Chapter 1
I should have been the happiest woman in the world.
I was sitting at my desk, the day’s clerking at Scotland Yard nearly over, when I heard a tap at the door. I didn’t have to wonder who it was. I knew it would be Tom.
Tom Huggins had called for me after work almost every evening for two years. We would have coffee or supper together, visit the theatre or the music hall, and sometimes just stroll, talking, before he escorted me home.
‘Come in,’ I called.
Tom stuck his head round the door. ‘Evening, Jacky.’ The rest of him followed, neat and shiny-buttoned, his helmet doffed.
‘Good evening, Tom.’ I laid down my pen and tidied my papers.
‘Shall we?’ He crooked an arm.
‘Give me a chance!’ I pinned my bonnet on in front of the mirror and shrugged into my coat. ‘Where shall we go tonight?’
‘I wondered if you would like a walk.’ Something in his voice made me pause in my buttoning. His face was composed, but there was an air of suppressed excitement about him. He reminded me of a shaken bottle of soda water, ready to explode at any moment.
‘A walk? In November?’
‘We could walk along the Embankment and look at the boats and … things.’ He said it so casually that someone who knew him less well than I did would have believed him without question.
‘All right, we’ll stroll by the river.’ I fetched my bag and Tom sprang to my side. Something was definitely up.
We ambled down the Strand, sidestepping the hot-chestnut sellers and the paperboys hollering the evening edition. ‘You’re very quiet, Tom,’ I said.
‘Am I?’ He looked surprised. ‘I don’t mean to be.’
We wove our way to the Thames, murky and silent, while on its surface bargemen shouted and pleasure-seekers laughed. Faint music drifted from a boat. Couples whispered and laughed beneath the flare of the lamps. ‘Shall we sit?’ Tom waved a hand at a bench.
‘Won’t it be chilly?’
‘I suppose.’ A shadow passed over his face. ‘Let’s keep walking, then.’
We fell into step, and fell silent. The water lapped at the river wall, rushing up and falling back.
‘Jacky…’
‘Yes, Tom?’
He stopped suddenly, jerking me to a halt. ‘I want to ask you to marry me.’ He was looking at me, but he did not seem to see me. ‘I’ve liked you ever since – the whole business with Sherlock Holmes, and in the last year that liking has become something much more. Jacky, will you be my wife?’
He saw me now, and I saw him. I had never seen him afraid. I had known something was coming, but not this – not this. My head was spinning, and I put a hand on Tom’s other arm to steady myself. He guided me to a bench. ‘I’m sorry, Jacky, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you…’
‘I’m not upset, I’m just … surprised.’
‘I’ll let you think it over.’ He made to get up but I touched his arm.
‘No, don’t go.’
I gazed at the river. What would it mean, to be married to Tom? To be married? I thought of a life together: a home, and children. Would it be as different as I imagined? Could I imagine a life without Tom Huggins?
‘Yes.’ It came out, just like that.
Tom stared at me. ‘Did you—’
‘Yes.’ My voice cracked on the word. I felt tears getting ready behind my eyes.
‘Yes?’ Incredulity and joy mingled in his expression.
‘Yes!’ I was grinning, and crying, and suddenly I found myself in Tom’s arms, breathing in cold air and serge. We were both shaking, and laughing. Tom kissed the top of my head. As if on cue, the music from the river grew louder and a boating party cheered.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t got you a ring,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure what size to get, or…’ He looked helpless.
‘Tom, it’s fine. We can choose together.’
‘There’s so much to think about,’ he burst out. ‘When, and where, and the best man and bridesmaids and the wedding breakfast…’
‘Aren’t I supposed to worry about all that?’ I said, smiling. I saw us in our Sunday best, standing up in church before the vicar. My smile faded as I saw the congregation. On the groom’s side, Tom’s family, his colleagues at Scotland Yard, his friends…
Who would be on my side? Tom was my best friend. I had lived a solitary, temporary sort of life as Jack Hargreaves, moving from lodging to lodging, job to job: the kind of life which permitted no friends, nor even close acquaintances. Old habits died hard. I knew people at the Yard, of course: but most of them were more Tom’s friends than mine. Who would stand up for me? I could think of no one except my former employer, Fingers Molloy – and he might not want to make the journey from Eastbourne – and perhaps Sherlock Holmes, if he were not busy with a case…
‘Jacky, what is it?’ Tom’s voice snapped me to attention. I hadn’t realised I was crying until I saw his expression.
‘I have nobody,’ I whispered, and clung to his arm. It had never bothered me before. In fact, often I had been glad of my lack of family. There was no one to question me, no one to stop me living as I chose. But now I felt like the survivor of a shipwreck, adrift on a wide, wide sea, clutching a single spar to keep me afloat.
‘You have me.’ He wiped a tear from my cheek and settled his arm more closely round me.
‘Yes, but – no one else.’ I sniffed.
‘Do you mean family?’
