Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Read online

  The hansom halted in front of 221 Baker Street. But after we had descended and the cab rattled away, I balked on the pavement, telling Dr. Watson, “I will not go up until I understand what I am to do.”

  “You are unfamiliar with melancholia?”

  “Not entirely.” I tried to smile but grimaced instead. “I’ve had such dark fits myself; I suppose the predisposition runs in the family. To me, the mood seems rooted in spleen, and I think a fine fit of temper, some cleansing anger, might be its best cure. Do you agree?”

  Watson seemed a bit flummoxed by my views, but replied staunchly, “Any rousing change should surely be an improvement.”

  “Then I think, my dear doctor, you had better go about your business. I believe I am likely to have better luck with Sherlock on my own.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock’s amiable, long-suffering landlady, gave me a wink and a smile as she unlocked his door for me.

  Letting myself in, I found myself stepping into melancholia made manifest in the form of gloom. Draperies closed over the windows and unlit lamps made Sherlock’s sitting room a dim and dusky Lethe through the shadows of which I could barely see him lounging on his settee—or at least I saw a long, featureless, motionless figure reclining there.

  “Dear me, how very crepuscular we are,” I chided as I crossed the room to throw open the window blinds. Daylight flooded in, and I turned to have another look at my brother. Wearing a mouse-coloured dressing gown, Sherlock lay with his lower limbs stretched out on the couch and crossed at the ankles—his bare, bony ankles seemed oddly vulnerable to me, although he had carpet slippers on his feet. Beside him on the floor stood a stack of newspapers, placed there for his diversion by the faithful Watson, I felt sure. But I saw that not one had been touched. Sherlock leaned back against the settee’s pillowed arm, his long hands lying idle in his lap. He had turned his head towards me, yet hardly seemed to look at me, his gaze unfocused. With a pang in my heart, I missed his usually keen eyes. His skin looked pale, his face unshaven and haggard.

  “My dear brother, whatever is the matter with you, sitting in the dark?” I said in an officious way meant to be annoying. “We have a case of the mopes and we need treatment, do we? Well, let us see to it.” Setting my gloves and parasol aside, I helped myself to a pencil and a tablet of rather expensive paper from his desk. Appropriating a dining chair, I placed it beside the settee and seated myself upon it, directly in front of him, peering into his bristly face and nodding solemnly. “If you were in the asylum, they would give you chloral hydrate and black hellebore to take the spleen out of you,” I said, “but I suppose we could start with a purge.” I began to scribble on the tablet paper in my lap, muttering as if to myself, “Laudanum, belladonna, antimony, all highly efficient if they do not cause your untimely demise … I’m sure Dr. Watson could recommend something. Or we could try sweating the black bile away, Sherlock!” I glanced at him, not so much in search of a reaction as to show him my fanatically gleaming eyes, for my sense of melodrama had quite taken charge of me, and I am sure I quite looked the part of a fervid female determined to help at any cost to the sufferer. I returned my attention to my fiendish list, augmenting it. Sweat. Turkish bath. No, total immersion in cold water! “Tonic, sweat bath, ice water,” I gabbled, “or—” As if the lightning of genius had struck me, I stiffened straight up in my chair. “Or one of those new galvanic baths! Have you heard, Sherlock, they place one in the water and pass electricity through—”

  O joy! He interrupted! “Leave me alone or I’ll galvanize you.”

  I beamed at his stormy eyes now focused upon me. “Galvanic belts are also available for purchase, you know, at some of the more up-to-date shops. I could bring you one and you could wear it until you are feeling better.”

  “Get out of here and let me be, Enola!”

  “Let you be like a mole in the dark eating worms? No indeed, my dear brother. It is my mission as well as my duty to take care of you.”

  “Your mission be damned!” He sat up straight, his hands clutching the couch, and, glory be, he raised his voice at me! “Interfering female,” he shouted, “what do I need to do in order to—”

  “Exactly!” I grinned at him. “Galvanization is indeed what you need to do in order to cure yourself. And along with the galvanic belt, certainly I could purchase you some mustard plasters. I have heard that, for melancholia, sometimes a counter-irritant—”

  “You yourself are quite irritating enough! Would you please leave?”

