Hangover
"Lethe the river of oblivion rolls/ Her wat'ry labyrinth, whereof who drinks/ Forthwith his former state and being forgets"
Paradise Lost
He woke up with a groan, and a headache. Grabbing the thick, stiff hotel pillow, he kneaded it into the right shape to cover his head and ears with. All the world seemed to be under construction - the subdued sounds from the corridor were like a dull hammering to his over-stimulated senses, and the traffic down in the street sounded like the stampede of concrete compressors. He pressed the pillow closer to his ears and wondered if this was how a battery actually felt when pouring electricity into a non-conductor.
Not that there was anything unusual in the acoustics of a morning on the busy Rue de Rivoli. It was he who had done wrong...who had indulged in morphine and absinth in an establishment of his acquaintance in the Latin quarter last night. Mere foolishness had driven him there, and a desire to forget.
Forget. He carefully turned on his back, narrowing his eyes at the lavishly gilded ceiling above. At least, he had accomplished to forget the better part of last night's details - there were some sad cloudy shreds of recollection after he had got started on his debauch, and that was all. However, he remembered very well his journey to the ill-famed den - mostly the alarming number of apaches trying to rob him and of gigolettes endeavouring to get at his money in a different way. He wondered how he could have managed to return to the hotel safely in his state.
Yes, Paris was a place changed since his childhood days. What dismayed him most was the youth of said gigolettes - one who had offered her services to him could not have been much older than twelve years. The recollection made him cringe internally. Of course, London was not a model of propriety, either...and there was a certain address in Noel Street a gentleman could frequent with all guarantees of discretion. But the women there, though pliable enough and compliant with his will, were mature professionals and no frightened children. The french metropolis had been on the downgrade these past years, and its inhabitants were for the most part so poor that it was hard to conceive.
But it was not poverty that had extended the thief's hand toward the King's Orb. That much was clear to him. There was a political dimension to taking something so heavily charged with symbolism as this royal trinket. Whosoever had removed it wished to harm either the British monarchy or the French republic - or both? And what role did this Chinese restorer play whose disappearance so strangely coincided with the theft? May the devil take him, if he knew!
A thump on his door, perceived as three times louder than its actual volume, made him spin around and fall out of the king-sized bed. His lips set grimly as he perceived the comic side of this, and one hand pulled the nightshirt over his knees while the other stretched for the store of cigarettes on the nightstand. The first draught of the day helped clear his head. Meanwhile, the rapping on the door continued, and he realized he would have to answer it. He got up with a grunt and carelessly slipped on a dressing gown embroidered with the hotel emblem.
"Yes?!"
To his amusement, the page shrank from this gruff reception, but recovered his impeccable manners in time to save face.
"Very sorry to disturb you, Monsieur, but a gentleman is waiting for you downstairs in the breakfast room. He dispatched me to tell you - "
Holmes, one hand on the door he had opened a mere six inches, was on the verge of throwing it shut with a groan, when the young man, divining his intention, swiftly mentioned a name.
oooOOOooo
It was dark when she woke up, as dark as it had been when she went to sleep. Her small hand trailed over the rough brick wall, over the straw on her pallet. Good. She was In the same place, and in the same position. That was something to start with.
Slowly, carefully, Ling Zhao worked herself into a sitting position and lowered her feet to the floor beneath the pallet. She got up, by degrees, and extended her arm, measuring the darkness with long, deliberate strides. The room was the same as yesterday - five strides in length, four strides in width - yes indeed she was still in the same place. She stopped and tried to estimate how long she had slept. She wondered whether it had been five days as she thought, or whether she had lost track of time already.
The most important thing was to keep her thoughts in order. It was vital that her hands, leathery with age, but still very sensible to touch, should meet rough plaster after five strides in length, and four in width. It was pivotal that she should count days and nights, in spite of the eternal darkness in this place. It was all important that she did not lose her mind.
