A Question of Holmes (Charlotte Holmes #4)(18)

I paused, my hand on the knob, before I barged in. You are being very stupid, Holmes, I thought. Behave like yourself. Pay attention.

There wasn’t any sound inside. The building was still. I looked down to examine the floor beneath my boots, and it was hardwood, old and creaky. Had there been anyone waiting beyond the door, I would have heard their shoes, or their chair. No one stayed perfectly still, waiting.

Hardly anyone, anyway.

I knocked. No answer.

Next to the door was a bulletin board, and on it, a calendar. ORCHIDS OF THE WORLD.

It looked new.

“Anwen?” I called again, and I may have been many things, but I wasn’t an utter fool. Anyone trying to murder me would at least need to put in some effort. When I yanked the door open, I took a quick series of steps back and to the side.

In time to keep the blood-soaked figure from falling directly on top of me.

It was fair to say that, after the events of the past few years, my nerves were still somewhat shot. So I hoped I would be forgiven for yelling, “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” before I leapt quickly backward.

After a long moment in which I was not beheaded, I straightened. The figure was still on the floor. A cursory inspection showed that it was in fact made of bedsheets knotted together into the shape of a body—head, shoulders, and so on—and fallen faceup. A photograph of a girl’s face had been pinned in the appropriate place. At a glance, I thought it to be Matilda Wilkes, and a quick search on my phone (Facebook; infinitely useful) confirmed my supposition. Hardly surprising.

What was: the piece de resistance, a plastic dagger stuck into the figure’s chest.

It was stuck in the wrong side of the figure’s chest, but then, I supposed the perpetrator’s heart was in the right place.

(I took note of that joke to repeat it to Watson later. I was on something of a crusade to prove to him that I had a sense of humor.)

“Amateurs,” I said as I bent beside it, snapping on a pair of latex gloves; I kept them in my bag for such occasions. I ran my hands over the figure, then lifted it slightly, both to gauge its weight (less than ten pounds; easy enough to prop up inside the door, no matter the perpetrator’s size) and to see if the dagger would fall out. It didn’t. It had been wedged into a knot, which kept the plastic blade stable, and I wasn’t about to dislodge the evidence. The knife itself was a standard costume shop prop; they could have bought it anywhere, taken it from the basement of this very theater. Still, I found its serial number, then photographed it. Then sniffed the splatter of ketchup around it, made to look like blood.

A good corn syrup mixture was much more realistic.

The knot itself was more interesting. I examined it, photographed it, and made a note to look into it later. I’d just leaned back to take some shots of the scene when I heard footsteps on the stair.

“Holmes.” Watson pelting down the short hall, his trainers squeaking on the hardwood. “I heard you yell—I—” He pulled up short.

“Not a body,” I said.

“No.” He looked down at it. “More like a dead sheet monster.”

“Anwen stood me up.”

“She’s actually right behind me,” he said, squatting down next to the figure. “With Dr. Larkin. She’d gone to meet her to get the keys, in case the theater wasn’t unlocked. But I guess she had to run around to track her down, Dr. Larkin was in a meeting in another building—”

“With the Soc’s new director, actually,” Dr. Larkin said, stepping into the hall, Anwen just behind her. “You’ll meet him tomorrow night. Dear God, Charlotte, what happened?”

A clumsy but effective announcement that this campaign of fear hasn’t ended, I thought, but what I said was, “I don’t know, I’m all shaky,” and threw myself into Watson’s arms, my fists tucked up against his chest. Quickly, I pulled off my gloves and stuffed them between the buttons of his shirt, then down. He stifled a yelp. I suppose it would be surprising, having a ball of warm latex shoved under your clothes without warning.

“Pretend I’m upset,” I whispered.

“She’s had a scare,” he told them as I pushed my face into his shirt. “I don’t know if there’s someone you need to report this to, or what, but I think I should get Charlotte out of here.”

I looked up tearfully at Dr. Larkin, whose brow was furrowed—Who do I call, I saw her think, what do I say that can keep the program open—and at Anwen, whose face was a perfect blank.

“They’re going to cancel the show,” she whispered finally, and there was something different about her voice, about her accent.

Dr. Larkin jumped in before I could place it. “Don’t say that,” she told Anwen. “I’ve called in help, you know.”

“But you’re not—”

“Even if I’m not the director, I still care,” Dr. Larkin said, because of course she did. She wanted her job back. “We’re working with some really excellent consultants to get to the bottom of this, and I’m sure . . . I’m sure . . .”

She trailed off, perhaps in part because the consulting detective she had hired was still sobbing prettily into her boyfriend’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I lost someone close to me last year, and—”

Watson stiffened. I suppose it was in poor taste to bandy around August Moriarty’s death like this, but I also thought that August himself would probably not have minded. Any port in a storm.