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

  I felt disinclined to get up and go to work. And one would think I could have lain abed, for the terms of Miss Meshle’s employment with Dr. Ragostin were exceedingly lenient – yet I could not sleep through the morning in my own lodging without exciting the curiosity of my landlady.

  “Miss Meshle!” Mrs. Tupper rapped on the door.

  “Ye gods!” I muttered naughtily to myself before I called aloud, “I’m awake!”

  “Eh? Are you up?”

  “Yes! Thank you! Mrs. Tupper!”

  Of course it would be blood pudding that morning for breakfast. I loathe blood pudding. On that and other accounts, Miss Meshle reported to work in an ungracious frame of mind.

  Yesterday (perhaps fortunately) there had been no time for me to think about my brother Sherlock, but now I realised the danger he presented, as he knew so much more than he should.

  As evidenced in IVY MEET ME STEPS BRITISH MUSEUM, he knew my assumed name.

  He knew, Doctor Watson had said, that I had money.

  He knew of my enciphered communications with Mum, and had decrypted them.

  And worst of all, at any moment he might learn much more from his best friend, the aforementioned Dr. Watson. Suppose my brother relented of his rudeness to Watson and confided in him? And suppose that Watson then confessed to Holmes concerning his visit to Dr. Ragostin? In the space of one simple conversation, Sherlock Holmes could have his attention quite thoroughly focused upon Ivy Meshle.

  “Curses!” I muttered as I entered my office. “Curses, bosh, and humbug. Suppose crows turn white.” Sitting down by the hearth, I pushed fear out of my mind if not quite out of my shivering body. Sipping tea, I read the morning newspapers, replete with all the usual shocks and horrors. An anti-vaccination mob in the East End had threatened the district nurse. Several female charity workers had been arrested in Holywell Street for giving out “pornographic” materials about “preventive checks” to childbirth. A gas explosion had violated a home in Knightsbridge, killing three servants and causing great distress to the family. It was rumoured that dock-workers were holding clandestine meetings of a subversive nature. Agriculture continued to languish due to cheap imported corn from America. Et cetera.

  But there was still no word from Mum.

  Confound everything.

  It was cold, I told myself, that made me shiver. In the time it had taken me to go through the newspapers, the fire had dwindled considerably. I bundled all of them onto the grate, and in that temporary blaze of warmth – and triumph, mind over matter – I marched to my desk. Brother Sherlock could go – go to – go to the Phrenologist, and there was nothing I could do about Mum, but if I wished to call myself a perditorian, I had better get to work.

  Seizing upon my sheaf of foolscap, rapidly I pencilled several small likenesses of Lady Cecily’s lovely head. On one of them I sketched an elaborately trimmed wide-brimmed hat; upon another a flat “Gypsy” bonnet, on another a straw boater, on another a tiny hat supporting a spray of feathers as was the latest fashion, and on another a plain shawl. The fire died down again, and the room grew colder and colder; I shivered, my fingers stiffening so that they held the pencil with difficulty, but I kept drawing. I depicted Lady Cecily with her hair in a bun and no hat at all, then with a rag of cloth wrapped around her head, and then in a maid’s cap, with a comb that stood up at the back of her head like a wren’s tail, with a snood, and finally in a veil. Finished to my satisfaction, I reached for the bell-pull and rang.

  “Joddy,” I requested when that eager boy appeared, “would you replenish the fire, please?”

  He sprang to do so. Taking a seat in the armchair, stretching my hands towards the welcome flames, I left my sketches on the desk where he would see them as he returned from refilling the coal scuttle.

  Surreptitiously I watched him from the corner of my eye. He glanced at the drawings, and then he jerked to a halt, staring, and after that it did not matter that I turned my head to watch him with interest, for his whole attention had fixed on the sketches.

  I got up to stand beside him. “Do you still recognise her?” I asked.

  Quite forgetting his manners, he nodded.

  I let his lapse pass to ask, “When did you see her?”