  I gentled my voice. “Not until I see you dressed and eating, my dear brother.”

  He turned away from me. “No.”

  “Sherlock—”

  “No.” He lapsed back onto the settee, his voice a monotone. “No. Go stick your head in the Thames, fancy hat and all. Let me alone.”

  “Sherlock,” I complained, more coaxing than provoked.

  He did not answer. Leaning over to peek at him, I saw that his eyes were closed, the better to ignore me thereby.

  I sat back in my chair, sighing. Although determined not to give up, I had no idea what to do next. I had shot my bolt, and had no other arrows at hand—except, I supposed, my obstinate presence.

  So I sat where I was.

  Time passed as I listened to the silence, trying without success to think what next to do or say. Sherlock lay taut and still but not asleep; he scarcely seemed to breathe, and the clock ticking on his mantelpiece made more noise than he did, that and the traffic rumbling over the cobbles of Baker Street. After a while I heard the bell ring at the front door, and Mrs. Hudson’s matronly footsteps as she went to answer it, but I gave the matter no thought—until, a short while later, I heard Mrs. Hudson again, this time ascending the stairs! She knocked at the door in her usual crisp fashion, let herself in, and said to the motionless form on the settee, “It’s a young woman to see you, Mr. Holmes, all pale and trembling, so beside herself with some terrible trouble that she won’t take no for an answer. I know what you told me, Mr. Holmes, but—”

  Her voice choked to a halt as he opened his eyes and glared at her. That single dagger-sharp look answered her as clearly as words.

  “But I can’t just put her back out in the street,” Mrs. Hudson appealed with distress I had no doubt was genuine.

  I stood up and walked over to her. “Never mind, Mrs. Hudson.” I took the card from her salver. “Send the young lady up directly. Tell her that Mr. Holmes’s sister and associate will be happy to advise her.”

  Chapter the Second

  Miss Letitia Glover, said the card in a most peculiar way; the name was typewritten rather than having been done in a print shop, and all around the edge of the stiff little paper rectangle ran a decorative border that reminded one of cross-stitch embroidery, XxXxXxX, most cleverly executed, like the name, with a typewriter.

  I was still admiring this singular card as light footfalls pelted up the stairs and the door whooshed open to admit Holmes’s client—or rather, mine. My brother had resumed impersonating an inanimate object, motionless, with his eyes closed, not even looking at Miss Glover. I, however, studied her with interest as I extended my hand to her. Perhaps never before had I seen grief and determination so intermingled on such a fair, young face—heavens, she seemed only a few years older than I was. With her eyes puffed and reddened from weeping but her chin lifted and her lips compressed, she returned my handshake firmly.

  “Flossie simply cannot be gone from this world,” she stated, her voice clotted yet vibrant with emotion. “At first I wept, all day long, but lying awake last night and thinking it over, I refuse any longer to believe it. My sister and I are twins. Possibly you have heard of the empathic bond twins share. I would have instantly sensed my loss had she passed away.”

  “Please, Miss Glover, be seated and tell me how I can help you.” I beckoned her to a comfortable chair beside the window. As she crossed the room, she looked curiously at the supine figure on the settee, and I smiled. “I assure you, M
iss Glover, you need pay no heed to my catatonic brother. In his present state he is harmless, and as deaf as the driftwood he resembles.”

  “Deaf?” She seated herself, placing her reticule on the floor beside her.

  “Willfully so.” I took my seat in the chair facing hers, both of us angled with our backs towards Sherlock, and of course I surveyed her from head to toe without appearing to do so. Rather than flaunting the usual cheap baubles and imitation finery of a working girl, she wore a mannish shirt, waistcoat, and cravat above her narrow skirt—but the cravat was cheerful paisley, the waistcoat cerulean blue, and her cream-coloured shirt made of soft silk. Her simple chignon was topped by an equally simple bowler hat of navy-blue velveteen. She could have been an eccentric suffragist aristocrat if it were not for something indefinably middle class about her speech and manner. “I can see by your mode of dress, Miss Glover, that you are no ordinary young woman. You work for your living, but with the greatest independence and dignity.”

  “I take great pride in my work as a typist,” she replied, and I thought: Of course! Her card! As I nodded, she attempted a smile, continuing, “As you can tell by my surname, my forebears were humble glove makers, and my family’s money earned in trade, but I share with my sister—”

  The word choked her. “Your sister?” I gently prompted.

