The Memoirs of Irene Adler: The Irene Adler Trilogy (2 page)

‘You are tall for a woman, but you do have a very feminine...shall I say structure?’ I was glad he had noticed.

‘Strangely for someone as resourceful as your good self and...so ready to take the bull by the horn, and I mean this literally...’ A rare flicker of a smile here. ‘Everything else about you is ladylike. I could offer you some hints on the intricacies of the disguise, but as you used to grace our London planks, and have amply demonstrated your perfect handling of the art, I can see you need no lessons from me.’

‘You’re suggesting that I could turn into a man?’

‘I’ve noticed that whenever a woman finds herself in any sort of peril her voice becomes less high pitched.’ I would have thought the contrary was the case. ‘I think this is a natural mechanism aiming at taking some distance from your natural feminine persona...you should work on this, I am sure—’

‘Actually Mr Holmes, you may recall that I was reckoned to be a tolerably good actress with a range of voices,’ I interrupted his flow, but he might not have heard.

‘I’ve even got the perfect name for you…eh…Dai Lernière. French father and a mother from the Valleys, eh? For some reason I have yet to discover, the Welsh have an undeserved reputation for honesty. This will work in your favour.’ I was liking his line of thought, but he had not finished.

‘And I will naturally direct clients to you. There are times when twenty-four hours a day are not enough to cope with demands.’ Naturally.

‘Mr Holmes I am grateful for everything you have said. All that’s left for me is to seek premises.’

‘Capital idea. You are a marked woman and your Water Lane sanctuary must be kept secret. As must your true identity.’

I had gone back to my old room in Water Lane as I needed to reconnect with the
Club
. Armande was as dear to me as the older sister I never had. Algernon found me a small office with a front room and an even smaller box room at the back, in Warren Street. It was tiny
but clean and airy. I had not yet advertised my services in the press, but Artémise Traverson did a splendid name plate: DAI LERNIÈRE, Private Investigator, in varnished mahogany. I knew that I would need time before I built up my practice and established myself. It was the talented Traverson again who designed my moustache and my suit, leaving the rest to Bartola who was making an honest living as a
modiste
in Leigh Court Road in genteel Streatham. It must have worked well, for when Algie saw me for the first time in this guise, his eyes popped out and he began to stammer incoherently. It turned out he was reminding me we were legally husband and wife and that as such, he had rights. And he was not joking. I went out in the streets accompanied by our thespian friend Probert. When we stopped in a working man’s pub and ordered a drink, nobody looked twice at us. It was this which convinced us that I would have no difficulty passing for Dai.

In the meantime, as a fully committed member of the
Club des As
, I was privy to, and part of all the schemes being elaborated and knew we would not contemplate anything
wildly
illegal. Never more than a raid on an extortionate money lender, a millionaire art dealer, that sort of thing.

The
Club
had only once approved of a killing. That was of the infamous child murderer Lord Stonehead, after it had become clear that the police were in awe of him and were not prepared to act even in the knowledge of his many infamies. After his execution in Ashridge forest, we had discussed it at great length and although we had not completely ruled out such actions, we vowed that we would contemplate another draconian venture only under exceptional circumstances.

I was decorating my new office one morning when there was a knock on the door. I was expecting our fellow reprobate the Bishop who was coming over to help me shift the massive teak desk and clean the ceiling. Although the plaque had been fixed to the door for the whole world to see, we were not ready for business. I was therefore not expecting any clients yet. To my surprise I opened the door to a pale and distraught young woman, looking to be in her thirties, I daresay. She stared at me and started blinking. ‘B-b-but you are a woman, Mr Holmes didn’t say,’ she blurted out. A fact that I could obviously not deny. I smiled and asked what she wanted.

‘Mr Holmes said
Mr
Lernière was the best—’

‘Indeed he is, so it’s
Mr
Lernière you wish to see, obviously.’ I said putting on a big act of surprise. ‘I am Miss Ida Lernière, sister and secretary.’ I was pleased with my quick reflexes. No doubt Hugh Probert would have been proud of my acting propensity. ‘He’s in the building somewhere, I’ll go get him. Please take a seat.’ What was I to do? I wasted no time in our little box room, transforming myself into Dai in record time, re-emerged into the office and sat myself behind my desk. I noticed that my visitor was very upset. Turning round to face the empty back-room I shouted, ‘Ida, please make a cup of tea for Miss... sorry, you didn’t introduce yourself.’