  “I don’t rightly know, Miss Meshle.”

  “Last year?”

  “No! This past week or two.”

  “On a street corner. With a basket.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what was she wearing?”

  He pointed at the picture of a girl with a rag wound around her head.

  “Ah,” I murmured, so surprised that I forgot any further questions. Indeed, I felt rather weak.

  What one wears on one’s head, you see, indicates one’s station in society as surely as if one wore a placard around one’s neck.

  And in this case, Lady Cecily’s placard would have said “desperately poor.”

  So much for my theory that, like me, she was attempting to minister to London’s destitute.

  Instead, it would seem that she had joined the ranks of those who live in poverty.

  Several hours later, in a paisley dolman over an expensive but restrained visiting-dress of Prussian blue merino, “Mrs. Ragostin” once more approached the stately residence of Sir Eustace Alistair, Baronet.

  But rather than going immediately to the door, I stood on the pavement, studying the baronet’s abode. While mansions in the country tend to spread horizontally, those in crowded London are necessarily built on a vertical plan, with the kitchen in the basement, the dining-room above (served by a dumb-waiter), the drawing-room above that (away from the noise and dirt of the street), bedchambers on the next floor, and then the children’s nursery and schoolroom on the next, and so on up to the servants’ quarters and the attic.

  Lady Cecily’s bedchamber, I knew from my previous visit, was located on the children’s level, just below the servants’ quarters.

  Studying the distance from that floor to the ground, I shook my head. Then, remembering my ladylike charade in time to restrain my usual longlegged stride, I minced around the side of the house to see whether the situation somehow looked better from the back.

  It did not, of course, and while I peered at Lady Cecily’s windows, several astonished servants paused in their outdoor tasks to peer at me.

  “You!” Imperiously I beckoned to a scullion-boy struggling with slop buckets. “Come here.”

  He obeyed me instantly, of course, even though he had not a notion who I was, for I had assumed the manner as well as the clothing of the ruling class.

  When he stood before me I asked more quietly, “The ladder by which Lady Cecily took her leave – where is it kept?” For the ladder must necessarily be on the premises. No one could carry such a thing through London at night without being noticed.

  Rendered speechless by such a frank question on such a forbidden subject, the lad merely gestured towards the carriage house, which was quite large enough to have provided lodging for several families less blessed with riches than the baronet’s.

  In the carriage yard stood a handsome barouche which three grooms were polishing. Or had been, until my advent had shocked them motionless.

  I sailed towards them. “Let me see this ladder,” I commanded.

  One of them, presumably he with the most presence of mind, led me into the carriage house and pointed upward to where the ladder resided upon the rafters.

  A very solid wooden ladder.

  In four sections.

  Any one of which would have been quite heavy for me to lift, and next to impossible for me to get down from its storage place without help.

  And all four of which needed to be fastened together and raised all at once to reach Lady Cecily’s window.

  “Thank you,” I said, and walked away as I had walked in, without explanation. With my thoughts in the sort of yarn-basket snarl I was coming to find customary.

  After pausing, breathing in a well-disciplined manner, and invoking th
e memory of my mother’s face in order to steady myself, I approached the front door and knocked. Be timid, I reminded myself as the scowling butler faced me. Dr. Ragostin’s child bride, homely, bashful, and terribly naïve.

  It was quite easy at that point for me to feel myself naïve.

  This time Lady Theodora awaited me at the top of the grand staircase, receiving me formally in the drawing-room, making it all the more difficult for me to communicate to her the most peculiar and irregular thoughts upon my mind. As did her dress of three fabrics: black taffeta bodice and train over a violet velvet skirt draped to show a finely pleated underskirt of grey silk. This costume, and her heavy necklace of glinting black gems, offset the pallor of her lovely face. Elaborate as her gown was, yet because of its colours I felt as if already she were in mourning, as if her daughter Lady Cecily had passed away some time ago.

