"Watson, whatever their circ.u.mstances, women simply do not run off on a regular basis." Sherlock was beginning to sound a bit peevish. "With only two unfortunate exceptions that I know of-"

In tones of sincere apology Watson cried, "Certainly I would not allude to your personal misfortune-"

Something cleared out of the way far ahead, traffic began to move again, I trailed the tip of my whip over Brownie's back to signal him to walk, and after that I heard no more until I actually turned into Oakley Street and stopped the cab, remembering just in time that, in my guise as cab-driver, I did not know the exact address. I opened the door in the roof, my brother's hand shot up to give me a generous fare and waved dismissively to indicate that he did not expect change, and he, Mycroft, and Watson pushed the hansom doors open before I had put the money away. Just as well, as I had forgotten to ply the lever.

"What course of action will you advise for the duke?" Watson was asking as they got out.

"Duque," Sherlock corrected him with a hint of a sneer; Watson was not after all alone in his prejudice against the foreigner. "Well, perhaps I shall suggest that his wife ran away upon the Underground and is living with my sister."

"Come, now, Holmes. Are you truly so at a loss?"

"My informants tell me nothing. Thread after thread of conjecture leads me nowhere. I should never have taken the case," Holmes said bitterly as they walked towards the startlingly Moorish house a small distance up the street. "Missing persons are my Achilles' heel, apparently."

"Nonsense. A dozen times you have come within inches of finding your sister."

Make that a dozen plus one, I thought as I turned the cab around and drove away, my heart aching-I admit it; the mere sound of my brother's voice moved me nearly to tears, especially as he spoke so bitterly of me.

But it was not to be helped. And I had work to do.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

AFTER RETURNING BROWNIE TO HIS HUMBLE stable and the cabbie's jacket and derby to their proper owner-thanking the man effusively and sincerely-I restored myself as best I could to my former dotted-swissness, complete with hat and wig. Pocketing my ring (not that it mattered if I lost it; I had several spare wedding bands on hand), I made my way back to my lodging for a wash and a change of clothing, feeling myself much sullied by paw-prints of dog and odour of horse.

Also, I needed dinner before I could act on my plan to find the Duquessa, and- And the first thing I encountered upon unb.u.t.toning my much-abused dress was a ma.s.s of paper cut and pasted into strips.

Mum's message.

Oh, dear.

Much as I would have liked to put it off, I knew I would not be able to face Sherlock again until I had dealt with the skytale. And I needed to face Sherlock in order to enlist the services of Reginald Collie. This very evening, if possible.

Standing in my petticoats whilst waiting for the girl to bring up hot water for my ablutions, I straightened out the strips of paper-there were no less than four of them, and all rather long-then laid them on my bed and peered at them, trying to think. Mum had wrapped them around some cylinder to write them, and no doubt she had supposed that the same type and size of cylinder would be available to me. But what could it be, when she was with the Gypsies and I was in London?

Nothing small, surely, given the width of the papers. Not a paintbrush handle, although Mum was quite the artist.

What else did Mum like to do? Look for wild-flowers, wander the countryside-a walking-staff? But surely she could not expect me to have one of those in London- Ah! What would she expect me to have that she also had? I must think with Mum's point of view.

No small task, as I had never fully understood my mother. But I tried. What had Mum and I done together? Read books? Yes, indeed, but no cylindrical books came to mind. Gathered flowers and arranged them? Surely, but the vases were of various sizes and shapes. Other such activities, such as putting together baskets and birdcages out of sticks? Not Mum. No homebody, she. Much preferring to be out-of-doors, she had made sure I was provided with a swing, she had encouraged me to climb trees, she had taught me to ride a bicycle- The girl chose that moment to knock and enter with the requisite ewer of steaming water, interrupting my thoughts.

After my wash, I experimented with wrapping one section of the skytale around the stem of a floor-lamp, shifting the paper this way and that, to no avail. Then I tried my reading-lamp, and then one of the railings along the stairway, with no better results. I could not even tell whether I needed larger cylinders or smaller. Most frustrating.

I went to see Sherlock after dinner, and in order to tweak his ever-so-superior nose, I wore exactly the same costume I had worn the day he had failed to recognise me face-to-face in Mrs. Watson's parlour. No gold ring, as I was being Miss Viola Everseau. From my polished b.u.t.ton-top boots and my modest but lovely primrose-yellow frock to my rice-powdered face with its little birthmark, my carefully coiffed wig, and my Gypsy bonnet-how ironic, but that is what they are called, the flat little straw hats with a sprig of flowers-in every particular I was his sister disguised simply by being beautiful.

Rather petty of me, but like my brother, I quite liked a moment of triumph. In a carpet-bag I carried other clothing more suitable for the night's work that lay ahead of us. That is to say, I quite hoped he would come along. If not, then the night's work lay ahead of me, singularly Enola, as usual.

If Sherlock were not at home, I had decided, I would wait. But even though the sun had not yet set this long July evening, I rather expected he would be in his lodging recovering from a tiring and frustrating day.

