The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan (7 page)

S
HERLOCK AND
I
BARELY SPOKE UNTIL WE HAD
passed with all the stealth we could manage through back lanes, kitchen-gardens, a carriage-drive where a sleepy watchdog barked at us, rustling hedges, creaky gates, and at last beneath someone’s dark windows to Oakley Street. There we could see the cab, a substantial four-wheeler, waiting at the next corner like a chariot of Heaven beneath a halo of gas-light.

Hitching along half a step behind me, Sherlock spoke then to answer the question I had not asked. “I would be no gentleman if I did not give you my heartfelt thanks and let you go your merry way, Enola.”

My heart leapt.

“But only for tonight.”

So much for my leaping heart; it plummeted. My brother’s caveat was just what I should have expected, yet I had hoped—never mind, but still, my disappointment stung. I responded hotly. “Why, in Heaven’s name, must you continue to hound me? Can you not see—”

“I quite appreciate your remarkable abilities, my dear sister, but it is my duty to think of your future. How will you ever wed if you continue on your present course?”

No proper male could ever care for a girl who climbed trees and swung from ropes, he was saying.

“What of it?” I retorted. No one had ever cared for me; what difference if no one ever did? Still, I fear I spoke bitterly. “I am quite accustomed to being alone.”

“But surely—Enola—you cannot intend to spend your life as a spinster.”

This from a confirmed bachelor.

“The world is a dangerous place. A woman requires a man to protect her.”

This, as he limped along, leaning more and more heavily on my shoulder. “Bosh,” I told him. “If you say another word to annoy me, I will kick your sore foot.”

“Enola! You wouldn’t!”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “Rather, I would aim to lame the other one.”

“Enola!” He sounded quite aghast. I think he believed me.

“No more talk of your so-called duty,” I responded. “Might I remind you that it is from marriage, the so-called ‘protection’ of a man, that you are attempting to rescue the hapless Cecily Alistair? And might I ask how you intend to do so?”

Silence.

“Can you find out where they are keeping her?”

In a low tone he answered obliquely, “I have been a nincompoop, convinced they had her in the house. Rather than wooing the upstairs maid—”

“Ah. Bridget, no doubt.”

He grimaced. “Precious little information have I got from her. What I should have done was follow the occasional carriage, even if it meant clinging to the back—”

“You cannot do that with your foot—”

“I am quite aware of the condition of my foot!” He sounded wrought. Halting, he leaned against someone’s front gatepost so that he faced me. “Enola, tell me what you know of this matter, if you would be so good.”

Quite pleased to spend a few more minutes in his company, but careful not to show it, I retorted, “If you will tell me what
you
know. Is Lady Theodora at liberty to contact you?”

“Unhappily so. Due to the strength of her feelings against her husband’s arrangements regarding their daughter, Lady Theodora has secretly separated from Sir Eustace and, along with her remaining children, she has returned to her family’s estate in the country.”

Once I had learned from him the name and location of this refuge, I gladly told him all about my recent encounter with Cecily Alistair, concealing only its location, the Ladies’ Lavatory. For modesty’s sake, and also to safeguard my future patronage there, I called it only “a public place.” But concerning the unlucky lady’s grandiose escorts, her constrictive clothing, her haggard appearance, and her recognition of me, I spoke fully. I detailed her signalling with her oddly unfashionable fan, the ingenious manner in which she had slipped it to me, and the content of the invisible writing I had found upon its pink paper.

“Her chaperones were the Viscountess Inglethorpe and the Baroness Merganser,” I concluded.

“You are sure of this?”

“Quite sure.”

He accepted that I would not tell him how I knew. “Then they do have Lady Cecily in their clutches, and in the most desperate straits. Confound it.” As if fleeing from his own thoughts, my brother lurched into a limping walk, seizing my shoulder once more for support.

I tried to offer hope. “But surely there is a limit to the infamy these people are attempting. While they can force her to the altar, surely they cannot, at the moment of truth, compel her actually to say ‘I do.’”

“You credit the girl with a degree of obstinacy equal to your own, Enola.”

