The Detective and the Woman

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THE DETECTIVE AND THE WOMAN

A Novel of Sherlock Holmes

Amy Thomas

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First edition published in 2012

Copyright © 2012 Amy Thomas

The right of Amy Thomas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of MX Publishing, Andrews UK Limited or any of their employees or affiliates.

Originally published in the UK by MX Publishing

335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX

www.mxpublishing.com

Digital version converted and published in 2012 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Cover by Mary Smiecinski

Dedication

For my mother, who told me I could do anything; for my father, who believed it; and for my sister, who gave me the courage to make it happen.

The Beginning

I stared down at the dead face quizzically, wishing I could feel grief. This wish didn’t stem from any guilt on my part, but I thought it would make my next few days easier, days in which I would have to project an appropriate face to the world to keep from raising eyebrows and making my escape less certain. Perhaps the word
escape
is slightly dramatic in retrospect, but at the time, it seemed perfectly reasonable. I digress to assert that I had had nothing to do with putting my husband where his corpse now lay, looking as self-important in repose as it had in life. His death was simply a fortunate tragedy. I’ve always liked paradoxes. Death by heart attack quite often takes the great and good and elderly, but for once it had claimed a man who was young and brutish. Life is so unfair on a regular basis that it seems to save up fairness like a miser saves coins, only to spend it all on grand moments.

I took one last look at my husband’s body and turned toward the door, rearranging my expression to one of subdued sadness. I was glad that in the confusion of the night, I had at least remembered to reach into the recesses of my bureau and take out my one black dress, not a colour I usually favoured. I would put it on now, hoping that the costume would make the role come easier. Emerging from the bedroom, I saw that Dr Park was still hanging about the door, his expression one of assumed sympathy. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of arranging everything, Mrs Norton. You have no need to worry about the remains.’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ I said in a low tone, taking care to break on the last word. The portly physician patted my shoulder and strode off, looking pleased at his usefulness. I sighed in relief. One obstacle down, but how many more? I walked quickly to my bedchamber, nodding sombrely to any of the staff I passed, my eyes downcast. My own maid, Millie, met me at my room. It was obvious she had been weeping, and for the first time, I felt genuine emotion pierce me.

‘It’s quite all right,’ I said to her, my look appropriately counteracting my words. She helped me off with the rumpled gown that had now encased my frame for over 24 hours and into my mourning dress, an outmoded fashion that enshrouded me and made me feel like a boarding school headmistress. All the better, for the moment. I looked at myself in my glass and saw a face haggard from sleeplessness and worry. No matter that the worry had been caused by the dead man, not the dead man’s death—the watching world would see it and pity me.

I dismissed Millie with the command to rest and sat down at my desk.
Dear Barnett
, I wrote,
I need you after all
.

* * *

Sherlock Holmes refilled his pipe for the third time, staring out the window to take in an alley filled with shops so close they seemed to be built atop one another and dotted here and there with south Florida’s ubiquitous palm trees. He found it hard to believe that Fort Myers had been a major military outpost during two American wars. Certainly, the army hadn’t left it with any particular evidence of regard, and residents had helped themselves to bits of the fort until nothing was left except a vague impression that something large had once stood in the middle of the city. Of course, he thought, seen in another light, the fort’s conspicuous absence was evidence of a more peaceful time when trade and expansion predominated instead of entrenchment and strife. But peace was not without its challenges, he was pleased to note. In fact, crime often flourished during such times.

He opened a leather case by his feet and removed Mycroft’s letter, unfolding it slowly. Against his own curiosity, he’d done as he was asked, letting his brother’s desires keep the letter sealed until he was safely ensconced in the upper floor of the semi-habitable boardinghouse in which he now found himself. Plenty of nights aboard ship he’d been tempted to digest its contents prematurely, but Mycroft’s wishes were never idle, and the detective trusted him as much as he trusted himself. He now read its contents by the piercing light of the early-morning Floridian sun.

Sanchez,

I have reason to believe that our mutual friend will soon again be entrusting her assets to me, assets that have been returned to her by her husband’s sudden death. You know as well as I do that she is not to be dealt with carelessly; one false move, and we will find ourselves adrift. Miss A sails on the 19th of September. I will alert you to new developments as soon as they are available.

Barnett

No wonder Mycroft had insisted on his waiting until now. He sat back in his chair and smiled to himself. If it hadn’t been for the letter’s obvious authenticity, he’d have thought it was his brother’s idea of a joke. Unbidden, his mind called up pictures of a boy with unusually bright eyes and hat set at a jaunty angle, a boy who had been a girl.

The three years since the Bohemian case had been taken up with the Irishman Moriarty and other problems, and Holmes had filed The Woman’s defeat of him away with his other losses, which were few. He thought about them rarely, only letting himself consider his mistakes on occasion so as to avoid repeating them. No human could ever be perfect, he knew, even one with an intellect as near-flawless as his own. And, indeed, his losses were proofs that the world was not entirely devoid of truly clever people. That thought was a comfort in quiet moments.

