The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart, page 5
“You made a fool of yourself over her the last time,” Jane reproached.
“I didn’t—”the protest began.
“You should come home,” Winnie said insistently.
“Were we really invited?” Jane demanded to know.
“I told you, I misplaced the invitation. Gerald and Sara are expecting us. You like them.”
“I don’t like the people who hang around them. Bohemian poseurs. I want to go home.” She was suddenly miserable.
“You should come home,” repeated Winnie implacably.
The lights had disappeared. Jane stood abruptly and bolted from the compartment.
Instead of following her at once, Hodson had the gall to ask, “Does Coco want me to come?”
I had had enough. I shut myself off from all voices—one of the first defenses a medium learns. I wanted to disappear from this world as well. “Mr. Hodson”—I swallowed a sob—“go find your wife. Beg her forgiveness. Forget Antibes. Go home.”
“It’s not that I have any great feelings for Coco—”
“Please, just go!” I put my face in my hands, exhausted.
The big man looked uncertainly at Holmes, who nodded and waved him toward the door. He shuffled out.
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to keep the tears from my voice.
“What on earth for?” Sir Sherlock said. “You did exactly as he asked and told him precisely what he needed to hear. I expected some such denouement when I observed his cavalier treatment of his helpmeet.”
It did my sense of self-worth no good to hear that Sir Sherlock had anticipated logically what it took Red Cloud to lay out before me. I could be sure I hadn’t impressed Dr. Watson, who was looking at me askance.
“Who’s Coco?” he asked of no one in particular. Sir Sherlock shrugged.
“Coco Chanel. A Parisian couturiere,” I supplied.
“Never heard of her,” he said gruffly.
“She has a reputation.” I did not add that her reputation was borne as much on her many love affairs as her dress creations. I drew myself up, trying to look dignified.
Dr. Watson opened the curtains, which restored an air of normality to the room, though the candles still guttered, refusing to give up. No words were spoken.
“Good night, gentlemen,” I said dully, leading the way out of the compartment. Where the Hodsons had vanished to, I had no idea. I felt as terrible as if I had done injury to my own marriage. Of course, they should have known that summoning a fairy would lead to mischief. Didn’t every fairy story involve mischief and loss?
That thought did not make me feel any better. I had been the medium of that mischief. I had caused a rift between them that might not be mended this side of—well. The fact that I loathed, yes, loathed Geoffrey Hodson from the first moment I met him made no difference. I had made clients cry before, but those had always been tears of joy. They were able to communicate to their dear departed the love that too often went unspoken while they lived. Red Cloud usually ended a séance with “If I have made some of you happy, then I am happy.” There had been no such benediction tonight.
I sat in my compartment writing to my husband, but I kept tearing up my letter and starting over. A bit later Dr. Watson came to my door, yawning his head off, to invite me to have a cup of tea. It was kind of him. But I could not yet face him or Sir Sherlock, so I begged off, pretending a headache. I kept reliving the whole night over and over in my imagination till I did have a headache. I had taken on this Luxor project too blithely. What if I were simply not up to the task? I had been unable to control the most harmless of elementals. What chance would I have against the age-old power of the elementals that had been released from Tutankhamun’s tomb? Doubt gnawed at me. At last, I decided on a course of action.
Chapter Five: Dr. John Watson
We sat across from each other, painfully aware of the absence of Mrs. Roberts, watching the moon slowly slink away. “I’ll admit, it wasn’t the usual spiritualist song and dance,” I finally said.
“The reality of it rarely is,” said Holmes gently. “If you weren’t so muleheaded—”
“You said yourself you could predict what would happen merely by observation and logic. Perhaps she simply shares your gifts of observation to some degree.”
“Or perhaps I share her psychic gifts,” he posed.
“Rubbish. You’ve never claimed to have an American Indian in your back pocket. Or spoken with the dead, at least not before—”
“No, I speak with a bullheaded general practitioner, and the dead speak to me through clues. You’ve often striven to determine the source of my abilities; perhaps I’ve made a deal with the devil. He, like God, is in the details.”
