The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline Page 5

  CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

  HIRED TRANSPORTATION WAS PLENTIFUL ALONG Park Lane. “Cab!” I hailed with one gloved hand uplifted.

  “Cab!” similarly hailed a gentleman who happened to be walking behind me, and he strode past me to take the next four-wheeler after mine.

  Idly watching as he went by, I stiffened as if I had been struck. Which, in a way, I had. By recognition. I had seen this man twice today already, but he had not been a gentleman then. This tall, broad-shouldered fellow had the accent of a gentleman and the bearing of a gentleman—of course; that was why my eye, if not my conscious mind, had noticed him amongst the East End crowd! He had not looked quite right, because a common workman does not saunter along with one hand tucked into his belt behind his back, head up as if he has never borne a burden. Indeed, this self-assured fellow belonged here in the Hyde Park neighbourhood. He had got rid of the rough leather belt around the outside of his jacket, and he had replaced his ridiculous plaid cap with a bowler hat, so that anyone who did not study his boots would take him for a well-to-do merchant in a sack-suit.

  Entering my own cab swiftly and applying myself to the window, I got my first good look at his face—a remarkable one. This man’s features, while perfectly symmetrical, were pleasantly blunt, not sharp and bony like those of most aristocrats. Artistically speaking, his profile was a model of correct proportion, causing some elusive recognition to niggle at me; where had I seen it before?

  But my main concern at the time was, what to do about him?

  My cab had driven scarcely a block when I reached a decision. Thumping with my fist at the interior of the roof, I signalled my cab to halt.

  Exiting, I told the driver blandly, with no explanation, “Thank you, my good man,” paying him a full fare. Then I walked back the way I had come. The other cab, hired by the man who was following me, had pulled up behind mine, naturally enough. With the corner of one eye I saw Classic Profile, as I was beginning to call him, studiously turned towards the far window as I walked past.

  When I came to a girl selling posies, I paused to buy myself a nosegay of lily-of-the-valley, for two purposes: to show reason for my sudden apparent change of mind, thereby calming any alarm in my adversary, and also in order to turn and have a look at his whereabouts. I saw that, while my cabbie had of course driven on to find another fare, Classic Profile’s cab remained, as I had hoped, where it was.

  Smiling, with my posy to my face as if I were enjoying its fragrance, I walked on a bit farther, then hailed another four-wheeler.

  Paying him in advance “for my own convenience,” as I vaguely explained, I told him to take me to the British Museum, then stepped in. But just as he slapped his horse with the reins, I stepped out again, by the door on the other side, the street side. Keeping my cab, now rolling away from me, between myself and the observer whom I considered would be most interested, I retreated behind somebody’s parked carriage to watch.

  As my now-empty cab proceeded down the street, the one occupied by Classic Profile fell in behind it to follow it out of sight.

  I admit that I then congratulated myself upon my own cleverness.

  For a few moments. Until my own more-severe self squelched me. Enola, that is quite enough. What have you accomplished? Evidently the fellow knows where you live, as he followed you from the East End this morning.

  I had gained a little time, that was all, and in order to use it, I hurried home.

  “Not a word of ’er, Miss Meshle,” Florrie replied to my inquiry concerning Mrs. Tupper. Wringing her hands, the gawky girl cracked her protuberant knuckles most provokingly. To distract her, I handed her my nosegay as I rid myself of hat and gloves.

  Then with no preamble I showed her what I had prepared for that purpose: in the cab on the way home, using the paper and pencil I always carry along with other essential supplies in my bust enhancer, I had made several drawings of the mysterious gentleman who had followed me. I had portrayed him with cap, without cap, full face, profile, et cetera. While only crudely talented as an artist, I do have a knack for “capturing” faces in an exaggerated way, especially when I am feeling a bit wrought.

  Which I was. Feeling wrought. Quite. What ever might be happening to my poor deaf landlady?

  “’At’s ’im!” Florrie shrieked immediately. “The young one wit’ the good teeth! ’E hain’t got no beard but ’at’s ’im just the same, wot took Mrs. Tupper!”

