A Monstrous Regiment of Women

and slid with ease through the lesser byways to the restaurant (which was not actually called “Dominic’s,” that being a pet name adopted by Holmes based on the proprietor’s name, which was Masters.)

The maitre d’ recognized me (or perhaps he gave that impression to everyone) and escorted me to the table that had been reserved for Holmes. I declined his offer of drink and looked around me. The restaurant had suffered a brief period of popularity the previous year, but the tide had washed on, assisted, no doubt, by Masters’s refusal to serve cocktails, provide dinner music, or offer unlikely foreign dishes on his menu.

Holmes came in, in one great shake shedding his overcoat, stick, hat, scarf, and gloves onto Masters’s arms, and began to thread his way through the tables towards me. His bones were aching, I thought as I watched him approach, and when he came closer, the contrast between my mood and the gaunt grey exhaustion carved into his face hit me like a slap.

“Holmes,” I blurted out, “you look dreadful!”

“I am sorry, Russell, that my appearance offends,” he said dryly. “I did stop to shave and change my shirt.”

“No, it’s not that; you look fine. Just… quiet,” I said inadequately. Only profound exhaustion, not just physical but spiritual, could so dim the normal nervous hum of the man’s movements and voice.

“Ah, well, we cannot have that. I shall assume an air of raucous and disruptive behavior, if it makes you happy. However, I should like to eat first, if I may?” I felt reassured. If he could be rude, he was reviving.

He lowered himself into the chair and offered me a weary smile. “You, on the other hand, appear almost ostentatiously pleased with life.” I sat under his unblinking gaze for a long minute and saw some of the lines in his face relax their hold. “Am I to take it that your majority agrees with you?”

“I believe it will. Holmes, where have you been?”

He held up a finger and half-turned towards the silent presence of the waiter.

“May we order our meals first, Russell? I have eaten irregularly since last we met and now find myself possessed of an immoderate preoccupation with the idea of meat.”

We ordered a meal that even his obese brother Mycroft would have found more than adequate, and when we were alone, Holmes slumped back and prodded the bread roll on his plate.

“Where have I been, she asks? I have been on a passage through Purgatory, my dear Russell, into the abyss and halfway back. I have been a witness, a guide, and an unwilling participant in a young man’s confrontation with the Furies, and in the process have been reminded of parts of my own history that I should have preferred to forget. I have been nursing, Russell—a role for which I am by nature singularly unsuited.”

“You? You were caring for Miles? But Holmes, I never thought—”

“Your faith in my bedside manner is touching, Russell.

Yes, I have been helping to care for Miles Fitzwarren. Did you imagine I might draw him out of his house and habits only to deposit him in the hands of my medical friends and then wash my own hands of him? He would not have stayed, without me.”

“So you… I am sorry, Holmes. I had no idea that I was getting you into that.”

“No? No, I suppose you would not. It’s quite all right, Russell; you needn’t look so penitent. I’ve spent my entire adult life poking my long nose into the problems of other people; this is only a variation on that activity. Please, Russell, if you wish to be of some service, I beg you to remove that woebegone expression from your face. My old bones are much comforted by basking in the sight of your young radiance. That’s better. A glass of wine?”

“Thank you,” I said, speaking equally between Holmes and the discreet personage who materialised at the side of the table before Holmes could finish the phrase, poured, and faded away.

“How is Miles, then?”

“Ill. Weak. He is drained of self-respect, and filled with self-loathing. At least the worst of the physical reaction is over, thank God, and he’s young and strong. The doctor foresees no immediate problems.”

“So he’ll be cured?”

“Cured is not a word one can use in this situation. His body will be clean. The rest is up to him.”

Plates of food began to arrive.

“Well,” I said when the waiter’s arm had withdrawn, “I am most grateful, Holmes, though I hope it will not go on much longer.”

He looked up sharply, a laden fork halfway to his mouth.

“Why? Has something come up?”

“Oh, no. No, nothing urgent, or I should have contacted you earlier.” I concentrated on knife, fork, and plate. “I just… Well, it’s odd, not having you there to consult, that’s all.”

I continued eating, and I was aware that seconds passed before his fork continued.

“I see,” he said, and then added, “Would you care to tell me about your activities since Thursday?”

I would care, and proceeded to describe them. He ate with steady determination, and threw in the occasional comment and question. I told him everything, from my visit to the elves to the treatment I had given my Sussex home, and made him chuckle with an exaggerated account of boiling water in the coal scuttle.

Finally, over coffee, he sat back with the familiar unfocused gaze that signaled a massive rallying of forces beneath that thinning hairline.

“Whence comes her money?” he mused.

“Elijah’s ravens did not bring him French hothouse strawberries on bone china,” I agreed.

“My brother Mycroft’s sources of information are better than ours for the purpose,” he noted without emphasis.

I was absurdly warmed by his use of the inclusive plural, as if this were a case we were working, rather than a peculiar and individualistic interest of my own.

“She may have a supporter who holds the purse. It would be interesting to know. Politics makes for strange… partners, does it not?”

“You think it nothing more sinister than political manoeuvring, then?” he asked.

“Margery’s money? Cynical as I may be, I cannot see her involved in anything more criminal than circumventing the labour laws. Of course, there’s always sacrilege—that’s a felony, isn’t it? But not, I should have thought, an immensely profitable one. No, I think it’s more likely someone was taken with her and decided to back her to the hilt. It would be very interesting to know who. A wealthy American dowager perhaps? A group of frustrated suffragettes?”

“Not an infatuated gentleman admirer?”

Extraordinary, how sensitive I was to the nuances of his suggestion. Or was he laying it on heavily for some reason?

“If so, he’s very retiring. I’ve heard no rumours of her love life, aside from a gentleman in France.”

“Yet she does not sound exactly aescetic.”

“Hardly.”

“Do you wish me to set Mycroft on the lady?”

“I think not yet,” I decided after a moment of reflection. “Perhaps later, after the twenty-eighth.”

“Ah yes, your great presentation. How does it progress?”

“Stunningly. Though poor Duncan is having cats because it seems a—what’s the collective noun for a group of academics—a gaggle? an argument?—of American theologians are sweeping through on their way to a conference in Berlin and have announced that they will attend and have asked him to find them accommodation.”

“It sounds as though you’re being taken seriously.” As usual, Holmes unerringly picked out the central issue.

“It’s tremendously gratifying, and a great honour personally. I only hope that I feel the same when the sun comes up on the twenty-ninth.”

“What about your plans until then? Are you finished with your coffee, by the way? Shall we walk? Along the Embankment? Or do you need to be back?”

“No, a walk would be lovely.” After the business of putting on coats and the rest, we resumed outside, where the mist was creating cones beneath the streetlights.

“I can’t very well go to Sussex; I’d freeze to death and either fret about how little the builders are doing or