As he spoke, once again I experienced the vague sense of having seen something significant there and, once again, it eluded me.
“He is being prodigal with his clues because he believes there is nothing we can do about them. It is up to us to prove him wrong and to lure him through arrogance into error. My sixth sense tells me that tonight may prove to be our friend’s Ides, if not of March, then of — where are we now, Watson?”
“October,” I said, verifying the date from the ravaged Chronicle I was holding. “October the Thirty-First. Halloween. Very appropriate!” Again that tiny mental bell rang insistently and I was on the verge of remembering why when …
Another bell sounded from the front door below.
Holmes raised an eyebrow: “Were we expecting anyone at this unearthly hour? I really am in no state to receive visitors.” He pulled his disshevelled dressing gown tighter around him, as if in protest. “Watson, I wonder if you would be so good in Mrs. Hudson’s absence …?”
Muttering, “Not the only thing that’s in no state to receive visitors,” beneath my breath, I picked my way through the mess that Holmes had managed to make of the room we were supposed to share. Really, I had never known anyone who could create chaos out of domestic order with apparently so little effort. He had to be London’s worst tenant — I sometimes wondered how that scalpel of a brain could tolerate such physical disarray. I could only assume it didn’t see it. Or was it that my own all too short period as a married man had left me with certain indelible domestic standards?
Pondering such immensities, I trotted down the stairs and opened the door, fully expecting to see the ferrety features of Lestrade or one of his minions. Instead, I found myself facing the statuesque figure of — Alicia Creighton! Even with the long veil down and having only seen her the once, she was unmistakable. Although she could only have been of average height she had the comportment of the ladies one sees in the fashion plates.
Even now — when she was once again clearly tense, looking anxiously over her shoulder — her presence rendered me unable to think of a single thing to say. Instead, I simply stared at her, reflecting even as I did so that the woman must think me a deaf mute idiot. “Won’t you come in, Miss Creighton?” I finally managed. She brushed past me, lifting her veil as she did so, and those blue-grey eyes drove whatever I might have said next clean out of my mind. Not since Irene Adler — the woman — had I encountered such a positive female presence and I remembered the complications that lady brought with her, though fortunately not to me … All this and I had yet to hear the lady utter a word.
Moments later we were in the sitting room and Miss Creighton was settling herself into my chair as I hastily did what I could to give the room a semblance of order. Then she spoke. The voice was low and perfectly pitched, almost a singer’s voice and — miracle of miracles — it had a smile in it.
“If this is on my account, Doctor, please save yourself the trouble. You should see my room. I suspect a degree of untidiness is the natural state of bachelors of either sex!”
Before I could respond in kind I heard Holmes say — “How very true, Miss Creighton, but I sometimes think old Watson takes things a little too far. I frequently have to take him to task for desecrating the morning papers, for instance, before I have had the chance to catch up with the world’s woes …”
“I desecrate …?” I spluttered. At which an explosion of silent laughter shook Holmes’s lean frame until it turned into a coughing fit, which made me feel justice had been served. A moment later we were all laughing and the ice was well and truly broken. The lady had obviously made two conquests.
“It’s good to see you relax, Miss Creighton,” said Holmes, suddenly serious, and I realised that the badinage had been a deliberate part of his stratagem.
“You have been under some considerable stress of late, I see.”
Not for the first time was I aware of his almost hypnotic power of soothing a client when he had a mind to.
“I’m afraid that is all too obvious, is it not?” The eyes were lowered for a moment as she busied herself with removing her gloves. Then, as if she had finally made up her mind to face whatever was concerning her, she looked directly at us. From the atmosphere in the room I could tell that Holmes was as aware as I of the underlying tension in the woman’s presence.
“I would like you to call me Alicia, gentlemen, if that were possible? I need your help very much.” For a moment the voice trembled slightly, then recovered its strength as she added simply, “There is no one else to turn to.”
“Except your guardian … except that he is not your guardian,” Holmes spoke so softly that his voice was hardly more than a whisper, yet it filled the silence of the room.
“But how do you know?” The colour left her cheeks, then came flooding back. The real Alicia Creighton came to life in front of our eyes, sitting forward eagerly in her chair. “It’s true, you do see everything! Even my g — even he says so in his bitter way. I hear him talking of you many times to his friends when he does not think I can hear. He hates you for some reason, for something that happened long ago … but I think he fears you, too. You — how do you say? — obsess him. It is about that that I have come to see you, to warn you …”
Then, as if conscious that she was rushing her narrative, she composed herself. “But I should first go back a little. What do you know about me, Mr. Holmes?”
“Other than that you have been exposed to the French language and culture from an early age … have attended a finishing school, almost certainly in Geneva … have earned your living as a governess and are proud of your accomplishment as a seamstress, I can tell very little. Except, of course, that you are fond of dogs and of one in particular and that you have been worried of late. But the last you confirmed from your own lips.”
Now the eyes took on a genuine sparkle of amusement, which temporarily banished the other feelings. “Mr. Holmes, everything I hear about you is true. You are a sorcerer!”
“Hardly that, Miss Creighton …”
“Please call me Alicia.”
“Hardly that — Alicia. My little parlour trick — to which poor Watson has been witness more times than either of us cares to count — is based on pure observation and logic. The signs are there for anyone who has the wit to read them. Let me demonstrate.
“Although your vocabulary is perfect, you have a tendency to use a French construction with English words. This suggests that you have been taught to think in that language. An English person simply learning it would not do that. Then, the way you arrange your gloves, one across the other, as if your hands were folded in your lap is a piece of etiquette much favoured by ladies’ finishing schools and one that lasts for life. But the way you entered the room and took your seat is taught exclusively by Madame Solange, a former dancer of no mean reputation whose Geneva establishment has a well deserved cachet …” Observing my amusement, he added for my benefit: “I had the pleasure of rendering the lady some small service during the course of my Swiss ‘sabbatical’ …”
“I see,” I rejoined, “was that before or after you made your study of coal tar derivatives in Montpélier?”
But Holmes, once on the scent, was not to be deterred by would-be humorous trifles. He returned his undivided attention to Alicia Creighton.