  “My twin. Flossie.” The word verged upon becoming a sob until Miss Glover paused, visibly struggling to master herself. Her voice barely trembled as she went on. “I share with her a disregard for such class distinctions, and from the day of our birth, our parents saw to it that we had every advantage of education and culture. Flossie—her name is Felicity, but we call her Flossie—she took to the arts like a lark to the sky, dancing like a butterfly and singing like a nightingale. I, however, found myself more at home with mathematics. A slide rule is my best friend.” Miss Glover managed a wincing smile. “I have remained a spinster, and make my living as a typist and bookkeeper. But Felicity was born for marital bliss, or so it seemed. When our parents departed this earthly sphere, they did so happy in the knowledge that their daughter was the wife of the Earl of Dunhench, no less.

  “I, too, was happy for Flossie’s good fortune, although I saw her seldom and I have missed her dreadfully in the two years since she married. I have been even lonelier since our parents passed on, but I contented myself with the thought that all was well for Flossie—or at least so I thought, until yesterday.”

  “And what happened yesterday?” I prompted as Miss Glover hesitated, apparently struggling to go on.

  Rather than speaking—indeed, perhaps unable to speak—Miss Glover bent, reached into her reticule, and withdrew a letter, which she passed to me.

  It was addressed to Miss Letitia Glover of 19 Keswick Terrace, a modest but respectable London neighbourhood, and it had been sealed with silver wax bearing the imprint of a coat of arms. Unfolding the heavy, cream-coloured rag paper, I knew even before I read the embossed letterhead that the missive was from someone of rank.

  CADOGAN BURR RUDCLIFF II, EARL OF DUNHENCH

  DUNHENCH PARK HALL

  THREEFINCHES

  SURREY

  In dark blue ink below, penned large in an unmistakably masculine hand, ran the letter:

  August 31, 1889

  My Dear Tish,

  I’m awfully sorry to be the sender of bad tidings. Some news can only be stated starkly if at all, so I will be blunt: Flossie has passed away due to a sudden and virulent illness. Fear of the disease caused her mortal remains to be cremated rather than prepared for burial. As you are her closest blood relative, I will send her ashes to you in a parcel along with this letter. I am sure you will be deeply grieved as am I, but may memories of your sister comfort you.

  Most sincerely,

  Caddie

  Once I had scanned this, I slowly and deliberately read it aloud, heading and all, for I wanted to know whether I had missed some nuance or if it was really as oddly offhanded as I thought.

  Then I refolded it and handed it back to Miss Letitia Glover, and we stared at each other. She looked quite pale.

  “I cannot and will not believe it,” she said.

  “It seems singularly lacking in details,” I agreed. “What were the circumstances and exact time of your sister’s supposed passing away? Was no doctor present, or did he not give her ailment a name? What were her last words? Did she convey no message to you? Who was with her? And ‘awfully sorry’? Does that sound like a heartbroken husband? Altogether, it rings false.”

  She nodded her most emphatic agreement. “And why did I receive no telegram? The moment she became seriously ill, I should have been sent for.”

  “Quite.”

  “And no funeral? Instead, cremation?” The shock in her voice echoed in my own mind. A few radical social reformers had been advocating cremation as a more sanitary alternative to burial, but public opinion remained strongly against it, and the practice was far from common.

  “Cremation of the wife of an earl seems quite odd,” I concurred.

  Her control of her emotions beginning to slip, Miss Glover wailed, “But why would Caddie write such things if they are not true?”

  I leaned back in my chair, rested my elbows on its arms, and steepled my fingers. “Tell me all about your sister and this ‘Caddie’ person.” More properly titled Lord Cadogan Burr Rudcliff II, Earl of Dunhench in Surrey, and how had a middle-class girl from London ever come to be married to him?