I nodded. ‘It never mattered until now. I suppose I didn’t miss them because I’d never had them.’ My mouth twisted in an attempt at a smile. ‘At least you didn’t have to ask my father’s permission.’
‘I never thought!’ Tom exclaimed.
His horrified face almost made me laugh. ‘Even the great Constable Huggins can miss something,’ I joked. Then I shivered as a chill breeze whipped my face.
‘Shall we have supper, Jacky? Wyatt’s isn’t far from here.’
‘Yes please, that would be lovely.’ My stomach growled on cue. At least that emptiness was easy to fill.
‘Well, we are celebrating.’ Tom got up and held out a hand to me. ‘We are, aren’t we?’ His brow furrowed a little.
‘Of course we are!’ I gave him both my hands, feeling guilty.
‘Would you like to try and find them?’ His eyes searched mine. ‘I can wait.’
Emotions were fighting for space: sadness at the little note Matron had given me when I left the workhouse, wonder at why I had been abandoned, curiosity at what I might find. But most of all, I did not want Tom to suffer. Tom, my husband-to-be. Oh, how strange and yet sweet the words were.
I lifted my face to his. ‘I would like to try, but I don’t think we should wait. Let us set a date, and if I have discovered nothing by then…’ I sighed. ‘It was not meant to happen.’ A sudden heat overcame me. ‘They have never tried to find me.’
‘Perhaps they tried and failed,’ Tom said gently. ‘You are very good at hiding, Jacky. Look at how long it took me to find you.’
He bent his head, and I closed my eyes as he kissed me. I started at the warmth of his lips. He drew me closer, and my hand caressed the short hairs at the nape of his neck. My hand seemed to know what to do better than I did. Then someone whistled from the river and we broke apart, giggling.
‘I’m not sure I’m supposed to do that in uniform,’ Tom said, straightening his helmet.
I wagged a finger at him. ‘Constable Huggins, you are clearly a bad influence. I am arresting you for corrupting a young lady, and sentence you to supper with me.’
‘Guilty as charged.’ He pulled down his helmet brim almost to his smile, and offered an arm. And as we strolled along, I marvelled at how my life had changed in the last half hour, and wondered what would happen next.
Chapter 2
My heart thumped almost as much as it had when I first rang the bell of 221B Baker Street. I was full of resolve when I left Great Scotland Yard, but by Trafalgar Square Nelson’s lions roared at my presumption, and the barrow boys in Regent Street shouted my idiocy. I wanted to clap my hands to my ears, but I hurried on.
By the time I reached Baker Street I had rebuked myself for my cheek a hundred times. What would Sherlock Holmes say to me? I imagined his lip curling in contempt at such a small thing as trying to find my family, but who else could I ask? I had another request, too. I did not think he would agree, but I was desperate.
Billy answered the door, and his professional blankness was quickly replaced by a beam. ‘Jack! I mean, Miss Day! You’re a sight for sore eyes, to be sure.’
His kind words helped dispel my nerves a little. ‘It’s good to see you too, Billy. How are things?’
Billy stepped out, drew the door to, and leaned forward confidentially. ‘Tricky,’ he muttered. ‘Mr Holmes is a very busy man, and since Dr Watson left—’
‘Dr Watson left?’
‘Good heavens, didn’t you know? The good doctor got married. It’s not as if he doesn’t visit, often…’ Billy looked at me significantly and I felt my cheeks warm. When had I last come to Baker Street? I could make all sorts of excuses about how busy they must be, and the propriety of an unattached young woman calling on two bachelors, but the fact remained that I had not so much as left a visiting card in the last two years.
‘I hadn’t realised,’ I faltered. ‘If Mr Holmes is busy, I should go –’
‘No! He needs a rest, if any man did.’
‘Why, what is he doing?’
‘The usual, only more so.’ Billy’s gaze darted around the street and he reopened the front door. ‘Come in, do.’
He did not speak again until the door was closed. Then he gestured to me to come closer and whispered, ‘He is on the trail of Professor Moriarty.’
‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Still?’ I recalled Mr Holmes’s conviction that the man behind Fingers Molloy’s midnight burglaries was Moriarty.
Billy sighed. ‘He’s obsessed. He’s got us scared to call at the butcher’s for a pound of sausages in case Moriarty’s spies are abroad.’
I studied Billy more closely. He was two years older than when I had last seen him, of course, but he seemed a man now, and a worried one. ‘Anyway, it’s lucky you’ve come. He’s about to leave for France.’
‘Seeking Moriarty?’ I could not imagine Sherlock Holmes away from London.
Billy shook his head. ‘The French government made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Very hush hush. You didn’t hear it from me.’
‘Who are you gossiping with, Billy?’ I knew the voice well, but the querulous tone was new. ‘What’s going on down there?’ A moment later, Sherlock Holmes was leaning on the stair-rail. The same tall, thin figure, clad in a dressing-gown, and yet not the same. He seemed brittle enough to snap. ‘Who is that?’
