The Case of the Missing Marquess Read online

  Now it was their turn to sit with mouths slack and uncouth. I had bested them.

  But at that very triumphant instant it occurred to me, with a chill, that Mum had instructed Mrs. Lane to give me my gifts, just in case she were not back in time for tea.

  Or for ever.

  CHAPTER THE FIFTH

  BECAUSE MY EYES BURNED WITH TEARS, I am afraid I excused myself from luncheon rather hastily.

  I needed to be outside. Fresh air would cool my heated feelings. Pausing only to snatch up the new drawing kit Mum had given me, I ran out the kitchen door, through the vegetable garden, past the empty stables, across the overgrown lawn, and into the wooded portion of the estate. Then, out of breath, I walked on beneath the oaks, feeling somewhat better.

  It seemed I was alone in the forest. The constables and other searchers had passed on to the more distant fields and moorlands.

  The woodland sloped downward, and at the bottom of that incline I reached my favourite place, the deep rocky dell where ferns draped like a lady’s green velvet evening gown over the stones, trailing down to a pebbly stream that formed a pool under a leaning willow. Heedless of my frock and pantalets, I clambered over rocks and ferns until I reached the willow. Hugging its stout trunk, I laid my cheek against its mossy bark. Then I ducked beneath it to crawl into a shady hollow between the overhanging tree and the stream.

  This cool nook was my secret hideaway, known to no one except me. Here I kept things I liked, things Mrs. Lane would have thrown out if I had brought them into the house. As my eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, I settled into my earthy den, looking around me at little shelves I had built of stones. Yes, there were my snail shells, my many-coloured pebbles, my acorn caps, some bright jay feathers, a cuff-link and a broken locket and other such treasures I had found in magpies’ nests.

  With a sigh of relief I curled my knees up to my chin in a most unladylike fashion, wrapped my arms around my shins, and gazed at the eddying water just beyond my feet. Trout fingerlings swam in the pool. Watching them dart and school, dart and school, usually I could Mesmerise myself into a sort of daze.

  But not today. All I could think was what could have become of Mum, how I would have to go home eventually and she would not be awaiting me, but my brothers would, and when I entered with a great deal of dirt all over my frock, they would say—

  A pox on my brothers.

  Putting my knees down where they belonged, I opened my new drawing kit to take pencil in hand, and a few sheets of paper. On one of these I drew a hasty, not particularly nice picture of Mycroft in his spats and his monocle and his heavy pocket-watch chain looped across his protruding waistcoat.

  Then I drew a similarly quick picture of Sherlock, all lanky legs and nose and chin.

  Then I wanted to draw Mum, for I was angry at her, too. I wanted to sketch her as she might have looked the day she went away, in her hat like an upside-down flowerpot, Turkey-back jacket, and a bustle, so ridiculous . . .

  And she hadn’t taken her art kit with her.

  And she hadn’t expected to be back for my birthday celebration.

  She had been up to something. Much as it hurt, I admitted it now.

  Confound her, the whole time I’d been searching for her in a panic, she had been doing very well on her own, enjoying some adventure without me.

  One would think I might feel glad to conclude that she was alive.

  Quite to the contrary. I felt wretched.

  She had abandoned me.

  Why hadn’t she just cast me off in the first place? Put me in a basket and left me on a doorstep when I was born?

  Why had she left me now?

  Where might she have gone?

  Instead of sketching, I sat thinking. Laying aside my drawings, I wrote a list of questions:

  Why did Mum not take me with her?

  If she had any distance to travel, why did she not use the bicycle?

  Why did she dress so oddly?

  Why did she not leave by the gate?

  If she struck out across country, on foot, where was she going?

  Supposing she found transportation, again, where was she going?

  What did she do with all the money?

  If she were running away, why did she carry no baggage?

  Why would she run away on my birthday?

  Why did she leave me no word of explanation or farewell?

  Putting down my pencil, I stared at the eddying stream, the fingerlings flowing past like dark tears.

