This effectively silenced me. After adding a grander jacket and hat, gloves and reticule to my attire, I was ready to join Irene in her mysterious journey.

Mr. Wilde had married in the years since we had seen him, Irene informed me in the carriage.

"You must be careful to remain discreet before his wife, Constance," she twitted me, as if I were the Siren of Warsaw.

"I shall have no difficulty in regarding Mr. Wilde with the same propriety as before," said I.

t.i.te Street was a short avenue off the Royal Hospital Road a bit east of the Stokers' residence on Cheyne Walk, if they indeed still resided there. Irene thought not. The row of eighteenth-century, four-story red brick dwellings peered through a lacework of bare tree limbs. Number sixteen was indistinguishable from its fellows, though I had expected a design of lilies, or at least sunflowers, to decorate the door, which was painted a bilious yellow.

The interior was not as outre as I had antic.i.p.ated-strange floral borders of gold leaf painted on dark walls, perhaps, Oriental fabrics and a profusion of j.a.panese blue ceramic ware that were so popular among the set, with peac.o.c.k feathers as profuse as parlor palms.

Instead, I was favorably impressed by the cool sitting room shades of dull gold and cream played against the chaste white carved mantelpiece and a frieze of framed etchings along two walls.

I was relieved to hear from Mrs. Wilde's lips that her husband was at the "office," having accepted the editorship of The Woman's World magazine the previous summer.

"And you yourself contribute, do you not?" Irene asked as we seated ourselves at Mrs. Wilde's invitation. "Are you not the author of those charming articles on m.u.f.fs? I must confess a partiality to m.u.f.fs myself."

"Why thank you, Miss Adler. My husband has noted your return to the London concert scene. He mentioned that he had been an admirer of your vocal talent years ago."

Mrs. Wilde was a slim, grave little woman with lovely eyes. The folds of loose aesthetic dress she favored-or her famous husband imposed-overwhelmed her delicate figure, but I was not offended by this unconventional attire, for if any one attribute shone from the visage of Constance Wilde, it was a sober sweetness.

"We have heard so much of your home, it is quite the marvel of Chelsea," Irene went on. "May we see it?"

I readied myself to blush at my friend's forward request, but Constance Wilde leaped up as if delighted to have been given a mission. She led us into the dining room with its white enameled dado and chairs. Charming accent pieces of blue and yellow heralded the forthcoming spring year-round. We exclaimed quite sincere praises of the decor.

"No wonder Mr. Wilde now edits a magazine of fashion and society," Irene noted, "his sense of style and simplicity bounds ahead of the most radical among us."

"If only I could persuade him to exercise that simplicity in his own lair," Mrs. Wilde said, leading us upstairs to the poet's study.

A burst of b.u.t.tercup yellow walls erased the grey day outside. Curios and books littered the chamber, reminding me of the male clutter in G.o.dfrey's chambers. Mrs. Wilde paused at a chair set before what was obviously the owner's writing table. Her fingers stroked the wood.

"It was Carlyle's. So many of his things were sold after his death."

I stared at the surface upon which Carlyle scribbled his masterworks of history, wondering if any more immortal writings would be scribed across that sere wooden expanse.

"Mr. Wilde is not the first writer to dwell here," Irene said suddenly, "in this very house."

"Indeed?" Constance Wilde was not surprised. "Writers and artists have called t.i.te Street home for decades. Jimmie Whistler lived down the road until recently. A foolish suit on his part has reduced his means. Oscar tried to warn him..."

"I am thinking of an earlier resident, the mother of an acquaintance of mine," Irene went on. "Caroline Norton, the versifier and novelist."

Mrs. Wilde offered a puzzled smile; clearly she had heard nothing of the woman.

"You did not find souvenirs of another writer in the house?"

"Anything we found is gone now. The rooms were completely redecorated on our marriage, under the guidance of Mr. Whistler-when Oscar would deign to take it," she added. "They are rather cross with each other now, I fear."

"Two artists, like dueling peac.o.c.ks both fanning their glorious tails, no doubt," Irene said.

"Exactly. Two outraged peac.o.c.ks, more likely. Have you ever heard a peac.o.c.k scream, Miss Adler? The sound is unearthly. Mr. Carlyle, disturbed in his work by such while he lived, called them 'demon fowls.' I know how they shriek because Mr. Rossetti kept peac.o.c.ks; since his death some have wandered wild into the neighborhood."