From the quirk in his voice I could not tell whether he was laughing at me or giving me a sort of back-handed compliment.

“An attribute most unlikely,” he continued, “which you of all people, having once rescued her from a Mesmerist, should know. Lady Cecily has shown herself to be susceptible to the strong will of another. She can be dominated. According to Lady Theodora, she has hardly been herself since she was abducted, and indeed shows herself to be a vessel of rather unsteady course.”

“True enough,” I muttered without attempting to explain how the rigours of a right-handed up-bringing had forced Cecily to become two different selves, the docile public daughter versus the brilliant, rebellious reform-minded left-handed lady, who must
not
be locked into a prison masquerading as a marriage.

Sherlock continued, “Indeed, such are the accounts I have heard of her that I fear, were I to locate her and attempt a rescue, she might choose
that
occasion to scream, taking me for a kidnapper.”

Nonsense. Ignoring the substance of this remark, I pounced upon its suggestion. “You have hopes of finding her, when she could be anywhere in London?”

“Hope is irrelevant. I
must
find her, or have her found, even if, as I was saying, she thinks she is being kidnapped.”

“She will think nothing of the sort. Show her this.” Reaching into my so-called bosom—actually a repository of numerous supplies—I brought out a pink paper fan fringed with downy pink feathers.

From my brother’s throat issued a sound somewhat like the midnight call of a corn-crake, and his faltering step halted. “Is that—is that the one—”

“No. A duplicate.” I handed to him this dainty item I had obtained from a caterer on Gillyglade Court. “But if she sees you with it, she will know you are her friend.”

He pocketed it, saying “Thank you,” but with a great deal of doubt and not much hope in his tone. “I am sure I shall look very sweet carrying it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Have you a better plan?”

“Not yet.”

“Nor do I.” We had nearly reached the place where the cab waited; I halted. “You can manage from here, I’m sure. I’ll go no farther.” By shunning the illumination of the street-lamp, I hoped to prevent his seeing in full detail my costume or any other aspect of my personage. That was my only thought. I had forgotten my fears that he might attempt to seize me and take me with him in the cab.

Oddly, not until he had actually let go of my shoulder and stepped away from me did I remember once more to be afraid. He stood so much taller than I.

And so handsome, to my eyes at least, with his keen features silhouetted by an aureole of gas-light.

He said, “Will you not come along with me, Enola, have a cup of tea, and speak further of this matter?”

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly.
An unjust thought; Sherlock Holmes had given his word, which was inviolate; surely I could enjoy a few more hours in his company—

At the thought, my heart squeezed with a sensation so akin to rapture that I began to understand: my fear was of my own fondness for him. A few more hours in his company, and I might find myself too weak to leave. I might, like some fairy-tale denizen of the night, be caught by daylight, and captured.

I spoke almost in terror. “Some other time, thank you.”

“There is no other time. The coerced marriage is scheduled to take place two days from tomorrow morning.”

Ye gods!

“What!” I cried, and then a bit more lucidly, “Where?”

“That’s the devil of it. I don’t know.”

Ye
reeking
gods!

“Bridget could tell me only that arrangements have been made to use some quite secluded chapel.”

Ye gods with corns and bunions!

Sherlock said, “Are you sure you will not come with me, Enola?”

Mind and emotions all in a tumult, vehemently I shook my head. “I need to
think,
” I said.

“I see. Well, in that case I can only offer you my most sincere thanks for your assistance tonight.” He extended his arm, offering me his hand to shake.

Or to take hold of me. Did he think I was a fool?

Yet I would not, could not, insult his feelings by refusing. Our fingers touched, and then his gloved hand surrounded my rather grubby paw, all smirched, even bloodied, from climbing. But when I felt his grip begin to linger, I snatched my hand away.

“My dear, skittish sister,” he murmured, his tone wry, almost, dare I say it, wistful, “you remind me of a wild moorland pony. Until we meet again, then, farewell.” And he limped away.

