A Monstrous Regiment of Women (23 page)

“Perfect,” I got in before Veronica could say no. “You’ll take Ronnie up as soon as the doctors here give her leave, and you’ll stick to her like glue until I give you the high sign.”

I completely ignored Ronnie’s slow flush. Miles shot her a glance and retracted his hand, then scowled sternly down at her bedcover.

“There’re servants there, of course,” he said. “As chaperones. If you don’t think—that is…”

“I can only see one possible complication, Lieutenant Fitzwarren,” I said, and stopped there. He met my eyes, and his spine slowly straightened.

“There is nothing that need concern you, Miss Russell. While Veronica—while the safety of Miss Beaconsfield is my responsibility, you need not worry yourself as to my fitness.”

“That is most gratifying, Lieutenant Fitzwarren,” I said, and it did not seem odd to either of us that I, barely more than a girl, should stand in judgement concerning him. “Either Holmes or I will be here tomorrow, and we will arrange for transport and communication. In the meantime, you will, I hope, say nothing about this to anyone, even your families.” They agreed, nervously. I turned to go, and my eye fell on the shaky pile of reading material. “Is there a
Strand
in there?” I asked, and without waiting for permission, I began to paw through the stack until I found the December issue, with the article I was looking for. “May I borrow this? Thanks awfully.” I stepped forward and kissed the air above Veronica’s cheek, a gesture that, combined with the form of the thanks, surprised me perhaps more than it did her. Hospitals did odd things to one’s personality, even if one were only passing through.

Fighting the urge to wiggle my fingertips at them in farewell, I left them to their uncomfortable love. Two weeks or so in a Scottish hunting lodge would drive them either into each other’s arms or at each other’s throats.

I made my way to a public telephone and asked for Scotland Yard’s number. While waiting for the connexion, I glanced through the article, “An Epoch-Making Event—Fairies Photographed,” coauthored by Arthur Conan Doyle, to all appearances written in utter seriousness. It was illustrated, as the title said, by photographs of vapid-looking female children gazing right through the images of stiff fairy figurines, the artifice of which was so blatant that I should have taken it as a joke (a rather sophisticated one, considering Conan Doyle’s usual heavy-handed style) had it not been for Watson’s reaction. It seemed that the world in general did not regard it as a joke. Conan Doyle’s fascination with the supernatural had been growing over the past years, particularly after the loss of his son in the war. Spiritualism had until now mostly been kept out of the stories he published about Holmes (with the occasional flight of fancy that caused the real Holmes to growl) but to have a piece of sensational literature such as the fairies article published, not only under the Doyle name, but in the very magazine the Holmes stories appeared in, was thoughtless, to say the least. Holmes blamed an American influence for the Doyle eccentricity, and as I read the article, I had to admit that his disgust had not been without justification.

The telephone crackled and the woman told me I was connected to Scotland Yard. It took a short time to reach the Criminal Investigations division, but once I was through, I put on a voice.

“
Good
afternoon,” I cooed. “I should like to speak with Inspector John Lestrade, please. He’s not? Oh dear, that
is
too bad. Could you tell me then—” I waited, and when the voice had stopped, I paused in silence for a moment, then applied a layer of ice to my voice. “No, there is not ‘something you can do for me,’ my dear man. The duke would not care for that in the least. Could you—” This second interruption I greeted with a lengthy silence, then dropped my voice and froze the man’s ear. “Young man, if you wish to attain higher rank in your chosen profession, might I suggest that you learn to kerb what is obviously a deep-seated tendency towards ill manners? Now,
as
I was saying. Could you kindly tell me when the good inspector might be present to receive a telephone call? And before you are driven to ask—no, it would
not
be convenient to have him telephone me, or I should have suggested it in the first place.”

The man on the other end cleared his throat and spoke in strangled tones. “Yes, mum. You’ll understand, mum, I can’t be positive about his schedule, but I know he has a meeting here in the Yard at four, and he’ll for sure come to his office afterwards, around five.”

“Very well. You will tell him to expect my call at ten minutes past five.”

“Mum? If I could just tell him who’s—” I gently rang off. Good. Five o’clock gave me plenty of time to dress myself, for Lestrade and for my debut at the Temple.

