The Case of the Left-Handed Lady: An Enola Holmes Mystery Read online

  Dr. Watson went on. “Although I have asked him repeatedly what is troubling him so, he denies being in any difficulty, and when yesterday I persisted in questioning him, he flew into such a temper, so out of keeping with his usual steely self-control, indeed so irrational, that I felt I must act upon my concerns whether he liked it or not, for his own sake. Therefore, I sought out his brother, Mr. Mycroft Holmes – ”

  Ivy Meshle, I realised, should know nothing of Sherlock Holmes’s brother. Therefore I interrupted, “How does one spell his name, please?”

  “It is an odd name, is it not.” Watson spelled it for me, gave me Mycroft’s address in London, then continued. “After some hesitation, Mycroft Holmes explained to me that he and Sherlock Holmes have the singular misfortune of being unable to locate their mother. And not only their mother, gone without a trace, but also their younger sister. Two family members – their only remaining family, actually – have vanished.”

  “How dreadful,” I murmured, keeping my eyes down. I no longer felt inclined to weep; instead, I wanted to smile – indeed, I wanted to thumb my nose at my ever-so-eldest brother Mycroft, who had wanted to make a mincing young lady of me – and I found it difficult to maintain a suitably concerned expression as I played the part of one who knew nothing of the matter. “Kidnapped?”

  Dr. Watson shook his head. “There have been no ransom demands. No, they are runaways.”

  “How shocking.” I remembered to remain ignorant. “They have gone off together?”

  “No! Separately. The mother went missing last summer, and the girl ran away six weeks later, as she was being sent to boarding school. She went alone. I believe that is why Holmes has taken the matter so much to heart. If the girl were with her mother, you see, he might not approve, but he would know his sister was safe. However, it seems that the girl – who is still quite a child – has travelled all by herself to London!”

  “A child, you say?”

  “A mere fourteen years of age. Mycroft Holmes told me that he and his brother have reason to believe the girl has access to considerable funds – ”

  I stiffened, feeling a stab of anxiety, for how on earth could they guess that?

  “ – and they fear she is disguising herself as a young gentleman of leisure – ”

  I relaxed, for nothing could be less true. I hoped never to descend to the theatrical cliché of disguising myself as male. Although certainly I did not limit myself to being Ivy Meshle.

  “ – and as such she might be exposed to decadent influences,” Dr. Watson was saying, “and may be trapped into a life of ill repute.”

  Ill repute? I hadn’t the vaguest notion what he was talking about, but dutifully noted it down. “Mr. Mycroft Holmes and Mr. Sherlock Holmes have some reason for thinking this?” I inquired.

  “Yes. The mother was, or is, a most determined Suffragist, and the girl herself is of a regrettably unfeminine mould, it would seem.”

  “Indeed. How sad.” Glancing up at him from under a pouf of false bangs, I fluttered my false eyelashes and smiled with subtly tinted lips; indeed, I used a hint of a disreputable substance called “rouge”lay all over my face to change the sallow, aristocratic tone of my skin to a heartier, more ordinary pink. “Could you provide Dr. Ragostin with a photograph of the girl?”

  “No. Nor of the woman, either. It would seem that both avoided photographers.”

  “What ever for?”

  He sighed, his facial expression becoming for the first time somewhat less than kind. “Part of their determination to act contrary to the laws of feminine nature, I suppose.”

  “Could you give me their names, please, and describe them?”

  He spelt the names for me: Lady Eudoria Vernet Holmes, Miss Enola Holmes. (Mum had showed prescience when she named me Enola, which, backwards, spells “alone.”)

  Dr. Watson said, “From what I have been told, the girl is the more remarkable of the two. Quite tall and thin – ”

  I had been trying to gain weight, but so far unsuccessfully, due to the fish-head soups and sheep’s-head stews served by my thrifty landlady.

  “ – with a long face, a pronounced, ah, that is to say, rather Ciceronian nose and chin – ”

  What a very tactful way to say that I looked entirely too much like my brother Sherlock. Having failed yet to make myself plump, I kept inside my mouth, one in each cheek, a pair of rubber devices that were actually intended for filling out another, unmentionable part of the personage. They, along with nostril inserts, quite altered the shape of my face.