‘Selbow, Mrs Rosa Selbow,’ she said blinking at a rate of knots.‘You’re very kind but no thank you, sir, I do not want any tea.’ I was in luck.

‘Now Mrs Selbow, I am Mr Lernière, what can I do for you?’ I was pleased the voice came out right. The poor thing was silent for a while, unable to muster the strength to open her mouth. A combination of deep breathing and blinking must have helped, for she was now more composed. She began telling me a tale of the sort that I had often encountered before, of a husband who gambled, drank and spent every night with other women. On top of everything he bullied and beat her regularly.

‘And in what manner can we be of service to you? Are you planning to divorce him?’ She said nothing and began to sob quietly.

‘Do you want evidence of adultery that you can take to a court of law?’ She looked at me like a cornered beast, her eyes still blinking.

‘Yes, Mr Lernière, but he’s a judge, you see, and all the judges are his friends. He’ll tell lies about me and they’ll go along with them. I’ll end up getting nothing. I want a settlement so I can start a nursery school and make a living. With my friend Miss Ursula Verdi.’ A fresh stock of tears had gathered behind her orb, but stifling them she managed to add, ‘He will do everything in his power to stop me leaving him—’

‘So he still loves you?’

‘He never loved me. He only married me to have someone take care of his children.’ She smiled as she told me about them. She was clearly a good stepmother.

I asked her a few questions and wrote her answers in my notebook (which I had fortunately already provided myself with). As she was leaving I nearly forgot myself and was on the point of giving her a sisterly hug, but did a Sherlock Holmes, just managing to stop short of any real contact. The moment Rosa’s back was turned to me, I noticed to my horror that I was wearing my fetching crocodile skin shoes with their two-inch heels. Fortunately Rosa had been too upset to notice anything.

I was at my desk, scribbling ideas about how to tackle the problem of Rosa Selbow when there was another knock at the door. Unexpectedly it was Algie Clarihoe, my lawful spouse. The moment he walked in he threw me one of those rakish looks suggesting we changed the status of our
mariage blanc
. I shook a finger at him playfully, saying, ‘Algie, watch it!’

‘I know what you want, you hussy, you,’ he winked, ‘but we have no time and your office is too small. Anyway, I come with sad tidings.’ In spite of his pleasant tone, I knew that he was serious. He made for the chair behind my desk and I took the seat still warm from Rosa Selbow’s contact.

‘It’s Roger,’ he said. I knew who he meant. Sir Roger Casement was a dear friend of his and he had been very much in the news in the last few months. ‘They have made up their minds they want to hang him for treason,’ he said glumly.

‘Ha!’ I said with what no doubt could be described as a wicked laugh. ‘Why? Has he been plotting against
Ireland
?’ The
Club
had decidedly unpatriotic views when it came to the Irish question. Algie smiled wistfully and shook his head.

‘Did I tell you why Roger turned against the British establishment?’ he asked. Of course he had. This has been the subject of many a conversation around the dinner table in Water Lane, even before my escape to New South Wales. It did not stop my friend.

Casement came from a staunchly loyal Protestant family in Dublin and had no truck with republicanism or independence, Algie began. I nodded vigorously to indicate that I knew all that, but he seemed to take this as a signal to keep going. After brilliant university studies Casement ended up in the British diplomatic service, where he impressed his superiors by his quick grasp of facts and their implications. By now I had resigned myself to letting the dear man wax lyrical about his good friend.

Everybody said that he would end up governor of Australia or Canada one day. Casement had been convinced that we the British were blessed with a unique sense of honour, that our values could never be compromised. In those days, he would have happily walked through fire in the cause of the Empire and just as happily give his life in its defence.