Holmes’s first inclination, a strong one, was to let Miss Adler handle things herself. Whatever Barnett and Sanchez intended for her, however ominous, he had little doubt she could detect and avert on her own, without the interference of a detective whom she probably considered inferior after their last interaction. But Mycroft had sent him, and that was suggestive of a wider plot. The detective’s corpulent brother rarely deigned to entangle himself in anything, and he certainly wouldn’t waste his time on a matter of insignificance. No, for Mycroft to take such a direct hand in the matter, it had to be something he considered well worth his notice, which warranted at least a cursory investigation.

The tall detective unfolded himself out of the small wooden chair and shed his dressing gown, throwing it over the rough-hewn wooden desk beside the bed. Watson would have hated that, chided him for being untidy, like a gun-bearing nursemaid—Watson, whose evenings would be spent at home now. Mary Morstan would be pleased.

As he dressed himself, Holmes derived grim amusement from imagining Inspector Lestrade’s bumbling investigation at Reichenbach. The dogged detective would have seen what he expected to see, as he always did, and then assisted Watson in declaring the younger Holmes dead. For a moment, Holmes regretted being in rural southern America, where he was unable to procure English newspapers, several of which would undoubtedly have run stories about his demise along with Mycroft’s amusing attempt at a grief-filled statement. Lestrade would have waxed positively poetic, he was sure. But Watson—Watson, he thought, would been curiously silent. He refused to let his mind dwell there for long. He adjusted his collar and looked at his reflection in the dirty glass affixed to the wall, finding himself convincingly arrayed as an American businessman of the middle class. Makeup and other more complicated arts of disguise could wait. No one should have cause to know his face here, even if Watson’s stories had somehow reached them. He closed his mind to speculation like a trap and readied it, once again, to belong to The Case.

Chapter 1: Irene

I stared at myself in the mirror. Pink cheeks, full lips, bright blue eyes. I was myself again. ‘You look beautiful, Miss Adler!’ said the voice of Doris the theatre attendant, her painted countenance coming into the reflection behind me.
Miss Adler
. The name hit my ears like cold, bitter water, both refreshing and repulsive. I pushed a curl from my forehead and smoothed my satin gown, standing and turning for her to survey me. ‘The audience will be dazzled before you start singing!’ Doris had a point. The dress was beautiful—flamboyantly violet, trimmed with silver, far from anything the proper Mrs Norton had ever worn. Ten minutes later, I stepped onto the stage and looked out at a theatre full of people gathered to see and hear the spectacle of Irene Adler, Contralto.

It wasn’t my first show. That had been in New York City, followed by ten more after the triumph of the first. After that came Boston and then Atlanta, a city still struggling to recover from the devastation of the American Civil War. Those had all been familiar places, places with memories and theatres whose creaky boards I had walked many times in previous years. Now I found myself in Orlando, Florida, a place I had never been before. My American agent, recently acquired through my solicitor, James Barnett, had assured me that the citrus-growers and their secretaries craved entertainment as much as their more established counterparts in the northeast. And so I had agreed to the engagement, looking forward to a change of scenery. I had found it more difficult than expected to put my old life out of my mind, and a singing tour was a welcome distraction.

The crimson curtain opened, and I stepped onto the theatre’s dubious wooden platform, hoping the slats wouldn’t give way, but I forgot my worries as soon as the music began to play. Singing felt the same way it always had, effortless and at the same time all-consuming, like arms of sound wrapping around me and bearing me away. I willed the audience to fly with me, and as always, I watched them begin to follow, one by one.

Oh Promise me that someday you and I
—tears began to gather in the eyes of the blonde in the first row.

Will take our love together to some sky—
the man in the upper right private box surreptitiously raised his handkerchief to his face.

Where we can be alone and faith renew—
My eyes found those of a man in the fourth row, simply dressed, not nearly as grand as the society crowd. His face was nondescript, but his eyes were mesmerizing, so much so that I looked at no one else for the remainder of the song.

After my last curtain call, I walked backstage to my tiny dressing room, unsurprised to find that the brass lock had been tampered with. The job was professional, likely undetectable by most people, but I was more observant than the average person. I stopped for a moment in the hallway to grasp a solid umbrella as a possible weapon, but I was far from nervous.

I pushed open the door to my dark room, and, sure enough, the nondescript man with the wonderful eyes from the fourth row stood beside my flower-bedecked dressing table. ‘Hello, Mr Holmes.’ I affected a breezy, nonchalant tone, since any other seemed as though it would heighten the absurdity of the situation even further.