  “ – and an angular personage rather lacking in feminine charm,” continued Dr. Watson. “She has shown a preference for masculine clothing and tomboyish activities, walks with a long, masculine stride, and altogether may be entirely lost to decent society if she is not soon found.”

  “And the mother?” I asked, in order to change the subject before I burst out laughing.

  “Sixty-four years of age, but appears considerably younger. Physically unremarkable, but in temperament strong-minded and willful. A talented artist who has unfortunately turned her energies to the cause of women’s so-called rights.”

  “Oh. She wishes to wear trousers?”

  He smiled at my apparent scorn for such reformers. “Quite likely. She favors so-called ‘rational dress.’ ”

  “And are there any indications at all as to where she might be found?”

  “None. But the girl, as I have said, is thought to be in London.”

  I put down my pencil to face him. “Very well, Dr. Watson, I will inform Dr. Ragostin of the particulars. But I must warn you that he is unlikely to take the case.” My very first case, an impossible predicament: to find myself? I could not possibly touch it.

  “Why ever not?”

  I had already worked out the answer. “Because he does not care to deal with intermediaries. He will ask why Mr. Sherlock Holmes has not come here himself – ”

  Dr. Watson interrupted with some heat, although his strong feeling was not directed at me. “Because Holmes is too reserved, too proud. If he would not even tell me the reason for his distress, do you think he would divulge it to a stranger?”

  “But a fellow investigator,” I remarked mildly.

  “Even worse. He would consider himself humiliated in the presence of – ” Rather abruptly Dr. Watson broke off, then asked, “For the matter of that, one must wonder, who is this Dr. Ragostin? Begging your pardon, Miss, um . . .”lay

  “Meshle.” Take the name Holmes, reverse its syllables – Mes hol – then spell it the way it is pronounced, Meshle; absurdly simple. Yet he would never guess. No one would.

  “Miss Meshle. I mean no offense, but I have made inquiries, and nobody has heard of Dr. Ragostin. I came here only because he claims to specialise in finding persons who are lost – ”

  “Anything that is lost,” I interjected.

  “But I have found no one who can vouch for him.”

  “Because he is making his start, just as your friend once had to do. Dr. Ragostin has yet to earn a name for himself. But you will be interested to know that he is a keen student of the methods of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Indeed?” Dr. Watson appeared mollified.

  “Yes. He idolises Mr. Holmes, and will be most surprised to hear that his hero has been unable himself to locate his missing mother and sister.”

  Sitting forward as if his armchair had suddenly become uncomfortable, Dr. Watson cleared his throat. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “it might be because Holmes lacks interest in such cases normally. He finds them commonplace and featureless, and generally will not look into them. Why, just yesterday,” Watson added, “as I was going in to see Holmes, out came Sir Eustace Alistair and Lady Alistair, who had been there to beg him to inquire into the whereabouts of their daughter, and he had sent them away with a flea in their ear.”

  I ignored the logical impossibility of one flea in one ear for two people, because my attention was all taken up by the substance. “Sir
Eustace Alistair? His daughter is missing? But I have seen nothing in the newspapers – ”

  Watson put his fist to his mouth and coughed. “It has been hushed up to prevent scandal.”

  They feared the girl had gone off with a seducer, then.

  I must investigate this matter. I knew that Dr. Watson would tell me no more – already he considered that he had said too much – but he had brought me my first case after all. I would find the missing daughter of the baronet.

  Looking none too happy, Watson stood up; the interview was at an end. Reaching for the bell-pull, I rang for Joddy to come see him out.

  “I wish to meet Dr. Ragostin personally,” Watson told me, “before he takes any action.”

  “Of course. Your street address? Dr. Ragostin will be in touch as soon as he has reviewed my notes,” I lied.

  After I copied the address, I stood to see my visitor out the door.

  And after he had left, I seated myself in the armchair he had vacated, by the fire, and rather paradoxically began shivering.

