A Study in Charlotte (14 page)

“You actually think that threatening vigilante justice will make me want to take you two on?” Shepard demanded. “You're a
child
. I don't know how desperate the police are across the pond, but we play it by the book here. Isn't it enough that you're not suspects anymore? I don't see any reason to put you and Jamie in the line of fire.”

“Really. Then perhaps call Scotland Yard again and ask them about what transpired after I sat through this exact conversation with DI Green. If she's reluctant to speak to you, tell her you know all about the deep freezer, the meat hook, and how I found her two minutes before the killer returned. Honestly, I might've gotten myself there sooner if she hadn't been such a cow about it. Just the year before
I'd recovered three million pounds' worth of jewels and given her all the credit.” She yawned. “Do it in the morning, though. I'm knackered.”

“But—”

“Mr. Watson, this was a lovely dinner. Would you mind taking us home now?” Without waiting for a response, Holmes disappeared into the garage, her gown trailing after her.

In her flair for the dramatic, she'd left behind my jacket and her phone. I collected them, trying not to feel like her valet.

“That girl is a piece of work,” Shepard said, somewhere between admiration and despair.

“Holmeses.” My father laughed, and reached for his car keys. “Would you know she's one of the nicer ones?”

I
T TOOK
S
HEPARD LESS THAN A DAY TO AGREE TO
H
OLMES
'
S
terms.

“You have until Thanksgiving break,” he said to us; I had him on speakerphone. He'd spent all that morning sleuthing in Holmes's and Lena's room, and come up empty-handed. I wasn't surprised. Holmes, of course, had been thorough. “That's a little less than a month. We'll share information.
Share
it, do you understand me? DI Green warned me about how you like to play the magician so you can do the big reveal at the end. That won't fly here.” A long, scratchy pause. “The only reason I'm allowing this Encyclopedia Brown business is because I don't want any more hurt kids. You two are included in that. So, Jamie, I need you to keep an eye out for her. I've heard
you're a brawler. I'm okay with that.”

“Do you honestly think I can't take care of myself?” Holmes asked, draped over the love seat like a boneless cat. “I'll have you know I'm an expert at singlestick and baritsu.”

“Yes, and sometimes a pair of fists is much more useful,” I said, “if less dramatic. I'll keep an eye out, Detective. Will you clear us publicly?”

“Terrible idea,” Holmes put in. “It might lead to escalation on the murderer's part if they think they need to reconvince the police of our guilt. No, tell the school privately, but don't let anyone release a statement.”

“Fine.” More crackling. “I'll send over what we have so far on the snake.”

“And a copy of
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
,”
I said.

“Fine. You should know that we found the ski mask the intruder used in a garbage can outside Stevenson Hall, but we weren't able to lift any prints off it.”

“These people are too good for that,” Holmes said. I coughed. “But yes, send over the bit about the snake. And I want access to the personnel files of all of Sherringford's students and employees, including any EU immigration information.”

“I'd lose my job.”

“You'd lose your job anyway when they find out you're letting us help.”

Static.

“Done,” he said finally. “Charlotte, Jamie—just keep your mouths shut.”

“Yes, yes,” Holmes said, “thank you,” and hung up on him.

It was Monday at lunch. I'd hidden away in Holmes's lab in an attempt to finish writing my poem for Mr. Wheatley's class that afternoon. It was already going badly, but then I watched Holmes finish her calculus problem set in the ten minutes between concluding some frothy, smelly experiment and picking up her violin for a spin through Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata as if it were “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

She threw her bow down. “I have to wait until the school day is over to investigate. Two hours!” she said. “Do you think, if I set fire to the maths building—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Still no. Why don't you help me with this poem?” I asked, an attempt to derail her. “It needs to be one that's ‘difficult for me to write,' whatever that means.”

“What do you have so far?” she asked.

“‘The.' Or maybe ‘A,' I'm not sure.”

“I'm bad with words.” She sat down next to me. “Too imprecise. Too many shades of meaning. And people use them to lie. Have you ever heard someone lie to you on the violin? Well. I suppose it can be done, but it would take far more skill.”

“Speaking of lying,” I said. “Who played your masked man, the other night?”

