The Adventure of the King's Portrait Page 3

  “I’m sure you’ve already recognized me but if not, I’m Miss Irene Adler.” She helped me to my feet. “Be sure to let me know how you fare.”

  “Oh, I shall,” I said, although I didn’t mean it in the way that she thought. When this case was wrapped, I had a feeling that she would know more about my true nature than she did at the moment.

  I bid Miss Adler adieu and found my way back to my three charges. They were being thoroughly entertained—and by entertained, I mean flirted with—by several young men. Mother, at least, would be delighted when she heard the news.

  I gathered the three women up, much to their dismay, and escorted them home, dropping Miss Georgiana off at her place and then making sure Lydia and Kitty got to bed. I made sure to stop by Jane’s room—she was awake with the baby, for he had a tendency to fuss in the middle of the night, and I was able to relate to her all about the opera that she had missed.

  If only it could always be this way, I thought—my family life and my work with Mr. Holmes balancing themselves out in so simple and easy a fashion.

  As I was to learn in the morning, however, my personal and my detecting lives were about to intersect in a way I hadn’t imagined.

  Chapter Four:

  Mary Lends a Hand

  The next morning at breakfast there was much animated talk from Kitty and Lydia about the various men to whom they’d spoken. Between the opera and balls they were attending every night, I had to confess that even with my more realistic nature, it wouldn’t be long before one or both of them was proposed to. Mother would be ecstatic. I, for one, cared only that they not rush into a marriage with a man who was all charm and no substance.

  I endured it as best I could, but I was grateful when they departed to make calls for the day and silence fell over the house once more—I, for once, begged off, and since it was only calling I supposed that there wasn’t too much trouble they could get into without me present. Jane was upstairs with the baby in the nursery, and Mary was in the library, as was her habit.

  Mary had previously expressed a sympathy for my situation and an interest in my work, and I thought it might be pleasant for her if I was to tell her about our latest case. I was still unsure what to do about Mary, although I pretended that I was confident if only for her sake. When she had confided in me that she, too, found herself bored and longing for something more out of life, I admit I’d been caught by surprise. I’d always thought that Mary was content with her reading and banging away at the pianoforte. I had realized in that moment that I had sadly underestimated her.

  That was something I was learning while working with Mr. Holmes—I had, unknown to myself until recently, the most damnable prideful streak.

  Mary looked up upon my entrance and set her book aside as I sat down. “Is something the matter?” she asked.

  It stung a little, for Mary to think that the only reason I would talk to her would be if something was wrong. “No, not at all. I only wanted to tell you a bit about the case I’m working on with Mr. Holmes. I thought it might hold some interest to you.”

  “Oh.” Mary seemed surprised, but pleased, a slight blush crossing her cheeks. “I would—that is, yes. Thank you.”

  I sketched out the case for her, although like certain readers, Mary equally suspected that I had changed the country and perhaps even the rank of the royal gentleman in question. “If this gentleman is who I think he is, and not who you say he is,” Mary said at last, “Then this is not the first scandal he has been involved with. His early days were reckless ones.”

  “How did you come to learn of such things?” I asked, curious.

  “I have made it a pastime to read the paper and follow the movement of governments,” Mary replied. “And I like to eavesdrop on the men at the balls. You know how Mother always made me go and I do detest dancing, but listening to the men discussing politics and law was very interesting.”

  “My dear Mary,” I exclaimed, “I fear I’ve dreadfully underestimated you.”

  Mary gave me a small, pleased smile. “You would not be the first,” she replied.

  “What sort of scandals has he been involved in?” I asked.

  “Nothing of the same nature as what you’re describing to me,” Mary answered. “A few years ago it was said that he had let some important papers regarding treaties be stolen and copied out under his nose. Of course they turned the household inside out to find out who had assisted in it, but they could find no evidence to blame it on anyone.”

  “Then news of this scandal would be disastrous,” I said. “Even on its own it is enough to ruin his engagement, but after previous cases of carelessness, surely his advisors and other countries would be hesitant about having him in a powerful position.”

  “Yes.” Mary nodded. “Of course, officially no one can do anything to him, but there are, as I’m sure you know in working with Mr. Holmes, other ways of getting rid of someone you consider to be a weak link.”

  “I wonder then,” I said, “If someone else has not heard of the picture in Miss Adler’s possession. When I spoke to her last night, she seemed to have it only as a weapon of self-defense. Yet the king told Mr. Holmes and me that she had, of her own accord, threatened to make the picture public on the day he announced his engagement. Why would she do that, unless someone had contacted her and asked her to make it worth her while?”

  “You know, that sounds rather like a person whose name has been cropping up in conversation.” Mary’s eyes took on a conspiratorial gleam. “I have heard of him—I assume it is a him, that is—from time to time, but always when it was only two or three very important men in a group talking, and always in whispers.”

  My breath caught in my throat. It felt almost like too much of a coincidence, but Mr. Holmes had taught me that there was no such thing. “Is his name, by chance, Moriarty?”

  Mary gasped. “Then you have heard of him as well?”

