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Authors: Nancy Springer

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“My best wishes for the success of your scheme, my dear Sherlock. Good night.”

CHAPTER THE FIRST

WITH A SHOCK OF ASTONISHMENT I READ the card brought in to me on a silver tray by the page-boy.

“Dr. John Watson, M.D.” I spoke the name aloud to assure myself I was seeing it rightly, for I could not believe that this, of all persons, should be the very first client to enter the newly opened – January, 1889 – office of London’s – and, indeed, the world’s – only Scientific Perditorian.

Dr. John Watson? John was a common enough name, but Watson? And a medical doctor? It had to be, but still I did not wish to believe it. “Is it who I think it is, Joddy?”

“ ’Ow wud I know, m’lady?”

“Joddy, I have told you before, you are to address me as Miss Meshle.
Miss
Meshle.” I rolled my eyes, but what could one expect of a boy whose mother had named him Jodhpur (misspelled Jodper in the parish registry) because riding breeches sounded genteel to her? It was Joddy’s awe of my ruffles and puffed sleeves that made him call me “lady,” but he mustn’t, or people would start asking questions. I wanted the page-boy to retain his awe, which kept him from realising I was actually a mere girl not much older than he, but I wanted him to cease and desist the “m’lady.”

More calmly, remembering to guard against any aristocratic edge upon my accent, I asked him, “You have already told the gentleman that Dr. Ragostin is not in?”

“Yes, m’lady. I mean, yes, Miss Meshle.”

The Scientific Perditorian’s office bore the name of one Dr. Leslie T. Ragostin, because a scientist must needs be a man. But “Dr. Ragostin” would never be in, because he – the Ph.D. kind of doctor – did not exist except in my mind and upon the placards and business cards I placed in shops, kiosks, fruit stalls, and lecture-halls, wherever I could.

“If you would invite Dr. Watson into my office, then, I will see whether I can be of any help.”

Joddy ran out, his appearance if not his intellect smart: all “boy-in-buttons” with braid on his cuffs and down the sides of his trousers, white gloves, striped hat looking rather like a miniature layer cake atop his head – but why not? Most uniforms are absurd.

The moment his back disappeared, I sank into the wooden chair behind my desk, my knees trembling so badly that my silk petticoats rustled. This wouldn’t do. Taking a deep breath, I shut my eyes a moment and called to mind my mother’s face. Along with that image I could almost hear her voice: “Enola, you will manage very well on your own.”

This mental exercise had the desired effect. Calmed, I opened my eyes in time to see Joddy showing Dr. Watson in from the parlour that served as waiting-room.

“Dr. Watson. I am Dr. Ragostin’s secretary, Miss Ivy Meshle.” Rising and extending my hand to the visitor, I saw exactly what I would expect to see from his writings: a sturdy English gentleman, not well-to-do but definitely of the educated class, with a ruddy face, kind eyes, and a slight inclination towards stoutness.

And I hoped he saw me as I was pretending to be: an utterly conventional young working woman with a bulbous brooch centered upon her dress-front, wearing equally hideous earrings, in general much bedecked in finery of inexpensive materials mimicking the very latest (just as absurd as a uniform) fashion. A girl some of whose fair curls were not her own but had formerly belonged, most likely, to a Bavarian peasant. While respectable, a young female who was not well-bred. One whose father might have been a saddle-maker or a tavern-keeper. A girl most likely preoccupied with pursuit of a husband. If, by means of the aforementioned “brooch” plus a dog-collar necklace, too many ribbons, and the too-obvious hair additions, I had created this impression, then my disguise was successful.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Meshle.” Dr. Watson had already removed his hat, of course, but quite properly had waited to shake my hand before removing his gloves and entrusting them, along with his walking stick, to the boy.

“Please, sit down.” I indicated an armchair. “Do draw close to the hearth. Dreadfully cold out, is it not?”

