Vanishing Girl tbsh-3 Page 13

  He is halfway to Belgravia in minutes, his hands red and freezing as he clutches the ice-cold goods. He doesn’t feel proud of what he’s done. What had possessed him to steal from that poor old man? He at least could have chosen a different monger, but he had been thinking about no one but himself. It is done, he tells himself; it is useless to worry about it now. This could be the means to help Paul Dimly. That thought reassures him. It is time to move on.

  Belgravia nears.

  His father’s admonishments about observing are deeply ingrained in him and have been re-emphasized by Sigerson Bell. But listening skills are almost of equal importance. Both his mentors agree. “Listen to what everyone in the world tells you,” Wilberforce Holmes once said, “whether it is a royal declaration or a shout in the street.” He had tuned his ear to the constables when they discussed the Rathbone ball and listened to every syllable as Miss Doyle spoke of the contents of the great house and the servants who worked within.

  Footmen are the most costumed of all the domestic help in a nobleman’s home. They dress in distinctive uniforms and wigs, with white stockings, and breeches. They are supposed to be tall and are often young. Irene described one who was very young, a sort of apprentice, only used on busy occasions. Thin and with strands of black hair just like Sherlock’s evident under his wig, he also had, as Irene recalled, a rather prominent nose. Holmes’s own proboscis, he has to admit, is not without prominence.

  Sherlock is certain that this boy will be working tonight. He assumes that many on staff hardly know the lad and that the Rathbones, who barely recognize their own daughter, are certainly not apt to be well acquainted with one of their infrequently employed servants.

  The little private ball and masquerade will be preceded by a meal. That will be helpful too. He walks quickly into Belgrave Square carrying his fish. The sun has already set. Supper time is fast approaching. He waits in the park and watches the guests arrive – they must all be indoors before he makes his move. When he nears the great house a short while later, he sees a sort of parade through the tall windows at the front: bejeweled ladies with low-cut dresses, and perfectly groomed gentlemen in dark suits and white silk cravats, all carrying masks and paired off with carefully chosen partners, descending the pink marble staircase from the drawing room. In moments they will be in the dining room, ready to eat. Then they will remove to the upstairs again, to the ballroom. He needs to act smartly.

  He gets past the liveried coachman standing guard outside by pointing to his newspaper-wrapped fish. He grins at him, holds his nose, and motions to the house with his head.

  Wealthy homes have big kitchens in the basement and Irene has told him exactly where to find this one. He shoots down the stone stairs and opens the door without knocking, as if he were meant to. There is a mass of servants scurrying about in a sort of ordered chaos, frantic as the supper hour descends on them. It is very loud. He can disappear in here, whether fish is on the menu or not.

  “Confidence is the key to anything you do,” Sherlock once heard Malefactor tell his charges. Holmes had been hiding in the bushes at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, fascinated, in those days, with the underworld.

  The boy knows that his rival was right. He has to be bold now and act as though he is exactly who he pretends to be.

  He spots the cook, a big-bosomed, middle-aged woman wearing a white apron and dress, who is sending her assistants and other servants off in all directions. Sherlock holds the fish in full view in front of his chest, but turned away from the cook (since she is in charge of the menu), and heads toward an unattended wooden table that looks to be filled with food for a later course. Just as he hoped, no one questions a delivery boy’s presence and he sets his smelly load down and has both hands free.

  Then he spies his prey; the young footman who looks a little like him. Dressed in the scarlet Rathbone uniform, he is waiting to take the hors d’oeuvres of imported oysters up to the dining room, and is staring longingly down at them in the manner a groom might regard his bride.

  Seventeen years old, missed a small streak of his father’s working-class grime on his left cheek. Hungry, as befits his class. First few weeks on the job … and shall eat at least one oyster on the way up the stairs.

  Sherlock slips over, his hand on the vial in his pocket, and stumbles, falling into the big plate of oysters and deftly knocking one to the floor.

  A kitchenmaid turns and glowers at him.

  “Many pardons, mum,” he says, reaching down to pick up the morsel.

  “No one is eatin’ that ‘un, you savage. Throw it out and be on your way.”

  “Yes, mum.” But his eyes are on the footman, whose eyes are on the oyster.

  “I have a rule,” whispers Sherlock into the other boy’s ear as he rises. “In fact, I am the originator of it, mate. It’s this: once a portion of food strikes the floor, it can be eaten within three seconds, no later. That’s the ‘Three Second Rule.’ The time grows longer dependin’ on your poverty, as your lodgins is deeper in Whitechapel, Stepney, or the Isle of Dogs.”

  The young footman grins, takes the dirty oyster from Sherlock’s open hand, holds his head back, and quickly tips the contents into his gaping mouth. Sherlock sees the brown, powdered opium enter with it and the footman’s Adam’s apple bounce in his gullet.

