A Slight Trick of the Mind Page 9

  My remark was cut in on by Mr. Keller, who spoke with urgency as his thin white fingers gripped at his lapel.

  “Mr. Holmes, it is true that I exist on a modest wage, but I will do whatever is necessary to reward you for your services.”

  “My dear boy, my profession is its own reward,” I said, smiling. “Should I be put to any expenses—which I do not foresee in this matter—you are free to defray them at a time which best suits your modest wage. And now if you can contain yourself for a moment, I beg you to let me finish the question I was attempting to ask: How is it that your wife could pay for these clandestine lessons?”

  “I cannot tell,” he answered. “Nevertheless, she has her own means.”

  “You are referring to her inheritance.”

  “I am.”

  “Very good,” I said, surveying the human traffic on the other side of the street—my view obstructed every so often by four-wheelers, hansoms, and, what was becoming a less singular apparition by those days, at least two clamorous transporters of the upper class: the automobile.

  Believing my case to be almost complete, I waited expectantly for Mrs. Keller's approach. When, after the passing of several minutes, she failed to materialise, I found myself wondering if she might not have entered Portman's ahead of schedule. Or perhaps she was, in reality, completely aware of her husband's suspicions and had decided against showing herself. As I was about to suggest the latter possibility, my client's gaze narrowed; nodding his head, he said lowly, “There she is,” and with that his body was eager for pursuit.

  “Steady,” I said, bracing a hand upon his shoulder. “At the moment, we should maintain our distance.”

  And then I, too, glimpsed her as she walked idly toward Portman's, a slower form moving gradually amidst swifter currents. The bright yellow parasol floating above her was at odds with the woman beneath it; for Mrs. Keller, a diminutive wisp of a creature, was in the conventional costume of a grey day dress—the austere pigeon-breast look and the waist line dipping in front to accentuate the S curve of her corset shape. She wore white gloves, and one of those adorned hands cradled a rather small brown-covered book. Upon reaching the entrance of Portman's, she brought the parasol down and tugged it shut, tucking it then under an arm before venturing inside.

  My client's shoulder resisted my grip, but I prevented his rushing ahead of me by asking, “Is your wife in the habit of applying perfume?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Excellent,” I said, releasing my hold and stepping past him into the street. “Let's see what all this is about, shall we?”

  My senses are—as my friend John certainly noted—remarkably attuned perceivers, and I have long upheld the belief that the prompt outcome of a given case often relies on the immediate recognition of perfumes; therefore, criminal experts would be well advised to learn how to distinguish them. Regarding Mrs. Keller's scent of choice, it was that sophisticated blend of roses complemented by a hint of spice, the lingering of which was first detected in the entryway of Portman's shop.

  “The fragrance is Cameo Rose, is it not?” I whispered after my client. But as he had already charged beyond me in haste, no reply was forthcoming.

  Still, the farther we went, the stronger the odour became, until, pausing briefly to discern its course, I felt that Mrs. Keller was somewhere very close to us. My eyes darted around the cramped, dusty establishment—rickety bookcases tilting unevenly from one end of the shop to the other, with volumes filling the shelves and, as well, stacked haphazardly along the dim aisles; yet she was nowhere to be seen, nor was the elderly proprietor, who I had imagined would be sitting behind the counter by the entryway, his face peering down at some obscure text. In fact, devoid of both staff and patrons, Portman's gave the eerie impression of having been vacated; no sooner had that thought crossed my mind than, as if to underscore the unusual aura of the place, I caught the faint sound of music coming from upstairs.

  “It's Ann, Mr. Holmes. She's at it now; she's playing!”

  I suppose truly to claim such ethereal abstraction as being music was inaccurate; for the delicate sounds which reached my ears lacked form, arrangement, or simple melody. However, the magnetism of the instrument had its effect: the varying tones converged into a single sustained harmony which was at once discordant and captivating; enough so that my client and I were drawn in its direction. With Mr. Keller leading the way, we passed between bookcases and reached a flight of stairs near the back.

