“Sometime that tree is going to tumble right into the water, you know, and it is to be hoped you will not be underneath it when that happens.”
He was not mocking my hideaway, at least, but I felt a mild reproach in his words, and his desire for me to come out. Frowning, I did so.
He asked, “What is that paper you have in your hand? May I see?”
My list. I gave it to him, telling myself I didn’t care anymore what he thought of me.
I sat, slumping, on another fern-upholstered rock as he read.
He paid close attention to my list. Indeed, he pondered it, his narrow, hawk-nosed face quite serious now.
“You have certainly covered the salient points,” he said finally, with some small air of surprise. “I think we can surmise that she did not leave by the gate because she did not want the lodge-keeper to see in which direction she was going. And for the same reason she did not want to use the roads, where she might meet with some witness. She has been clever enough to leave us with no idea whether she went north, south, east, or west.”
I nodded, sitting up straighter, feeling unaccountably better. My brother Sherlock had not laughed at my thoughts. He was talking with me.
That nameless butterfly fluttering in my heart—I began to sense now what it was.
It had started when I had found out that my brothers’ quarrel was with my mother, not with me.
It was—a hope. A dream. A yearning, really. Now that there might be a chance.
I wanted my brothers to . . . I did not dare to think in terms of affection, but I wanted them to care for me a little, somehow.
Sherlock was saying, “As for your other points, Enola, I hope to clear them up very soon.”
I nodded again.
“One question I do not understand. While I asked Lane for a description of your mother’s attire, I fail to see how it was odd.”
I blushed, remembering my shocking blunder with Lane, and only just managed to murmur, “The, um, tournure.”
“Ah. The bustle.” It was perfectly all right for him to say it. “As the cannibal asked the missionary’s wife, are all your women so deformed? Well, there is no accounting for the ways ladies choose to adorn themselves. The whims of the fair sex defy logic.” He shrugged, dismissing the subject. “Enola, I am returning to London within the hour; therefore I searched you out in order to say good-bye to you and tell you it has been delightful to see you again after all these years.”
He offered his hand—gloved, of course. I grasped it for a moment. I could not speak.
“Mycroft will remain here for a few days,” Sherlock went on, “little as he cares to be away from his dear Diogenes Club.”
After swallowing to regain my voice, I asked, “What will you do in London?”
“File an inquiry with Scotland Yard. Search the passenger lists of steamship companies for women travelling alone, in case, as we hypothesise, our straying mother has left England for the south of France or some such artistic mecca . . . or perhaps she is making a pilgrimage to some shrine of the Suffragists.” He looked at me quite levelly. “Enola, you have known her more recently than I. Where do you think she might have gone?”
The great Sherlock Holmes asking me for my thoughts? But I had none to offer. I was, after all, a girl of minimal cranial capacity. Feeling the heat of a blush once more start to burn its way up my neck, I shook my head.
“Well, the constabulary reports not a sign of her hereabouts, so I am off.” He stood up, touching the brim of his hat as a courtesy, not quite tipping it to me. “Take heart,” he told me. “There is no indication that she has come to any harm.” Then, swinging his stick, he walked up the rocks of the dell with easy dignity, as if ascending a marble stairway to some London palace. Reaching the top, without turning he raised his cane, waggling it in a kind of dismissal or farewell, then strode off towards the hall with the dog trotting adoringly after him.
I