I
WILL SPARE THE GENTLE READER A FULL ACCOUNT
of the remainder of that night. Suffice it to say that, after watching my brother drive away in his cab, I was rent by the most unexpected and vehement sentimental eruption, a kind of Vesuvius of the emotions, that took me quite by surprise. Intermittently on my journey back to the East End I sobbed. Once I had reached my bed, I fell nearly insensible into an exhausted slumber. And in the morning when I awoke, I found myself weeping anew, unfit to be seen at breakfast. Lacking reason to dress, I remained in my nightgown; indeed, it was only a sudden, irrational terror—
What if my brother has tracked me here?
—that enabled me to leave my bed. Levitated by panic, I peered, trembling, between the window-sash and the blind. There was no sign of Sherlock, of course, to my most exceedingly contradictory disappointment.

Indeed, all of my sensibilities seemed at odds with one another, thoughts running like frightened quail in all directions: I had failed, I could do nothing now to save the hapless Lady Cecily, nor could Sherlock with a hurt foot, I hoped it was not actually broken, I wondered whether he had gone to see Dr. Watson about it, I wondered why he had not invited his good friend Watson to accompany him into the ha-ha. I wondered where those Merganser villains were keeping their victim. I wondered where my mother might be roaming, whether she might be in any danger…
Don’t think of Mum.
I wondered whether Sherlock had gone yet to talk with Mycroft. Confound Mycroft, he would tell Sherlock the exact location of “a public place.” I must not go near the Ladies’ Lavatory again, or wear a scholar’s dark dress, as Mycroft had seen me in it. My alternatives in regard to disguise dwindled each time I was sighted by one of my brothers. Sherlock had seen the tweed suit; I must get rid of it. Mum had left behind a tweed suit when she had run away…why ever on Earth did I keep thinking of my mother? Lacking Mum, I wished Sherlock were the one who had legal guardianship of me instead of Mycroft; I sensed in Sherlock a certain sympathy…no. I must trust neither of them. How much had Sherlock learned of me the night before? Far too much; how could I have been such an idiot as to let him so near me for so long? Sherlock now knew that I kept numerous useful items bestowed upon my personage. Had he seen
where
I kept them? Had he noticed in the dark my womanly figure? Did he know about my bust enhancer, my dress improver, my hip regulators? Must I start all over again as Heaven knew what, perhaps a Gypsy fortune-teller, in order to elude him?

Yet—yet I so wished to encounter him again. I imagined chatting with him as we walked side by side along some cobbled London street. So many things I wished I had asked him the night before. What did he hear from Ferndell, the ancestral hall where both of us had been raised? How were Lane the butler and Mrs. Lane the cook, and their lackwit son, Dick, and the somewhat more intelligent collie dog, Reginald? What news of Kineford village? And here in London, how were Dr. and Mrs. Watson, and how was Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock’s landlady, whom I had met the day I took the cipher book away? And speaking of the cipher book,
When you went to Ferndell, my dear brother Sherlock, to investigate, what did you find—what did Mum hide for me behind the mirror?

In that moment my heart clenched, all my fluttering quail flew away, so to speak, and the volcanic tumult in my mind focussed itself with fierce, nearly insane energy upon this one question: Had Mum left any sort of message for me?

A question utterly without any practical merit.

Yet somehow, at that time of turmoil, it seemed supremely important. Because I understood, finally, why I had not yet attempted to locate Mum.

Why I hesitated to see her.

What sort of daughter I was: the frightened sort, actually.

I felt not at all sure, you see—I knew Mum cared for me in her way, but—whether she would want to see me…

Don’t be a coward, Enola. Say it. Or if you can’t say it, think it.

I did not know whether I was a fool to think Mum loved me.

But if she had left me some message in the mirror…

That question took over the day like so much molten lava, flooding my mind and burying any ordinary mental commerce deeper than the marketplace of Pompeii. The need I had so long postponed could be put off no longer. That morning, without some word from my mother, my life seemed not worth living.

