The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan (2 page)

She wished for secrecy, then. So I acted abstracted, gazing at an ugly gilt-framed still-life on the far wall as they passed me, but all the time planning to follow them, find out where they—

Thump,
an impact rocked the settee in which I sat, and peripherally I saw a blur of citrine—Lady Cecily—who had tripped over her ridiculous bell skirt, nearly falling into me. Instantly her two scowling escorts scooped her up and hurried her out, all without a word of apology to me.

Had they spared me even a glance, they might have seen as I did: on the settee next to me lay the pink paper fan.

T
HE INSTANT THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND
C
ECILY
and her two redoubtable chaperones, I sprang to my feet, slipping her pink fan along with my own into my pocket. I had to follow her and find out what was the matter in order to help her—but if I trailed her party too closely, I risked being noticed by her formidable chaperones. Therefore, I first jumped upon the settee, where by standing on tiptoe I could just see through the lavatory’s high window. The deep-set diamond-shaped window-panes distorted my limited view, but I could make out the threesome progressing towards the cab-stand.

Climbing down, I found the maidservant watching me with her mouth open. Laying a finger to my lips, I handed her a shilling, buying her silence. This transaction delayed me only slightly, yet seemed to take forever; in great haste I pulled on my gloves and exited the lavatory. To my relief, I was just in time to see a slight figure in a bell skirt being helped into a four-wheeler along with her two guardians. Taking note mentally of their cab’s number, I strode forward to secure one of my own—

But never got so far.

In that careless, unfortunate moment I found myself face-to-face with my brother.

The older, stouter one. Mycroft.

We all but bumped into each other, and were, I think, both equally startled. I believe I screamed. I know he let forth with a sort of hoot, as if someone had given him a hard blow to his stamped-velvet waistcoat. As everything happened at once, it is hard to recall who moved first, whether he seized me by the elbow before or after I kicked him briskly in the shin—but I know I twisted like an eel in his grip, I seem to recall stamping hard on the well-polished toe of his thin leather boot, and, without resorting to my dagger, I broke away and ran.

Had he been Sherlock, very likely freedom would have been all over for me, but it was not hard to run from Mycroft. I heard him puff after me only a few steps before he bellowed to all and sundry, “Stop that girl!”

Simultaneously I shrieked, “That man laid hands upon me!” An accusation so shocking that bystanders gasped with outrage and turned upon Mycroft with shouts and stares. Meanwhile, dodging between skirts and ducking beneath gentlemanly elbows, I took refuge once more in the Ladies’ Lavatory, whisking past the doorkeeper with a gabbled tale of having forgotten something. Hurrying straight into that excellent facility’s inner sanctum, I found the maidservant at work with her perfume-atomiser, attempting to quell the inevitable stench.

“Vanish,” I snapped at her, and without a murmur she retreated to the parlour.

By the time Mycroft had, I surmise, explained himself and summoned a constable, I was gone through the back window, and I was no longer a female scholar. Minus hat, gloves, and glasses, I no longer resembled that drab creature at all, thanks to a colourful length of Indian-print cotton—I always carry such useful things in my bust, for emergencies and also to lend me the appearance of the bosom I do not possess. Thus, looking quite the Bohemian with my bare hands, my head wrapped like that of a heathen and my shawl trailing halfway to the ground, I walked to the Underground and made my way safely back to “Dr. Ragostin’s” office.

None of the servants saw me come in, for I did not, in my outlandish costume, enter by the front door. Rather, I pressed the centre of a certain scroll amid the wood ornamentation that dripped like cake-sugar all over the house’s gingerbread-brown stone façade, then slipped around the side, opened the secret door, and strode directly into the locked inner room, “Dr. Ragostin’s” private office. It was my very good fortune that this sanctum had been fitted out for use by a medium (a villain—but that is another story) who had once held séances there—hence the secret door, behind a bookshelf, to the outside, and also a small secret chamber where I kept my various disguises.