  With her head erect and a cold look on her white face Lady Theodora stood to greet me, but I noticed that in the few days since I had seen her last, she had grown perceptibly thinner.

  Crossing the room to her, instead of any of the usual polite preliminaries I blurted, “You must not give up hope, my lady!”

  For a moment she stiffened, but then her dignity crumbled like ice on a stream when the spring floods break it away. “Oh, Mrs. Ragostin!” Sagging, she reached for my hands, and we sat facing one another on a settee, nearly knee to knee. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Ragostin, I know I must continue to hope for the best, but how can I, when there has been no news at all of my daughter?” She leaned towards me even more anxiously, trembling. “Has Dr. Ragostin found any trace, any sign, any clue of my poor, lost Cecily?”

  I answered cautiously. “There are some indications, perhaps.”

  “Oh!” One hand flew to her jewelled throat as she gasped for breath; for the sake of her dress she wore a “compressed waist” today. That is to say, she was tightly laced, and her wretched corset made this conversation most difficult, lest she fall down in a faint.

  “Dr. Ragostin considered that once again I should be the one to interview you,” I murmured, “rather than himself, for the matter is delicate.”

  “Yes, of course. I am all in a flutter – that is, I had begun to fear – ”

  “I assure you, Dr. Ragostin has looked into the case most assiduously.”

  “Of course.”

  “He has requested me to ask you something.”

  “Anything!” Once more she clasped both my hands.

  I took a deep breath – which I was able to do, for I wore a corset only to hold my hip regulators and bust enhancer in place.

  I asked, “Was Lady Cecily left-handed?”

  A simple enough question, one would think. But not when addressed to a member of the aristocracy.

  “Certainly not!” Lady Theodora snatched herself away from my touch. “What a – I never – a baronet’s daughter, left-handed?”

  Having surmised it might be like this, I had prepared myself. Reacting not at all to Lady Theodora’s bristling shock, her outrage, I murmured in soothing tones, “Of course not now, my lady.” A lie, for I believed the girl indulged her left hand in the privacy of her rooms. “But when Lady Cecily was quite small – one can hardly expect an infant to be aware of the proprieties, can one? At that time did she exhibit any tendency towards left-handedness?”

  Lady Theodora’s glare slid away from my meek but direct gaze. Looking at the velvety, flowered carpet, she muttered, “Perhaps her nurse might have mentioned something of the sort.”

  “Did her governess ever comment on it?”

  “Why, I – it is difficult to recall – if Lady Cecily was ever at all left-handed, why, the inclination was trained out of her, of course.”

  This was an admission of such magnitude that it sent shivers up my spine, and not for any reason Lady Theodora could have understood. Indeed, I doubt I myself would have taken such a viewpoint if it were not for the extraordinary freedom of my own upbringing. But having been raised by a mother who believed in letting growing things alone, I was imagining how it must have been for Lady Cecily: Her baby fingers had been smacked when she tried to use the “wrong” hand, toys taken away from her left hand and placed in her right, and oh, the scoldings. Her left hand might have been tied behind her when it was time for her to learn to print her letters. All through her schooling, her knuckles must have often been rapped. Or her left palm might have been beaten with a strap.

  And along with these restrictive torments, she had undergone all the usual rigours of learning to be an ornament to upper-class society. She had walked with a book on her head for perfect posture. She had learned to embroider – with her right hand – and be “well versed in all handicrafts” – with her right hand – and draw blurry little candy-coloured pastels.

  But could it be that her left hand wrote large, dark thoughts in her journals? And her left hand created strong, stark charcoal drawings?

  My mother had mentioned to me – it seemed so long ago, those wild and free childhood days at Ferndell Hall, but really it was less than a year ago – we had both read a new “shilling shocker,” The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which reminded Mum of a study of the human mind recently begun in Germany, where “alienists” attempted to better understand insane people by means of concepts such as “idée fixe,” “dual personality” and the like. She had demonstrated “dual personality” by folding a photographic portrait in half lengthwise, directly in the centre of the subject’s face, then holding each half against a mirror so that it formed a new face subtly yet startlingly unlike the original.

