Amanda Lester and the Black Shadow Terror Page 21

  Nick glanced at the bra. “Yes, I see what you mean. Those fittings are made from what we call plastic and the fastener is something called velcro.”

  “I was referring to the style,” said Holmes. “Very risqué to a Victorian eye.”

  Nick looked at the bra. It was definitely sexy but nothing out of the ordinary, except for the fact that it had a leopard pattern on it. “To us it’s normal.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime,” said Holmes. “Now, let’s see what we have.”

  He took the bra to a microscope on a table by the window and threw open the curtains, lighting his workspace. He turned the garment around and around so that he could see the bloody spots and peered into the eyepiece. He seemed to take forever.

  “Animal blood,” he said at last.

  “So it isn’t from Mrs. Parrot,” said Nick.

  “Apparently not,” said Holmes. “But I would still like to see that murder scene.”

  Nick and Holmes arrived at the Parrot house. Holmes spoke to a policeman who was keeping the crime scene secure and the man waved them through.

  The scene of the murder was a small room off the entry foyer reserved for coats and such. There was still blood all over the floor. Holmes bent down and scraped a bit of it into a vial with a pocket knife. Then he exited the room and walked all around the ground floor and the servants’ area downstairs. After about fifteen minutes they found themselves at the front door again. It seemed like an awfully cursory examination to Nick.

  “Let’s go,” said Holmes.

  As they piled into a cab Nick said, “That was quick. What did it tell you?”

  “I’ll have to examine the blood,” Holmes said. “But assuming there are no surprises it’s obvious what happened.”

  Nick was sure it was—to him—and said nothing.

  “Did you notice that window in the coat room?” said Holmes presently.

  “No,” said Nick. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “Neither did I until I looked,” said Holmes. “But I felt it. There was a draft coming from behind the coats. There’s a window there.

  “And?”

  “That’s how he got in and out,” said Holmes.

  “Moriarty?”

  “Oh yes,” said Holmes. “Without a doubt.”

  “How do you know it was him?’’ said Nick.

  “The knife is not the murder weapon,” Holmes said. “Therefore how did Mrs. Parrot die?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nick. “I thought she was stabbed. That’s what the police are saying.”

  “Do you remember the formulas you told me about?” said Holmes, lighting his pipe. “That’s how he did it. He killed her telepathically. I’m guessing he gave her a stroke.”

  “Really?” said Nick. He’d had no idea the formulas could do that.

  “I’d have had my suspicions but I wouldn’t have known for sure had you not told me about the formulas. He killed Parrot and mesmerized Miss Lester. She did do the stabbing, but Parrot was already dead at the time. Moriarty must have added the animal blood while she was in a trance.”

  Nick was confused. “Why not just let her kill Parrot then?”

  Holmes blew a smoke ring into Nick’s face. “Because she might not have succeeded. This way he could ensure her death and frame your young lady at the same time.”

  Nick inhaled the smoke. He wasn’t about to offend the detective by waving it away. “But why would Moriarty want to do that? He didn’t know who Amanda was.”

  “That is the question,” Holmes said, puffing. “I suspect it has something to do with these shadows.”

  Nick suppressed a cough. “I don’t understand.”

  “You and your young lady are interfering with Moriarty’s agents, the black shadows. He wants you out of the way. He also wants Mrs. Parrot’s guests’ jewels. If he can frighten them, make them more susceptible to the shadows after they leave the party with their valuables, so much the better. And if it costs him one necklace in order to frame your girl, so be it.”

  “How is he producing the shadows?” said Nick.

  “That I don’t know yet,” said Holmes. “But I’d like to conduct an experiment. Come back tonight after dark and we’ll see. But first, a necessary diversion.”

  “I’d like some corroborating evidence,” said Holmes. “We’ll need to interview the eyewitnesses.”

  “I wasn’t aware there were any,” said Nick.

