A Study in Sable (8 page)

“Wouldn't she have been trying to conceal that?” Holmes asked, looking for all the world like a hound on the scent. “These are letters to her parents, after all. One might assume that the fiancé would see them, and she would not have wished him to learn of a rival.”

“Trust me, Sherlock, a young girl is absolutely incapable of completely hiding an infatuation from the knowing eye,” Mary replied. “It is a great deal like the analogy of ‘seeing' a hole in a dark cave by lighting its edges. You might not be able to see the hole itself, but you can certainly intuit where it is. She
does not
avoid the existence of her fiancé; she refers to him several times in each letter, in the most commonplace way, and he would be the last thing in the world she would want to touch on, if she were in love with another. And there is a complete absence of anyone else, at all, other than her sister Magdalena. If I were to say anything about these letters, I would say for a certainty that they were not written by anyone madly enough in love with someone to fly with him.”

“Ah!” Holmes settled back in his chair with contentment. “That was precisely what I thought, but I wanted to see if you ladies would come to the same conclusions I did. I tend to find the ways of the feminine sex . . . obtuse. But never let it be said I ever hesitated to consult with someone more expert than I, when my knowledge is lacking.”

“I can't say I've ever been in love, but I tend to agree with Mary,” Sarah told Holmes, handing over her share of the letters. “These are the letters of a dulled soul, not an enlivened one. A girl in love sees
the stars everywhere. Whoever wrote
these
letters was staring fixedly at the ground, and never looked up.”

Nan passed hers over with a shrug.

“Then there is the matter of the unheartbroken fiancé,” Holmes continued. “And the now-unconcerned parents. You will recall I got heart-rending missives from the parents as well as the fiancé from Germany. I also interviewed them as soon as they arrived; the fiancé came the day after the Von Dietersdorfs. They were quite upset, not to say distraught. Then, today, they all returned
en masse
to tell me there was no further need for me to investigate. They told me, calmly, serenely even, that the matter was settled and I was no longer to concern myself about it. That Johanna had indeed run off with a young man from Canada, and that she would be fine. Now . . . I could imagine the parents having been convinced that this was the case—but the fiancé? Unless he was covering his injured pride and emotions with feigned indifference . . . no.” Holmes' eyes glittered. “I generally am not prey to emotions myself, but I am by no means blind to their effects in others, and the young man—Helmut Reicholt—was as calm as if the girl
now
meant nothing more to him than the waitress at a café, and this was a young man who had been pleading desperately with me, in tones of woe, to find her and persuade her to return not half a week ago.”

“I take it you are
not
giving up the case, then, Holmes?” Watson said sardonically.

“I can afford to indulge myself in an occasional case that is purely of my own interest,” Holmes replied, with a brisk nod. “And this one . . . is interesting.”

“I don't suppose you want to make use of
my
Talent on the parents or the fiancé, do you?” Nan asked. She was a little concerned, since that was bordering on the unethical, especially when there was absolutely no proof that there was anything more going on than a girl who had run away and a fiancé who was experiencing relief at getting out of an engagement he might not, perhaps, have been wholeheartedly happy about.

“No, no,” Holmes replied, waving her offer away. “In a sense, that
would be cheating. I prefer my own methods. But thank you for the offer.”

At that moment, Nan wished she had the originals of those letters in her hands, because she had another Talent that she had only touched on to Holmes—the ability to trace where an object had been, its history, and something of the emotions of the latest one to have held it.

“In that case, Holmes, I will see the young ladies to a cab, and would you care to come up to dine with us?” Watson asked genially.

“Thank you, but I'm dining out,” Holmes replied, standing up and reaching for his overcoat. “There are some musical friends I wish to speak to tonight, and the only way to capture them is to lure them with a feast. Good evening to you all, and I'll go out with you.”

• • •

“Oi miss! Yer roight in time! Them birds been right good's gold!” said Suki, meeting them at the door to their flat. “An' Mrs. 'Orace on'y jest brought up dinner!”

“Excellent, my little imp,” said Sarah, stooping over to kiss the top of the little girl's head. Or rather, the enormous bow that crowned it. Little Suki, having been dressed most of her short life in whatever her mistress picked up at stalls and rag-vendors, was inordinately proud of dressing well, in the neat little frocks Memsa'b had had made for her that looked as if they had come right out of the pages of a Kate Greenaway book. “We'll all have dinner straightaway, then. Did you have a nice tea?”

Suki nodded; she was an attractive little mite. Her hair was a tumble of short black curls, she had a pair of enormous, beautiful brown eyes, and if her dusky complexion made some people suspect she owed her dark coloring not to Italian blood but to an African race, they were too polite—and too wise—to voice that suspicion around Nan and Sarah. When she opened her mouth, she was pure Cockney, though she was trying very hard to “speak roight,” so as not to shame the young ladies. “Oi 'ad a loverly tea,” she replied. “Mrs.
'Orace give us all a curry.” By “us all,” of course, she meant that the birds had shared it. “She do a bang-up curry.”

“Excellent!” Nan replied, hanging up her hat and shawl. “Now, what are we having for supper?”

“Lamp-chops,” Suki said, forthrightly. “Lamp-chops an'—fixin's.”

Nan whistled, and a moment later the birds came flying in from their own room. They had a room all their very own, which they knew they were supposed to remain confined to when Nan and Sarah were not about. It had an ultra-safe iron stove in the fireplace, good, heavy perches that would not fall over short of an earthquake, a bath pan for each of the birds, water and food dishes, and a multitude of “toys” of various sorts. And of course, when the girls were gone, Suki spent most of her time in there with them, keeping them company.

Neville landed on Nan's shoulder, Grey on Sarah's arm, and everyone went in to dinner together.

