The Dragon Turn (13 page)

“How did you know to speak to me?” She pulls her veil back, revealing a face as black as Beatrice’s servant’s uniform. She looks defiant. They are both breathing heavily.

“I observe, Miss Venus.”

“It isn’t Miss.”

Every time the boy has been to see the Hemsworth show he has watched the magician’s exotic “African” assistant closely. His Highness presents her as a native beauty he captured on the Dark Continent, unable to understand English, though trained to obey his commands … Venus of the Hottentots. At the end of each night, still wearing her nearly see-through linen costume, but by then under a purple robe, she is magically transformed into a fair-skinned princess … and placed in the cage with the dragon. It is a spectacular effect.

“Just Venus?”

“I am not deemed fit to have a title.”

“What is your real name?”

“What do you want?”

“Some answers.”

“I am unable to supply them. Good evening.” She drops her veil again and turns to leave.

“I shall go to the press —
The News of the World
would be fascinated — and let them know that you are from … where is it … Brixton?”

She gasps, stops, turns back, and lifts the veil again.

“How … how do you know that? How did you know I spoke English in the first place?”

“Well, I had to confirm it by greeting you this evening. But as for the rest, let’s say that details are important to me. I studied you onstage. I noticed that whenever he made an error, which was often, he would speak to you under his breath. He didn’t motion, he spoke, and you responded with your actions. It was obvious that you could understand
him. And you have a Brixton accent, northern part, is it, second or third generation? I make it my business to know such things.”

“But you are just a boy. Of what intrigue is this to you? Is someone paying you? Is this just to cause a scandal in the Sunday papers?”

“I have an interest in the Nottingham murder. Tell me what I need to know and I shall keep your secret.”

“An interest? On which side? Solving the case … or were you involved in committing it?” She steps back from him.

“My proposition is simple. I repeat: tell me what I need to know … and I will keep your secret.”

She hesitates. “… My name is Juliet. I won’t tell you my last, unless you force me. I was raised in Brixton, yes, my grandfather was a slave, but my father was in the service, a footman in Belgravia. My brothers and I were educated. But I was a restless youth, didn’t want to work for others. What could a Negro woman do? I was strong and fearless, I could actually compete at athletics with my brothers … and I was pretty. In the circus arts, they don’t care about the color of your skin because they can use it. My appearance made me exotic and alluring. I learned to ride a horse and do tricks, I learned the trapeze. I wore few clothes in my performances and became a favorite among the men. A nearly-naked black woman isn’t as scandalous as a white one … but it has the same effect.”

“Zaza? You are Mademoiselle Zaza?”

“I was.”

“You hurt your back, didn’t you? That accident at the Royal Amphitheatre? I thought you simply retired.”

“Performers don’t retire at twenty-one, young man. I disappeared. They couldn’t use me after my fall. I was almost on the streets when Hemsworth found me. I was perfect for him. He pays me more than I could make anywhere else, and it’s just our two names on the program. You cannot tell anyone that I am not who he says I am! I need this job, sir. What do you want?”

“As I said, just answers. How long have you been with him?”

“About two years, I’d say. I suppose I am just as exotic in his act as I was in my own. I am still wearing very few clothes. It keeps the gentlemen interested when His Highness fumbles.”

Two years. When did Nottingham steal his wife away?

“Did you know Mrs. Nottingham when she was Hemsworth’s wife?”

“Oh, yes. I was there when she seduced the Wizard. She went right for him and bagged him.”

“Seduced Nottingham?”

“Everyone thinks it was the other way around. Women don’t do such things. She was a nice lady though. She was good to me. Not many in her position would be. She treated me as an equal; it was remarkable. But she liked fame and she liked men. She wasn’t a looker, but she wasn’t unattractive either, and she had a spirit about her, an accommodating one, shall we say, that men couldn’t resist. Nottingham certainly couldn’t, though I think he later wished he could have.
In the end, it was helpful for both magicians, though. It gained them a great deal of attention in the newspapers. Both men exploited that part, at least at first.”

“What is Hemsworth like?”

“He is a beast. All he cares about is his show.… He hits me … but he pays me well. He says horrible things about his former wife, vile things about how he would kill her in gruesome ways if he could, after what she did to him. Nottingham wasn’t much better to work for, I hear. He was very ambitious. People in his show say he would sell his soul to the devil for a great trick, one as amazing as the dragon illusion.”

“Have the police spoken to you?”

“To Venus, the half-clothed, illiterate African beauty? They looked at me, they did, just like other men. But no, they haven’t asked me anything, and I would prefer, sir, if you would be so kind, to keep it that way.”

“I will if you answer one more question and tell me the truth. Do you have any idea where Mrs. Nottingham is?”

“I do.”

“You do?” Sherlock’s heart races.

“She started coming back to Hemsworth’s shows a few months ago, when they became a great sensation. She loved to be where the action was, where all the celebrated people were. I noticed her sitting with men from the continent on several nights: handsome, wealthy ones. She couldn’t resist them. His Highness told me, just last week, that she ran off with one of them. I don’t know why he bothered to tell me, perhaps he was gloating. I don’t think he has told anyone else, at least
he doesn’t seem to have informed the police. He knows I don’t speak much to others.”

“She’s run off?”

