Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Violet Hunter, and Irene Adler are the creations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Lord Goring and Mrs. Cheveley are the creations of Oscar Wilde. What happens to them here is the product of my own deranged imagination.
"Holmes," I said, throwing myself onto the settee more noisily than necessary. "Have you seen the morning papers?"
I opened the Times with a snap, as punctuation. Holmes continued not to look up from the chemical reaction in which he had been absorbed all morning.
"No," he murmured, in a tone utterly deficient of enthusiasm.
"There's an item in the theater section I thought might be of interest," I said. "Shall I read it to you?"
"Mmm," Holmes answered, fixing his eyes on the glass pipette in his hand and communicating as clearly as words could have the fact that he was paying no attention whatever to what I was saying.
I was in something of a foul mood that morning. Holmes had, for the past week and a half, been devoting his every waking moment to his latest experiment, which happened to be a new test that he hoped would help definitively determine the presence or absence of physostigmine in bodily tissue. Although I had no doubt that this would be an invaluable contribution to the literature on toxicology, I was highly irritated to discover that just as Holmes had in the past gone without sleep and without food when engaged on a particularly pressing problem, he was equally willing to defer the gratification of his other appetites. This, of course, was completely in character, and indeed it was not totally unexpected; but it did not for that reason fail to annoy.
It was for that reason that I chose what I knew was a particularly critical moment to begin reading the piece.
"It has been rumored for some months now that Mr. Albertson's new production of Oscar Wilde's 'An Ideal Husband' would be closed down by the authorities before it opened. Naturally the production of London's most famous degenerate's work, so soon after its author's conviction on charges almost too heinous to be named, shocked the public sensibility and outraged many of Covent-Garden Theater's most loyal supporters. And yet, as the play itself contains nothing offensive to the sensibilities of the Lord Chancellor, and as Mr. Albertson has, it is said, discovered powerful allies in improbable places, we learn through the publication of the playbills that the show will go on."
Holmes had drawn up some liquid of a bright red color in a glass pipette, and was poised over the beaker, awaiting the exact moment at which he must add a few drops to his solution.
"Interest has been high, especially since it was rumored abroad that a starring role will be taken by famed actress and notorious adventuress Irene Adler--"
There was a sharp, and I must say to me highly gratifying, tinkle of broken glass. The pipette lay in fragments on the floor.
"Shall I continue?"
Holmes glared at me, and returned to his work, bending to pick up the pipette fragments. "No need, Watson. I believe I can deduce the rest of the information for myself." He piled the bits of glass pointedly on the tabletop. "Journalists are highly predictable, and society columnists are the worst."
"Very well then," I said. "Deduce."
"First, we will hear that despite her marriage to a Mr. Godfrey Norton, she continues to appear under the maiden name that brought her such acclaim..."
Holmes was actually right so far--almost verbatim--but I secretly cherished the hope that this was about to change.
"Next, there will be the usual pleasantries about how although the virtuous Lady Chiltern is the heroine, the plum role in this play has been and always will be the seductive and devious Mrs. Cheveley, and that Irene Adler was born to play this role..."
"She may have been," I cut in, "but nevertheless, she will not be playing it in this production."
Holmes's eyebrows lifted slightly in vexation.
"She cannot possibly be playing Mabel. No manager would be idiot enough to cast her as an ingénue."
"Indeed, she is not."
"And it is impossible that she would agree to take on the dowager role at her young age."
"Impossible or not, it appears not to have happened this time."
"Then she is to play Lady Chiltern!"
"She is not, Holmes."
As long as other pleasures were for the time being beyond my reach, I was determined to enjoy the pleasure of seeing him baffled. "Then who the devil is she playing?"
I closed the paper up and made to put it on the table by the settee. "Never mind, Holmes. You are busy, and I am sure that if you ruminate long enough it will come to you. After all, reflect that when you have eliminated that which is impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Holmes's eyes snapped, and he thrust a hand in my direction. "Give me that paper, Watson."
"I wouldn't dream of interrupting your work."
"Watson--"
As he rose from his chair, I lifted the paper again, pretending to get ready to toss it into the grate. Holmes flew across the room, launching himself toward the paper in my outstretched arm, and landing sprawled across the settee, and me.
"Watson," he said, looking up at me and trying to preserve a shred of dignity.
"Yes, Holmes?"