“Balderdash. I’ve seen your work close at hand. I’ll pay tribute to your talents, but not to supernatural predicates.”
“You still deny the existence of the supernatural after what you witnessed tonight?”
“Smoke and mirrors!” I insisted doggedly. In truth, I was puzzled by the whole event, but I was certain sharp practice was at the heart of it.
“Well, I didn’t bring you along to convert you, though you may yet see things on our journey that you cannot explain away so peremptorily. But I’ll leave that to your conscience, my starchy friend.”
“Then tell me truly, why do we journey to the Valley of the Kings? What do you hope to find there? Fairies?”
“Witnesses. The chief archaeologist, Carter, is still there, with his crew largely intact. I fear it was no accident, Lord Carnarvon’s death. But let us posit that it was not due to the curse. Perhaps it was your simple garden-variety murder, the kind you so relish. His associates will know of anyone who wished him dead. And who had the means to accomplish it.”
“Now you’re talking sense. Although how murder can be attributed to a mosquito bite—” I heard a note of petulance in my own voice that stopped me. I didn’t want to discourage his current line of thinking.
“We’ve seen stranger occurrences. I simply keep an open mind, as ever, until I have enough data to form a complete theory. Dark spirits at times possess the minds of men and employ the hands of men for dark purposes. There are any number of documented cases throughout history. You may call it sickness or corruption if it sets your mind at rest. You have witnessed a not-entirely-benign example tonight. What are elementals but another kind of fairy, full of mischief, which may be beneficent or malignant?”
It must be trickery, or illusion, even delusion, I was determined. The alternative did not bear scrutiny—that the woman’s mind was deep and dire and endless as an ocean, that one could descend, weightless yet weighed down, past light, past sound, past breath, past all understanding until—what did Shakespeare call it? A sea-change. Yes, a sea-change. “Into something rich and strange.” Bah! It was all folderol and fiddledeedee.
The hour was late. We turned in. I thought that I would be asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Instead, I stared at the ceiling, feeling the passing miles radiate through my frame.
I admit that my confidence was shaken. Perhaps Mrs. Roberts did possess Holmes’s gifts, though I had never witnessed anyone with his uncanny talents save his own brother, Mycroft, who had died of apoplexy some years before. (Indeed, he had died in his favorite haunt, the Diogenes Club, famous for its rule of silence, stricter than a Trappist monastery. Which meant unfortunately that it was several hours before anyone suspected he had deceased, even though the room was full of his fellow members.) Had Holmes ever tried to contact his brother after death? Or did Mycroft believe himself still in his old club, forbidden to speak? Such speculation was fruitless.
I turned over fitfully, punching my pillow.
What would it mean to be surrounded by the dead, to hear their riot of voices like the punters cheering on the colts at the three-quarter mark? I could not but think of all those young men, thousands of good lads, who had died in the Great War, blasted to kingdom come. What would they say if I could speak to them again and their tongues were loosened—those I had tried furiously to save, had failed to save, soaked in their blood, hands wrestling with their living viscera, what would they say? Would they profess contentment in laying aside the cares and burdens of living, or would they be bitter at their fate? I know I’d be bitter, and I had lived to a ripe old age. By thunder, I’d be bitter if I died right now, before I have the chance to finish this tale. I’d be elated to be reunited with my precious Mary, of course, but to be faced with my father and brother once more? I’d said all I wanted to say to them in this world or the next.
Then I heard violin music coming from the compartment next to mine. Holmes had brought his Stradivarius! As I listened, I realized a change had come over his music. No longer did he play the wild improvisations of his youth. Instead, he had chosen a melancholy gypsy sort of tune I had heard before but could not place—Sarasate, perhaps? Mrs. Roberts was in the compartment on his other side. I hope she enjoyed being serenaded.
I lay back. It had been too long since I had fallen asleep to the violin. My doubts still nagged at me, even as I was sinking into sleep, but I did not let them nag for long. The solution to the puzzle was near at hand.
