Irene nodded.

He paused to consider. "The current state of Bavaria is delicate, and the country is in great financial and political peril of being utterly consumed by the Austrian Empire. King Otto is confined to a madhouse. Prince Luitpold, the regent, sits uneasily on the throne in Otto's stead. People respect the late King Ludwig the First, despite his long-ago dalliance with Lola. In fact, they're quite sentimental about his reign now, more than twenty years after his abdication. Yet the house of Wittalsbach is debased by the latter generations' madness: Ludwig the Second's castle-building mania, for instance, and rumors of syphilis behind the insanity. Some Bavarians recall Lola Montez as a liberating force. Others would burn her at the stake as a seductive sorceress. Still, her name has power. What did these so-called Ultramontanes want of her?"

"Money," Irene said shortly. "They want the wealth they believe she took out of Bavaria and, ultimately, California: jewels and gold. I tried to convince them that the record shows that she auctioned off her jewels before leaving California. As for the gold they're obsessed about reclaiming, they must mean the money she made in California with what they consider Bavarian capital. But who knows what became of it? Alva Vanderbilt with her balls and Fifth Avenue palaces had nothing on Lola. She spent like a sultan when she had the means, and more so when she didn't."

"Jewels and gold." Sherlock Holmes made a great show of tapping the used tobacco from the bowl of his pipe into a crystal bowl.

Even I could see that something in this recital had struck a chord with him.

"And," Irene added, "after speaking long with me and learning of my own quest, they were not averse to returning to Bavaria with an untainted heir. Or heiress, rather. One could argue paternal claims on the now-revered Ludwig the First, even if the maternal claims were on the notorious Lola Montez. An honest opera singer, an artiste even, rather than a faux Spanish dancer, held some appeal. The Bavarians were ever a musical people, and perhaps Lola's lack of talent as much as her lack of morals enraged them."

I sat bolt upright. "Irene! You let them think you were that heir? You let them think you were the daughter of Lola and Ludwig? That you could produce the jewels and gold of Lola Montez?"

"Neither jewels," Sherlock Holmes said, "nor gold. Isn't that right, Mrs. Norton?"

"The jewels were sold-for a song, unfortunately. I found that fact during Nell's and my day of reading about the many Lives-I should say Lies-of Lola. I can't go to California and reclaim them from their buyers, even if I could prove a legitimate interest in them. Gold is even more of a challenge. It's heavy and bulky. It doesn't travel well. Not by sea, without notice. From California to the East? How? Robbery was a constant threat along the routes to and from California. So. How was all this gold brought out, even presuming Lola had it? These pseudo-Ultramontanes are not Jesuits, from what I learned, but from among the college students who railed against King Ludwig the First and Lola for their liberalizing ways thirty years ago. They're now latter-day dreamers. That doesn't make them any less demented or lethal. They aspire to impose their old, long-lost order on today's Bavaria. Assuredly, they're responsible for the death of Father Hawks and the torture of Father Edmonds."

Holmes nodded and exhaled smoke. "Father Hawks, as her deathbed confessor, was the last man alive to share the final moments of Lola Montez. He would be expected to know something of her 'lost treasure.'"

"How awful!" I said with a shudder. "Innocents tormented for information they never knew."

"Or perhaps never knew they had," Holmes said. "Lola may have had more means remaining to her than anyone suspected."

"Possibly," Irene said. "She reportedly was eager to keep her mother from claiming any future inheritance. So Lola signed any other future income, beyond the twelve hundred dollars she left to settle debts and to the Magdalen Asylum, to the people of Bavaria."

Godfrey shook his head. "Too vague to stand up in court."

"So," I realized, "these fiends aren't completely mad to dream of finding or claiming something. Still, to drive dagger blades through men's hands-"

"Speaking of such horrors," Irene said to Holmes, "how did you intend to avoid the fate of the fathers?"

I glanced at her, horrified. "They were going to torture a Pinkerton?"

"Indeed. Had you and Godfrey not arrived so fortuitously, and so noisily, we might even now be discussing this with Mr. Holmes in Bellevue."

I stared aghast at the man serenely puffing away on a pipe. "But . . . you play the violin-though poorly, in my opinion. How could you risk your hands?"

"Apparently such a tragedy would have been a boon to amateur music critics everywhere." He glanced at Irene. "I was assuming that Mrs. Norton would abandon her impersonation of a greedy pretender to the Bavarian throne in time to avert such an incident"

"And if she had not?" I demanded.

"I assume you lack faith in me, not your boon companion. I also had a trick or two up my sleeves, being alerted early to these madmen's favorite form of persuasion."

At that he made the gesture of a gentleman shaking his jacket sleeves down to expose the fineness of his cuffs, a strange act of vanity in one whose thoughts were always so lofty.

His action revealed two sharp steel blades on springs.

Irene laughed and clapped her hands. "You have borrowed a trick from my old tutors the card sharps. And I would have intervened, but was hoping I wouldn't have to. As long as I appeared to have an interest in being one of them, Consuelo was safe."

"How so?" I asked.

Irene shrugged modestly, always a dangerous sign. "Once I was accepted as the lost ruler of Bavaria, I told them, I would reveal Consuelo as my daughter, given at birth by Madame Restell to the Vanderbilts. Thus Bavaria would have a legitimately illegitimate claim on the Vanderbilt millions."

"That's impossible!" I said.