My mother, you see, ten months ago when she had departed so unexpectedly upon my fourteenth birthday, had left behind for me a little handmade booklet of ciphers which, when solved, had led me to considerable sums of money hidden in her brass bedposts, behind her watercolours, et cetera—money that had enabled me to escape boarding school by running away in my turn. Most unfortunately, I had lost my cipher book to a cutthroat, and it had then made its way into Sherlock’s hands. I had regained it by stealing it from his lodging, only to discover, by the pencil marks he had made upon the pages, that he had solved the one cipher I could not, a cipher on a page decorated with pansies:

HE SE BE RS LA IN IR

AR AS YO EN SE MY RO

TEUOEMR

Pansies look like little faces—perhaps that is why they symbolise “thoughts.” Mum had affectionately called them “Johnny-jump-ups,” but to me they seemed like elfin ladies with their hair piled—two dark petals on top—and on the three lighter petals below, their ancient, wizened features. If I had thought more about pansies, and less about finding something, when I saw the cipher, I might have guessed how Mum had encoded her message: Once one has placed the three lines in order beneath one another, it is easy enough to see how Mum had arranged her letters like a pansy’s five petals. And then, reading each “pansy” individually, it is simple to decipher:

Once one has placed the three lines in order beneath one another, it is easy enough to see how Mum had arranged her letters like a pansy’s five petals. And then, reading each “pansy” individually, it is simple to decipher:

HEARTS EASE BE YOURS ENOLA

SEE IN MY MIRROR

Mum had secreted something inside a hand mirror, or perhaps behind a wall mirror’s brown paper backing.

Heart’s ease be yours, Enola.

Mum’s true wish for me? Or merest word-play?
Heartsease
is another name for pansies.

Or had Mum chosen pansies for a purpose? Might this cipher, had I solved it, have led me to the one thing I most wanted from her and the one thing I most lacked: some message of explanation, farewell, even—dare I say it—affection?

I would delay no longer; I would find out.

Instantly, the moment I resolved to act, my tears ceased along with my trembling and my barefoot pacing of my bedroom. Still in my nightgown, but all galvanised by purpose now, I seized upon my laptop writing desk, thrusting aside the papers I had left upon it previously, and sat down to communicate with Mum via the personal column of the
Pall Mall Gazette.

I scrawled,

Hmm. Quite a long message to attempt to encode.

Moreover, Sherlock and Mycroft, whom I quite wished not to know of this business, could decipher any code I knew as easily as Mum could.

Any code except this one:

In the language of flowers, you see, “fidelity” is ivy, first letter
I
. “Thoughts of absent friends” indicates zinnias, the third or fourth letter of which is
N.
“Fascination” is ferns, second letter
E
. And so on to rosemary for “remembrance.” Thus far I had encoded
I NEVER.

Egad. This would simply not do, being far too lengthy, cumbersome, and—even though I tried to use only flowers whose meanings were quite immutable—still, prone to error.

After crumpling this effort and throwing it aside, I sat frowning until I remembered how Mum had most recently communicated with me: in plain English with a veiled meaning.

After thinking about this for a while, I smiled and tried again:

There! A sort of riddle, merest nonsense about flowers. Narcissus was a flower—but before the gods had turned him into one, he was the Greek youth who had fallen in love with his own beauty when he saw his reflection in a pool of water. He did not have a mirror, but Chrysanthemum, or Mum, my mother, bloomed in glass—a looking-glass. Ivy was, of course, me, and I had failed to find the Iris—another flower named from Greek mythology, Iris being the goddess who brought messages from Olympus to Earth via the bridge of the rainbow. It was a message, then, that Mum had “planted” for me, presumably behind the glass.

Much relieved, I inked copies of my riddle-rhyme for the
Pall Mall Gazette
and a few more of Mum’s favourite periodicals. Since I was not yet washed, fed, or dressed, I would send these via the midday post, which would get them to Fleet Street before I could. All I needed was a few postage-stamps.

Searching for these, impatiently I cast aside the papers I had already cast aside earlier—

Until something I had written caught my eye.

A list compiled—heavens, was it only yesterday? It seemed a week ago.

For a moment, reading this, I stood like a pillar of salt in the middle of my room. Then, “Blast and confound!” I cried, flinging up my hands in despair of myself. “I am a dolt!” How had I let a whole morning slip away while I dithered about bygones? I needed to get to work at once.

I knew now who might be able to tell me where Lady Cecily was imprisoned.