Good Night, Mr. Holmes (9 page)

The mantelpiece was a shelf for assorted kitchen implements—all of them illicit, for cooking was forbidden in our chambers. The mantel’s only decoration was the empty wine bottle Irene and I had shared during our first night together. Now it contained an inverted duster that spilled forth a bouquet of green-and-copper cock feathers in lieu of fresh flowers.

I might add that the feather duster had been seldom disturbed in its repose until I arrived and released it to do its duty.

Irene’s bedchamber—into which she urged me welcome as if it were a noted salon—was even more eccentric. My first foray into this Byzantine retreat nearly gave me a fatal turn when I spied a dark silhouette lurking in an unlit corner.

“La, Nell, don’t let
her
startle you,” Irene advised. “A lady without her head is not only harmless but useless, although few gentlemen appear to have realized that.”

I studied our silent lodger—a
dressmaker’s model with an hourglass torso upholstered in black jersey. Like most such devices, it ended in a metal-capped neck stem, upon which bloomed a large, lavishly pale silk lily. No wonder I had thought for a moment that a ghost with a mutilated face had been haunting us!

Irene assumed a pose beside the manikin, hand on its homely black shoulder, and grinned like a street Arab. “I call her my Jersey Lily,” she said with sly fondness, jabbing a hatpin into the fabric.

“After Lillie Langtry!” I realized with a start. Irene’s wit often took unconventional turns. I came closer to view the figure. “Do you suppose she really... well, you know... with the Prince of Wales, as they say?”

“If she didn’t she’s a fool—or he is a greater one,” Irene retorted.

I had not expected so shocking an answer. “But she is a married woman!”

“The Prince is a married
man”

“And she’s a churchman’s daughter.”

“Churchman’s daughters are often the first to fall. It’s such a bore being good when there is so little reward in it.”

“Irene! If I did not know you were jesting I should fear for your soul, or at the least your reputation.”

“I have neither, remember? I am an ‘actress,’” she returned.

“Surely you do not endorse Mrs. Langtry’s immorality?”

“Of course not Yet one cannot fault the cleverness of the woman. Have you seen her? No? I have.”

“What did she look like?” I had not meant to sound so eager.

“I was about to tell you,” Irene said with a smile. “An
overrated
woman, Nell, with a profile like a hacksaw— that chiseled, masculine silhouette that aesthetic painters like to call Greek.”

“But the picture on Pears’ soap—”

“Is a picture. A drawing. Really, any man of sensitivity would find her no more attractive than a hod carrier. But she does have a certain
elan.
The evening she met the Prince of Wales she was wearing mourning—solid black with her hair in a discreet little bun. She stood out among the ladies in their gaudy plumage like a grackle among robin red-breasts.”

“And this caught the Prince’s eye?”

“Indeed. In a forest of autumn leaves it is better to be a trifle green than flame-colored and common. Then, too, the Jersey Lily has a habit of going corsetless—a great scoffer at social conventions, she, at least the trivial ones.”

“Corsetless.” Such behavior was incomprehensible to me. “But why...?”

“Say no more. Lillie Langtry has had her day. Now that her liaison with the Prince is over, she has exhibited the bad manners to go upon the stage, thus pushing back into the wings those of us who have won our places by dint of talent and long study; meanwhile she absconds with the limelight.”

Irene seemed genuinely irritated for a moment. “Ah, it is hard to succeed in an immoral profession, Nell, when immoral nonprofessional upstarts take to the boards.”

“Your cynicism doesn’t shock me, as you mean it to, Irene,” I assured her insincerely.
“You
would never lead such a life as she, not even to advance your singing career.”

“No,” Irene agreed, her face sobering. The hatpin stabbed another pinch of taut black jersey. “I refuse to win my plaudits in a horizontal position, like a pincushion, and will likely see little success in life for it.”

“Perhaps you will marry and retire from the stage.”

“Never! Marriage is the same tawdry exchange of freedom for security, and that a false one, for the husband can command all that a wife may do. Marriage is merely a bargain sealed with civil and religious rites instead of unspoken social customs.”

“I myself have always regarded marriage as sacred, a woman’s highest calling. Circumstances may put the state beyond the reach of some women”—here my sad recollection of Jasper Higgenbottom’s illness and absence clotted my voice before I recovered and went on—”but at least we treasure the mirage of it. Now you call even matrimony a snare and a delusion. You quite make me despair for a woman’s lot.”