  Something rustled in the underbrush that flanked the willow. As I turned to look, a familiar furry head poked into my hollow.

  “Oh, Reginald,” I complained, “let me alone.” But I leaned towards the old collie. He thrust his broad, blunt snout at my face, fanning his tail as I put my arms around his shaggy neck.

  “Thank you, Reginald,” said a cultured voice. My brother Sherlock stood over me.

  Gasping, I pushed Reginald away and reached for the papers I had left lying on the ground. But not quickly enough. Sherlock picked them up first.

  He gawked at my drawings of Mycroft and himself, then threw his head back and laughed almost silently yet quite heartily, rocking back and forth until he had to sit down on a shelf of rock beside the willow tree, gasping for breath.

  I felt on fire with mortification, but he was smiling. “Well done, Enola,” he chuckled when he could speak. “You have quite the knack for caricature.” He gave the sketches back to me. “It would perhaps be best if Mycroft were not to see those.”

  Keeping my red face down, I slipped the papers into the bottom of the drawing kit.

  My brother said, “Sometime that tree is going to tumble right into the water, you know, and it is to be hoped you will not be underneath it when that happens.”

  He was not mocking my hideaway, at least, but I felt a mild reproach in his words, and his desire for me to come out. Frowning, I did so.

  He asked, “What is that paper you have in your hand? May I see?”

  My list. I gave it to him, telling myself I didn’t care anymore what he thought of me.

  I sat, slumping, on another fern-upholstered rock as he read.

  He paid close attention to my list. Indeed, he pondered it, his narrow, hawk-nosed face quite serious now.

  “You have certainly covered the salient points,” he said finally, with some small air of surprise. “I think we can surmise that she did not leave by the gate because she did not want the lodge-keeper to see in which direction she was going. And for the same reason she did not want to use the roads, where she might meet with some witness. She has been clever enough to leave us with no idea whether she went north, south, east, or west.”

  I nodded, sitting up straighter, feeling unaccountably better. My brother Sherlock had not laughed at my thoughts. He was talking with me.

  That nameless butterfly fluttering in my heart—I began to sense now what it was.

  It had started when I had found out that my brothers’ quarrel was with my mother, not with me.

  It was—a hope. A dream. A yearning, really. Now that there might be a chance.

  I wanted my brothers to . . . I did not dare to think in terms of affection, but I wanted them to care for me a little, somehow.

  Sherlock was saying, “As for your other points, Enola, I hope to clear them up very soon.”

  I nodded again.

  “One question I do not understand. While I asked Lane for a description of your mother’s attire, I fail to see how it was odd.”

  I blushed, remembering my shocking blunder with Lane, and only just managed to murmur, “The, um, tournure.”

  “Ah. The bustle.” It was perfectly all right for him to say it. “As the cannibal asked the missionary’s wife, are all your women so deformed? Well, there is no accounting for the ways ladies choose to adorn themselves. The whims of the fair sex defy logic.” He shrugged, dismissing the subject. “Enola, I am returning to London within the hour; therefore I searched you out in order t
o say good-bye to you and tell you it has been delightful to see you again after all these years.”

  He offered his hand—gloved, of course. I grasped it for a moment. I could not speak.

  “Mycroft will remain here for a few days,” Sherlock went on, “little as he cares to be away from his dear Diogenes Club.”

  After swallowing to regain my voice, I asked, “What will you do in London?”

  “File an inquiry with Scotland Yard. Search the passenger lists of steamship companies for women travelling alone, in case, as we hypothesise, our straying mother has left England for the south of France or some such artistic mecca . . . or perhaps she is making a pilgrimage to some shrine of the Suffragists.” He looked at me quite levelly. “Enola, you have known her more recently than I. Where do you think she might have gone?”

  The great Sherlock Holmes asking me for my thoughts? But I had none to offer. I was, after all, a girl of minimal cranial capacity. Feeling the heat of a blush once more start to burn its way up my neck, I shook my head.