I threw my Bohemian shawl aside, turned up the gas-lamps for light, then lounged upon the chintz sofa, frowning.

Angry at myself. Had I been alert and taking proper precautions, looking about me, the encounter with Mycroft would never have happened. Now, in addition to embarrassing myself (I was not yet ready to rejoice in the way I had embarrassed
him
), I had lost my chance to shadow Lady Cecily and find out what mysterious new misfortune might beset her. Even the number of the cab she had taken was lost from my mind, which apparently had dropped it during the fracas. I was left with no clue except the peculiar fan lying in my lap. Indeed, if it were not for that candy-pink artefact, I would have found it difficult to believe what had happened.

Holding the fan up to the light, I scanned it. Then, pulling a magnifying-lens from my bosom, I studied it inch by inch. I hoped to find a note or message, but discovered only plain sticks, their cheap soft wood unmarred by any scratched or pencilled lines, and plain pink paper, slightly watermarked in a decorative checkerboard motif, but quite virginal. As was the fan’s edging of downy feathers, no doubt plucked from some common backyard duck before being dyed pink. I could see no marks on the shafts of the feathers, nothing slipped between sticks and paper, no hidden compartment, simply nothing of interest.

Confound it all. If only—

Drat Mycroft. Drat and blast brothers.

Grumpily I moved to “Dr. Ragostin’s” vast mahogany desk, where, with pencil and drawing paper, I sketched quite an alarming picture of Mycroft at the moment he had recognised me, his bushy brows all shot up as if he had just trod upon a rat. Then, my feelings somewhat relieved, more contemplatively I drew a likeness of Lady Cecily in her bell skirt. Often when I find myself in doubt, upset, or perplexity, I turn to sketching, and I generally find that it does good somehow.

In no way is Lady Cecily a fool for fashion. Why ever would she wear a bell skirt?

Doodling, I remembered the flat boater I had seen on her head.

Why such a frightfully modish costume, yet a hat not the least bit fashionable?

Next I started sketching her face, first in profile, then from the front.

The style in which she wore her hair, pulled straight back, was not fashionable, either. If she cared about fashion, she would have worn a fringe to cover that high forehead. Why, she looks a bit like Alice in Wonderland.
Despite Sir John Tenniel’s marvelous illustrations, I had never much enjoyed Lewis Carroll’s books.

Alice never smiled.

I did not like nonsense stories; I wanted narrative to unfold with some degree of logic, much as life should. Although often it did not. For instance, it made no sense that such a well-to-do girl as Lady Cecily should carry a paper fan.

Why such a silly pink thing?

Well and truly engrossed in my drawing now, I sketched Cecily again, this time putting the fan in her hand, and trying to capture the way she had looked at me—

With a shudder as if a whip had snapped far too close to me, I felt again the desperation of her gaze.

Something is dreadfully wrong.

Even though I did not at all understand what she wanted of me, I knew I must try to help her.

But how to find out what was the matter?

After a few moments’ thought, I got up and strode to a certain bookcase, where I reached behind a stout volume of Pope’s essays and touched a hidden latch. Quite silently the shelf turned upon its well-oiled hinges, allowing me passage into my very private “dressing-room,” where I began to affect necessary changes in my costume and appearance.

I had decided to go calling upon the Alistairs. Therefore, because Lady Theodora knew me only as the mousy Mrs. Ragostin, I must once again become that humble person.

Timid, fumbling, and dowdy even though she carried a lorgnette and a parasol, “Dr. Ragostin’s” child bride (remembering to tap softly) plied the brass knocker upon the formidable front door of the baronet’s town house. I had achieved the dowdiness by combining grey cotton gloves and quite a limp olive-green felt hat with an expensive but hideous brown print dress. Moreover, I had tucked moss-roses, an old-fashioned blossom, into my hatband and my bosom. (Upper-class bosoms are expected to serve as flowerpots.) I hoped Lady Theodora would see me; from my previous visits I knew that she, a radiantly beautiful woman, found Mrs. Ragostin, who was quite the opposite, soothing to her nerves.