I spent the afternoon at the Turkish baths, being steamed, pounded, powdered, and perfumed, then manicured, plucked, coiffured, and dressed in clothing brought at my direction by Mrs Q, until finally, polished and gleaming, I was escorted carefully out to the pavement, a moving work of artifice, a monument to the skills of beautician and couturier. All I wanted was a brace of Afghan hounds. Taxis slavered at my feet.

I chose one whose leather work did not look as though it would put ladders into my stockings.

“Scotland Yard, please. And I’d like to approach it from the Embankment side, not from Whitehall.”

“Right you are, miss.”

I could, of course, have asked Mycroft to retrieve a more complete account of the police investigation into Iris Fitzwarren’s murder, and in fact I did think about it, for perhaps five seconds. I had become involved in this whole affair through a friend, and if there was a case here, it was mine, not Holmes’. Veronica’s safety was now a personal responsibility, and I had no intention of allowing Holmes to talk me out of carrying it through in my own way.

My goal for the evening was Inspector John Lestrade, the only person I knew to any degree within Scotland Yard. Holmes knew Lestrade professionally, had worked with his father numerous times in the Baker Street days, and I had met Lestrade two years before when he had been “in charge” of the investigation into the attempted murders of Mr S. Holmes, Miss M. Russell, and Dr J. Watson. (Needless to say, Holmes and I had solved the problem; Scotland Yard took the credit.)

Unfortunately, Lestrade was not involved in the Iris Fitzwarren case. Even if he had been, I could hardly ring him up casually and expect him to answer my questions for the sake of some dubious old times. Indeed, considering the impression I’d left him with, I knew that if he were told that Mary Russell was waiting outside his office, he very probably would go out the back entrance. No, a subtler approach was required.

When the hideous building was in sight, I tapped on the glass and signalled the driver that I wished to stop on the river side of the road. He stopped beneath a streetlamp and came around to speak with me.

“Driver, we need to wait here for a few minutes. I wish to intercept a friend who will be coming out soon, but I… I cannot go in to meet him, his… colleagues might not approve. Do you take my meaning?” I met his eyes, and by the dim light, he gave me a grin, though not the knowing leer I was braced for.

“Yes, miss. Will he be expecting you?”

“My good man, you have a ready grasp of the essentials, I see. No, he is not expecting me. Would you mind awfully…”

“Just tell me what your friend looks like, miss, and leave it to me.”

Something in my description changed his knowing expression to one of discreet puzzlement. (Lestrade’s height, perhaps, compared with mine? Or was it the phrase “like a ferret, or rat”?) However, he took up his lounging position readily enough, and when Lestrade appeared (at 5:20, not 5:15, as I had estimated, but with the resentful irritation I had expected to see in his shoulders, from the ducal telephone call that had not come), the driver pushed away from the wall, looked towards the car for my white flag of confirmation, and dodged across the heavy bridge traffic to approach the inspector. Captions were unnecessary in the pantomime that followed, and it ended with Lestrade, puzzled and wary and still irritated, following the driver to the cab.

He put his head in and ran an experienced eye over me.

“Now, miss, what’s all this your driver’s been telling me about?” His eyes had reached my face again, and this time they stopped there. He leant forward, squinting, and then his ill-shaven jaw dropped. “My God. You’re—Miss Russell, I never expected to see—is Mr Holmes—” He jerked his head back out the door, leaving his hat inside, but when the now frankly baffled driver failed to metamorphise into the
éminence grise
of a purportedly retired consulting detective, Lestrade looked back inside and cleared his throat.

“Why, Miss Russell, I doubt I’d have recognised you on the street. You’ve, er, you’ve changed.” Such acuity had led Holmes to his renowned high opinion of the official police. I had to admit, however, that the colourful flapper in the dark taxi did bear only a passing resemblance to the gangly, ill-dressed nineteen-year-old he had last seen.

“Full marks, Inspector, although I believe that the first time we met, I was in evening dress. But I agree, it has been quite a while.” I held his hat out to him.

He took it, glanced a last time at my silken ankles, and withdrew his gaze to my face and his thoughts to my presence.

“You wanted to see me, then?”