  “I shall be off.”

  He waits outside, around the back, at the rear kitchen door, hidden from the view of the coachman out front. No more than five minutes later, the footman staggers out the door, perspiring heavily and feeling drowsy.

  “Anything wrong, mate?” asks Sherlock quietly, offering his shoulder.

  “It’s you, boy. I am seeing strange things … I am feeling … feeling …”

  Sherlock takes his full weight when he collapses and drags him into the nearby stable. Stripping down to his underclothing, shivering as he works, he is in the footman’s uniform in minutes. Not a perfect fit, a little large and loose, but it will do. His calves don’t show as well as he’d like, and it takes him a while before he has the wig on just the way he wants. He’d like a mirror. Then he chides himself. Stop fussing. Stop delaying.

  He practices for a minute in the stable, remembering the typically proud bearing of the young footman, his gait, and his haughty expression. He takes a deep breath, opens the stable door, and makes for the kitchen. Confidence. Sweeping indoors, he heads directly toward the food.

  “Barrymore! Barrymore, where are you?”

  That must mean me.

  He keeps his eyes averted from the kitchenmaid, who hands him a full plate and directs him toward a doorway that leads to a set of stairs. Sherlock is to take the food up to the dining room. This is what he was hoping for; an acceptable reason to not only move up a floor into the main part of the great house, but a chance to observe all three members of the family, too. From there, he intends to somehow find his way farther up … and enter Lady Rathbone’s bedroom. But first, to the dinner table, where he can consider the conduct and attitude of the Rathbones and their daughter and listen to the conversation, which will surely be about the robbery. What else would they all speak of? He may hear details that the papers don’t have. But he can’t spend long there – his goal is the bedroom.

  Then, a daring thought occurs to him. What if he tried to say something to Victoria? Just a few whispered words in her ear as he walked past, mentioning Paul Dimly’s name – it might save the little boy’s life. If she is as kind as Irene says, she might find a way to respond. But he dismisses this before he reaches the room. It could endanger the whole case.

  The impossibly long wooden table gleams beneath massive chandeliers, attended by two elongated rows of diners. There are indeed paintings in every appropriate place on the walls and the silverware is conspicuously shiny. Everything has been replaced. The guests seem to be almost glittering: ladies in white and men in black. Sherlock realizes his mouth is hanging open, and closes it.

  He isn’t exactly sure what a footman’s job is in a dining ro
om, but quickly spots another man in uniform serving the guests over their right shoulders and then standing with his back against a wall. That servant doesn’t look anyone in the eyes and the guests don’t acknowledge his presence. Sherlock follows his example. Then, up against the wall at about the midpoint of the table, so he can see both ends, he listens, heart pounding.

  At first the talk is merely niceties and little jokes, as the food is consumed, stuffed into big mustache-adorned mouths by the men, daintily set onto darting tongues by women. Distended stomachs bulge inside suits and dresses. Way down at the far end, far from her parents and anyone her age, in the seat of honor, sits Victoria. Sherlock observes her out of the corner of his eye.

  It is intriguing to see her at a reasonably close distance and in this setting. She has that distinctive strawberry blonde hair, those fine, high cheekbones that he’s seen in the illustrations in the papers. But there are things about her that surprise him. She appears a little older than he’d thought she’d look. She rarely looks anyone in the eye; she seems to be alone, though she’s in a crowd. It is almost as if she can hardly wait to leave. There’s something about her that disturbs Sherlock. Something isn’t right with Victoria Rathbone.

  Sherlock also watches her mother, who is almost right in front of him.

  She is as beautiful as Irene said and is dressed to the nines today, gems glittering around her neck. Her hair is similar in color to Victoria’s and he can see a line of resemblance: from her to her daughter to Andrew Doyle and even Irene. Lady Rathbone’s brown eyes are indeed a little cloudy, but the way she focuses them to examine things makes her beauty even more bewitching. The use of a long-stemmed, bejeweled lorgnette that she raises in order to gaze at people or objects farther away adds an upper-crust air that she obviously cultivates. But she rarely speaks to anyone for more than a moment, and Sherlock doesn’t hear her mention her daughter or see her as much as turn in the girl’s direction.

  Holmes peeks the other way, toward the opposite end of the room, to the lord at the head of the table. Rathbone barely looks at anyone either, even when he is holding forth on subjects of impressive importance, which seems to be often – his chin is thrust out and his nose elevated. His red-veined face is only partially evident beneath the mustache, mutton chops, and beard that cover it. He never glances down the table to regard his daughter either, but his inattentiveness to her existence is somewhat surprising, given Victoria’s avowal that her every wish is his command. They sit so far apart here, their conversation might be best conducted by telegram.

  For an instant, Sherlock thinks of his own parents, of his mother hugging him, gazing lovingly into his eyes. But that memory hurts, so he rejects it and returns to the task at hand.

