Disclaimer: See Part One.
Author's Note: Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that the more Holmes dwells on the negative traits of Miss Cartwright, the surer my readers are that he's absolutely mad about her? :-) Keep up the reviews!
*****
I arrived at the Cartwright Estate at precisely eight o'clock the following morning, having found, to Mrs. Hudson's dismay, my Stradivarius and a cup of coffee to be more rousing than the breakfast she had prepared. She in turn informed me that, while she was sure that many people would enjoy Paganini's "Queen of Sheba" first thing in the morning, she was not one of them.
Leopold's glance of amusement and mild disapproval was, I concede, warranted, since I was dressed in the more threadbare, charity-bin fashion of the working-class district, where I planned for Miss Cartwright and I to take the day's investigations. The question was, of course, whether or not Miss Cartwright would wish to continue playing at being a detective once she learned she would have to leave the cosiness of the estate.
"Good morning to you, Mr Holmes," Leopold said after a pause, "Miss Emily will receive you in the study."
"Ah," I replied, "She is up and dressed already, then?"
"I have not seen her this morning. The last I saw of her was last night, in the study. She was going over some notes and told me she expected to be there well into the night and not to have Mrs Weaver wait up for her."
"I see. And that is when she made the aforementioned arrangements?"
"Yes, sir. Follow me."
Miss Cartwright's prediction, as it turned out, was not entirely inaccurate, as we both learned when Leopold opened the study door for me. Miss Cartwright was curled into an armchair near a small table bearing a scattering of papers on which she had recorded her notes, and a fountain pen. She was sound asleep, her face propped on one hand in such a way at the corner of her mouth was pushed upward into a half-smile. It appeared that she had intended to retire for the night sometime between the end of her studies and my arrival in the morning, as her hair was loose about her shoulders (I estimated it to be approximately waist-length) and she was clad (as far as I could tell) only in a white cotton night-dress and burgundy velveteen robe, with the front of the latter pulled close with secure modesty at the front near her bosom but falling slightly open at her drawn-up knees. Her feet were bare, but a pair of burgundy slippers lay on the floor in front of the chair.
There was, as one might expect, an awkward pause. I delicately cleared my throat. "Please wake Miss Cartwright," I said to Leopold, "And inform her that I will meet her in the sitting room once she is clad in what she deems to be suitable clothing to investigate the locales listed on page two of her list."
"Yes, sir."
As I walked back to the sitting room, I hoped that the day's tone had not been set by that encounter.
*****
I had been waiting for less than half an hour, nibbling graciously at one of a trayful of tarts that Leopold had brought in, when a slightly-built young man tromped into the sitting room to join me. He wore a well-used frock-coat, a rumpled shirt, threadbare trousers, a cap pulled low over his eyes, and oversized boots. In fact, I thought as I studied him, everything he wore seemed two sizes too large for him, as though he had inherited his wardrobe from an older brother. But what was he doing here, of all places, and why did he have a walking-stick? Then I noted that the stick was adorned with a fox-head, and from there the rest fell into place.
"Good morning, Miss Cartwright," I said, and the youth's hand froze halfway to grabbing a tart.
"Good morning, Mr Holmes," Miss Cartwright (for so it turned out to be, with the luxurious hair I had seen earlier tucked away under her cap) said with a smile as she finally took the tart and sat back in the chair adjacent to mine, "I'm glad to see you're as sharp as ever at this hour."
I smiled. "It is my business never to let my mind grow dull," I replied, "And though I saw no pictures of any older siblings from whom you might have inherited this costume, It was the same lack of siblings that led me to conclude that, though unlikely, it was probably you under there."
"'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,'" she quoted, "Very clever."
"Then there was the walking-stick. It is quite distinctive, wouldn't you agree?"
She laughed. "Of course you save the most obvious clues for last."
"It is my way. Now that we have that out of the way," I said, switching to a more important topic, "we must consider our planned activities for today. I trust you still have the list?"
