Another Scandal in Bohemia (24 page)

“See here. Holmes, I can’t imagine what blasted event might pertain to your request for aid!”

He turned to display the sliver of his smile. “When in search of the bizarre, one can never go wrong by looking to France.”

I ran my eyes down the columns, hunting a French dateline—and found one, Paris.
“Hmm.
Murder. And then later a second murder. That might intrigue you more than the commonplace one-and-only murder, even if the Ripper’s multiple slaughters repel you. Two young seamstresses at the House of Worth were skewered by sewing shears amid a great number of their sister sewers. Is this it?”

For answer Holmes hied gleefully to the desk, lifted some pages of notepaper, and tossed them into my lap on his return to his brooding post at the window.

I lifted the pale blue paper, surprised to find the writing in English. Holmes detested it when I skipped ahead of any logical progression—and no doubt lost vital clues, but I turned first to the last page to read the signature.

“Charles Frederick Worth! Holmes, this fellow is something of a sensation himself. Is he not the man-milliner whose clothes all the women are mad about? Even Mary, modest woman that she is in her manner of dress and conduct, has remarked on him.”

Holmes clapped his hands together in sudden relief. “At last. A connoisseur.”

“Hardly, Holmes. It’s merely that a fellow can’t be married these days without hearing a bit about this or that fashion.”

“You are a veritable expert compared to my abysmal—and happy—state of ignorance on the subject of women’s dress.” He wheeled from the window. “The trail is appallingly ice-cold, Watson. The first woman was murdered two weeks ago; the second an entire five days before this. Quite an impossible commission, and yet... well, read the letter, Watson. Perhaps you’ll see between the same lines that I did.”

“I doubt it, Holmes. I am always the last to know anything.”

He smiled again, that quick, stabbing, yet charming smile that he reached for as rarely as another man might for a dagger. “But you are the first to tell it. How go your little stories?”

“Well enough.” I disliked discussing my attempts to write up Holmes’s cases as much as he loathed delving into areas that held no interest for him, such as women’s fashions. I let my eyes concentrate on deciphering Mr. Worth’s fussy yet sweeping hand, and looked up shortly.

“He mentions a relationship—”

“Yes, yes. The French branch of my family is related to his wife, Marie, who was born Vernet. A peculiar fix, Watson, for a man with as few relations as I have, to be called to the aid of a French shirt-tail. Odder still that she has a famous English husband on top of it—! Read on.”

I did so, absorbing the distress that Mr. Worth and his wife obviously felt at the murders of two young seamstresses among the several hundred they employed. One could not help but wish to aid a pair who took responsibility for their workers so much to heart. And then there was the gruesome nature of the deaths: both young women stabbed in the back by a pair of shears during the work day, yet no one had witnessed the bloody deeds.

I turned to the third page, and sat up to attention. I glanced again at Holmes, seeing the same slight, thin stiletto of a smile.

“Well, Watson. Have you reached the same conclusion that I have?”

“You refer to this ‘American client, a woman known for having a way with delicate matters?’ Apparently, the Worths called upon an amateur inquiry agent to investigate the first murder.”

“At the suggestion of ‘Alice Heine, Duchess of Richelieu,’ a most prominently placed lady and a great patron of the opera. Does that not set any bells ringing in your cranium, Watson?”

“Naturally, I can think of only one woman bold enough to pass herself off as a problem solver of that sort—the woman you encountered in the matter of the King of Bohemia’s photograph. But Irene Adler is dead, Holmes.”

“Presumed dead. There is a vital difference between that and the evidence of one’s own eyes. You know my position on that issue as well.”

“Holmes, you cannot persist in seeing this woman behind every forward hussy who takes matters into her own hands!”

“No? What if I were to tell you that Irene Adler is not only alive, but that she meddles in mysterious matters with irritating frequency; that I have seen her face to face since the purported death of herself and her husband.”

“You would say such things?”

