Vanishing Girl (30 page)

When the sky becomes lighter, he rises and makes his way into St. Neots. He had watched Penny walk away from the river toward her home several times, so he knows the area where she lives in the north end of town. Cocks crow in the distant fields, his feet crunch on the inch of freshly fallen snow, and he shivers as he walks, his collar up, his shoulders
hunched. He enters the town and sees a milkmaid carrying heavy cans on poles over her shoulders, a blacksmith bearing a big sledgehammer opening his shop, and a few other tradesmen moving sullenly along, ready to start their day. He doesn’t look them in the eye and tries to act as if he has somewhere to go. Then he spots what he is looking for: a child. In fact, it is one of the boys he met the first day he came here.

“Might I have a word?” he asks softly as the boy approaches.

The lad looks up and gasps. He starts to back away.

“It’s you, the London man with the made-up name.”

“Sherlock Holmes. It’s my real name.”

“No, it ain’t … but that’s all right, sir … it weren’t me that throwed that apple … if that’s what you’re inquirin’ about … it … it were Jack … that’s right … Jack McMurdo … ‘e lives over at –”

“Do you know a woman named Penny Hunt who works at the paper mill?”

“Mrs. Hunt? I do, sir. Lives down that road right there.” He points to a narrow street nearby. “About four homes in, thatched roof with a blue door.”

“Thank you, my boy. Breathe a word of my presence, and you will have trouble.”

“Yes sir. Is that all you wants? Can I go? I didn’t throw that apple … I swear it was Jack McMurdo. I can take you right to ‘is door!”

“Be off with you,” says Sherlock, “and don’t throw anything at anyone anymore.”

The boy flies away.

Holmes doesn’t think he should knock on Penny’s door. He doubts he’ll need to, anyway: the town is rousing and he knows she will be, too. He isn’t standing on the road near her home for more than a few minutes before she appears, holding a dusty rug she is about to shake in the cold air. But it barely seems like her: she is whistling a merry tune and smiling. It puzzles Sherlock.

When she sees him, a look of fear crosses her face for a moment, but then vanishes. She looks up and down the street, back toward the house, and then crosses to him.

“What do you want, Master Holmes?” she asks quietly, still glancing back toward the house. “You shouldn’t be here. My husband has a temper.”

“Your husband should be trounced by a good man. I am skilled in the ways of self-defense and can do it for you.”

“No, you shan’t, you silly boy. Life is more complicated than someone your age knows, even one with your wits. But I swear I won’t be down in the dumps about anything today. I’m as happy as a clam.”

“Well, I am much grieved to change your mood. I have been to Grimwood Hall.”

“There is nothing you can say that can upset me, Master Holmes.”

“I am afraid there is.”

Someone comes out of the Hunts’ little home across the street. It is a girl about thirteen or fourteen years of age with reddish-blonde hair.

“Mother?”

Penny smiles. “I will be there shortly, Polly.”

Holmes almost falls over.

“She returned last night, and I am over the moon.”

Who is in that room on the upper storey of Grimwood Hall?

“I thinks I spent all night just looking at her face. You know, I found that I hardly knew her. Have you ever looked right into the face of someone you love and barely recognized them?”

“I know a family that has that problem.”

“I am going to spend every day getting to know her.”

“I am in a hurry, Mrs. Hunt. I have two questions I need answered.”

She looks back toward the house.

“Ask me anything, Master Holmes. Just ask quickly.”

A shout comes from inside the Hunt home, almost a growl.

“Penny! Wench, where is you!”

Polly looks at her mother and reenters the house.

“I must go.”

“I will follow you into your home if you don’t give me my answers. The fate of a child lies in this.”

“And your gain, I’m guessing. Ask me and then let me be.”

“I need to wire to the city.”

“There’s a little post office on the main street, about three doors down after you turn toward London, attached to a baker’s. The postman lives above. He has a telegraph machine. He may help you … or send you out on your ear.”

“And one more thing.”

“Quickly.”

“The beast that killed the lord of Grimwood Hall … what was it?”

“No one knows. But there are stories.”

“Of what?”

“A large black cat … a panther or a tiger.”

Sherlock gulps.

“There is no such thing as a black tiger,” he says.

“They say Lord Grimwood went places in India no other European ever traveled. Let me go.”

“Good day, Mrs. Hunt.”

Before she reaches her gate, she turns.

“Just wire for help, Master Holmes. As a mother, I’m telling you to leave it at that. Don’t go back there.”

Sherlock finds the post office quickly and bangs on the door. Moments later, a very thin man wearing nothing but yellowing undergarments and a pair of spectacles appears and is, at first, reluctant to be of any aid. But when Sherlock produces three shillings he changes his tune.

“Two shillings for two messages,” says the boy. “Another for your silence.”

The man nods and goes upstairs to put on a pair of trousers.

Inside the cold little office a few minutes later, the smell of kneaded dough in the air from next door, Sherlock
hands the man one shilling, ponders what he should say, and then dictates.

“
CONFIDENTIAL
. Inspector Lestrade. Come at once. St. Neots. The manor house on the hill. They are here. So is
SHE
. Will escape before noon. All shall be explained.”

The skeletal man stares at Sherlock Holmes, who puts a finger to his lips. The man nods again and receives another shilling.

