I tried to hide my grimace. Uncle and I had barely spoken since his return. I was doing what I could at the wharf and Uncle had resumed his duties at the hospital. We rarely saw each other, but, in truth, I was avoiding him. I had trouble facing him for fear I would blurt out the ridiculous questions that swirled in my brain about his books and notations concerning Buddhism and suffering. They frequently blighted my thoughts, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I repeated Sherlock’s logical approach to deduction in my brain a hundred times a day. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
And it was quite impossible, inconceivable to believe that Uncle was a murderer. The truth must lie elsewhere.
23
On Sunday, when I came back from a long walk with Little Elihu, I found Aunt Susan down below, mixing the ingredients for the sweet biscuits she was about to bake. When I looked around the kitchen, I realized that she and the servants were in the process of putting together an elabourate meal. Aunt Susan need not ever step into the kitchen, but it was not unusual for her to contribute her considerable talents for cooking and baking when she planned a special dinner party. In fact, she insisted upon it.
“Aunt Susan, are we having guests this evening?”
Smiling at me, she said, “Indeed we are.” She turned to Martha and said, “Now pick the most excellent potatoes. They must be served smoking hot with melted butter of the first quality.”
“Aunt Susan, who - ?”
She turned back to me. “We’re having consommé and pigeons comport. And also Fricado Veal.”
“Uncle’s favourite? The stew with mushrooms and garlic and saffron?”
She nodded. “We’re also having pork loin and Florentine of Rabbit.”
“My goodness, I haven’t had that in ages. When Papa took me hunting, he always said there was nothing like it. But he didn’t have to prepare it,” I added, laughing.
I had often watched our maid Marie skin and bone a whole rabbit that Papa brought home. She stuffed it with a forcemeat made of bread, rabbit liver, bacon, anchovy, wine and herbs, then covered it with a veal stock white sauce, flavored with anchovy, lemon, eggs, cream and nutmeg, and let it simmer.
“Aunt Susan, who are the honoured guests?”
“Mycroft Holmes,” she said.
“Mycroft!”
“And his brother Sherlock.”
“Sherlock!” I screeched. “Now for the second course,” Aunt Susan prattled on but I was still stuck on why the Holmes brothers were coming to dinner.
“But... why?”
She removed her apron and touched my shoulder. “Come into the drawing room, Poppy.” She turned to Martha and Genabee. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Follow the recipe in the Elizabeth Acton cookbook for the pudding.”
I shivered. The book had been a gift from Effie to my aunt. She had given it to me to take to Aunt Susan on the day I met Sherlock.
“Or it could be in Mrs. Beeton’s book,” Aunt Susan said. “And please finish cutting the ends off the haricots verts,” she added with a flair of her hand, in her best French accent.
The girls looked at her blankly. “The green beans,” I explained as Aunt Susan whisked me from the kitchen and up the stairs to the drawing room.
“Would you join me in a glass of wine?” she asked, pouring red wine from a decanter into a glass.
“No, thank you. Aunt Susan, why are Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes coming to dinner?”
“Sherlock invited himself, apparently,” she said after taking a sip. “But Mycroft came to the hospital and expressed a need to discuss that horrible tragedy on the Thames. It’s a week today, can you believe it? It is the sole topic of conversation, as you know, and the Queen has been unremitting in her inquiries about it. She has given special orders that all military resources in Woolwich are at the disposal of the civic authorities. Ormond said Mycroft told him that Friday evening, the latest estimate of the number of persons on board the Princess Alice was sent to Her Majesty, and they believe it nears eight hundred.”
“But I heard the company’s estimate. It was far less than eight hundred.”
Nodding, she said, “I know. But Mycroft told Ormond that this is due to the fact that the company’s calculation is based upon the fact that children in arms are not charged for on these excursion boats, and little ones under the age of seven are booked at half price. And there were a great many babies. The Coroner, at Friday afternoon’s first sitting of the inquest, received an official communication about the number of turn-stile tickets, and the company now deeply regrets to say that eight hundred may be the lowest estimate. Seven hundred are feared drowned.”
I listened solemnly. I could not speak.
“So, I presume Mycroft wishes to discuss this with your uncle.”
“What has Uncle to do with inquiries and estimates?”
“Nothing. I suppose, nothing at all. But Mycroft has absolutely no true friends other than Ormond, and Ormond did, after all, spend his third year of medical school as a ship’s surgeon on a whaling ship sailing for the Arctic Circle. So he is someone Mycroft trusts, and he has some maritime experience. This is simply conjecture, of course, darling, but I believe Mycroft is quite shaken by all of this, and the Queen is barking orders at him about resolving the matter as quickly as possible.”
“But Sherlock?”
“He is fully engaged in the investigation as well, to the extent that he has apparently abandoned something else of a pressing nature. According to Ormond, Sherlock is quite concerned about you and would like the matter laid to rest.”
“Concerned about me? Regarding the Thames accident? I don’t understand.”
She took my hand. “Poppy, that young man cares about you. Ormond said Sherlock told him that
