Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess (24 page)

“No debutante ball?” murmured Alexandra, looking up suddenly from her seat on the couch.
 
From the look on her face, apparently this outcome was worse than being killed by deranged murderers.
 
“It’s all I have dreamed of!
 
I’ve waited all my life for this!”

“No debutante ball,” concluded Miss de Beauvais with emphasis.
 
“My school will be closed down, I will be cast into the street penniless, and it will be another year until you are entered into an acceptable school—if indeed you could find entrance given the scandal—
and there will be no presentation to Queen Victoria
.”

“No presentation to the Queen?” repeated Alexandra.
 
“My father would be outraged, and my mother mortified—she might kill me, in fact.”

If no one else does
, Mirabella reflected somberly.
 

“Another year,” murmured Bethany, as if it were a lifetime.

“Nothing for you this season,” repeated Miss de Beauvais.
 
“Perhaps
never
.”

“
Never
?” Alexandra, Bethany, and Jacqueline repeated in unison.

Mirabella doubted if all this was true, but the other girls seemed to take it as fact.
 
And if so, it was a fact that Miss de Beauvais would not hesitate to play upon.

“
Not a word to your parents
,” Miss de Beauvais commanded.

“But the security must be increased,” Mirabella stated.

 
“Of course!” exclaimed Miss de Beauvais.

“We will need bodyguards in the same room with us henceforth—and even outside our bedrooms.”

“In the parlor?” Bethany asked, covering her mouth with her hand.
 

“How embarrassing,” Jacqueline added.
 
“We will have to watch what it is we say.”
 

“It must be done,” Princess Elena stated solemnly.

“
Every
precaution will be taken,” Miss de Beauvais emphasized.

“Clearly we are safe if Miss Carnegie and Princess Elena are here!” considered Bethany.
 
“They overcame two assassins!
 
And they were taken completely unaware!”

And next time we might not be so lucky.

Bethany moved to hug Mirabella, “I’m so sorry if I was ever unkind to you, Miss Mirabella.”

“You have never been unkind, Miss Allen,” replied Mirabella, laughing in spite of the terror of the day.
 
Perhaps terror brought people together.
 
Certainly the facades were momentarily down.

“Do call me Bethany, I never cared a fig for society—but it pleases my father, and I so hate to disappoint him.”

“I care!” murmured Alexandra, still dazed.

“Moi, aussi!” stated Jacqueline.

“I wish to be married and to have a family, of course, but this is all so
false
,” Bethany continued.
 
“I shall never again take my life for granted.”

“We must have a dead body in the parlor to be living the real life?” demanded Jacqueline, revealing that there was a brain in that pretty head after all.

“Better his than ours,” murmured Princess Elena.
 
“He was a bad man.”

“I don’t like it,” John Watson exclaimed, pacing the floor.
 
“Miss Hudson might have died, Holmes!”

“But she didn’t, Watson, she performed admirably, just as she was trained.”
 
Sherlock replied quietly as he studied his hands, attempting to suppress the feelings of fear.
 
He glared at her, anger rising in his chest.
 
“Essentially without a weapon and even though she became separated from her revolver.”

“That will never happen again,” Mirabella stated with conviction, his fear mirrored in her eyes.

“I should hope not!” Sherlock reprimanded.

“Holmes, this is not the time!” Watson’s voice was elevated.
 
“Miss Hudson might have died in your employ—serving
you
.”

 
“Miss Hudson, I have to ask . . . do you feel obligated to do this in order to remain in my employ?”
 
Sherlock asked, his voice strangely quiet.
 
“If so, let me disavow you of that notion.”

“But you said precisely that, Mr. Holmes,” she retorted.
 
“That I had no employment without this case.”

“Yes, I know that I did, and it is very true that, without you, this case will be lost—and I may very likely lose my reputation, without which I cannot afford to employ you.”

As Sherlock watched her, something soft entered his heart which he could not like.
 
She might have died.
 
She might not be here in this room with him.
 

Bloody hell!
 
His life’s work was with criminals and dangerous persons, and he could not afford to have feelings for others or his work was compromised.
 
It was bad enough that he had started to feel the first pangs of happiness since Watson moved in, only nine months ago, something he had never expected to feel.
 
He couldn’t recall when he had had a true friend before John Watson.
 

“You must enter into it willingly, Miss Belle, or the danger is too great,” Sherlock emphasized.
 
“Do answer my question, girl:
 
Do you wish to be on the case?
 
Do you come to it of your own accord?”
 
He studied her, her full lashes so open to the world, her eyes so curious—and innocent.

She was young and naïve, of course, and she talked too much, but there was a joy and excitement to her character which was contagious.
 
And, of course, she was efficient, and intelligent, which made her of great use to him.
 

An excellent employee.
 

“I presume this is to ease a guilty conscience,” she teased.

“I have none,” Sherlock conveyed with conviction.

“There, at least, is the truth,” Watson muttered.

She nodded, in apparent agreement.
 
“I was so terrified of the finishing school, you know, and then so miserable being there, however . . .”

Studying her soft chestnut curls, he started to wonder if he could bear it if something were to happen to her.

“Yes?” Sherlock persisted.

“I do not think I can stay away.
 
I think I must be on the case.”

She is of the same cut, just as I suspected.
 
Sherlock nodded with understanding, a slight smile forming on his lips.
 
Just as Watson needed the stimulation to forget the war as badly as he himself needed the occupation—he knew not why.
 

And didn’t care.

“The dead man, who was he?” she whispered, her eyes troubled.

“We haven’t been able to conclusively identify him.
 
Perhaps a Serbian anarchist, someone who hated the monarchy.”