“What if I were to say that she has stood in these very rooms in other guise, before your very eyes?”

“Holmes.” I was momentarily speechless before I noticed the challenging glitter in his eyes. “Then I should have many things to say, as a friend and a physician, among them that you were indulging overmuch in the seven percent solution of cocaine you so rely upon. I should have to say that your use treads perilously close to addiction and delusion.”

“Should you, Watson?” The glitter was gone, in its place a weary smile. “Fear not. I will not say such foolishness. You and I are far too rational for outright nonsense. As well say that the Golem performs the Emperor waltz through the streets of Prague, or that Chinamen drink apple cider instead of tea. No, we will keep the planets in their courses and the stars fixed in their accustomed constellations. We will each see Irene Adler in our own way, I fear, and mine is to imagine that she is not dead. Is that delusion, Watson?”

“Only if you pursue her.”

“The lady is married, whether dead or alive, and I pursue truth, not anything less. We will agree to disagree as to her state, just as we agree to disagree on the placement and nature of the wounds you received at Maiwand. Such differences salt an association, and ours is certainly well cured by now. And, finally, has Mr. Worth’s letter sufficiently piqued your interest to bestir you for the first time from England’s fresh-scrubbed stoop into murkier waters? Will you hop the puddle of the Channel and come with me to Paris?”    

“Is that what this is about, Holmes? All this chatter of Irene Adler was a mere ruse to prod my curiosity and enlist my aid? You needn’t go to such lengths. My practice can spare me for a week or so, and Mary will approve so long as I bring her back a trinket from this House of Worth, if anything to be found there is affordable.”

“Oh, if we find who has killed these two young seamstresses, I imagine much will become affordable there. I thank you, Watson. There are few arenas in which I feel at a loss, but this French factory where women’s clothing is concocted is one of them. I predict that I will sorely need the advice of an experienced voice in matters of women and fashion before we are done.”

“Then I am your man,” I said, “to the best of the ability that any mere male can have on that demanding subject... and providing that Mary will give me leave to go.”

Holmes fluttered his eyelids in mute complaint, but forbore comment. He then headed for the drawer with the seven percent solution. I, of course, could not object now.

Chapter Sixteen

AN ENGAGEMENT AT THE PALACE

Why is
it that expeditions to sterling civic institutions are never as fascinating as jaunts into the seamier side of whatever city one is visiting?

Whatever the reason for this phenomenon, it accounts for the fact that my diary entry on Godfrey’s and my mission to the Bank of Bohemia is much shorter than my description of the previous evening’s outing to the appalling and notorious drinking establishment, U Fleků. Even to write the name the next day is to evoke a thrill of exotic distaste. Perhaps I am simply overtired from describing at length the degradations of that cavernous place and its denizens, not to mention Godfrey’s and my later encounter with the supposed Golem of Prague.

“Well, Nell,” Godfrey began as we set out from our hotel the following morning, enunciating the words with the same relish as an actor rendering “How now, brown cow” for the edification of elocutionists everywhere. “Well, Nell,” he repeated in the same rolling tone, “now that we are again safe and sound in the light of day, what do you think of our chance meeting with the Golem?”

“I think that if we are to resort to reason rather than rank superstition we would understand that the creature we saw was some drunken brute on a rampage, no doubt a regular client of U Fleků and its ilk.”

He did not disagree. “Don’t you find it odd that we should chance upon such an apparition, however ordinary our diagnosis, on our very first night in Prague?”

“Given the number of beer gardens I have observed now that I am staying in the city proper rather than at the palace, I should say that our chances of encountering a wild, careening drunkard are extremely high at any time in any quarter.”

He nodded again, but said no more.

I had resolved to enjoy the day, fair as London days seldom are, and as Paris days are far too often to be appreciated. The vivid sunlight brought into knife-sharp relief the architectural fancies that garnished the city’s Baroque buildings, like lacework formed by stone and shadow.

