The Detective and the Woman Read online

  I sat down and began to play, opening with a medium-tempo dance tune. I watched my audience and, as usual, they began to relax as the music soothed them. My second song was a light comic number, a favourite from my time in England before my wedding. Finally, when I had their attention, I went to the popular love song that was the climax of each of my concerts.

  I studied them all as I sang. Holmes, in the guise of Bernard, looked enchanted. Mina was surprised and pleased, I believe, having doubted the glowing praise of a husband. Marion seemed slightly bewildered, as if the music pleased her and invaded her at the same time. I felt a pang of sorrow for the inventor until I realised that his hand on the edge of the piano allowed him to experience its vibrations. Burroughs was as into the music as I’d expected, keeping slow time on his knee. The Montanan was quiet and, I thought, the least under the spell. Tootie was wide-eyed and vocal, making unintelligible delighted noises, while her husband smiled kindly and looked as if his mind was far away. I looked back to Holmes at last, wondering if his admiration belonged to Bernard after all, or if any part of it belonged to Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.

  After I finished playing, everyone sat quietly for a moment, even Tootie, her face wet with tears as she held her husband’s hand. Finally, Mina broke the silence. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs James. We’re fortunate to have heard that.’ I couldn’t help feeling pleased. She turned to her husband. ‘Now, Tom dear, I think it’s time!’

  The inventor smiled dramatically and arose, and everyone else followed. He took a lantern from atop a shelf and led us out into the now-black nighttime. The lantern illuminated a well-worn path from the house to a smaller building, a path lined with shrubs and bright flowers I did not recognise, no doubt part of the inventor’s collection. Edison opened a creaky door and with the flip of a switch immediately flooded the laboratory with electric light. Our eyes squinted in shock at the contrast between the brightness inside and the darkness of the grounds.

  The laboratory was large and rectangular, lined with wooden shelves and with tables covered in all manner of glassware in rows down its centre. I wondered whimsically if the organised pandemonium resembled the inventor’s mind.

  Edison went immediately to work setting up a large machine made of metal and wood, his wife by his side assisting him at every turn. Clearly, Mina Edison was well-versed in her husband’s endeavours. While we waited, Marion amused Tootie by listing for her the names of various chemicals that stood in unmarked bottles on the shelves around the walls. I listened with amazement as the girl explained that her father had all the names stored in his memory, as did his assistants, making labelling unnecessary. Holmes stood at one end of the room, the very picture of affable confusion, engaging Murphy in meaningless conversation about how grand it all was. Ambrose and Burroughs stood apart, watching silently.

  Finally, after several moments of congenial work by the Edisons and less successful attempts by their guests to entertain themselves in a room in which they could safely touch nothing, Mina motioned us all to her husband’s side, in front of the large brown contraption. ‘Stay here,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re going to switch off the lights, and you’ll be able to see it one-by-one. Stand in line just here.’ The men deemed it sporting to let the ladies go first, but the ladies in turn demurred, and so we ended up in a cluster rather than a line, with Burroughs finally nervously volunteering to begin. Mina brought him toward a box she and her husband had assembled at the front of the contraption, and then the room went black.

  I realised a moment later that Edison had turned off the electric bulbs, a characteristically dramatic move, leaving us in the darkness of the evening. Someone swore under his breath, Murphy, I thought, and Tootie let out a slight shriek before everyone fell silent. ‘That’s cracking good, Edison!’ was the next audible noise, spoken, of course, by Burroughs, who had apparently forgotten his host’s deafness. In a moment, I heard the almost imperceptible sound of one hand lightly striking another—Mina Edison translating the words into Morse Code for the benefit of her husband. Holmes had told me that they often communicated in that way.

  The lights were again blinding as Burroughs finished and came back to join the group, his face transformed by a wide, unselfconscious grin. He refused to breathe a word of the machine, and the next volunteer was Tootie, who took her place at the box while we all braced ourselves for the lights to disappear. This time, we took it better, a few of us even managing to chuckle; however, I nearly screamed when I felt a hand touch my arm and heard a low voice whisper, ‘I must have a word with you, Mrs James.’ I forced my brain to place the voice as that of Ambrose McGregor.