“Do you think it is finished, Mr. Holmes?” she asked, struggling with the words.

“I do not,” replied Sherlock simply.
 

She wrung her hands in her lap.
 
He watched her, aware for the first time that she had undergone a terrible change—at his bidding.

“Is it your first murder, Miss Belle?”

“Of course it is, Mr. Holmes, don’t be daft!”
 
She couldn’t help laughing despite her melancholy mood.
 
She added somberly,
 
“Although I can’t be certain it was I who killed him.”

“Do you wish you had never been on the case, Miss Belle?” he asked.

She shook her head.
 
“If I had not, Princess Elena might now be dead.”

 
“You’re quite certain, Miss Hudson?”
 
Looking at the lovely young woman before him, dressed in a pink linen and cream lace, he noted that she seemed to have become a woman overnight.
 
She, too, had her hopes and dreams, and he would hate to see them cut short.

“Yes,” she replied softly.

“Holmes,” Dr. Watson admonished.  “I still say this is too dangerous.”

“Life is dangerous, Dr. Watson,” Mirabella replied turning to face the doctor.

“Indeed it is,” he murmured, smiling at her.

Who will I kill next?
 

Blood was dripping from her gleaming six-inch blade as she looked about for who to kill, whose life to end, a person she did not know.

How had lives changed because of the murder she had committed?
 
How had the lives of innocents been altered?
 
Who would be hurt in the next generation because of her?
 

She looked about at the dark faces with features so different from her own.
 

I don’t know anything about the man I killed.
 
His wounds, the torturous existence that made him into who he was.
 

Did I kill him or did Princess Elena?
 

It didn’t matter, if she stayed with Sherlock Holmes, there would be another.

Sherlock
.
 
His face passed before her and he reached out to take the dripping knife from her hand.
 

No!
 
No!
 
Don’t do it!
 
She knew what he intended to do.

He turned it on himself, ready to kill himself.

She grabbed the knife back from him.

Her skin was so white and her eyes so black.
 
Now she and Sherlock were in the morgue, staring at the mutilated body of Princess Elena.

And what of Elena’s children and the lives that would now be changed because she had died, perhaps entire countries affected?

Tears rolled down Mirabella’s eyes as she stared at the white-blue body of her friend, so pure and brave, her long black hair disheveled all about her.

Mirabella looked up at Sherlock, tears running down her cheek.

“We are the arm of justice,” he murmured.
 
“
We have failed
.”

Thank God, that in this life, someone cared to protect the innocent.

She sat up in her bed as she awoke from her dream, both shivering and sweating.

“Good day, Miss Carnegie.”
 
A handsome gentleman with gorgeous turquoise eyes and streaked blonde hair, impeccably dressed, tipped his hat to Mirabella.

“Oh
my
,” whispered Bethany under her breath, the other young ladies turning at once to look approvingly at Mirabella, each with a package in hand.
 
They all carried parcels to make it appear they were out performing errands rather than walking for exercise, as Miss de Beauvais had explained was less to be admired.
 

Miss de Beauvais attended to every detail with an admirable devotion, even in these life-threatening times.

“And who are your lovely friends?”
 
Dr. Watson asked.
 
His sideburns reached a point just below his ears, and his hair was parted at the side.
 

“Princess Elena, Miss Bethany Allen, and Lady Jacqueline, this is . . . Hamish.”
 
A few days after the attack on Princess Elena, the young ladies took their walk as usual, utilizing a different appointed time and a different path as Mirabella suggested.
 
Only Alexandra stayed in her room, the other four walking with a large, armed bodyguard in the front and at the back of their party.
 
Two new bodyguards, as it were, those from the day prior having been replaced.
 

“Is it
Monsieur
Hamish?” Jacqueline asked, looking exquisite in a red and white striped linen day dress, her brown hair curled atop her head.
 
She looked as if she had not lost a wink of sleep the night after the attack.

“Just Hamish,” Watson replied, bowing and tipping his hat to Jacqueline.
 
“But, you, Mademoiselle, may call me whatever you wish.”

Giggling ensued, and Mirabella rolled her eyes.
 
Why is it ladies became positively ridiculous whenever a man was about?
 
Glancing at the dreamy John Watson, she was forced to be more understanding.

“At your service.
 
May I walk with you ladies?” Dr. Watson asked, taking Mirabella’s arm to the obvious envy of the others.

Princess Elena simply nodded, her eyes still on her bodyguards and their surroundings.
 
The royal wore a large-brimmed hat in an effort to hide her identity, but her height was difficult to conceal.
 
Naturally all of the ladies wore gloves and carried parasols, providing further concealment.
 
Mirabella wondered if it might have been better to leave the bodyguards at
Miss de Beauvais’
as the guards’ presence proclaimed their identity.

“And how do you know Hamish, Miss Carnegie?” Bethany asked, twirling her blue silk parasol, suspicion apparent in her matching cornflower blue eyes.

“I am a family friend,” Dr. Watson replied.

“It is good to have ze friends,” Jacqueline replied demurely, her admiration apparent.

Mirabella was delighted that John Watson required his right hand to hold a cane and his left arm was in hers, leaving no arm free for the beautiful Lady Jacqueline.

“Hamish is a doctor and a military man by trade,” Mirabella added, insuring that the ladies knew he would be unacceptable to their parents as a potential match.

Dr. Watson raised his eyebrow at her, understanding her ploy.

Oh, my goodness!
 
The finishing school is having an effect on me.
 
I now have a ploy!
 
Mirabella didn’t know if she liked the change in herself or not.
 
Had she become a schemer?