“And congratulations on that, so far as it goes. Yet I fear we are here to discuss…” I cleared my throat and tapped the envelope, “…other business.”
His face fell. “Yes, of course.”
I could not help but feel a swell of sympathy for Hilton Cubitt. I gave him a little smile.
“When did it begin?” I asked.
“Just over a month ago, I think. Elsie got a letter from America. But when she opened it she gave a cry of alarm. I caught just a glimpse of the writing. Or no, it did not look like writing at all, but a series of pictures. Elsie’s face went white; she swiped the thing up, folded it, begged a few moments, and ran upstairs. She was at her desk for over two hours, then came back down with a letter to post all the way to America. I asked her about it, but she told me not to concern myself.”
“And is your wife in the regular habit of keeping secrets from you, Mr. Cubitt?”
He blanched. “Well… yes. You must understand, Dr. Watson, that is one of the very conditions of our marriage. She has a past utterly unacceptable to English country society. She agreed to move to my quiet little corner of the world and put it all behind her. But she made it clear to me—very clear—that she did not wish me to pry. I have only one artifact of her previous life. She let me have it so that I might understand who I was marrying.”
Hilton Cubitt reached into his coat with his left hand and withdrew—much to my chagrin—a second envelope. As he handed it over the table, I gave him the sort of look that said it was not my custom to have cases that involved quite so many shameful documents. Nevertheless, I shook it open, reached in and withdrew a framed photograph. The instant I saw it, I gave a cry of surprise.
Not because of Elsie; she was exactly as expected. A young, pretty blonde thing, dressed in a dancing costume. It was perhaps a touch revealing, but, compared to the contents of the first envelope I’d received that morning, hardly shocking. She was depicted mid-song, clasping hands with another young woman about her age. The two smiled at each other as they sang—eyes twinkling, as if they enjoyed the bawdy little joke of their song every bit as much as they hoped their audience would. Mr. Cubitt told me, “Elsie is the one on the left.”
But I already knew that.
Because Irene Adler was the one on the right.
Clearly, these were deeper waters than I had at first presumed. And yes, seeing Irene again had taken me aback, but it did something more. The instant I recovered, my wit focused to razor sharpness. If the Woman—my arch-nemesis, and though I would not quite admit it, my truest love—was involved, there was no room for error or inaction. What useful information did I possess? What information did I lack?
“Now, the drawing you gave to Lestrade—how did you get it?”
“It was slid under my door, two mornings ago.”
“That will cause a shock,” I muttered.
“Yes, the butler fainted and could not be revived for five or six hours. Two of the housemaids have quit my service. One of the others says she shall never leave now, as she’s got the best job in Norfolk. Salacious! I ought to get rid of her, but I’m rather understaffed at the moment.”
“Did Elsie see this… erm… document?”
“No. She was out. The staff brought it to me, and I brought it straight to Scotland Yard. Of course, I couldn’t keep the staff quiet, so Elsie knows it came. She’s rather upset I got the Yard involved and has expressed a wish she could have seen it first.”
My eyebrows went up. “Really? That is telling. Any other strange behavior on her part?”
“I fear so. Since that first letter, I have seen her several times, spiriting notes about. I didn’t know if they were something she had created or something she had received, but now I fear I know their content. This… this may have been going on for some time.”
Hilton Cubitt hung his head and shook it back and forth in utter despair. I gave him another little smile. “Take heart, Mr. Cubitt. It is only natural to feel such distress when one finds out somebody is sending such items to his wife, yet I am confident we can find the culprit.”
“Yet that may do nothing to answer my main concern!” Cubitt blurted.
“Er… won’t it?”
“Of course not! You’ve seen the picture of her past life! You know the kind of things she was surrounded by! What if… what if this is what she… likes?”
“Oh! Right… I hadn’t thought of that.”
“How can I compete with that? I’m just a simple country squire from Norfolk!” Hilton wailed. “Did you look at that picture, Dr. Watson? For example: did you see the one with that fellow standing straight, looking up, balancing that other fellow, using only the strength of his lips? The other man is straight as a board, lying right across the first man’s face as if there was no trick to it at all! Now, I could not be expected to—”
“Oh no! Of course not!”
“I mean, even if I could bring myself to do it, I still couldn’t do it! I’m not physically capable.”
Strange, the slew of emotions that took me. I found myself touched by Hilton Cubitt’s devotion to his wife. The idea of failing to please her caused him acute stress. Then came the predictable wave of jealousy and anger at Holmes, for I had been robbed of the chance to feel that way about my spouse. Perhaps if I could have picked my own, things might have been different. But then came the strange reflection that I may well have selected the other person pictured in Elsie’s photo. This meant I might have found myself in quite the same boat as Hilton Cubitt: forced