"I promise you that you have my complete attention."
"Thank you, Holmes."
"Now will you please let me see the rest of that article."
"In a moment, Holmes."
Actually, it was considerably longer than a moment, and by the time his mind had returned to his unanswered question we had both lost track of the paper. Rather than go back out into the sitting room and search through the debris we had created, I simply told Holmes the only piece of information in which he was really interested.
"Mrs. Norton, or Miss Adler," I said, as I fastened my trousers, "will be playing the part of Lord Goring."
Holmes's eyes lit up.
"I was planning to spend the afternoon at the club, in any case," I said. "Shall I call in to the box office on my way?"
"By all means," Holmes said, still lazily recumbent upon the bed.
I tucked in my shirttails and settled my jacket. As I had my hand on the door I heard his voice calling from the bedroom.
"And Watson," he said.
"Yes?"
I looked back. Holmes's rumpled head was peering out from behind the bedroom door with an expression in which sheepishness and eagerness were mingled.
"Do try to get good seats."
I let the door close on my laugh.
"Violet," said Lady Bexbrough, for the fifteenth time.
"Yes, madam?" I answered, in my kindest tone.
As usual, there was no response but a long, distressed pause. I waited patiently for her to work up the courage to say whatever she had called me into her boudoir to say. It had so far taken her the better part of an hour, and the fact that she felt compelled to address me by my Christian name was a bad sign. I had, of course, my own ideas about what she was trying to say, but it was hardly my place to advance it before she did.
"You know that Lord Bexbrough will be going to the theatre to-night, to see that dreadful play."
The little shudder with which she said the word "play" was, ostensibly, to signify her revulsion at the reputation of the play's notorious author. But of course what really troubled her was that Lord Bexbrough was going out alone, and going out to a theatre.
"It is painful to be in such a position," Lady Bexbrough broke out, with a little sob. "I can't--tell you how humiliated I feel, or how absolutely alone this makes me."
I was startled by her sudden descent to emotion. It made me pity her all the more. Lady Bexbrough was young--not more than five years my senior--and as much as I had come to loathe her two beastly sons, who were alternately spoiled and neglected by their irresponsible father, I tried not to blame her for the fact that I hated being their governess. After all, on her side, it had been a love match; discovering that on his it had been about finding an intact fortune to prop up his illustrious but impoverished family crest had been extremely hard on her. Thrust into this unhappy if splendid home and cut off from the society of other women her age, she had found herself relying to a somewhat peculiar extent on my help and support--perhaps because she had heard, through some chain of servants' gossip, how violently I had repulsed her husband's advances to me the first and only time he had the audacity to make them.
"You know, madam," I said earnestly, "that anything I can do to help you, I will."
Lady Bexborough lifted her fair head, and tried to blink the tears from her eyes.
"Do you take an interest in modern drama, Miss Hunter?"
"I could if it were required," I answered.
"Here is a ticket for to-night's performance," she answered, handing me an envelope. "You will be in the pit; I have no doubt you will escape Lord Bexbrough's notice, since his attention is by all accounts divided between the ladies in the boxes and the ladies on the stage. But I have too much respect for your acumen to believe he can escape yours."
I nodded, to show she need not elaborate further.
"Thank you, madam," I said. "I will enjoy a splendid evening at the theatre--and I will tell you all about it when I return."
Lady Bexbrough dropped her eyes for a moment, then lifted them with a determined, if despondent, sigh.
"Thank you, Miss Hunter," she answered. "You will of course take your usual night off this week, as well."
It was like her to know I would be concerned about that, and to spare me the necessity of asking. "Thank you, Lady Bexbrough."
"You may go now, Violet."
I left the room in a state of keen anticipation. Rumors were flying fast about Lord Bexbrough's liaison with an actress, but opinion was sadly divided as to exactly who she was. Lady Bexbrough was quite right not to act on these reports without sounder proof; and I was delighted to have been assigned the task of finding it. I left the house that evening feeling nothing but relish for the task--and with no idea in my head that I would leave that theatre later that night a different woman.
"These certainly are good seats, Watson."
We were in a private box on the left side of the stage, so close to the action that I doubted Holmes would have a use for the opera glasses he had insisted on bringing. As if to prove me wrong, Holmes lifted them, set them astride of his aquiline nose, and peered across the crowded hall at the box on the opposite side.
