“Martha.”
“Oh, yes. Well, I convinced her that I fancied her and Martha quite obviously fancied me. I asked for a key to the delivery entrance so I could sneak in to see her.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” he said, smiling again. “Ingenious, don’t you think?”
I mentally added that his ruses were equally impossible to predict.
“And wretched beast? Your trumpet call that resounded to fetch Little?”
“I arranged that with Archie in case things did not go quite as planned.” He touched his bandage. “Which clearly they did not. I told him to keep the dog downstairs, occupied, until I called that out and then to let him loose. I knew he’d come running. And I suspected he would be more than happy to strike out at Zhèng just as he did at me. He is quite your loyal protector, you know.”
“And Zhèng? How did he get in?”
“He picked the lock. You must have your uncle examine his security measures here. I should have been here long before he arrived, but you detained me and Archie was late. His mum abandoned young Billy again and he had to find someone to watch him. I sent one of my young chaps to tell to Mycroft and Lestrade. I suspect they will be rounding up Mr. Chickering’s associates now.”
“Damn you, Sherlock. Damn you. Archie could have been hurt! He’s just a child. He-”
He quieted me with a kiss.
51
We gathered in Uncle’s dining room the next morning to enjoy a lavish champagne breakfast. Seated around the table were Sherlock, me, Aunt Susan and Uncle, my mother, Michael, my nephew Alexander, Mycroft, and Oscar Wilde. Archibald “Bill” Wiggins, his baby brother Billy, and Sherlock’s other young helpers, Ollie and Rattle, were there as well. Martha was conspicuously absent, having been summarily dismissed by Aunt Susan for her indiscretion, even though it was orchestrated by Sherlock.
As Aunt Susan raised her glass to toast, I said, “Uncle, thank God you are home.”
Sherlock gave me a glass of bubbly, pale liquid, and quipped, “God had nothing to do with it.” Then he leaned close to my ear and whispered, “What is Oscar doing here?”
“Hush. He is here because we want him here. Don’t be unfriendly.”
A thought split through my brain like sunlight through the clouds. “Excuse me a moment, will you?” I said to everyone. “I’ll be right back.”
I ran up to my room and took Effie’s journal from the nightstand. I opened it and read the words of her poem again.
For now I scry beyond the rods of sunlight
In the mists, in the haze
I turned to the page where I’d left off. She’d been about to render another warning, but I’d not had a chance to read it.
Another dream - most unusual.
I am in a dim room, surrounded by beauty. It reminds me a bit of your mother’s morning room with its birdcages, seashell collections, paintings and Japanese prints. But not the seashells. And the paintings are a bit different. Oriental, definitely, but somehow different. There are many birdcages and the birds are black, black as thunder clouds. And a little Buddha gazes at me from the corner, his arms outstretched. He says ‘beware the maker of idols.’
I don’t know what it means. I hope you will.
I shuddered. I had not read it and would not have understood even if I had. I did now. I turned ahead a few pages.
Rutted roads, cobbled footpaths, houses made of bamboo and thatch, mangoes and guavas, sweet dates and coconuts. And rosaries made of cowrie shells.
You asked me once about what I saw for your future. You asked:
“Would you tell me if you saw me working a hospital in one of your dreams? If you saw me tending to patients, not as a nurse but as a physician? If you tell me you have, I shall know it will come true. You are never wrong.”
And I had said, “Poppy, I do not conjure things or summon dreams. They come or they do not. I have no control. And no, I have not seen you in a hospital.”
I told you then about the railway tragedy that was to come. I saw you there. And now I see you not in a surgeon’s apron, but in a deep-blue sari. I always told you that blue is your colour.
You will be the hero of that epic, my sweet friend. People will think you work miracles.
She was not describing England, nor America. It sounded a great deal like the excerpts from letters that Victor had sent to Michael from India.
I closed the diary. It made no sense. Victor wanted nothing to do with me. And how could I leave Sherlock? Now? When it was so clear that he did care for me? We were almost there.
I went back to the dining room, sat down next to Oscar and asked, “How does it go with you?”
He wiped his lips daintily and laughed. “Well, not so exciting as things around here! Soon another hanging at Wandsworth Prison - I hope I never see the inside of that place!”
“If you do, I am certain you shall write a poem or ballad about it,” Sherlock said.
I shot him a nasty glance.
“Certainly I could. About your uncle’s arrest, Poppy,” Oscar continued, ignoring Sherlock. “And about this killer who was captured right in your home. Perhaps I should write a drama about all of these events.”
“You should just finish your collections of poems,” Aunt Susan chided.
“A collection?” I asked. “What is it called?”
“Poems.”
“How creative and innovative,” Sherlock sniped.
“Be quiet, Sherlock,” I snapped. “Tell me more, Oscar. Recite one for us.”
“None of them is finished,” he said.
This made me think of Rabi, the young man at the museum.
“That’s all right. Tell us just a little then.”
He puffed out his chest. “I’m not sure if this is the first stanza or the second. But... well...” He took a breath and said, “For, sweet, to feel is better than to know/And wisdom is a childless heritage/One pulse of passion - youth’s