“One of Lena's on-and-off hookups. I knew I needed a failsafe, and Lena was willing to play along. We'd laid the groundwork up a week ago. All she needed was the go-ahead. She'd been telling him she loved scary movies, and being afraid
sort of turned her on, and asking him if he had a ski mask—that sort of thing. All she had to do was mention that I'd be away on Sunday night. He didn't question it at all when she screamed and chased him out, and after, I had her put a fresh mask I'd taken from the athletics shed into the bin outside. Really, it's a good thing she's so completely insane. It means she can get away with anything.”

“And how is she holding up, after her ‘scare'?”

“Oh, fine,” she said airily. “I think she's counting the days until her new handbag comes in the post.”

I put my pen down. “I thought you might pay her off. With what money?”

She bit her lip. “She wouldn't take any. Which, to be honest, makes me nervous.”

“The fact that she likes you enough to help you for free?
That
makes you nervous?”

“I'd rather deal in quantifiable transactions,” she said. “But she said she'd made a killing at poker and reminded me that her allowance is staggering. After that, she sat me down in front of her laptop and made me help her pick out something called a minaudière. It looks like a bejeweled toad.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering what it meant that Holmes had never once offered to pay me.

“I have a rainy-day fund, you know,” she said, not quite looking at me. “Until recently, it was raining . . . rather a lot. But I . . . I've been trying to use an umbrella.”

“See, and you say you're bad with words. I'm stealing that.” I scrawled it down.

She drifted over to her bookshelf and lit a cigarette. With the toe of her shoe, she tapped her copy of
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
before she leaned down to pick it up. I could tell I'd lost her to her thoughts.

It seemed as good a time as any to do the thing I'd been avoiding.

The hospital corridors were empty when I arrived, carrying a bunch of flowers. It wasn't hard to find the right ward. They had it guarded like Fort Knox. Thankfully, Detective Shepard had had the wherewithal to put my name on the visitor list, and after showing my ID to two separate policemen, I was allowed into her room.

I'd been told that she was awake, but her eyes were closed when I came in. She looked terrible. Her blond hair was matted to her head with sweat, her arms wound in tubes and tape. Strangely enough, she was clutching a whiteboard to her chest in the way you would a teddy bear. As quietly as I could, I put the flowers on the table beside her bed and debated writing her a note. Was that what the board was for?

While I stood there, Elizabeth opened one eye, then the other.

“Hi,” I said. “I hope you don't mind that I came.”

She shook her head no, though I wasn't sure if it was
No, I don't mind,
or
No, actually, leave.

“May I sit down?”

A nod.

“How long until you get your voice back?” I asked. When Detective Shepard said that Elizabeth had been unable to
speak to the police, I hadn't thought he meant it literally.

Slowly, achingly, she pulled a marker out from the folds of her blanket and scrawled something down on the board. I peered over at what she was writing.
Don't know,
it said.

I didn't mean to interrogate her. That wasn't why I'd come. Besides, Shepard had told us that Elizabeth's parents had asked the police for a few days' grace for their daughter. They said that she had been through enough without being forced to relive it all.

“I'm sorry,” I told Elizabeth, looking down at my hands. I'd come to apologize. It was why I hadn't brought Holmes. Apologizing was the kind of thing that made her break out in hives.

A scribbling sound.
For what?

“For what happened to you. You didn't deserve this. Any of it. I'm sorry.”

I don't remember all of it. But the detective told me you found me and got help. Thank you.
Her exhausted eyes met mine. Exhausted, and gentle. I didn't deserve that gentleness.

“I hope you feel better soon,” I said, standing to leave.

Scribbling again.
Detective said “blue carbuncle” to my parents. He thought I was asleep. Explanation?

I sat back down. “Do you know the story?”

A headshake. She scrubbed her board blank with her hospital gown and wrote
Talk fast. My parents went to get takeout. They won't tell me anything but I need to know.
She furiously underlined the last four words.

I understood what it was like, being kept in the dark.

“It's a Sherlock Holmes story,” I began, “about a rare missing
diamond. A blue carbuncle. One that a policeman finds in the throat of a dead Christmas goose on the street. Holmes and Watson trace the goose back to its breeder, and from there, to the breeder's brother. He'd stolen the gem from a countess and hidden it in a goose's craw.”

It was the quick and dirty version, the boring one—all facts, no flair. It left out all the details that made the story something I loved. But Sherlock Holmes's strategies and Dr. Watson's observations didn't have a place in this guarded hospital room.

Even so, Elizabeth listened avidly. When I'd finished, she held up her whiteboard.
So I guess
I'm the goose.

I hesitated, and she lifted her eyebrows in a challenge. “Guess so,” I said.

