A Study in Sable (3 page)

“Either you are the most remarkable agent I have ever met, Miss Killian,” he said, slowly, “Or—”

“I am not an agent of the gentleman you were concerned with, as you should know, since your brother sent us.” She shrugged.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,”
she said, daring to quote him. “Improbable as it may be, the simple truth is that I have the psychical Talent for reading thoughts, and I have performed my part of our audition for you by reading yours.”

She sensed a veritable torrent of questions cascading through his mind, then. Chiefest among them was the dreadful worry—
how many more like her are there?
That was paired with an even deeper concern—
and are any employed by my enemies? Especially—him?

“You, sir, are uniquely gifted to prevent anyone from learning thoughts you do not wish them to know,” she continued, answering the question that he had not asked, even to himself, yet. “Your will is uncommonly strong, disciplined, and well ordered. If you are in a position where you fear your thoughts may be overlooked, all you need do is concentrate your mind on something trivial and appropriate; a complicated calculation, perhaps, or a chemical formulation, or the complete route you took to arrive at your destination. Keep your mind focused on that, and that alone, and it will be as if you are shouting the information. It would take another Talent with a mind as sharp as yours to be able to discern any of your thoughts past that barrier.”

Instantly, the gentleman's mind filled with a chess problem. She smiled. “Exactly like that, sir. Chess problems are ideal. Even when you are disguised, chess is a hobby that transcends class, race, and wealth. Oh,” she added, “Do not concern yourself about performing these mental gymnastics at all times. A psychical receiver cannot easily discern the thoughts of an individual at any distance. It is not unlike trying to pick out a single voice in a theater audience. Even if you know the voice, even if you know the ‘words' to listen for, once you are more than a few yards distant, the voice is lost in the general hubbub.”

“But if one was alone—out on the moors, say?” he hazarded.

“Ah. Then you would have to take some care. But except between people who are both psychical and related by bonds of blood or affection, it is still intolerably difficult to sense thoughts at a distance of greater than half a mile.” She nodded at the flash of relief in his eyes. “Also . . . while it is not unheard of, in general, anyone who is Talented in the way I am is either too empathic to function as a criminal or utterly mad. Not that the utterly mad could not be criminals,” she added thoughtfully, “But they generally betray themselves in their madness.”

He blinked a little at that. “Well then,” he said, turning to Sarah. “Have you a similar demonstration to make?”

She shook her head slightly. “Not in the way you expect,” she said candidly. “I am mediumistic, and there are no departed spirits hanging about you with whom I could converse.”

A flash of humor lit his eyes, and his mouth quirked in a little smile. “Then you would be the first so-called medium I have ever encountered that has made that confession to me. Most of them seem to think that spirits are flocking about everyone like pigeons in pursuit of crumbs.”

“Spirits have very little interest in the living,” Sarah laughed. “Which is just as well. However, you do have a bit of a guardian. A ‘watchdog' is more what I would call it. Besides being mediumistic, Nan and I are also able to see what your friend the doctor has tried to convince you actually exist—creatures we call Elementals.”

Nan gave a ladylike snort. “I hadn't wanted to mention that, since I couldn't
prove
it to him.”

“Well, I would be remiss if I didn't say something about it.” Sarah shrugged. “Sadly, as an Air Elemental, it's not the most . . . reliable of watchdogs. It's a sylph, and they do tend to be rather flighty.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Nan saw the sylph, a winged, half-naked little female about a foot tall, dart into clear view, stand up in midair with her wings beating furiously, stamp her tiny foot, put her fists on her hips in a gesture of offense, and then stick her tongue out at Sarah.

The grey parrot—named Grey—laughed. “She's angry!” Grey chortled. “Sarah! Be nice!”

“You can talk!” the gentleman exclaimed, far more interested in
that
fact than that there was an Elemental guarding him.

“So can I,” Neville the raven croaked. “We can talk, can you fly?”

The gentleman sat straight up at that, and looked sharply from Neville to Grey and back again. Finally, he threw his hands in the air. “All right!” he growled, although he sounded as amused as irritated. “You can come out, John. The wretched girl is right. I have eliminated the impossible, and the improbable remains. Evidently my brother has not had wool pulled over his eyes by these young women. Consider them vetted.”

A screen had been put up over by one window, and a man shorter than the gentleman interviewing them came from behind it. He was midsized, strongly built, with a square jaw, sandy hair, and a moustache, wearing a well-fitted black suit of the sort doctors usually chose. He was, in Nan's estimation, quite handsome, and his slight limp only added to the attraction.
After all,
she thought wryly,
What red-blooded girl doesn't like a fellow who needs just a touch of nursing, now and again?

John was laughing. “When have you ever known Mycroft to have the wool pulled over his eyes about anything, Holmes?” he asked. “You've said more than once, he's more intelligent than you are.”

“Intelligence is one thing,” Sherlock Holmes grumbled, though
still with a hint of amusement. “I've known highly intelligent men to be gammoned by little girls.”

“And
they have the blessing of Lord Alderscroft,” John Watson went on.

“Who, for all I know, is as mad as a hatter.” Holmes shrugged. “But if you are going to persist in gadding about, taking on the ridiculous cases I refuse to, I see no reason why Miss Killian and Miss Lyon-White cannot assist you. At least the psychical Talents of these young ladies have
some
basis in science, unlike your Elemental nonsense!” He snorted. “The discipline of deductive reason—”

“Adductive,” corrected Sarah, before he could finish.

He was surprised enough at being interrupted that he stopped in midsentence and turned back to her. “Eh?” he got out.

“Adductive reasoning,” Sarah said, quietly. “You
gather
all the facts in a case. You
add
them together. You do not
deduct
anything. You use
adductive
reasoning to
deduce
the answer, not
deductive
reasoning.”

