"'We will tread a quadrille, Miss Vanderbilt,' the woman said, almost like someone from another century, 'that will make you the envy of Paris and Paraballa Land. We will dance away on a moonbeam to Cinderella's palace in Pichu Machu.'"

"'Are you a new dancing teacher?'" I asked.

"'Indeed I am,' she said in that same paralyzing, Mesmerizing tone. 'And now, my dear woman, if you will leave us to do our steps, we'll astound you with our progress in an hour hence.'"

The governess shook her head as she reported this exchange. "I can't say why, but I did as this extraordinary woman said. I suppose I expected a dancing instructor to be a bit strange. M'sieur Reynard was."

Miss Bristol hung her head. "I deserve to be dismissed. When I came back in an hour, they were gone, pupil and instructor."

A silence held in the room, while Quentin and Godfrey and I eyed each other in turn.

At last Godfrey turned to Mr. Vanderbilt. "No one saw either one, your daughter or the unannounced dancing teacher, after that?"

"No. I suppose if a man is to mislay a daughter, he'd rather it be to this charming apparition than to thugs from the docks, but . . . gone is gone. My wife is inconsolable. And I-am more so. Consuelo is a gentle, docile child, obedient to an extreme. That someone would take advantage of such virtues to wrest her away from us-! If you can't find her and find an answer to my troubles soon, I will tear this city apart."

"That won't be necessary, Mr. Vanderbilt." Holmes sounded quite definite. "First, let's hear from your wife, then I'll examine the gymnasium where the abduction occurred and proceed from there."

Mr. Vanderbilt's pleasant face went from worried to haunted on hearing Holmes's plan, but went to the door and asked the waiting butler to fetch his wife.

"Alva is distraught," he said on returning to his desk, "to say the least. Consuelo is our only daughter, named for her mother's closest friend. Alva has . . . great hopes for her."

As a former governess, I was delighted to hear of a mother who was as ambitious for her daughter's development as well as her sons. So often the girls were slighted in favor of the boys. Even I had to admit that Eliza Gilbert's good education made it possible for Lola Montez to hobnob on equal terms with the leading men of her day.

So I awaited Alva Vanderbilt with some sympathy. The men had all risen even before she entered the room.

When she did, I saw a woman with a soft, square face flushed with emotion. I barely more than noted her elaborate Worth gown, although Irene's acquaintance with the famed "man milliner" of Paris had forever made me aware of over-expensive clothing on other women, even in the most trying circumstances. I suppose I was as expert on that subject as Mr. Holmes was on more homely matters of calluses and cork fragments.

Alva Vanderbilt stood panting softly as the introductions were made: Mr. Holmes, Godfrey, Quentin. I rose when my own forged qualifications rolled off Mr. Vanderbilt's tongue, but his wife's gaze barely flicked over me.

"I've heard of Mr. Holmes from Mrs. Astor," she said. "If you can do as well by us as you did by the Astors, we shall be all right. But you must understand: Consuelo is not any ordinary millionaire's daughter."

"I would not presume to think any millionaire's daughter ordinary, madam," Holmes said with an ironic bow.

Irony was lost on this lady. "Consuelo has been tutored in all the gracious arts. She is destined to be a great lady in your own native land, sir." Her glance raked us all, for we were all British. "She will marry a duke."

I couldn't restrain myself. "The child is twelve?"

"Little time left for her training. She must make her debut here in five years and must be introduced quickly in England. She is an heiress unparalleled. She'll be snapped up at her fresh peak by the most titled man in England, save the royal family, of course. I do recognize that an American will never wear the crown."

"Can you speak of her character?" I pressed on, for the men in the room appeared reluctant to address this lady for some reason. I'm only a humble former governess, but I am never too intimidated to speak up in the cause of a child, and in this case, a puzzled, frightened child surely, even if in Irene's company, for Irene did not sound herself at all. "Can you say how she would respond to confusion and fear?"

