"I look forward to encountering this legendary creature while he is in full pursuit of his quarry. I suppose you will want a detailed description?"

"But of course! Oh, I do wish I could see his face when he-ah, but he is too dangerous to trifle with."

"The description need not be too detailed," G.o.dfrey put in. : "It will be thorough," said I, accompanying them to the door. My backbone had stiffened by then, as with the iron of age. I remained remarkably calm, quite in character.

Irene embraced me convulsively at the threshold. G.o.dfrey held my hands so tightly that I feared my arthritic old bones should snap.

We said nothing. In the gaslight's dull glow I could see pre-dawn damp glistening on the street and the horse bowing its weary head.

"Good-bye," we three whispered in concert, as if the world was eavesdropping; then we were all at once silent.

They turned and walked to the carriage. I stood at the open door while the landau drew slowly down the avenue. Irene's pale face in the carriage window moved away, seeming as remote as a museum portrait that one recognizes and then pa.s.ses by.

I stood there a long time, the chill night air cloaking me, hearing the hoofbeats diminish into the distance, feeling the peace of night settle again over Briony Lodge.

Returning to the house, I cleared the dishes from the sitting room and dusted the table. With every movement, the role of a maid, an emotionless employee, burned deeper into my bones. I began to understand the fascination impersonation held for both Irene and her rival, Sherlock Holmes.

It was while I haunted the familiar rooms, awaiting my brief moment on stage, that I understood something else as well, and stood stock still to contemplate it. The role Irene had a.s.signed me also removed me from the immediate pain of parting. She had given me a task beyond watching her and G.o.dfrey go. I quite approved. Work is always the best antidote to sorrow.

At a quarter to eight, a most uncivil hour to call, I again heard hoofbeats in the avenue. John had returned at seven, when I had instructed Mrs. Seaton and the maid to remain below-stairs. I approached on the door and opened it.

A brougham as shiny as the pair of chestnuts that pulled it stood before the gate. A tall, thin man stepped out, followed by a shorter, stouter one. At last the King himself appeared; I drew in a deep breath as I recognized his larger-than-life form.

The trio advanced on me.

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I presume?" said I, pleased that the quaver in my voice sounded more indicative of old age than of fear.

It was splendid to evoke such surprise on that self-contained face. He was not a handsome man, but intensely alert in an engaging way. His expression as he answered was pleasingly nonplussed.

"I am Mr. Holmes."

"Excellent. My... mistress instructed me that you would call. She left by the five-fifteen train from Charing Cross this morning for the Continent, with her husband, G.o.dfrey Norton."

My news almost staggered the detective. "You mean that she has already left England?"

"Never to return," I put in rather untruthfully for the greater shock. I confess I took indecent pleasure in wielding the whip-hand in front of his Majesty, King Willie.

"She cannot love him," that n.o.bleman murmured in the background, as if he had recited this chorus before to convince himself. He showed little shock at the news of Irene's marriage, instead pushing past the two men to demand, "But the... photograph. All is lost!"

I nearly answered Yes! with insufferable complacency.

"We shall see." Mr. Holmes brushed past me and into the sitting room as if he knew the house, as indeed he did.

1 followed unnoticed, beginning to appreciate how easily servants fade into the wallpaper.

The three men stared about the room, which I had taken the liberty of disrupting so that drawers gaped open and books lay askew. I felt that some stage dressing would enhance the scene of hasty departure.

Mr. Holmes bolted to the bell pull and pressed the secret panel, exposing the compartment. He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum-a photograph in its case, and an envelope.

First he opened the photograph case-and his face fell. He ripped the envelope open, quite properly, for I had seen it addressed in Irene's dashing green ink: "Sherlock Holmes-To be left until called for."

"It is dated midnight, yesterday," Mr. Holmes told the party.

King Willie groaned and brought his big fist to his mouth. What a spoiled little boy he looked, for all his t.i.tle and bristling blond whiskers.

Sherlock Holmes commenced to read the letter within aloud-quite well, I must add, with the proper emphasis, so I could almost hear Irene's amused tones speaking along with him.

"My Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes: "You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you, yet with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Bravo! Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran upstairs, got into my walking clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed.

"Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good night, and started for the Temple to see my husband.

