Trollheart

Chapter III: Friends in Low Places

I: As One Door Closes...

I felt a little fatigued from my exertions of the previous night so I slept later than usual. Holmes, of course, was up with the lark – if indeed his head had ever hit the pillow – and looked to have been reading for some time when I finally rose. Books were piled around him in an untidy jumble on the table – Burke's Peerage was the one his nose was in as I joined him – and as he read he wrote in a notebook beside him, hardly even looking at what it was he wrote. He looked up as I entered.

“Good morning, Watson!” His face, though haggard from lack of sleep and red around the eyes, had the flush of excitement I always noted when he was well on the chase. “Some of those names you recounted to me...” He trailed off, tapping the book. “One would wonder why so many eminent men would be -”

His sentence was broken off as Mrs. Hudson opened the door, the very picture of disapproval and scandal.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said, in a very tight voice, “there is ... someone... to see you.”

Holmes looked up. “Gentleman or lady, Mrs. Hudson?” His eyes were twinkling with merry mischief, and I wondered what he was up to. Our landlady pulled a face.

“I'm sure I would stretch the meaning of the word entirely to call her a lady,” she remarked. “Not that it is my place to say, of course.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hudson!” Holmes returned to his book, wrote something down. “You are, as always, the very soul of gentility. Show her up, if you please.”

Mrs. Hudson disappeared with one more frown of deprecation, and a moment later returned with a specimen of the kind of female I imagine would have been more comfortable and at home in a dance hall.

The lady, for such I suppose I may call her, was about of the middle height, with bare arms which showed freckles halfway up the left, no gloves on her hands and a rather poor quality dress. The boots she wore, though shiny, looked to have seen better days, and her hair, a dusky red, was patched with more strands of grey than I would have expected in a woman of her age. Her makeup was heavy, lending further credence to the possibility, even probability that she was older than she looked, but was trying to conceal the fact.

It could not, however, disguise the puffiness around one eye, which was darkening and swollen, or the split lip, which, though it had obviously stopped now, looked to my professional eye to have been bleeding for some time. Two of her teeth were crooked, and it was quite obvious she had received a blow of some sort.

“Miss Penny,” Holmes drawled. “Good morning to you. I trust you have news for me?”

Only now did he look up, his eyes instantly losing their amused twinkle and hardening to sharp flint.

“My dear girl!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. “Whatever happened? Watson!” He darted a look at me. “See to the lady, would you?”

“Of course, Holmes.” I had been about to offer my services, of course. I guided her to a chair, and she sat down gingerly, as if afraid her body coming in contact with our furniture would soil it. I suddenly felt very sorry for her. Somewhat in awe, she took in her surroundings.

“Cor!” she said in a very thick London accent, “Yer that Sherlock 'Olmes, ain't yer? And then you,” she turned to me, and I felt my cheeks flush slightly at the rather low cut of her dress, which left little to the imagination, “you must be Doctor Watson.”

I nodded, a sort of half-nod, half-bow. From my position it was hard to avert my eyes from her ample charms, but I did my best.

She giggled. It was, I must admit, intoxicating to hear, though I feared it could be a slight case of hysteria brought on by her wounds.

“If I'd knowed yer was the great Sherlock 'Olmes, sir,” she told my friend, her eyes cast down demurely, “I would 'ave done wot yer asked for free.”

“Nonsense!” smiled Holmes. “Good work deserves good pay, and I daresay the sovereign will come in handy.”

She blushed. “That it will, Mr. 'Olmes, that it will. I won't 'ave need to go out on the streets for many a month now, Just as well, too, for 'oo would look at me now, the state I'm in.”

Holmes had a reputation, unfairly earned, I believe, of being immune to the female, but while he would not be swayed by a pretty face or moved by tears, he was still a man, and seemed to feel a man's outrage, as did I, at the attack perpetrated on the luckless Miss Penny. More, perhaps, as it was becoming increasingly clear that he was in the main responsible for it.