Godfrey had consulted the notorious travel guide for more than the unfortunate directions to U Fleků, and held forth on Prague’s reputation as a mystical city of many faces, compared at various times by various poets and pundits to Athens, to Venice, Florence, Rome and other Italian cities, even to Jerusalem. His comparisons did not persuade me to a desire for visiting any of those locations.

Yet, once we had penetrated the Bank of Bohemia’s imposing stone exterior, we could have been within any civilized metropolis’ most trusted institution. We glided across ice-smooth pale marble floors while green marble pillars and engraved brass grillwork slid by our wondering eyes. In short order, we were shown into the huge, cherry-wood paneled office of a high bank official named Mr. Werner and ensconced in tufted red leather chairs.

Godfrey was offered a cigar. I was barely offered a considering glance.

Our host was a stout, middle-aged man with a single lock of unconvincingly black hair drawn across an otherwise bare pate as polished as any marble pillar.

He told us, in impeccable English, that Baron Alphonse had opened a significant line of credit for “your needs”—he looked exclusively at Godfrey—with the Bank of Bohemia, and that we were invited to an important reception at Prague Castle on Friday, which was only two days away.

Godfrey was to call upon Mr. Werner for any matters that might arise,

Godfrey thanked him and suggested that our demands would be modest. I thought him optimistic, for Irene had not yet arrived, and her demands were never modest. I began to worry about what I would wear to the palace reception, even though I was a person of no importance and nobody would care what I wore so long as it did not disgrace the company. I wondered if a Liberty silk gown would be considered disgraceful in Bohemia.

The banker rose, and presented Godfrey with documents allowing him to extract money from the Rothschild account and with a fat cream parchment envelope that gave my heart and memory a nasty knock. I glimpsed the ornate von Ormstein seal on the back, and realized anew on what perilous ground I would again intrude, and this time more was at stake than my friend’s romantic future!

Godfrey sensed my subdued mood on the stroll back to our hotel.

“Well, Nell,” he began, “are you surfeited with Bohemia already?”

I tried not to set my teeth. It is indeed unfortunate when one’s nickname rhymes with a common introductory word. At least no one can play the same trick with “Penelope,” with the possible exception of Oscar Wilde, should he set his mind and his Oxford classical education to it.

“Well, Godfrey,” I replied, “I have already seen the purported Golem and can report that a fraud. If we can discover whatever nonsense is affecting royal politics as quickly, we will be home before Casanova and the rest even miss us.”

Godfrey smiled. “I fear that politics are never as plain and accessible as reputed monsters. Do not underestimate the delicacy of our mission at the palace reception. There we shall begin to learn how the land lies, and there I will first lay eyes on the King of Bohemia. It should,” he added, tightening his grip on his walking stick, “be a most provocative evening.”

I instantly realized that I would likely also see the Queen of Bohemia, who might remember me from her interview with Irene at Maison Worth and blurt out some betraying comment!

“Amen,” I said to Godfrey’s last observation, so fervently that he eyed me oddly, although he said nothing.

We each had our own private mission in Prague, ones that had nothing to do with Rothschild interests, political maneuvering, or monstrous stirrings of any nature other than ordinary human passions.

That Friday evening the slow-setting sun made Prague Castle’s turreted silhouette into a harsh black border for the firmament of windows blazing brightly down on the town.

Our hired carriage climbed the long hill to the summit. Within it, Godfrey looked as splendid as a duke in a new evening suit courtesy of the Rothschild tailor. A man’s evening dress in this unimaginative age is a rigorous uniform: white tie, shirt, and vest; cutaway black coat and tails, black trousers. I am so ignorant of male tailoring that I cannot put my finger on the difference between an ordinary suit and one from a master tailor, save to say that this evening Godfrey looked at least the social peer of the King of Bohemia, if not of the Czar of All the Russias, or perhaps even of the Prince of Wales.