Vanishing Girl (31 page)

Victoria stirs again.

“Blimey,” she says in a completely different voice, “the ‘ouse is loaded, mates.”

Why is she talking like that?
At first he wonders if she may sometimes play at being an amateur actress, that accents might be a hobby of hers. But then something dawns on him.
She will need to take on a new name and personality when she gets to America
. It makes perfect sense; she will have to become someone else.

He turns to the other stack of papers. He can tell, by the fact that they have been handled more, that these notes were written earlier.

“Pronounce the
R
s with a roll of the tongue,” reads the first line. “Remember, the pitch of her voice is higher than mine,” states another. He scans down the page and flips to the next. “Upper class ladies are never alone,” says a line written atop that sheet. “Her father will seldom look at me,” reads the next line. “I will be expected to hold my teacup with the small finger extended … practice French … keep walking with a book balanced on my head.”

What does this mean?
Sherlock turns to the woman in the bed. He quickly casts his mind back over everything he
has learned: in St. Neots when he first came here, outside the Rathbone mansion, in the dining room and Lady Rathbone’s bedroom, in Portsmouth, and now back here again, especially in this room.

What does this –?

“Eliza!”

The man’s shout startles Sherlock and nearly makes him faint.

They are awake and calling her!

The woman stirs, moans, and then sits up in bed, looking toward the door.

Sherlock drops like a swatted fly and lands as gently as he can on the floor. In an instant, he has silently shuffled under the bed.

“Eliza Shaw! Rise and shine! America awaits!”

Is that her new name for her new life?

The door swings open.

“Robert Self!” Sherlock hears her shriek. “Clear out of me room, you cad!” Then she giggles.

“Of course, Miss Rathbone. Now get thee into thy frock, wench, and let us fly to the land of opportunity and wanton behavior.”

“Then leave my boudoir, Sir Robert … and I shall,” she coos.

He hears her rise, sees her bare feet pad across the floor to the wardrobe.

Sherlock is trapped in the bedroom. She will surely see him.
Have I come this far to lose everything? With the police on their way. I should have stayed outside
.

Victoria hums happily as she slides the dresses along the rack. She finds one and begins to disrobe. Sherlock has to escape.
Now
. He glances frantically around the room.

“Eliza?”

It’s the dark-haired man with the scar again and this time his voice is serious. It has a suspicious tone.

“I am half-clothed, Robert … come in.”

She goes to the door with a little laugh.

“Did you leave this open a crack?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you always closed the door tightly.”

“I do … to keep you animals at bay. You might turn into black tigers in the night.”

“I am not joking, Eliza, your entrance was ajar.”

Sherlock spots a little door of some sort, about two feet high, all the way across the room near the wardrobe. He slides out from under the bed, slithers on his stomach and reaches it. There’s a small handle. He opens it quietly and slips inside. He can still hear them talking.

“Are you sure?”

Sherlock is coiled up into a ball in the tight confines holding his breath, but when he glances around, he observes that within six feet this narrow area opens up into a wider tunnel. There is a little hole in the wall near him and he notices that he can see through it back into the bedroom. He is in a secret passageway.

“Look under the bed!” he hears the woman exclaim.

Sherlock starts to wriggle, moves along the six feet of narrow space and sees that he will be able to stand in
the wider part. In an instant he is walking along it. He is between the walls.

“No one there,” says the man in the distance. “What about in here?”

Sherlock hears him fumbling at the door to the passageway. The boy is near a corner. He turns around it and stops, holding his breath.

“Nothin’.”

“You are imagining things, Robert.”

“But I –”

“An hour or two and we’re gone. You two are the professionals. Stay calm, remember?”

“I suppose I could be wrong. I must be getting itchy to go. It’s time to do what I have to do upstairs.”

The passageway door closes and Sherlock lets out his breath. The man’s last words are ominous. They were spoken in deadly earnest.
It is time to do what I have to do upstairs. What does he HAVE to do?
Eliminate a problem before they flee? One they can’t leave behind? Sherlock has to get out of this tunnel without going back the way he came … and then get to that upper room.
Foul play of the worst kind may be at hand. Who
indeed, is up there? Sherlock’s mind is racing over everything he has seen and heard in the last few minutes.

For a while, it seems as though he may be trapped. He scurries along the passageway and it goes on forever, twisting and turning through the strange house. Every so often he notices holes in the walls and when he glances through them, sees into other rooms. He also finds a tight little staircase
going straight up.
Does the young woman downstairs go upstairs this way? And if so, for what purpose?
He is tempted to ascend. If his sense of direction isn’t betraying him, he is directly beneath the room two floors up. But he can’t go up these stairs and take the chance of getting lost. He keeps moving through the tunnel. He seems to be going in circles in a maze as complex as the one on the grounds. But it finally comes to an end and narrows and shortens again. He gets down on his hands and knees, struggles through another six-foot stretch and slowly opens the short door he finds at the end. He emerges into a den.

There are many dusty, cobwebbed bookshelves in the wood-paneled room. There seems to be no one about. Sherlock scoots across to the outer door and opens it just a crack. He sees the grand staircase rising about fifty feet away and the dark-haired man with the scar rushing to its foot, about to ascend. He carries a scarf in his hand.
What is that for? To bind or suffocate his victim?
The thief stops. He seems to think of something, smiles, and then walks across the empty room to a palatial fireplace. Sherlock is amazed at its size. It looks like it should belong to the queen, like it could heat the entire mansion. The man steps over the old fire screen and stands in the fireplace. Then he sticks his head up the flue: half his body vanishes into it. Sherlock can’t see him anymore, or be sure of what he is doing. The man appears to be making a loud noise up the chimney – it is like a roar. When he steps out, he seems to sense something and turns, facing the den. The boy closes the door as fast as he can.