Mr Holmes smiled a nearly imperceptible smile and bowed slightly. ‘Miss Adler, it is a privilege to make your acquaintance once again. I’m glad your senses have retained their previous acuity.’ What a thing to say to a lady—and yet, it felt like a high compliment.

‘I’m afraid I can’t say the same for you, Mr Holmes, leaving evidence of a break-in like that.’ I was teasing him, and he knew it. The almost-imperceptible scratches on my door were as intentional as a calling card left on a silver salver. He smiled sardonically and pressed his fingertips together.

Just then, I heard a knock on the door, and Doris popped her head in, her eyes nearly bulging with surprised when she saw Mr Holmes. ‘Doris, this is my friend, Mr Smith,’ I said quickly, not sure he’d want his name known.

‘I just wondered if you wanted some coffee, Miss Adler,’ said the girl, while her face said
I’ll get out if you say so
.

I smiled. ‘I’d love some, and please bring a cup for Mr Smith, too. Oh, and make sure no one else comes in.’ She nodded and scampered off, relieved.

‘I must say, you’ve settled back in nicely,’ said my companion, looking around the room and then at me. His words held a slight edge, as if the unspoken corollary was that he’d expected something else and been disappointed.

‘I did what I’m best at,’ I answered, my chin slightly aloft. ‘I escaped.’

‘Did you?’ I didn’t like the way he said it, as if he knew all my secrets. In fact, a chill started to spread through my centre and into my throat. Sherlock Holmes didn’t do things for no reason.

‘Why are you here?’

‘It’s your—escape, as you express it. I have reason to believe all is not as it seems.’

‘I can easily believe that something is afoot if Sherlock Holmes is in my dressing room in Florida,’ I answered tersely, annoyed at my own anxiety. ‘I didn’t suppose you’d come to admire my singing.’

‘On the contrary,’ he said, easing onto one end of the garishly pink sofa opposite my dressing table, ‘your singing was magnificent.’

I couldn’t help feeling slightly gratified, but I masked it by looking out into the hall for Doris, who came a moment later with a tarnished tray holding two mugs of the theatre’s tepid coffee. I noticed no one lurking about outside, so I assumed she’d done a capable job of chasing off any admirers or stray crew. I slipped her a coin as she handed me the tray, and she blushed and grinned. ‘Thanks, Miss A.’ She traipsed off like the teenager she was, whatever age her face tried to claim.

I came back into the room to find that Mr Holmes had wiped his face clean of makeup, unmasking the sharp, refined features that were burned into my memory. He had fooled me once, but he would never do so again, I believed. I turned the chair from my vanity table to face him and held out one of the chipped mugs. He took it, his long, tapered fingers closing around the handle. I wondered suddenly if he’d brought his violin to America, the one Dr Watson mentioned so often in his stories.

‘Now, Miss Adler, I need to know what brought you here, your story. I hold out hope that it will give meaning to mine.’ The tall detective sipped the coffee, grimacing slightly at its taste, but continuing without comment. His statement seemed oddly metaphysical, but I knew he meant it literally.

‘Why should I trust you?’ I asked, knowing that I would, but wanting him to persuade me all the same.

‘I’d say the level at which we can trust one another is fairly even,’ he said drily, leaning back into the sofa and half-closing his eyes. I laughed. It was certainly true. Our last interaction had included mutual deceit, disguise, and blackmail. Strangely, however, it seemed to me that we knew each other very well.

I pushed my feet into the floor and clasped my hands together. I had told my story to no one except Barnett, and even he knew very few details. But Mr Holmes was different; telling him would be like telling a doctor or maybe a phonograph record. Not easy, but not personal, either.

‘When I left London, Mr Holmes—’

‘Holmes,’ came a deep, calm voice from somewhere inside his languid form. ‘Dispense with the Mister.’

‘I’ll be Irene, then,’ I answered quickly, not wanting to surrender an inch in our long game, whatever it was we were playing.

‘Mr—I mean Holmes, after Godfrey and I left London, we went immediately to Belgium for our honeymoon. You will have received my note the day we left, I believe.’ He nodded his head with his eyes closed, looking for all the world as if he was paying no attention whatsoever. But I knew better.

‘Godfrey’s character remained steady during the trip. He had never been talkative about his past, but neither had I, so I didn’t hold it against him. He had always seemed a kind, openhearted man, and no one had an ill word to say about him, except that he was overly popular, but I saw that for myself and never detected anything amiss in his manner. I was very happy during my honeymoon, happy and still, I admit, proud of my little defeat of the greatest detective in London.’ I looked up, but Holmes’s face did not register any change at this.