  CHAPTER THE SECOND

  I SHIVERED WITH FEAR.

  Of my brother Sherlock, whom I adored.

  He was my hero. He was my nemesis. I very nearly worshipped him. But if he tracked me down, I would lose my freedom forever.

  Yet – he was distraught on my account?

  I could no longer tell myself that I had hurt nothing except his pride.

  But what to do? If I gave Sherlock Holmes the slightest hint of my well-being, he would somehow use it to entrap me.

  There was Mum to consider, too. How much time did she have left to enjoy freedom and happiness, away from the constraints of propriety and “a woman’s place,” before she departed this life? Were men the only ones allowed to have any pride?

  My other brother, Mycroft, entered my thoughts only briefly; I did not care whether his pride were hurt. Although quite as intelligent as Sherlock, otherwise he rather resembled last night’s left-over cooked potato, cold and inert. He did not care for me enough to try to find me.

  But there was another consideration: Why should Mycroft have troubled himself to tell Watson about me?

  What if it were all a lie? What if Dr. Watson’s visit were a ruse, and Sherlock had himself sent his friend to spy upon me?

  Nonsense. My brother couldn’t know –

  But he somehow did know what he should not remotely know, that I had money. And he had perhaps noticed that Dr. Ragostin had taken the offices of the so-called “Astral Perditorian” whom I, Enola Holmes, had helped to send to prison. What if Sherlock Holmes sensed a connection?

  Unlikely, I decided after weighing this thought in my mind. More likely, if Sherlock Holmes himself had sent Dr. Watson to spy, it was out of curiosity, to assess whether the “Scientific Perditorian” might afford him competition as a detective.

  In which case, might it be untrue that my brother was suffering?

  But I could have sworn it was genuine concern I had seen in Dr. Watson’s eyes.

  Confound it, how was I supposed to know what to do about family? Spiritualist levitation seemed less mysterious to me.

  I wished I could consult with Mum. However, I had not seen her since the fateful day last July when she had taken her unexpected departure. Indeed, I did not know exactly where she was. I had been in touch with her only through the personal advertising columns of the Pall Mall Gazette (her favourite newspaper, cultured yet more progressive than the Times), Modern Womanhood, the Journal of Personal Rights, and a few other publications, using either ciphers or codes. For instance, when I had hypothesised that she was wandering with the Gypsies, I had placed the following:

  My Chrysanthemum: The fourth letter of true love, the fourth letter of purity, the first letter of thoughts, the fourth letter of innocence, the first letter of fidelity, the third or fourth letter of departure, and the first letter of the same. Correct? Ivy The chrysanthemum had become our code word for “Mum,” and the message itself referred simply to certain other blossoms as put forth in The Meanings of Flowers, a reference book Mum had given me – such symbolism was common knowledge amongst people who exchanged floral greetings. In my personal advertisement, then – a reverse bouquet, so to speak – true love stood for the forget-me-not, purity stood for the lily, and so on to include pansy, daisy, ivy, sweet pea, and sweet pea again. The fourth letter of forget-me-not was G, the fourth letter of lily was Y, et cetera, to spell out Gypsies.

  Within a week Mum had replied, by a similar code of flowers, “Yes. Where are you?”

  And I had answered in like wise, “London.”

  Such had been the extent of our communication. I very much wanted to see my mum, yet hesitated due to the strength of my feelings towards her, not all of them kind.

  Not all of them sure, either. Therefore, I would rather have located her in my own good time and on my own terms.

  But now, such upsetting news of Sherlock . . . it was necessary, I decided, to put my own reservations aside.

  I wanted to consult with Mum. I needed to consult with Mum.

  But I must contact her most cautiously.

  I waited until I got home, away from Joddy and the other servants.