Fucked up.

“Yeah.” It was, impossibly so. “How much do you remember about that night?”

Not much. Seeing you. Making out with Randall. They showed me the thing that was in my throat.

“Did you recognize it?”

No.
Her eyes were imploring.
Do you know anything about it?

“The police are trying to solve this as fast as they can.” I took a deep breath. “Did Randall do this to you? Do you remember?”

She shook her head, blushing a little.
I don't remember his face, but I DO remember what the guy said. “Give my regards to Charlotte Holmes.” I don't think Randall would say that.

There was a commotion outside the door. “Who did you
let in to see my daughter? A friend? What's his name?” I didn't hear the police officer's reply. Hastily, Elizabeth rubbed her board clean and then started writing something else.

Elizabeth's mother barged into the room, her arms full of Chinese food. “Don't tell me,” she said in a dangerous voice. “You're Jamie Watson. You're the one that found her.”

She might have said
found her
,
but it was clear what she meant was
attacked her
. Elizabeth's eyes seized on mine.

“No,” I said, extending a hand. “I'm Gary. Gary Snyder.” He was a poet we were reading in Mr. Wheatley's class, one I vigorously hated.

“And what exactly are you doing here, Gary Snyder?”

Elizabeth tugged on her mother's sleeve. She held up her whiteboard: a half-completed tic-tac-toe game.

Charlotte Holmes would have been proud.

Her mother deflated. “We've just been so worried, sweetie,” she said, and burst into tears over her daughter's bed.

I took that as my cue to leave.
I think I have some leads,
I texted Holmes in the elevator.

Somehow, I wasn't surprised to find Detective Shepard waiting for me on the sofa in Sciences 442.

“So, next time,
tell
me when you're planning on pulling something,” I said, hanging up my jacket. “Her parents were conveniently gone? Oh, Elizabeth couldn't talk to the detective, but she could easily talk to
me.
What, did you wait until I stepped out the door and then had the hospital cafeteria closed?” The last was directed at Holmes.

Across the room, she poked at her vulture skeleton until
it spun in circles. “For the record, I merely waited until you left and then had Emperor Kitchen offer free takeout to all the families in the ICU. I'll make Milo pay for it. I told you he'd go either today or tomorrow,” she said to Shepard. “You should trust me more often, you know. I
am
the world's foremost Jamie Watson scholar.”

“Look, I'm happy to question her, but next time, I want to be in the loop. Otherwise I'm just going to build my own chessboard and let you move me around it.”

“Stop being dramatic, and tell us what happened,” Shepard said, sounding like he wanted to get out of 442 as quickly as possible. I couldn't blame him—Holmes had lit up her jar of teeth from behind, probably in anticipation of the detective's visit. It was, I thought, her version of hanging fairy lights.

I filled them in. Shepard made a low growling noise. “‘Give my regards to Charlotte Holmes,'” he repeated, shaking his head. “I need to talk to John Smith again. He won't confess to the attack. Only to dealing drugs, and then he only gives me information he wants me to use against
you
,
Charlotte.”

Holmes touched a finger to the skeleton's nose, stilling it in its orbit. “Something else is going to happen if our attacker doesn't get what he wants,” she said. “Someone else is going to get hurt.”

“What does he want?” I said. “Us locked up, no key. I don't see how he's going to get that. Unless Shepard puts us away for show.”

“No.” She frowned. “I need unfettered access to the campus, not to be rotting away in some cell. We need to figure out
the connection between the man you're holding and the man he claims he is. I need to make a plan.”

“
We
need to make a plan,” Shepard said.

So we did.

Holmes and I began by retracing our steps through the access tunnels, back to the police-cordoned storage room. John Smith's footprints still ended at its door, a literal dead end. But Holmes refused to give up. We covered what felt like miles of territory that night, her coursing ahead, me yawning clandestinely behind my hand.

When we returned to her lab, we stayed up even later examining the school library's copy of
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
It was a brand-new school edition of the stories. The bookmark the killer had placed inside was one of the Sherringford ones they left on the circulation desk, and it was clean of all but the school librarian's fingerprints. But that was to be expected. Besides, Mr. Jones had no conceivable connection to either me or Holmes. The book itself was completely unremarkable: intact spine, intact pages. The only remarkable thing about it was that the killer had tucked it into Dobson's cold hands. At dawn, when Holmes began going through it page by page with an actual magnifying glass, I curled up on the floor to go to sleep.