Vanishing Girl (21 page)

Sherlock is surprised at the dimensions of the dressing room. It is nearly as large as the bedroom and twice the size of his family’s entire flat in Southwark. This is where she would keep her valuables, so he must look for any sign that
the thieves came here. Perhaps they only wanted her room to
appear
untouched. But it doesn’t look like anything was disturbed in any away; nothing has the look of being fixed up after a robbery.
They didn’t come here
. What is it about Lady Rathbone that made her alone exempt from the culprits’ thievery? An intriguing thought passes through his mind.
Is she involved? If so, is there something in this room that connects her to them?

He doubts that Lord Rathbone enters this room. In fact, there is no sign that any male has
ever
been here. It is feminine in the extreme: scented and pink and red. Rows of dresses hang from several wardrobes. He opens a dresser drawer and turns away … it is full of underclothing and corsets!

Lady Rathbone tries to climb the great house’s stairs as often as possible. A lady should look white and delicate, and she has labored to make her face seem so. Her arms, too, are like porcelain. But she doesn’t want to be flabby in her unseen places, like so many of her peers obviously are, so she often climbs and descends these stairs, back and forth. She makes sure no one sees her. Under her flowing dresses and crinoline, the muscles in her smooth white legs are strong and taut. The captain likes her like that.

Everyone is on the lower floors, so she goes up and down this flight twice. But she doesn’t like feeling fatigued.
She can hardly wait to be in her dressing room and to loose her stays for a moment. She approaches her bedroom door.

Sherlock has found something. Sticking his head into a wardrobe he notices a little heap on its floor, pushed into a corner. It is two gloves, one obviously a gentleman’s, the other a lady’s. They are placed so they are clasping each other, all the fingers entwined. The man’s is a military glove and the other is Lady Rathbone’s – it smells of lemons. The boy’s head is so far into the wardrobe that he doesn’t hear the bedroom door when it opens.

She may not have the very best vision, but she spots the plates on her bed immediately. Her heart begins to race.
Who is in here?
She whirls around but sees no one. Then … she notices that the door to her dressing room is nearly closed. It is never left that way. She rushes over and pushes it open. A footman is leaning into one of her wardrobes! He turns to her with a start. She is about to scream, but sees what he is holding in his hands and almost faints.

Sherlock Holmes cannot believe he has been caught. How could he be such an imbecile, so careless? But he immediately realizes that he is in luck. Lady Rathbone obviously doesn’t want to scream, doesn’t want to draw attention
to this intruder in her dressing room.
Why?
He must figure out
exactly
why immediately: bring his powers of deduction to bear more efficiently than ever before.
Be calm. Be clever
. If he can’t outsmart her, he will be tied to the Rathbone robbery and live the rest of his existence in jail or worse. He thinks of the punishment the lord spoke of in his boasting talk at the dinner table. Sherlock’s life may depend on what he says in the next minute.

She is staring at the gloves
.

“W
hat are you doing, young man?” “I think you are well aware.” “What do you know? Are you a blackmailer?”

Her voice is curiously different from the one she employed in the dining room. There is no forced accent.

“Perhaps we can make an arrangement. Tell me his name.”

“I shan’t. Do as you will.”

“All right. I will take these items with me. And you will allow me to leave with them because if you try to stop me, I will alert the household. We shall be in contact by post. The cost for the return of the gloves will increase by the day. Or, you can tell me his name – and give me those gems around your neck – and I will return the gloves to you now,
the military man’s and yours
.”

“His name is … Captain Waller,” she finally says, her voice choked with emotion. She reaches up to undo her necklace. It is such a feminine motion, so sweet and vulnerable. Her face colors and a tear plops onto her cheek. Sherlock almost feels sorry for her.

She is so flustered that she is having trouble undoing the clasp and sits down at her dressing table. He approaches to help her. She looks at him in the mirror, up close, and squints. Then she raises her lorgnette by the stem and whirls around in her chair to examine him.

“You aren’t a Rathbone footman! You don’t
know
me! You are a common burglar! No one will believe you! Give me those!”

She snatches the gloves from his hands … and screams. Sherlock can hardly believe how loudly she shrieks. It isn’t the sound of an upper-class lady, but the caterwaul of an enraged and aggrieved woman filled with suppressed passions.