But when the redoubtable butler answered the door, he bore no silver tray, nor did he so much as glance at the calling-card in my gloved hand, although I am sure he recognised me. “Lady Theodora is receiving no visitors.”

“Her ladyship is unwell?” I ventured, remembering to keep my tone that of a well-bred sparrow.

“Her ladyship is seeing
no one.
”

Hmm. If it were an ordinary matter of indisposition, he would have agreed that her ladyship was unwell.

“Tomorrow, perhaps?” I chirped.

“Most unlikely. Her ladyship remains in total seclusion.”

Another baby on the way, perhaps? As if poor Theodora had not borne enough little Alistairs already? She must be of an age to cease. Was this mysterious seclusion mere coincidence, or did it have something to do with Lady Theodora’s most problematic daughter?

Displaying distress or vacuity of mind, I began to twitter. “How very disappointing. Since I am here…I have been quite wanting to meet…might I have just a word with Lady Cecily?”

“The Honourable Lady Cecily no longer resides here.”

This surprised me, for two reasons: where was Cecily if not here, at her home? And why had the butler been so frank? I saw by his sour expression that already he regretted his indiscretion; evidently my persistent brown presence was wearing him down.

Encouraged, I did not budge from the doorstep. “Really! Lady Cecily has gone already to the country, perhaps?”

But I was to get nothing more out of him. Excusing himself, he shut the door in my face.

So much for talking with Lady Theodora.

Now what?

T
HAT EVENING, IN MY CUSTOMARY GUISE AS
D
R.
Ragostin’s secretary, Ivy Meshle, I went home to my rented lodging and shared a less-than-satisfactory supper of carrots and kidneys with my elderly landlady. Since Mrs. Tupper is as deaf as a cast-iron gatepost, I attempted no conversation while we ate. But afterward, I signalled her that I wished to borrow some reading material from her. That is to say, I spread my hands as if opening a newspaper, then pointed upward, towards her bedchamber. There were only three rooms in her East End hovel: mine, hers, and the single cooking/dining/sitting-room on the ground floor. Still, the sweet old soul did not understand. Placing her trumpet to her ear, she leaned towards me over the table and bellowed, “What? You say there’s a bat got in upstairs?”

Eventually I had to lead her upstairs to show her what I wanted: her stacks of society periodicals.

As a step towards finding and helping Lady Cecily, I hoped to discover the identity of the ogresses in whose dubious company I had seen her.

Society-watching was a pursuit that, being a person of democratic convictions, I had scorned, up until now. So I had a great deal of catching up to do. After carrying Mrs. Tupper’s accumulated periodicals to my own room, gladly I rid myself not only of my dress but my bust enhancer, hip regulators, and corset, my cheek and nostril inserts, my fringe of curls, and my false eyelashes, making myself comfortable in a dressing-gown and slippers before settling down to read.

Although I cannot say I particularly enjoyed it. Over the course of the next several hours I learned that croquet was quite passé, tennis and archery still in mode, but the Very Latest Sport for ladies was golf. Lord Jug-ears and Lady Parsnip-face had been seen coaching in Hyde Park; she wore a Worth gown of ciel-bleu French gibberish moire. What a shame that Kensington Palace stood empty despite its restoration. A most distinguished gathering had attended the christening of Baby So-and-so, firstborn son of Lord Such-a-much Earl of What-does-it-matter. Satin was Out,
peau de soie
In. An oil-painting exhibition themed around the Progress of the British Empire was viewable at Gallery Ever-so-exclusive. Viscount and Viscountess Ancient-lineage announced the engagement of their daughter Long-name to Great-prospects, the younger son of Earl Blue-blood. My head ached abominably, I thought I should go quite mad, and I had not yet looked through even a quarter of the stack. I peered at photographs of Duchess Duck-foot’s boating-party, Baron Bulb-nose’s cricket-team’s annual banquet, Debutante Wasp-waist’s coming-out ball, and dozens more without finding either of the two unpleasant faces I sought.

