An hour later, our train steamed south towards London. Outside, a white haze of rain softened our view of the green fields, hedges and trees speeding by. We were alone in our first-class compartment. Holmes tried several times to read a newspaper, but finally flung it down in frustration and stared out of the window at the passing scenery.
‘That arm,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t like the dismembered doll. I do not like it at all, Watson.’
‘Any further thoughts on the perpetrator?’
‘That is what troubles me. It could be either of her obvious suitors, one arrogant and entitled, the other strange and secretive. Or it could be our mendacious deacon, who has his own agenda. I suppose it could also be someone unknown to us at present. Dillie is both an attractive and a highly inflammatory young person. She is the flame to which many moths are drawn, to be sure.’
‘Perhaps we should not have left her on her own,’ I said. ‘With all those “moths”.’
‘And what do you suggest? That we camp out in her hideaway? It is clear she will be neither advised nor controlled.’
I could not argue with him. We sat in silence as the green countryside passed by.
‘That makes two rather formidable ladies, Holmes, in the course of only two days. Madame Borelli seems to be similarly, shall we say, independent.’
‘Yes. Both of these women strike me as—’
‘Well, they did both strike you, Holmes. And you were not even being half as rude as I’ve had occasion to see you be.’
He laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose they did, didn’t they?’
‘Perhaps we would be as quick to anger were we in the same position as either of them.’
Holmes grimaced. ‘Empathy comes naturally to you, Doctor. No wonder the ladies love you so.’
‘Well, they are only human, Holmes,’ I said. ‘To whom are you more sympathetic, Miss Wyndham or Madame Borelli?’
‘Neither. I look only to see if I can be of use. Women think differently than we do. It seems that everything is far more personal, more charged.’
‘Except, Holmes, as you have often said, it is a capital error to generalize.’
‘True enough. In Odelia Wyndham’s case, her disdain and casual cruelty puts her in jeopardy, I fear.’
Holmes sighed, then tilted his straw fedora over his brow and leaned back in his seat to nap. I attempted to admire the scenery, but the green fields held no particular attraction. High in the sky and off in the distance were the gathering thunderclouds I had noted in Cambridge.
As our train steamed on, I supposed that being slapped twice in twenty-four hours might set a man off in a negative direction. I have never been struck by a woman in my life. I could not imagine that would ever happen to me, save perhaps by some gross misunderstanding.
No, not even then, I mused. Shortly after, I put my newspaper down and must have dozed.
Strangely, the sweet face of my long-dead mother appeared in a dream. She was frowning and waved an index finger at me. In the moment, I was much shorter than she, a small boy. She was admonishing me, but I could not hear the words, try as I might to understand her. This image faded, blurred and reappeared. Now my mother was slightly older, but her face looked wavy, eerily tinged with blue green as if underwater, and her eyes were bulging.
I awoke with a start as our train was pulling into King’s Cross. My mother’s image stayed with me, and I was left with a feeling of dread. When I was eleven my mother had drowned, and the circumstances of her death were cloudy. I never could believe suicide. The tragedy had scarred our family, and my elder brother Harry had never recovered.
The brakes of the train squealed loudly as we slowed into the station, and I turned sharply away from these thoughts. I had rarely been troubled by nightmares.
In minutes we were back at Baker Street. Holmes sent a cable to the Wyndhams, explaining that Odelia was safe, and they could communicate to her via our address. I retired to my room and checked that my silver box was safe in my desk drawer.
As I closed and locked the drawer, I suddenly saw my mother’s drowned face again. I shuddered and blinked it away, feeling the full effect of two tumultuous days and the blinding heat. I was exhausted. Tomorrow, I would take my box to someone Holmes recommended.
The next morning, I awoke to find Holmes had already breakfasted and was out on an unknown errand. It had rained overnight but the oppressive heat had turned the summer showers into a steamy downpour. I sat over coffee, contemplating the small silver box which I had freed from my desk drawer. I toyed with the slender metal bands that braided decoratively around it, culminating in that mysterious lock. Would moving them trigger the lock in some way?
I heard Holmes arrive downstairs and tucked the bonny thing into my dressing-gown pocket.
He joined me at the breakfast table. His eyes raked over me in that disconcerting fashion. ‘There is Chubb’s over near St Paul’s. They were tasked with locking up the Koh-i-Noor Diamond during the exhibition. You could try there,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Most famous locksmith in London. If he cannot help you, then Boobbyer, 14 Stanhope Street, the Strand, might.’
‘Boobbyer? Odd name!’
He smiled. ‘Probably an attempt at anglicization of a French word. Bobbière, or something.’
