Good Night, Mr. Holmes by Carole Nelson Douglas

of chitchat babbled on, interrupted only by the rougher rapids of witty venom from Mr. Whistler or the languid poet.
    One by one and two by two the guests departed. I knew Irene had capitulated when she collected the quiet gentleman and withdrew despite all pleadings that she stay. Lillie Langtry left only then, drawing the remaining lone gentlemen after her in a train.
    Mrs. Stoker finally revisited my table. “Nicely done, Miss Huxleigh. May we count on you for Sunday next?”
    “No! That is, I will not be able to come here again.”
    “Oh?”
    “It is not possible. I am sorry.”
    “Another position? But this is for a few hours only. Perhaps you can manage it.”
    “I cannot,” I said firmly, trying to excuse myself with the truth. “I am not comfortable in such a role.”
    “Ah, you disapprove of our set. That is understandable, given your clerical background. Well, I cannot argue with philosophical differences. Cook will pay you on your way out. Good day.”
    My pay was a half-sovereign, nearly enough to make me reconsider. I waited where Irene had left me, and a hansom soon rattled up. Her escort leaped out to aid me inside, then tipped his hat and walked down the road.
    “You were not planning to go alone at all,” I reproached Irene. “You did not tell me about Mr. Pinkerton.”
    “A lady needs an escort, however perfunctory, but I required a more sensitive observer than he. We will have a tea party post-mortem by the hearth tonight. Did you manage to acquire any delicacies for dinner? You had motive and opportunity. Oh, do not bestir yourself so; I already feared as much. We shall have Mrs. Minucci’s lasagna—again. By the bye, it is not Mr. Pinkerton. The gentleman is a Pinkerton, a fellow London agent, only one of several.”
    “ Hmm . And what have you achieved by making a spectacle of yourself and a pourer of me?”
    “A great deal. Someone mentioned the Zone. I shall have to look into the matter of ‘old Norton’ further.”
    “But he’s dead!”
    “The dead, my dear Nell, are often the surest source of knowledge. After the agony columns, you would do well to study the obituaries. Whole novels by Thackeray and Hardy, scores of Wagnerian operas and dozens of Webster’s ‘White Devils’ and ‘Duchesses of Malfi’ lie hidden among those succinct little threnodies to perished greengrocers and consumptive debutantes.
    “Survivors and heirs, old family wounds and fresh new wills, marriage and remarriage, greed and sorrow. Sometimes I even suspect that they contain the traces of murder never found out—murder by hand and more frequently murder by word. The latter is not a criminal act but can be equally lethal.”
    This thrilling monologue, rendered with affecting drama, held me rapt but dubious. “You read all this into the daily obituaries, Irene?”
    She simply smiled. “The dead speak volumes. And why not? Who—at last—is to contradict them?”
     

Chapter Seven
    U NEXPECTED V ISITORS
     
     
    The jaunt to Cheyne Walk might not have uncovered the Zone of Diamonds, but it showed me Irene Adler playing a role in which I had never seen her:   femme fatale.
    I had always assumed that Irene’s worldliness far exceeded mine and usually avoided speculating as to what extent. Certainly she rivaled the Sphinx in keeping silent on her past. As for the present, while she associated professionally with men, I saw no signs that the connections were anything other than that. I could never have stomached living with a courtesan, no matter how discreet.
    Yet it puzzled me that a woman of Irene’s beauty should ignore the giddy temptations presented to unattached women in her position. The only explanation was the pride she took in her many talents; she would not spend them cheaply—and most women cede their own pursuits when they wed (or even when they stoop to being some man’s mistress), becoming more fabled for their role than their reality.
    Then, too, possibly Irene had been wounded in