"Is it, Nell? Madame Restell committed 'suicide' in 1877, the year Consuelo was born. Who's to say madame's brutal death wasn't murder, timed to conceal the fact that an infant was sold to the wealthiest family in New York at the same time."

"Even more preposterous!" I continued.

"Yes," Irene agreed, "but the mad Bavarian Ultramontanes believed it." She sighed. "Haven't we learned, Nell, in our recent investigations, that parenthood is an easy thing to feign?"

"Amen," Quentin said. "Babies can be bought on the streets of New York for ten dollars and up. When one looks at the mental and moral state of first families here and abroad, one becomes certain that more among us are changelings than we might think."

"How do you know this, Quentin?" I asked, but Godfrey answered for him.

"Look at Bavaria, Nell, with its reigning family gone to seed and a regent on the throne. Natural decay has brought on this insane attempt to reclaim glory days of three decades ago."

"Mr. Holmes!" I never dreamed I would be appealing to him. "Surely all this can't be so?"

"No, it cannot, Miss Huxleigh." He stood, ready to take his leave. "I will shortly be able to tell you all just how much of it is so.

"Mrs. Norton." He bowed in Irene's direction. 'It's pleasing to learn that you'd rather shoot revolutionaries than see my humble self mutilated. I regret that your innate humanity cost you the throne of Bavaria."

"Ah," Irene said, waving her cigarette holder like a scepter, "I'd already lost Bohemia. What is one more minuscule European principality?"

He smiled. Tightly.

"I may call upon you all again, but this time it will be for the denouement rather than the climax."

"Will you expect us to applaud?" I asked.

"No, Miss Huxleigh, I will expect you to be surprised."

54.

SHOCKING CONDUCTIONS.

The character of the Spanish dancer, whose pas and pose

have been more than a mated for a Ministry, upheld by

all the influence of the Jesuit, is belter known man her

history . . . . Wherever she appears, she is in the

midst of an imbroglio.

-ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, 1847

Godfrey, of course, retired that evening to Irene's bedroom.

They rose very late the next morning.

By then I'd already availed myself of the hotel's bathing facilities adjacent to our rooms.

Irene ordered hot coffee, tea, and pastries, then assigned me to accept them while she and Godfrey attended to their morning ablutions.

This left me fretting over cooling pots of coffee and hot water until they deigned to stroll back into our common parlor sometime after noon, both still wearing their dressing gowns.

Irene's snarled locks, however, were one smooth dark river again, and their recently smudged skins were pink with cleansing and contentment.

While I had my suspicions, as a former governess I couldn't but be cheered to consider that cleanliness was indeed cheek by jowl with godliness.

"And what did you do all morning, Nell?" Irene asked as she sipped her cooling coffee.

I could hardly admit I'd spend the morning, and most of the night before it, trying to translate Madame Restell's diary to prove that Irene did not have an illegitimate connection to the Vanderbilt clan and that Consuelo had only a legitimate claim on the same family. I had determined very little.

"Was Lola acquainted with the Commodore?" Irene asked next, as if recognizing the source of my silence.

I tried to leap ahead of her agile brain. "As you pointed out, he died in '77, the same year that Madame Restell perished."

"And that Consuelo was born."

"And that Consuelo was born. But that can't mean anything."

Godfrey begged to differ with me in his polite way. "We like to say in court that there are no coincidences, Nell, just evidence that hasn't yet been properly linked. It's suggestive that 1877 was such a busy year of death and birth among these key figures."

Before I could open my mouth to object to such blatant speculation, someone knocked on the door.

Since my friends had full cups and saucers in their hands, I rose to answer.

I had been hoping for Quentin. I would have been resigned to see Mr. Holmes.

Instead I faced Nellie Bly, as fresh as the daisy nodding over the brim of her yellow straw hat.

"'Morning." She gazed keenly into the room, then her blue-gray eyes widened. "I see another Norton has honored the U.S. with his presence. Welcome to the New World, Godfrey."

He was up, politely bowing to the intruder. "You must forgive us, Pink. Irene-"

"Rises late. I know. A theatrical habit." Pink strolled in past me. "I myself was out late last night, so understand your disinclination to bustle out early this morning. Unfortunately, I have work to do."

"That can't be visiting us," Irene said, smiling to soften the sting.

"Actually, yes." Pink turned around to survey me as well as the Nortons. "I'm surprised your cohorts aren't here."

"Cohorts?" Irene asked.

"Sherlock Holmes, for one, but I'd expect him to be out and about early no matter the case." She glanced at me. "And Quentin. I'd hoped to catch him here. He's doing some work for me and we need to finish our investigation."

"What work?" I demanded.

"Oh, Nell. It's a secret, of course. He hasn't gone and hinted anything to you, now, has he?"

"Quentin is discreet." My answer sounded hedging, but I wasn't about to admit I had no idea what Quentin would be doing in the company of Pink, or her pseudonym Nellie Bly.

"Glad to hear that we agree about Quentin's discretion. Well, if he's not here, I'll call at his hotel. I can use him on a story I'm doing, if you don't need him for whatever vague and dark business you're engaged upon."

I was quick to retort. "No, he better serves us attending to whatever vague and dark business you are engaged upon."

Pink only laughed. "All I can say is, Nell, that we make a most convincing man and wife."

Quentin in thrall to Nellie Bly! Quentin at the beck and call of Nellie Bly! Quentin . . . courting Nellie Bly!