I woke at six to the radiant sun of Provence. I pulled down the window shade and managed to sleep again until ten. I’ve grown civilized in my waning years. Thus it was that I was just making my toilet when we rolled into Antibes, a barely populated spit of sand with its toe in the Mediterranean. The attraction escaped me. I had heard that wealthy Americans liked to come and lie in the sun until they were lobster red. The idea made me appreciate my London pallor all the more.
Then my attention was arrested by a sight glimpsed through my window: the Hodsons and their baggage. Not terribly strange in itself, since I recalled they had mentioned Antibes as their destination. They had obviously managed to patch things up. They were gazing at each other like lovestruck newlyweds. Then the riddle unraveled before me. Mrs. Roberts approached them—not like someone who had stirred up a hornet’s nest between them, not with a look of contrition, but like an old friend. She spoke to them for several minutes in a comradely fashion, then actually hugged the wife and kissed the husband on the cheek. I heard the call to board, and she disappeared inside.
I had seen enough. What a cunning little vixen! To have brought these two confederates here all the way from England to stage their little play. Well compensated for it they were, I imagined.
All to convince Sherlock Holmes. No—to convince me. Holmes was already well hooked. But why did she want to accompany Holmes and Watson all the way to Luxor? There would be an honorarium, perhaps but surely no more than a pittance. Merely for the notoriety? Was Holmes still so well-known?
Among the spiritualists, I suppose he was. He and his pharaonic curse. Yes, it was fame she was seeking by strapping her name to Holmes’s.
I tracked Holmes down in the dining car, feasting gluttonously on pain au chocolat. Should I tell him what I had witnessed? But what had I witnessed? Not enough to sway him in his calcified beliefs. Better to hold this card close to my chest, to collect more, until I had a stronger hand. Holmes’s own strategy. And surely she would attempt further demonstrations of this sort—the mark once lured must be constantly reassured. I would watch her every movement and catch her out. In the meantime, I would feign complete faith in her powers. I would seem as convinced as the most innocent of naïfs. And then I could convince Holmes not only of her wiles, but of the insincerity of the entire spiritualist movement. Now there would be a triumph!
She joined us at breakfast with a secretive smile on her face. She made a half-hearted stab at an apology for the doings of the night before, but Holmes dismissed it with a magnanimous wave of his hand. “The humbug got his comeuppance,” he pronounced.
“Humbug?” I repeated in amazement.
“You weren’t taken in by him, were you, Watson?”
“Of course not. But there were the lights.”
“Smoke and mirrors,” he said, with delight in his voice. He did not elaborate further. Could he be aware of Mrs. Roberts’s role in the deception?
“Then fairies do not exist!” I said triumphantly.
“Of course they exist. You heard one speak yesterday eve. And expose Hodson as a base philanderer.” He was, regrettably, serious.
I literally bit my tongue. After that refreshing demonstration of Holmes’s acute powers of deduction, I had thought we’d had a breakthrough. I was sore mistaken.
“One question. Do all fairies speak English?” That should tie her in knots, I thought.
“I couldn’t say. I’ve only met the one. Hers was a very strange tongue. But Red Cloud translated for me.”
“Red Cloud is a . . . translator?” I asked, despairing.
“Oh, yes. He’s translated for me from German, French, even Greek. All languages are one on the other side, of course.” Which made no sense when you thought about it. Which I was the only one doing, curse her.
“Mrs. Roberts is a most talented female,” Holmes reminded me for the umpteenth time.
“Red Cloud has all the talent,” Mrs. Roberts reminded him for probably her umpteenth time.
I nodded agreeably, holding my peace. “How ever did you ever find her?” I finally rasped. It was only meant rhetorically. Holmes took it literally.
“You’re aware that I had been trying to contact my mother for years.”
I knew nothing of the sort, though I was privy to the tragic tale of her life in Colney Hatch and death in the terrible fire. I let him go on.