Did he see me?

When the boy opens the door a crack again a minute later, the staircase looks deserted.

Follow him. See what he does. Stop any villainy. Cry out if you must. The police should be nearing
.

He wishes he had his horsewhip.

Sherlock sweeps across the room and ascends the staircase, then goes up the next one, and down the hallways, toward the upper room. He knows the way now. When he draws near, he waits at the
T
, peeks around the corner, and sees the man opening the door and going in. Then he hears voices. His plan is to intercede only if the woman cries out. He’d like to keep a good distance away, far enough so that he can stay hidden if everything remains calm. But he can’t hear anything from where he is. He moves closer and still can’t hear, so he edges right up to the door. He is so cautious, so alert to flee, that it takes him a while to get there and he doesn’t think about the fact that silence has reigned in the room for several seconds before he arrives. As he looks through the crack in the doorframe, he sees with a start that the man is coming toward him. In fact, he is just a few steps from the door.

Run!

The boy pivots and flies. He rushes past the adjoining hallway he came from and heads for the next one straight ahead. He’ll never make it. He’s still ten feet away as the thief opens the door. But suddenly, Sherlock feels as though someone picks him up and carries him … it’s as if he is weightless … he reaches the next hallway and gets around the corner. He has the sensation of being set down
and thinks he sees someone vanishing away in front of him; a woman in an old-fashioned dress – no head upon her shoulders.

Holding his breath, he hears the villain stride along the hallway from the door, turn, and walk away down the other corridor. His footsteps grow quieter.

Sherlock lets out a huge sigh. Then he chides himself.
I didn’t see a ghost. Nothing picked me up and carried me
.

It is time to stop living in fantasies – he is a detective of facts and data.
There is nothing wrong with my mind. The thief must simply have taken a while to bolt the door – that’s what gave me time. It surely must be locked from the outside
.

Sherlock Holmes gathers himself and turns to his task. It is time to find out who is in that room.

He walks briskly down the hallway. He examines the entrance closely. No bolt. Then he looks down. Ah. There it is: on the outside of the door after all, in an unusual place near the floor.
Someone is indeed being held here against her will
.

He unbolts the door … and enters.

E
verything in the room is clearly visible this time. And so is its only occupant. She is sitting on a settee next to the window, her head down, the same woman he just saw downstairs in bed and whom he glimpsed before in this very room.

It’s Victoria Rathbone
.

There is a steely determination evident behind her frightened expression. He notices that her necklace is a thick chain with a small bell attached.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“Who are
you
?” she responds.

“I asked first.”

“You know very well … you rogue!” The
R
is perfectly rolled.

“How can I be certain that you are her?”

“What nonsense is this? Because it is evident, you fool!” Her snotty tone is not without a quaver, but her words are immaculately pronounced. “Are you in concert with those hooligans, or are you a friend?”

“The latter … I believe.”

“Then, whoever you are, remove me from this room. And send for my father. I shall wait in the dining hall until his arrival.”

It’s her
, thinks Sherlock,
she wants to go home
. Had he observed a brat like this in the Rathbone dining room he would not have thought that anything was amiss.

He casts his mind back again to what he saw in the downstairs bedroom and it all begins to make sense. He decides to try one more question to be certain.

“But perhaps you are just pretending to be her?”

“
No one
can pretend to be me, you idiot!” She stamps her foot and her face goes red.

Ah, yes. We have our girl
.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes and I have come to rescue you.” He smiles at his turn of phrase. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Well, it is
not
likewise. Take me away from here.” Her pout has grown across her lips, which are beginning to tremble. “This has been
so
horrible. You can’t imagine. I am allowed just four baths a week, I must wear this dress every six or seven days, peasant clothing at other times, and they feed me food barely fit for dogs.”

“You look rather healthy to me.”

“Do you call no Yorkshire pudding for three months, no oranges, no sweets, healthy? I have been forced to eat mutton and bread and milk and cheese and corn and peas and porridge for as long as I can remember. I have changed my mind. I demand that you take me to Belgravia this instant and let the cooks know I am home!” She sobs.

“No.”

Miss Rathbone looks shocked.

“No?”

“You were home just a few days ago, anyway,” he smiles.

“I was?”

“And secondly, we must await the police. They shall be along within an hour or two. Let us hope your captors don’t flee before the Force arrives … or that they don’t discover us … and murder us on the spot.”

Victoria Rathbone gives a little shriek.

Sherlock has put them in a dangerous situation. He can’t risk an escape attempt with her. It is broad daylight. And the fiends have placed that little cast-iron bell around her neck and secured it with a chain so that they will hear her if she tries to get away. It is sealed at the bottom and cannot be silenced.

“If they discover us, they can’t release us, Miss Rathbone. We would be able to identify them. Your father would pursue them to the ends of the earth … and hang them in the London streets.”

He walks to the window and peers out. “So, we must wait quietly and hope.” He can see St. Neots and the railway tracks running southward through a beautiful rolling countryside. He images the telegraph message shooting along the poles to London.