  “Well, the constabulary reports not a sign of her hereabouts, so I am off.” He stood up, touching the brim of his hat as a courtesy, not quite tipping it to me. “Take heart,” he told me. “There is no indication that she has come to any harm.” Then, swinging his stick, he walked up the rocks of the dell with easy dignity, as if ascending a marble stairway to some London palace. Reaching the top, without turning he raised his cane, waggling it in a kind of dismissal or farewell, then strode off towards the hall with the dog trotting adoringly after him.

  I watched him until he disappeared between the forest trees—watched after him almost as if I knew that, through no fault of his own, I would not converse with him again for a long time.

  Back at the hall, I went looking for the item Lane had called a “dress improver,” finding it where I had left it, most inappropriately, in the front parlour. I wondered why Mum had put the featherweight cushion upon her dresser, yet had not worn it inside her bustle. Pondering, I took it and walked upstairs to replace it in her bedroom in case she wanted it when she—

  Returned?

  But there was no reason to think she would ever return.

  She had, after all, chosen to leave. Of her own free will.

  Sinking into the hard wooden arms of a hallway chair, I slumped like a comma over the prickly pouf of horsehair I held. I stayed that way for a long time.

  Finally I lifted my head, vengeful thoughts hardening my jaw. If Mum had left me behind, I was very well going to help myself to the contents of her rooms.

  This was a decision prompted partly by spleen, partly by necessity. Having ruined my frock, I needed to change it. The few others I owned, formerly white, now yellow-green with dirt and grass stains, only looked worse. I would choose something out of Mum’s wardrobe.

  Rising, I strode across the upstairs hallway to my mother’s door and turned the knob.

  To no good effect. The door was locked.

  It had been a most annoying day. Stalking to the stairs, leaning over the banister, I allowed my voice to rise to a naughty pitch. “Lane!”

  “Shhh!” Amazingly—for he could have been anywhere from the chimney to the cellar—the butler appeared below me within a moment. One white-gloved finger to his lips, he informed me, “Miss Enola, Mr. Mycroft is napping.”

  Rolling my eyes, I beckoned Lane to come upstairs. When he had done so, I told him more quietly, “I need the key to Mother’s rooms.”

  “Mr. Mycroft has given orders that those rooms are to be kept locked.”

  Astonishment trumped my annoyance. “What ever for?”

  “It’s not my place to ask, Miss Enola.”

  “Very well. I don’t need the key if you’ll just unlock the door for me.”

  “I should have to ask Mr. Mycroft’s permission, Miss Enola, and if I awaken him, he will be put out. Mr. Mycroft has given orders—”

  Mr. Mycroft this, Mr. Mycroft that, Mr. Mycroft could go soak his head in a rain-barrel. Tight-lipped, I thrust the dress improver at Lane. “I need to put this back where it belongs.”

  The butler actually blushed, which gratified me, as I had not seen him do so ever before.

  “Moreover,” I continued quite softly between my clenched teeth, “I need to search my mother’s wardrobe for something to wear. If I go down to dinner in this frock, Mr. Mycroft will be more than put out. He will froth at the mouth. Unlock the door.”

  Without another word, Lane did so. But he himself kept the key and stood outside the door, waiting for me.

  Therefore, filled with the spirit of perversity, I took my time. But as I scanned my mother’s dresses, I thought also about this new development. Locked door to Mum’s rooms, entry with Mycroft’s permission only—this would never do.

  I wondered whether Mum might possibly have left her own key behind.

  The thought frightened me, for if—dressing to go out for the day—if she had intended to return, she would have taken the key with her.

  Therefore, if she had left it behind—the meaning was all too plain.

  It took me a moment and several deep breaths to make myself reach for her walking suit, which still hung over the standing mirror.

  I found the key at once, in a jacket pocket.

  It felt heavy in my hand. I stood looking at it as if I had never seen it before. Oval handle on one end of the shank, toothed rectangle on the other. Strange, cold iron thing.

