Upon leaving the locksmith, I managed to sidetrack Holmes to a favourite Italian restaurant in Dorset Street not far from 221B. The heat had inspired the proprietors to set several tables out on the pavement, and there we enjoyed a leisurely al fresco meal, along with a bottle of good Chianti. We returned to Baker Street around eight in the evening. I was pleased to have enabled some small transformation in my friend, but I knew that unless a new case arrived on our doorstep to occupy his feverish mind, danger would persist.
I had not long to worry, for upon our arrival we discovered a visitor, seated in a hall chair near our front door awaiting our return. It was Polly, the maid who served Odelia and Atalanta Wyndham. The poor girl was trembling, and her reddened eyes and pale face spoke volumes.
‘Mr Holmes, Dr Watson, I was hoping you’d return sooner,’ said Mrs Hudson. ‘Miss Polly here has been waiting for you for over an hour. She has some urgent business, it seems.’
We brought the girl upstairs and sat her in a comfortable chair. I noticed with relief that Mrs Hudson had once again restored order to our sitting-room.
The girl perched on the edge of the chair, stifling sobs.
‘Polly,’ said Holmes kindly, ‘please gather yourself together. You are among friends. What has happened to bring you here?’
‘My … my first time in London, sir,’ she said.
‘Well, that is enough to unsettle anyone,’ I said with a smile. ‘Are you all right? May I offer you a refreshment?’
‘Mrs Hudson gave me tea and a sandwich, thank you.’
‘Nothing untoward has happened to you?’ asked Holmes, sitting himself across from her.
‘No. No! I, er … it’s her. She … she’s fixin’ to leave.’
‘Miss Dillie, you mean?’ asked Holmes gently.
‘Yes.’
‘Leave her parents? I thought she just announced her engagement to Mr Eden-Summers?’
‘She don’t mean to go through with that, I don’t think. She ran away from home again. Went to the secret place. The place you know …’
‘This place is still a secret from her parents?’
‘I think so. But Atalanta …’
‘Polly, what has you so upset? Perhaps she just changed her mind, needs time to think.’
‘No. She … asked me to bring more things from home.’
‘I see. What things?’
‘Miss Atalanta saw me leave with a carpet-bag and I had to lie, I said my mother was sick. I can’t go back. But … Dillie, she don’t …’ A tear ran down her face and she wiped it away.
‘She doesn’t what, Polly?’
‘She don’t want me with her. She sent me away.’
‘What things did she ask you to bring her?’
‘Everything she cares about. Photographs. A bracelet. Some money she hid.’
Holmes stood up and began to pace. ‘What of her engagement ring?’ he asked.
‘She has them already.’
‘Well, of course she would take her engagement ring,’ I said. ‘Although—’
Holmes paused, alert. ‘Hold on, Watson.’ He turned back to the girl. ‘Them? Plural? More than one ring?’
‘Yes. Rings from both her fellas.’
There was a silence as Holmes took this in.
‘Polly, we read of the engagement to Freddie Eden-Summers. Do you mean she accepted tokens from more than one young gentleman? She was betrothed to more than one man?’
‘Yes. Two of them.’
‘Who was the second?’
‘Leo Vitale.’
‘The physics student? That tall, rather pale fellow in the Cavendish Laboratory?’ I said incredulously.
‘Yes, that’s him,’ said the girl. ‘Her folks don’t know about that one.’
Holmes smiled. ‘Ah. Now that is something! I smell a plan of sorts. A rather daring one. Did you happen to see both rings, Polly?’
‘I did.’
‘Can you describe them?’
‘Holmes, what on earth? The girl is surely more important than the rings?’
‘Polly?’
‘Both of ’em were old. I think the mother’s or the grandmother’s. Freddie’s ring, it was huge. The diamonds, well, they were large and several of ’em. Some emeralds on it, too. He had its cleaned afore he give it her, and it was sparkling something fierce. A beauty.’
‘And the other?’
‘’Tweren’t quite so dear, maybe, but very nice. Smaller, but very pretty, with sapphires and two little diamonds.’
‘Costly rings, then?’
‘Far as I know, sir. Looked like it to me. She were right pleased with them.’
‘The rings, I presume, rather than the young gentlemen?’
Polly ventured a tiny smile. ‘The rings. She don’t talk to me so much about the gentlemen.’
Holmes leaned closer to the lady’s maid.
‘Polly, is it possible that your mistress decided to run away? I mean, permanently? Perhaps to start a new life away from her family. Because the rings might … buy her passage, so to speak.’
Polly’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Do you understand what I am asking?’
The girl nodded.
‘But …?’ Holmes prompted.
‘But she … she would take me with her. She promised to take me.’
‘She is good to you, then, Polly?’
The girl nodded. ‘Yes, sir. She’s a good lady, Miss Odelia. When she gets her way.’
Just then the doorbell sounded, followed by a frantic knocking. There were thunderous footsteps on the stairs and in rushed young Hamilton, a newly minted police detective and Lestrade’s favourite, whom we had met on the Portsmouth strangler case the year before. The tall, gangly fellow stood before us, pale and sweating, with a look of horror on his face. ‘Come quick, Mr Holmes. There’s been a terrible death. A man burnt alive!’
‘Who?’
‘The Great Borelli!’ he cried. ‘At Wilton’s. Oh, my God—’
Holmes looked up in surprise. ‘Borelli? But he is laid up with a broken ankle.’
‘He went onstage anyway. He was roasted alive in a copper cauldron set over flames. The audience could hear the screams. They—’
‘How long ago?’
‘Less than an hour, sir.’
‘And Madame Borelli?’
‘That’s just it, Mr Holmes. She’s gone. Done a runner. Mr Lestrade thinks she’s the killer. Can you come, sir? Time is of the essence!’
Holmes turned to Polly, who was frozen in horror. ‘Polly, you must stay here for the night. Providing I can take care of pressing business here, either Watson or we both will return to Cambridge with you in the morning.’ He ran to the landing. ‘Mrs Hudson!’ he shouted. ‘We will have a guest.’