Chapel Noir (26 page)

I rushed after her as instructed, not sure that I wished to be in time for what lay ahead.

Then my sense of enterprise banished all dread. This is what I had come to the Old World for: utter immersion in its secrets.

Our boots ground on sand and cinders tracked in from the streets. Others had been here before us. Spirits had not lit those candles.

Not that my sensible American skepticism had ever for a moment believed in spirits. . . .

We were feeling our way through the dark. When an exhalation of even colder air opened before us like a kind of well, we both stopped as if teetering on the edge of an abyss.

I heard the rustle of Irene’s clothing, then a scratch as a tiny lucifer flame burst forth like a firework for Lilliputians.

“There! Fetch that candle stub.”

I spotted the pale fat cylinder on the damp ground, running to claim it before her match should burn out.

I spun to return to her just as the small light winked out.

The wax in my hand was chillingly . . . warm.

A scratch and flare later I was able to make my way to her; although half-lit, she resembled a melodrama Mephistopheles, the tall top hat adding horned inches to her height.

She held the sputtering match to the curled wick atop the candle stub. It caught fire begrudgingly, as if exhausted from its previous night’s work. The result was a feeble fog of light that clung more to us than illuminated anything else.

“Look.” Irene began a tour of the roughly circular space into which worn stones tumbled. She bent to hold the light over the uneven earthen floor. “More wax droppings. A great many candles were used here, but they were taken away again.”

She moved away, then lifted the candle close to a wall half dirt and half stone bricks, frowning at what she saw.

I came to peer over her shoulder. “Red candle wax? As if someone moved a candle so quickly the liquid wax drops hit the stone.”

“Blood,” she declared, “but almost lashed toward the wall, as you describe.”

“Was someone killed here then?”

“I don’t know. I do not smell the great quantity of blood we detected at the bordello. The candle wax and something else outweigh it.

“Wine?”

“No, something more acrid, harsher.”

Irene had continued her inspection of the space’s perimeter, stepping into the next unknown swath of dark as fearlessly as a soldier marching toward an enemy.

I was glad to let her lead, which was hardly typical of me, but it shows in what thrall her daring spirit held me. This was a woman who could act as well as masquerade as a man.

As she swept the candle lower against the wall, I thrilled to see that her left hand held a pistol. The sight almost made me wish that I had become a Pinkerton, rather than choosing the profession I had fallen back upon.

But circumstances circumscribe all our fates. I was here because of the choices I had made, and I would not now be anywhere else for a mogul’s ransom, flying bullets among the flying buttresses or not!

“Broken glass again,” she noted, scraping her boot sole over the ground. “But no scent or stain of wine. Oddly disturbing.”

“This is not a wine cellar,” I pointed out.

Her expression sharpened in the candlelight. “Very good, Pink! The wine only reflects the setting of the first murder, nothing else. It was at hand. And the Eiffel Tower excavation site could have attracted sots who left empty wine bottles. Here . . .”

She moved suddenly close to the wall. I gasped as her candle seemed to illuminate a standing, skeletal figure.

“A tunnel?” I asked.

“A niche.” Her voice was hushed with wonder.

I edged nearer. If skeletal guardians did not alarm her, they should not deter me.

Then I saw that the skull, the long leg and arm bones, were jumbled into impossible physiognomies. Were these dry old bones in proper conjunction, we would indeed be facing a monster. But this was a polymorph, a monster formed of many individual’s bones.

“This is a catacomb, Pink,” Irene said in some wonder. “We may even be gazing upon the jumbled schemata of ancient Romans perhaps, or even more likely, of early Christians. We must be under the cathedral. This must be an ancient crypt upon which it was built.”

“Do the authorities not know about this place?”

“Probably not, but someone else does, and has appropriated it for some very strange purpose.” Irene suddenly shook the hand holding the candle, sending a sinuous lash of melted wax against the niche wall. The pattern was exactly like the red spray she had identified as blood.

“The candle stub grows too hot to hold,” she said. “We must find the exit tunnel and venture into the streets again.”

“What of our pursuer?”

“Perhaps he has tired of the chase.” She smiled grimly at me over the fading flicker of the candle flame. “Perhaps we shall meet him coming as we are going. We will worry about that when we face it. For now I thank our mysterious pursuer for introducing us to the mysteries of below ground.”

She had taken my elbow and steered me unerringly toward the dark mouth of the passage that had led us here.

The candle died just as we reached that uncertain exit.

I heard the stub hit the ground with a hollow sound, as if something living had just had the breath knocked out of it.

“I will go first,” Irene whispered in the utter dark. “I have the pistol, after all.”