I stepped into the full light of the hall and looked up. ‘It’s Jacinth Day, sir. Jack Hargreaves as was. Do you remember me?’
‘Good Lord!’ A smile crept over Mr Holmes’s face. ‘So it is! Come up, Jack. Billy, fetch us a little something, would you.’ And he vanished.
‘He doesn’t smile like that often,’ said Billy. ‘And usually it’s to do with a case.’ He trudged towards the kitchen stairs. I longed to follow and ask him more, but Mr Holmes had summoned me, and I did not dare to keep him waiting.
It was odd to feel the smooth wooden banister under my hand again, and to mount the stairs to Mr Holmes’s consulting room. I had lived at Baker Street briefly, recovering from the finale of our previous encounter. I had slept through much of that time, and I thought I had forgotten the tall, thin, strange house, so like its inhabitant. And yet the banister, the stairs, the thick carpet, the pictures on the walls… I felt as if I were stepping into a former, well-loved home.
The door to the consulting room was ajar, and within I glimpsed Mr Holmes, ensconced in his favourite armchair. ‘Come on, then!’ My heart quickened as I pushed the door open.
‘Have a seat.’ Mr Holmes indicated the chair opposite with the stem of his pipe. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘Not at all.’ I watched his long, slim fingers pack in the tobacco, strike a match against the sole of his boot and apply it to the pipe. Soon he was puffing away.
‘So, Jack…’ He blew a smoke ring. ‘What problem brings you here?’ He grinned at my expression, but this time little mirth could be detected. ‘Oh, come now. When someone who has not visited for almost two years turns up out of the blue on a weeknight, it is not to enquire after my health. Which is excellent, by the way, whatever Billy may say.’ His grey eyes were dark as a London sky.
‘Well, I…’ I paused as I made the connection between Dr Watson’s case and my own. ‘Certain matters have led me to wonder about my family.’
‘Certain matters?’ Mr Holmes’s eyes twinkled. ‘Out with it, Jack. Admit you and young Huggins are getting married.’
‘What – how?’ Nervous he might be, but Sherlock Holmes was still razor-sharp.
‘Your ring finger is bare, yet you have glanced at it and touched it with your opposing forefinger at least twice since taking your seat. That implies its status will change soon. As for Huggins, the signs were there two years ago in the way he looked at you. Moreover, in my various travels around London, both disguised and in my own person, I have come across the pair of you several times, engaged in meaningful silences over a cup of coffee or side by side on a park bench.’ He smiled, a little ruefully. ‘I would have wished you a good evening, but you seemed quite occupied with each other.’
I could not have grown any warmer without suffering burns. Sherlock Holmes surveyed me, a sardonic twist at the corner of his mouth.
‘Your family, then. What do you know about them?’
‘Almost nothing,’ I said, putting my hands to my cheeks to try and cool them. ‘All I have is the note Matron gave me. It was tucked into my blanket when I was left at the orphanage.’
‘Have you brought it?’
I opened my bag, drew out a handkerchief, and unwrapped the creased, shabby scrap of paper I had carried with me for so many years.
Mr Holmes turned the gas-lamp up and peered at the letter with a magnifying glass. ‘Well!’ he exclaimed.
I was by his side in a moment. ‘Mr Holmes, what do you see? Tell me!’
‘It is nothing so bad. Merely … unusual.’ He tapped the paper. ‘This is a fragment of uncommonly good, heavy notepaper. See how the edge has frayed. It did not want to be torn. I suspect it had edges which would give something away. Perhaps an address, an unusual deckle, or … a mourning border?’
I shuddered. ‘What about the ink, and the writing?’
‘The ink is standard black ink, available from any stationer. When would this note have been written?’
I considered. ‘I am twenty-four years old.’
‘1866, then? 1865? Do you know the date you were left at the orphanage?’
I shook my head. The room went blurry.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and Mr Holmes guided me to a chair. ‘I apologise, Jack.’ He crouched awkwardly next to me. ‘I was so caught up in the chase that I forgot your feelings.’
‘I don’t even have a birthday,’ I sniffled.
‘You do, Jack,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘We just don’t know when it is yet. If I can find out, I shall.’ He paused. ‘The note was written by a left-handed person, and almost certainly a woman: there is no attempt to disguise the handwriting.’
‘But she tore the border from the paper. She didn’t want me to find her,’ I muttered.
‘I doubt she was thinking so clearly,’ Mr Holmes replied. ‘This note says, Please look after Jacinth for me, because I cannot. She wanted you to be safe, and you would not have been safe with her. I doubt she thought past that. May I keep the note for now?’
I swallowed, and nodded.
‘I shall give you a note in return.’ He crossed to the bureau, took a sheet of paper and scribbled rapidly. ‘There,’ he said, handing me the paper. ‘This is a letter of introduction to a very important personage who can assist you more practically.’
‘I’ll go tomorrow!’ I exclaimed. ‘Who is it, please, Mr Holmes?’
Sherlock Holmes looked slightly embarrassed. ‘My brother, Mycroft.’