  “Flossie—her extraordinary talents and beauty—” Miss Letitia Glover spoke haltingly in her distress, and in the midst of my patient attempts to coax the story out of her, Mrs. Hudson appeared with a tray of sandwiches and tea; I suspect she was curious to see whether there had been any change in Sherlock’s attitude. Altogether, Miss Glover’s tale became much interrupted, so for the gentle reader’s sake I offer this summary:

  Shortly after her sixteenth birthday, Felicity Glover had been offered a position as governess for a banker’s three small children. The banker’s social circle was an exalted one, and the beauty and accomplishments of his governess did not go unnoticed by guests; she was often requested to play the piano and sing for them. (At this point I must remark that my client, had her face been smiling rather than harrowed with grief, and had her costume been stylish, would have been quite a beauty in her own right. She and her twin differed in their tastes and talents but looked alike.) The lovely Felicity “Flossie” Glover soon found herself teaching social arts and deportment to the Marquess of Linderlea’s children, the sons out of short pants and the daughters of an age to wear their dresses long and their hair up. Therefore, frequently they dined with family and guests, and while the governess’s evening gowns could not have been nearly as rich as those of the ladies, her beauty and spirit so well lived up to her name (for Felicity was a happy soul) that she caught the eye of more than one young lord. And she was so well liked that only passing murmurs of scandal arose, despite the great disparity in rank, when she was courted by the Earl of Dunhench. At age thirty, the second Cadogan Burr Rudcliff, Lord Dunhench, a widower with two children sadly deceased, had become one of England’s most sought-after bachelors, handsome, charming, titled, and wealthy. No doubt there was some wailing and gnashing of teeth in families with debutante daughters when he proposed marriage to eighteen-year-old Felicity Glover and she accepted. The wedding put a great strain on the bride’s family’s financial resources, which might have contributed to the untimely expiration, some months later, of the bride’s parents. But the marriage, by all accounts, had been happy.

  “Flossie wrote often, urging me to visit,” Miss Glover concluded, “but I lacked the courage to brave Dunhench Hall. Even at my sister’s wedding, primped and rigged as never before in my life, still I felt like a jackdaw among peacocks.”

  “But your sister’s letters to you were frequent and cheerful?”

  “Yes! And now, with no warning whatsoever—this.” Grief and, I think, indignation choked her.


  “A most peculiar way of imparting a matter of such seriousness. Miss Glover, is this letter in character for your brother-in-law? What is he like?”

  “I am beginning to think that I do not truly know.”

  “But what did you think before?”

  “That he must be a nice enough person because I saw no vice in him. He was a smiling, courteous, good-looking man, but now I realize that all I saw was superficial. I no more know him than—than a cipher. He has kept his true self to himself; he is like X in an algebra problem.”

  I agreed, but chose not to say what I had inferred from Cadogan Rudcliff’s handwriting: that he had a remarkably good opinion of himself (many flourishes), that he was strong-willed (broad strokes, heavy pressure), and that he preferred action to wisdom (extreme forward slant). Instead, I changed the subject. “You mentioned a parcel of ashes.”

  Letitia Glover nodded as she once more reached into her reticule, pulling from it a pasteboard box from which she drew a small but very tasteful urn carved out of some pale stone—alabaster, or perhaps cream jade. This she handed to me. Lifting the stopper and squinting down the urn’s narrow neck, I could see nothing.

  “Have you inspected the contents?”

  Clearly horrified, Miss Glover shook her head.

  “We must do so, I think.” Standing up, I moved across the room to Sherlock’s desk to spare her sensibilities. I spread out a blank sheet of white paper, and onto this, with great care, I poured a small sample from the urn.

  I saw ashes, and wondered what on earth I had been expecting—perhaps a complete set of teeth? I had no experience of cremation and no idea how to tell whether these burned remains were human.

  “There are white bits that might be bone chips,” I reported doubtfully.

  “For the love of mercy,” said a peevish man’s voice, pleasantly startling me. The peevish man, Sherlock, got up from the settee and stalked across the room, carpet slippers flapping, to stand glowering down at me. He took a pinch of the ashes and headed towards his microscope, where he turned the gas lamp up for the brightest possible illumination, placed his sample on a glass slide, added a drop of water and a cover slip, then perched on a tall stool looking a bit storkish with the wings of his dressing gown trailing down. Having placed the slide in its bracket, he manoeuvred it into position, then peered into the instrument. He turned a focusing knob, peered some more, then lifted his unkempt, uncombed, unshaven head, speaking not to me, but to Miss Letitia Glover.