“Oh, don’t despair, Nell. No. Because the many choose to leave their fates unquestioned, like witless sheep herded through gates, does not mean a few nimble lambs can’t leap the traces and go merrily down the lane.”

She turned away from the rather gruesome Jersey Lily with a smile. “Speaking of leaping traces, you must help me decide what to wear. I have an important interview Tuesday morning next.”

“Is it the new opera? The Gilbert and Sullivan?”

Irene shook her head. “Nothing so commonplace. I am to see Mr. Tiffany.”

“Mr.Tiffany?”

“The famous New York jeweler! Do you live with your head in a barrel?”

“Usually in a bonnet,” I retorted, more disturbed by the implications of the “Mr.” than the ‘Tiffany.” “But surely you are not going to New York?”

“Hardly. I am fleet, but I do not have wings. Mr. Tiffany will come to me, or rather, I will go to his hotel in Trafalgar Square.”

“You cannot”

“Whyever not?”

“Go to his hotel? Alone? And in the morning? You might be taken for an—”

“An actress? Yes, I know. But do you not see, Nell, what an opportunity this is? Charles Lewis Tiffany is consulting me on a matter of confidential importance! The Pinkerton Detective Agency has directed him to me. Would you rather he came here?”

“Heavens, no! That would be even more improper.”

“Besides, Morley’s is a very fine hotel. I shall endure no more comment than Mrs. Langtry would if she did the same.”

“That settles it. I shall accompany you.”

“I’ve never heard you sound so determined, Nell. Shall you not be also subjected to unwelcome speculation?”

“That doesn’t matter.” I squared my shoulders. “Let them speak against two of us.”

“Well said.” Irene smiled. “Your presence might lend a certain weight to the occasion. I could say you were my secretary.”

“That would be a lie,” I began dubiously.

“Not if you take notes,” she came back triumphantly.

“Well, no, not if I take notes.”

“Then it is settled. We will see Mr. Tiffany at Morley’s Tuesday next, where you will take notes. And now you will help me choose the proper costume for this important
rendezvous
of ours.”

This I did, for I found it increasingly amusing to outfit Irene. Despite its lavish appearance, her wardrobe consisted of surprisingly few ensembles. The jumble of hand-me-down trims she collected in street markets transformed this raw material to fit any occasion, station in life or mood that suited her.

Nor did Irene give a fig leaf for how nicely she accomplished her transformations. Often of an evening I, who had been taught to sew spider web-fine stitches, would watch Irene driving her large-eyed needle in great galloping strides as she affixed a glittering swag of trim to a plain-Jane gown. The same long, loose stitches would be as roughly ripped free when the gown required another change of character.

For our meeting with the famed jeweler, we settled upon what Irene called
“bourgeois
dignity.” I dressed with my usual quiet rectitude, though I admit that my gloves clung damply to my palms as we took the early omnibus to Trafalgar Square Tuesday.

Morley’s presented a solidly reassuring façade overlooking the mounted statue of Charles I. Yet I was more intrigued by the Time Signal Ball above the Electric Telegraph Office to our right, a device that gave a precise reading of Greenwich Mean Time in central London.

Such ingenious inventions greatly consoled me for the crowded city bustle. Pneumatic pressure raised a six-foot-diameter zinc ball that was dropped ten feet at precisely one o’clock daily, thus activating an electric current transmitted direct from the Greenwich Observatory. By the sphere’s daily plummet, all London could set its watches and clocks accurately, and I took full advantage of this convenience.

On our left the fool’s-capped steeple of St-Martin-in-the-Fields church loomed over the hotel’s lowlier bulk, which I thought reassuring for our enterprise.

Thus sandwiched, as it were, between God and modern science, Irene and I glided into Morley’s Hotel. Heavy Turkish carpet discreetly hushed our footfalls within as we were ushered to a private dining room. The coffered double doors sprang open on a spry old gentleman with a stern but kindly face.

“Miss Irene Adler?” he inquired, looking from one to the other.

“At your service, Mr. Tiffany,” Irene said, extracting one hand from her muff to shake hands with him. “This is my secretary, Miss Huxleigh.”