She pulled the two lists, folded in quarters, from the inside pocket of her frock-coat and handed them to me. I unfolded them, set aside the partial guest list, and smoothed out the service list on my knee. There were four companies listed, along with their street addresses: a decorator, a caterer, a florist, and a delivery service.
"Now," I said, peering at the list, "Were people from each of these present at the debutante when you discovered the theft?"
"Let me think. There were four decorators, two caterers, and three deliverymen, if their uniforms meant anything."
"And from the florist?"
"I think the deliverymen brought the flower arrangements from the florist, and the decorators placed them around the hall."
"Very well," I said, making a small 'x' by the florist, "So that actually leaves three places to check." I glanced over and noted her brow was furrowed in thought. "Something wrong?"
"I'm still trying to figure out how they got the jewelry out. We searched everyone who came up to when I discovered the empty jewelry box, and we didn't find any of it."
"I have a theory about that. Proving it requires that everything in the hall and in your room stay exactly as it is, no matter what."
"After three days? The flowers are starting to get stale."
"Yes. With any luck we shall have identified the culprits by this evening."
"You know something, don't you?"
"At this point, I know nothing for certain. And as *you* well know, Miss Cartwright, I never guess at half-formed theories."
"Fine. But I still think you're being over-dramatic."
"I appreciate your confidence in my omniscience, but the only one who would best be accused of over-dramatisation would be Watson with his creative writing skills."
"All right," she conceded with a smile, "Let's go perform some frightfully dull reconnaissance, then."
"A capital idea. And may I offer my compliments to your choice of wardrobe for today? It seems I may make a proper detective of you yet."
She smiled. "Flatterer."
*****
"I expect," Miss Cartwright said as we dismounted from the cab, "That whomever is behind this has an ingenious way of making off with the loot, as well as storing it later." "A secret stash, yes," I replied as I settled my cap more firmly on my head, "It would, of course, be counterproductive to store ill-gotten treasure in plain sight."
"And I'm willing to bet that the way to this stash would not be via the front door."
I sighed, having already reached a similar conclusion. "On the other hand, we would not be welcome if we broke in."
"Well, then, what do *you* suggest, great detective?"
"I?" I smiled in the mischievous way that Watson knew by now and thoroughly dreaded. "I suggest not getting caught."
She snorted. "Brilliant, Holmes."
She stopped walking as we started to cross in front of our first destination, so abruptly that I kept on alone for a few steps. I turned back to see what was the matter, and I saw her studying the building which housed the catering business in question. It was two storeys tall, of a respectable red brick, and its business was indicated by a filigreed sign over the front door. As it served the more upper-class clientele, the building was well-kept - hardly the sort of place that one would expect to harbour a burglary ring, but one could never tell by outward appearances.
"Well hullo, guvna!"
Speaking of outward appearances...
We both turned at the voice, which turned out to belong to Wiggins, the unofficial leader of my equally unofficial task force of street arabs, even less officially dubbed the Baker Street Irregulars.
"Oi uz wond'rin' when ye'd get 'ere, Mr. 'Olmes," he continued, ambling up to us and apparently trying to discreetly identify the other "street urchin" beside me.
"I'm happy to see you got my note, Wiggins," I said to him, "Are the others in place?"
"Aye, that they are, and peekin' around the places you said, guv." He paused. "Er, who's this un? I know all the arabs around 'ere, but I don't know 'im."
"There's a very good reason for that, Wiggins," I said to him, "May I introduce to you Miss Emily Cartwright, my current client."
There was a startled pause from Wiggins, after which he snatched his cap off in a valiant - though comical - attempt at manners.
"Sorry, Mr. 'Olmes. Really oughta show respect for your new lady friend. Er," he added as I started coughing, "She *is* a lady friend, roight?" "I'm filling in on this case," Miss Cartwright cut in diplomatically, "Since it seems Dr. Watson is unavailable."
"Oh. Right." Wiggins, for whom abashment was merely a fancy term for what someone uses a cosh to give someone else in order to relieve them of their valuables, gave me a look that indicated he thought that this was merely a polite cover story for a more interesting truth.