"She will do as she is told. I provide a strict daily routine of self-improvement for her. She wears a steel brace, for instance, for several hours a day to improve posture."

Here I felt my spine stiffening more in outrage than in sympathy.

"What sort of . . . appliance is this?"

"A rod up the spine, affixed by a bracket to the temples and chest."

And we were worried about Consuelo in the hands of foreign torturers! "Was she wearing this, this Iron Maiden when she disappeared?"

"Yes. But she didn't disappear. She was taken." Alva, who had been addressing the mounted head of an African antelope on the wall behind me, snapped her gaze of agate to Mr. Holmes.

"Surely you will serve the Vanderbilts with more zeal and dispatch in the matter of a missing heiress than you did the Astors in the trifling forgery of a chess set."

"I will bend my every asset to it. First, I must see the gymnasium where Miss Vanderbilt was accosted and taken."

"Reede will show you upstairs, and Miss Bristol will answer all your questions, even if she can't satisfy mine as to why she left Consuelo to the care of this extremely odd creature. When you are done with her, she may leave with your party. Her employment here is over."

Miss Bristol in her corner started. "My things-"

"Will be found packed on the servant's back entrance stairs." Alva looked last to her husband. "I suppose you're to be congratulated for having been so swift in procuring the services of this English snoop. He apparently has some little reputation. I want my Consuelo back within hours. Her reputation must not be compromised."

I couldn't remain silent, though all reason demanded it.

"Surely the woman who took her wouldn't betray a child to such a fate."

"Children are sold every day on the streets of New York. Don't you read the newspapers? Haven't your heard of the Hamilton case? It's imperative that no hint of scandal attaches to my daughter. I will give my diamond-and-pearl parure to the one of you who claims credit for her swift, safe, and discreet return. Otherwise, none of you will see a penny of Vanderbilt money."

At his desk, Mr. Vanderbilt's face turned ashen, which was a good indication of just how costly his wife's pearl parure was.

48.

WHAT THE GYMNASIUM REVEALED.

Our mother dominated our upbringing, our education,

our recreation and our thoughts.

-CONSUELO VANDERBILT BALSAN, THE GLITTER AND THE GOLD, 1952

It was swiftly decided, after Mrs. Vanderbilt left, that Quentin would interrogate the servants (and see to the worldly goods of poor Miss Bristol, who was trembling on the brink of tears). Godfrey remained to discuss financial matters, i.e., ransom, with Mr. Vanderbilt, and Holmes would see the gymnasium and trace the path from there to outside the house.

"Miss Bristol, you will assist," he said, fixing the poor woman with a gaze at least as stony as Mrs. Vanderbilt's. "Along with Miss Huxleigh."

I cast appealing glances to Quentin and Godfrey, but they were already turning away on their separate quests.

I can't say why Mr. Holmes desired my company, except perhaps to keep Miss Bristol from the brink of hysteria on which she teetered. So I took her arm and we both led him up the grand white stone staircase to the house's upper regions.

Halfway up this mountain of laddered stone, he stopped to regard Miss Bristol.

"The first day I visited this house," he said, "I glimpsed a dark-eyed nymph at the top, peering down at me. She seemed quite . . . shy."

Miss Bristol spread her fingers on her no doubt palpitating breast. "Oh, sir, she is the sweetest, most docile child. She had a terrible fear of this very staircase. It's so wide and long. From the top, it looks like a mountain slope."

"Quite so," said Holmes, taking us both by the elbow to hurry us up the steep expanse.

There were no handrails to hold on to, and I suddenly saw this great house as the glass mountain from the fairy tale, all slick surfaces that no one could climb with any certainty.

The stair to the third floor was far less grand. We almost immediately encountered the door to the so-called gymnasium. Although the shining wood floor offered opportunity of all sorts of endeavors from fencing to games, and even roller skating, it would also serve well as a ballroom, I noted.

The sharp scent of wax and polish was like a refreshing whiff of hot tea to my nose. I resolved to remain alert, for Irene had been here, incontrovertibly. Why and how? And in what state? Why would she abduct this docile child of privilege . . . unless that child were in worse danger where she was than where Irene would take her?