‘Few, if any, know the truth about Godfrey’s family. He was distantly related to an earl, and it had never seemed a significant connection until one month before the wedding, when Godfrey informed me that he had learned that he was the heir to a large estate in Yorkshire. My fortune, gained through my career, was enough to support the manor, which was rich in land but deficient in money. Our friends assumed Godfrey and I meant to move to America, but our intention from that point on was to take possession of the family home. I did not mind the idea of secluded country life. After spending my years from fourteen to twenty-seven touring the world, I felt ready to settle down with a good man—a much better one, I thought, than others I had known.’

I stopped to take a drink of my now-cold coffee, and Holmes stood up and turned to the shelf behind the sofa, which was empty except for a tattered grey afghan that was redolent of mothballs. He handed it to me. I hadn’t realised I was chilled, but even in Florida, an old theatre can be draughty. ‘Your hands turned pale,’ he said, by way of explanation. I thanked him and tucked the afghan around myself, glad for a reprieve before the most difficult part of my recollection, the years I would have liked to forget.

‘The trouble started when we reached West Yorkshire. I can’t—I still can’t explain how quickly it happened. I flattered myself before that I was not a stupid woman, Holmes, but I had been completely taken in. Godfrey was nothing like the man I had known. It immediately became apparent that he had married me for my fortune, the one thing he did not possess to go along with his property and the lifestyle of the landed gentry he sought. He told me very quickly that he had known about his inheritance far longer than he had let on—since before our first meeting, in fact.’

‘I was shaken, but I planned my escape, determined not to be beaten so easily. He was too vigilant. The man who had been able to deceive me was able to retain power over me by having servants in my way constantly, people who believed he was the kindest of husbands to be so solicitous of his wife’s needs. Outwardly, I lived the life of a princess. Inwardly, I felt as if I would die. I could go nowhere alone, do nothing without being watched. My only recourse would have been to injure or kill one of the staff and go alone into the Yorkshire countryside. In London, I would have risked it with a sedative in the teacup of a maid, but in Yorkshire I had access to nothing and no knowledge of the area. I was trapped.’ As I finished my statement, I saw Holmes’s hand clasp into a fist inadvertently, the first sign of acknowledgement he had given in many minutes. I surmised that his quick brain was producing in him the feelings of a trapped mind, my captive feelings.

‘I will not explain all the details of my relationship with my husband. It is hardly necessary and excessively painful to recall. Suffice to say that he did everything to me that a man can do to make a woman’s life miserable, both mentally and physically. I had been with unpleasant men before, but his triumph made him crueler than anyone I had ever known. The only hold I had over him was music. During our courtship, I would sing to him almost every night, and he had professed great fondness for my voice. That, at least, was not a lie. When we were married, he would beg me to sing for him, over and over, and I would refuse. It drove him mad, but I never cared what he did then because I knew that I had kept something for myself. It kept me alive, that one thing.’

I leaned forward. ‘One day, Holmes, it happened. We were eating dinner in the evening, and Godfrey complained of stomach discomfort and went to bed. I was relieved because he did not insist that I accompany him. I ate a relatively pleasant dinner under the eyes of the servants and went to my room to allow my maid to undress me for the night. Before she could do so, Godfrey’s valet came rushing to the door to alert me that my husband was in unendurable pain and needed the doctor, who was immediately sent for. I went to Godfrey’s room and found him sweating profusely and swearing while clutching his chest. I was in a daze. It hardly seemed possible that a figure who held such terrible power in my mind could be lying powerless against some invisible malady. Wild thoughts of murder rushed through my brain, thoughts of the ease of doing away with him in such a weakened condition, but I stood and stared at him as they came and then passed like cooling firebrands. The doctor arrived from the village an hour later and pronounced Godfrey’s condition serious. He gave him something for the pain, but that was all he was able to do. My husband died later that night, at about midnight. His death was attributed to heart failure, and the inquest was conducted quickly and seamlessly.’

‘I was free, Holmes, and the law guaranteed me the return of my money. In the three years we were married, Godfrey had been so concerned about house and grounds that he had been scrupulously careful with my fortune. Had he wished, he could have taken action, I know, to connect the money to the estate more firmly, but he was so convinced of his own ability to manage every detail that he had not yet done so.’

‘I was tempted to fly immediately, as I think you can imagine, but I maintained an appearance of genteel mourning until all the legal steps were completed. Once my solicitor, James Barnett, assured me that my money was again my own, I arranged to travel to America. Music has been the one friend who never betrayed me, so I took it up again. Singing was my livelihood in the past, but I saw no reason why I could not return to it for different reasons. I planned my life very differently, Holmes, but this is what I have left, a voice and a fortune.’ I could not help the slightly bitter note that crept into my voice near the end, but I supposed he expected it. He had helped too many unfortunate women to be unaware of the usual results.

‘There you have it, Holmes,’ I finished, sitting back in my uncomfortable chair and looking at him full-on, my eyes challenging him to betray his inner thoughts. He gradually roused from his apparent torpor and sat up straight, his eyes meeting mine without judgement or comment.