"In any case," I said sharply once the tickle in my throat had subsided, "I wish for one representative from each group to report to me immediately."
"Righto, Mr. 'Olmes." All business once again, he clapped his cap back on his head, apparently so he could touch the brim of it to Miss Cartwright before he dashed off towards the alley alongside the caterers' to deliver my latest orders to the first group of scouts.
"Charming lad," was Miss Cartwright's verdict once Wiggins was out of sight, "When were you going to tell me you already had surveillance set up? And for that matter, when exactly did you get a chance to make notes of the businesses?"
"To answer your second question first, I didn't take notes of the second page. I merely committed them to memory when I looked at your lists. That, at least, isn't against the rules, I trust. As for your first question, I thought it would be safer and wiser not to run headlong into any place which may or may not be a pit of vipers, which it seemed you were perfectly ready to do. And of course the best surveillance is that which is unseen, or at least unnoticed, by the subjects. We should have a fairly accurate report of the comings and goings of the four locations in short order."
"I thought we'd eliminated the florist."
"Not necessarily. One should never dismiss a suspect without strong evidence in their favour."
"Out of the mouths of babes, I suppose."
"Quite so. Look there - here comes the first of our scouts now."
I chose to wait until the four spokesmen had arrived, each from their respective locations, before I began to question them, to avoid having to repeat questions four times. Of course it seemed that the rumour of my "lady-friend" had spread like wildfire almost as fast as Wiggins could sprint, so we were both forced to endure the innocently speculative glances of the youths. Miss Cartwright appeared to think the whole situation was amusing.
It was during these interviews that Miss Cartwright and I discovered something which at once complicated and simplified matters. It seemed (according to the various reports from the young scouts) that our own targets were not collected in one place, as I had hoped. The large man who had relieved Watson of his watch was employed at the delivery company, while the slender six-year-old girl we sought would be found earning an apprenticeship under one of the decorators.
This had started out as such a simple case...
*****
End Part 10.
Author's Note: Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that the more Holmes dwells on the negative traits of Miss Cartwright, the surer my readers are that he's absolutely mad about her? :-) Keep up the reviews!
*****
I arrived at the Cartwright Estate at precisely eight o'clock the following morning, having found, to Mrs. Hudson's dismay, my Stradivarius and a cup of coffee to be more rousing than the breakfast she had prepared. She in turn informed me that, while she was sure that many people would enjoy Paganini's "Queen of Sheba" first thing in the morning, she was not one of them.
Leopold's glance of amusement and mild disapproval was, I concede, warranted, since I was dressed in the more threadbare, charity-bin fashion of the working-class district, where I planned for Miss Cartwright and I to take the day's investigations. The question was, of course, whether or not Miss Cartwright would wish to continue playing at being a detective once she learned she would have to leave the cosiness of the estate.
"Good morning to you, Mr Holmes," Leopold said after a pause, "Miss Emily will receive you in the study."
"Ah," I replied, "She is up and dressed already, then?"
"I have not seen her this morning. The last I saw of her was last night, in the study. She was going over some notes and told me she expected to be there well into the night and not to have Mrs Weaver wait up for her."
"I see. And that is when she made the aforementioned arrangements?"
"Yes, sir. Follow me."
Miss Cartwright's prediction, as it turned out, was not entirely inaccurate, as we both learned when Leopold opened the study door for me. Miss Cartwright was curled into an armchair near a small table bearing a scattering of papers on which she had recorded her notes, and a fountain pen. She was sound asleep, her face propped on one hand in such a way at the corner of her mouth was pushed upward into a half-smile. It appeared that she had intended to retire for the night sometime between the end of her studies and my arrival in the morning, as her hair was loose about her shoulders (I estimated it to be approximately waist-length) and she was clad (as far as I could tell) only in a white cotton night-dress and burgundy velveteen robe, with the front of the latter pulled close with secure modesty at the front near her bosom but falling slightly open at her drawn-up knees. Her feet were bare, but a pair of burgundy slippers lay on the floor in front of the chair.
