Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Page 12

  “Now your toes, as you must go barefoot.”

  First, however, I collected an interesting selection of grime from the stove, the window ledges, and the doorstep. Down on my knees, I rubbed this mixture of soot, dust, and dirt upon her feet to make them appear as if they had gone days without washing.

  “Didn’t people do something like this in the Bible?” asked Tish with exaggerated innocence.

  “Quite the opposite, I think.”

  “So you are not going to wipe my feet with your hair?”

  Her tone was so droll it made me laugh. “Tish, you are being outrageous!”

  “Exactly. Did you say you are going to glue pistachio nut shells onto my toenails?”

  “Yes.” And by the time I had done so, the soap scum had completely dried upon her limbs, making her skin look rough, neglected, and singularly repulsive, almost as if she might be a leper. For a moment I stood arms akimbo, looking her over much as a cook might survey a successful soufflé.

  “I feel crusty,” Tish said, not complaining at all; in fact, she sounded wryly amused.

  “Yes, but I think you are not terribly durable. You must be careful not to brush against anything and spoil your delicate patina.” I cocked my head in admiration. “I almost hate to tamper with near perfection,” I murmured.

  “But you will.”

  “Of course.”

  “What comes next?”

  “Vinegar.” I brought the bottle from the other room and poured a small amount of the pungent white liquid into a dish, then wet my fingers in it and flicked a few drops of it onto Tish. “I mustn’t use too much, or Caddie might notice you smell like a pickle factory—oh, look!”

  Where the drops of vinegar had landed on Tish, her “skin” had blistered to resemble boils or running sores. Tish looked, gasped, and said, “Jolly good! Sprinkle me some more!”

  I did so, reminding myself of what Mum had taught me: a true artist must know when to stop. Then, leaving Tish to dry, immobile in her chair as if she were a watercolour on an easel, I went into the other room to melt some beeswax on the stove. Now that my assigned work was mostly done, suddenly the day seemed to be darkening and the bare little cottage felt lonesome. I wished Sherlock and Watson would come back from their walk, or Tewky would drive in.

  Where was His Tewkiness? He should have been here by now.

  “Don’t fuss,” I muttered to myself.

  But winds of worry and conjecture began to blow in my mind, setting it to skirling like a bagpipe. Had Tewky somehow gotten lost? Sherlock had given him excellent directions and a detailed map, but still, had he somehow missed his way? Had he overslept, taken a later train, missed his stop? No, I knew better; he was not so stupid, and my droning, discordant thoughts rose to wail: Some accident must have befallen him, some calamity! What if he were lying, bloody and broken, in a ditch?

  I heard someone at the front door, my heart seized upon hope, and I turned so quickly that my skirt whirled. But it was only Sherlock and Watson returning from their explorations.

  “We found a way in through the back!” Watson told me with his characteristic boyish excitement.

  “Where is Marquess Tewkesbury?” demanded Sherlock.

  “Hello to you, too,” I said.

  “Enola,” Sherlock insisted, “what has become of your young friend? This venture cannot go forward without him.”

  “Why did he not travel with us by way of Woking?” Watson asked.

  “Because a drag and a wagonette caravanning in tandem would have been far too noticeable. Or so I thought. Hang everything, Enola, where is he?”

  “What makes you think I am clairvoyant, brother mine?” I tried not to sound nearly as concerned as I was. “I hope he will be here by the time you finish rendering Tish a horror to behold.”

  “How are we doing with Miss Glover?”

  “Go look.”

  He did so, walking into the other room. Following, I heard him utter “Aha!” with satisfactory fervor. “You look ravishing, Miss Glover, by the most literal definition of the word.” He went over to her and removed the shawl I had wrapped around her head, lifting it off with a flourish as if unveiling a work of art, then stepping back to admire. “Miss Glover, the sacrifice of your hair … I salute you. The sepulchral effect could not be more salubrious for our purposes. Would you permit me a few finishing touches in the vicinity of your face?”

  With a wan smile she nodded.