The flat was a very spacious one, above a bookshop also owned by their landlady, who had a smaller flat behind the bookstore. It had four bedrooms, one of which was the bird's playroom, a sitting room, a dining room with a pantry, and a real bathroom with piped-in water and a boiler for the bath. It didn't require a kitchen, for like Holmes and the Watsons, the widowed landlady, Mrs. Horace, provided breakfast and supper, and if arranged, luncheon and tea as well. All they needed was the little stove in the sitting room to provide hot water for tea and a place to toast bread. Lord Alderscroft paid for this highly agreeable arrangement, and the landlady understood that they were, unlike most young ladies, apt to be coming and going at all hours. Nan more than once suspected that Mrs. Horace at least
knew
about the Hunting Lodge and the Elemental Masters, even if she was not a magician herself, and assumed that Nan and Sarah were part of that establishment. Nan was perfectly content to leave her with that impression. It was near enough to the truth after all.

“Memsa'b senna note,” the urchin continued, as they all took their places around the table. The birds joined them on perches, with
their own food and water in cups fastened at either end. Grey got chopped fruit at this time of the evening, with a few shelled nuts. Neville got raw meat, the trimmings from whatever Mrs. Horace cooked for the girls. “She ast if I wanta come go t' th' Lunnon Zoo. She's bringin' th' school an' sez I could meet 'em there.”

“When would that be?” Nan asked, taking the cover off the new potatoes and peas and helping herself, then passing the plate to Sarah. Sarah had taken a lamb chop and served first Suki, then herself, and was spooning out mint jelly from a bowl.

“Day arter termorrer,” said Suki, her eyes on the spoon holding the sweet stuff.

“I'll send a note saying you may,” Sarah told the girl, who looked up, grinning with glee. “Just remember that the birds in the aviary are
not
like Grey and Neville, so don't go climbing past balustrades and fences so you can get closer to them.”

“Yes'm,” Suki promised, taking bread and buttering it.

Supper was followed by Suki reciting the lessons that the girls had set her to do during the day, and a bedtime story. After Suki had been put to bed, and the birds settled onto their perches beside the hearth, Sarah stared fixedly for a while at the center ornament on the mantelpiece, which happened to be an enormous, and unusually fine, whelk shell, a gift from the Selkie-folk.

“What are you thinking about?” Nan asked, after a while.

“Well,” Sarah said slowly. “I was wondering if there was any way we could ask that fearsome Celtic warrior you turn into now and again about the Fomorians. . . .”

“Huh.” Nan considered that. “That's not exactly under my control, you know.”

“Hypnosis? Or perhaps Memsa'b and Sahib know a way?” Sarah continued to look hopeful.

Nan smiled wryly. “I am sure Holmes knows hypnosis, but I am equally sure he would not be in the least interested in attempting to summon a Celtic warrior-woman out of my head. I'll tell you what, though, we can ask Mary and John and see what they say.”

“I hope they know a way. Or that they know someone who knows
a way.” Sarah tilted her head to the side. “Do you think that it is a past life of yours?”

Now Nan laughed. “How should
I
know that? When it happens, it's as if a separate person comes and takes over my body, and we don't have anything to say to one another. I don't understand what
she
is saying, and I am fairly certain she doesn't understand me.”

Sarah bit her lip. “You could try lucid dreaming. . . .”

Nan felt annoyed with herself. “Yes, I could, and I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. Good work, Sarah! This is why we are better as a team!”

Sarah flushed with pleasure, and they both returned to their books.

Nan and Sarah had been taught the technique of lucid dreaming, or “dreaming-to-order,” when they were in their early teens. Memsa'b had said it was a useful technique when you were trying to remember something, or when you were working through a problem, but with proper precautions it was also useful when dealing with the occult. To be fair, Sarah used it more often than Nan; her mediumistic tendencies tended to attract spirits, and often they were too weak even to make themselves and their needs known to her when she was awake. So once every fortnight or so, she would deliberately set out to use lucid dreaming to see if there were any ghosts in need of her assistance. More often than not she didn't even bother to tell Nan of the result, because more often than not, it was the spirit of a child or an adult who had died unexpectedly; they were confused and only needed help to realize what had happened and be sent on their way. Only when the case was exceptional would Sarah say, casually, usually over breakfast, “I had a special visitor last night. . . .”

The first thing to do when one was about to attempt a lucid dream—at least when one was as well trained in the occult as Nan and Sarah were—was to
decide
that such dreaming would take place. Then, one simply relaxed and put the thought in the back of one's mind. The trained will would take care of the rest. So Nan concentrated on the book of Celtic myths and legends that she had providentially found in the very bookstore they lived above, and left the
rest to take care of itself. She didn't make any special preparations, except that when she was in her own room, she made sure that the room was well warded and that all her shields were charged and intact.

Then she turned down the lamp and tucked herself into bed.

As most nights, she fell asleep immediately. As a child, before she had come under the protection of the Hartons and after her grandmother had died, sleep had been something she pursued only at her peril. In any season, drink took precedence over shelter for her mother; as long as the weather wasn't absolutely freezing, it was even odds whether they would sleep in a cheap room, often shared with others, or under a bridge or in an alley. In winter, at least, her mother would try to get a room, but a room in winter always meant sharing, and sharing meant sleeping with one eye open. There was no telling what any of the other inhabitants might try, from rifling through her clothing in search of valuables to trying to take what Memsa'b called “liberties.” And never mind that she was just a child; to the minds of some men, that was an asset.

But after a year of living safely and securely at the Harton School, Nan had picked up the knack of falling asleep immediately, and staying asleep unless something woke her. She
still
had a hair-trigger reflex that brought her completely awake if there was any sound or movement she didn't expect. Completely awake, alert, and ready to act.