There was, as one might expect, an awkward pause. I delicately cleared my throat. "Please wake Miss Cartwright," I said to Leopold, "And inform her that I will meet her in the sitting room once she is clad in what she deems to be suitable clothing to investigate the locales listed on page two of her list."
"Yes, sir."
As I walked back to the sitting room, I hoped that the day's tone had not been set by that encounter.
*****
I had been waiting for less than half an hour, nibbling graciously at one of a trayful of tarts that Leopold had brought in, when a slightly-built young man tromped into the sitting room to join me. He wore a well-used frock-coat, a rumpled shirt, threadbare trousers, a cap pulled low over his eyes, and oversized boots. In fact, I thought as I studied him, everything he wore seemed two sizes too large for him, as though he had inherited his wardrobe from an older brother. But what was he doing here, of all places, and why did he have a walking-stick? Then I noted that the stick was adorned with a fox-head, and from there the rest fell into place.
"Good morning, Miss Cartwright," I said, and the youth's hand froze halfway to grabbing a tart.
"Good morning, Mr Holmes," Miss Cartwright (for so it turned out to be, with the luxurious hair I had seen earlier tucked away under her cap) said with a smile as she finally took the tart and sat back in the chair adjacent to mine, "I'm glad to see you're as sharp as ever at this hour."
I smiled. "It is my business never to let my mind grow dull," I replied, "And though I saw no pictures of any older siblings from whom you might have inherited this costume, It was the same lack of siblings that led me to conclude that, though unlikely, it was probably you under there."
"'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,'" she quoted, "Very clever."
"Then there was the walking-stick. It is quite distinctive, wouldn't you agree?"
She laughed. "Of course you save the most obvious clues for last."
"It is my way. Now that we have that out of the way," I said, switching to a more important topic, "we must consider our planned activities for today. I trust you still have the list?"
She pulled the two lists, folded in quarters, from the inside pocket of her frock-coat and handed them to me. I unfolded them, set aside the partial guest list, and smoothed out the service list on my knee. There were four companies listed, along with their street addresses: a decorator, a caterer, a florist, and a delivery service.
"Now," I said, peering at the list, "Were people from each of these present at the debutante when you discovered the theft?"
"Let me think. There were four decorators, two caterers, and three deliverymen, if their uniforms meant anything."
"And from the florist?"
"I think the deliverymen brought the flower arrangements from the florist, and the decorators placed them around the hall."
"Very well," I said, making a small 'x' by the florist, "So that actually leaves three places to check." I glanced over and noted her brow was furrowed in thought. "Something wrong?"
"I'm still trying to figure out how they got the jewelry out. We searched everyone who came up to when I discovered the empty jewelry box, and we didn't find any of it."
"I have a theory about that. Proving it requires that everything in the hall and in your room stay exactly as it is, no matter what."
"After three days? The flowers are starting to get stale."
"Yes. With any luck we shall have identified the culprits by this evening."
"You know something, don't you?"
"At this point, I know nothing for certain. And as *you* well know, Miss Cartwright, I never guess at half-formed theories."
"Fine. But I still think you're being over-dramatic."
"I appreciate your confidence in my omniscience, but the only one who would best be accused of over-dramatisation would be Watson with his creative writing skills."
"All right," she conceded with a smile, "Let's go perform some frightfully dull reconnaissance, then."
"A capital idea. And may I offer my compliments to your choice of wardrobe for today? It seems I may make a proper detective of you yet."
She smiled. "Flatterer."
*****
"I expect," Miss Cartwright said as we dismounted from the cab, "That whomever is behind this has an ingenious way of making off with the loot, as well as storing it later." "A secret stash, yes," I replied as I settled my cap more firmly on my head, "It would, of course, be counterproductive to store ill-gotten treasure in plain sight."
"And I'm willing to bet that the way to this stash would not be via the front door."
I sighed, having already reached a similar conclusion. "On the other hand, we would not be welcome if we broke in."