  But while climbing upwards towards the second story, I realized that the odour of Cameo Rose had not travelled beyond the ground floor. I glanced back, surveyed the shop below, again saw no one about, stooped for a better view, and, with no success, contrived to bring my stare over the tops of bookcases. This hesitation on my part prevented me from stopping the fervour of Mr. Keller's fist upon Madame Schirmer's door, a short-lived pounding which resonated along the corridor and silenced the instrument. Nonetheless, the case was, to a certain degree, finished by the time I joined him there. Without a doubt, I knew Mrs. Keller had gone elsewhere, and whoever was practising on the armonica would prove to be someone other than she. Ah, that I should reveal so much when attempting my own narrative. I cannot hide the truth as John could, nor do I possess his talent of withholding the relevant points in order to fashion a superficially significant conclusion, alas.

  “Calm yourself, man,” said I, admonishing my companion. “By no means should you display yourself so.”

  Mr. Keller frowned gravely and held his gaze at the door. “You must forgive me,” said he.

  “There is nothing to forgive. But as your furore may impede our progress, I shall speak on your behalf from here on.”

  The silence which ensued in the wake of my client's angry knocking was then vanquished by the quick, equally pounding steps of Madame Schirmer. The door was thrown open and she appeared then with inflamed features and ruffled demeanour, as brawny a woman as I have ever encountered. Before she could utter a heated word, I stepped forwards and handed her my calling card, saying, “Good afternoon, Madame Schirmer. Could you be so gracious as to grant us a little of your time?”

  Considering me momentarily with a questioning glance, she proceeded to shoot her formidable stare to my companion.

  “I promise we shan't keep you but a few minutes,” I continued, tapping my finger against the card she was holding. “Perhaps you are familiar with me.”

  Disregarding my presence altogether, Madame Schirmer spoke harshly: “Herr Keller, don't come here like this again! I won't have this interruption! Why must you come and create these problems for me? And for you, sir,” she added, fixing her stare upon me, “the same goes, too. That's right! You are his friend, no? So you go away with him and never come back to me like this! I have no more patience for these people like you!”

  “My dear woman, please,” said I, extracting the card from her hand and lifting it in front of her face.

  To my surprise, the sight of my name provoked an adamant shaking of her head. “No, no, you are not this person,” said she.

  “I assure you, Madame Schirmer, that I am none other than he.”

  “No, no, you are not him. No, I have seen this person often, you know.”

  “And pray tell me when the acquaintance was made?”

  “In the magazine, of course! This detective is much taller, right? With the black hair, and the nose, and the pipe. You see, it was never you.”

  “Ah, the magazine! It is a somewhat intriguing misrepresentation. On that we can agree. I fear I do my caricature an injustice. If only the majority of people I meet could perceive me as wrongly as you do, Madame Schirmer, then my liberty might be less hampered.”

  “You are ridiculous!” With that, she crushed the card and threw it at my feet. “So you go from me now, or the constables are coming for you!”

  “I cannot leave here,” said Mr. Keller firmly, “until I see Ann with my very own eyes.”

  Our inconvenienced antagonist suddenly
stomped on the floor, doing so repeatedly, until the noise of it reverberated beneath us. “Herr Portman,” she cried out afterwards, her emphatic voice echoing past us into the corridor, “there is trouble with me now! Go for the constables! There are two burglars at the door! Herr Portman—”

  “Madame Schirmer, it is of no use,” said I. “It seems Mr. Portman has gone out for a while.” Then I turned to my client, who looked deeply chagrined. “You should also be aware, Mr. Keller, that Madame Schirmer is completely within her rights and that we have no legal status to go within her flat. However, she must understand that your action is governed solely by concern for your wife. I venture to hope that if we were allowed to have just two minutes inside with Madame Schirmer, we could certainly put this issue to rest.”

  “The wife is not here with me,” said the displeased woman. “Herr Keller, I have told you this enough. Why do you come here and give me your problems? I can ring up the police on you, you know!”

