all be incapable of requlating their expenses themselves; they

would fall into the most wretched misery if their material life

were not governed and ensured by the maitrones.

-DR. JULIAN JEANNEL, DE LA PROSt.i.tUTION

Never underestimate the power of a needle case.

One would think I had captured an ineffably rare South American b.u.t.terfly from the way that Sherlock Holmes displayed my tiny prize under the lamplight.

He clapped a magnifying gla.s.s to his right eye like an oversize monocle while he p.r.i.c.ked and stared at and . . . smelled the poor brown crumb I had carried on my person since Irene and I had visited the maison de rendezvous.

"If only I had my chemicals and vessels from Baker Street!" he lamented, more to himself than to me. "Or a larger sample. It is cork, of course. The wine was probably Spanish. Are you aware of the many arcane processes necessary for the production of a simple wine-bottle cork, Miss Huxleigh?"

"Thankfully no. I am barely aware of wine, sir, much less the method that lets the evil genie out of the bottle, so to speak."

He ignored my temperance speech, as most people did, but I felt obligated as a parson's daughter to make it now and again.

"I believe I see part of the impress of the letter 's' on this crumb," he went on. Obviously, this was a man used to talking to himself or to some docile a.s.sociate who would only nod and clear his throat. "It could be from 'bodegas,' the Spanish word for wine cellar. And you swear that you found this fragment on the death-chamber carpeting? Did you not say you visited the house wine cellar on another occasion?"

"Irene found the crumb of cork. And we descended to the wine cellar the next night."

"For one who avoids spirits, you have certainly frequented the wine cellars of France of late."

"Only because Irene insisted."

"She insists, does she? And you obey?"

"I have found her imperatives to be at least interesting."

"Ha!"

I could not tell if he was reacting to my words or something he had seen in that magnifying gla.s.s of his.

"It is a pity you are so incurious about the origin of bottle corks, Miss Huxleigh. Their creation is a long and laborious effort. Like all such things, a rich history means a wealth of information to be gleaned from the end product of the process. A humble bottle cork is a lengthier creation than the wine it entombs."

I murmured my surprise. This revelation was quite astounding to one who, after residing in France, had been cowed into believing that the wine-maker's art was the most ancient and holy of pursuits, eclipsing all others.

"Indeed," he said, warming to his topic, "the cork oak tree, most usually found in the sere, hot plains of Portugal, has been protected since the thirteenth century. It must grow twenty-five years and may be harvested only once every decade. Even then, the tree must have its outer bark stripped away by ax at least twice before the proper layer of cork is bared. The virgin bark is used for boards and tiles. Only the deepest, densest bark is suitable for wine corks."

For some reason I found his depiction of the process rather . . . unsettling. "I thought that the French invented all things having to do with wine," I said rather tartly. Nothing vanquishes an unsettled feeling like a tart retort.

"So do the French, but they use Portuguese cork. Actually, the notorious monk Dom Perignon was the first to apply cork to wine bottle necks."

I frowned.

"Yes, he was the Frenchman who invented champagne. In that they are correct, but today Portugal is the largest producer of corks."

"Then why do you think the wine is Spanish?"

"Besides the telltale 's'? I can see that you do not put much faith in it, but then you have not studied wine bottles as I have."

I was tempted to comment on the obvious conclusion, but remembered my role as spy and saboteur.

He mistook my silence for acquiescence. Irene was right; he was an infant in the ways of women, particularly in the ways that women have of dealing with male presumption.

"You say the wine cellar was relatively undisturbed?" he asked.

"Yes. I was told that the usual wines were kept upstairs. Only the unusual vintage was brought from below."

"Perhaps for an unusually high-ranking patron?"

This I had not thought of. "You mean Bertie." I had no trouble referring to the Prince of Wales by that childish nickname now that I had learned just what that nasty boy was up to.

"I must see the wine cellar for myself."

"That seems wise."

"And you must accompany me to say if it has been further disturbed since your last visit."

"I? How would I know?"

"My questions will aid your memory. Besides"-he stood, having replaced the crumb of cork in my etui, which he then appropriated by tucking it into his coat pocket-"I will rely upon you to extract the name of the Crown Prince's . . . er, upholsterer from the madam of this place. These sorts of discussions are best left to women."

Also best left to women for longer even than cork had been used to stopper fine wine was . . . silent indignation.

Still, there was no denying the satisfaction of sweeping back into the maison de rendezvous in the train of Sherlock Holmes.

The doorman greeted him by name and deep bow. We were immediately escorted into the madam's private sitting room and offered sherry.

Neither of us succ.u.mbed.

"I am here, Madame," he said without taking the offered seat, "on the business of our mutual honored client."

She eyed me pointedly, clearly having forgotten my visit to her establishment with Irene.

"My, ah, secretary. She will accompany me to the wine cellar, and then I would wish you to make yourself available for any questions she might have. You realize that international matters of great moment hinge on what we do here."

"Wales is likely to see more of himself in the press than he likes," she answered with French frankness, her chins quivering with amus.e.m.e.nt. "He does so love Paris. It would be tres triste if this last escape from the wearying rounds of statecraft were denied him. So"-she clapped fat, beringed hands together-"I can deny his emissary nothing. Even"-here she glanced at me with dismay-"if one such emissary dresses like a shopgirl.