“Appalling. Never before have I seen the Thames frozen thick enough to skate across.” As he spoke, he rubbed his hands together and extended them to the fire. Despite its best efforts, the room was none too warm, and I envied the visitor his cozy upholstered chair. Somehow cold and damp had not troubled me so much before I had come to London, where already I had seen a beggar – or the bodily remains of that person – frozen to the pavement.

Reseating myself on the comfortless wooden chair behind my desk, I hunched my shawl closer around my shoulders, rubbed my own hands (stiff despite the knitted mittens out of which my fingers poked), then picked up my pencil and notepad. “I am so sorry, Dr. Watson, that Dr. Ragostin has gone out. I am sure he would be delighted to meet you. You
are
the same Dr. Watson who is an associate of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, are you not?”

“I am.” Polite, indeed humble, he turned to face me as he spoke. “And it is on Mr. Holmes’s behalf that I am here.”

My heart began pounding so hard, I almost feared my visitor would hear it. No longer could I tell myself some lucky – or unlucky – accident had brought this particular man here.

Here, to consult the world’s only professional finder of things, and persons, lost.

But I tried to sound merely polite, with the right middle-class accent, the right clerical blend of efficiency and servility. “Indeed?” Poised as if to take notes, I asked, “What is the nature of Mr. Holmes’s difficulty?”

“I’m sure you will understand, Miss Meshle, that I would prefer to wait and speak privately to Dr. Ragostin.”

I smiled. “And I am sure you will understand, Dr. Watson, that I am entrusted to take down the preliminaries, so as to conserve Dr. Ragostin’s valuable time. I am Dr. Leslie Ragostin’s authorised agent – not to take action, of course,” I amended in order to soothe his natural distrust of any female, “but I often serve as his eyes and ears. Just as you do for Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” I added, coaxing but trying not to sound as if I were.

Trying not to show how inwardly I begged,
Please. Please, I must know whether I have guessed rightly what brings you here.

“Um, yes,” said Dr. Watson uncertainly. “Quite.” He really did have gentle eyes, all the more so when he was worried. “But I am not sure – the matter is delicate – you see, Holmes does not know about this visit.”

But – my brother has not sent him?

My heart settled down somewhat, yet began to ache.

Rather dully I told Dr. Watson, “You can rely on my complete discretion.”

“Quite. Of course.” And as if somehow my diminishing interest had cajoled him, a troubled soul, into unburdening himself to me, he grasped the arms of his chair and began his narration.

“Doubtless you know that I boarded for several years with Mr. Sherlock Holmes at the beginning of his astounding career, but as I am now married and in general practice as a medical doctor, I see far less of him than I did formerly. It has not escaped my notice, however, that since this past summer he has seemed uneasy in his mind, and over the past few months positively distraught, to the extent that he is not eating properly, nor sleeping, and I have become concerned for him not only as a friend but as a physician. He has lost weight, his colour is unhealthy, and he has grown quite melancholy and irritable.”

Busily noting down all this for “Dr. Ragostin,” I was able to keep my head lowered over my desk so that Dr. Watson would not see my face. A good thing, for I am sure dismay showed; tears formed in my eyes. My brother, paragon of the coldly logical mind, distraught? Unable to eat or sleep? I had no idea that he was capable of such depth of feeling. Least of all about me.

Dr. Watson went on. “Although I have asked him repeatedly what is troubling him so, he denies being in any difficulty, and when yesterday I persisted in questioning him, he flew into such a temper, so out of keeping with his usual steely self-control, indeed so irrational, that I felt I must act upon my concerns whether he liked it or not, for his own sake. Therefore, I sought out his brother, Mr. Mycroft Holmes – ”

Ivy Meshle, I realised, should know nothing of Sherlock Holmes’s brother. Therefore I interrupted, “How does one spell his name, please?”

“It is an odd name, is it not.” Watson spelled it for me, gave me Mycroft’s address in London, then continued. “After some hesitation, Mycroft Holmes explained to me that he and Sherlock Holmes have the singular misfortune of being unable to locate their mother. And not only their mother, gone without a trace, but also their younger sister. Two family members – their only remaining family, actually – have vanished.”