28.
A Werewolf in London

I go into a case to help the ends of justice and the work
of the police
.
—
SHERLOCK HOLMES

I glanced at my companions over breakfast in our common room the next morning.

Both Irene and Elizabeth were bleary-eyed and, what is I worse, were uneager to meet my gaze. There is nothing more annoying than aroused suspicions with no evidence to use as a pry bar.

I drummed my fingers on the tablecloth and accepted only muffins although Irene had ordered every hearty English breakfast item, including eggs, bacon, sausage, button mushrooms, baked beans, and something that passed for black pudding, especially in my honor.

“We must advance events,” Irene declared while she shared a pot of vile coffee with Elizabeth.

I sipped my tea deliberately.

“Nell, you are just the person to do it.”

I sputtered into my Earl Grey. “And how am I to ‘advance events’? I am absolutely in the dark regarding these repulsive crimes.”

Irene beamed at me over her coffee cup. “Exactly why you will go to Sherlock Holmes and throw yourself upon his superior intellectual skills.”

“I will not! They are not!”

She clapped her hands together, in the thrall of a new idea.

“This is inspired. You will bring all your annotated evidence to the Sage of Baker Street. Except he is residing . . . where? Probably at the Bristol so as to be near the Prince. It is imperative that you distract him while I follow my own line of investigation.”

“With Elizabeth?” I asked pointedly.

“Possibly. But the more important assignment will be yours. Only a keen and subtle mind will distract the great detective. Yes, it must be you! Remember, every moment you mislead him, you will be aiding me and these poor dead women. The case darkens. You saw the state of the last victim, laid out at the morgue under her concealing sheet. Imagine what the linens hid?”

Irene managed an artistic shudder which echoed an internal horror that was not feigned. Much as my dear friend loved to dramatize situations, the impulse beneath her surface mastery was always serious. And sincere.

I looked into her eyes. Their expression was both quizzical and hopeful.

I folded my napkin and tossed it upon a French croissant of exceptionally flaky crust, redolent of fresh butter. So I must sacrifice my better nature to consort with the consulting detective.

Yet better that
I
spend time in his presence than my poor ignorant friend, usually so perceptive, but now so utterly unaware in what inappropriate regard that man held her.

“I must share my observations with him?” I asked, hoping she would say no.

“But of course. That is the lure. He is quite lost in certain, very key respects, you know.”

“I know.” I rose from the table. “I hope you realize what an imposition this is. And I hope that you will follow only such paths as Godfrey would approve in your own investigations.”

“Of course, Nell. Only what Godfrey would approve.” She lifted a hand to heart, then covered it with her other hand.

The specter of a dimple beside of her not-quite-smiling mouth made me suspect that Godfrey would approve of a great deal that I would not.

I have always loved Dickens’s
A Tale of Two Cities
, so perhaps it is no surprise that I found myself in the self-sacrificial role of Sydney Carton, deposited by a horse omnibus at the door of the Hotel Bristol, prepared to surrender myself to Sherlock Holmes.

I mean that solely in the military sense, of course.

And indeed, I chose to imagine myself as Quentin Stanhope, Cobra by code name, engaged on a mission of espionage.

I hesitated, but gave my true name at the reception desk, and was summarily informed that no Sherlock Holmes was a guest there.

Well.

I turned to face the bustling lobby, crowned by glittering chandeliers above and thronged by the cream of society below.

My palms grew clammy and dampened my dark cotton gloves.

What was I to do? Stymied from the outset. What would I tell Irene?

That
the
man was invisible? That I could not find him?

Never.

I marched away from the desk with the gilt pigeonholed temple of numbered guest-room niches looming behind it.

Not wishing to appear at a loss, I swept up the marble stairs to the first floor. There I could gather myself. What an expression, as if I were a length of fabric that would come unraveled if not neatly stitched together. I resolved not to fray no matter the circumstances.

I moved toward the place where the odious elevated car could be caught on the ground floor.

A drawn grating announced that I could submit to its incarceration here as well.

So. I would take it to the floor and to the room where Irene and I had been entertained by the Invisible Mr. Sherlock Holmes not two days ago.

Naturally such a course was most improper.

But. Who was here to see it?

I squared my shoulders and pressed my gloved forefinger on the mother-of-pearl button that summoned the elevator car.

At least it had a uniformed operator who did not look askance at me. Apparently hotels patronized by the Prince of Wales were used to unaccompanied females.

Imagine! I was taken for a fallen woman. What a relief. There is some consolation in not having to live up to oneself.

At the fifth floor I dismounted, if that is the proper expression, and proceeded to the room I remembered.