  Could it be that Lady Cecily was a dual personality? Could it be that the Lady Cecily who used her left hand was an entirely different person than she who used her right?

  CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

  I PASSED THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY IN A dismal frame of mind.

  How could I have been so stupid? Somehow I had started off by thinking that Lady Cecily could and would do the same things I might do. Such as: take pity upon London’s poor.

  Not a valid assumption.

  Or run away.

  Not a valid assumption, either.

  Or lift a large, heavy ladder.

  Nonsense.

  The ladder – my word, I was a fool! The ladder was the first thing I should have inspected, and also I should have thought far sooner of the garments I had seen in Lady Cecily’s wardrobe, petite dresses that had been worn by a girl much daintier than I. How ridiculous ever to have believed Lady Cecily could have put that ladder to the window herself. I doubted that I could have done it, no matter how badly I wanted to.

  Also, I had no basis for thinking Lady Cecily wanted to.

  I had no reason to assume any of her ideas or inclinations were the least bit like mine.

  I had been blind.

  And I called myself a perditorian? I needed to do far better. I needed to take my wayward mind in hand, so to speak. Apply stern logic. Reason this matter through.

  Accordingly, as soon as I had reached the privacy of my lodgings that evening, I sat myself down with a portable desk in my lap and a candle pulled close on either side to do just that. On paper.

  Very well. Regarding Lady Cecily’s disappearance, what were the possibilities? I could think of only three:She eloped

  She ran away

  She was kidnapped

  In favour of elopement I wrote down:Appearance of same: the ladder at the window

  Secret correspondence with Alexander Finch

  Secret meetings, same

  Against:No mention in journals of consuming passion, for Alexander Finch or otherwise

  Use of grey sealing-wax only

  Bed slept in – why?

  No clothing missing from her wardrobe

  Lady not found with suspect

  Alexander Finch most unlikely object of lady’s affection

  I hesitated over that last as being subjective rather than strictly logical, but eventually let it stand so that I could move on.

/>   She ran away: In favour of:

  She felt strongly about social and reform issues, reference her journals

  She maintained a double personality, charcoal versus pastel

  She broke her pastels. Inference: she no longer wished to be that person

  Against:

  Who helped her? She could not have put the ladder to the window herself

  Why use a ladder? She could have walked out the door

  Why was her bed slept in?

  What did she wear?

  Hmm.

  Still not feeling much wiser, I attempted the same reasoning process with the third possibility:She was kidnapped. In favour of:

  Ladder to window. Needed because no access otherwise

  Bed slept in. Her slumber was interrupted

  No dresses missing. She was taken in her nightclothes

  Imagining Lady Cecily being snatched from her bed by some villain at midnight, I actually shuddered. How perfectly dreadful. And, the more I thought about it, possible; indeed, more in keeping with the facts than either of the other hypotheses. But again, there were objections:Against:

  Why did she not scream? Or why did no one hear her?

  How could she have been taken down the ladder?

  Why was she chosen as a victim, and by whom?

  Why has there been no ransom demand?

  Regarding the first objection, it could be explained away by saying that the kidnapper, or kidnappers, had rendered the lady unconscious before she could scream, perhaps by the use of chloroform. And regarding the ransom and the choice of victim, it was possible – just possible – that Lady Cecily had been taken for another, nefarious purpose on which I preferred not to dwell; indeed, I only dimly understood this practice called “white slavery.” The idea seemed terribly far-fetched.

  And best dismissed, for how, how could the unconscious lady have been carried down such a tall ladder? I had heard that firemen could sling persons over one shoulder and manage a short descent that way, but for even the strongest man to attempt this from the fourth floor – how very risky. Foolhardy. Indeed, stupid. Why had he not simply taken her down the stairs instead?