  Most upper-class people barely know their children, he reminds himself. They have them reared by nannies, educated by governesses. The way Victoria is being treated may not be so unusual.

  Then, a guest actually speaks to her.

  “It is a joy to have you back, my dear,” intones a white-powdered old woman in a loud voice and with a feigned smile. Her face is like a mask and she isn’t turned in the girl’s direction.

  “Yes, yes,” says Lord Rathbone, his big, bullish tone sounding forced, as if he knows he must appear courageous and confident the day after his latest setback. He notices a wayward thread on his sleeve and plucks it off. “She is a good girl, is Victoria, very brave through it all, as I taught her to be, and as I admonish our nation to be. Look at her: she has been matured by all of this. She looks as though she has aged several years.”

  He doesn’t glance her way, nor does anyone else, though Lady Rathbone smiles and acknowledges the expressions of admiration Victoria receives from her female peers.

  “Your robbery is an incident of national significance,” states a young man clearly.

  “Yes, yes, I suppose it is.” The lord caresses his big whiskers and smoothes down his hair, combed straight forward to hide his balding scalp.

  “We must find these evil perpetrators, and the ones who absconded with your daughter at the end of the season (how barbaric of them to choose such a time), use the maxi mum power of the Force, spare no expense, and hang them all, as you say, publicly.”

  “That may not be the way very soon, unfortunately, my good man. Even Newgate Prison has taken to executing indoors, out of sight. One may never see a public hanging in London again.”

  “Perhaps they can make exceptions on this occasion.”

  There is a round of laughter. Even Lord Rathbone can’t hold back.

  Sherlock uses his peripheral vision now. He tries to see as many diners as possible and how they are reacting. This robbery was performed by someone who knew the Rathbones, their habits, their whereabouts, their possessions, their home, and how to get in and out of it. The best suspects may well be … seated at this very table.

  Who is the bold young man who brought up the subject of the robbery? That gentleman continues to talk, almost dominating the conversation, returning it to the crime when it wanders, and insisting on severe punishment for the criminals.

  Either twenty-seven or-eight years of age, and obviously single by the attentions he is paying to that plain, fawning female next to him, who is certainly not his wife. Her accent is American, her glowing, low-cut dress and diamonds expensive. He’s of high breeding but there are minute threads frayed on his shirt collar, which looks a little yellowed, as if it has had too many washings. His black hair appears to have been combed a thousand times. Is this a man in search of a rich wife? In search of money? He seems at home in the Rathbone mansion.

  But Sherlock wonders. This sniveling sycophant doesn’t seem capable of conceiving such a robbery. Holmes is wasting his time, getting off on the wrong foot just as he did in St. Neots. He doubts there is anything else to be learned at this table – he must get to the heart of the matter, upstairs. The other footman is removing a few plates.

  Lady Rathbone hasn’t touched her food for some time. She appears to be finished with this course despite the fact that most of her meal is still sitting there. Sherlock leans over her right shoulder. She smells like lemons. Her skin looks like butter. He lifts the plate and glances toward Victoria. Strangely enough, she is looking back at him. Their eyes meet for an instant. It is a strange thing for an upper-class woman to do. She turns away quickly. Sherlock notices her plate. Every morsel has been consumed, the only serving to be so thoroughly attacked. She must be hungry. He glides over, lifts her plate and observes her, just inches away. She appears to be trembling. That’s strange, too. But Sherlock doesn’t have much time to think about it.

  He is careful to leave the room alone. Out in the hall, he glances around, sees no one, and steals up the stairs, dinner plates still in hand. Once he is on the next floor, he slows down, making sure his footfalls are soundless. The richly colored carpets that cover every inch of the hall help. Lady Rathbone’s bedroom is one more storey up.

  When he gets there he finds that the door is closed, but not locked. He shuts it behind him and turns to the room. It is like being in an illustration from a society magazine. Parts of the upstairs hallways had looked a little empty, stripped in places of valuables: a painting gone here, and a vase there. But this room is different. It smells of lemons just like its inhabitant and is filled with so much furniture, so many plants and flowers, and the walls and floors are so densely decorated that it seems as though it will be difficult to move about. He takes a step … and sees someone! He almost drops the dinner plates. But it’s his image in a mirror. There are mirrors everywhere. He regards himself for a moment, thinking he looks fine in the footman’s costume.

  Get on with it.

  He sets the plates on Lady Rathbone’s four-poster bed where they almost disappear into the soft red covers.

  Why did the thieves not come here?

  He makes for her dressing room.

  Downstairs, Lady Rathbone is thinking that it is time to announce that she is feeling a little uncomforta
ble, that she needs a moment to refresh herself in her boudoir. She excuses herself, leaves the table, and glides through the door to head upstairs.

  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.