I was startled to hear unearthly wails and screams coming faintly from beyond the heavy wooden door. When they continued beyond what even the most sorely tried human lungs could sustain, I realized that the sounds were vaguely predictable, and even abominably musical. A bagpipe? No. A violin belabored by one possessed. Although the violin may in the upper registers, under the fingers of a maestro, produce a high, keening beauty that is impossible to deny, it is more often a hoarse, rasping instrument that teeters closely to the screech of a wood saw.

This was the side of the instrument I detected through the muffling services of the door. How I was to compete with the whining instrument in announcing my presence I had no idea.

No bell was provided, so I lifted my parasol handle and rapped as forcefully as I could.

The caterwauling continued. So our black cat Lucifer had sounded on those nights when his lady friends were not in evidence. At last there was a pause in the day’s apparent occupation, and, after a welcome silence, I raised my gloved fist high to knock even harder, when the door flew open.

My gesture rapped at empty air, and almost struck the impressive beak God had granted to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective.

“Oh! You startled me,” I accused.

“You knocked,” he riposted.

“I beg your pardon,” I breathed in automatic apology.

“And I yours. Miss . . . Huxleigh?”

I had the rare satisfaction of viewing utter stupefaction on the face of the world’s wisest detective.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked.

“Can’t you deduce it?” I asked in return.

My question appeared to revive his usual overweening descriptive prowess.

“I see you have been opportuned to come here,” he pronounced crisply. “You were suborned at breakfast, and departed in obedience but in a temper. You almost turned away at the front desk, but after fleeing the lobby for the mezzanine, you decided to continue. You dislike living in France, but then you would dislike living anywhere. Your father was a country parson, but has died. You are shortsighted, detest luxury, and me.”

“Impressive,” I said icily. “May I come in?” I was of course violating every convention, but better I be sacrificed on the altar of impropriety than Irene.

He laughed, once and sharply, standing back from the door. “And you are an emissary from the alarmingly engaging Madam Irene, who no doubt has her higher purpose for both of us lesser beings.”

“Really! You admit that you are a lesser being in relation to another?”

“I am the most humble of men, Miss Huxleigh,” he said with a smile and bow, “unless I am in the presence of those who do not practice humility.”

“Hmmph. That is good. Irene wishes you to be informed of my notes and drawings taken from the murder scene at the
maison de rendezvous
. I can’t say that I approve.”

“Neither do I,” he said promptly. “And you seldom approve of much,” he suggested with a raised eyebrow.

“Perhaps you would explain your litany of presumptions about me. Not that they are correct.”

He nodded, pulling out a chair by a square card table for me.

“Your reluctance to be here is obvious in your attitude. I apologize that I can offer nothing more concrete than that observation. Sometimes mere observation is so obvious, but no less true for that. There is a bit of relatively fresh scrambled egg on your sleeve, which implies breakfast. Your boot laces are tied low on the ankle rather than being hooked all the way to the top, which I saw when you lifted your skirts to cross the threshold. Both imply haste, which implies temper. Your left sleeve has picked up a bit of streaked penmanship from the hotel register, which means that you visited the reception desk, but left in confusion, no doubt because I am not registered under my name here.

“I notice that your hem has gathered some of the Turkey carpet fibers in the intense colors used on the hotel mezzanine, which implies that you walked up to the mezzanine, which implies distress and also a fear of elevator cars. The fact that all your clothes and accessories are of English manufacture reveals that you dislike living in France, despite having resided here for many months, as I know from my own encounters with your friend Miss Irene Adler in London’s Serpentine Mews before the entire household’s hasty decampment. If you dislike France, the belle of foreign cities, you would dislike anywhere. Your father was a country parson, evident from the portfolio you carry, a cheap leatherlike affair much favored in the outlands of England. His death is evident in your black gloves, quite unfashionable, except for mourning. I suspect that they are your last, but lifelong concession to his passing. They also are practical and do not show dirt. I notice the impression on the bridge of your rather Roman nose made by a pince-nez, so you are shortsighted. Your entire appearance declares your detestation of luxury, and the fact that you wish you had announced yourself on my nose betrays your opinion of me. Any questions? No. Then perhaps you may proceed to your spurious reason for being here.”

“I do not dissemble.”

“No?” he added. “Are you truly eager to share the contents of your case with me?”

“Not really. But Irene has insisted.”

“She is nigh impossible to resist, I imagine.”

“Let that idea remain your imagination.”

“Indeed it shall. You will find me most resistant to feminine wiles, Miss Huxleigh, not that you have any.”

“Ah. At last. An impressive presumption.” I laid my portfolio on the table. In fact, it was French-made Moroccan leather, an artist’s dossier, and the only luxury I had allowed myself to purchase in the City of Light. It amused me that Sherlock Holmes had so soundly attributed it to my late father. Perhaps he could not imagine a woman purchasing a case for work.