‘Holmes, how on earth do you know of—’
‘Simple research, Watson!’
‘No! You are not a mind reader! How did you know that I was thinking of the box?’
‘Bulge in your dressing-gown pocket. Cigar-cutter on the table. You don’t smoke cigars in the morning.’
‘But I might.’
‘But you do not. You have been attempting to open that box. Fruitlessly, I might add.’
He picked up a large envelope which had arrived for him, opened it and gave a shout of delight. ‘Ah! Files on the Cavendish Laboratory. I have an inside track there, Watson. I have learned a bit more of Cosimo Fortuny’s work. Fascinating!’ He eagerly removed a stack of files, tossing the envelope onto the floor.
Mrs Hudson brought more coffee. She skulked out with a glance at the littered floor, clearly irritated at Holmes’s continual additions to the disarray.
‘Holmes, I’m going to try that second locksmith you named – Boobbyer?’
‘Do go, dear fellow, I must read these files. You’ll be back in an hour, I warrant. Then we are off to visit Santo Colangelo. I have gone to the address Madame Borelli gave for her former flame while you lingered abed this morning. It seems he has moved on to cheaper lodgings. I sent him a note, and he has agreed to see us. Go, Watson, have your consultation with Boobbyer!’
My visit to the second locksmith was a disappointment. Mr Boobbyer, a kindly old man with an eyepatch and a pendulous lower lip, attempted for fifteen minutes to assail my mysterious box. He then handed it back, unopened.
‘Trick lock,’ he said. ‘Specialty item. No one can open this. You’ll need the key, and instructions.’
‘What do you mean a trick lock?’ I demanded.
‘I mean it’s tricked. Picking won’t work. It will either take more than one key or something like a key partially inserted, turned, then inserted further and turned another way two times, followed by pressure on this little lever – some odd combination like that. Unless you know how to open this lock, you won’t be able to.’
‘I thought all locks were assailable in some fashion,’ I said.
‘No, they are not. Would you like me to try drilling it open?’
I hesitated. Not knowing the contents, or their placement in the box, I was leery to progress to this. ‘Let me consider it,’ I said, and pocketed the box.
I arrived back at Baker Street in a surly mood, aggravated by Holmes’s irritation at having been made to wait. We then set out at once for Colangelo’s new address.
The rain had done nothing to dispel the tropical heat which suffocated London. As we rattled towards the Strand past limp plane trees and drooping pedestrians, Holmes exuded a jittery energy I had seen often enough when he had not enough to occupy that great, churning mind.
Borelli’s fate was of marginal interest to him, of that I was sure. Holmes was convinced the fellow could look after himself and was perhaps even guilty of rigging his own accident. Nevertheless, he had promised Ilaria Borelli to investigate her former lover, magician Santo Colangelo, to determine conclusively his involvement with last night’s near fiasco.
Santo Colangelo’s lodgings were in The Blackbird Arms, on a dingy side street off the Strand. As we stood outside the door to his rooms, the strong smell of onion soup filled the shabby, dimly lit hallway. Holmes admonished me to say little. I wondered what story he had concocted for the man to receive us.
Santo Colangelo opened the door and I was struck by his strong resemblance to the Great Borelli. Tall, dark-complexioned, and with some heaviness about the middle, he sported the same pointed beard and moustache, making him appear like an older, less athletic brother of the more famous man. There was something softer about him, rounder, less aggressive, but still quite handsome. Like Borelli, he had a thatch of thick, shiny black hair, worn long, but groomed back from his face.
Madame must have a particular kind of man who attracted her, I thought. I wondered if her new love, the professor, also fit the mould.
Colangelo was dressed in threadbare street clothes, over which he had thrown a once expensive but equally worn Chinese silk dressing gown. In the room behind him, I could make out a massive clutter of books, papers and magic paraphernalia. A crystal ball glinted in the sun from an open window, and decks of cards spilled onto the floor. Various other items which I did not recognize, decorated imaginatively with glittering stars and symbols, were strewn about the room. No fewer than four cats were draped on the backs of chairs, the sofa and a table. They appeared to be asleep and I hoped they remained so. I disliked cats for their sudden surprises.
The man fingered a coin in his left hand which he made dance between his fingers, right to left, then left to right. I noticed his right hand stayed in the pocket of his dressing gown.
‘Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson,’ said Colangelo, greeting us with a certain chilly reserve. ‘Ilaria sent word you were coming. I would otherwise have turned down your request, Mr Holmes. If you forgive me, I no longer shake hands. Enter.’
Something strange glinted in his mouth as he spoke.
