"She seems to have mastered the role already," he hazarded.

"You have not seen Irene at her... warmest," said I. "Nor have you heard her sing. She has a divine voice, difficult to cast at times, because her range straddles dark soprano and contralto, so this latest opportunity is what she has been waiting for, working for-"

"And she leaves for Milan...?"

"Within the week. Oh, you should have seen her! She came home so... vibrant. Even speaking she seemed to be singing. I had not realized how hard this life was for her, the struggle to train her voice and obtain small singing roles, to pursue these 'cases', as you call them-she was like a bird released from a cage, laughing and flitting about the rooms. Very like a nightingale."

"Hmm." Mr. Norton lifted a dark eyebrow at the cup now cooling in my hand, and I dutifully drank. "Yet she leaves you behind in a cage of your own and never notices."

"Oh, no." I sat forward, sobered by his a.s.sumption of Irene's dereliction. "She wanted-a.s.sumed that I would accompany her to Milan. Milano, she calls it." I couldn't help smiling to recall her exuberance. "I pointed out that I do not translate Italian and there would be no employment for me there."

"She had not thought of that."

"No. Her face quite fell as it dawned on her. She had not considered the practicalities, you see." I sipped more tea, as braced by its mint flavor as I had been four years earlier when Irene had prescribed it for me on another occasion when I had felt lost and alone. How odd that G.o.dfrey Norton of all people should be extending the same succor to me now on the loss of Irene.

He nodded stiffly. "I remember my mother on the sale of a novel, that same wild exhilaration."

"Irene said she would provide for me, but I pointed out that her understudy's pay was barely sufficient to keep her in respectable circ.u.mstances in a foreign land. Also, I reminded her that I had always paid my share of our expenses, my later earnings making up for the early days when I had depended on her. I am not about to abdicate my independence now."

"Brava, Miss Huxleigh. Miss Adler is not the only star in the firmament of women's independence. You have sterling qualities of your own, you know."

"I do?" I must confess that the depth of Mr. Norton's personal regard both startled and pleased me. His kind eyes rested on me, a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt in their slate-grey depths, like sun glancing off winter water.

"You do. I would go to court to defend the proposition. I wonder how Miss Adler will get on without you?"

"Splendidly, I know it. Our a.s.sociation was one of convenience, not likeness of temperament, surely. Still--" I felt a shower of tears gathering and quickly swallowed the last of the tea, now lukewarm.

"What will you do now?"

"Help Irene prepare. She intends to take very little; there isn't time."

"Will you move from Saffron Hill? The neighborhood is rough."

"Not to a native, and I am that now. I even speak the occasional Italian phrase and have grown used to the ... the ease of the vicinity. I can afford to keep the rooms myself now, thanks to such generous payment as I get at the Temple."

"Nevertheless, it will be a great adjustment, my dear Miss Huxleigh. I wonder that you answered my call under the circ.u.mstances."

I set aside the tea to stroke the m.u.f.f that lay, petlike, upon my lap. "To tell you the truth, I needed to escape our rooms for a bit, to get my mind off her leaving."

He took the cue briskly. "And so you shall." He swept a pile of doc.u.ments off a corner of the desk. "These await and are guaranteed to divert you from all other matters."

"Exactly what I need." I set aside my wraps and extracted my pince-nez from the m.u.f.f. "It is quite a relief to have expressed my feelings. I fear you are a captive recipient-"

"Not at all. I am honored by your confiding in me. I comprehend your position better than you think, even if I do not understand the inestimable Irene Adler."

"You would like her if you knew her," I put in mildly.

"Such certainty!" He smiled. "But I shall not have the chance now, shall I? She will be the toast of the Continent, and you and I shall stay behind on this dull little isle and write deeds."

The picture he painted was so ridiculous that I laughed, and once having done that, found it impossible to weep again.

I returned home before dark fell-Mr. Norton insisted that I leave early enough for that-to find the paraphernalia from Irene's bedroom flowing into the front room like effluvia of years past.

"What shall I take, darling Penelope!" she cried in distraction. 'The climate will be quite different. The summer things, of course-but it is northern Italy. Alas, I feel like a character adrift in the wrong opera; I do not know my part and must improvise as I go."

"Here," I said, taking charge. "We must divide the things into seasons and then into categories-under-things, overthings, basques, jackets, skirts, bonnets, shoes."

"Yes, I see. Quite right." Irene looked up gratefully from under her disheveled forelocks-she had been unearthing clothing and dragging boxes and trunks around all day.

I sat on the floor with her and began sorting the explosion of items.