"What a charming neighborhood it is." We began wending our way downstairs again, Irene pausing to glance out of the landing window. "Gracious, what a delightful garden you have as well."

"The winter still holds sway. It will charm more when the vines green."

"And that most picturesque stone cross-is it something precious from your husband's Irish youth?"

"The cross...?"

Mrs. Wilde leaned into the light to remind herself of the object of Irene's inquiry, a small stone monument of the kind that dots graveyards and landmarks in Ireland, a cross with a circle uniting its four diverging arms. In the dull daylight her pallor emphasized the lines that two swiftly successive childbirths had etched in her countenance. No doubt I shall soon look as worn as a token of my custody of Casanova.

"Nothing to do with Oscar, save that it is Irish," she said of the cross. "A garden ruin we inherited that has leaned forever at that disreputable angle. I wanted to straighten it, but Oscar insisted that aesthetics favor any veer from the upright. 'A ruinous lean has its own allure,' he said, 'greater than the perfectly upright pillars of rect.i.tude.' Oftentimes I can hardly keep up with his charming perversity."

"I should not wonder," Irene murmured sympathetically. "No doubt your children shall be rising from their naps soon; we must say good-day."

"I will tell Oscar of your call, Miss Adler-and you, Miss-" She glanced at Irene's card to no avail, since my name was not on it.

"Huxleigh."

With polite smiles we went down the several steps and paced our way back to the carriage, which Irene had left by the Royal Hospital gates.

"A pointless visit, with Mr. Wilde out," I mentioned as we strolled under the skeletal branches. "A pity he no longer works at home."

"On the contrary, a most fruitful exploration. Now I must determine what to do about it. Perhaps the most courteous thing would be to consult G.o.dfrey, since his mother is concerned, if not his Zone of Diamonds."

"Irene! You know where the Zone of Diamonds is?"

"Of course. Oscar Wilde has it."

"Oh, but-" I stopped walking, but Irene caught my wrist and urged me on.

"He doesn't know he has it, silly. Now the problem remains how to repossess it without him knowing that we do so."

"Is that not... larcenous? He is not a rich man, despite his fame."

Irene, stiffening, looked at me as if I had suddenly turned into a Medusa of moral turpitude.

"Nonsense. He never paid me for the return of his cross of gold. Now he will, in kind, and he will not even be troubled by knowing about it. What could be more simple? Next you will be telling me that the bauble is rightfully G.o.dfrey's."

"You do not mean to abscond with it, leave G.o.dfrey without any fruits of his labor after all he has done for us, and for you?"

"He has made himself useful, as a good barrister should. Besides, I have paid for his professional services."

"Irene! All men are not the King of Bohemia. You must not be callous. Surely G.o.dfrey is of more consequence to you than, than ... a luggage porter!"

"You confuse matters of the heart with those of head. Good business is never a pity, as Mr. Tiffany quite rightfully corrected me not a year ago. I would I had heard his advice before engaging on my charade in Bohemia. If I had thought more of myself and my career then, I should never have been lulled into such a weak position. It will not happen again."

"Love and admiration are not weaknesses!"

"But to wish to be loved and admired is, my dear Nell-an addictive emotion that we of the artistic bent often undergo, as Mr. Wilde could tell you in iambic pentameter. I've no doubt that poor woman behind us 'loves and admires' her aesthetic husband, for all the good it will do her, for all the good it did Caroline Norton when she was a bride. She must have married Black Jack for some reason, though why an intelligent woman who prizes her independence would ever marry is quite beyond me."

"Irene, I feared you had lost your capacity to shock me, but I see that I was grievously wrong."

"Good." Irene smiled as we neared our carriage. "Mr. Wilde is indubitably right about one thing: the capacity to shock is pure sweetness in a sour world."

At that we entered the landau and returned to St. John's Wood. I held my tongue during that long ride, having learned from my a.s.sociation with Irene Adler that the only antidote to her desire to shock was my ability to keep still.

Chapter Thirty-one.

TWILIGHT ZONE.

Dusk came to Chelsea as the sun sank into the grey, wavy mirror of the river Thames and wraiths of fog twined through the wrought-iron fences of t.i.te Street and Swan Walk and Cheyne Row. Figured curtains cast ghostly glows against the streetside windows from the lamplight streaming through their diaphanous folds. The river's stale perfume mingled with the homely odors of coal fires piping from a dozen surrounding chimneys, invisible in the lowering dark.