The would not wait much longer before they began to hurt her, she knew that. Whoever they were, they were not merciful. They had put her into this rat's hole to wear down her spirits, to make her tell. And if that did not bring success, they would try other methods.
The tip of her foot hit a hard object and she cowered down….slowly stretching out her hand. It trembled, full of misgivings about what it might be tricked into touching, but it was just the metal dog's bowl that they used to serve her food in. So far, it had been ordinary dry bread, but she had to make an effort to suppress thoughts of what might come in the future.
Without further inquiry, Madame Zhao straightened herself again. With the help of her tactile senses, she found the way back to her straw-covered pallet and sat down. There was no point in eating so long as her bowels did not complain violently. It was time to think. Keeping a clear head was crucial.
She was helpless in her current position. It was useless to pretend otherwise. Maybe she could last a few days longer, maybe weeks, if they did not practice more immediate torture on her than this confinement in darkness. She could resolve not to speak, but in the end, they would find means to make her.
The only remaining spark of hope was the girl. She wondered whether she had been right to trust her. Suppose she succeeded, suppose she turned out worthy of her trust...then she, Madame Zhao, would be worse than useless to her captors, and they would finish her off.
It seemed very improbable that somebody would come to her help. The girl was good, and smart, too...but how could she find her, how could she save her from the hand of such a subtle enemy? It had been she, she of all persons, who had made her promise she would not go to the police, whatever happened. Do not go to the police, girl. Tell them nothing.
It looked like she would terminate her days in this wet, subterranean room, far away from anywhere she might call home.
oooOOOooo
He exited the elevator and traversed the marble floor of the vestibule with a quick step. However, in passing he caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the lengthy, gilt-framed mirrors between the greco-roman columns that divided the wall and inwardly recoiled.
There were large, flabby pouches beneath his eyes, displaying all thinkable shades of red and blue, that bespoke last night's transgressions. Deep lines ran through his skin vertically between his eyes and to both sides of his mouth. At which point during all these years had he become an old man? For a second, he seemed to hear Fanny's mocking voice again: "Seriously - 'ave you looked at yourself?"; but on entering the breakfast-room pushed the recollection forcefully aside. This meeting excelled personal vanities in importance.
Still, the white-and-gold elegance of the place weighed rather heavily on his preoccupied mind. The sumptuous old-gold décor on the walls, the oblong pastoral scenes, the sombre ceiling fresco, the tremendous chandeliers - everything! Indicated the habitat of an eminent and overaged class. No fresh young face was to be seen - even the staff looked staid, and venerable.
He took solace from the green Tuileries that could be spied from the roadside windows, and to his delight discovered his rendez-vous had decided on a table by the windows where he might enjoy just this vista. He was discreetly seated with his face to the road view, and only somebody exceedingly attentive to his environment would have been able to recognise the President of the Third Republic in the back of this nondescript white head. Even so, Holmes waited for a favourable moment when some small excitement over a yapping pet dog at the far end of the room arrested the general attention before he approached the table.
"May I?"
Félix Faure gently inclined his small head. He looked quite distinct from the pictures in the Parisian newspapers; without all of these medals tacked to his breast. However, a great moustache of the walrus stamp made up for this lack of outward trappings of representation. For an irrational half second, Holmes thought that Watson would be green-eyed. He slipped onto a chair, and waited for the other man to open the conversation.
"Mr. Holmes." His visitor stirred some sugar into his coffee. "I have 'earrrd great things of you."
"Président." He nodded, in assent to he knew not what, and continued his customary reserve. With persons who had an interest of their own in saving time, affairs were usually settled fastest if he did not interfere too much.
"Would you like to try the excellent service of the 'ouse? I am informed you are familiar with our beautiful capital and its merits. Then of course you must know that de cuisine is not the least of those."
Mechanically, Holmes ordered coffee, brioche and jam, his suspicions rising that he was being prepared for something unpleasant. Président Faure, meanwhile, had passed on to his after breakfast cigar.
