Femme Fatale (31 page)

“If Sherlock Holmes dares to show his face on these shores,” I said with renewed vigor, “I shall stab him with my hatpin until he slinks all the way back to London.”

“Please, dear Nell! You don’t wish to damage your very formidable hatpin! I doubt Sherlock Holmes will be such an ingenuous fool as I was to come running at our lady reporter’s beck and call. A man who can resist a brace of Paris
filles de joie
is not about to fall victim to any blandishments from Nellie Bly!”

I joined in her hilarity. I don’t know which was the more amusing image: Nellie Bly seducing Sherlock Holmes, or him impaled on my foot-long steel hatpin with the Venetian glass parrot finial.

I laughed until my corset stays felt like the medieval torture implement known as an Iron Maiden and my mind’s ear could hear Casanova’s raucous admonitions to “cut the cackle!”

“That’s better,” Irene said. “We’ll sleep upon Miss Pink’s challenge and plot our course in the morning.”

23.

The Detective in Spite of Himself

The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute
reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime
.

—DR. JOHN H. WATSON, “A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA,” 1891
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

F
ROM THE
C
ASE
N
OTES OF
S
HERLOCK
H
OLMES

The key to Miss Nellie Bly’s little problem is of the simplest sort that turns upon a single notch or two.

The murderer has left an imprint on the scene of the first, or possibly second, crime, the strangling of the medium. (The death of the snake charmer—Watson, are you listening? This is meat for your hungry pen—may have been the first, or even the death of the famous cataleptic mind reader.)

My first inquiries among assorted spiritualist mediums produced the hardly earth-shaking news that Madame Zenobia, otherwise known as Sophie Dixon, probably used an assistant, either in disguise at the table with the genuine attendees, or hidden. No one had any idea who such a person might be. Such employees are plucked from the roster of unemployed performers, and come and go with alarming rapidity. The skills involved are minimal,
although it took some sleight of hand to strangle Madame Zenobia in the presence of witnesses.

I see that telling hand print on the velvet every time I close my eyes. The height of the impression, the depth of the grip, the odd clawlike configuration where the fingertips made their mark . . . and the nails, close-clipped but still cutting into the malleable nap of the rich cloth. . . . These are all the observant detective’s dream.

The only problem is finding the exact physical type that matches this indelible impression, and then discerning that person’s motive.

Fortunately, I’m the unwanted recipient of all of Miss Bly’s researches and theories, so well know the cast of characters, their usual settings, and their connection to the woman whose life sits at the center of these two, and possibly three, deaths so far. Irene Adler, like a Hindu god, has had many incarnations from a young age, including Rena the Ballerina . . . ‘Little Fanny Frawley, the petite pistolera’ . . . and the pièce de irrésistance, Merlinda the Mermaid. From these playbill phantasms, I can erect the renaissance woman you and I encountered two years ago in St. John’s Wood. She is not only a superb vocalist, actress, and intellect, Watson, but also a dancer, a “sharp-shooter” as they say in the Wild West Show, and possibly a swimmer, but even more likely a phenomenon of that vocalist’s skill called “breath control.” In her case, it was a complete five minutes underwater in a glass aquarium. The mind boggles at what criminal pursuits such a gift could be put to use exploiting.

To find out even more about my quarry, whether it is the currently active murderer or the retired prima donna, I realize that I must haunt the theatrical boardinghouses.

I toy with various amusing disguises to deceive these masters and mistresses of illusion, and with inventing the sort of “acts” I could perform on the variety stage. I am not often offered such a large palette of investigation to work upon. Really, I don’t know
how you manage, Watson, to wring any excitement at all from my exceedingly staid profession. It is simply a matter of making logical choices.

I could, of course, masquerade as a sharpshooter, although I do not have the long hair apparently necessary to the role in these parts, and no time to grow it, and my disguise kit is left at home with Mrs. Hudson. At any rate, I shan’t be able to prove my talents over the gravy and lumpy potatoes of American cuisine, though I could certainly spell out a serviceable B. H. P. on the landlady’s flocked wallpaper if required to prove my skill. Somehow that does not have the panache of the V. R. that adorns my Baker Street lodgings. Benjamin Harrison, president, abbreviated, simply does not offer the dash and visual grace of “Victoria, Regina,” much less the challenge of a perfectly balanced “V.”

I do have my poker-bending trick, which always amazes you, Watson, but that is hardly enough to credibly play the role of strongman, although I could certainly find a convenient poker to distort in a boardinghouse.

Baritsu seems an Oriental martial art too refined to be appreciated by the American taste for raw fisticuffs.

I could always represent myself as a fiddler, but there is scant call for such a skill except in the orchestras, and the role I wish to play bespeaks a solo “act.”

Ah. I have it. I will simply play myself and use the elementary tricks that set my dear friend Watson’s jaw a-dropping. I will be an “occupation” reader, instead of the usual mental sort. “The Mind-Boggling Body Reader, Shylock . . .
hmmm
, Shakespeare.”

Ha! That will be quite a lark, passing myself off as an utterly honest fraud.

24.

Not Her Cup of Cocaine

I do object to her resort to groundless statements that affect
other people in her efforts to concoct a sensational romance
such as you seem to suppose that your readers relish. I know
her to be a blackmailer and a newspaper imposter
.

—LETTER TO
THE WORLD
ON NELLIE BLY, FROM EDWARD R. PHELPS,
NOTORIOUS LOBBYIST, 1888

“I’m taking as a starting point, Nell, Pink’s impertinent conclusions about myself. One, that I had a mother.”

“Much as I find Pink impertinent, I can’t argue with her conclusion in that case.”

Irene was enjoying striding about the parlor, as if moving meant taking action, and perhaps it did. “Two, that my mother was American.”

“I object,” I said, unintentionally imitating some of Godfrey’s legal opponents in Court. “Her derivation is not clear. I will posit that she lived in America at the time you were born, as it would be rather silly to have you elsewhere and then make a long, wretched Atlantic crossing simply to deposit you in a trunk near Union Square.”

Irene sent me a conspiratorial smile. She much appreciated my joining in her game, and tracking down her possible mother had to be a game; otherwise it was a heartbreak.

“Two,” she said, pausing in her pacing. “She lived in America . . . shall we say the East Coast? I was always given to understand that I had been born in New Jersey, Nell, which would be a good deal away from theatrical trunks in New York City’s Union Square.”

“ ‘New Jersey’ has quite an English ring, of which I heartily approve. We have the Isle of Jersey, you know. Lillie Langtry was born there.”

“Precisely why I could not have been. Lillie Langtry and I are utter opposites, therefore it’s plain we were born on utterly opposite shores.”

She was talking like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, utter nonsense with utter conviction. I joined in, fancying I heard Casanova intoning “Off with their heads!” in the distance.

“Indeed,” I concurred. “Lillie Langtry was the mistress of a king. You refused to be the mistress of a king. Lillie Langtry has no performing talent. You have many performing talents. Lillie Langtry sells soap. You sell . . . Worth gowns. Clearly you come from very different places.”