"I shall miss you dreadfully," she declaimed suddenly.

"And I you. But this relocation seems too opportune to miss."

"Will you not be ... lonely?"

"Yes." I thought of peppermint tea and braced myself. "Perhaps I will buy a bird. A canary. I am used to music around the place."

There was a silence into which neither of us would leap.

"Poor little Sofia," I said with a half-laugh that edged into a sob. "Who will teach her to sing her scales now?"

"You can! G.o.d knows my perfect pitch stood the child no good at all. What harm can you do? Or-you can sell the piano, if you like."

"No... I can cover it and put the birdcage on it."

"I'm sorry to leave you with this mess." Irene fondly took in the eccentric array, her fingers absently moving across the melee as if bidding farewell to old friends. I knew that every ribbon told a tale to her-of where she had bought it and where it might have originated and how she had transformed it into a key part of her chameleon wardrobe. "You can sell it on the Portobello Road."

"Or you may need it and send for it."

She nodded. "How will you do? Alone?"

"Quite nicely, especially now." I couldn't help looking smug. Irene wasn't the only one to come home with surprising news of her profession.

"You sly boots! What is it? You have news!"

"Only that I have a permanent position, so I shan't have to worry about an ebb and flow of income."

"A permanent position? Is it congenial?"

"Very much so. I find the work amenable and the vicinity soothing."

"At the Temple?" Suspicion embroidered her voice.

"Yes-"

"The Inner Temple? Oh, Nell, you are not going to rely on working only for that man?"

"As a matter of fact, I am. I find Mr. Norton a most considerate employer."

"He is using you," Irene said, her eyes flashing.

"How?" I challenged. "You will be gone. You are stymied at the moment in pursuing the Zone of Diamonds. There is nothing for him to learn from me."

"I mistrust him."

"Might he not want to engage me for my talents, my skills, rather than my a.s.sociation with you? I have worked for him from time to time for some years now. He has known most of that duration that we share lodgings, and he has never sought to use that knowledge in any way."

"I'm sorry, Nell! Of course he would want a typist girl of your cleverness and skill-and your experience in my little investigations makes you an ideal a.s.sistant for a barrister. I meant to imply nothing except my... own fear of leaving you on your own."

"I am better fit to be on my own than before I met you," I said softly.

"Thank you," Irene said, an odd tightness in her voice. "Thank you, my dear Nell." We folded petticoats in silence. Then. "Perhaps I have misjudged Mr. Norton. His family tale is a sad one. I can even see why he might think himself ent.i.tled to the Zone."

"Oh?" I had never heard Irene concede another's right to the object of this treasure hunt before. "The odd thing is that he has never seemed to think that himself. I fear he doesn't believe in it as you do, Irene. You will take the chest with you, I imagine."

She stood, stiff from a day of delving into bureaus and wardrobes. "Take it with me? Yes, I should. Certainly it would not do to leave it here with you; it might attract some sinister interest."

"I doubt it; not after all this time. And even you cannot decipher the contents."

"No. They must hold some very specific meaning." Her voice trailed into silent thought. Then Irene glanced down at me, her warmest smile lifting my spirits. She extended me a hand. "Come, Penelope! We will have teacakes toasted on the fender like old times-I bought three bags full today-and a bottle of champagne."

"Alcohol?" I said nervously, still not certain that ladies should consume such things.

"Ambrosia!" Irene insisted. "In this particular form it is ever so much more bracing than peppermint tea."

Even at the last Irene's prescience staggered me. How had she known what libation Mr. Norton had given me only that morning? Then I saw that she, as I, simply remembered our common past, which would have no role in our separate futures-save remembrance.

I saw Irene off at Waterloo Station. From there she would travel to Southampton and thence by boat to France and by rail to Milan.

She looked ever so handsome and brave under a bonnet of crimson feathers. She had taken the m.u.f.f, after all. It guarded her arm like a talisman. Her other arm lifted to wave farewell.

Already the dusty carriage window had softened her image in my eyes; the engine chugged from the station, raising storm clouds of steam to obscure the pa.s.sengers. And so Irene Adler vanished into the mist from which she had appeared. I turned and trudged through Waterloo Station's mausoleum-like immensity and made my way by foot to the Temple.

A long walk it was, but welcome. I arrived to find G.o.dfrey Norton, fists on his hips, studying an object whose weight was crushing the many papers on his desk.

I gasped when I saw it. He looked up, mystified, then handed me a letter. "It came by messenger-with this," he said. I recognized Irene's dashing hand in her signature green ink instantly.