Sherlock dictates one more telegram, to Hobbs at
The Times of London
. He signs it
Scotland Yard
.

S
hortly afterward, the boy is on the marshy field under the rising sun, on his way to Grimwood Hall. He is watching the breaths he takes, as they form clouds in front of his face. He hopes they won’t be his last. After he scales the wall again and looks down upon the grounds, he realizes how different it looks in the morning light. For one thing, nothing moves. And everything is silent.
Perhaps all the beasts are asleep. Are jungle cats nocturnal?

He thinks of what he’s read about large exotic felines. There is a book by C.T. Buckland he particularly enjoys. It says that black tigers are myths and that there aren’t really such creatures as black panthers; they are simply unusual leopards and jaguars with black pigmentation: if you look closely you can see a black leopard’s spots. Though he can’t remember everything Buckland had to say, he does recall one thing for sure: big black cats are (and the book had an illustration of one that was twelve feet long), in legend and reality, among the most vicious of all the animals, capable of killing beasts twice their size, and brilliantly camouflaged
in the night. He also remembers what Penny said:
Lord Grimwood traveled in unknown lands
.

Sherlock swallows. Perhaps he should just wait for the police outside the lawns. It seems like a smart idea. He gets off the wall and slides to the ground, facing down the hill toward St. Neots, pressing his back against the granite.
Stay here. Wait for the police
.

Before long, he realizes he can’t stay put. What if the criminals have abandoned the manor? What if he brings the authorities to an empty house? It would be more than he could bear. And if he stays here, he may never know who is in that upstairs room. He stops himself when he thinks that.
Stay downstairs. Just go into the house, confirm that the culprits are still there. That’s all. Hide somewhere safe
.

He climbs the wall and looks onto the grounds again. They remain eerily quiet. He takes a deep breath.
Black tigers and panthers are figments of the imagination
, he reminds himself. He keeps repeating it as he drops inside the wall with a thump.

The cold December wind blows lightly through the copper beeches and weeping willows. He moves into the maze, but not at a run: left, then right … he has the passage memorized now. No beasts seem to follow – they must, indeed, be nocturnal. He climbs the fence next to the house and enters through the big, arched door. Nothing is stirring inside. Every one of his lightly placed steps seems to echo.

Father Christmas himself wouldn’t be welcome here. There are no signs of holly or mistletoe, no tree laden with
candles, no popcorn or cranberry chains on the walls, and Sherlock can’t imagine a carol echoing happily along the corridors.

The silence frightens him.
Are they gone? Or are they just asleep?
He needs to know.

Sherlock treads as quietly as he can through the hall and approaches the room where the three thieves were talking last night. He peeks around the doorframe and peers in. It is silent in there, too. He can see the room much better now. It appears to be empty and is, indeed, a sort of sitting room, though all the chairs and settees are gone. All that is evident are large wooden crates, big canvas bags, and suitcases, stuffed full and haphazardly set on the floor.

He creeps through the room, all his senses alert, sees an open doorway to his left and tiptoes through it. It brings him into an area nearly as large as the grand hall, and there – on mattresses stretched out on the floor – are two men, one red-haired and the other dark. Both are fast asleep. The sun has risen and the boy is in clear view. These two are sure to awaken at any moment.

But Sherlock is getting greedy. Now that he is here, he wants to see more. He spots a closed door straight in front of him and makes for it with ghostly quiet. It creaks when he opens it and he freezes, not even daring to look back at the men on the mattresses. But no sounds come from them, so he proceeds into the room. There, on a rudimentary bed under thick blankets, lies Victoria Rathbone.

Leave
, says a voice in his head.
Look around
, says another.

Sherlock pushes the door back and keeps it slightly ajar to be sure that it won’t creak again. He is now alone with her inside her bedroom, her accomplices just a few strides away. There isn’t much in the room besides the bed: just a dressing table with a mirror, a crude, open wardrobe bulging with garments, and a writing desk. A scarlet dress, like the one she was wearing on the first day she was kidnapped, hangs over one of the wardrobe doors. Sherlock steps toward it. Victoria stirs in the bed. He stops.

“Rotting royals from Rotten Row … rule …” she mutters, rolling her
R
s carefully.

Sherlock stares at her, breathless. Her eyes are closed. She smiles, turns onto her side, and drifts off again. It strikes him that she looks older than fourteen.

He peers into the wardrobe and a curious sight greets him. Beautiful, silk dresses hang on one half of the rack, humble cotton and linen ones on the other.
What is this about?
He moves to the writing desk and sees two stacks of papers piled beside an inkwell and pen.

“Enter by back door,” reads a sentence across the top of the first page in the first stack, in what Sherlock is certain is a woman’s flowery handwriting. “Kitchen to left downstairs (maids there or on upper floor), dining room to right upstairs on ground floor.” He turns to the next page. “Constable painting, third on dining-room wall on right, is most valuable; Turner behind Lord’s chair is next, the safe is in the lord’s den, first floor behind the watercolor, key in his desk. Lady’s bedroom is on second storey, first door on left. Leave it alone. Captain’s orders.”

Holding the papers up to the light, he can see the mark of the Fourdrinier Brothers.

She was giving the thieves instructions for the robbing of her own home. She must truly despise her father … he has nothing to do with her, rarely speaks to her. The ingenious captain recruited her to commit the crime
.