"If there is any service of the house you would like after your investigations, Mr. Holmes, I would be happy to provide . . . her. Or them."

His expression tautened to match my inner indignation. "Thank you, no, Madame. My investigations in all cases are reward enough. I will leave you now, but Miss Huxleigh will return shortly."

She sighed her disappointment and fluttered lamp-blacked eyelashes.

Sherlock Holmes observed her as he would a bug twitching under a pin.

"Au revoir," he said, with a curt bow, exiting the room and leaving me to totter after him.

In the pa.s.sage he stopped to take a deep breath, his hands shifting on the handles of the doctor's bag he had brought with him. "I must apologize, Miss Huxleigh, for exposing you to such shameless sorts as Madame Portiere."

"That is nothing," I said, "for one who has been exposed to such a shameless sort as the Prince of Wales."

He eyed me with one eyebrow raised. "You are obviously a stouthearted soul. You see that I have a certain authority by virtue of my ill.u.s.trious client. I advise you to keep your opinion of him to yourself in this place, for I rely upon you to gain the information I require from that corrupt creature. It is not a task for a gentlewoman, but I trust that you see it is necessary."

I nodded, speechless. He had called me a gentlewoman, which bespoke some notion of gentlemanliness on his part, will wonders never cease.

I led him to the back stairs and the route to the wine cellar, well remembering my last descent this way with Irene and Pink. Elizabeth, that is. Though household servants observed us, they offered no challenge. I suspect the detective's tall, spry figure was no stranger to any part of this vast house. In the kitchen he swooped an oil lamp from a table and announced his intent to borrow it. No one objected although all watched like chained mastiffs.

We plunged down the narrow stone stairs to the wine cellar.

"It is difficult to imagine the Prince visiting these lower regions," he remarked, as we entered the damp, dark kingdom of Brother Dom Perignon.

I was reminded of princes of darkness from Gothic novels, of hooded figures gathering in dungeons, of torture chambers and blasphemous ceremonies. . . .

Nothing stirred, save the occasional rat. Which brought my mind back to Bertie.

"Why would you suppose the Prince had been down here?"

"He is known to go where Princes seldom do . . . the cancan clubs in Montmartre, artists' studios, houses like this. I admit that I wonder if perhaps His Royal Highness did not precede Miss Pink on the death scene. No one would admit it, of course."

"Really? You would dare suspect your own client? Not to mention your future King?"

"I serve my calling and no man. Or woman," he added sternly. "You do not know, and you may not choose to believe, Miss Huxleigh, that I disliked the King of Bohemia from the first, and to the last."

I was not surprised, having read Dr. Watson's account of the affair, but I could not admit it. "Yet you took his commission," I pointed out.

"He seemed to have a grievance."

"You no longer believe so?"

"I believe the note your friend left for me: that he had wronged her, and she only defended herself. The King himself admitted at the end that her word was incontrovertible. That fact alone clashed with his earlier depiction of her as a spurned woman and heartless adventuress. I would have procured the photograph for him if I could have. As it was . . . I am not unhappy with the outcome, and neither was the King."

"She did leave another portrait for the King."

At that his quick eyes ceased darting around the dim cellar. I glimpsed an ironic smile that the lamp in his hand turned slightly sinister.

"That she did, and an appealing portrait it was. Most appealing."

This reminded me of the doctor's words on this artifact, which were branded on my memory (and later onto my diary pages, in case I should ever forget a jot of it): "And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honorable t.i.tle of the woman." So just how often does Mr. Sherlock Holmes have occasion to refer to this photograph, and why?

"I am sure the King was glad to have some small, tangible remembrance of the woman he could never have," I said stiffly. "Irene can forgive, but she can never forget."

I surprised a strange expression on Sherlock Holmes's angular face. Someone from Shropshire would have called it "sheepish." But it must have been a trick of the flickering lamplight. The man was far too self-sufficient to feel sheepish about anything, much less show it.

"Ah!" He knelt on the cold dirt floor, gazing upon the subtle waves in the surface. "Is this much more trampled since your last visit?"

"Not at all, to my eye."

"Here! The French heel from the murder chamber. The American jeune fille, I think."

"You need not use French with me, even if the heel is such."

"It is hard to describe Miss Pink," he said, then hesitated. "Very hard indeed. I am aware that certain brutish members of my s.e.x drive some women into desperate actions. I would like to think that Miss Pink is such a young person."

"So would I," I said fervently.

He stared at me.

I had not meant to be in agreement.

"I understand that she is under Madam Irene's wing now," he said.

"Indeed. We both couldn't countenance her remaining in this place of . . . of a.s.signation."

"And death," he added sardonically. "a.s.signation is not usually fatal, I am given to understand."

"Of course we would not want her in physical danger either."

"Well done," he said, "though I may need to speak to her later. What was her dainty foot doing down here?"

"She called us to the cellar to see the disturbance."

"And what brought her below in the first place?"

"I don't know. She is an enterprising girl. Perhaps she had been sent down to fetch a bottle of wine."

"No mere girl would be called upon to do that. There is a house wine steward. Not only do the distinguished patrons expect to eat and drink well here, but the residents themselves are offered first-cla.s.s cuisine and spirits. It encourages them to enjoy their work, I'm told."

"Oh! This is such a disgusting subject. I really do not care to know the habits of the house."