"Quickly, Penelope, have you a handkerchief?"

"I? A handkerchief? Certainly!"

"Give it over. I need it."

I fumbled through my carpetbag and extracted an Irish linen square embroidered by my cousin Hyacinth with violets, an appropriate choice of color but an odd dislocation of botany. "Will this do?"

Irene didn't answer, instead clamping my pristine square to the driver's hangdog face.

"Nosebleed," she diagnosed authoritatively.

"Gracious," I protested as my prized possession stemmed a spreading tide of dark blood.

Irene leaned over the unfortunate man. "Are you all right?"

He laughed then, too loud, too ... bitterly for one supposedly so weak. I clutched my carpetbag closer.

"Not by half," he answered in a rough yet breathless voice. "But thanks, lady, for asking. I've got this condition-"

Irene leaned away as if to memorize his strained face. "You are seriously ill-high color does not normally accompany extreme weakness. Heart, is it not? An extremity of the condition we all face ultimately, I see."

The man pulled my ruined linen from his nose and stared at her. "By G.o.d, I believe you do, Miss. Are you a-a-physician?"

Irene laughed ruefully. "That is one profession I've not yet been accused of practicing. I am American, however; aren't you as well, sir? From the West by your tw.a.n.g. Your callused hands say you have led a hard life."

The fellow seemed more disabled by her intuitions than his apparent ill-health. Again he stared at her-such a strange, concentrated stare, as if he were weighing thoughts on a balance far beyond the here and now. He began speaking with a desperate compulsion.

"A hard life I've had, and I'll have a harder death, but a satisfied one, thanks to my work of days ago on the Brixton Road. Ah." He ma.s.saged his left side, then continued with the same impulsive resolution. "I'm bound to leave London soon, one way or another. It might as well be dead as not. My work is done."

"No one should seek death," I felt obligated to put in, "desirable as the thought of reclining in the Deity's bosom may be."

The man's fierce black eyes fixed on me until I thought I should swallow my tongue.

"The Deity won't much like the notion of drawing Jefferson Hope to His bosom, Miss," he said roughly. "But you're a delicate female, like my late Lucy, and ent.i.tled to your illusions, I guess."

Agony clenched his features; his fingers made white-knuckled fists. "I'd give anything to see her again, anything but give up my eternal d.a.m.nation."

"Your wife?" Irene inquired softly.

"Lucy?" Jefferson Hope's eyes remained shut. "Nope, but she should have been, would have been, had I returned but a day sooner, before Stangerson and Drebber, the d.a.m.ned hypocrites, had done in old John Ferrier and forced my Lucy into Drebber's Mormon harem."

Irene sank onto the cab foot-hold as if it were a stool, not appalled as any woman of delicate sensibilities ought to have been, but fascinated. I subsided against the hansom's side, too numbed to protest.

Jefferson Hope continued in a husky, exhausted voice.

"Found my Lucy lost as a child in the Great Salt Desert out West years ago, old Ferrier did. Ferrier was a done-for scout, but little Lucy had survived a wagon-train attack. Then the Mormons found 'em both and sheltered 'em on the terms that they join their d.a.m.nable church. John raised Lucy like she was his own. He followed their strange ways-though he never took a wife, much less several; he'd never subject Lucy to that polygamy notion."

"Polygamy?" I repeated faintly, as Jefferson Hope spoke on.

"Lucy grew up an heiress, for John Ferrier was a shrewd fellow and those folk prize worldly success. I came into the cursed wilderness on business and stayed to love Lucy, as she loved me. But Stangerson and Drebber wanted Ferrier's wealth and Drebber wanted my Lucy and they took both while I was away. They killed old John and made my Lucy-I won't call it 'marry,' though there was some shameful ceremony-made her live with Drebber."

Jefferson Hope's blood-shot eyes narrowed to wolfish slits. "I tracked them for twenty-one years through the desert and the vast, paved wastes of the great cities of North America and Europe. They knew it, too, and ran like sheep. And then-"

I quailed, seeing in that relentless face a likeness to the very hound of heaven itself. Irene leaned toward the sick man, her breath agitating the veil that swathed her face.

"Had they killed your Lucy, too?"

"Might as well have. With John dead, and me unable to rescue her-the whole enclave was tracking me-she... faded away; died a few months after undergoing G.o.d knows what." His face contorted, then relaxed abruptly. "Lucy was with me in spirit, every step of the way, just days ago when Enoch Drebber, whom I'd been tracking in my cab, hailed me. I drove him to an empty house on the Brixton Road and confronted him with his sins. G.o.d knows it was for Lucy's sweet sake I did it. And would again."

"What exactly did you do, Mr. Hope?" Irene asked coolly.

His eyes opened to rea.s.sess her. He chuckled, the wretch actually chuckled. "You've a bit of what limeys call pluck yourself, Miss, don't you? Nervy, to minister to a murderer, and a dying one at that."