  ‘Later,’ I breathed, glad for Tootie’s frequent exclamations of delight at whatever the contraption did. I felt chilled to the bone, even in the warm weather. Of all the people present, I hadn’t expected Ambrose to be the mystery. There had been something so kind in his quiet appreciation of his wife and his dinner that I hardly knew what to think. Was it possible the man fancied me? I put the thought out of my mind as preposterous (I hoped) and began to conceive of a plan to speak with him alone. When the lights came back on, I stole a look at his face, but he did not even glance in my direction.

  My preoccupation consumed me to the point that I hardly cared when Marion finally pushed me forward for my turn at the machine. I bent down according to Mina’s whispered instructions and looked into a hole the size of a silver dollar as the lights went out. Before my eyes was a still picture of a boxer with his fist raised to strike. As I watched, the picture began to move, and the man landed the punch squarely on his opponent’s jaw. For thirty seconds I watched, open-mouthed, as a professional boxing match took place before my eyes. I was still hunched over, marveling, when the laboratory came back to life. I looked gratefully for the face of the inventor and enunciated as best I could, ‘I’m absolutely stunned, Mr Edison. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ His serious face broke into a smile, and I believe he’d have shown us all again if his wife hadn’t stopped him with a small shake of her dark head.

  I had been the last of the guests to view the Kinetoscope, so my viewing was followed by Edison and Mina putting the machine away in a cabinet in the corner of the laboratory. This time, everyone lingered nearby, hoping that by watching the Kinetoscope’s dismantling, they might somehow understand its mechanism. I moved slowly toward Holmes, and he sensed my object and moved into a corner of the room, between a table and a large grey cabinet. Without warning, he hooked a long arm around my waist and pulled me close, whispering in my ear. ‘I heard Ambrose McGregor speak during the blackout, but I could not understand what he said. Was I correct in assuming he addressed you?’ I leaned into him like the most enamored of wives.

  ‘He requested a private discussion with me. I intend to lose one of my gloves here and discover the loss once we reach the house. I will require a gentleman to walk me back, but you will be engaged elsewhere.’ Holmes nodded once as Tootie’s voice cut into our tête-à-tête.

  ‘My goodness, look at those lovebirds. It’s no wonder, since they’ve been separated.’ Her blonde head bobbed in delight.

  ‘Please excuse my enthusiasm, Mrs Edison,’ said Holmes with a gallant near-bow. ‘I fear my wife’s return and your husband’s grand machine have made me quite giddy.’ I smiled sheepishly, clinging to his hand.

  Mina smiled indulgently. ‘I’m sure we’re all delighted to have met your charming wife, Mr James.’ The guests nodded as one, and I felt a pang of genuine pleasure.

  The party’s return to the house was almost festive, but dread lay at the bottom of my stomach like a lead weight. Whatever Ambrose McGregor had to say, I highly doubted it was anything I would be overly excited to hear.

  When we reached the piano room, Burroughs began to declare his intention of leaving, and Murphy looked ready to follow suit. Before Mina could begin her polite farewells, I made a show of looking down at my hands and finding one
gloved and the other bare. At the same moment, Holmes asked Tootie about her favourite topic—her chronically ill son Bradford. He stopped mid-sentence when I lamented, ‘Oh no, I’ve been terribly clumsy. I seem to have lost my glove on the way back.’

  ‘Don’t worry, dear, Tom can go and retrieve it,’ said Mina kindly, putting a hand on my arm.

  ‘Nonsense,’ I answered, ‘your husband has been far too kind already this evening. Perhaps my husband—,’ but Bernard James looked down at Tootie with the crestfallen expression of a man disappointed at being unable to hear the words ready to fall from her lips. Bless her, she took the bait.

  ‘Ambrose, you can take her,’ she said brightly. ‘I was just about to tell Mr James about Bradford’s ailment.’ Her husband nodded wordlessly and proffered his arm to me, using the other to pick up the lantern from the shelf where Edison had placed it.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ I said, trying to project artlessly breathless gratitude. Tootie fairly beamed upon me, and I fancied she had decided to take me on as a sort of protégé.

  We were halfway between the house and the laboratory before Ambrose spoke. ‘Mrs James,’ he said quietly, ‘I hope you don’t think me impertinent. I wish to say at the outset that I mean you no harm.’