“I doubt it was meant to be permanent, probably just one of her affairs. But she won’t come back now, why would she? Especially since Hemsworth is free. Her husband vanishes and so does she. With no one accused of the crime now, she could very well be a suspect, couldn’t she?”

“Yes, she could. You’re in the business — why do you think Nottingham didn’t tell anyone?”

“Because he has the same pride as Hemsworth. It isn’t just a male tendency, though that is bad enough. They can’t ever look like failures to the public. He was probably hoping he could keep her flight quiet and she would come back. Perhaps she has done it before.”

“And you say Hemsworth hasn’t told the authorities where she’s gone,” muses Sherlock out loud.

“Maybe he liked being a suspect for a while.”

“Liked it?”

“It was good for business, wasn’t it? He is always thinking about that. His arrest caused a sensation. I always had the feeling that he knew they couldn’t convict him.”

“Well, they will, if I have anything to do with it.”

“They will? I am not so sure, young man. I despise Hemsworth, but I’m not certain that he did it. He isn’t clever enough to pull off a perfect crime. And as for his hating Nottingham, I’m not even convinced about that.”

“But —”

“I’m not saying that His Highness wasn’t angry and resentful after his wife left — I know he was. But I think he blamed her more than the Wizard. Their rivalry may have been a bit of a dressed-up thing, like many things in show business, something they used. I saw the two of them talking just a few days before the murder, behind the theater. They didn’t seem upset, though they stepped away from each other when they saw me.”

“Miss Juliet, it is not unusual for a villain to stalk his prey in order to discover what he is up to. Perhaps Hemsworth was pretending to be past his anger … as he plotted. Maybe he was inviting the Wizard into his lair and you simply witnessed him drawing him in.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Her beautiful face looks frightened. “That gives me the shivers.”

“What about the dragon? You’ve seen it up close. Is it real?”

“I don’t know. I don’t really see it onstage. Can I go? I’ve answered everything you asked. I can’t afford to be seen on the street talking to anyone.” She pulls her veil down again.

He waves her off and she rushes away.

“
I don’t really see it onstage.”
It is a curious statement.
But she is blindfolded at that moment, of course. She is probably the only one in the theater who doesn’t see it. And Hemsworth is so secretive that she likely never so much as glimpses it any other time. But can’t she feel its presence in the cage during those terrifying seconds, sense if it is real or not, smell its very breath? She was so calm when she spoke of it. That seems awfully strange.… Or is it? Maybe it’s proof that the dragon isn’t real, that it is all just a trick? Or is Venus simply a consummate professional, a steely nerved former daredevil?

Whatever the case, Holmes thinks again, in admiration of how Hemsworth disguises Juliet as a white woman for that scene, how he transforms her.
It must be makeup and lights
. It is perfect: it serves to not only fill the audience with wonder, but scare them even more … a white woman in grievous peril. He may not be the greatest magician, but he is an extraordinary showman. He knows what thrills London.

Tonight, Sherlock has found an important piece of the puzzle, or at least, helped eliminate one. He now knows where Mrs. Nottingham has gone, and that he cannot pursue her — he doesn’t have the resources to find her on the continent, and obviously, she is interested in staying lost. He has just one option left, the one he discussed with Sigerson Bell. He must find out what instrument of terror Hemsworth used to reduce Nottingham to tiny specs of flesh … he must explore the possibility that it was a living and breathing monster, a Frankenstein beast.

And whatever it was … and is … he must hunt it.

DESPERATION

T
hat night he dreams of slaying a dragon. He stands before it wearing Saint George’s armor, bearing the ancient red-crossed flag of England, his sword drawn. The creature looms over him, monstrous in size, forked tongue darting out. Defeating it seems an impossible quest. A crowd, led by Inspector Lestrade, has come up the hill from a nearby village and gathers around. They wield weapons and offer their help. But Sherlock must do this alone. He sees Irene and Beatrice looking on, and Scuttle bursting with pride, telling the others in the crowd that he knows him. When Sherlock is done, they will all cheer and his fame will be sung throughout the kingdom. He turns to the beast … and it kills him.

Holmes rises the next morning thinking that he must visit his father again. He puts it off. He will go to school first. But all day in the classroom he feels guilty. Guilt is coming at him from so many sources: he isn’t visiting his father and he may very well be responsible for setting free a murderer,
making it possible for the villain to act again. On top of everything, Sherlock isn’t offering the police his latest evidence … proof that he may have erred.

When he thinks of his father he thinks of something he was taught long ago.

“I am going to teach you about a word, son,” Wilberforce once said. “That word is
integrity
. It has to do with honesty, but it is much more than that. It is about never lying to yourself, never doing what you know is wrong, making sure that what you say you believe in is what you do. I want you to always be a man of integrity.”

“Integrity?” Sigerson Bell remarked earlier this year, when Sherlock, feeling a little homesick, brought up the subject. “It is the chief characteristic of a great man. If you do not exhibit it while in my employ I shall plunge it into you like a sailor dropping an anchor into the sea, hammer it into you like a spike being drilled into your skull, like a surgeon reaching into your chest and carving your heart out whilst it is still beating and showing it to you, blood still pumping from —” Then he realized he had gone too far, and commenced to apologize. It lasted for a week.