Chapter 22
Lupin barged into the Shackleton Coffee House so quickly he almost spilled Sherlock’s beloved cup of hot cocoa upon arriving at our table.
“My father is all right!” he yelled. He hurriedly pulled a chair up to the table Sherlock and I were sitting at. “My father is all right!”
We all hugged one another, and then sat down, listening carefully to the details of Lupin’s story. With the capture of Barzini, the murder charges against Théophraste were soon dropped.
“The ‘attempted theft’ charge remains,” admitted Lupin. “But for that, he would spend just a few days in jail and —”
Lupin seemed to want to say more, but when he realized that other customers were listening to him as well, he went silent, visibly embarrassed.
“How about we go for a walk?” Sherlock suggested, throwing a few coins on the table.
As we walked through the shady avenues of Hyde Park, we cleared up the final obscure details of that story.
“If Barzini did not know about the relationship between Santi and Ophelia, as she told me,” I reasoned, “he would not have to fear her. And he wouldn’t have suspected that she might have the scores of Semiramide.”
Sherlock, of course, had thought of that detail, and shared his reasoning with us.
“When he orchestrated the plot at Hotel Albion,” he explained, “Barzini searched Santi’s room, but he did not find the new work. Instead what he found were notes and letters to Santi in Miss Merridew’s handwriting.”
“Of course!” I nodded. “Letters between the two lovers.”
“Exactly,” Sherlock agreed. “And so he discovered that he had a new enemy . . . one who he needed to get rid of quickly.”
He paused, thinking. “Poor Ophelia must have been terribly confused in those hours,” Sherlock continued. “She had warned Santi about Barzini, as Irene said, which indicates she was suspicious of him. On the other hand, Scotland Yard already had its guilty man, a French acrobat who had nothing to do with Barzini. And that’s what pulled the wool over Merridew’s eyes.”
We went farther into the park, leaving behind us, little by little, the noise of the city. We came to a meadow by the shelter of an old oak tree and sat there on the ground, continuing to mull over what had happened.
“Yes, I’m convinced,” I finally said. “Ophelia’s instinct must have led her to believe it was a good idea to hide Semiramide, so that Barzini would not take possession of the last opera composed by her beloved Alfred. Unfortunately, she did not realize how dangerous this man was . . .”
“And when Ophelia felt in danger,” Sherlock added, “her aunt’s empty house must’ve seemed like the perfect hiding place for her and for Santi’s work. After all, who would guess that Ophelia Merridew would be holed up in a hovel in Bethnal Green?”
“Yes. But unfortunately for her, she already had a thorn in her side — the devil!” said Lupin. “But,” he continued, scratching his head, “there’s another thing I just don’t understand . . . why did my father think that Barzini was a Spaniard?”
Sherlock gave us one of his enigmatic smiles. I could not imagine how my friend might have an answer to that question also. But just a moment later, the answer came from a pocket in his jacket, like a rabbit out of a hat. It was a copy of the British Musical Gazette, a magazine that had published a biography of Barzini.
“Giuseppe Barzini lived with his parents in Seville from when he was nine to sixteen years old,” Sherlock said, “and he was therefore able to speak excellent Spanish. I think he used this skill to confuse your father, Lupin. And I would say that he did it perfectly.”
The most important question, however, was the one I had asked Merridew just a few hours earlier.
“What do you think happened to the score of the latest work by Alfred Santi?” I asked them, fiddling with some blades of grass.
“What did Merridew say?” Lupin asked.
“I’ve already told you — she handed it over to a person she trusts blindly, and she will never reveal its location.” I looked at my friends hopelessly. “Not even to right the wrongs done or to make sure Santi would at least have the fame to which he’s entitled.”
“But why?” Lupin asked.
“Ophelia considers it a cursed manuscript and says that no one, after what has happened, would ever have the courage to take it to the stage,” I replied.
“The usual superstitions die hard,” Sherlock muttered, annoyed, “especially in the world of entertainment.”