Mrs. Hudson, answering the door, affirmed that he was at home. I sent my card up on a silver tray: Miss Viola Everseau Shortly I heard his rather explosive vocal reaction. Evidently Mrs. Watson, on the occasion of our previous meeting in her parlour, had told him my name, and he remembered it.

A moment later, joyously barking, Reginald Collie came bounding downstairs to greet me. Just in time, before he could leap upon me, I caught the dog by his front paws. "You are not to ruin this dress," I told him affectionately, "or at least not until Sherlock has had a chance to see it."

"I see it," said a terse voice from the top of the stairs, and as if my personal pulchritude bore no further discussion, my brother changed the subject. "Have you yet read our mother's message?"

Climbing the stairs to meet him, trying not to smile too broadly, I waited until I reached his level to speak. Then I said, "I have attempted to do so without success. But never mind that for now; there is more urgent business at hand."

"What could be-"

"I have discovered what happened to the Duquessa del Campo, and I know where we might find her."

His eyebrows reacted, to the news I thought, until he said, "We?"

"Reginald and I, actually. But certainly you may come along if you like."

Sherlock took a deep breath and let it out before he spoke. "I shall let that pa.s.s. And I admit that, whilst I have quite mastered my studies of the criminal mind, I struggle continually for the slightest comprehension of yours. Here you are as bold as bra.s.s, yet-why did you run from me so precipitously earlier today?"

"Surely it is obvious. Because I had urgent business elsewhere, and I knew you would desire to detain me."

"Indeed." After perusing me for a moment as if I were a specimen, he said, "I have quite changed my mind, Enola, about your future. I pity any man who ever marries you. Indeed, I think perhaps you ought not to marry."

An odd tangent, I thought, but it did not disturb me, for I quite agreed with him.

"Come in, come in!" he added impatiently, waving me into his lodging and tossing some newspapers aside to offer me a seat.

"I would like to study at university, actually," I confided whilst daintily I arranged my skirt around me and Reginald lay down at my feet. "The Renaissance, the German cla.s.sics, Logic, Argumentation . . ."

With a pained look as if he were developing a headache, my brother interrupted. "You promised news of the Duquessa del Campo."

"Quite. I have been on the trail of the hag who lured her into the Underground. Although there are perhaps hundreds of bulbous women with bristly chins and ugly bonnets in London, I happen to know of a particularly unsavoury one, and I focussed my attention on her." Concisely, without divulging the means by which I had gone there, I told my brother about my visit to Mrs. Culhane's shop and what I had found: Blanchefleur's gown, her parasol, her petticoats.

"You are quite sure they were the Duquessa's?"

Only a man could have asked such a silly question. Or perhaps I should say only a gentleman, because males of the upper cla.s.ses, dressing alike as they all do-even now, in the comfortable disarray of his lodging, I found my brother uniformed in city attire complete with charcoal waistcoat, black jacket, impeccably starched white cuffs and collar-resembling so many penguins, perhaps men of Sherlock's cla.s.s find it impossible to tell one black frock-coat from another.

Therefore I answered gently. "My dear brother, dresses are as distinctive to me as cigar ashes are to you. I am completely certain."

"Could you not bring something away as proof?"

"I could, and I did." From my bosom I produced the fine linen handkerchief edged with Venetian lace, handing it to him. "I saw several just like this in Lady Blanchefleur's boudoir. You will notice where her monogram has been picked out."

"Quite. DdC. Duquessa del Campo." Evidently struggling to adjust his thinking on the matter, he muttered, "It appears . . . however unlikely . . . but why on Earth would the villains choose this particular lady amongst all the overdressed women in London?"

The answer sprang from me before I realised I knew it. "For the sake of her exceptionally long and luxuriant golden-auburn hair."

My brother stared at me as if I were speaking Swahili, but a chill in my bones a.s.sured me I was right. The villains had not only taken Blanchefleur's clothing, but also shorn her head, very likely doubling their profits.

"You have bought wigs," I said to Sherlock. "You know how expensive they are. I shudder to tell you what I paid for the one I wear, for the hair must be imported from Bavarian peasant girls who wear head-kerchiefs, or else be taken from female convicts, few of whom seem likely to have very lovely tresses, or sold by women so desperate they agree to part with their crowning glory-"

"In short," Sherlock cut in, "attractive hair for wigs-"

"And hair-extensions and the like," I put in.

"-is hard to come by and fetches a handsome price."

"Quite."

"I suppose you may be right," he admitted without enthusiasm. "So, hypothesising that this Mrs. Culhane and some accomplices seized the Lady Blanchefleur for the sake of her apparel plus her hair-is this shop in a very bad neighbourhood?"

"Rather."

"Some further a.s.sault or injury might have made it impossible for her to return home?"

"Such would seem to be the case."

He sprang from his chair, pacing, the man of action. "We must arouse the constabulary at once."

"My plan," I said rather loudly, "is to have Reginald Collie attempt to track her from the scent on her handkerchief."

