Vanishing Girl Page 20

“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.

  Shortly 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 Rs 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.

  Victoria stirs again.

  “Blimey,” she says in a completely different voice, “the ‘ouse is loaded, mates.”

  Why is she talking like that? At first he wonders if she may sometimes play at being an amateur actress, that accents might be a hobby of hers. But then something dawns on him. She will need to take on a new name and personality when she gets to America. It makes perfect sense; she will have to become someone else.

  He turns to the other stack of papers. He can tell, by the fact that they have been handled more, that these notes were written earlier.

  “Pronounce the Rs with a roll of the tongue,” reads the first line. “Remember, the pitch of her voice is higher than mine,” states another. He scans down the page and flips to the next. “Upper class ladies are never alone,” says a line written atop that sheet. “Her father will seldom look at me,” reads the next line. “I will be expected to hold my teacup with the small finger extended … practice French … keep walking with a book balanced on my head.”

  What does this mean? Sherlock turns to the woman in the bed. He quickly casts his mind back over everything he has learned: in St. Neots when he first came here, outside the Rathbone mansion, in the dining room and Lady Rathbone’s bedroom, in Portsmouth, and now back here again, especially in this room.

  What does this –?

  “Eliza!”

  The man’s shout startles Sherlock and nearly makes him faint.

  They are awake and calling her!

  The woman stirs, moans, and then sits up in bed, looking toward the door.

  Sherlock drops like a swatted fly and lands as gently as he can on the floor. In an instant, he has silently shuffled under the bed.

  “Eliza Shaw! Rise and shine! America awaits!”

  Is that her new name for her new life?

  The door swings open.

  “Robert Self!” Sherlock hears her shriek. “Clear out of me room, you cad!” Then she giggles.

  “Of course, Miss Rathbone. Now get thee into thy frock, wench, and let us fly to the land of opportunity and wanton behavior.”

  “Then leave my boudoir, Sir Robert … and I shall,” she coos.

  He hears her rise, sees her bare feet pad across the floor to the wardrobe.

  Sherlock is trapped in the bedroom. She will surely see him. Have I come this far to lose everything? With the police on their way. I should have stayed outside.

  Victoria hums happily as she slides the dresses along the rack. She finds one and begins to disrobe. Sherlock has to escape. Now. He glances frantically around the room.

  “Eliza?”

  It’s the dark-haired man with the scar again and this time his voice is serious. It has a suspicious tone.

  “I am half-clothed, Robert … come in.”

  She goes to the door with a little laugh.

  “Did you leave this open a crack?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you always closed the door tightly.”

  “I do … to keep you animals at bay. You might turn into black tigers in the night.”

  “I am not joking, Eliza, your entrance was ajar.”

  Sherlock spots a little door of some sort, about two feet high, all the way across the room near the wardrobe. He slides out from under the bed, slithers on his stomach and reaches it. There’s a small handle. He opens it quietly and slips inside. He can still hear them talking.

  “Are you sure?”

  Sherlock is coiled up into a ball in the tight confines holding his breath, but when he glances around, he observes that within six feet this narrow area opens up into a wider tunnel. There is a little hole in the wall near him and he notices that he can see through it back into the bedroom. He is in a secret passageway.

  “Look under the bed!” he hears the woman exclaim.

  Sherlock starts to wriggle, moves along the six feet of narrow space and sees that he will be able to stand in the wider part. In an instant he is walking along it. He is between the walls.

  “No one there,” says the man in the distance. “What about in here?”

  Sherlock hears him fumbling at the door to the passageway. The boy is near a corner. He turns around it and stops, holding his breath.

  “Nothin’.”

  “You are imagining things, Robert.”

  “But I –”

  “An hour or two and we’re gone. You two are the professionals. Stay calm, remember?”

  “I suppose I could be wrong. I must be getting itchy to go. It’s time to do what I have to do upstairs.”

  The passageway door closes and Sherlock lets out his breath. The man’s last words are ominous. They were spoken in deadly earnest. It is time to do what I have to do upstairs. What does he HAVE to do? Eliminate a problem before they flee? One they can’t leave behind? Sherlock has to get out of this tunnel without going back the way he came … and then get to that upper room. Foul play of the worst kind may be at hand. Who indeed, is up there? Sherlock’s mind is racing over everything he has seen and heard in the last few minutes.

  For a while, it seems as though he may be trapped. He scurries along the passageway and it goes on forever, twisting and turning through the strange house. Every so often he notices holes in the walls and when he glances through them, sees into other rooms. He also finds a tight little staircase going straight up. Does the young woman downstairs go upstairs this way? And if so, for what purpose? He is tempted to ascend. If his sense of direction isn’t betraying him, he is directly beneath the room two floors up. But he can’t go up these stairs and take the chance of getting lost. He keeps moving through the tunnel. He seems to be going in circles in a maze as complex as the one on the grounds. But it finally comes to an end and narrows and shortens again. He gets down on his hands and knees, struggles through another six-foot stretch and slowly opens the short door he finds at the end. He emerges into a den.

  There are many dusty, cobwebbed bookshelves in the wood-paneled room. There seems to be no one about. Sherlock scoots across to the outer door and opens it just a crack. He sees the grand staircase rising about fifty feet away and the dark-haired man with the scar rushing to its foot, about to ascend. He carries a scarf in his hand. What is that for? To bind or suffocate his victim? The thief stops. He seems to think of something, smiles, and then walks across the empty room to a palatial fireplace. Sherlock is amazed at its size. It looks like it should belong to the queen, like it could heat the entire mansion. The man steps over the old fire screen and stands in the fireplace. Then he sticks his
head up the flue: half his body vanishes into it. Sherlock can’t see him anymore, or be sure of what he is doing. The man appears to be making a loud noise up the chimney – it is like a roar. When he steps out, he seems to sense something and turns, facing the den. The boy closes the door as fast as he can.

  Did he see me?

  When the boy opens the door a crack again a minute later, the staircase looks deserted.

  Follow him. See what he does. Stop any villainy. Cry out if you must. The police should be nearing.

  He wishes he had his horsewhip.

  Sherlock sweeps across the room and ascends the staircase, then goes up the next one, and down the hallways, toward the upper room. He knows the way now. When he draws near, he waits at the T, peeks around the corner, and sees the man opening the door and going in. Then he hears voices. His plan is to intercede only if the woman cries out. He’d like to keep a good distance away, far enough so that he can stay hidden if everything remains calm. But he can’t hear anything from where he is. He moves closer and still can’t hear, so he edges right up to the door. He is so cautious, so alert to flee, that it takes him a while to get there and he doesn’t think about the fact that silence has reigned in the room for several seconds before he arrives. As he looks through the crack in the doorframe, he sees with a start that the man is coming toward him. In fact, he is just a few steps from the door.

  Run!

  The boy pivots and flies. He rushes past the adjoining hallway he came from and heads for the next one straight ahead. He’ll never make it. He’s still ten feet away as the thief opens the door. But suddenly, Sherlock feels as though someone picks him up and carries him … it’s as if he is weightless … he reaches the next hallway and gets around the corner. He has the sensation of being set down and thinks he sees someone vanishing away in front of him; a woman in an old-fashioned dress – no head upon her shoulders.

  Holding his breath, he hears the villain stride along the hallway from the door, turn, and walk away down the other corridor. His footsteps grow quieter.

  Sherlock lets out a huge sigh. Then he chides himself. I didn’t see a ghost. Nothing picked me up and carried me.