We stepped into a large room which served as both a sitting-room and bedroom in this hotel. A small double bed was tucked into a corner and two large armoires were cracked slightly open, revealing a jumble of items and what I presumed was the man’s entire wardrobe, including some rather garish velvet jackets. Several tables were about, including one containing foodstuff and a heating device not unlike Holmes’s Bunsen burner, and another that served as a dressing table. A sink sat in one corner; piled in it were several cheap dishes encrusted with food. A makeshift living arrangement, I thought, poor yet infinitely better than those of the many vagrants who littered the parks and alleyways of London.
We were invited to sit on a lumpy velvet sofa which faced the windows, and Colangelo took a seat on a high-backed wooden chair, sharply silhouetted. It put us, or at least me, at a distinct disadvantage, for the man’s features were hard to make out.
Holmes hesitated to join me and moved instead to the windows, where he pulled back the curtain and glanced out at the street.
Colangelo regarded him strangely.
‘Do sit, Mr Holmes,’ he said.
Holmes scanned the room once more, then joined me on the sofa and proceeded to waste no time.
‘Mr Colangelo, you know that I am here on behalf of Madame Ilaria Borelli. She is concerned about the incident in which you lost a finger from a small device provided to you by the Borellis. She believes that you blame her husband for this accident. Do you, in fact, believe he tampered with the device in order to cause you injury?’
The magician shrugged. The coin continued to dance across the fingers of his left hand.
‘She fears retribution,’ continued Holmes. ‘We all are wondering if perhaps you were behind the accident which befell Mr Borelli the night before last. You know of it?’
‘Of course. The police questioned me.’ His English had only the slightest trace of an Italian accent.
‘And—?’
The man snorted. ‘If I were guilty, I would hardly say so.’
‘Where were you throughout that day?’
‘Here. Practising.’
‘Alone?’
The man nodded. But his sideways glance gave evidence, even to me, that he was lying.
‘Then you have no alibi?’ persisted Holmes.
‘The police did not ask for one.’
‘But I do.’
‘I … Yes, all right then. I do have an alibi. She will prove I was here. A young lady. She was with me all day.’
‘Will she vouch for you?’ said the detective.
‘Her reputation—’
‘Will she vouch privately for you, to me?’
A pause. ‘Yes.’
‘Her name?’
‘Eloise Marchand.’ Colangelo continued to weave the coin through the fingers of his left hand. I noticed he did so without looking.
‘Summon her,’ said Holmes.
‘I cannot, she works in the daytime at a milliner’s.’
‘And the day before yesterday—?’
‘Her day off. Easy to confirm. I tell you, she was with me all day. And late, past ten.’ He smiled. The mysterious glint was revealed as a small diamond embedded in one of his canines. A theatrical touch!
‘And the name of the shop where she works?’
‘Capital Toppers. In Soho.’
‘I will check,’ said Holmes. ‘But back to the sad accident causing damage to your finger. Do you blame Borelli for the incident?’
Colangelo’s smile dropped. ‘No! That idiot. Borelli could not have done so. He is an ignoramus.’ He pronounced it ‘ig-nor-a-moose’. ‘I thought Ilaria sent you to find who actually did tamper with the device.’
‘So then Madame Borelli has no reason to worry that you intend her husband harm?’
‘Ilaria? She wishes to cause me trouble, perhaps? She is angry with me because I left her.’
‘She states otherwise, Mr Colangelo. She says that she left you for Borelli. She told me this accident ruined your act, and for that you blame Borelli.’
‘Why would that fool do me harm? If she left me for Borelli, truly, then he has “won the prize”, as you say. Ilaria is his.’
‘Then Madame Borelli did leave you?’
Colangelo was silent for a moment. Then, finally, ‘Well, yes. We had a … a falling out.’
Just then the coin slipped from his left hand where it had continued its dance. It hit the floor and rolled over to me, stopping when it struck my foot. I leaned down to retrieve it and handed it to Colangelo.
‘Mr Colangelo, we could save valuable time if you would only begin with the truth instead of arriving at it by circuitous means. Is Madame Borelli accurate in saying that locks are not your forté?’
The man shrugged. He placed the coin on the table, stood up, and approached me, standing close. Uncomfortably close. I remained seated but felt uneasy.
‘How adept are you at dealing with mechanical contraptions, Mr Colangelo?’ persisted Holmes.
‘I am not so good with the locks. I am what’s called the “sleight of hand”.’ He gently waved his empty left hand in the air. With a sudden lunge, and before I could react, Colangelo struck me a sharp blow on the side of the head.