Supernatural Devices (3 page)

“You went through my purse?” Scarlett demanded, shocked not simply by the thought of that but also by the thought of Cruces with his hands on the dagger her parents had given her. Had the man no concept of privacy? Honestly, Scarlett was starting to wish that she had never gone there. Except of course that would have meant giving up on the potential for adventure, and she would not do that. Instead, she summoned up her haughtiest look once more.

“You are no gentleman, sir.”

Cruces smiled. “I believe I told you that before. I am so glad there is something we can agree on at last.”

S
carlett had had enough. A little banter with an obviously attractive young man was one thing, but she was not going to sit there and be insulted by such an obnoxious, arrogant, foppish-

“You really do get more beautiful the angrier you get,” Cruces observed.

Scarlett resisted the urge to hit him with the nearest piece of crockery only because of what Mrs. Hudson would say. “Sherlock,” she said instead, “you said in your letter that you wanted my assistance in something. Can we get to that, please? It has been a long journey, and I am eager to get back to the townhouse to rest.”

Especially when it meant that she could do so away from the young man opposite her. Honestly, why were the gorgeous ones always so irritating?

“Of course, Scarlett,” Holmes said. He seemed briefly amused by it all, but then, he had presumably surmised the real reason for her haste as soon as she said it. It wasn’t like Scarlett could hide anything from him. Still, he was quick enough to oblige, taking a seat nearby and steepling his fingers in that way he so often did when he was thinking.

“You are aware, of course, that not all of my investigations concern the mundane?”

“Of course,” Scarlett said. She had known about them since she was a child. They weren’t the investigations that the good doctor wrote up for public delight. Those merely involved the least pleasant aspects of humanity. The ones involving creatures of the night would no doubt have had them running for shelter, if they had been believed. Scarlet believed them, but she had never been afraid. She took a moment to put the pieces together. “You believe my talent will be of use.”

“I do,” Holmes said.

Her talent. What they used to call the second sight. The simple knack for seeing things that others didn’t. Scarlett had possessed it all her life, so that as a child she had been unable to understand why not everybody could see all the people that she could. These days, she was so used to it that she hardly thought of it. The living, the dead, the things so different that most of humanity filtered them out for their own protection, Scarlet didn’t see much difference between them. Nine times out of ten, the things she saw were simply going about their business. Even in Egypt, the sight of the crocodiles had been far more impressive than seeing the
ka
, the birdlike spirits of the dead, flying around the pyramids.

“Not just your talent, Scarlett,” Holmes reassured her. “You have a fine mind for your age, and it helps that you are a young lady. If it had been just a question of something so simple as finding another with the sight, I would have found another way to deal with the situation, rather than waiting the time it has taken for your return.”

That was something. Her gift probably sounded impressive to ordinary people, but really, it was such a trivial thing. It hardly counted as much of an accomplishment when set beside the things Scarlett had mastered through her own efforts.

 “So what is this situation?” Scarlett asked, wanting to hear more. It was no longer a case of just wanting to get home, away from Cruces, as quickly as possible. His presence was merely a handsome distraction now, with the prospect of a real challenge in front of her.

“A couple of weeks ago now,” Sherlock explained, “a girl by the name of Cecilia went missing.”

“You take cases looking for missing girls now?” Scarlett asked. Holmes normally took only those cases that interested him, quite famously having no time for the ‘drudgery’ of ordinary crime.

“I do when the circumstances are interesting enough,” he explained.

Cruces cut in. “And besides, Miss Seely, would you not want someone looking for you if you were to go missing?”

The reproof was clearly intended to bait her once more. Scarlett wasn’t sure why the young man took such a delight in testing her like that. And it didn’t help that in this case, he had a point. Scarlett wouldn’t like to think that, should she ever disappear, there would be nobody looking for her. She would want the greatest detective in the country, if not the world, trying to locate her. Could she deny that much to another young woman? No, clearly not.

It didn’t mean she had to show Cruces that he’d gotten to her, though, so Scarlett smiled slowly instead. “Do you mean to say that you would not look for me, sir? Or do you only find lost purses?”

Cruces gave her another of those too intent looks. “Believe me, I would follow. Who could not?”

Scarlett caught the look that Sherlock gave Cruces. There was a note of warning in it. One that the younger man seemingly took heed of, because he relaxed his attention on Scarlett somewhat. Scarlett wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for that or not.

“Tell me more about the girl,” Scarlett said, “and about what happened.”

Sherlock nodded, apparently pleased. “She is a Romany gypsy, and was a servant to a wealthy patron of the arts who collected items of mystical significance. One of those items went missing around the time that the girl went missing.”

“And you assume that she took it.” It still seemed to be a very simple matter. One that Holmes normally would not have interested himself in. Was that why he was passing it off to her? Was he giving her a taste of adventure with something that would never come close to stretching him, indulging a mere girl with a simple task? Even as she felt the annoyance that came with that thought, Scarlett knew that the detective did not think like that.

“I assume nothing,” Sherlock said. “Remember my method. However, it seems likely.”

Scarlett frowned. Perhaps in a moment, she would see where the interest lay. “What is the item?”

“It is a ring,” Sherlock explained. “A double band of gold, with the word ‘Thura’ inscribed.”

Scarlett nodded. Even most ordinarily well-educated young people would have known that one, and she had spent years alongside her parents as they translated things from much more challenging languages. “The Ancient Greek for doorway.”

“Exactly. The sources I have available suggest that the ring can supposedly open doorways into other realities, making it an object of some considerable power.”