  ‘I was sure of it, Mr McGregor,’ I rejoined, supposing it to be the sort of thing Lavinia might say, though it was a blatant lie in the mouth of Irene Adler.

  ‘The truth is—,’ we reached the door of the laboratory building, and he opened it, shining the lantern inside. I walked quickly toward the side of the room where I had placed my glove. ‘The truth is, Mrs James, that I believe you may be in grave danger.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ I said, turning around to face the man, his plain face hardly visible in the shadows the lantern cast against the dark walls.

  ‘This is hard to say,’ he continued in a slow, stuttering voice, ‘but I have reason to believe your husband is not who he claims to be.’ I froze. Of all the possibilities I had considered, this contingency had never crossed even the furthest recess of my mind.

  ‘Whatever do you mean, Sir?’ I asked in my most husband-defending tone, moving back outside where the moonlight cast less garish light. Ambrose’s expression was filled with pained concern.

  ‘I have reason to believe that the gentleman who claims to be Bernard James is actually an English detective by the name of Sherlock Holmes.’ I nearly laughed. Only by the immediate application of a pinch to my forearm was I able to keep from making noise. I thought quickly. Holmes and I had not discussed this situation. I was sure that the detective, with his seemingly omniscient mind, must have considered it, but he had most likely dismissed it as a near-impossibility.

  Ambrose continued in the midst of my silence. ‘There is a man who lives in town by the name of Sanchez, and he—well, he is more acquainted with the ways of this person than I am. I first met your husband at this house during a large party a week ago, and Sanchez was also a guest. He took me aside that night and told me he had spotted Holmes, who, I gather, is somehow affiliated with the police. At the time, Sanchez voiced his opinion that the ruse was most likely harmless. After all, the man’s reputation is as a champion of good. I could not, however, fail to speak when I realised that you, his wife, seem unaware of his true identity. I am sorry if I have caused you distress, but I could not bear to stand by and watch a lady as fine as yourself be taken in.’

  I looked up into the kind, concerned face of Ambrose McGregor, and I made a decision. I am generally a good judge of character. Barring the blinders that caused me to marry a monster, I am rarely ever wrong. I wondered briefly what Holmes would wish me to do, but I was in a bind, pinned to the wall like a lab specimen. I had the choice of trying to come up with some wildly elaborate ruse to fool a seemingly reasonable man, or else come out with the truth and trust his judgement and good will. I chose the latter.

  ‘Mr McGregor,’ I said, standing close to him in the lantern light, ‘I will be quick, or the others will wonder what is keeping us. The things you say are true, and if you will call on us tomorrow at Mrs Stillwell’s boardinghouse, we will explain them to you. I ask you, as a personal favour, to please trust me and keep silent about this until then.’ The pleading look I gave him was unfeigned.

  ‘You’re quite a woman, Mrs James,’ was all he said as he turned back toward the house.

  Chapter 6: Holmes

  The moment Irene entered the house on the arm of Ambrose McGregor, Holmes could tell something had seriously rattled her, which he hadn’t expected. With sudden horror, he wondered if the older man had bothered her in some personal way. The detective’s eyes searched her keenly, but Irene’s smile and enthusiastic thanks seemed to convince the others, at least, that all was well. Mercifully, goodbyes were soon said, and within minutes he had his companion settled into a hired runabout. It was hardly elegant, but carriages were hard to come by in Fort Myers. As soon as he had handed Irene up, he retrieved a blanket from the floor behind, tucking it around her knees like a solicitous husband might.

  ‘I’m quite warm enough, Bernard,’ she said calmly, though none of the others were around to hear. Holmes hopped up beside her and studied her face, trying to ascertain her state of mind, punishing himself mentally for allowing her to go unaccompanied into danger, but she remained quiet, and her face remained impassive until they reached Mrs Stillwell’s house.

  Holmes willed his hands to be especially gentle as he helped Irene down from the carriage. She was small, he realised. He had never considered it, not properly, not as anything more than a statistical fact. The prints her feet made in the dirt pathway to the back door were tiny, practically a child’s prints. Why, oh why, had he been foolish enough to send her off alone with the man? His mind, the fallible organ to which he attached such trust, had painted a picture of The Woman as a force, a tower of strength. He now realised that she was both more and less than that, and he cursed himself inwardly for his lack of concern.