  While I could have lodged in the comfortable upper floors of the Gothic edifice that housed Dr. Ragostin’s offices, for caution’s sake I did not. Instead, “Dr. Ragostin” rented those rooms to a variety of rather Bohemian lodgers (thus stabilising my finances), while I had found a quite humble room in the East End, where my brother was not likely to look for me – he would not think his sister would ever venture into such slums. In my run-down place of residence, a decrepit house cramped between smut-coloured tenements, I was the only lodger. The landlady, a sweet, elderly widow named Mrs. Tupper, was blessedly deaf, requiring one to shout into a speaking trumpet she held to her ear. Therefore, she could ask me few questions. The only servant was a daily girl-of-all-work whom I never saw. In every regard the situation was ideal for concealment.

  Therefore I waited until evening when, safe in my modest bedchamber, comfortably divested of corset, bust enhancer, and the frills, false hair, and facial inserts of Ivy Meshle, I relaxed near the fire in a dressing-gown, with my feet up on a hassock to escape the cold draughts along the floor.

  Pulling a candle closer to my side, I began to compose a cipher to Mum.

  DOGWOOD FOUR IRIS TWICE THREE VIOLET AND APPLE BLOSSOM HOW MANY?

  This message must be, I had decided, different than previous ones and more difficult. How did brother Sherlock know I had money? This worried me greatly. As he knew that much, had he somehow deciphered, and attributed to Mum and me, earlier communications in the “agony columns” of the Pall Mall Gazette?

  I took what I had written so far and broke it into groups of three letters:DOG WOO DFO URI RIS TWI CET HRE EVI OLE TAN DAP PLE BLO SSO MHO WMA NY?

  I hadn’t mentioned Ivy, for caution’s sake, but hoped that Mum would nevertheless recognise the cipher as being from me by its code of flowers. Iris symbolised a message.

  But also – fervidly I hoped Mum would grasp how the code had changed this time – an iris was unique for having three large petals on top and three on the bottom, a dogwood bloom just as unique for having four petals, and a violet and an apple blossom both had five. I had mentioned the violet because it stood for faithfulness. And the apple blossom because sometimes when I was a little girl Mum would cut an apple crosswise to show me the five-pointed star inside, and explain how the apple and its seeds grew from the five-petalled flower.

  Having broken up the message, I reversed it:NY? WMA MHO SSO BLO PLE DAP TAN OLE EVI HRE CET TWI RIS URI DFO WOO DOG

  Scowling, I eyed the question mark. It would make the cipher too easy to solve. I replaced it with what Mum would call a “null”:NYX WMA MHO SSO BLO PLE DAP TAN OLE EVI HRE CET TWI RIS URI DFO WOO DOG

  There. I imagined Mum would solve this easily, as it was not unlike the first cipher with which she had perplexed me. But this was a mere preliminary to make
Mum think about the number five.

  I hoped she would then understand that one can take the alphabet and divide it into five parts:ABCDE

  FGHIJ

  KLMNO

  PQRST

  UVWXYZ

  And each part has five letters, except the last; but Z is used so seldom that it can be lumped together with Y.

  I then wrote my real message to Mum, LONDON BRIDGE FALLING DOWN URGENT MUST TALK, and enciphered it thus:

  L is in the third group or line of letters, and it is the second letter there: 32. O is in the third line, fifth letter: 35.

  And so on.

  323534143534 124324142215 2444 21113232243432 14355334 514322153445 33514445 45113231

  I considered running all the numbers together and letting Mum separate the words afterward, but decided against it. She would have enough difficulty with the cipher (third letter second line, or third line second letter?) and decoding the London Bridge reference, meant to tell her where the trouble was and where I wanted to talk with her.

  My final draft read: NYX WMA MHO SSO BLO PLE DAP TAN OLE EVI HRE CET TWI RIS URI DFO WOO DOG 323534143534 124324142215 2444 21113232243432 14355334 514322153445 33514445 45113231

  This I copied several times for several different periodicals, triple-checking each copy for accuracy before folding both ends towards the centre and affixing the overlapping edge with wax – ordinary white candle-wax, as I had no colourful sealing-wax. After addressing the blank sides of the papers, I set them aside.

  Tomorrow I would take them to Fleet Street. Then, until Mum answered, there would be nothing to do but wait.