  She really wasn’t planning to come back, then.

  Yet this hateful skeleton of metal had suddenly become my most precious possession. Clutching it, I draped a dress from my mother’s wardrobe over my hand to conceal it, and went out again.

  “Very well, Lane,” I told him blandly, and he once more locked the door.

  At dinner, Mycroft had the courtesy to say not a word about my borrowed dress, a loose, flowing Aesthetic gown, which bared my neck but hung upon the rest of me like a sheet upon a broomstick. Although I was as tall as Mum, I lacked her womanly figure, and in any event, I had chosen the dress for its colour—peach touched with cream, which I loved—not for any pretense of fit. It dragged on the floor, but very well, thus it concealed my little-girl boots. I had tied a sash around my straight-as-a-poker middle to resemble a waist; I wore a necklace; I had even tried to arrange my hair, although its indefinite brownish hue made it hardly a crowning beauty. Altogether, I am sure I looked like a child playing dress-up, and I knew it.

  Mycroft, although he said nothing, clearly was not pleased. As soon as the fish was served, he told me, “I have sent to London for a seamstress to provide you with proper clothing.”

  I nodded. Some new clothes would be nice, and if I didn’t like them, I could revert to my comfortable knickerbockers the moment his back was turned. But I said, “There is a seamstress right here in Kineford.”

  “Yes, I am aware of that. But the London seamstress will know exactly what you need for boarding school.”

  Whatever was he talking about? Quite patiently I said, “I am not going to boarding school.”

  Just as patiently he responded, “Of course you are, Enola. I have sent inquiries to several excellent establishments for young ladies.”

  Mother had told me about such establishments. Her Rational Dress journals were filled with warnings about their cultivation of the “hourglass” figure. At one such “school,” the headmistress tightened a corset upon each girl who entered, and on the girl’s waist the corset stayed, day and night, waking or sleeping, except for one hour a week when it was removed for “ablutions,” that is, so that the girl could bathe. Then it was replaced, tighter, depriving the wearer of the ability to breathe normally, so that the slightest shock would cause her to fall down in a faint. This was considered “charming.” It was also considered moral, the corset being “an ever-present monitor bidding its wearer to exercise self-restraint”—in other words, making it impossible for the hapless victim to bend or relax her posture. The modern corsets, unlike my mother’s old wha
lebone ones, were so long that they needed to be made of steel so as not to break, their rigidity displacing the internal organs and deforming the ribcage. One schoolgirl’s corseted ribs had actually punctured her lungs, causing her untimely demise. Her waist as she lay in her coffin had measured fifteen inches.

  All of this passed through my mind in an instant as my fork dropped to my plate with a clatter. I sat stunned, chilled by the horror of my situation, yet unable to state any of my objections to my brother. To speak of such intimate matters of the female form to a male was unthinkable. I was able only to gasp, “But, Mother—”

  “There is no assurance that your mother will come back anytime soon. I cannot stay here indefinitely.” Thank goodness, I thought. “And you can’t just vegetate here by yourself, now, can you, Enola?”

  “Are Lane and Mrs. Lane not to stay on?”

  He frowned, putting down the knife with which he had been buttering his bread. “Of course, but servants cannot possibly provide you with proper instruction and supervision.”

  “I was about to say, Mother would not like—”

  “Your mother has failed in her responsibility to you.” His tone had grown considerably sharper than the butter knife. “What is to become of you if you do not acquire some accomplishments, some social graces, some finish? You will never be able to move in polite society, and your prospects of matrimony—”

  “Are dim to nil in any event,” I said, “as I look just like Sherlock.”

  I think my candor staggered him. “My dear girl.” His tone softened. “That will change, or it will be changed.” By my sitting for endless hours with a book on top of my head while playing the piano, I supposed. Days spent in torment, plus corsets, dress improvers, and false hair, although he would not say so. “You come from a family of quality, and with some polishing, I am sure you will not disgrace us.”