Good Night, Mr. Holmes by Carole Nelson Douglas Page A

an early romantic attachment and henceforward escaped the blandishments of hearts, flowers and other less-sentimental realities that lurk beneath the Valentine lacework. Even in my limited experience, romantic stirrings brought painful confusion rather than joy.
    Whatever my speculations, though Irene violated every minor convention governing a woman of good reputation during our association, I never saw her bow in the least to behavior that hinted at the sordid scandal so beloved of the newspapers.
    The spring of 1882—and of Irene’s dazzling debut into Chelsea society as a personality, if not a gainfully employed artiste—brought sweeping changes to our chambers high above the operatic warbles of Saffron Hill street peddlers.
    First, if I may edge my own small achievement to the fore, I received certification as a qualified “typewriter girl,” as an operator of the new typewriting instrument was now called. The document, engraved in a spidery longhand, struck me as incongruous given the mechanical skill it celebrated.
    I soon found myself in modest demand as a “temporary” employee called into offices throughout the City and surrounding villages to spin copperplate into cold type, so to speak. Other than needing spectacles—a tasteful if inhalation-inhibiting pince-nez that perched upon the bridge of my nose—to decipher these often illegible scribblings, I found the work congenial. Unraveling the mysteries of various hands to produce readable type gave me a strange satisfaction. In grander moments, I saw myself as revealing Rosetta Stones of lost meaning to a waiting world.
    Surprisingly, my nomadic employment suited me. Perhaps I had acquired Irene’s taste for the ebb and flow of sudden assignments. More likely, my humiliating experience at Whiteley’s had converted me to the benefits of will-’o-the-wispery: since I seldom stayed long at any establishment there was small opportunity to make enemies or edge into office intrigues.
    I became a fearless patron of the ubiquitous omnibus and soon knew the major streets of London as if they were limned upon my palm. I had money in my handbag and feathers on my new workaday bonnet. In other words, I felt myself an independent woman.
    If Parson Huxleigh’s orphan daughter was surviving, Irene Adler was thriving. Her jaunt to Bram Stoker’s tea had earned her an audition for the latest Gilbert & Sullivan light opera at the newly built Savoy Theatre on the Embankment. Her soon-won role did not suit her voice, she said dismissively, but she relished immersion in the theatrical life again and rigorously pursued the Zone of Diamonds among the Chelsea set.
    I fretted that she must travel about town so late at night, but as usual was dismissed.
    “You worry about me, Nell? You who so nearly donated all your worldly goods to a Whitechapel waif when we met? My profession requires the freedom of the city. I must go about alone at night; how else would I rehearse and perform?”
    “I would feel better if you had escort home.”
    “Oh, that could be arranged,” Irene said with flashing eyes. “A good many gentlemen of the town stand ready to escort even a bit player like myself home after the performance—with a detour to a private restaurant, a carriage ride through Hyde Park... No doubt you should sleep easier if I obtained such shepherding.”
    “Heavens, no! It’s simply that I worry for your safety.”
    “Worry not. I have my devices.”
    “Wit will not talk you out of every corner,” I warned.
    “This will.” Irene produced a sinister little revolver from her all-purpose muff.
    “Gracious! I’ve never seen such a fierce mechanism. It’s somehow more intimidating than a typewriter was to me at first.”
    “It’s meant to be intimidating, darling Nell.”
    “You could actually discharge it at someone?”
    “If it meant my life.”
    “Put it away! Its very existence proves that you take my point. London streets at night are dangerous for a woman