Femme Fatale (10 page)

“Your doorman,” he went on, “is Bram Stoker, the eminent theatrical manager and novice writer. I am Oscar Wilde, the novice eminence and theatrical writer. And what is your specialty, Doctor?”

“I have none. I am a generalist.”

“Yet you and Mr. Holmes both take on ‘cases.’ ”

“I suppose you could put it that way.”

“Then
I
will! Who, pray, is the patriotic marksman?”

For a moment I was nonplused, then I glimpsed the “V. R.” Holmes had etched in bullet holes on the parlor wallpaper. “Holmes.”

“I applaud his penmanship and sentiments, but didn’t the landlady and neighbors and the horses in the street swoon from fright?”

“I wasn’t here, but I suspect he did it very quickly, that being the point of the exercise.”

Bram Stoker laughed with delight. “What a scene that would make on stage. I must borrow it for some production.”

“I believe Holmes was bored.”

Now Oscar Wilde laughed, less heartily. “I had never thought of such an exhilarating cure for boredom. I must try it when my critics are in the room.”

“But there are so many of them, Oscar,” Stoker responded genially.

“You are right. I would run out of bullets and have to resort to stickpins. But let us not stand on ceremony when there are chairs to be sat on.”

With this Stoker settled in the basket chair and left Holmes’s velvet-lined easy chair to Wilde. I took my usual seat to the left of the fireplace. Thus we settled into an uneasy conversational lull.

I knew who both men were, of course, but had no idea why they would consult Holmes.

I made so bold as to ask them.

“Consult Holmes?” Stoker asked, blinking his pale carrot-colored eyelashes. “Not at all.”

“Quite the reverse is true,” Wilde said, crossing his legs to reveal olive silk stockings and shoes that were more slippers than brogues. “Holmes has, in fact, consulted
us
.”

“Really?” Politeness would not allow me to probe further, but I couldn’t credit that Holmes would ever do any such thing.

He was a man who kept his own counsel. That I had achieved so much of his confidence through our long association was a matter of great pride to me. Wilde’s supercilious manner felt sharper than it was probably meant. He had been studying the interior, and I recalled that he edited some magazine involving fashion and interior design and the like.

“I see Holmes and I have a mutual friend.”

My eyes went to the photograph of General Gordon on one wall, my sole contribution to the room’s bohemian decor.

“The General?” I asked, startled, for he was not only dead but I could not imagine that Wilde had ever met such a military hero, and certainly I had not, despite my years of service in Afghanistan.

“The diva,” Oscar said, smiling.

That is when I remembered the photograph of the late Irene Adler that Holmes kept on the mantel along with a Persian slipper filled with pipe shag and his most recent correspondence transfixed with a jackknife.

“That is a fine photograph of her,” Stoker said warmly. “Quite the most beautiful woman I ever met, with apologies to Ellen Terry, my own wife Florence, whom you also admired, Oscar, and your own Constance.”

“Beautiful, yes,” I began, about to explain that she was also very dead, when the door from the stairway opened and there stood Holmes in his usual London garb of top hat and cutaway coat.

He doffed the hat at once and welcomed the assemblage with one of his swift, tight smiles. “Watson! How clever of you to arrive in such a timely fashion to greet my guests.”

I had the opposite impression, and stood. “I could see if Mrs. Hudson can offer us some refreshment.”

“Capital idea, Watson. I just arrived on the boat train from Paris this morning and would welcome sustenance. Gentlemen?”

Both men shook their heads with a smile. “No,” Stoker said. “We both are needed at the theater, and only stopped by to see you beforehand.”

“Then Watson and I shall make a picnic of it, eh, old fellow! Do see what Mrs. Hudson can tempt us with. She is a jewel at sudden meals, which my work demands. There’s a good chap.”

I very much had the impression of a child being sent to bed while the adults begin to discuss the most interesting matters. But off I went, hoping that Holmes would let me know the reason for this astounding visit later.

Mrs. Hudson was the sort of landlady, and cook, who reveled in rising to occasions. I left her happily planning a tasty if impromptu repast, which somewhat made up for my speedy dismissal by Holmes.

Once again I climbed the stairs and wondered at my welcome.

The two men were standing, as though taking their leave.

“We were just saying,” Wilde noted, “before Dr. Watson went to see to supper, what a splendid likeness of Irene Adler that is. I should have composed an ode to her years ago. She is the female equivalent of a Stradivarius, is she not, Holmes?”

“Watson is the expert on the fair sex,” Holmes answered hastily. “I must keep my mind unclouded by such aspects as beauty. I do, in fact, find women as a whole to be clever but unreliable.”

“Unreliability is their most charming attribute, my dear Holmes,” Wilde said. “The reliable is vastly overrated, far too unpredictable to count upon. Would you ask the wind to blow in four-four time? So, Dr. Watson.” Wilde turned to me with a slight smile. “Do you bow with every man of sensibility to the divine beauty of the lovely diva?”

“A fine figure of a woman, no doubt, but—” I said, about to point out that she was dead.

“No ‘buts,’ Watson!” Holmes interrupted me. “Wilde is the day’s supreme connoisseur of beauty. Be flattered that he approves of your taste. A pity you cannot stay,” Holmes told our visitors.
“I have a rather good claret, but . . . a theater curtain waits for no man. It is interesting that you are beginning to write fiction, Stoker. My friend Watson has had some success in that direction.”

“Really?” Wilde sounded so astounded I felt an immediate need to defend my efforts.

“Not pure fiction,” I said hastily. “I am minded to write up some of Holmes’s most interesting cases, with the actual names and places disguised, of course.”

“Of course
not!
” Wilde responded enthusiastically. “My dear doctor, actual names and places are what make for fictional success. So what have you written, or, more to the point, had published?”