  I watched with such fascination as to send chills down my spine as he traced most carefully around her eyes with a stick of charcoal, then applied rice powder to whiten her pallor, then rubbed a variety of grey grease-paints under her cheekbones and jaw, along the sides of her nose, and gently across her eyelids and around her eyes until their orbits filled with shadow like the sockets of a skull. With another stick of greasepaint, he whitened her already pale lips. He smoothed a ghastly sheen of petroleum jelly across her brow and down her nose. Then he rubbed both grease and charcoal into what little was left of her hair until it lost any appearance of freshness or life; it either bristled like a scrub brush or else clung to her scalp. Finally, he applied under her nose, along her lower eyelids, and around her mouth the beeswax I had melted and cooled, shaping it with his fingertips until it assumed a most unsightly appearance of dried mucus.

  As he stood up and back to study his handiwork, spontaneously I applauded. “Bravo! Sherlock, I salute you. Tish, you look mad enough to frighten me. Would you like to see?” I flourished a hand mirror.

  She hesitated before whispering, “Very well.”

  Approaching, I held up the mirror so that she could see her face in it. She gasped, flinching away from her own reflection.

  “Tish?”

  “Do … do we…” She seemed shocked almost beyond speech. “… we really think … Flossie…”

  “No! Oh, no, not at all!” I stumbled over myself in my eagerness to reassure her, plopping down to sit on the floor by her feet. “Surely Flossie has neither lost her hair nor grown so ghastly. You do not represent her really, Tish, although you must pretend to be her.”

  “But … you think … Caddie will believe?”

  From behind me spoke the wise yet uncomplicated voice of Dr. Watson. “If Lord Cadogan retains any soul at all, he will see in you the spectre of his guilt.”

  I told Tish, “You will be his worst nightmare come to life. He will feel such qualms as to obviate rational thought.”

  And Sherlock said, “Confound everything, where is young Tewkesbury?”

  Chapter the Eighteenth

  Sunlight lanced through the cottage windows at a low and canted angle. Watson settled down at the table and ate. Sherlock paced. Tish sat like a rather freakish alabaster statuette.

  “If Tewkesbury doesn’t arrive soon, we shall have to alter our plans!” Sherlock said loudly to no one in particular.

  The sun began to set.

  “If His Addlepated Lordship doesn’t arrive soon, we may not be able to proceed whatsoever!”

  The sun sank below the distant hills, leaving behind only twilight the hue of old ivory.

  Sherlock said, “We should never have trusted him.”

  “Don’t blame Tewky!” I cried. “Something must have gone wrong!”

  And then, just as I was ready to start wringing my hands like an old woman, I heard furious clip-clopping sounds approaching. Running outside, I took one look at the impending cloud of dust and wailed, “Oh, no!” understanding exactly what had gone wrong. I dashed forward and seized the yellow horse by her bridle, helping Tewky wrestle her to a halt; otherwise, she would have shot right on past the cottage, despite the fact that she had sweated herself into a lather. “You hired Jezebel!”

  “Is that the confounded beast’s name?” Sagging on the driver’s seat of the wagonette as if he were utterly wrung out, Tewky gave me a look most expressive of the epithets he would like to have uttered regarding Jezebel.

  “What happened?” demanded Sherlock, who now had hold
of Jezzie by the other side of her bridle as she tossed her head, pranced, tucked her hind legs underneath her, and otherwise showed every sign of wanting to bolt.

  “I requested a fast horse, and she’s fast, there’s no denying it. But I should also have asked for an accurate horse. Direction of travel makes no difference to her, nor does staying on the road.”

  “Nor does discretion, evidently. She seems unlikely to fall in with our plan to wait in silence.” Sherlock gave the mare a glare that would have been droll were circumstances not so dire. “Well, at least you are here, Lord Tewkesbury, along with transportation of a sort, in regard to which we need to convene in a council of war.”

  And so we did, once Jezzie was firmly tethered to a stout hitching post and pacified with a nosebag of oats. Tish, also, needed to be pacified a bit when told we all needed to talk, but after I draped a shawl over her head and assured her that Tewky was too preoccupied with food to look at her closely, she came out of the other room and joined the rest of us.