He was sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War and what he saw there came as a shock to him. He witnessed the cruelty with which British officers dealt with all, Boers and natives alike. This rude awakening made him ask himself questions. He spent sleepless nights attempting to justify the actions of men he had admired and ended up having a nervous breakdown. When he recovered he convinced himself that what he had witnessed was an aberration, that it had taken no more than a handful of unworthy officers to dictate the agenda and give us a bad name. In a war situation unsavoury situations arose anyway, he had told himself, although he admitted that this was probably a dishonest conclusion. When Algie began relating the atrocities committed in the name of King and Country, I signified to him that I was well aware of all that as I was finding myself unable to hold back my tears, but he had no intention of stopping his flow. Shortly after the Boer War, Casement was appointed Consul to the Congo.

‘Although supposedly a Belgian colony, it was deemed to belong lock, stock and natives, to King Leopold personally.’ I had heard this before but the enormity of the aberration only now hit me.

One of Casement’s duties was to report to London about the abuses being committed by the Belgian King’s army. Rumours of these atrocities had reached the foreign office. He saw with his own eyes how the natives despatched to collect ivory had their hands chopped off if the Belgian officer in charge deemed that they had not tried hard enough to fulfil quotas. Those sent to collect rubber latex were treated in a similar manner if they were short of the white man’s expectations. Beating, decapitation, hanging and shooting were a daily occurrence, indulged in light-heartedly. He was particularly horrified when he questioned eyewitnesses who confirmed the practice of the common sport of rounding up helpless locals, including women and children, ordering them to start running into the bush, only to be chased by the white administrators
with guns. The man who killed the largest number of those unfortunate souls was declared champion.

‘After this,’ Algie said, ‘Roger told me that he understood as clearly as anything that colonialism was only masquerading as a force for spreading enlightenment to folks who were deemed not to have been blessed with it, when it was no more than an organised regime of plunder.’

‘Which is why he threw in his lot with the Irish Liberation Army,’ I said, biting my lips and shaking my head.

We knew that Roger had been negotiating with the Germans who, it was known, had plans for starting hostilities against us. He had been trying to get supplies and arms for the Irish patriots, and had been arrested.

‘Now my dear Irene, they mean to hang him,’ said Algie amid unrepressed sobs. ‘I know they do, since they appointed that fanatical fellow Selbow to judge the case.’ I did not immediately register the name.

‘What are we going to do about it?’ I asked. Wryly I imagined that the impulsive Vissarionovitch would have started planning an attack on the Tower of London where the accused man was, in a bid to rescue him. I supposed that, reckless as I can be, I would have agreed to be part of the action.

‘For the time being I will find out who among the top people I know might wish to lend their support to a massive petition. Otherwise there’s nothing anybody can do.’ Suddenly I remembered Rosa.

‘Algie,’ I said, ‘you never gave me the opportunity to tell you who came in for a consultation not one hour ago, asking for my help in a divorce case against her wicked husband.’ But in the excitable state he was in, Algie had not heard and continued speaking incoherently.

‘She was one Rosa Selbow, wife of a judge, there can’t be two...’ I began and trailed off.

‘Septimus Selbow,’ he ejaculated. ‘The Hanging Judge! He’s the very fellow in whose hands the fate of our dear Roger resides.’ He now gave me his full attention and I put him in the picture. This intelligence had cheered him up for no reason that I understood. Shortly afterwards, expostulating with himself, he left and I continued with planning my campaign to free Rosa from an abusive union.

Needless to say our fellow
Club
members expressed their complete support to me in my new venture. As none of them had a regular job to go to, they all volunteered to assist me in my investigations in any way possible. Algie knew Judge Selbow by sight and by reputation, although they had never met. As he had friends who knew the Hanging Judge more intimately, he set himself the task of finding everything that was likely to help my client and confound Casement’s putative executioner.

Bartola was quite excited at the prospect of tailing Rosa, something I thought necessary if I were to discover things she might have been coy about revealing to me. As my Italian friend has an excitable nature I was less sanguine about getting her involved, but she’s such a kind soul that when she offered to help I did not have the heart to refuse. It did not take me long to change my mind about her, for in the end I became very impressed by the thoroughness with which she undertook every task.