  “Along with the other villain.” I wanted to make sure her story was not changing. “An older man with bad teeth.”

  “Yes’m!”

  “And it was the older, rougher brute of the two who hit you?”

  “No! No, Miss Meshle!” Florrie had the strong hands of a lifelong labourer, yet her finger shook as she pointed at my drawings of the bland-faced youth I called Classic Profile. “It were ’im! ’Im ’oo slapped me an’ Mrs. Tupper!”

  He had struck a poor old woman?

  Good heavens! But to look at him, one would think he was a perfect gentleman. I felt a chill crawl like a serpent down my spine as I realised: What sort of person hid behind his pleasant face?

  Still stabbing her big finger at my sketches, Florrie exclaimed, “’Owever’d ye get a hold of ’is picture, Miss Meshle?”

  I did not reply, for already the girl knew far too much of me; I would certainly not tell her that I had drawn the likenesses myself.

  “Florrie, lock the doors and don’t let anyone in without consulting me first,” I called over my shoulder as I ran upstairs, for I had urgent business there.

  A few moments later, with the stiff and scratchy bulk of Mrs. Tupper’s antique crinoline nearly smothering me, I sat beside the window in my room so that I could examine the irksome thing in the light.

  Hmm.

  All my emotions funneled into a focussed intensity of interest as I studied the blue ribbons embroidered with flowers. First of all, I noticed that said ribbons were not sewn to the crinoline firmly so as to cover its seams, but merely basted lightly in place, as if meant to be removed.

  They had been stuck to the crinoline, I surmised, in order to be transported in secrecy to a destination? But why had they been placed on such an ugly—

  “Of course,” I whispered as the answer dawned on me. “A crinoline does not need to be washed.” Whereas petticoats or any other feminine underpinning might be entrusted to servants and washerwomen, perhaps to be stolen or lost, a crinoline need never leave the possession of its wearer.

  “How very clever,” I murmured, my respect for Florence Nightingale’s intelligence increasing by the moment. To encode the trimmings of women’s unmentionables—this had to be her idea, sprung from a brilliant feminine mind that knew no man would look twice at embroidered ribbon. The two louts who had searched the house had missed it entirely. Even my brother Sherlock, I expected, might have done no better. Heavens, I had nearly overlooked it myself.

  With such admiration I scanned the—the cryptograms, for so one might as well call the simple flowers embroidered upon the ribbons.

  The gentle reader will perhaps recall that these were starflowers and little round roses in quite a variety of colours—pink, red, yellow, peach, lavender, white, violet, many more—occasionally interspersed with green leaves. I tried first to see whether I could discern any pattern in the use of colour, and in order to do so, I got out my scissors and detached the ribbons from the crinoline—they were, as I have said, merely basted on, quite simple to remove. The denuded crinoline I tossed into a corner, where it stood upon its own folds, a gauzy white presence, like a ghost of Mrs. Tupper.

  Quickly dismissing this unfortunate thought—one must not lose hope!—I took the ribbons and placed them in order from top to bottom of the crinoline, that is to say, from shortest to longest, by laying them out upon my bed.

  Arranged that way, they reminded me of lines of print. Indeed, I thought, the varied colours of the embroidery might be of no significance except to serve as a blind, to keep the casual obse
rver from noticing that the flowers themselves were not nearly so varied.

  Five Lazy Daisy petals; the simplest of starflowers.

  And a few whipped stitches; the smallest, simplest of roses.

  And leaves.

  And, occasionally, spaces of blue ribbon untouched.

  It was the spaces that truly decided me. Why on earth would anyone leave spaces if decorating ribbon with embroidery? The odd display before me simply had to be a code.

  But how in the world could letters, words, sentences be encoded with only three symbols: star-flower, rose, and leaf or, occasionally, double leaf?

  Because my leaden head rebelled at the task before me, I forced myself to think on paper, as I often do, transcribing the embroidered message as symbols. Composing this account upon a type-writing machine as I am now doing, I can achieve much the same effect by using an asterisk to designate a star-flower, a period to designate a miniature rose, and a slash to designate a leaf. Couched in this way, the message read:

  How very elucidating.