"Lord Bexbrough," he murmured.
"Yes, Holmes?"
The man he was looking at was tall and slender, elegantly dressed and pleasantly featured but otherwise unremarkable--at least compared to Holmes, whom I was more interested in observing. Holmes, however, continued to look through his glasses.
"Singular," he finally said, and folded up the glasses.
"What's singular?"
"He is alone," Holmes answered. "In another case that would be quite unremarkable. You will observe of course that the audience is more than usually masculine this evening. Ladies of quality cannot be seen patronizing the work of a convict. However, Lord Bexbrough has something of a reputation for enjoying female company. It is surprising to see him forgoing it."
I looked out over the audience. Indeed, most of the women I could see were in the pit where the cheap seats were to be had.
"Ah well." He sat back in his chair and finally looked at me. "It is none of my business, of course. Whereas you are."
I knew better than to expect any kind of apology from him for the neglect of the past weeks. But I recognized with pleasure the subtler signs of a change of heart, and of a kind of puzzled remorse. Instead of continuing in this vein, however, he observed sardonically, "I suppose it would be vulgar to inquire what this is costing us."
"It costs us nothing, as a matter of fact," I replied. "When I gave my name at the box office, the keeper informed me that Miss Adler had left a pair of box tickets for us, with her compliments, and that she would be delighted if we would call on her in the Green-room after the performance."
Holmes gave out a sharp, dry laugh.
"She presumes a great deal, does she not, Watson," he said, shifting in his seat.
"Nevertheless, I predict that we will be calling on her all the same."
Holmes smiled.
"You presume a great deal as well, of course," he said. "But somehow when you do it, I don't mind."
"Holmes," I murmured.
"Shh," he said, as the curtain began to rise.
At first, I almost began to regret that I had agreed to come. The pit was crowded, and my neighbours would insist on whispering to each other. To make matters worse, the scene opened in a drawing room. I have seen enough drawing rooms to last me three lifetimes, and always found them uncomfortable places. One is usually there minding the children in some unobtrusive corner, noticed only when the proud mamma wishes one of them to be brought forward so that he or she may exhibit his or her accomplishments like a trained dog. And I had certainly, at such events, witnessed enough women who reminded me of the two pallid, affected creatures who were languidly bantering on stage.
It was the entrance of Mrs. Cheveley that first engaged my attention. The woman playing her was somewhere past thirty, with dark gleaming hair done up in a metallic band and a silver dress that clung to her bodice and hips until it flared out at the knees. She smiled as politely and vacantly as the other characters; and yet she moved with the precision and grace of a snake, gliding toward the sweet-faced and innocent Lady Chiltern with barely concealed malice.
"I think Mrs. Cheveley and I have met before..." said Lady Chiltern, coldly.
Mrs. Cheveley's smile merely hardened, slightly. I felt, watching them, how much Lady Chiltern would have in common with Lady Bexbrough. And on a sudden inspiration, I cast my eyes up toward the box where I knew Lord Bexbrough was sitting.
He was watching Mrs. Cheveley with an attention I had never seen him pay to anything. An attention which was never attached to any of the other characters, even when they were speaking.
I glanced at the copy of the playbill I had in my lap. Mrs. Cheveley was being played by an actress who gave her name as Mrs. Anne Bellamy. The "Mrs.," as it often is when applied to actresses, was probably purely honorary. Even if it were not, it was clear that Lord Bexbrough had not, and would not, allow any matrimonial tie to interfere with what I was now quite sure was an understanding between him and this woman.
I was distracted from my study of him by a loud cough that seemed to come from one of the boxes opposite. I turned my attention to the left-hand box, and was startled to recognize the gentlemen occupying it as Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. Watson.
Holmes was just turning his head, having previously whispered something to his companion. They were now both fixing their attention on Sir Robert Chiltern, who had entered the scene and was conversing with Mrs. Cheveley.
I was curious. What was the nature of their interest in him? Was he--or the actor playing him--at the center of some international intrigue that had drawn these stormy petrels of crime to the theatre that night? I looked back at Sir Robert. To me he seemed absolutely tedious--another honourable English gentleman, with a square jaw and well-trimmed moustache, lounging about in evening dress and returning Mrs. Cheveley's sallies.
"Good evening, my dear Arthur!" Sir Robert was saying, as he took by the hand a young man who had just entered the drawing-room. "Mrs. Cheveley, allow me to introduce you to Lord Goring, the idlest man in London."