  Sherlock took a professorial pose, arms folded, posterior propped against the table, one leg cocked rather like that of a flamingo. “Watson’s very sensible plan for Miss Glover to enter Dunhench Park stealthily, through a poacher’s hole in the back fence, is, alas, impractical now that darkness has fallen,” he said as if ruminating aloud. “One needs daylight to pick one’s way through rough woodlands. So we must enter by the front. But given the rambunctious proclivities of our horse, it now seems unlikely that any portion of our party can wait outside the gates without being noticed by the lodge-keeper.”

  “Therefore we need to cosh the lodge-keeper,” Watson said.

  “Which is risky and distasteful,” Sherlock said, and then he turned suddenly to Tish. “Miss Glover, you have not eaten all day, have you? Do you feel shaky?”

  She nodded, but said in a barely audible voice, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You are quite right that it doesn’t matter once you have confronted our cad of an earl, but do you feel strong enough to walk across the lawn to Dunhench Hall? Or would it be better if we were to drop you off at the door?”

  “Drop her off at the door?” I exclaimed.

  “Yes. We can hide her in the wagonette. Watson can drive. Lord Tewkesbury is dressed well enough to represent exactly what he is, an upper-class visitor. There will be no necessity to cosh the lodge-keeper if he simply lets us in. As for the element of surprise … Enola, Miss Glover, please think: in your experience of the place, is there any way for the lodge-keeper to forewarn Dunhench Hall of visitors?”

  “Such as a telephone?” I joked.

  “Such as sending a child running ahead with a message.”

  “Surely not at night,” I objected.

  “During the wedding,” Tish said as if it pained her to think about her sister’s wedding, “carriages simply drove in, and guests were announced at the door. But we don’t want Caddie knowing how I got to his door, do we?”

  “No. We want him to think you have run across country barefoot from only he knows where. Therefore, I have another question: could we drive towards Dunhench Hall across the grass, to muffle the sound of hooves and wheels?”

  Tish and I exchanged questioning looks, then nodded. I answered, “The grounds in front of the hall are quite open.”

  “For complete stealth, could we manage without lanterns?”

  I thought of the well-lighted portico. “Perhaps.”

  With an old soldier’s fortitude and optimism, Watson said, “I think we should go find out.”

  * * *

  Tish hid under a seat of the wagonette, on which I sat with my skirt spread protectively, regretting for the first time that dresses with fifteen yards of flounces had gone out of fashion. Sherlock sat beside me in a dark corner because of his rather seedy clothes, and Tewkesbury sat across from us, ready to deal aristocratically with the lodge-keeper. Watson, the driver, had given a bucket of water to Jezzie before we departed, and now was probably wishing he could retract such kindness.

  “Whoa! I say whoa, there!” I had never heard Watson sound so ill-tempered as when he struggled to halt Jezzie at Dunhench Hall’s wrought-iron gate. His angry voice brought the lodge-keeper out at once.

  Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether, stuck his top-hatted head out of the wagonette’s window on his side. “A surprise visit to an old friend, my good man,” he drawled at the gatekeeper, his bored tone achieving the perfect acme of aristocratic condescension.

  “Yes, my lord. Of course, my lord.” The man opened the gate forthwith, and we rattled through. As soon as the gate closed behind us, Watson chided Jezzie again, “Whoa, there! Stay on the lane!” as he steered her onto the grass. “Confounded beast, what is the matter with you?” He actually did have a rather difficult time halting her in the deepest shadows between the gate and Dunhench Hall. Instantly, Sherlock and Tewky slipped out to extinguish the wagonette’s lanterns, after which one of them, I think, walked at Jezzie’s head to help Watson keep control of her as we rolled across the lawn in the dark. I cannot report exactly because I did not see. Still inside the wagonette, I was helping Tish get out from underneath the bench, careful not to knock any caked soap or beeswax off of her. I knew that we must be approaching the portico because the light through the wagonette windows increased sufficiently so that I could see her standing beside me, looking like a ghost.

  She was going to need to be more durable than most ghosts. “Tish,” I told her softly, “remember with your whole heart what our darling Caddie has done.”

  She nodded.