"We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you call tomorrow. As to the photograph, your client may marry in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon that will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess, and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, very truly yours, Irene Norton, nee Adler."

A silence inhabited the room.

The King broke it. "What a woman-oh, what a woman! Did I not tell you that she has a soul of steel?" He took the photograph and studied it. It showed Irene wearing Mr. Tiffany's diamond corsage, Irene as Cinderella, a role that in real life had offered her only a craven Prince. "She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men. Would she have not made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?"

Mr. Holmes glanced from the photograph in the King's hand to his prideful face. "From what I have seen of the lady, she seems, indeed, to be on a very different level to your Majesty," he said icily. "I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business to a more successful conclusion."

"No, no!" the King cried. "Nothing could be more successful. Her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire. I am immensely indebted to you. Tell, me, how can I reward you? This ring-"

I stiffened as the King pulled the emerald snake ring from his finger and offered it to the detective on the palm of his hand.

Mr. Holmes regarded the jewel as if it were... well, a snake. "Your Majesty has something that I should value even more highly."

"Name it!"

Mr. Holmes pointed delicately to the photograph. "That."

The King's face showed shock yet again. "Irene's photograph, but-certainly, you may have it."

"I thank your Majesty," the detective said suavely, claiming his prize. "I have the honor to wish you a very good morning." He bowed and turned away without taking the hand the King had extended to him.

His companion, who looked as stunned as the King at this turn of events, bowed and withdrew as well. I trailed them out, leaving Willie, King of Bohemia, staring around the room as if hunting traces of his lost quarry.

"I was wrong and am not ashamed to admit it," Mr. Holmes was murmuring as I slid by them in the hall to open the door. "The woman is incomparable, Watson. From his Majesty's unguarded opinion just now, she apparently combines Petrarch's rare blend of beauty and virtue. In addition, she has antic.i.p.ated me, which is an even greater achievement. Brava, Madam Irene!" he whispered under his breath, as if partaking in a standing ovation at some concert hall.

I do not know what possessed me next. Some imp of improvisation, perhaps, some theatrical taint I had donned with greasepaint and powder.

As the pair moved through the door, I couldn't help saying, "And a very good morning to you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes." Perhaps the tiniest bit of superiority imbued my tone.

The detective spun on me like a striking cobra. He fixed me in his cold, piercing eyes while I froze in horror at my hubris.

He seemed to see through me to the very soles of my shoes; indeed, to my very soul. The intensity of his inspection invited not a blush, but a quiver. My disguise seemed to peel away under the eye of a master of disguise. I had failed Irene, failed myself... oh what a blunder, what a prideful, foolish, wrong-headed gesture!

Suddenly Mr. Holmes raised his hand to his hat brim and bowed. His grey eyes, so like G.o.dfrey's, were alight with suppressed merriment.

"And a very good morning to your mistress, wherever she is, and to her husband, Mr. G.o.dfrey Norton. I can certainly... bear witness to the fact that they make a most handsome couple, and don't doubt that they shall remain healthy, wealthy and wise."

He began laughing then-a delighted somehow secret bark of glee that followed him and his companion all the way down the avenue. They did not wait to take the King's brougham but walked toward the thoroughfare where cabs could be found.

As for the King, he left later, walking stiffly. His blondness seemed to have faded to the grey of ashes. He paused midway down the walk to look again at Briony Lodge. I rather suspect that a man would so look at the box that had contained some treasure now lost to him.

"She cannot love him," he muttered as if I were not there, and indeed, so had he always treated me. For certain now, Irene was not there, either. He vanished, as had she, into the interior of a carriage.

The King's brougham left with a tossing of the horses' chestnut manes. I went upstairs to wash off my false face, thinking how much time and heartache it would save if we could do as much so easily with others.

Chapter Thirty-six.

WELL-GOTTEN GAINS.

"We11, Penelope, how do you find Paris?"

"Very French," I said demurely. "It certainly seems to agree with both of you."

Irene and G.o.dfrey looked in the bloom of well-being-healthy, wealthy and wise. My friend reclined on a Louis XV chaise longue in their cottage in Neuilly near Paris; G.o.dfrey leaned on the chaise's back. I had not realized how wan Irene's Bohemian adventure had left her until I saw her here, blooming like a rose at the end of the long French summer.

