Here a proper young nineteenth-century gentlewoman who is acting in the unlikely role of “Watson” to an eccentric Sherlock Holmes–like figure must delve into the mystery of a woman who is both missing and not missing, and dead but not dead.
THE CURIOUS AFFAIR OF THE DEAD WIVES
Lisa Tuttle
The calling card rested dead center in the gleaming silver salver on the credence in the hall. I saw it the moment I entered, but the thrill I felt at the prospect of a client was tinged with anxiety because I should have to deal with this person on my own. Where was Mr. Jesperson?
We had grown bored, waiting indoors day after day for something to happen, and had gone our separate ways that morning without agreeing upon a time for return. It was, I knew, unfair of me to feel annoyed—it was not his fault. I could use his absence as an opportunity to prove myself an equal—or more than equal—partner.
Miss Alcinda Travers was the name on the card. I wondered how long the lady had been cooling her heels, and if the sight of a female detective would please her, but most of all I wondered if she had brought the genuine, challenging mystery we had been longing for. I checked my appearance in the gilt-framed mirror on the wall, tucked back a strand of hair that had escaped from the coil at the back of my neck, and adjusted my waist. My costume was sadly old and shabby, but if it was unfashionable, at least it might be seen as businesslike. I looked, I decided, neat, composed, and serious; I could only hope that I would satisfy Miss Travers’s expectations.
Moving the card to the “quarter past” position to signal that I was with the client, I went into the room that served as both parlor and office, and was startled to discover a child waiting there alone.
She was masquerading as an adult, in an expensive, ill-fitting pink silk dress with an excess of flounces, and a hat that was simply absurd, but the serious, anguished look on her face convinced me that her visit was no joke, so I pretended to have been taken in by her deception and spoke to the adult she wished to seem. After introducing myself to Miss Travers, and apologizing for keeping her waiting, I asked her business.
“I want you to find my sister.”
“Her age?”
“Seventeen and three-quarters.”
“Name?”
“Alcinda Travers.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I thought that was your name?”
She flushed. I heard a faint rustling sound and saw it came from her clutching at a brown-paper parcel in her lap. “No. I’m sorry. I should have said … I … I wasn’t expecting to be asked, and I don’t—I didn’t—that is, I had one of Cinda’s cards, and I didn’t think it would matter—”
“It doesn’t matter at all, my dear,” I said gently. “I am simply trying to establish the facts. If your sister is Alcinda, you are—?”
“Felicity Travers. Alcinda is—was—is my half sister, actually, but she has been more like a mother to me. I can’t believe she’s gone. I never imagined she would leave me. I can’t believe it, still, even though it has been a month. A whole month!” Twisting her hands, she bit her lip and fell silent.
I shifted in my chair. “She went missing a month ago?”
“Not missing. Well, not exactly. But it was a month ago that it happened. That she … she … she didn’t wake up one morning. Nobody could understand why. It was completely unexpected. She wasn’t ill. She was never ill. And she was so happy. Excited, I should say. She had a secret, something was about to happen, some sort of adventure, but she wouldn’t tell me what; she said she would explain everything later—‘afterwards’—but afterwards it was too late, because in the morning, in the morning …” She shook her head helplessly. “She never woke up.”
I waited for a moment before prompting: “Your sister died in the night?”
She stared at me, outraged. “She is not dead!”
“I beg your pardon. When you said she did not wake … What happened next?”
“The doctor was called, of course, but not even he could find a pulse. He said it must have been her heart, some weakness like the one that killed her mother although we had never seen a sign of it. But he said she was dead, so it must be true. Even I believed it.”
Some people know how to tell stories; others must have them dragged out of them in bits. “And when did you realize that she was not dead?”
“When I saw her last week.”
“Last … week? But she had seemed to be dead for a whole month?”
She nodded. I found that I was massaging my temples in just the way I used to see my mother do when my sister was attempting to justify some outrageous scheme.
“What happened after the doctor said she was dead and before you saw her again?”
She shrugged. “Why, just what you might expect. A lot of crying. We were all terribly sad. Friends and relations came to the house the next day and brought us food no one wanted to eat. I sat with her in the parlor all night, thinking that she must wake up; she could not really be dead. She didn’t even look dead, just like she was sleeping. But no matter how I chafed her hands and whispered her name, she just lay there, perfectly still, and in the morning, they took her away and buried her.”
“She was buried? You are quite certain of that?”
“I didn’t see it if that’s what you mean. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. But my father was there, and he wouldn’t lie. I have seen her grave although my stepmother did not wish it; she wanted to forbid me going to the cemetery after what happened to Cinda.”
“What happened to Cinda?”
She looked cross. “I just told you.”
“I mean, how was that connected to visiting the cemetery?”
“It wasn’t. That’s just the way our stepmother thinks. If you can call it thinking. Cinda went to visit her mother’s grave practically every day in the months before she died, so maybe that’s why she died? It’s crazy, that’s all, and if she had stopped my going there, I would never have seen Alcinda.”
I felt my heart sink. Once, I would have found her story of great interest, but not now.
“You saw your sister last week, in the cemetery where she was buried?”
She nodded vigorously.
“I suppose she wore a veil?”
“Yes!”
“Yet, although you could not see her face, you were quite certain of her identity?”
More nodding.
“She was standing above her grave?”
“No. By her mother’s grave—that’s where she always went. I had brought some flowers to put on it because I thought that would please Cinda, if she knew, more than my putting flowers on her grave.”
“It didn’t occur to you, that the figure you saw could be a ghost?”
“Of course. That’s why I didn’t dare speak to her, or go closer, because ghosts never let you touch them. It was only when I saw the man that I knew she was really there. That she must be alive.”
“What man?”
“Why, the man who took her away! I don’t know who he was, but I can show you just what he looked like.” She ripped open the brown paper to reveal a square black book that she opened and handed across to me.
I looked at a pencil portrait of a heavily bearded fellow with narrow, squinting eyes and a snub nose. It was not a flattering likeness, but there was a spark of life to it that made me think it true.
“You drew this from memory?”