  “There is no reason for that,” I said. “I am fully conscious of the fact that Mr. Keller has accused you unjustly, Madame Schirmer. But any interference by the police would only complicate what is, in truth, a rather sad affair.” I leaned forwards and whispered several words into her ear. “You see,” I then said when moving back from her, “your assistance would be most valuable.”

  “How could I know this?” she gasped, her expression transforming from annoyance to regret.

  “Indeed,” I answered sympathetically. “My trade, I am sorry to say, is sometimes a woeful business.”

  As my client's face focused on me with confusion, Madame Schirmer stood in thought for a moment, her massive arms akimbo. Then she nodded and stepped aside, gesturing for us to enter: “Herr Keller, I think it is not your fault. Come inside, if you wish to see for yourself, poor man.”

  We were shown into a bright, sparsely decorated drawing room, with a low ceiling and half-opened windows. An upright piano was in one corner, a harpsichord and a good many percussion instruments in another, and, put side by side, two impressively refurbished armonicas sat nearest the windows. These instruments, with a number of small wickerwork chairs placed at or around them, were the only objects in what was an otherwise-barren room. Save for a square of Wilton in the centre, the discoloured brownish slats of the floor remained exposed; the white-painted walls were also unadorned, allowing for the sound waves to reflect in such a way as to produce a distinct echoing timbre.

  It was not, however, the contrivances of the drawing room which immediately caught my attention, nor was it the scent of spring flowers wafting through the open windows; rather, it was the fidgeting, slight form sitting before an armonica: a boy of no older than ten, with red hair and freckled cheeks, turning nervously in his seat to view us as we came into the room. Seeing the child, my client stopped in his steps; his eyes then darted about while Madame Schirmer watched from the entryway, her arms folded at her waist. I, on the other hand, proceeded towards the boy, addressing him with the warmest of intonations: “Hello there.”

  “Hello,” said the child shyly.

  Glancing back at my client, I smiled and said, “I take it that this young man is not your wife.”

  “You know he isn't” was my client's bristling reply. “But I cannot understand it. Where is Ann?”

  “Patience, Mr. Keller, patience.”

  I drew up one of the chairs to the armonica and sat beside the boy, while my eyes travelled round and over the instrument, taking in every detail of its design.

  “Pray what is your name, child?”

  “Graham.”

  “Now then, Graham,” said I, noting that the old glasses were thinner in the treble and thus were easier to make sing, “is Madame Schirmer teaching you well?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  “Hum,” said I thoughtfully, lightly running a fingertip across the brims of the glasses.

  The opportunity to inspect an armonica—especially a model in such pristine condition—had never before presented itself. What I had known previously was that the instrument was played upon when sitting directly in front of the set of glasses, spinning them by means of a foot treadle, and wetting them on occasion with a moistened sponge. I was also aware that both hands were required, allowing different parts to be performed simultaneously. However, while actually looking closely at the armonica, I observed that the glasses were blown into the shape of hemispheres, with each having an open socket in the centre. The largest and highest pitched of the glasses was G. To distinguish the glasses, each—save the semitones, which were white—was painted inside with one of the seven prismatic colours: C, red; D, orange; E, yellow; F, green; G, blue; A, indigo; B, purple; and C, red again. The thirty or so glasses varied in size from about nine inches in diameter to no more than three inches; fixed upon a spindle, they sat within a three-foot-long case, which—tapered in its length to adapt to the conical shape of the glasses and fastened to a frame with four legs—lifted on hinges from the middle of its height. The spindle was cast of hard iron, and, made to turn on brass gudgeons on either end, it crossed the case horizontally. On the widest side of the case was a square shank, upon which a mahogany wheel was fixed. It was the wheel which served as a fly to make the motion steady, doing so when the spindle and the glasses were rotated by the action of the foot. With a strip of lead concealed near its circumference, the wheel appeared to be some eighteen inches in diameter, and, approximately four inches from the axis, an ivory pin was fixed to its face; around the neck of the pin was placed a loop of string, which travelled up from the moveable treadle to provide its motion.

  “It is a remarkable contraption,” said I. “Am I to understand that the tones are best drawn out when the glasses turn from the ends of the fingers, not when they turn to them?”