I clasped my jacket collar closer against the cold and fog, wondering how I came to be roaming picturesque Chelsea by twilight.

From the adjacent Royal Hospital grounds came hoa.r.s.e whispers of mischief, while the Physic Garden across the way echoed with sounds of attempted illegal entry.

I myself was skulking about Oscar Wilde's garden in the dusk, trying desperately not to sneeze.

"Irene," I croaked, "we shall catch our deaths-or at least bring the police down upon us."

"Nonsense. We are invited guests, hardly trespa.s.sers."

"Under false pretenses!"

"Only we know that."

"Why did you send G.o.dfrey off to Carlyle's former house?"

"Because that is how he is most useful: leading the bulk of the party as far as possible afield."

"Surely this racket shall attract undesirable interest-won't Mrs. Wilde notice us poking about her garden?"

"Certainly we shall attract attention if you continue questioning me in such ringing tones. Your whisper reeks more of the stage than of the confessional."

"I cannot help it! I am contracting the influenza already, I am sure. Oh! We shall be apprehended, and such a scandal will result."

"Nonsense," Irene repeated. "After all, the festivities are in my honor, are they not? One does not arrest the guest of honor."

"You call this noxious stumble through the damp and dark of a Chelsea evening a festivity?"

"We may have much to celebrate if things go as I planned. Here, I have stubbed my boot-toe on something. Is it that Celtic cross?"

"Perhaps. It is rough and wet and in our way-why can we not carry a torch, as the other parties do? Now that the sun is gone it is nearly pitch dark."

"Because we wish to attract no unnecessary attention-and we need our hands free to dig."

"Dig? Not again? The rules were that only the chief prize should require digging for; surely it is not concealed at the host's very house? You set the rules yourself."

"The rules are for the rest of the hunters and the ordinary objects of the hunt. We are after special game, Nell. Ah, it is loose! Help me lay it back upon the ground."

"Overturning crosses, even Celtic ones, is not something my father would have endorsed."

"This is a garden ornament only, nothing sacred. Lean into it, Penelope. It will take both of our full weights to dislodge."

I did as commanded, resting my back against the cross and pushing my booted feet deep into the dead leaves and wet turf surrounding it.

Suddenly and silently, it toppled, I collapsing atop it.

"Quickly! We must dig." Irene thrust a wooden stake into my hand.

My hand followed the handle down to a spade-shaped end, garnering several splinters in my woolen gloves. "This spade is tiny!"

"What else would fit into my petticoat pockets? These are toy spades, for children."

"Really, Irene. This is your greatest madness yet, an expedition out of Gilbert and Sullivan. I know not whether to laugh or to cry."

"Do neither," she advised tersely from the dark. "Dig."

At least I was already upon the ground. I rose to my knees in the soggy leaves and joined Irene in clawing at the lumpy earth with my pet.i.te implement.

The sky was overcast, though a pallid moon shone through the lime trees as the winds swept its face free of clouds. That milky glow was our only illumination. Irene's face looked dead white; the fallen cross had attained the color of long-dead bone. Fortunately, I could not see myself.

"Why could you not have enlisted G.o.dfrey for this mission?" I grumbled as the scent of overturned earth and wet wool gloves a.s.sailed my nostrils. I quailed to think what creatures of the clay our frantic and half-blind digging was disinterring...

"He is not aware of it," she replied, digging as madly as I.

My child's shovel struck something rock-hard, conveying a shudder all the way to my shoulders. Irene, hearing the dull chime of metal on sterner stuff than clay, applied her own implement to the spot until our shovel blades clashed like tangled knitting needles.

"I'll dig and you draw the dirt aside," Irene suggested hoa.r.s.ely.

'The damp is bad for your voice, I knew it!"

"Hush. I will happily stay mute for a week if we find what I suspect we will. There-a nice squarish sort of rock we have found. Buried treasure."

"Likely it conceals only some deceased bird or kitten a child buried near the cross."

"We have neither the light nor privacy to investigate now. I will slip our prize into the commodious pocket I have sewn into my petticoat, then we will lay our little shovels to rest in Mother Earth and give them a decent burial. Poor things, they have served in their time and now 'tis done."

Irene stood and began kicking clods of dirt into the hole we had made. Raising the cross was four times more difficult than overturning it, but eventually it stood in place-properly askew. We began tamping down the surrounding earth, Irene pounding her feet upon the site like a frenzied Spanish dancer, her skirts caught in her hand so her precious box should not be rattled.