A Soul of Steel by Carole Nelson Douglas

Author:Carole Nelson Douglas [Douglas, Carole Nelson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Mystery & Detective, Traditional British, Women Sleuths, irene adler, sherlock holmes, Fiction
ISBN: 9780765347909
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2006-11-28T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-one

DIVINELY INSPIRED

A cable from Irene awaited us at the hotel: “Mes amis, you get on splendidly. I am having abominable luck finding the captain of my heart in Paris. I await your next developments breathlessly.”

She had signed it with an unmistakable code name, “Sarah.”

“How odd. She says nothing personal,” I noted to Godfrey. “No word of missing us. You.”

“It is only a cablegram, Nell. Brevity is the soul of clarity.”

Godfrey was pacing my small sitting room, his hands locked behind his back, his long legs scissoring across the thick Turkish carpet.

“What Irene has chosen to say is significant. If she can find no trace of Captain Morgan in Paris, with all her resources of intelligence and connection, then he is no longer there. I doubt it is coincidence that cobras have emigrated from Paris of late as well.”

“Snakes stick together,” I sniffed. “So you suspect Captain Morgan of perpetrating the bad business in Montmartre?”

“Suspect? I am certain of it, and so is Irene.”

“Yet you left her behind to his supposed mercies.”

“Actually, Nell, I believe that you and I have drawn him here. In that our jaunt is an unqualified success.”

“Indeed,” I said, “if I wished to spend my life entering rooms into which serpents have preceded me, I have been uncannily successful!”

“Morgan, mysterious as he is, must be the key to Stanhope’s difficulties. Obviously, he is also trying to murder Dr. Watson.”

“And yet we have not warned the poor man!” I remonstrated. “We have left him defenseless.”

“Hardly.” Godfrey stopped pacing to eye me with a twinkle. “The dead snake cannot fail to alarm him. He will immediately acquaint his friend with the mystery. So Dr. Watson will have as guardian the formidable Sherlock Holmes.”

I remained silent, aching to add “Formidably given to strange drugs,” but I dared not. If I did, I would be obliged to confess to my forbidden reading. Nor did I want to mention my knowledge of the intense impression Irene had evidently made on this man who sneered at women and softer emotions, but reverenced hypodermic needles.

“But we must not rest on Mr. Holmes’s laurels,” Godfrey said. “Tomorrow we’ll begin hunting the hunter. I’ll make inquiries at the gentlemen’s clubs devoted to sporting pursuits. You can try the hotels.”

“You wish me to inquire after a male resident at a series of hotels? That is most improper, Godfrey.”

“Would you rather visit such institutions as The Royal Rhinoceros Regiment? Besides, many clubs forbid women the premises.”

“And what sensible woman would wish to visit those masculine enclaves? No doubt they are filled with decorative weapons, rank odors, hollow elephant feet, stuffed snakes and such.”

“Yes,” he said, laughing, “just like Madame Sarah’s Paris salon. What woman could possibly relish such an environment?”

“I’m glad that Irene is not here, for she would surely grasp any pretext to storm the gentlemen’s clubs in false whiskers. I have it! We will make our rounds together. Admittedly we’ll lose time, but we will have the advantage of two viewpoints to compare. That is the solution.

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