"Where did you stand, Miss Bristol, and your charge, and the new dancing instructor?"

Holmes didn't cross the threshold, so neither did I.

Miss Bristol pattered to a place near the door. "Here was I. Conseulo beside me. We had just donned our brace, for it was paramount to wear it during dance and deportment instruction. Only instead of M'sieur, this woman appeared in the doorway."

"The woman dressed as a man," he said.

"It didn't seem as strange as that She seemed like something . . . oh, out of a Punch and Judy play in the park. Which of course Miss Consuelo would never have seen, never have being allowed out to see such a thing."

"And the woman allayed your fears, dismissed you?"

Miss Bristol frowned. "No, I didn't leave. I just didn't see much after she appeared. She had . . . a watch. A round gold watch like a little sun, and it spun so. Her voice was sweet, mellow. I was reminded of a cello. I was reminded of honey in my tea, this afternoon at four, when all my duties are done until five. Consuelo seemed quite enchanted by her. They went off, and I remained. It all seemed quite natural."

I sighed and shut my eyes.

"Yes?" Holmes asked.

The admission stuck in my throat, like a bit of bread that will not go down, or back up again.

"Irene has hypnotized," I admitted, "Irene has been hypnotized."

"Some regard that as fraud and delusion."

"I hypnotized her once."

"Did you? Quite a bold step, Miss Huxleigh. Quite a responsibility."

"I suppose," I said, meeting his glance, "the hypnotic state might be considered similar to that of deliberately taking an opiate drug, as the writer De Quincey did. Only, with hypnotism, no opium, no poppy flower, no cocaine would be required. There are some, nursemaids, who doctor infants so, with cocaine."

"Ha! You waste your breath, and not for the first time. I believe in Mesmerism as a science, and an art. We in our benighted day don't understand its full usage. Not at all. So I'm not surprised Madam Irene is not unfamiliar with its uses. You, however-"

What he was about to say, I never heard, for Miss Bristol gave out a keening wail.

"I thought I saw them leave, sir, hand in hand, as happy as water-babies on a wave. I never thought any harm would come to Miss Consuelo. I'd never seen her face as open, like a flower. I never thought that strange lady would harm her, or I'd have given my life to stop her, save her."

Holmes lowered his head and frowned. "Shades of the Hamilton case. How many dramas in upper rooms can New York society stand in a single season?"

"Hamilton case?"

"Ask your Mr. Stanhope, when we have a moment, which we won't for many weary hours. Now." He bowed to inspect the floor, then produced thick magnifying glass and suddenly stretched himself full length-which was considerable-on the polished wooden floor.

Miss Bristol's eyes met mine. I shrugged. Mon Dieu! I was becoming French!

We gazed down upon Holmes's outstretched six-foot-plus frame, two governesses observing an eternal boy at his eternal boy pursuits: making the world into a scientific puzzle for the human brain instead of a conundrum for the human heart.

We smiled thinly at each other, as women who don't count often do.

"Where will I go?" Miss Bristol murmured.

"I have friends who will find you a place."

Her usual modestly lowered gaze suddenly fixed on me with raw intuition. "One of these friends is the woman who took my Consuelo."

"Yes. I hope so. I hope we find them both."

"I trusted her. Otherwise I would have never stood there silent, whatever strange aura I felt."

I nodded. "I trust her too. Even when she is not quite herself."

"This man," Miss Bristol said, nodding toward Holmes. "Should I trust him?"

A good question. He had been hired to work for the Astors, then the Vanderbilts. He hadn't wanted to cross Irene's path, nor had she intended to cross his.

Yet now they were on the opposite sides of a shocking abduction.

"Tell him all that you know," I finally advised her.

And I will listen to every word.

By the time Miss Bristol and I had descended to the back stoop at the rear of the Vanderbilt "castle," Sherlock Holmes had crawled every step of the way.