  (I hope that the kind reader recognises this as a despairing attempt at humour.)

  I stared until my eyelids drooped—it must be remembered that I had by this time gone twenty-several hours with very little sleep or food—but my mind, normally nimble, remained inert.

  Well, I thought finally, the placement of the double leaf at the end suggested that it might signal the completion of—what? A word? A sentence?

  And the single leaf?

  Perhaps another sort of divider—but that left only star and dot (as I had hazily begun to label the daisy and rose), and how could any message be conveyed in a mere two symbols?

  Surely I must be missing something. The colours in the embroidery? The French knots? What if there were some variation in the French knots at the centres of the starflowers? Paper in hand, I got up and lurched to my bed where the ribbons still lay, bending over to peer at the tiny stitches by quite inadequate candlelight, for by now night had fallen.

  Without conscious volition I did likewise, falling onto the bed, and asleep, all in a moment, still fully dressed and with . . * / . et cetera still in hand.

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

  I SUPPOSE FLORRIE MUST HAVE COME IN BEFORE she went home, and, seeing the state of affairs and not wanting to disturb me, she had blown out the candles for the sake of safety. This to explain why, sometime during the night, I awoke to total darkness.

  It was my complaining personage that awoke me, my middle regions knotted in such spasms of hunger as to veto sleep. Groaning, trying to remember who I was and what I was about, I sat up on my bed.

  Then stiffened.

  Something other than myself was groaning.

  The house. Stealthy and frightening noises issued from it. There. CREAK.

  Someone was creeping up the stairs.

  Danger! cried my every nerve, for never had those steps complained so beneath Mrs. Tupper’s slight weight. I heard another creak as another person stepped on the same cantankerous board. There were two intruders; I could hear their footsteps as they felt their way upstairs in the dark.

  It is amazing how quickly one’s wits, however weary, can react when sufficiently stimulated by terror. Instantly, and as silently as possible, I raked together with my fingers all the ribbons and papers that had lain along with my personage atop the counterpane of my bed. With this precious evidence in hand, I let myself softly down to the floor on the far side of the bed from the door of my chamber.

  Just as I heard the turning of the knob, I crouched flat. Just as my door opened.

  From my hiding place I could discern the spectral glimmer of a rushlight. I concentrated on remaining still, trying not even to breathe, as the intruders looked in.

  “Bed’s still made up,” one of them said out loud, his deep voice giving evidence of Cockney origins. “Lodger flew the coop, by the looks of things.”

  “Afraid of kidnappers, and very sensibly so,” said the other dryly. His accent, aristocratic in contrast to the first speaker’s, and his tenor voice seemed to match those of the man I had heard hailing a cab along Park Lane. “Well, as she’s not here, let’s have a couple of candles, shall we?”

  They helped themselves to two of mine, lighting them with my matches, then exited the room, closing the door behind them.

  I breathed out. Then, quickly but as noiselessly as possible, I got up from the floor, slipping off my shoes and laying them on the bed. Stocking-footed, I tiptoed to the door and listened.

  They were in Mrs. Tupper’s chamber.

  “. . . blue silk, with the big skirt such as my grand-mother used to wear,” the aristocratic one was saying in languid, faintly humourous tones, as if he were amused to find himself rummaging a poor old woman’s wardrobe. “This ought to be it.”

  “Oughter, all right. Lemme slit the bottom open.”

  For a considerable period of time (as befit the considerable circumference of the skirt’s hem) I heard the sounds of fabric being ripped by a knife. Slowly and softly at first but with increasing volume and variety, the man began to curse.

  “Nuttin’!” he roared in summation.

  “Nothing,” the other agreed, sounding more amused than otherwise. “The Grand Pooh-Bah will not be pleased. Did the carrier pigeon say it was in the hem?”

  “The old lady? She’s no right pigeon, don’t know nuttin’, deaf as a potato, no sense to be got out of ’er. Bird gave ’er a dress is all we found out.”