Mr. Tiffany bristled a bit at her bold greeting, as I must admit did I. Yet Irene looked so charming in her blue brocade suit and bonnet with the cobalt ostrich feather dipping toward her dimpled cheek that we both forgave her at the same instant.

“I had not expected an American,” Mr. Tiffany said next. “Pray be seated, ladies. The hotel has set out a repast, as I am a busy man and must meet over the meal hours.”

“How delightful,” Irene commented, seating herself before a tea table burdened with delicacies and a porcelain teapot in the likeness of a well-fed rabbit. “Perhaps you would do the honors, Nell, while Mr. Tiffany and I discuss business.”

I accepted with alacrity. If I had mastered one duty of a parson’s daughter—and beautifully, I might add—it was the preparing, pouring and serving of tea.

The old gentleman flipped aside the skirt of his black frockcoat and settled a trifle uneasily in a wing-back chair.

“I must confess, Miss Adler,” he began with a frown, “that despite Pinkerton’s highest recommendations I remain hesitant to consign my matter into your hands. You are so young—”

“As were you when you founded your firm. Five-and-twenty years, was it not?”

The puckers at the bridge of Mr. Tiffany’s imposing Roman nose faded momentarily. “And the nature of my business is confidential, extremely so.”

“I keep confidences, extremely so. Miss Huxleigh is a parson’s daughter and the soul of discretion.”

“That may be. Yet there could be some... danger... involved.”

“Capital!” Irene accepted the first cup of tea I extended and beamed over its dainty lip at Mr. Tiffany. “If danger is involved, then the object of the assignment must be worth a great deal. What jewel is it?”

“I did not say the matter involved jewels.”

“You did not need to; your name alone makes that plain.”

“But I could be seeking aid in a personal matter—”

“You would not allow yourself to be forced to use an untried agent like myself for a truly personal matter, no matter the circumstances.”

“You are quick, Miss Adler, I’ll say that for you.”

“Then perhaps my wit will persuade you to reconsider hiring women clerks in your New York establishment, Mr. Tiffany”

The gentleman looked apoplectic for a moment, his color warming far more than my cup of milk-mild tea called for.

“My establishment presents an image of impeccable dignity, like a bank, Miss Adler. You also overlook the fact that Tiffany’s, among city stores on either side of the Atlantic, was the first to provide retiring rooms for women clients and their children. Women, no matter how charming in the parlor or the salon—”

“Or shop,” Irene interjected.

“Women clerks would... disrupt the surroundings,” Mr. Tiffany said in final tones.

“Yes, your gentlemen clerks do dress like a convening of undertakers,” Irene murmured into her tea cup.

“You have visited my Union Square establishment?”

“When I lived in America.” Irene smiled. “But only, like most passers-through, to gawk at its glories.”

“You are a forward young woman! I half think you mock me. Perhaps these very qualities are required to do what I propose, though I admit myself still highly dubious of employing a woman for such a delicate task.”

“Which is?” Irene asked pointedly.

He glanced at me as if reassured by my plain English demeanor in the face of Irene’s full-blown confidence. His voice lowered.

“I seek not a single jewel, but a string of them.”

“Pearls!” I couldn’t help crying out. They both regarded me with pity and returned to their negotiations.

“Nothing so predictable,” Irene murmured to me.

Mr. Tiffany nodded and went on. “These gems are large, matched diamonds, linked one after the other until they circle a dainty waist—and then fall to the floor. You frown, Miss Adler. Do you by some chance recognize my quarry?”

Irene shook her head. “Not at all, but the setting sounds quite... antique.”

“If one considers the end of the last century antique—and at your tender age I imagine you do.”

“And the piece is lost?”

“Indeed.”

“Then if it were to be found, there would be none to claim it from the finder?”

“No.”

Irene smiled suddenly. “No. Any of
her
relations are entangled in years, lost records and court battles beyond redeeming by now.”

“ ‘Her’, Miss Adler?”

“The original owner of your missing belt, Mr. Tiffany: the late Queen Marie Antoinette of the late, antique French monarchy.”

“How—how did you know?” The old gentleman’s high color drained from his cheeks and nose.

“I did not know, I guessed, for you could not resist giving me a hint. A piece as valuable as you describe could only have belonged to a royal house; it is now fair game, so with the French crown jewels rumored to come on the auction block some day not too distant, interest would naturally revive in such a missing piece.”