  “Two women have claimed to be, yes,” said Holmes. “One is a guest and the other a maid. We must call on them at once. I’d like to speak to the guest first. She lives in Mayfair, so not far. Let’s walk. I feel in need of a stretch.”

  Holmes was silent on the walk and Nick knew better than to disturb him. Instead he thought about what Holmes had told him about the blood on the knife and the post-mortem stab wounds. In his own time that might be pretty fair exculpatory evidence but in 1890? He had no idea. Forensics were barely used, at least not the way we think of them. Witness testimony was given much more weight than in modern times. Anything could happen. It would be important to size these women up, assess their credibility. Anyone who claimed to have seen Amanda stab someone had to be suspect. Perhaps one of them was even the murderer. He’d watch and listen carefully.

  When they arrived at Mrs. Mabel Chuckle’s house the butler showed them into the morning room and a maid set a tray of tea things down. “The lady will be with you directly,” he said. “Please enjoy some refreshment. It won’t be a moment.”

  Holmes eyed the tea things as if they contained poison, then reached out. “I suppose she’ll be less inclined to talk to us if we don’t drink her awful tea.”

  Nick laughed. He wasn’t surprised that Holmes was particular about his tea, and he also wasn’t surprised that he considered such social amenities as drinking other people’s concoctions ridiculous. Watson had certainly got his personality correct.

  Nick poured him a cuppa and took one for himself. It wasn’t bad. What Holmes considered good tea he couldn’t imagine. But there was a lot about the man he couldn’t imagine.

  Holmes sipped the tea and made a face. As he was doing so an extremely tall, thin woman entered the room and grimaced at them. “Mr. Holmes I presume?”

  Holmes and Nick rose. Holmes held out his hand. “Madam.”

  Her gaze fell on Nick. “You’re that girl’s young man,” she said with obvious distaste. “What are you doing here?”

  “He’s with me,” said Holmes. “Purely educational. You see he’s a bit slow and needs supervision.” He leaned over and whispered. “Probably hopeless.”

  The woman laughed. “He looks it, doesn’t he?”

  Nick screamed with laughter inside. If she only knew.

  The three of them sat down and Mrs. Chuckle said, “What can I do for you?”

  “If you would, madam,” said Holmes. “An account of the murder you claim to have seen last night.”

  “Oh I saw it all right,” she said. “That brazen young girl, the one in the lavender dress. She did it.”

  “You’re speaking of Miss Lester?” said Holmes.

  “I most certainly am. I saw her plunge that knife into my dear friend Eustachia’s lifeless body.”

  “Excuse me, what did you say?” said Holmes.

  “I said I saw that terrible hussy stab Eustachia.”

  Holmes set his tea down on the table. “You said her body was lifeless.”

  “Well she was dead, wasn’t she?” said the woman.

  “Let’s back up,” said Holmes. “Please tell me what you saw. From the beginning.”

  Mrs. Chuckle adjusted her skirt. “I had come to the cloakroom to get my shawl. I was a bit cold, you see, having just recovered from a case of influenza. I know it wasn’t a chilly night but I felt a shiver, so I went to get my wrap. When I got there I saw my dear friend Eustachia lying on the floor and that girl stabbing her.”

  Holmes narrowed his eyes. “So she was already dead when you got there.”


  “Didn’t I just say that?” said Mrs. Chuckle. “Dead as a doornail. It was horrendous.”

  “Mrs. Parrot was already dead when you arrived at the cloakroom?” said Holmes.

  “Well I don’t see how she could have been alive with all that stabbing going on,” said Mrs. Chuckle.

  “She didn’t move?” said Holmes.

  Mrs. Chuckle gave him a sarcastic look. “Would you?”

  “When was the last time you saw your friend alive?” said Holmes.

  “About fifteen minutes before that,” said the witness. “In the ballroom. She was dancing with that dim young man there.” She chin motioned at Nick.

  “But not after that,” said Holmes.

  “No.”

  Holmes rose. “Thank you, Mrs. Chuckle. You’ve been most helpful.”