The audience was silent with anticipation. I knew, of course, like everyone else, that underneath Lord Goring's tapered trousers, swallowtail coat and white tie was Irene Adler, a woman whose name had been noised in the press in connection with all kinds of adventures. And like everyone else, I was waiting to see whether she would make a success of this one.
Lord Goring removed his hat. His hair was dark and thick, cut longer on the top and combed back from his forehead. His face, clean-shaven of course, was fine-featured, and his mouth a shade too soft, a touch too full. But his eyes sparkled with a clear, ironic light as he bowed toward Mrs. Cheveley, and the hint of worldly knowledge in the eyes mitigated the youthfulness of his aspect.
"I did not think you would remember me, Mrs. Cheveley."
Judgment hung suspended. Mrs. Cheveley's smile deepened.
"My memory is still under admirable control. And are you still a bachelor?"
Lord Goring affected for a moment to search the far reaches of his memory.
"I ... believe so," he said, with a disingenuous look of innocent bemusment.
"How very romantic," said Mrs. Cheveley.
It was a slight change, very slight. But I saw, on his face and hers, the exchange of unspoken insinuations, unvoiced retorts, veiled threat on her face and undeclared defiance on his. And yet when he spoke it was lightly, as if this battle were not taking place, or as if he wanted only Mrs. Cheveley to be aware of it.
"Oh! I am not at all romantic. I am not old enough."
Lord Goring flashed an innocent, yet knowing glance at the audience, and the audience flashed back a laugh.
"I leave romance to my seniors," he said, favoring Mrs. Cheveley for just an instant with that penetrating glance.
The audience burst into laughter again. The tension that had been crackling in the air dissipated, leaving us all to appreciate the banter which Lord Goring traded, lightly and skilfully, with Mabel Chiltern. But I knew that Lord Goring was not at all interested in the witty paradoxes he was scattering about the drawing room like so many baubles. Irene Adler had already let us know. The battle was between Lord Goring and Mrs. Cheveley. And I began to find myself interested--singularly, unaccountably interested--in its outcome.
I was therefore rather irritated when Lord Goring allowed himself to be dragged off to supper by that irritating Mabel. But I still had Mrs. Cheveley--and Lord Bexbrough--to watch.
That Mrs. Cheveley was blackmailing Sir Robert, I knew. Exactly how or for what purpose I was not sure. But I did not care. What mattered was that I was finding myself almost as fascinated by Mrs. Cheveley as Lord Bexbrough was.
"Supposing you refuse," she drawled, carelessly.
"What then?" retorted the confused and angry Sir Robert.
Mrs. Cheveley looked up at him from where she was lounging on the divan, and suddenly her tone sharpened.
"My dear Sir Robert, what then? You are ruined, that's all." She gathered herself and stood, gleaming in the lamplight in like a weapon in a silver sheath. "Remember to what a point your Puritanism in England has brought you. In old days nobody pretended to be a bit better than his neighbours. In fact, to be a bit better than one's neighbour was considered excessively vulgar and middle-class. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues--and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins--one after the other. Not a year passes in England without somebody disappearing. Scandals used to lend charm, or at least interest, to a man---now they crush him. And yours is a very nasty scandal."
She had him. He knew it. And somehow I was glad she had him. I was very vexed when Lady Chiltern convinced her husband not to do what Mrs. Cheveley had asked, and did not recover my humour until Lord Goring reappeared trailing Mabel.
"You should go to bed, Miss Mabel," he said, seeming almost as irritated by her presence as I was.
"Lord Goring!"
"My father told me that an hour ago. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself."
A ringing laugh broke over the audience. I appreciated the sally, but I was not laughing. I was looking at the self-contained, secret smile on Lord Goring's soft and subtle lips as he waited for the laugh to die.
I was still watching that mouth when Mabel held out to him the diamond snake brooch she had found in the cushions of the couch.
"I wonder who dropped it," Lord Goring murmured, fixing it with an uncommonly bright glance.
He knew exactly who had dropped it. Just as he had, as it turned out, seen the brooch before, although he wouldn't say where.
And the strangest thing was that I had seen it before, too. Seen it--or else one exactly like it--in the dressing-room of Lady Bexbrough, inside a drawer that she usually kept locked.