At the mention of his name, the aged dog rose to his feet and deployed his ears.

I went on, "You have perhaps noticed that the Duquessa left some nasal, ah, effulgence upon the cloth."

"Yes, but my dear sister, Reginald is a collie, not a bloodhound!"

Reginald's liquid brown-eyed gaze shifted from me to my brother and back again as he followed the argument.

"True," I admitted, but immediately a better thought came to me. "What about that dog you used to track the Solomon Islander, then? The dog you got from the old fellow who keeps badgers and stoats and so forth?"

Sherlock halted to peer at me in evident shock. "You have been reading Watson's infernally melodramatic accounts of my affairs?"

"Of course, if you consider The Sign of the Four infernally melodramatic. I believe the dog's name was Toby."

"Indeed it was. And still is." Staring down upon me in a most peculiar manner, Sherlock asked an absurdly irrelevant question. "Enola, were you serious when you mentioned a desire to go to university?"

"I-my cla.s.sical education is good, but I have dreamt of learning higher mathematics, modern literature, sciences such as chemistry-"

Sherlock raised both hands in quite a decisive gesture rather like that of an orchestra director commanding silence before the symphony. "We will go immediately to fetch Toby, and I will come with you wherever you lead me, on one condition: Mycroft also shall accompany us."

CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.

NOTHING COULD HAVE SURPRISED ME MORE OR pleased me less. Levitated from my seat by shock, I stood aghast. "Mycroft! But why?"

"There is not time to explain, Enola." Sherlock seized his top-hat, kid-gloves, and stick. "Do you agree?"

"How can I? He has the legal right to force me-"

"I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that I shall prevent him from attempting to capture or coerce you in any way."

"You will not let him lay hands on me?"

"I promise you, I will not."

Sherlock's word was inviolate. Also, I knew that I could easily outrun Mycroft should anything go amiss. But still . . . "I have a niggling feeling," I told Sherlock, "that this is one of your tricks."

"So it is." The corners of his mouth twitched in a puckish smile most incongruous on his distinguished face. "On Mycroft."

"Oh!" This information, of course, made it perfectly all right, and my curiosity utterly trumped my caution. "Very well, then!" I rubbed Reginald Collie's head good-bye. "Let us go at once."

Toby, just as Watson had described him, was a spaniel of sorts, with long brown-and-white hair but nothing else to recommend him by way of beauty. We left the dog in the cab (Sherlock had ordered a four-wheeler; what Sherlock wanted, Sherlock got), which waited for us whilst we went into Mycroft's club to fetch him. At this twilight time of day, it seemed, Mycroft was quite certainly in his club. He varied no more from his...o...b..t to work, club, and lodgings than the sun varied in its rising and setting.

As a female, even as the lovely Viola Everseau in a delicately yellow gown, necessarily I waited in the antechamber, and Sherlock waited with me whilst a senior servant (as this might be no small task) went in to fetch Mycroft. Several minutes pa.s.sed before that scowling individual appeared. Meanwhile, Sherlock produced my card from his shirt-pocket and pa.s.sed it back to me. "Play your part, Miss Viola Everseau."

Oho. Sherlock wanted to see how long it would take for Mycroft to recognise me. I held my carpet-bag in front of me with both gloved hands, tilted my head downward, and settled my face in a simpering expression.

When Mycroft burst forth, resplendent in white tie, expansive royal blue waistcoat, and cutaway jacket, he did not even glance at me. "Sherlock," he barked, irate, "you know I despise being disturbed at my-"

"Quite necessary, I a.s.sure you, dear brother," Sherlock interrupted in tones so suave that they smothered Mycroft's ire like sugar icing poured onto a hot cinnamon-bun. "Mycroft Holmes, allow me to present Miss Viola Everseau."

Mycroft turned to me with the scantest of bows, and I handed him my card. "Very pleased, I'm sure," he said, sounding not pleased at all.

"Miss Everseau requires my a.s.sistance," said Sherlock, "and that of another able-bodied man. As Watson is unavailable, I came to you."

"Able-bodied!" Mycroft roared as if he had been insulted.

"Oh, please, Mr. Holmes," I warbled to Mycroft in my most dulcet soprano, "surely you cannot refuse to a.s.sist a lady in distress?"

His mouth opened, but no reply was forthcoming. Rather, he looked as if he had eaten something that disagreed with him.

"Come, come, Mycroft," chided Sherlock. "It will be for only a few hours, and I have a cab waiting."

Hearing his cue, the astute servant appeared with Mycroft's capacious coat and slipped it onto him. (One perhaps ought to explain that proper dress knows no season. Even in the heat of summer a gentleman in evening-dress will wear his coat, just as a gentlewoman must wear her bonnet and gloves.) Sherlock took Mycroft's hat, et cetera, for him, immediately manoeuvring his stately brother out the door whilst I slipped out likewise. "Where to, Miss Everseau?" he asked me as we neared the cab.

"Kipple Street at Saint Tookings Lane," I murmured as if I myself were incapable of calling out our destination to the cabbie.