“I’d tried numerous mediums without success. My mother, they all concluded, did not wish to be found. Then Mrs. Cannock, whom I had worked with during the war, introduced me to her new discovery, prophesying that she was destined to do great things.”
Now I desperately wanted to know the story behind Mrs. Cannock in the war, but I knew well that Holmes’s wartime activities were a closed book—when he so chose.
“But Mrs. Roberts was able to succeed where others had failed?”
“Admirably. My mother and I had a long and very intimate têteà-tête.”
“Did you find your mother bitter toward your father?” I asked. (Of course, what I was really asking behind this convenient fig leaf was whether he was bitter. It had always been too risky a subject to broach.)
“You’re encroaching on very private matters,” warned Mrs. Roberts.
“No, no, it’s all right. I’ve never concealed anything from Watson. He knows that Squire Holmes had my mother committed.”
Mind you, it had taken me ten years to wrangle that titbit of information from him. Holmes had always been an oyster in regard to his private life. I will admit that I had never been exactly forward with details regarding mine, either. One of the reasons we got on so well together, I expect.
“I think, yes, she was very angry at first and for some time. They had been ill-suited from the start, he stolid and she so fiery. But there is balm in Gilead, and she had left those feelings far behind by the time I was able—or Mrs. Roberts was able—to contact her. Now she has only the best interests of her sons at heart. I think being joined in the afterlife by Mycroft must have helped to reconcile her.”
How long had it been now since Mycroft’s death? Twelve years? How long had it been since Holmes’s father had died? I hadn’t the vaguest. Holmes never spoke of him. Never.
“Have you ever contacted your father?” I wondered aloud.
He was reluctant to answer. Finally, he nodded.
“His real father,” she cooed, placing her hand on his.
I must have jerked back as if bitten by a swamp adder. My chair may have been ejected into the aisle, causing a waiter to trip, spilling a pot of coffee all over a silver-haired matron whom the conductor kept referring to as “Duchess” while offering his profoundest apologies. I am not quite sure of all this, I was so dazed. Mrs. Roberts must have intuited that this was a secret I had not been privy to, one she had just betrayed.
Holmes’s eyes were slitted in the way that I knew danger lay therein. Mrs. Roberts stared at the floor as if hoping it might open and swallow her up. I signaled the waiter for more coffee and engaged him in talk about trains, his bad back, his wife’s spending habits, and his role in the war—anything to keep from meeting Holmes’s eyes. Mrs. Roberts slipped away, claiming another headache, the all-purpose excuse of the modern female. Holmes merely slid away. I remained and consumed enough coffee to give me the shakes.
Were Sherlock and Mycroft only half brothers? Was Sherlock the love child of Louise and—who? Did Squire Holmes know? Was that the real reason he had her put away? The reason Holmes was so distant from his father and even his brother? The reason he had inherited nothing but his wits? It would explain a great deal.
In the afternoon, we had another shock. Holmes was late for dinner, but when he came in, he slammed down a newspaper on the table. It was Le Figaro, but the headline blazoned across the front was one even I could translate—Maggie dit qu’elle est enceinte!—and of the picture there was no mistaking. Princess Marguerite, who had been found innocent of murdering her husband even after she admitted putting three bullets in his back, now claimed that she was pregnant by her late husband—presumably while he was still alive, although the article did not make that clear. When he died, several unscrupulous papers had actually laid the blame on Tutankhamun. (They had visited the tomb on their honeymoon. I might have murdered him for that reason alone, had I been her. But he was an Egyptian, after all. I daresay he thought it was all in the family.)
I couldn’t help but speculate at the time whether the jury had been swayed by talk of the curse of the pharaoh. What other mischief might be perpetrated in the name of this codswallop?
“I thought he . . . liked men,” offered Mrs. Roberts demurely. “That was what the defense said. That he treated her . . . as a man.”
“I’ve no doubt it’s simply a ploy to strengthen her claim to the prince’s fortune,” said Holmes.
“I still can’t believe she was exonerated,” I said. “A bloodsucker through and through.”