  “Well, might there be a paper or something hidden in these ruffles?”

  More tearing sounds—that poor, ravaged dress! Mrs. Tupper had certainly been alive when she spoke of it to “the Grand Pooh-Bah,” whoever he might be, and that thought lightened my heart—but what might be happening to her?

  “Nuttin’,” complained the thug again with an oath. “His Lordship is gonna say we cheesed it!”

  At the time I thought that “His Lordship” was just another way they referred to the mysterious Mr. X, their leader, who seemed little loved by them.

  The aristocratic voice had become bored. “Well, let’s take the dress back with us, shall we, and he can have a look for himself.”

  “Right buffoons we’ll look, toting a blithering dress around!” the other grumbled.

  “Well, you didn’t mind toting a blithering dress when the old lady was still inside it.”

  “’At’s different.”

  “In broad daylight.”

  “Well, ’oo was to see us?”

  “And who’s to see us now except drunks and hussies?” the other retorted as their footsteps strode towards me, passing my door and heading downstairs.

  I, for one, I thought, easing the door open a crack to catch a glimpse of them against the streetlit stair-well window. They passed it like shadow-puppets in a play, in profile, although one made small impression on me, for I recognised the other all too well—Classic Profile—and perversely, in that tense moment, my mind chose to remember where I had seen that silhouette before. I very nearly exclaimed aloud; good sense intervened just in time to keep me silent.

  I did not, however, possess sufficient good sense to keep me where I was, in safety—not when there was a chance that, by following these men, I might find Mrs. Tupper.

  The moment I heard them leave the house, I sprang into motion, pattering stocking-footed down the stairs and dashing to the door, opening it a crack to peep out. As the younger of the two intruders had implied, there was no traffic in the street at this time of night, but right in front of Mrs. Tupper’s humble abode waited a carriage, and even in the uncertain light of street-lamps and head-lamps, I could tell that it was a very nice little brougham, drawn by a slender hackney horse, and the wheels had yellow spokes. I saw no crest, but that did not mean there was none, for the door stood in shadow. For the same reason I could make little of the two men climbing in.

  But my mission was not merely to spy. The moment they had closed themselves into the brougham, I shot out of Mrs. Tupper’s h
ouse, trusting and indeed praying that they did not look behind them.

  In fictional accounts of derring-do, you see, the hero quite frequently hangs on to the back of a carriage and, enduring agonising cold, pain, or other rigours of personage, yet unperceived by the villains within, is eventually carried to the place where his lady-love is imprisoned.

  Determined that Mrs. Tupper deserved no less of me, lifting my skirt—long skirts are a confounded nuisance when one needs to take action—I ran my fastest. The brougham rolled away, for the driver had started the horse, but that amiable creature had not yet broken into a trot when I flung myself at the back of the carriage—the rattling of its metal-sheathed wheels over ruts and stones serving, I hoped, to mask my impact—and swarmed up as if it were quite a wide tree I had to climb.

  There like one of Darwin’s primates I clung. But there was nothing by which to hold on! My feet and fingers searched in vain for any projection or indentation, any ledge or luggage-rack which I might grip. Had I thought about it beforehand, I would have known I’d find none, for had the manufacturers of cabs and carriages put such accommodations on the backs of them, every street urchin and loiterer in London would have been availing himself of free transportation—but such thoughts came to me too late. Splayed like an overlarge dark spider on far too smooth a wall, I felt myself being dislodged a little more with the brougham’s every jounce.

  Indeed, within less than a block I fell off, landing without dignity upon my posterior. My chagrin, as I sat in the filth of the street and watched the brougham roll away from me, can scarcely be described.

  Ignoring several laughing “drunks and hussies,” in an exceedingly foul mood I got up and stalked home.

  I spent what remained of the night forcing my outraged personage to accept some bread and cheese, having a wash, changing my dress for a similarly austere and scholarly costume of brown, then finally, at daylight, sitting down to struggle once again with the puzzle presented to me by the cryptic crinoline. But to no avail; dots and daisies made no sense to me.