"Well, then, what do *you* suggest, great detective?"
"I?" I smiled in the mischievous way that Watson knew by now and thoroughly dreaded. "I suggest not getting caught."
She snorted. "Brilliant, Holmes."
She stopped walking as we started to cross in front of our first destination, so abruptly that I kept on alone for a few steps. I turned back to see what was the matter, and I saw her studying the building which housed the catering business in question. It was two storeys tall, of a respectable red brick, and its business was indicated by a filigreed sign over the front door. As it served the more upper-class clientele, the building was well-kept - hardly the sort of place that one would expect to harbour a burglary ring, but one could never tell by outward appearances.
"Well hullo, guvna!"
Speaking of outward appearances...
We both turned at the voice, which turned out to belong to Wiggins, the unofficial leader of my equally unofficial task force of street arabs, even less officially dubbed the Baker Street Irregulars.
"Oi uz wond'rin' when ye'd get 'ere, Mr. 'Olmes," he continued, ambling up to us and apparently trying to discreetly identify the other "street urchin" beside me.
"I'm happy to see you got my note, Wiggins," I said to him, "Are the others in place?"
"Aye, that they are, and peekin' around the places you said, guv." He paused. "Er, who's this un? I know all the arabs around 'ere, but I don't know 'im."
"There's a very good reason for that, Wiggins," I said to him, "May I introduce to you Miss Emily Cartwright, my current client."
There was a startled pause from Wiggins, after which he snatched his cap off in a valiant - though comical - attempt at manners.
"Sorry, Mr. 'Olmes. Really oughta show respect for your new lady friend. Er," he added as I started coughing, "She *is* a lady friend, roight?" "I'm filling in on this case," Miss Cartwright cut in diplomatically, "Since it seems Dr. Watson is unavailable."
"Oh. Right." Wiggins, for whom abashment was merely a fancy term for what someone uses a cosh to give someone else in order to relieve them of their valuables, gave me a look that indicated he thought that this was merely a polite cover story for a more interesting truth.
"In any case," I said sharply once the tickle in my throat had subsided, "I wish for one representative from each group to report to me immediately."
"Righto, Mr. 'Olmes." All business once again, he clapped his cap back on his head, apparently so he could touch the brim of it to Miss Cartwright before he dashed off towards the alley alongside the caterers' to deliver my latest orders to the first group of scouts.
"Charming lad," was Miss Cartwright's verdict once Wiggins was out of sight, "When were you going to tell me you already had surveillance set up? And for that matter, when exactly did you get a chance to make notes of the businesses?"
"To answer your second question first, I didn't take notes of the second page. I merely committed them to memory when I looked at your lists. That, at least, isn't against the rules, I trust. As for your first question, I thought it would be safer and wiser not to run headlong into any place which may or may not be a pit of vipers, which it seemed you were perfectly ready to do. And of course the best surveillance is that which is unseen, or at least unnoticed, by the subjects. We should have a fairly accurate report of the comings and goings of the four locations in short order."
"I thought we'd eliminated the florist."
"Not necessarily. One should never dismiss a suspect without strong evidence in their favour."
"Out of the mouths of babes, I suppose."
"Quite so. Look there - here comes the first of our scouts now."
I chose to wait until the four spokesmen had arrived, each from their respective locations, before I began to question them, to avoid having to repeat questions four times. Of course it seemed that the rumour of my "lady-friend" had spread like wildfire almost as fast as Wiggins could sprint, so we were both forced to endure the innocently speculative glances of the youths. Miss Cartwright appeared to think the whole situation was amusing.
It was during these interviews that Miss Cartwright and I discovered something which at once complicated and simplified matters. It seemed (according to the various reports from the young scouts) that our own targets were not collected in one place, as I had hoped. The large man who had relieved Watson of his watch was employed at the delivery company, while the slender six-year-old girl we sought would be found earning an apprenticeship under one of the decorators.
This had started out as such a simple case...
*****
End Part 10.