Femme Fatale

1. Duet He was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. DR. JOHN H. WATSON, "THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE," 1891, SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE at Neuilly, near Paris August, 1889 "I cannot believe," I told Irene, "that you would agree to such a shocking thing without telling your husband!" "Which can you not believe, Nell, that I would agree to a 'shocking thing' or that I would not tell Godfrey?" I had long since learned that my friend Irene Adler Norton was fashioned from an impossible human amalgam resembling iron brocade: apparently decorative but, in truth, nigh impossible to ruffle or bend. I might better exercise my lungs by attempting to blow out the fire in the grate as to move her resolve with the feeble zephyrs of my words. I shifted ground. "I cannot believe that you would invite That Man to our common home without telling me." "But I have told you." "Just now...when he could arrive any moment! I am not prepared to receive a guest, even if you are." I lifted my embroidery hoop from my lap in a gesture of exasperation. The trailing threads immediately attracted the snagging claws of the Persian cat, Lucifer, whose instincts for mayhem were as black as his long, silky coat. In an instant he was tangled in my rainbow skeins. "Obviously," Irene continued, watching my struggle to unwind embroidery silks from Lucifer's claws with a certain clinical interest, "Sherlock Holmes is not a guest, in your estimation, but an intruder. You must understand that he comes here at my invitation, for a bit of very simple business. I merely have to honor my word and give him the English translation I have had made of the Yellow Book." "Of course," I said grimly, my shredded threads tugged free of their attacker at last. "It is bad enough that demonic diary fell into our hands at the end of the Ripper affair. I still shudder when I think of the Unholy Trinity that was allied against us then. I doubt that the world will ever be safe from them, however obscurely, and deeply, and securely they are imprisoned. Now you only perpetuate that dreadful time by passing on the demented creature's scribblings to Sherlock Holmes." "I promised him I would, Nell. And my making the translation allowed me to...protect any mention of my dear ones by what you rightly call a 'demented creature.' If Mr. Holmes's presence is so undesirable, you could withdraw upstairs. I don't expect him to remain long." "How I wish that urgent political depositions in Paris did not keep Godfrey away from home on just this very day! Oh, and I may leave if I don't like the company? Of course! Banish me upstairs to leave you alone with That Man! In Godfrey's absence? I think not. It is my duty to act as chaperon." Irene sighed, bending to lift the cat free of what was left of my fancy work. "Duty is never pleasant, but I can see that you are determined to make it as unpleasant as possible." I regarded her with suspicion, but said nothing, though my mind was busy imagining the worst. Was the forthcoming visitor why she had donned her most becoming housedress today? This was a trailing white silk gown with a black net overlay of jet beads and scallops of black lace. The overall effect was of charmingly girlish polka dots, which on closer examination proved far more elegant and sophisticated than that.[read more]