  The woman stayed seated and gave Nick a funny look. “My butler will see you out. She deserves to hang, you know. Eustachia was my dearest friend.”

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” said Holmes. “Thank you for speaking with us.”

  “She didn’t see the murder at all,” said Nick when they’d left Mrs. Chuckle’s house.

  “Of course not,” said Holmes. “But let’s see what the maid has to say.”

  They arrived back at the Parrot household and asked to see Cherry Menzies, the maid who claimed to have witnessed the murder. The girl, no older than fifteen, was distraught and had been given a sedative. When Holmes and Nick saw her in the morning room she seemed dopey but awake.

  “Now, Cherry, we understand this whole business has been a terrible shock,” said Holmes. “However, we need your help. Can you manage that?”

  Cherry, a little slip of a blonde thing, said, “I’ll try.”

  “Please tell us exactly what you saw last night in the cloakroom.”

  “Well,” she said slowly. “I’d gone there to retrieve Colonel Murgatroyd’s overcoat. He’s a good friend of the Parrots, you know. Comes here often he does.”

  Holmes smiled at her. He did it so seldom it surprised Nick.

  “Well, as I was sayin’, I went to the cloakroom to get the colonel’s overcoat. He’d asked me to get it. I don’t know why since he didn’t seem to be leaving. I think he wanted to show it to someone. Anyway, when I got there I saw that frizzy girl in the lavender dress stabbing Mrs. Parrot.”

  She burst into tears and sobbed for a full minute. Nick felt sorry for her. Holmes said nothing, just let her cry.

  “There was blood everywhere,” she continued at last. “But she kept stabbing and stabbing. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She started to cry again. When she had stopped Holmes said, “Was Mrs. Parrot dead when you went to the cloakroom?”

  The girl nodded vigorously.

  “Did you see her alive in the cloakroom?” said Holmes.

  “Heavens no,” said Cherry. “She was lying on the floor all limp and lifeless like. White as a sheet she was.”

  “So you didn’t see her come in,” said Holmes.

  “No.”

  “Did you see the girl go in?” said Holmes.

  “No. She was already there stabbing Mrs. Parrot when I arrived,” said Cherry.

  “Was there an argument?” said Holmes.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

  “But you did see the murder?” he said.

  She looked up at him with her tiny tearstained face. “I just told you that. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Holmes moved closer and took both her hands in his. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for speaking with us. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  “She didn’t see the murder either,” said Nick when they’d left.

  “Not even close,” said Holmes. “Just as I suspected. But that Mrs. Chuckle has powerful friends. It won’t be easy to discredit her.”

  “What about the maid?”

  “No one listens to the help,” said Holmes. “We don’t have to worry about her.”

  “Poor girl,” said Nick. “She was really shook up.”

  But Holmes was off somewhere else. “I think it’s time we paid a visit to Inspector Lestrade.”

  That evening after dark Nick went to Baker Street again. Holmes met him at the bottom of the stairs. This time Dr. Watson was with him.

  “Both of you are coming?” said Nick.

  “He insisted,” said Holmes. “I told him he cannot reveal your secret, however. That would be much too dangerous.”

  “You mean about the time—” Nick said.

  “Bup bup,” said Holmes. “You mustn’t speak of it.”

  “Right,” said Nick. “Sorry.”

  “How’s the shoulder?” said Watson.

  “Oh, uh, fine thanks,” said Nick. With all the problems he and Amanda were facing that was the least of their worries and he’d forgotten about it. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” said Holmes.

  They walked through central London. This time there was no fog and Nick noticed a lot more about the city than he had before. He’d known it was much smellier than in the twenty-first century, but he hadn’t realized how many different types of animals contributed to the miasma. Not surprisingly, horse droppings were abundant, but there was also cattle and sheep dung left by the animals being herded to market. Garbage was left to rot in the streets, and a sulfurous smell emanated from every gutter.