  “And think what you would say to him if you were Flossie.”

  Nodding again, she lifted her head as the wagonette halted.

  “And sink your dagger to the hilt.”

  She gave me just a flashing glance as she got out, helped by Sherlock; as I got out, helped by no one. Tewky was busy at Jezzie’s head; he and Watson took the mare and wagonette away into the shadows at the side of the lawn. I ran to crouch between arbor vitae bushes next to the wall of Dunhench Hall, huddling beneath a lighted window I knew to be that of the dining room. Sherlock disappeared somewhere. And Tish, barefoot and bareheaded, ghastly and nearly indecent in her tattered dress, pattered up to the front door and knocked. Only then did I realize that the funeral wreaths were gone already, after a very brief length of time.

  Tish knocked, stood waiting, then thought better of it and knocked again, loudly and at discourteous length, also pounding the door with her other hand. The instant it finally opened, she dashed into the house, brushing past the butler, who uttered an exclamation most uncharacteristic of those who buttle. Indeed, what he said was too naughty to repeat.

  At the same time, Tish yelled with force and ferocity far superior to any I had expected of her, “Caddie, you treacherous silver-plated blackguard, where are you!”

  Reasoning that no one was likely to notice me, as all attention was on Tish, I scrooched upward against the wall, making a long neck to peek into the bottom corner of the window.

  I saw, in profile, the Earl of Dunhench sitting at his end of the candlelit dining table with his after-dinner cigar motionless in front of his wide-open mouth. In the same moment, as the dining room door burst open and Tish lunged in, the cigar fell unheeded from his fingers—for, in the shadows, her shorn head looked almost like a bleached and bony skull that spoke.

  “You! My Judas husband!” Tish shrieked, her shockingly naked white arms flailing upwards as she hurtled towards him. “How could you do this to me?”

  Caddie upset his chair as he scrambled to get to his feet, albeit not as if a lady had just entered the room. “Brindle!” he shouted for the butler. “Summon help!”

  Already lights were coming on, and there was a considerable hubbub of voices sounding from the corridors of Dunhench Hall, but Tish’s wild soprano cries trumped them all. “You married me!” she screamed. “You vowed to cherish me! Womanizing snake, how could you stoop so low as to send me off in a black barouche
?” Running up one side of the long dining table, she rushed at Caddie as if she would lay hands on him.

  Caddie dodged back behind the other side of the table, his manner most undignified in retreat, although his voice attempted a lordly tone. “Flossie, please, do calm down. Remember yourself.”

  “Remember myself? The lady who used to have hair?” She laughed in a way that actually gave me a chill as she climbed onto a chair, then onto the table, sending china and crystal flying as she scuttled towards her “husband.”

  “Brilliant!” whispered Sherlock’s voice near my ear. “What an actress she would have made!” He positioned himself at the corner of the window opposite mine.

  Caddie gawked, his eyes dilated in horror and fixated on her filthy, unkempt feet as she swung them over the edge of the table towards him. He backed away from her in such disorder that he stumbled and nearly fell. “Brindle! Send for the carriage!” he yelled, fairly screaming.

  “You disgust me! Like something stuck to the bottom of my shoe!” Tish shrilled. “When I used to have shoes!”

  His Cadship turned tail and bolted out of the room. With a wordless shriek, Tish ran after him. I could no longer see her, but I could hear her yelling from the passageway, “No! Get your troglodyte hands off of me!” Evidently footmen were attempting to subdue her, for troglodyte would have been too kindly a designation for her to assign to Earl Cadogan.

  “By all means, act like a madwoman, Flossie.” Caddie sounded angry and brutal now that he was not facing her alone. “You’re going back where you belong.”

  “But where did she come from, Your Lordship?” asked Brindle’s sepulchral voice. “How did she get here?”

  My heart froze as I thought that someone might be sent to question the lodge-keeper.

  But Tish flared, “On my broom! In my magic slippers, can’t you all see them?”

  And Caddie exploded, “Keep your filthy feet on the floor. Just get her out of here, Brindle!”

  “You’re no man, let alone an earl. You’re a coward!” Tish cried.