“
Beeton’s Christmas Annual
featured ‘A Study in Scarlet,’ which was released last year as a novel.”

“The title has an artistic implication I adore, and ‘scarlet’ is such a divinely lurid word. Was there murder in it?”

“Indeed, and much misbehavior by the Mormons in the American West, which led to a transatlantic quest for vengeance that devoured many years before the villains of the case were found dead in London.”

“Mormons! Murder! Vengeance! Corpses in London, dear me. And the American West as well, which I found quite fascinating, and vice versa, during my lecture tours there in early part of the decade. I am currently editor of
The Woman’s World
, so if you’d care to offer your work for the glance of my editorial eye, I would be happy to advise. I am always eager to encourage rivals. It gives my constant critics so many more worthy targets.”

He aimed a languid forefinger at the wall and sketched an airy pattern. “I make a metaphorical statement. V. O. Either Very Old brandy, or Victorious Oscar. Come, Stoker, let us see what they are up to at the Beefsteak Club. I have a play or two of my own in mind, one involving an earnestly unfortunate fellow who was indeed a ‘case,’ or rather was found in one in Victoria Station as
an infant. Mislaid infants! Possible bastardy! Perfidy in cloak rooms in Victoria Station. I may someday be as acclaimed as Dr. Watson and his sensational fictions. Adieu for now.”

On that note the two men left our rooms, or Holmes’s rooms now, clattering and chatting together down the stairs.

“Theatrical folk,” I commented, surprised by Holmes’s high spirits. He was already opening the claret and soon poured two glasses.

“Isn’t it odd,” I asked, “that those men didn’t know Irene Adler was dead?”

“Odd? Not at all, Watson. They live and work in the theater, where anything is possible.”

“Why were . . . you consulting them?”

“I was?”

“So they said.”

“Ah, did they? Well, Watson, you know how my cases sometimes involve persons of the most elevated rank in the realm, and the most sensitive subjects for the future of the Empire.”

“Indeed. Was this latest European jaunt in the service of such eminent persons?”

“Exactly. I soon may be required to go elsewhere as well, in the same service.”

“And these two men—?”

“Know everyone who is everyone, and everything about them. I can say no more, save that it is very encouraging that Wilde is willing to assess your work. I would pursue his offer.”

“He is the writer of the moment, isn’t he? But editor of
The Woman’s World
. . . I’m not sure that my sort of thing is his sort of thing.”

“Nonsense, Watson! I may immodestly say that my cases, suitably fictionalized and based upon your maiden effort, make most interesting reading.”

“I have another manuscript I call ‘A Scandal in Bohemia.’ ”

“I have heard you brandish that annoying little title before
and suggest you look farther. That case was much ado about nothing, and I did not exit it in glory, since the lady evaded me.”

“But she is dead: perished in that dreadful Alpine train crash while fleeing London with her new husband. She can hardly bring any sort of case against me if I were to present her unhappy history in fiction.”

“I sincerely hope not, Watson. Still, I advise you to look farther afield for your second, and perhaps more important effort, for every debut must prove itself with the unquestioned quality of its successor. What about that gruesome affair involving the murder at Pondicherry Lodge and the Agra treasure? It has all that the modern reader yearns for: lost riches, betrayal, a rousing river-borne chase, sudden death, and a charming touch of romance in the stalwart doctor’s wooing of the consulting detective’s charming young client, Miss Mary Morstan, now Mrs. John H. Watson. That is the sort of thing that appeals to the public.”

“Given your praise of Mary, I am surprised that the consulting detective did not rival the doctor for her hand.”

“Ah, Watson, the married man! You are speaking to one who can report that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for murdering three small children for their insurance money. Women are not entirely to be trusted, not even the best of them.”

“I thought you found Irene Adler the most winning of them of all. That is why you call her ‘
the
’ woman and keep her photograph on the mantel, although it seems you would like others to think that
I
am her most fervent admirer. I’m afraid her death has destroyed your sole opportunity to find an admirable woman.”

“I am afraid so also, Watson, but I have my diversions.”

I knew he referred to the thrice daily seven-percent solution of cocaine he resorted to when life offered no puzzles to challenge his restless intellect. The reference saddened me, for he had as much as admitted that Irene Adler might possibly have been diversion enough for a man and a mind such as his, had she lived, and had she not wed another.

“And I have
my
diversions,” I said, hoping that talk of my stories would lure him from the needle case for a while. “You may be right, Holmes, about the Agra treasure affair, but it would require some length.”

“So much the better! Substance, that is the thing.”

Speaking of substance, Mrs. Hudson knocked on the door with her knuckles, her hands laden with a tray bearing our late-night supper.

“Indeed,” Holmes greeted her, whisking the heavy tray into his custody. “And what culinary confabulation have you prepared for us, Mrs. Hudson? No, let us find this undiscovered country for ourselves. Thank you and good night.”

After seeing her out, Holmes hovered over the tray, rubbing his hands together in expectation before plucking off a napkin like a stage magician revealing a rabbit. Indeed, the dish beneath was Welsh rarebit, soft and steaming. I quite forgot about Wilde and Stoker and the late Irene Adler and Bohemia in order to apply myself with deserving gusto to the treat before us.

I also chewed on Holmes’s literary advice: a longer, bloodier fictional piece that might more likely find an audience than royal scandals and operatic shenanigans in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps he had a point.

5.

Maiden Voyage

DEAR Q.O.—I AM OFF TO NEW YORK.
LOOK OUT FOR ME. BLY
.

—FAREWELL NOTE TO A COLUMNIST FRIEND ON THE
PITTSBURG
DISPATCH
, WHERE SHE FELT HER WORK WAS UNDERVALUED, 1887

From that day in the peaceful garden at Neuilly, I was in short order delivered into the most heinous interim in my life.