"Mr. Holmes, Minister President Ribot 'as reported to me all de particulairs of yesterday's meeting. He wishes to furnish you with all de assistance you may require, both from the Sûrété and from Monsieur Sorel of the Louvre museum. We 'ope that their cooperatiooon is satisfactor-ie, and that you will let us know if you should see any obstacles, so we may remove them for you."
"I am satisfied with the cooperation of these excellent gentlemen, thank you", Holmes quietly professed.
"Capital! Capital!" Faure nodded, benevolently, but not yet quite content. "And Monsieur Simon afterwards discussed all the particulairs of the case with you, I understand? He laid everything open-lie before you?"
A non-committal wave of the hand was all the reply he got. Holmes was now rather sure he knew where this was going, but, by Jove, it was Faure who wanted something here. He would not come to his help, or try to make things easier for him.
"Very well. As far as we can tell, there is nobody beside the restorer - who has disappeared - to sound out, except that young lady, her acquaintance. In fact, Mr. Holmes - "he moved a little closer to make it quite a conspiratorial tête-à-tête. Holmes, ever averse to great closeness, intuitively drew aside. " - it is the official opiniooon that the impending investigatiooon will be focussed on 'er person, at least until she can be cleared of suspicion. Now Monsieur Simon tells us that, to complicate matterrrs, you are known to the young person, and she to you. Is this the case? Because if so, I must ask you, very earnestly ask you, whether you are able to maintain a neutral stance in this affair."
To economise on words, Holmes tried a certain look that would generally do the trick on occasions like this - a look that possessed the power to shrink the questioner to a handy size and bend him into a supplicant's pose - but it appeared that with a man of Faure's calibre, he would have to be bothered to explain himself.
"Monsieur le Président, it is very comprehensible that such a constellation should give cause for concern. It is also true that I know the person in question - or rather, knew her, for our acquaintance lies many years back."
Faure gesticulated with his cigar. "Precisely so, it is a cause for concern. We must be sure that you can be trusted with the handling of this matterrr under the given circumstances. Mind you, we are of course grateful that you answered our call for help so readi-lie - "
Holmes, recalling the nature of his invitation, or rather abduction, uttered a stifled sound somewhere between a whimper and a laugh.
" - however, the affair is too delicate not to be treated with the utmost care. Of course, we know your powers and reliabili-tie from former occasions, which is why I leave it for you to judge: Do you feel capable of continuing on this case?"
At this point, breakfast was served. Holmes, who felt his headache of the early morning return, swallowed a cup of scalding hot coffee to alleviate it, before he replied.
"Président Faure, I am not renowned for the warmth of my affections, but very well able to control emotion when it threatens to interfere with business. I will be honest, and tell you that the lady in question was, as a child, very dear to my deceased wife, and to me as well. However, that is all in the past. I barely know the person she has become, and what I have seen of her so far does not please me much. If it turns out she has anything at all to do with the disappearance of the - of the treasure - you may rest assured I will not be tempted to spare her for old times' sake."
"Magnifique!" A grim, walrus-like smile spread on the face of Félix Faure, head of state and suddenly very busy, very eager to be gone. "That is exactly what I hoped to hear. Mr. Holmes, I give you free reign, with the only request that you will let us know if you make any progress. I will bid you adieu now, and hope to hear from you soon. It was a pleasure indeed to make your acquaintance, and as you say in England - Godspeed!"
But the man thus favoured listened with only half an ear. While a valet rushed into the room with his master's pâletot and walking stick, and Faure made ready to leave the hotel, he was still sitting there deep in thoughts, crumbling a piece of brioche all over the plate set before him.
Hullo! Sorry for the wait, but the nicest things in life are not necessarily the ones with the first priority. I hope to update more regularly again from now on, though.
Thanks for reading!
Best, Mrs. F