Nell.” Irene stood and went to the window overlooking
Broadway. “I can’t believe that in this day and age someone would so abuse an old man, or any human soul. But, then, we had ample evidence in Paris of what still goes on, this globe over, that one would think had been eradicated from the earth with the Huns. That’s why I shall have to let Sherlock Holmes know of this development.”

“I knew it! Any excuse to intrude on his investigation.”

“Our
investigation has intruded for us. And I’m not willing to let Father Hawk’s death go unsolved or unpunished, are you?”

“No, of course not. I merely . . . dislike that man.”

Irene left the window and came to me. “Nell, you are loyal beyond belief, but you must forget the minor role he played in the King of Bohemia’s pursuit of me two years ago. You yourself remained in St. John’s Wood to ‘welcome’ the hunting party after Godfrey and I had made our predawn escape. You yourself reported what the king, Mr. Holmes, and Dr. Watson said. You admit that Mr. Holmes obviously regretted working for the king. By your account, he even rejected a costly jewel in exchange for the portrait of myself I’d left as a memento for the king.”

“Yes, but have you ever thought why he did so, Irene?”

Bemusement was not a common expression with her, but I had evoked it now. “Why, to express his contempt for the king, of course. After all, I’d left my portrait in exchange for the formal photograph of the king and myself posed together, which Willie was so anxious to reclaim. How indiscreet of him to allow me to wear the Crown Jewels, even for a private occasion, when he had never intended to marry me. I’ve seen enough of Mr. Holmes to know that he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

“Irene, he was the fool! He refused a huge emerald-and-gold ring and accepted only your portrait instead!”

She thought for a bit, then wrinkled her nose. “I should have done the same. King Willie has rather Teutonic taste. Emeralds are often flawed and quite fragile and, I think, too gaudy for the well-tailored man, especially an Englishman and a no-nonsense Englishman like Mr. Holmes. I myself
prefer sapphires and rubies, as a matter of fact. Perhaps Mr. Holmes does too.”

“Irene, you are being deliberately obtuse.”

“Thank you, Nell, for implying I have to make an effort to be obtuse.”

She was smiling as she sat beside me and took my hand, a gesture rare between us, perhaps more because of my natural reserve than hers.

“My dear, dear Nell. I know what you fear, and must say that you have been too good a student of the fears instilled in women rather than the freedoms available to them.”

“Women have no freedoms,” I objected without thinking.

“Exactly. Not unless they take them. I learned early that some unknown fairy godmother—perhaps even Lola Montez, who knows?—had bestowed upon me the curse and the blessing of a comely face. I am well aware of the effect it has on people. With strangers it may grant me a wider berth and some small favors. With those I associate with more closely, it has brought me envy from many women, and false regard from many men. It has brought me more tears than smiles, because I have not known whom to trust. As you saw in Bohemia.”

I gazed at her, and swallowed.

“I tell you that if Mr. Holmes holds any special regard for me, it is not because of my face or form. He is simply not a man to be swayed by such surface considerations.”

“He is a man,” I argued.

“He is a man of the mind, first and foremost, and that sort of admiration I will accept gladly. You mustn’t worry, Nell.” She shook my hand with a fond, governesslike admonition I well recognized. “I am not susceptible to admirers, even ones who treasure my brain rather than my beauty. It’s you I worry about.”

“Me?”

“You are susceptible to hasty judgments that spring from fear. It’s not your fault It’s how you were born and bred to be. But, have faith, Nell! The world will not bite you, and if it does, my goodness, you can always bite it back!”

“I can?”

“Indeed, and you have already taken a nip or two out of it on occasion. You must relish the chance to dance near your fears, for that’s how you conquer them.”

“So nothing I can say or do will keep you from bearing the tale of Father Hawks’s identity directly to Sherlock Holmesr?”

“No. It is the right thing, the only thing, to do.”

There was such conviction in her tone, and a mute echo of agreement in my heart, that I argued no more.

On arriving in this country she found that the same terrible
power which had pursued her in Europe . . . held even
here the means to fill the American press with a thousand
anecdotes and rumors. Among other things, she had had
the honor of horsewhipping hundreds of men whom she never
knew, and never saw. But there is one comfort in all these
falsehoods, which is, that these men very likely would have
deserved horsewhipping, if she had only known them
.
—LOLA MONTEZ,
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
, 1858

Irene’s note of that very afternoon was returned by evening.

“Tea at four
P.M.
You know my location.”

I studied the unadorned black penmanship. “No salutation, no polite phrases. It could be a telegram. He didn’t even bother to sign it.”

