The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(70)
The youth led us up to the second floor to a heavy iron-shod door, on which he knocked. The door opened and we were led into a small and cosy room much at odds with the dilapidated squalor that lay without.
The room was as richly appointed as any prime minister’s, with several well-cushioned divans, a sideboard with elegant scrollwork next to a glass cabinet with sherry and the like for discerning guests, and also a large mahogany desk. To one side, near the sideboard, stood a number of older men with the air of military advisors. Behind them was a second, smaller desk with another man sitting at it, taking notes.
Behind the larger desk, in a clear position of authority, sat a nondescript, middle-aged, dark-complexioned woman who watched us with a pair of wonderfully dark eyes and a smile playing around her thin lips. She wore an outfit of mousseline de soie, quite elegant, with a touch of fluffy crimson chiffon at her neck and wrists, as well as an enviable pendant adorned with blood-red rubies. The silence stretched out while she regarded us. Holmes said nothing.
“That will do,” she said to her subordinates. “Better if you leave us alone, I think. These men don’t mean me any harm.” The smile grew fuller. Her eyes sparked with a cunning malice and suddenly the woman didn’t seem nondescript anymore. “Do you, Mr Holmes?”
Holmes scanned the room with an introspective gaze before meeting hers. “No. We do not.”
“But Mrs Rico…” one of the men burst out, but his words died on his lips when she turned to regard him with a flat gaze, and then he, and all his fellows, trundled themselves wordlessly out. The last was the thin, reedy man at the desk, who put away several ledgers and papers into the rolltop section, which he then locked. When he left and closed the door silently behind him, all the sounds and scents from the other room disappeared, leaving only a comfortable silence and the smell of varnished wood.
“Well now, Mr Holmes,” she said in a warm voice. “It is nice to see you again.”
“And you, Mrs Ricoletti,” Holmes answered. There seemed to be some tension hanging between the two of them, as if they were the only two persons in the room. She finally shifted her gaze to me and acknowledging my presence. “Dr Watson, Holmes’s loyal and true biographer. I am touched. Would either of you care for a bit of claret, perhaps?” she said. “I was just about to pour myself some.”
“A small glass, I’m sure,” he said. “The pleasantries must be observed, mustn’t they?”
“Yes,” I said, somewhat taken aback. “Of course.”
“Of course,” Mrs Ricoletti repeated. She moved to the liquor cabinet and withdrew three glasses on a small black lacquer tray. When she turned her back to us, I could see that her hair, full in a lustrous curtain, was worn scandalously loose and free. Mrs Ricoletti was also one of those women that have an extreme poise to them, her every word and motion a carefully measured step.
“Clearly you two know each other,” I said. I could feel the surprise still on my face. “You might have told me that part, Holmes.”
“I was able to help Mrs Ricoletti out with a small matter some years ago,” Holmes said. “I may have mentioned the case.”
“I’m afraid,” Mrs Ricoletti said while pouring, “that Adamo still hasn’t forgiven you, even after he got out. He feels he owes you for those many years. The names he has called you! And myself, of course, but then, we are both used to that.”
“Quite,” Holmes said. “I have noted, in the passing years, that Mr Adamo’s incarceration has been your freedom.”
“It is not often such an opportunity comes along, and a woman must seize them when she can. But you’re not here to reminisce. I rather sense that you are here to collect on the large favour you did me when you helped incriminate my husband, yes?”
“Yes,” Holmes said. “I am looking for information on the operation at Albert Dock.”
“That’s Adamo’s operation,” she said.
“Yes.”
“What makes you think I would have information on it?”
“Because you’re currently contesting for control of it. A contest of which the outcome looks quite favourable for you, I might add.”
Mrs Ricoletti laughed and took a sip of her claret. She leaned on her desk and regarded us, the picture of ease and comfort. “It seems I should come to you for information. Very well. It is a simple liquor smuggling business running supplies from the continent and landing them at various small inlets down the Thames. Not a terribly large endeavour, but lucrative. What else would you know?”
“The Merry Widow is one of these ships?”
“I believe so, yes. Unfortunate name and all.”
“Just so. Is the captain of the Merry Widow known to you?”
“Not as such, though most of these men are cut from the same cloth. Rough sorts that don’t mind taking a few risks. Familiar enough with the Thames to navigate in the dark and evade patrol boats and the like. Not terribly scrupulous, of course. I should have it here in a ledger – one moment.” She moved to the smaller desk, produced a key of her own, unlocked it, and quickly located the ledger she wanted. “Yes, here it is. Horace Gunn is the man’s name.”
“No cargo other than liquor?”
“Liquor would be their usual cargo, but they’re by no means an exclusive bunch. I know they would occasionally take passengers, if some important business of the Professor’s needed doing, back when he still ran things.”