"Dear Mr. Norton," the missive began. "I embark for a new country and a new chapter of my performing career. I doubt we shall ever meet again, but perhaps the possession of this chest, which belonged to your late and universally unlamented father, will be of some consolation in my absence." I looked up, almost hearing Irene's most acid tones sear the room in that last sentence.

Mr. Norton nodded, and I bent my head to read more.

"I know you have scant faith in the existence of such a prize, but it is my belief that the contents of this chest spell out a clue to Marie Antoinette's missing Zone of Diamonds. I have been unable to decipher them. With your knowledge of family history you may have better luck.

"As for pursuing the sort of distasteful inquiries for which you berated me, those days are behind me. I am happy to wash my hands of the last vestiges of such necessity and wish you good fortune in your quest.

"You cannot do better if you seek advice, support or a faithful friend than to rely upon Penelope Huxleigh. She is the true treasure I leave to you. Appreciate her well, as I always will."

It was signed: "Yours sincerely, Irene Adler."

I had shed all my tears, so looked up with only a smile when I had finished reading. G.o.dfrey Norton seemed far less at peace. Irene's unexpected gesture had completely muddled his opinion of her. He looked so boyishly puzzled that I was tempted to ruffle his pretty dark hair, as I would have for a young charge who had b.u.mped his head on an unsuspected obstacle, but of course I could do no such thing.

"Why the devil would she do it?" he demanded. "The Zone of Diamonds, if it exists to be found, would be worth thousands of pounds. What does she mean by this?"

And so he fretted on, suspecting more than the surface intent, but unable to uncover another motive. If Irene Adler had wished to discomfit G.o.dfrey Norton, she could not have found a more fiendish means than this unexpected generosity of hers.

I concealed my smile, for it would not do for an employee to set herself above an employer, and interrupted his muttered stream of questions.

"Pardon me, Mr. Norton, but if you would be so kind as to remove that chest-and I know it is dreadfully heavy-I could put some of those doc.u.ments on your desk into type."

So he did, and so I did-and so Irene Adler and I had a last, long laugh together, after all.

Chapter Fourteen.

ENTER CASASNOVA.

The effect Irene Adler's absence had upon my life was most evident in my diaries during that period. I had recorded the minutiae of my days since receiving my first diary at the age of twelve. These st.u.r.dy volumes, bound in maroon cloth, were intended to be morally instructive on review.

Irene's absence meant many silent evenings sequestered in the Saffron Hill lodgings, so I dutifully reviewed. Whether my moral growth was apparent in those handwritten pages is debatable; indeed, my a.s.sociation with Irene Adler had led me down many bizarre offshoots of the straight and narrow path my upbringing had prepared for me.

The inescapable fact was that my diaries bristled with fascinating names, places and incidents during my five years with Irene. My pen crowded to the pages' gilt-edges in order to record fully the details: the case of the lost cross of Oscar Wilde, the indelicate matter of the birth control advocate, the mystery of the sinister Savoyard.

Before those halcyon days with Irene, my notations were scant and, I fear, dull beyond imagining. Now, her absence goaded me to fill my days with matters worth recording. I maintained connections with the more genteel members of the theatrical set-indeed, they made some effort to see that I not be ignored, whether on Irene's instructions or not, I do not know.

Such a.s.sociations, however infrequent, led to such unlikely but amusing entries as my inadvertent role in the courtship of Oscar Wilde, the unpleasant encounter with the Mayfair hypnotist and other incidents that have no place in this narrative.

I found most rewarding, however, the renewed time to devote to good works. I began teaching English to Sofia and her friends; each Tuesday evening a troupe of these little larks enlivened the Saffron Hill quarters for two hours and depleted my hot chocolate reserves. Inspired by Irene's intrepid ways, I began working with the Salvation Army in Whitechapel, where I saw poverty, crime and despair enough to write several d.i.c.kensian novels, had I any gift for fiction.

Yet for all my expanded activities, Irene's frequent letters made the liveliest reading in my diaries nowadays. In a sense she remained a part of my life, however faint and distant her voice. From the first, I shared portions of her correspondence with G.o.dfrey Norton, a natural consequence of our daily contact, my loneliness and his barrister's suspicion.

"Have you heard from your a.s.sociate abroad?" he would ask. "Has she inquired about my progress with the chest?"

"No. She has not even asked in what manner of temper you received it. She has put it behind her."

"Not likely." He pushed his chair away from the desk as I brought his morning tea, his fingers drumming the mahogany. "She enjoys Italy, then?"

"The warmer climate is much kinder to her voice than London's eternal fog, damp and chill."

"True, true, but how does she get on there?"