When day turned to dark, gladly I rose from my chair, for I would strain my eyes if I attempted to read any longer by candlelight. From its hiding place between mattress and bedstead I pulled the dark, decrepit clothing I wore when I went out to wander the night.

Now that winter had passed, poor folk living in the streets were less in need of my help. And since my brother Sherlock knew of my work as the Sister of Charity, I had been obliged to discard my black habit with deep pockets. While I still managed to slip pennies to the unfortunate, I had found another guise in which to roam London in the dark hours: I went as a midden-picker, that is, one who scavenges garbage heaps for bits of rag (for the paper-mills), bone (for garden-meal), metal (for the smelters), or food (definitely not for me). I wore a shabby skirt and shawl, walked with a rickety, shambling gait, and carried a battered lantern in one hand and a burlap sack upon my bent back.

Some innate unrest drives me to roam the night in any event, but in settling upon this particular guise, I gave myself a purpose: I wanted to learn my way around all of London, not just the East End. As a midden-picker, I could go anywhere without interference, for I exemplified thriftiness. Although propriety dictated that such an unsightly scavenger must steal in and out again by night, still, only the most mean and stingy of households would drive such a hardworking representative of the “deserving poor” from their premises.

Whether Mrs. Tupper was asleep yet or not, there was no fear that the dear deaf soul would hear me go out. Latching the door behind me, I made my way into the crowded street—in the warm months, the narrow lanes of the slums thronged even at midnight. Arm in arm, a clot of men staggered past, singing a drunken song. On one corner by the light of a street-lamp, haggard women sewed sacks for flour and such, piecework to bring in a few farthings, until their hands and eyes could labour no more. On another corner loitered other women, showing a great deal of bosom and ankle, also at work but not sewing. Everywhere children meandered aimlessly. It sometimes seemed to me that half the population of London was children, and half the children were orphans—it was very much the usual thing for a girl of the slums to have a baby by the time she was fifteen, then die in her twenties—whilst the other half were “Hansels and Gretels,” turned out by parents who could not feed them.

This was East London. Ten minutes on the Underground took me to West London, which might as well have been a different world.

Especially the neighbourhood where I went that night. Here, square old houses slept, blanketed in ivy, surrounded by square fenced yards. Here, streets ran wide and empty into yet more squares—cobbled squares. This area was like a great square-patch brick-and-stone quilt I had not yet comprehended to my satisfaction; what sort of people lived here? In a square-towered Italianate villa, nouveau riche or impoverished royalty? In a mansard-roofed French Second Empire edifice, maiden aunts or dilettantes? In a much-gabled Queen Anne, a doctor? A dandy?

Gas lighted some of the houses; others stood dark. Ambling along, I saw no one except a pair of night-soil men making their rounds—while there might be water-closets within the houses, there were still back-garden privies that needed to be emptied, and this distasteful process had to be done by darkness. Hence the men with the great metal container on a cart. After the rumble of its wheels had faded away (although its fetor, alas, had not), I saw and heard no other persons—except, coming towards me, the measured pacing of a constable on his beat.

“Gud evenin’, ducks,” I piped as he approached me.

“And many gud evenin’s to yerself, dearie.” He was Irish and cheery, twirling his baton, nodding approval of my burlap sack. “Me nose was tellin’ me, afore them stinkers passed, that it’s mock turtle soup they’re afther havin’ at number forty-four.”

“Thank ye kindly.” Off I scuttled, lighting my sorry little lantern, and sure enough, in back of number forty-four I found the skull of the calf’s head they had boiled.

One can hypothesise about people by their midden-heaps. For instance: perhaps members of this household had aspirations that exceeded their means, as turtle soup, the genuine item, was all the rage among the rich.