  The city felt much more labyrinthine than the London he and Amanda knew too. Buildings seemed to spring out of each other, invading every inch of space in no particular configuration. City planning was unknown. Structures of all types occupied corners, niches, nooks, and the tops and undersides of other structures. Every doorway, mew, and wall seemed to lead to and conceal secrets.

  And the noise! Traffic, street vendors, music, people screaming to and at each other, all assaulted his newly healed ears. He saw so many street organs it seemed that every inhabitant of the city operated one. Bagpipers, harpists, clarinet players, violinists all congregated in the streets. Vocalists of all descriptions sang in every language, and whistlers shattered the night. Horses neighing, carts rumbling over cobblestones, the sound of steam trains all merged together into one big wall of sound. He wondered how people ever slept and concluded that early deafness, perhaps like his own, must have helped.

  As he was musing over the strangeness of it all a black shadow appeared, spewing rankness. As tall as a water tower, it materialized from nowhere and filled his field of view, looming over him and his companions like their own personal thunder cloud. He sprang into action, kicking and whirling like a karate dervish. Holmes and Watson drew their pistols. The shadow hung in the air like fog, its interior swirling, but unlike before it did not grow. Instead it began to vibrate harder and harder until suddenly it burst into particles and evaporated.

  “Whoa, that’s new,” said Nick. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Just as I thought,” said Holmes, pocketing his pistol.

  “What happened?” said Nick.

  “We weren’t afraid of it,” said Holmes. “It lost its power.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it,” said Watson. “Quite remarkable.”

  “What does it mean?” said Nick.

  “Everything,” said Holmes.

  “I don’t understand,” said Nick when they were back at Baker Street. “Are you telling me that fighting back is all it takes to destroy the shadows?”

  “Partly,” said Holmes.

  “But people have fought back, haven’t they?”

  “You have,” said Holmes. “But think a moment. The Doohickeys are phobic people. I suspect if we questioned the other victims we’d discover that they are as well.”

  “So?”

  “So Moriarty is picking his targets carefully. Phobic people are more susceptible to the fear the shadows evoke. They tend not to fight.”

  “All right, but I still say so what?”

  “Where do you think these shado
ws are coming from?” said Holmes.

  “I don’t know,” said Nick. “Something in Moriarty’s formulas, I guess.”

  Holmes sprung to his feet. “Something in Moriarty’s formulas indeed. Something that causes people’s deepest fears to create bugaboos.”

  Nick stared at him. “Do you mean to tell me that the victims are creating the monsters?”

  Holmes smiled wryly.

  “But then how did that thing come out of Simon’s history machine?” Nick said.

  Holmes shook his head. “I’ve just told you.”

  Nick stood there feeling stupid for a moment. Somehow Moriarty’s formulas were acting on likely victims to get them to create terrible monsters out of their fears, so terrible that they turned into physical manifestations. That meant that the thing that had come out of the machine was Amanda’s fears made material! Amanda had Moriarty’s junk in her head. She had been standing there when the shadow came out of the machine. It was her demon the kids had seen in the common room that day.

  “Amanda!” he said.

  Holmes nodded.

  “But how does Moriarty get into his victims’ heads?” said Nick.

  “The same way he killed Eustachia Parrot,” said Holmes. “Line of sight telepathy. He’s obviously nearby every time one of the shadows appears. He just hides.”

  “Or wipes their memories,” said Watson. “Didn’t you tell me that was what happened to Miss Lester?”

  “Yes,” said Holmes. “Or that.”

  “That crafty bastard,” said Nick. He was madder at the Moriartys than ever, starting with James and continuing down to Bradan, who hadn’t even been corrupted yet. The whole family was rotten to the core.

  “Indeed,” said Holmes.

  “What do we do now?” said Nick.

  “Well,” said Holmes. “I would say that if you want to free Miss Lester, both literally and figuratively, we need to find Professor Moriarty and do a little sleight of hand on him. Come back tomorrow night.”

  18

  He Only Looks Like Blixus