“I take it you are on your way to the Diogenes? Or Whitehall? Busy with work as usual?”
“In Her Majesty’s service, as always, Dr. Stamford. But I am glad I have bumped into you.”
“Me, rather than the cyclist?” I quipped.
He scoffed. “Yes, yes, well... I sent a page to find Sherlock but he is not at home nor is he anywhere to be found at St. Bart’s.”
“I just left him; he did not mention that he had any appointments.”
“Well, it’s most important I find him. He has once again interjected himself into police business.”
“It is my understanding that Hopkins asked him to help.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, we have no need of his help,” he scoffed. “We have identified the mutilated corpse.”
I canted my head to look at him more closely. Though in many ways they were alike, there was an inexplicable and sometimes bitter enmity that burned between them. Often harsh words were exchanged,
“Have you? Who is it then?”
“A member of the Privy Council.”
“Really? Sherlock said that no one was reported missing.”
“His wife... widow, now... just appeared at the Yard a few hours ago. She said that he went to some kind of formal affair two nights ago and did not come home.”
“Two nights? And she did not worry about his whereabouts?”
He tilted his head side to side. “I did not inquire about the state of their marriage, but she volunteered that it was not unusual for him to disappear from time to time. However, this time she felt uneasy. They recently lost a child - some kind of bronchial infection due to this unrelenting fog - and he has been more attentive to her needs and emotive outbursts than previously.”
“Mycroft, Sherlock thinks there is some connection between the man found in the child’s grave and a grave robbing scheme. Young Wiggins was specifically instructed to dig up that grave.”
“So I am told. Dr. Stamford, have you any idea where Sherlock may have gone? This is a sordid business. Could be quite dangerous.”
I felt my breath hitch. I should have told him what we’d heard about Hopgood, especially if Sherlock could be in harm’s way. Much as I wanted to move past my affections for Sherlock Holmes, his grasp on me was still quite firm. “He could be in danger?”
“Perhaps. Just let me know if he gets in touch with you, won’t you?”
“Of course. Mycroft, I-”
“Yes?”
“Nothing.”
He tipped his hat again. “I must be going. I must be about-”
“Her Majesty’s business,” I said, completing his thought. “Of course.”
He stepped around me and waddled toward the Diogenes. Unable to resist, I called out, “Do not over-exert yourself! The fog and physical activity do not well mix!”
He did not answer. He just kept walking.
Before returning to my office, I stopped at the British Museum and went to the room where a beautiful statue of Buddha was displayed. It was a Buddha Vairocana, a Tantric Buddhist image from eastern Java, tenth century. The statue was approximately thirty centimeters high and made of bronze. Buddha’s hands were outstretched, like those of a teacher, and represented a form of meditation that vanquishes ignorance. It had played an integral part in the last investigation in which Sherlock and I had been involved.
My mind reeled back to a day I had been in this room, just a little over a year ago, when I met a lovely young man from India named Rabindranath Tagore, who had been studying in England. I had opened up to this stranger, confessed many of my feelings for Sherlock Holmes. He had told me, “Love is an endless mystery.” He’d also said, “Weeping is wasted, Miss, on one who does not understand why you cry.”
I’d taken his words to heart. I’d tried very hard to stop wasting my tears on Sherlock Holmes. I didn’t think that lunch with Jonathan Younger was going to wipe away those tears forever.
But it was a step in the right direction.
Chapter 12
When I arrived at my office, Penelope Potash was waiting for me. I knew at once that something was very wrong. There was a large welt on her cheek and a cut above her left eye.
I took off my cape and so on and quickly ushered her into the examination room.
“Penelope, what happened?”
“A slight disagreement.”
“I would hardly call this slight,” I said, gently touching her bruised cheek.
She flinched and said, “It’s nothing.”
“Was this done by the same man who beat you across your back, Penelope?”
“Can we just do the treatment, please?” she asked as she removed her blouse.
I just stared at her. She coughed and caught her breath. “A client,” she finally said.
“A client? What kind of a client would do this to you? Was it the same man who assaulted you? Who beat you?”
She pulled her blouse back together and fastened it. “No,” she said, a bit too adamantly. “Nothing to do with that.” She paused, looked down and then looked up at me. “What is it you think I do for a living, Dr. Stamford?”
“I do not know, Penelope. You are a cordial, well-mannered, well-dressed young woman. I assumed-”
“A dressmaker perhaps? Or that I work in a milliner’s shop? Or some other ladies’ shop?”
I nodded, but remembered she’d said she could not avail herself of a privy in a shop because she could not afford to buy anything.
“I walk the streets, Dr. Stamford. I may not look it. I don’t wear pink silk stockings or too much rouge. But that’s how I put food in my little girl’s stomach.”
“But you don’t act like... you certainly don’t look like-”
“You think all street women live down on Granby Street and hang out of their windows bare to the waist? Or that we all waltz up and down Haymarket from midnight til morn? I’ve earned a living that way. I’ve learned to steal so I could buy my daughter clothes. But I have regular gentlemen callers. Decent blokes. I have some who come on a weekly basis and I get two or three