  As they mounted the stairs to his room at Mrs Stillwell’s, Holmes’s hand hovered in the vicinity of Irene’s elbow in case she should lose her footing. He did not touch her. She still remained speechless, and he wondered if he would have to employ some unusual method to cause her to explain the encounter. He knew that wronged women were often loathe to speak of their experiences for days or even weeks, and some, he had heard, even refused to speak at all. He could not afford for her to be one of those.

  The proprietress of the house was prodigiously proud of having electricity and of living so near the inventor of the lightbulb himself, as she had eagerly told Holmes upon his arrival, and she charged dearly for both. The detective turned on the prized electric light as soon as he and Irene had entered the worn upstairs room, and he watched his companion remove her hat and wash her hands in the basin. Having finished, she turned and looked him full in the face.

  ‘My goodness, Holmes, you look as if you’ve seen a spectre.’ The detective sat down in the lone wooden chair and watched her, puzzled. ‘Since you have not asked me the content of my conversation with Ambrose McGregor, I can only assume you thought it as prudent as I did to wait until we were privately secluded.’ As she spoke, Irene sat down on the edge of the uncomfortable bed and unpinned her chestnut hair, letting it fall in waves down her back. Holmes supposed that she felt no shame in this, since, after all, the man before her had once seen her dressed as a young man.

  ‘I hope very much that you will not blame me, Holmes.’ Her eyes pleaded with him, though he saw no evidence of personal injury or offense and began to conclude that his original assessment of her distress had been mistakenly reasoned. ‘McGregor’s aim and purpose was to save me from the unfortunate fate of a deceived woman. In short, Holmes, he went through all that trouble to tell me that my husband was none other than the famed English detective Sherlock Holmes.’

  At this, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, consu
lting detective to queen and country, threw back his head and laughed, but The Woman did not join him. ‘Believe me, Holmes,’ she continued when he had subsided, ‘my initial inclination was the same as yours, but the knowledge of Ambrose’s source distressed me more than his disclosure amused me. Alberto Sanchez somehow recognised you last week.’ Holmes nodded, not entirely surprised. Sanchez was the only one with a likely connection. The detective did not yet know exactly what it was or to what it tended, but it would have been almost insupportably coincidental for any person wholly unconnected to the case to have recognised him. Barnett had been more thorough than even Holmes had expected.

  ‘Ambrose said Sanchez called your deception harmless.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Holmes, pulling a well-worn notebook and pen from his black leather travelling case. ‘Let us evaluate where this places us. First, I believe we may almost certainly rule out the idea that Ambrose McGregor is lying.’

  ‘The thought had occurred to me,’ murmured Irene, ‘but I could not think of a reasonable motive, and he gave no appearance of it.’

  ‘Well, we may keep the possibility as a remote contingency to fall back on if no other roads lead us to fruitful enquiry, but I doubt it will be needed. Second, we know that Sanchez knows my appearance and is aware that I am alive. This leads to the question: Was Sanchez warned of my continuing existence before and told to be on the lookout for my presence, or was his recognition of me an accident? If the first, then we may suppose a network of people is aware that I am alive; if the second, Sanchez may know of me by some other means, such as a photo of me with someone else whom he has been taught to recognise. I have had few photos taken, but unfortunately some do exist at the cajoling of Watson and Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Third, where does your solicitor, Barnett, fit into the equation? If he is aware that I am alive, why has he not had me tailed? I can say with certainty that I have not been followed since my arrival in America. As improbable as it may seem, I begin to lean toward the possibility that Sanchez may have recognised me by near-chance. There is one particular photo that appeared in the London Times some years ago, after I had helped a certain peer regain a necklace stolen from his wife by a famous jewel thief. My work resulted in the man being caught and imprisoned, not only for the theft in question, but also for several other previously unsolved cases. The picture was notable because it contained the likenesses of several officers of Scotland Yard, Dr Watson, myself, and, most unusually, my brother Mycroft, who had been persuaded to pose for it by the prime minister, who wished the government to receive positive publicity from the incident. The photo’s presence in a prominent newspaper means that numerous reproductions of it were produced, and any number of individuals might have procured it easily.’