“I should like to buy you a drink, Inspector.”

For some reason, this did not seem to meet with wholehearted enthusiasm. On the contrary, his habitually cramped features tightened into open suspicion.

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“Or dinner, if you have the time.”

“Why?”

“You will become uncomfortably damp if you persist in that position,” I commented mildly. It was drizzling.

“You’re right. It’s time I took myself home.”

“Just one drink, Inspector, and a few questions. And, I may have some information in return.”

“About?”

“Iris Fitzwarren.”

“Not my case,” he said immediately, his eyes sharpening.

“I am aware of that.”

“Why me?”

“A drink, Inspector?”

His long day and a strong disinclination to put himself into my clutches battled with a simple curiosity, the policeman’s innate desire for information, and other, more elemental urges, as well. With the circumspection of a male black widow spider approaching his beloved, Lestrade climbed in beside me. The driver stood waiting.

“Where to, miss?”

I looked to Lestrade for advice, and he in turn spoke to the driver.

“You know where the Bell and Bugle is?”

“I do, sir,” he said, and climbed into his seat, fastened the rain cape over his legs, and we started up.

“But,” Lestrade said to me, “I’ll pay for the drinks.”

The darkness hid my smile. I had thought he would.

I allowed Lestrade to hand me out onto the wet pavement, then arranged with the driver, whose unlikely name was Mallow, to wait for me. The man had definite possibilities as an ally, and I did not wish to lose him.

Lestrade had a pint of ale; I ordered a mixed cocktail, a monstrosity I normally avoided like the plague but which fitted my present persona. He swallowed a third of his glass at one go, put it down, and fixed me with a beady eye.

“Very well, young lady, what is this all about?” he demanded. I smiled pityingly, to tell him it hadn’t worked, and began deliberately to remove my purple gloves, finger by finger.

“Ladies first, Inspector. Before I tell all, I need to know the things the newspapers are not saying about the Iris Fitzwarren case.”

“What makes you think I know anything about it?”

“For pity’s sake, Inspector, it’s obvious you do. I should think you had a meeting with the investigating team just this afternoon.” The ventured shot sank home, to my relief. I pressed on rapidly. “There was something strange about her death. What was it? What connexion did it have with the club? And why are you looking for Miles Fitzwarren?” His head came up fast.

“Do you know where he is?” he demanded.

I fluttered my eyes at him and complained prettily.

“You see? No one ever tells me anything. I didn’t know you’d lost him. How could I? I don’t know what you people
do
know—how could I possibly suspect what it is you
don’t
know?” I ran one polished finger around the rim of my glass and looked up at him. “However, if you’d like to tell me what you do know…”

“Oh, stop that,” he said irritably, and I laughed and settled back in my chair. “All right, but it’d better be worth it, and no one’s to know where it came from.”

“No one but Holmes,” I agreed, and he nodded and drank deeply.

“You’re right,” he said in a low voice, “though I don’t know how you guessed.” He stopped and shot me a glance not lacking in humour. “Oh, right, I forgot. You never guess. How you deduced, then. Yes, there was something peculiar about her death. A couple of somethings, but most of all was the way she was killed. We’ve had three other deaths like hers in the last few months, two during the same night back in July, then one in late November. There was… a kind of mutilation common to all four, after death.”

“Facial?” I suggested. He started to ask me how I had guessed, then visibly changed his mind.

“Yes. The earlier ones we knew about; the two who got it first had given us information concerning a certain importer, shall we say. The other one had a grievance against him, too.”

“A personal one?”

“Yes. He was apparently not involved with the use of… the importer’s wares, but his cousin, who was also his closest friend, was. The cousin died, he began to look into the death on his own, and five weeks later was killed for his trouble.”

“Inspector Lestrade, I’m not a solicitor looking for evidence of slander. The man was, or is, I assume, importing drugs. He’s killed three people who threatened to expose him, and he may have killed Iris Fitzwarren as well, for the same reason he killed the nosey cousin. What is his name?”

“Where is Miles Fitzwarren?”

“Safe. Unwell, but as safe as Holmes and several responsible doctors can make him. If you wish, Holmes can arrange that you or your colleague be taken to him. Now, the name?”