He runs into the bedroom with Lady Rathbone in pursuit, well aware that she could knock him to the floor and jump on him without thinking twice. The windows in the room are long and wide, going from knee-high height to within inches of the ten-foot ceiling. One of them is slightly open – ladies like to keep their rooms cool; it is good for the skin. Sherlock rushes to it, grasps the sash in both hands and shoves it up. It barely budges. But his thin frame is his ally again: he can just get through. He struggles out in a flash, forgetting that he is three floors up. Lady Rathbone grabs one of his feet. He can hardly believe it … a belle of the London social scene has him by the leg! He can hear servants shouting as they ascend the stairs. He kicks at her, connects with something soft, and feels her release him and fall to the floor. He looks out into the cold, dark night.
Oh-oh
. The ground is far below. The dim lights of all of west London
appear to be glowing in the panorama. He can see where the gray flat roof of Buckingham Palace is lit, not far away.

There’s a big oak tree about three or four feet from the window. He stands up on the wide sill and leaps. But the branch he aims for is too far away and he misses it and falls through the tree, smacking his arms, his head, and his rear end.
Stay calm
. He looks down, notices a big branch approaching, and seizes it! It makes his hands burn, but he hangs on. Breathing heavily, his heart pounding, he takes a moment to gather himself as he swings from the limb.

“
THIEVES! ROBBERY! VILLAINY!
” he hears voices shouting. Word has spread through the house and is beginning to spill outside. Sherlock looks to the ground. He’s about eight feet from the grass. He lets go. The impact of the landing makes him shudder from his toes to his skull, but everything stays intact. He gets to his feet and runs, aware that several of the house staff are already outside and coming his way.

“Barrymore?” says the cook, who is standing on the lawn with her eyes bulging.

Sherlock knows the area at the front of the house well. He stumbles up the walk, kicks open the black iron gate, and rushes toward the road in the bitter early winter day. The fog hangs in yellow clouds under the tall iron gas lamps on Belgrave Square. The park looks wet and coldly tropical. He heads for it: across the cobblestone street, through the open entrance, onto the criss-crossing paths on the grass under the trees. There is an increasing number of running footsteps behind him, a herd of pursuers.

One of them will catch him, there is no doubt. He cannot get away from that many young men at full gallop. He is done.

Then he trips! But not over any object on the ground or his own feet. It is someone else’s foot. Sprawling on the grass, he whips his head around and sees those pretty, patent-leather boots with buttons. He also senses someone rushing out from the bushes nearby. A small boy in a dirty red coat is darting away in the same direction Holmes was going.

“Sherlock!”

Irene Doyle is squatting behind a row of hedges, beckoning him to stay low and come with her.

He doesn’t have to think twice.

Rathbone’s servants race past in hot pursuit of the smaller boy.

“We shall go this way.” Irene nods in the direction Sherlock came from. They wait for all the pursuers to pass. She reaches down and takes his hand. It sends a thrill right up his arm to his shoulders and into his chest.

“Come on, Sherlock! Hurry!”

Finally, he moves, following her onto the street. In minutes they are out of the square and heading away from Belgravia. Irene hands him something – a bundle she had been carrying. Before long, they stop. They are at the high wall that runs along the gardens at the rear of Buckingham Palace. The street is well lit here and they are standing close to each other. Her face and hair glow in the lambent light. She is trying to seem distant and business-like.

“You should put those back on – your coat, at least.

You can’t walk around the way you are. We’ll throw the footman’s coat into a dustbin.”

His clothes? But they were in the stable at the rear of the mansion
.

“How did you know …”

He steps back from her.

“You were watching me?”

“No … I wasn’t. Believe me. I have no interest in
watching
you. I –”

“Someone was.”
Malefactor
.

“No, he wasn’t. Not … exactly. He was watching the house, not you. Then you came along, pretending to be a fishmonger’s boy. He left as soon as you were inside. But I wanted to see how you made out, so he asked the littlest Irregular to keep me company – the wee fellow has a bit of a shine for me. Then I saw you climbing out of the upper-storey window and hightailing it over here. I figured they had you – it is in my interest to keep you in this game. It occurred to me that the little one was wearing a stolen red coat not unlike your footman’s uniform. So I asked him to lead the servants on a wild goose chase away from here. He always does what I say. He will stay far in front of them. Believe me, he will never be caught.”

She smiles weakly.

“So … you’ve told him.”