“How dreadful,” I murmured, keeping my eyes down. I no longer felt inclined to weep; instead, I wanted to smile – indeed, I wanted to thumb my nose at my ever-so-eldest brother Mycroft, who had wanted to make a mincing young lady of me – and I found it difficult to maintain a suitably concerned expression as I played the part of one who knew nothing of the matter. “Kidnapped?”

Dr. Watson shook his head. “There have been no ransom demands. No, they are runaways.”

“How shocking.” I remembered to remain ignorant. “They have gone off together?”

“No! Separately. The mother went missing last summer, and the girl ran away six weeks later, as she was being sent to boarding school. She went alone. I believe that is why Holmes has taken the matter so much to heart. If the girl were with her mother, you see, he might not approve, but he would know his sister was safe. However, it seems that the girl – who is still quite a child – has travelled all by herself to London!”

“A child, you say?”

“A mere fourteen years of age. Mycroft Holmes told me that he and his brother have reason to believe the girl has access to considerable funds – ”

I stiffened, feeling a stab of anxiety, for how on earth could they guess that?

“ – and they fear she is disguising herself as a young gentleman of leisure – ”

I relaxed, for nothing could be less true. I hoped never to descend to the theatrical cliché of disguising myself as male. Although certainly I did not limit myself to being Ivy Meshle.

“ – and as such she might be exposed to decadent influences,” Dr. Watson was saying, “and may be trapped into a life of ill repute.”

Ill repute? I hadn’t the vaguest notion what he was talking about, but dutifully noted it down. “Mr. Mycroft Holmes and Mr. Sherlock Holmes have some reason for thinking this?” I inquired.

“Yes. The mother was, or is, a most determined Suffragist, and the girl herself is of a regrettably unfeminine mould, it would seem.”

“Indeed. How sad.” Glancing up at him from under a pouf of false bangs, I fluttered my false eyelashes and smiled with subtly tinted lips; indeed, I used a hint of a disreputable substance called “rouge”lay all over my face to change the sallow, aristocratic tone of my skin to a heartier, more ordinary pink. “Could you provide Dr. Ragostin with a photograph of the girl?”

“No. Nor of the woman, either. It would seem that both avoided photographers.”

“What ever for?”

He sighed, his facial expression becoming for the first time somewhat less than kind. “Part of their determination to act contrary to the laws of feminine nature, I suppose.”

“Could you give me their names, please, and describe them?”

He spelt the names for me: Lady Eudoria Vernet Holmes, Miss Enola Holmes. (Mum had showed prescience when she named me Enola, which, backwards, spells “alone.”)

Dr. Watson said, “From what I have been told, the girl is the more remarkable of the two. Quite tall and thin – ”

I had been trying to gain weight, but so far unsuccessfully, due to the fish-head soups and sheep’s-head stews served by my thrifty landlady.

“ – with a long face, a pronounced, ah, that is to say, rather Ciceronian nose and chin – ”

What a very tactful way to say that I looked entirely too much like my brother Sherlock. Having failed yet to make myself plump, I kept inside my mouth, one in each cheek, a pair of rubber devices that were actually intended for filling out another, unmentionable part of the personage. They, along with nostril inserts, quite altered the shape of my face.

“ – and an angular personage rather lacking in feminine charm,” continued Dr. Watson. “She has shown a preference for masculine clothing and tomboyish activities, walks with a long, masculine stride, and altogether may be entirely lost to decent society if she is not soon found.”

“And the mother?” I asked, in order to change the subject before I burst out laughing.

“Sixty-four years of age, but appears considerably younger. Physically unremarkable, but in temperament strong-minded and willful. A talented artist who has unfortunately turned her energies to the cause of women’s so-called rights.”

“Oh. She wishes to wear trousers?”

He smiled at my apparent scorn for such reformers. “Quite likely. She favors so-called ‘rational dress.’ ”

“And are there any indications at all as to where she might be found?”

BOOK: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady

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