"We have a surprise for you," Irene said.

"For me? Really, I cannot accept any more of your generosity-this trip, my keep. I must return to my own two feet-and London-soon."

"But Casanova is so at home here," G.o.dfrey protested mischievously. "It would be a pity to return him to the London fog; I think it harshens his voice."

I glanced at the vile bird in his cage by the open garden doors, gargling his lexicon of phrases at the wrens outside, where the setting sun tinged the poplars the color of a wounded rose. G.o.dfrey knew quite well that Casanova's vocal well-being was hardly a prime concern of mine.

"Besides," Irene put in, "you must not think of our generosity as wholly ours. You were as much engaged in the quest for the Zone of Diamonds as we. A third share is yours, and even your late father could not claim the proceeds were ill-gotten, as the Zone had gone beyond the clear t.i.tle of any one person."

"Perhaps," I conceded. "What did Mr. Tiffany say when you offered it to him?"

"He said that he was delighted that I had persisted in finding the gems but that my timing was pitiably unfortunate: he would have had more profit in it if I had found it while employed by him. I reminded him of his own motto: that good business is never a pity."

"How good was business?"

"Nell, you have become quite plain-spoken," Irene said in a teasing tone. She leaned elaborately forward and whispered a sum in my ear.

"That good?"

"And a third is yours; you need never typewrite again."

"But I like to typewrite! I am quite good at it."

"Exactly why G.o.dfrey now acts as an agent for certain important persons in various delicate matters. He, for instance, handled the sale of the Zone and is quite a fierce negotiator, I a.s.sure you!"

Irene raised her right hand to her husband behind her. A blinding flash of greeting winked from the sole stone from the Zone of Diamonds still in her possession-set in a magnificent ring that converted to a pendant, designed by Tiffany and Company of Paris.

G.o.dfrey returned his wife's compliment by kissing her hand. They both regarded me with the blissful idiocy that one expects from those new-wed, even if they are clever and usually clear-headed.

"What of the business of the news reports?" I wondered, for a recent disastrous train wreck in the Alps had listed Mr. and Mrs. G.o.dfrey Norton among its fatalities. "It was most disturbing to read this on the train to Paris; I was quite distraught. And then when you met my train...!" I shivered expressively.

"That is the only drawback to the incident," Irene said with great sympathy, "that it has distressed you and may distress others who know us."

"Otherwise," G.o.dfrey went on cheerfully, "it could not have been better. We had cancelled our trip to Italy when we heard that you at last would honor us with a visit. Apparently, our names remained on the pa.s.senger list. Irene need not worry about the King pursuing her now.

"Or Mr. Sherlock Holmes," I added.

"Or Mr. Sherlock Holmes," Irene said.

"Or Mr. Sherlock Holmes," Casanova parroted.

We laughed in a chorus.

Irene settled into her chair like a child preparing for a favorite bedtime story. 'Tell me again, dear Nell," she purred, "what they said when they found us fled and the house empty?"

"You know it all backwards and forwards."

"Willie actually said that my word was inviolate?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Holmes really refused the King's emerald ring and would take only my photograph as payment?"

"There is nothing 'only' about your photograph," G.o.dfrey put in.

"Have I ever lied?" said I.

"Almost never." Irene frowned. "And Mr. Holmes said that he could testify that we made a handsome couple?"

I nodded wearily.

Irene stared toward Casanova happily gnawing a corncob hi his cage. "And he also said that he was certain that G.o.dfrey and I would remain healthy, wealthy and wise?"

"Yes! Do you wish me to consult my diaries for the exact phrasing?"

"No, Nell, no... it is just that Mr. Holmes's final remarks are most intriguing-almost as if he knew more than he really ought to by rights... but that is the past, and the future lies before us like one great, plump teacake. We must not dwell on old puzzles."

It was I who injected a graver note. "But Irene, you will not be able to perform publicly if you tolerate this notion that you are dead."

Her face sobered. "No, but it seems the wisest course. We can always resurrect ourselves, can we not, G.o.dfrey? I have always wanted to come back from the dead; it is so dramatic."

"Then indeed you shall," G.o.dfrey promised, leaning close to pat her hand. "Whenever you wish."