  “More than that—he wished to intimidate Mr. Holmes and learn what he could about him, since Mr. Holmes has come to the attention of powerful people who seek his assistance. I think Moriarty felt that Mr. Holmes might threaten his business and so sought to scare Mr. Holmes off. He arranged for us to be attacked, but we managed to handle it nicely.” I failed to mention to her that I had been kidnapped and nearly killed. I did not think it would be wise to scare my sister, especially when I was now hale and hearty and there was no reason to worry.

  “That is unfortunate,” Mary said. “From what I understand he has become a great concern for the Empire and other European governments.”

  She spoke with such confidence, as though she had no doubt as to her knowledge, that I was struck with a great wave of sadness. It was a pity that she was not born a boy, I thought. She would have made an excellent member of Parliament or a lawyer, or even as a member of the clergy if she wished. Her intellect and understanding of politics was being wasted, all because she was a woman.

  Mary gave me an odd look. “What is it?”

  I supposed that some of what I was thinking showed on my face. I knew that Mary would not welcome any pity or sympathy for her plight, so instead of telling her the truth I simply said, “You ought to come with me. You should be discussing this with Mr. Holmes. He will find it very useful.”

  I stood, and Mary followed me. If nothing else, I thought, this proved once and for all that Mr. Holmes was not losing his mind or obsessing over a phantom.

  Mary was silent on our trip to 221b Baker Street. I observed her index finger quietly tracing a pattern in her skirt and saw that she kept her gaze out the window but pointed towards the cobblestones. She was nervous, I thought. Well, I supposed that was to be expected. The first and only time she had met Mr. Holmes had been when he had assisted in solving the murder of Mr. Wickham, a time when he was rather abrupt in manner. He had not made a good impression upon anyone except for me.

  When we reached the apartment, I first introduced Mary to Mrs. Hudson. Like me, Mary seemed
impressed and surprised that a woman could run a business all on her own. She asked after Mr. Hudson, only to learn that he had been hanged some time before.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Mary said, as I once had.

  “That was how I met Mr. Holmes, in fact,” Mrs. Hudson informed her. “He helped me.”

  Confusion crossed Mary’s face. “He tried to have your husband freed?”

  “Oh, no, dear!” Mrs. Hudson beamed. “He ensured he was convicted!”

  Mary blinked rapidly in confusion and then looked at me. I couldn’t help but laugh. Such had been my reaction once upon a time when I had learned more about Mrs. Hudson. “Come on, Mr. Holmes is upstairs.”

  I warned her, as we walked up, that the apartment would be in disarray. “I do my best to keep it tidy but if you see something like a skull on the mantelpiece, just take it in your stride. Mr. Holmes is always conducting experiments to occupy his time when he’s not on a case.”

  When I opened the door, however, I had to stop in surprise. Mary was walking behind me and nearly ran into me. “What is it?”

  “Mr. Holmes isn’t here,” I said, surprised.

  There was of course the possibility that Mr. Holmes was in the bedroom, an area of the flat that I had yet to visit and didn’t intend to now, but whenever he was in the bedroom the door was closed to indicate it. I had long suspected that the bedroom was merely another room to house his many knickknacks, including books stuffed with newspaper clippings and information on various persons of interest. But whenever he was in it for sleeping or for changing into or out of the many disguises he used, the door was closed.

  Now, the door was open. Glancing inside I could see clearly that there was no one there.

  Where could he possibly be?

  “Well, we might as well sit and wait,” I said. There was nothing else planned for the day and Mr. Holmes would be by sooner or later.

  I sat myself down in the chair by the fire—the second one that Mr. Holmes had recently obtained for my benefit, since his high-backed dark pink chair was for him alone. It was little unspoken things like that which reminded me that Mr. Holmes cared for our acquaintance, no matter how poorly he did at showing it in conventional terms. I shook my head as Mary made to sit down in it and instead looked around for where else she might sit, when the door opened with a bang.

  “There you are,” I said, turning to look.

  It was a good thing that I had become used to Mr. Holmes’s fondness for disguising himself, otherwise I should have thrown out the tramp before me at once. “You look like an ungroomed stable hand,” I said.

  “That is exactly what I intended to look like, Miss Bennet, thank you,” Mr. Holmes replied. “Miss Mary, I wondered if I would be seeing you again.”

  It was nice to know that even Mr. Holmes, with his great powers of observation, could not guess the future. “She has some information that I thought would be of great interest to you,” I said, “But perhaps you had better first change.”

  Mr. Holmes tipped his head to us and disappeared into the bedroom. Mary turned to look at me, and I did not have to have strong powers of observation to read the confusion in her face. “Mr. Holmes has found that when he’s pursuing a case, disguising himself as someone he’s not can help him to get information, especially now that people are beginning to recognize him for his services.”

  “That makes sense,” Mary said. “It has been some time since I last saw him but had you not addressed him, I never would have known it to be him. He carries himself in an entirely different manner and his face was all but obscured.”

  “He’s quite clever at it,” I replied. “I’ve often wished to try it myself, but so far my position as a daughter of a gentleman has been more helpful than disguising myself as, say, a maid.”