That explained at least why Holmes did not leave the matter to the police, despite the apparent lack of interest in the mystery. If the item did have any true abilities, allowing some ordinary constable to handle it might be disastrous. Even an officer of more flexible thinking, like Inspector Lestrade, would have difficulty with something like this.

“Why me though?” Scarlett asked. She could not leave it any longer. “If it is simply a matter of locating a stolen item and a runaway girl, there must surely be others you could ask. I know you have informants.”

“Informants and contacts with every fence, petty thief and flophouse owner in the city,” Sherlock confirmed. “Yet we must tread carefully. Locating the girl is not impossible, but what then? We can hardly seize her from the streets and force her to tell us where the ring is. Even a threat of prosecution for the theft would do little, and would expose too much of what occurs in London for most people’s tastes.”

“Even so-” Scarlett began, but stopped herself. She was not going to ask stupid questions in front of Sherlock. Or in front of Cruces, though she was less sure why that mattered to her. “What else? I assume there is something else, or even with a situation like that, you would not have waited for me.”

“The situation is a potentially complex one,” Sherlock admitted, looking mildly pleased that Scarlett had guessed that much. “There are details about the night in question and my inquiries since that I will not bore you with, but which lead me to believe that there are other forces at play here.”

“Supernatural ones?” Scarlett asked, then shook her head. “Obviously supernatural ones, or I would not be here.”

“You have no problem with the supernatural, then?” Cruces asked.

Scarlett laughed. “Hardly. I have seen it since I was a child.”

“And how do you feel about it, Miss Seely? Do you feel yourself repulsed by it? Attracted by it?”

Sherlock gave him another of those strange looks before turning back to Scarlett. “There is that feel to things,” he said. “Though I cannot yet see the pattern of it.”

He sounded almost happy about that, but then, that was the nature of the man. Something that could be solved with a minute’s work was of no interest. Something apparently impenetrable was to be savored the way a different man might hold onto a pleasing jigsaw puzzle. Scarlett might have thought it quite a perverse quality, if she didn’t have the same bubbling sense of excitement under the surface at the thought of an adventure worth having.

“So you want me to investigate this greater force for you?” she asked.

At once, Holmes’ features turned severe. “No. Let me make it clear that doing so would potentially be very dangerous. John-” he nodded to Watson “-has been at pains to ensure I do not push you towards such a thing, and for one, I am inclined to agree.”

Watson looked faintly embarrassed at that. “Forgive me, Miss Seely. I know Holmes rarely thinks of the danger, and I am aware that you are a resourceful young woman, but-”

“But I
am
a young woman?” Scarlett asked, trying not to be too withering. She turned her attention back to Holmes. “If not that, then what?”

“We need someone who can talk to Cecilia,” Holmes explained. “And it seems more likely that she will speak to you than to us. She has a… distaste for men.”

“Because of this ‘patron of the arts’?” Scarlett asked.

“He did make certain advances to the girl,” Holmes admitted.

“And when he tried to press them, ignoring her wishes,” Scarlett guessed, “she took the ring and left.” She paused. “Frankly then, I think the man deserved what he got.”

“It is perhaps slightly unfortunate that you think so, Scarlett,” Holmes observed, with a look towards Cruces.

It took Scarlett a moment to work out the meaning of that glance, and she cursed herself once she did. “Him?”

“You did not guess it sooner?” Holmes asked, sounding faintly disappointed. “But then, it has been a long trip. Miss Scarlett Seely, may I present Cruces, Lord Darthmoor, my client in this affair.
Your
client in this affair, since I assume that you will still wish to work on it?”

Scarlett swallowed her embarrassment just long enough to nod. She wasn’t turning down the opportunity to help. Not even now, with Cruces’ smile at its most annoying.

“Tell me again,” he said, “how you think that the gentleman concerned got what he deserved?”

S
carlett walked beside Cruces, only too aware of how close he was as he walked her back to her parents’ townhouse in Westminster. Perhaps she should not have agreed to let him walk with her, but the young aristocrat had insisted, saying that she would never get a hansom from outside Baker Street at that hour, while suggesting that the London night was not safe for a young woman walking alone. He did not mention the incident with Scarlett’s purse again, but then, he did not have to.

Scarlett had eventually agreed on the basis that it would allow them to discuss the details of the case further. As it happened though, Cruces had barely said a word since they had left the great detective’s home.

“You aren’t annoyed with me for thinking that you would try to force yourself on a serving girl are you?” Scarlett asked.

“That depends,” Cruces replied. By moonlight, his features seemed even paler. “Do you still think it?”

“I think,” Scarlett said after a moment’s deliberation, “that you would probably be shocked if the serving girl did not throw herself at
you
.”

Cruces smiled. “You believe that I am so handsome?”

“I believe you have that high an opinion of yourself,” Scarlett countered.

Cruces shrugged. “It is an opinion young women generally find to be well justified.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, this was potentially going to be a long walk home. Not that she minded too much. London after dark was almost more interesting than it was during the day. Especially for someone with her sight. Although the supernatural was by no means confined to the darkness, there were things that came out in the night that you simply did not see by sunlight.

Scarlett amused herself by cataloguing them as she walked. There were the faint outlines of a couple of children, playing on the street in a way that living children would not have by night. There was the barely there form of a roman soldier, his sandals treading their way along the city’s streets the way they presumably had for more than seventeen hundred years. To most people, they would probably have looked out of place, but Scarlett could hardly imagine not seeing them.