My gasp cracked on the foggy twilight air like a distant whip, but neither heeded it. They seemed to be in clandestine consultation, Jefferson Hope and Irene Adler, as sinner to confessor. It was a bizarre scene that unfolded in that still, smoky byway. Even I could not tear my eyes from the drama, for all its grisly implications.

"Might as well tell you," the big man said at last, regarding only Irene. "Might be my last opportunity to spill it. I want a sympathetic soul somewhere to know that John and Lucy Ferrier didn't die unavenged, no matter how tardily, not while Jefferson Hope lived." The man started, pressing a hand to his right side. "The ring, see if it's still there! Wouldn't want to lose it again clambering down from the d.i.c.key. Almost gave it up in Brixton Road."

Irene investigated the indicated pocket and drew out a plain gold band tucked in a doily of crumpled newsprint. "Is this what worries you?"

"Yes! Yes.That ring was placed on Lucy's unwilling hand in a mockery of marriage, but it's clean now. Washed in the blood of the wolf, you might say, if you were a religious sort of person." Here, he cast me a sardonic look that quite sent shivers down my corset lacings.

"Now I can die in peace," he went on. "Not that I didn't give 'em a fair chance, more than they ever gave Lucy or her dad. Had two sets of two pills, one dosed with a nasty poison, you see. That's what I offered 'em. Choose a pill and let the Almighty decide who lives or dies. 'Course, I hadn't long to go anyway, not with the aneurysm eating up my heart. But I had to last long enough to make 'em pay and see their faces. And if I winked out, why at least I'd know I'd made 'em confront the death they brought to the ones I loved."

"But you didn't die, and they did." Irene sounded contemplative. "It was more of a chance than most would have offered such men."

"Died they did. Almost too quick. Drebber first and Stangerson at a holiday hotel later. But I lost the ring, that I'd taken off Lucy's dead hand just afore they buried her in that empty desert. Luckily, some gent advertised in the papers that he had it, so I sent a pal of mine along to fetch it, figuring the authorities might be laying a trap for me."

" 'In Brixton Road this morning,'" Irene slowly read from the torn newsprint by the hansom lamps' flickering light, " 'a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway between the White Hart Tavern and Holland Grove. 'Apply Dr. Watson, 221-B, Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.' And was it a trap, Mr. Hope?"

"Don't know." He straightened as if revived by his grim confession. "My confederate played he was a little old lady and was out of this Dr. Watson's digs with the ring in a twinkle. He said some other gent was there, tall and lean with a d.a.m.n sharp eye. Could have been a Scotland Yard 'tective. I'm a wanted man, Miss. You might get some reward for turning me in."

"Your story has been reward enough," Irene answered thoughtfully. "Until now I'd thought men like you only existed in Western dime novels written in Philadelphia. Lucy Ferrier must have been a memorable woman that you would track her wrongdoers to the ends of the earth."

"My only regret," he said, "is that my revenge will keep me from ever seeing her sweet face again, for I fear that your Deity, Miss"-here he regarded me again, to my dismay-"won't want commerce with a murderer."

"But Lucy knows, Mr. Hope!" Irene leaned inward to press his bony wrist as if she were consoling a relation. "She sees and knows and rests better for it. Perhaps she will prevail upon Him to pardon you. After all, the chances were fifty-fifty that you would choose the poisoned tablet, not them."

"Luck or G.o.d's own justice through my hand?" He nodded soberly. "I'll find out soon enough, I reckon." His paling features shifted as he glanced at me. "The fit is past, Miss. If you're not of a mind to call the coppers, I'll be going." In proof of his recovered health, he lumbered upright.

Irene rattled her reticule.

"No fare; Miss. I'll not need money where I'll be soon enough. You've made me feel a burden's lifted, just by telling another human soul my story. I don't want to go out in a cell, though, like a caged ferret, but on my feet like a man. So I thank you for what freedom's left to me."

Using the cab wheel as support, he stumbled toward the rear. Irene's hand stopped him. The precious, murder-tainted ring and sc.r.a.p of newsprint lay on her gloved palm.

He reached for them, then his hand clenched. "You're a fine woman, not so sweet as my Lucy, but with a heart for all that. Keep the ring. I'd not want to wear it to the gallows, or have it thrown into some pile of police evidence."

"Is there nothing we can do for you, Mr. Hope?" Irene cried out as he climbed to his seat in slow stages.

Jefferson Hope picked up the flaccid reins. "You've done it-shown me kindness in a world where I've lived an unkind life too long." He lowered his shoulders and stared beyond the roofs' looming silhouettes to the darkling sky. A vast smudge pot of cloud and fog simmered in the last lurid light of the distant sunset. "I'd 'uv liked to meet my end in the open, but it's fit a foreign sh.o.r.e will serve as potter's field for a wanderer like me. Evening, Miss." Then he nodded to me, while I quailed beside Irene. "Miss."

With that polite farewell, he snapped the reins on the horse's weary flanks. The hansom lumbered into the murk that bottled Irene and myself in the nameless street.

