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

alone.”
    “It is dangerous for a woman alone anywhere at any time,” Irene retorted. “Such is the nature of the society and century in which we live. It is up to women to reverse the situation.”
    “You fancy yourself as dangerous?” I had never thought of a woman as a weapon, only as a bulwark and that of the home, not the larger society.
    “Oh, I am very dangerous, Nell. You have no idea what a Bohemian you reside with. If I had my way, we would live in a very different world.” She smiled and tucked the gleaming black revolver into a pocket inside her muff. “And I doubt you’d like it all.”
    “ Hmph ,” I sniffed, knowing better than to pursue such a conversation. Irene would have her anarchist moods. I refused to let my own sensible opinions serve as a lucifer to light her incendiary ideas.
    So Irene came and went at her late hours, and I came and went at my more conventional times. Often our paths would not cross for days. It was mere chance that I happened to be at home one windy and wet April afternoon when a note was delivered to Irene, who had risen late and was sipping chocolate in her Oriental wrap.
    A sudden rustle of stiff silk jolted me from the latest novel of Mrs. Oliphant, which I had obtained at a circulating library.
    “We must neaten up at once, Nell! We are to have an eminent guest.”
    “A guest?” I leapt up guiltily, straightening the antimacassars covering my easy chair’s worn arms. Our only guests hitherto had been Mr. and Mrs. Minucci or their singularly untalented daughter, Sofia.
    I began sweeping the scattered newsprint into the fireplace to both warm our environs and eliminate clutter.
    “Not the Agony Column!” Irene shrieked, rushing to rescue the lurid pages from the blaze. “And it is ourselves we must first make presentable—very presentable. Mr. Oscar Wilde is to arrive at three.”
    “Oh. Him.” I dropped the armful of ribbons I had swept from the seat of Irene’s sewing chair back to the cushion. “A most nonsensical person. I don’t doubt that disarray ‘inspires’ him.”
    Irene paced, fanning the note before her face. “However you judge him, he is a man of the moment in London’s artistic circles. Notorious, yes, but with notoriety comes... notice. This is exactly what my poor stalled career needs. And”—she turned triumphantly to me, her eyes shining—”he mentions a private matter I might help with. I believe he is a client.”
    “Truly, Irene, I prefer you walking out at all hours to rehearse an opera over continuing in this tawdry investigative sideline of yours. Better Mr. Wilde be a sponsor than a client.”
    “Why not both?” Irene said lightly. “Besides, I am so put out at my failure with the Zone of Diamonds. All my inquiries have led no further than this ‘old Norton,’ whom I begin to swear does not and never did exist. If I successfully assist Oscar Wilde, who knows what doors shall open to me?”
    “Unsavory ones, I’ve no doubt,” I murmured.
    “But I am a ruin!” she suddenly cried, shaking out her wrap. “I must make myself respectable.”
    I held my tongue as Irene dashed into her chamber, leaving me to tidy the main room and conceal my daybed niche behind the threadbare curtains that masked it. With our best efforts at our separate talents—mine domestic and Irene’s cosmetic—our rooms and persons were ordered if not ordinary by three o’clock.
    A knock did not come at our door until three-twenty. Irene opened it to the same tall, pale young man who had praised my pouring abilities at the Stokers’ reception. Of course I did not expect him to remember me.
    “Miss Adler.” He bore a bouquet wrapped in tissue, which he changed from hand to hand as I unobtrusively removed his damp greatcoat and arranged it on the unnamed (and unclothed) dressmaker’s dummy that Irene used in the front room as a coat rack.
    Mr. Wilde noted the bizarre stratagem with an approving nod and began unpeeling wet tissue from the