  Mr. Holmes emerged, now cleaned and dressed in his usual manner with his pipe already in hand. I suspected that he kept it on him at all times, even when in disguise, perhaps in his pocket. “You said that Miss Mary might have something of interest to me?” He said, never one to worry about pleasantries when there was a task at hand.

  I explained what Mary had told me so far. “I stopped her there, thinking she should tell you the rest in person.”

  Mr. Holmes’s eyes brightened in that feverish way they had when he scented another part of the puzzle was coming together. “Yes, I’d be grateful if she’d finish telling us what she knows.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much more,” Mary replied. “Only what I have managed to sketch out in eavesdropping upon the men. It seems that this Moriarty finds some way to obtain powerful information. How he goes about it, no one can figure out. Personally, I suspect he uses the servants.”

  “A clever deduction,” Mr. Holmes said. “I myself use the homeless to gather information, but most people overlook people who are lower down the ladder than themselves.”

  “However he does it,” Mary explained, “He manages to get information that is extremely sensitive, either personal information or government information. It’s starting to become a bit of an open secret, which doesn’t surprise me, nobody could operate on such a level while remaining completely unknown. But he’s not someone that others like to talk about. They say he has spies everywhere, but I think they also fear the embarrassment. Who wants to be the one who gossiped and admitted that, say, the English government is being blackmailed by a supposed master criminal? It’s highly embarrassing.”

  “And then those in power, fearing their private scandals or political machinations will be brought to the public eye, pay him in whatever he pleases, whether it’s information or money,” Mr. Holmes finished. “Yes, I see. Very clever of him.”

  “From what I’ve heard, sometimes his demands are strange,” Mary said, “Or at least they’re strange to some of the men. But I’ve noticed that many of his demands end up turning the tide of political issues, such as aiding or destroying a small rebellion in one country or another. I think his aim isn’t wealth but rather he likes being in power. He likes changing history.”

  “Ah, so he is a megalomaniac,” Mr. Holmes intoned. “Someone who is obsessed with his own importance and power.”

  “It appears so.” Mary nodded her agreement.

  “Given that Mr. Holmes has been increasingly asked by higher members of society to assist them,” I said, “It would make sense that Moriarty would want to intimidate you or possibly get rid of you altogether so that you won’t interfere with his plans later on.”

  Mr. Holmes nodded his agreement. “You have been most helpful, Miss Mary. Perhaps while your sister and I work on our current case you would write down all that you have heard, in as much detail as possible, so that I can add it to my wall?” He indicated the massive wall of information he had obtained about Moriarty so far.

  Mary nodded. “I would be happy to help in any way that I can.”

  “What is there to work on for the current case?” I said, for in telling him about Mary’s knowledge I had also told him of Miss Adler. “It has something to do with your disguise and where you were just now, no doubt.”

  “As observant as ever,” Mr. Holmes replied. “Yes, today I went out and disguised myself, as you accurately noted, as a stable hand. I learned of Miss Adler’s address from one of my homeless agents, and so went down to offer my services grooming the horses of the various carriages down there. They were happy to have my help, for it was in a very busy and fashionable district.

  “In chatting with the other grooms I learned much about Miss Adler. For instance, she is called upon at least once a day, often twice, by a local barrister by the name of Godfrey Norton.”

  “A barrister,” I said. “Then could it be that she’s entrusted the portrait to him?”

  “It’s possible,” Mr. Holmes replied. “But if so, he would not need to call upon her so frequently, as he has done apparently for the past six months.”

  “Then I should think their relationship is personal in
nature,” I said. “I would dare say she is his friend, or perhaps even more than his friend.”

  “We are in agreement,” Mr. Holmes said. “In my expertise, women tend to keep their secrets close to them, is that true?”

  “It has been my experience,” I said. “Women and men like to gossip with the secrets of others, but when it comes to their own secrets, I’ve found most women prefer silence.”

  “Then it must be somewhere in her house,” Mr. Holmes declared. “And if that is the case, then we must find where it is hidden.”

  “But how?” I asked.

  “I have an idea,” Mr. Holmes said, getting that gleam in his eyes that happened when he had a plan in mind but did not yet wish for me to know it. “I only ask two things of you: that you call upon Miss Adler this afternoon, and that after certain things occur—you will know them when they happen—that you then go outside and yell ‘fire’ at the top of your voice.”

  “Very well,” I said. “But I shall expect some surprise or other is up your sleeve.”

  “And you are wise to do so,” Mr. Holmes replied, and his smile was nothing short of conspiratorial.

  Chapter Five:

  Holmes and the Woman

  I called upon Miss Adler as Mr. Holmes wished, that very afternoon. It was impudent to call too late in the day for then it would be seen by the hostess as angling for an invitation to dinner—an intimate honor reserved only for the most revered of guests and intimate acquaintances.

  Despite Mr. Holmes’s assurances, I personally was concerned that Miss Adler might discover the true reason for my visit. The fact that I myself wasn’t sure how I would find out the location of the picture was of little consequence—I knew this woman to be clever and that was enough to worry me. Many men may underestimate the intelligence of women, but I was an intelligent woman myself and knew better than to think Miss Adler a pretty face and nothing more.