"Astounding," Irene breathed. "What an incredible story! What a splendid, tragic man."

"A murderer," I cautioned, "and we have abetted him by permitting him to go. What will you do with the ring?"

"I couldn't have paid him anyway," she mused. "My purse is almost as empty as yours after tea." I stood stunned at her matter-of-factness.

"As for the ring..." Irene's head tilted, dusk veiling her features more effectively than her hat's spider-silk netting.

"I believe I'll... keep it as a memento of lost love, loyalty and revenge large enough to furnish an Italian opera."

Her profile lifted against the muddy aura of light at alley's end to watch the bulk of Jefferson Hope's cab swell until it blotted out the gaslights beyond. Then the vehicle turned a corner and the street lamps were burning through the stinging mist like blurred stars. I could not read Irene's expression, but I believe she smiled.

"Or, if I ever have to-p.a.w.n it."

I gasped my shock again, most futilely.

Chapter Three.

PERFIDY AMONG THE DRAPERIES.

"May I see it?" I finally couldn't refrain from asking Irene that evening.

She smiled in the mingled glow of gaslight, paraffin lamp and the cozy fire before which we sat, our stocking-clad feet toasting on the fender.

"Here." The object of my curiosity sailed into my lap. "An unremarkable ring, save for a certain grim sentimental value. It's the newspaper notice that intrigues me"

The wedding band lay in my hand, gleaming in the firelight, a perfect "O" of gold. I was tempted to slip it over my own finger. Perhaps I would sense some surviving spirit of the wronged and long-dead Lucy Ferrier who had worn it briefly in a blasphemous marriage. I felt a thrill of tempting horror at the idea.

"He loved her in his desperate, dogged way, that man," I commented. "Though revenge is an utterly empty emotion."

"Mr. Hope seemed far too satisfied to be considered empty," Irene answered.

I regarded her. Here we sat in humble yet comfortable circ.u.mstances with a ring that represented the violent deaths of four people, given to us by a man whose fingers virtually clutched the very knocker of death's door, and Irene was squinting over a small-print advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"The Telegraph item is useless now," I said definitely. "Mr. Hope regained the ring, even if he didn't keep it. We'll never know whether the finder meant to trap him or not."

"You would do well to read the agony columns more closely," Irene returned. "That is where the real stories are written in a metropolitan newspaper." Her alabaster forehead furrowed. "Two-twenty-one-B Baker Street... I have read this address before. But where?"

She rose and paced before the fire, her brocade wrap rustling around her like half-folded wings. I took advantage of her abstraction to survey our surroundings. On arriving at the top of four flights of stairs in an anonymous structure around the corner from where Mr. Hope had left us, I had been relieved to find Irene's rooms clean and cozy.

Yet she kept the ceiling gasolier and table lamp turned low, whether to obscure our modest surroundings or merely for effect I could not tell. Irene Adler seemed to be highly enamored of effect. The parlor thronged with an exotic geography of furniture, and shadowy artifacts crowded us like ill-seen but close friends.

Earlier, Irene had retired to her bedchamber to loosen her laces and trade her street ensemble for a crimson silk Oriental robe dramatic enough to clothe a Borgia, preferably Lucrezia.

"Baker Street." Irene stared toward the ceiling gaslight, oblivious to the exotic picture she presented. "I have seen that address printed before with peculiar requests for information."

"It is near Regent Street," I volunteered.

"I know where it is! I wonder what it is."

"Likely a doctor's consulting rooms."

"So far off Harley Street?"

"A beginning doctor, with a small, struggling practice."

"Brava, Nell. You show a talent, however small, for extrapolation."

"No one's ever called me 'Nell' before."

"They should have. You make a perfect Nell."

"I don't understand what you mean by that."

"There, you see! A perfect Nell would say that. Besides, you have nicknamed me as well."

"I have not! I call you by your formal first name."

"You call me 'Eye-reen-ie.' The American p.r.o.nunciation is 'Eye-reen.'"

"Indeed, how primitive. I doubt that the proper English p.r.o.nunciation could be considered a 'nickname.'"

"However, I take no offense. The French say 'Ear-ren-ay' and the Russians 'Ih-rain-ah.' I will allow you to call me 'Eye-reen-ie'. A more Continental p.r.o.nunciation may aid my performing career."

"This island England is not Continental!" I corrected, uncertain how I had been put on the defensive for having objected to a liberty taken with my name.

Irene smiled as if the matter were perfectly settled, then tapped the newspaper. "But back to our Dr. Watson. He may not practice at this address. He may live there."

"And why not? It is a perfectly respectable address, far more so than-"

"Than mine? Ah, you cannot help letting that tone of disapproval, that cat-swallowed-the-lemon-tart pucker, enter your voice. I listen to people as well as watch them."

"It's not that I'm not grateful... Irene." I p.r.o.nounced the name as I always had. "Your lodgings are more than I have-" I paused at this bald admission.

"Why do you think I invited you to share them?"

"You knew?"