“Then we give up?” Lupin asked.
Sherlock opened his arms in response, shrugging.
They both looked at me. “What do you say?”
“I say that we may have more to think about right now. Your father is finally safe, and mine comes to town in just a few hours,” I said. I had almost forgotten that London would become, at least for a while, my new city.
We said goodbye, planning to meet at the usual place the following day. Sherlock walked with me for a stretch, but then visited a library where he wanted to consult some book. I was beginning to get my bearings on those streets, and I had almost arrived at my hotel when I came across Lupin.
It was not an accidental encounter. Lupin was waiting for me, and he was visibly uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable, too, but more because of the great anxiety that I could read on his face.
We walked toward each other and then stopped. He looked up at the sky and then at his shoes. He put his hands on his head and then hugged his shoulders. He did practically everything he could so he wouldn’t have to look at me while he spoke.
“I understand if you do not want to have anything to do with me, the son of a thief,” he finally said.
I looked at him with my mouth wide open, shocked, searching for the words to tell him how terribly wrong he was.
I decided to settle on the first words that came to my lips — the most sincere words. “Tell me now, Arsène Lupin, are you, perhaps, senile?” I asked, putting my fists on my hips. “You could very well be the son of the fierce Saladin, and I would not give a hoot, nor would I let it change our friendship.”
Lupin gave me one of his charming smiles and said simply, “Thank you, Irene. Tomorrow I go on the road. I hope we meet again soon.”
As I finished my walk back to the hotel, I began to think that if only I had been a bit more careful during my first adventure in London, I could have understood many more things about my family, my friends, and myself.
* * *
My parents joined Mr. Nelson and me at the Claridge’s that night. The next day, at first light, we visited what would become our new apartment. It was completely empty, but it had a spectacular view over the rooftops of the city and of the distant clock, Big Ben. When I saw it I shouted, “Yes! I love it!”
Mr. Nelson had done an excellent job. The room that would become my room was just above the courtyard, which made me hopeful that my secret exits might be a bit easier than usual to carry out.
It is not about this new home I want to write, however. What I choose to write about to conclude this story still makes my heart beat fast, even years and years later.
It was the day the postman delivered a mysterious package addressed to me at that new apartment in London. In one corner of the package was the sender’s name: “The Prince of Riddles.”
When I opened it, I thought it might be one of Sherlock Holmes’s usual tricks, but instead, I found that the package held a manuscript entitled Semiramide, by Alfred Santi, and a handwritten note by my fellow investigator, who, apparently, had not abandoned the search for the last missing piece of the mystery.
If you want to know where and how I found it, meet tomorrow at noon at the Shackleton Coffee House.
This just made me more curious, and the wait even more difficult. In fact, I spent a sleepless night wondering how he had managed to find the manuscript and to whom Ophelia Merridew had entrusted it. At last, as we sat at a table in the Shackleton Coffee House the next day, Sherlock Holmes finally revealed the secret.
“You remember the famous Aunt Betty?” he said, smiling. He reached out and almost brushed my fingers, he was so excited. “The one we thought was at the hospital? Well, she was not. While she had always been a bit strange and eccentric, a few years ago, after an earthquake, she developed claustrophobia — a fear of staying indoors. So she began to live on the streets as a beggar. But even though she preferred to stay outside, she was never far away from her home. You could say that she simply moved back and forth on the sidewalk in front of her house.”
My eyes widened. “You mean . . . the beggar in Bethnal Green? She had Santi’s work?”
Sherlock laced his fingers behind his head, satisfied. “The beggar on the street corner,” he said.
I smiled, breathing in the rich vapor released by my steaming cup of cocoa. I began to think of Lupin, back on the road with his father and the Aronofsky Circus. Were the three of us going to see each other again? Or would this be the end of our crazy adventures together?
All these questions would be answered soon enough, as the thread of my destiny unfolded bit by bit.