  “Yes, it is so,” Madame Schirmer replied from behind us.

  Already the sun was angling for the horizon, its light reflecting off the glasses. Graham's wide-eyed stare had slowly become a squint, and the sound of my client's restless sighs took advantage of the room's acoustics. Carried from outside, the bouquet of daffodils tingled in my nostrils, an onionlike smell, hinting of mould; I am not alone in my dislike of the flower's subtle qualities, as deer, too, are repelled by it. Then giving the glasses a final touch, I said, “If circumstances were different, I should ask you to play for me, Madame Schirmer.”

  “Of course, this we can always arrange, sir. I am available for the private performance; that is what I do sometimes, you know.”

  “Naturally,” said I, rising from the seat. Gently patting the boy's shoulder, I continued: “I believe we have monopolised enough of your lesson, Graham, so we shall now leave you and your teacher in peace.”

  “Mr. Holmes!” my client ejaculated in protest.

  “Really, Mr. Keller, there is nothing else for us to learn here, aside from what Madame Schirmer offers at a price.”

  And with that, I pivoted upon my heels and set across the drawing room, where I was followed by the woman's dumbfounded stare. Mr. Keller rushed to join me in the hallway, and as we exited the flat, I called back to her while shutting the door: “Thank you, Madame Schirmer. We won't bother you again, although I suspect you might be engaged by me at a later date for a lesson or two. Good-bye.”

  But once we had started down the corridor, the door was flung open and her voice chased after me: “Is this true, then? Are you him in the magazine?”

  “No, my dear lady, I am not him.”

  “Ha!” said she, and the door slammed shut.

  It wasn't until my client and I had reached the bottom of the stairs that I paused to calm him; for his face had become flushed and darkened from encountering the boy instead of his wife. His brows were drawn into two crooked, thick lines, while his eyes shone out beneath them with an almost irrational pall. His nostrils, too, flexed with the deepest of vexations, and his mind was so absolutely confounded by the whereabouts of his wife that the whole of his expression conveyed a significant questi
on mark.

  “Mr. Keller, I assure you that all is not as grave as you imagine it to be. In fact, while granting some deliberate omissions on her part, your wife has been mostly honest in her account to you.”

  The grimness of his expression lessened somewhat. “You have evidently seen more upstairs than was visible to me,” said he.

  “Perhaps, but I wager that you saw exactly what I did. However, I may have discerned a little more. Even so, you must allow me one week to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion.”

  “I am in your hands.”

  “Very good. I ask now that you promptly return to Fortis Grove, and when your wife arrives, you should mention nothing of what has occurred here today. It is very essential, Mr. Keller, that you should adhere to my advice in every respect.”

  “Yes, sir. I shall endeavour to do so.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I wish to know something first, Mr. Holmes. What was it you spoke in Madame Schirmer's ear which gained us entrance into her flat?”

  “Oh, that,” I remarked, with a flick of the hand. “It is a simple but effective untruth, one I have used previously in similar instances; I told her that you were a dying man, and I said your wife had abandoned you in your time of need. The very fact that it was whispered should have revealed it as a lie—yet it rarely fails as a skeleton key of sorts.”

  Mr. Keller stared at me with a look of slight distaste.

  “Tut, man,” said I, and turned from him.

  Then going to the front of the shop, we at last happened upon the elderly proprietor, a little wrinkled fellow, who had resumed his place behind the counter. Sitting there in a soil-stained gardening smock, hunched over the text of a book, the man clutched a magnifying glass in a trembling hand and was using it to read. Near him were brown gloves, which he had apparently just shuffled off, laying them on the counter. Twice, the man rattled out a cough of the harshest kind, startling us both. But I lifted a finger to my lips so that my companion would remain silent. Still, as Mr. Keller had mentioned earlier, the man seemed oblivious to anyone being in the shop, even as I came within two feet of him, peering down at the large book which held his attention: a volume on the art of topiary. The pages I could see were illustrated with carefully rendered drawings of shrubs and trees trimmed into the shapes of an elephant, a cannon, a monkey, and what appeared to be a canopic jar.