“I’m sure,” Irene said over my shoulder, “he is more used to telegrams than notes.”

“It doesn’t even indicate if we are to meet him in the hotel dining room or . . . elsewhere.”

“Tea will be served in his rooms. He would not care to have us overheard.”

“What did you say in your note?

She smiled and stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped before her, while she recited like a schoolgirl: “‘Dear Mr. Holmes. Miss Huxleigh and myself have learned some shocking information relating to the Vanderbilt incident that we felt obliged to convey to you at your earliest convenience. Most sincerely yours, Irene Adler Norton.’”

She eyed me. “Was that proper form, Nell?”

“Far too genteel for the likes of a consulting detective. Do we really want to discuss this gruesome news over tea?”

“Mr. Holmes was no doubt thinking that you would be missing that lovely English habit in New York.”

I snorted, rude as such a thing was. Obviously I’d spent too long in America already. “Mr. Holmes would no more think of my entertainment than of the man in the moon’s.”

Irene shrugged. “I did make it plain that you were a party to the meeting.”

“And must we wait until tomorrow afternoon? The matter seems more urgent than that.”

“Mr. Holmes may be attending to urgent matters on other fronts. I imagine he has a far harder task than we do in tracking the past of Lola Montez.”

“How so?” I was unwilling to grant
the
man any quarter.

“We trace but one woman, and a woman who cut an incredibly wide swath through her times and climes. He must unravel the entire Vanderbilt family. The founding father, called the Commodore, though he was no such thing, had twelve children, Nell, ten of whom lived. Can you imagine the next generation, of which Mr. Willie Vanderbilt is the prime heir? And the number of their offspring? Quite a tangle, I’m thinking.”

“Gracious! American millionaires are as zealous about making families as making money, it seems.”

“When I was living in New York years ago, I remember
much public speculation on how the Commodore would divide his millions. He had just died as I left for England and he was lamentably unimaginative about the process.”

“How so?’

“He left the bulk to his eldest surviving son, who did likewise. There was enough that the other offspring did not fare badly, but hard feelings might have resulted. So there’s a surfeit of heirs, some of whom might be disgruntled.”

“Not to mention,” I added,
“unsuspected
heirs of the sort in Madame Restell’s little book. Do we tell Mr. Holmes about that, by the way?”

“No.” Irene snapped out the answer. “I don’t want him delving any further than necessary into that particular part of my own history.”

“But he might be ever so much better than I at deciphering codes and such.”

“Do not play the disingenuous miss with me, Nell. I visit Mr. Holmes from a sense of duty in the matter of the identity of the dead man found on Vanderbilt’s billiard table, not to make his investigation, whatever it is in the larger picture, easier.”

I was well satisfied. The book would stay in my hands, along with its secrets, and along with the possibility of my using it to deflect Pink from prolonging any contact with Quentin Stanhope. It might be Quentin’s duty to “ride herd” on Nellie Bly’s discretion, but it wasn’t mine. Anything I could do to extricate him from her was to the good. One might interpret my desires as selfish and beneath me. Or one might interpret them as assisting a friend in discharging a tiresome obligation that kept him tied to the New World and a bossy, difficult stunt reporter, when he longed to be . . . in the Old World, pursuing life in the mysterious East.

We presented ourselves at the hotel at quarter to four, then made our way by elevator to the floor where Mr. Holmes had rooms.

It was our second visit to his headquarters here in New York, and likewise his second opportunity to serve as host.

I mused on Godfrey’s annoying absence at the opposite side of the world. Surely bucolic Bavaria could not have matters so absorbing that he must remain there for more endless weeks? Then again, I recalled the revolution of 1848, some say caused by La Lola. That resulted in poor King Ludwig abdicating his throne in favor of a son who soon died, leaving his grandson in his place, his decidedly odd grandson. Not that Ludwig himself was not decidedly odd, with his portrait hall of great beauties and his passionate, so-called platonic, two-year association with Lola that nearly cost both of their lives.

“We are here, Nell.”

I was startled to look up and see Irene’s parasol handle poised after rapping on the closed door before us. I dimly remembered the sound.

“Whatever were you daydreaming of?” she asked. “You didn’t even make a fuss about the elevator.”

“Oh, a woman with a past.”

“Not myself, I hope.”

“Not you. You have the most elusive past of anyone I know.”

The door opened suddenly it seemed, filled with far too much of Mr. Sherlock Holmes: tall, dapper in his careless yet precise way, examining us as a hawk would a pair of peahens.