Nan held her breath, afraid for a moment that the famous detective would react poorly to being corrected. But instead, he slapped his knee and laughed aloud, then turned back to Watson. “There, you see! I keep telling you this, Watson, and you persist in making the same mistake over and over in your prose. It's
adductive
reasoning, and a mere girl has shown you up!”

Watson's jaw firmed stubbornly. “But people like the phrase ‘deductive reasoning,'” he countered. “It rolls off the tongue. ‘Adductive' sounds wrong, particularly when paired with ‘deducing' and ‘detecting.' You leave the wordsmithing to me and Doyle, and I'll leave the clue-spotting to you.”

But Holmes could not stop chuckling over something he obviously considered to be a major victory over his Boswell. “All right, all right. Miss Lyon-White, for that, if for no other reason, I give you two my blessing to go haring off after ghasties and ghoulies with John and his wife. Take them up to Mary, Watson. I shall make no further objections. You all have my approval, not that you'd have listened to me in the first place if I forbade this nonsense. If you four want to waste your time on airy nonsense, who am I to interfere?”

“Have I ever listened to you when you told me my cases were airy nonsense?” John replied, with a laugh of his own. He gestured to the girls, and they both rose, their birds hopping to their shoulders as they did so. “Come along upstairs and meet my better half.”

They left the flat by the same door they had entered, and climbed the stairs to 221 C Baker Street. “When I was still a bachelor, our upstairs neighbor was a—thankfully—deaf old gent who lived alone. I say thankfully, because Sherlock is inclined at times to indoor shooting practice, and while Mrs. Hudson puts up with it, I doubt anyone who wasn't deaf would have. Nor with his violin playing at odd hours when he's in a fever of thinking. Sherlock came into some money and bought the old fellow out just after my wedding, and presented the flat to Mary and me as a wedding present.”

“But—the stories—” Sarah ventured, as they all paused on the landing.

“It serves us very well to let others think we reside elsewhere,” John Watson said gravely. “As Sherlock has pointed out, Mary and I are ready targets for his enemies. If the cost of keeping our place of residence a secret is that I have to sneak out by the servants' entrance to go to my practice and pretend to enter and leave a block of flats near it, so be it.”

Personally, Nan thought that was a capital idea. It had occurred to her more than once that collecting enemies meant that those enemies would look for a weakness in your defenses—and being known to be fond of someone was a weakness.

The door to C was not marked by a nameplate; John inserted a key and opened it, waving the girls and the birds in before him. The sitting room that greeted them was as bright and tidy as Sherlock's was dim and messy. The room was painted rather than papered, in a cheerful yellow with the trimwork in white enamel; the drapes were a deep gold, a color that would stand up to the London soot. The carpets were unfashionable and sturdy. Pictures were good prints rather than bad originals, mostly of rural scenes. There was a homely scent of toast and cinnamon in the air. Nan felt at home immediately, for it was not unlike the Harton School when it had been in London;
old furniture, slightly out of fashion, reupholstered in durable material. None of the fussy lace and furbelows most fashionable wives seemed to think was necessary. Everything was of good quality and meant to last, but not new; made for comfort and use, not looks. There were books; most of the walls were taken up with bookcases stuffed with books. There were two desks, and beside one of them was the sort of heavy bag generally carried by doctors. The focal point of the sitting room was the hearth, which featured the only really new thing in the room, a modern fireplace stove. Presiding over a nicely laden tea table by the hearth was a petite blond woman, her hair in a French Roll like Nan's. She was not pretty, but she had truly wonderful eyes. And when she smiled at them all in greeting, her face was quite transformed by the expression. She rose in greeting as they entered.

“And here are our new companions, Mary!” Watson exclaimed, and rubbed his hands together at the sight of the laden tea table. “I see you have provided us with a feast!” He directed the girls to a chocolate-colored settee on one side of the table and took his seat beside his wife on a mostly-matching settee on the other.

“I expected that after their interview with Sherlock they'd be hungry as hounds,” said Mary Watson, gesturing that they should come help themselves as she poured out tea for all. She pointed to a spot where there were newspapers and four bowls waiting. “I spread newspapers on the carpet and put cups of water and saucers of chopped fruit on the floor there for your friends, if that will be all right?” she added, a little anxiously.

“Oi' druther 'ave yer
eye,
me ducks!” said Neville, and uttered a bloodcurdling laugh.

“Neville!”
Nan exclaimed in sudden anger at her feathered companion. But then she saw Mary was laughing uproariously, and sighed with relief.

“Good heavens, he's like a feathered Penny Dreadful!” Mary exclaimed, and to her unconcealed delight, Neville flapped over to the back of the settee behind Mary and misbehaved his little heart out, alternately demanding she “Give us a kiss!” with threats to her eyes,
liver, kidneys, and lungs. When he had her laughing so hard she had to put her hand to her side and could scarcely catch her breath, he finally stopped his antics, flapping down to the floor and stalking over to the papers protecting the carpet, and joined Grey at the feast.

Grey eyed him as he approached. “Show-off,” muttered Grey, diving back into the apples and grapes.

“Jealous,” said Neville, doing the same.

John settled next to his wife and handed her a handkerchief to wipe her eyes with as she finally caught her breath. “I don't think I have laughed so hard since the last time we were at the theater and saw that wonderful Gilbert and Sullivan production,” she finally said, in a voice still rich with mirth. “How do you ever keep a straight face around that raven? Sugar?”

“Two please,” Nan said, accepting cup and sugar lumps. “No milk, thank you. He usually is not that much of a cutup. I think he must have decided you were in need of a good laugh.” The tea set was the one thing in the room that really
was
of very high quality; Nan fancied it was probably one of the few things that remained from before Mary had lost her fortune. As a consequence, she resolved to be very careful with it.