Once behind the houses, with the calf’s skull in my bag and the constable’s friendliness bolstering my nerve, I zigzagged from backyard to backyard, entering mostly through carriage-drives; from each carriage-house a dog would bark in a perfunctory manner, to be shushed by the boy or groom sleeping in the loft overhead after he had taken a peep at me through his window. Thus admitted to the nether-world of the neighbourhood, I started to sort out the inhabitants in my mind. Sometimes there were vegetable gardens tucked behind the carriage-houses where they could easily be enriched by manure and straw: solid and sensible folk, these. Some houses seemed empty, perhaps waiting for an owner to return from abroad, but quite a few were occupied by families with children, as evidenced by hoops, brightly striped balls, clapping-monkey pull-toys, et cetera, left lying about. And someone had a seamstress living in, sewing the entire family new springtime outfits, for in the midden-heap I found threads and scraps of everything from serge to taffeta—all of which I bagged by the light of my lantern.

But at the next house, I saw as I shuffled towards its back fence, I needed no lantern. For some reason these people kept gas-jets flaring out-of-doors, like a modern sort of flambeau. How wasteful, and how odd.

The gate to the carriage-drive was padlocked. But through the iron rails of the fence, and by the light of all those outdoor gas-jets, I could see quite a pile of bones just past the corner of the carriage-house.

Once one begins collecting something, for whatever reason, the act becomes a sort of mania in itself. Even though, at the night’s end, I would give away my finds to the first beggar I encountered, nevertheless, when I saw those bones, I had to have them. Forgetting that I was supposed to be a bent and rickety woman of the slums, I swarmed up and over the fence within a moment; I love to climb, and seldom get the chance, as this is not a pastime much pursued by proper females. Lighthearted as well as light-footed, I jumped down inside the fence and turned towards my objective.

But I’d not gone three steps when a roar worthy of a Bengal tiger paralysed me. A huge animal charged me, bearing down on me like a galloping horse.

Ye gods! I had not seen the doghouse tucked behind the carriage-house, and now the proper owner of the bones—a massive mastiff—wished to tear my throat out.

With no time to retreat over the fence, I was in a panic, fumbling for my dagger, when, quite unexpectedly, the beast halted, although it continued to roar and snarl at me in the most resounding and frightful manner.

What ever in the world? Why was I not being mauled?

Then I saw.

Oh, my goodness.

The mastiff had halted on the far side of another, inner fence. But not the usual sort of fence. Unless I was much mistaken—

“What do you have there, Lucifer?” drawled an insolent voice, and a massive man, rather resembling his mastiff, appeared from between beech trees and walked up on the far side of the inner fence.

The sunk fence, so called. Also known as a ha-ha.

A deep ditch lined with stone. Such modern moats were not uncommon around country estates, hidden in the contours of the land so as to preserve the integrity of the vista whilst keeping out cattle and intruders—but here in the city? What ever for?

“A midden-picker,” the burly man was saying with disgust, eyeing me as if I were a cockroach to be crushed. “How did you get in?”

Making myself as small as possible—not difficult, under the circumstances—I did not answer, only staring at the sunk fence with my mouth ajar.

“You don’t know what it is, do you, bones-for-brains?” I could hear the man’s sneer in his voice. “It’s a ha-ha. And do you know why it’s called that, dust-scholar? It’s called that because, when you fall in, we come and look at you and we laugh, ha-ha, ha-ha—”

Something in the tone of his voice frightened me even more than the mastiff’s barking did. I began to back away.

“—ha-ha, ha-ha—”

I dodged into the shadows behind the carriage-house, out of his view, and applied myself earnestly to climbing over the wrought-iron fence.

“—ha-ha, and then we go away,” he shouted after me, “and leave you there until you rot!”

I was never in any danger, really. Yet, until I had got home again and lay safe in my bed, I could not stop trembling.