“Beauty,” he told her, “is but skin deep, they say, Miss Penny. You have a good heart.”

She shrugged. “A good 'eart won't pull in the punters, Mr. 'Olmes,” she told him. “But the money you paid me to talk to those blokes comin' out o' that club will sure 'elp. You was lookin' for the skinny on it, wasn't yer sir?”

“Skinny?” I had never heard the word. Holmes glanced at me in amusement, as did the voluptuous Miss Penny.

“It is a word used on the street, Watson. You or I would say data.”

Miss Penny looked at Holmes as if he had used a word she had never heard. Then she asked “Mind if I smoke, sir?”

Holmes gave me another amused look, no doubt noting the expression of scandal on my face. A woman smoking, indeed!

“By all means.” Holmes reached across to her, proffering his cigar box. She grinned again, took one.

“Ooh! Don't mind if I does, Mr. 'Olmes, thank ye very kindly sir!” She accepted his match, leaned back a little as she inhaled. “Cor! It don't 'alf beat them cheap Woodbines!” she remarked. “Why, a girl could get used to this.” She winked at me, which left me in a terrible quandary, as I would never ignore any woman, no matter her class, yet in meeting her gaze I was presented with, as the Penny Dreadfuls describe it, quite the eyeful.

“Now, Miss Penny.” Holmes sat back in his chair. “While the the good doctor performs his ministrations, perhaps you would tell us exactly what happened. I do hope I was not instrumental in any way in your injuries?”

“Well now.” The woman exhaled, fixing her eyes on my friend through a cloud of thick smoke. “I 'ave 'eard it said wot yer always says, begin at the beginnin', sir, and so I shall. I must say, I never did 'ave such trouble, sir, I do assure yer.”

“Trouble?” asked Holmes, mildly.

“I do 'ave a certain, ah, reputation, yer unnerstand, sir,” she said, with a touch of pathetic pride. “They do says I can tempt any man I wants, from the 'ighest to the lowest.”

Holmes smiled. “I don't doubt it.”

“Never in all my born days 'ave I failed before.” She seemed quite put out, inhaling again and blowing out the smoke. “I suppose yer might say, it's a point of honour really.”

I had to fight down the thought, which was completely unworthy of me, that honour and this lady's obvious profession were indeed strange bedfellows.

“Six men I approached,” said she, shaking her head as if in wonder. “Not a one of 'em as was interested. Not a one!” She repeated the words, as if she had to reinforce them to ensure this was reality, as if such an event could not be credited. “I suppose,” she allowed, more to herself than to us, “it's always possible to come across the one bloke wot's married an' ain't interested in a bit on the side, or, I dunno, a priest maybe? But six? Six in a row? And all from the same crib? I does confess, sir, I am at a loss.”

Holmes looked over at me archly. “The threads, Watson, the threads.”

She looked suddenly embarrassed, mortified even.

“Oh! 'Ave I damaged yer expensive chair, Mr. 'Olmes? I do beg yer pardon.”

Holmes laughed. “No, no, nothing to worry about, Miss Penny!” he assured her. “Nothing at all. Do go on.”

“Well.” She tapped out the remains of her cigar. “As I say, a queer lot they was, to be sure! Not a one of them as would give me a light, the time o' day or so much as a second look. I mean, I really failed yer, sir, and I should return yer money, only, well...”

Holmes waved his hand dismissively.

“No, no, you keep the money, Miss Penny,” he abjured her. “You performed the task for which you were paid, and in the course of that task you were most shamefully attacked. As,” the slightest hint of impatience showed in his tone, “no doubt, you are about to enlighten us.”

A shiver seemed to pass through her ample frame, and her face turned ashen. “It were that Canadian bloke. Honest to the good God, I thought I was a goner.”

Homes seemed unperturbed. I knew him well enough, of course, to know that inside he was shaking with anger, but had no intention of showing it.

“Do proceed, please.”

“'Ands like leather, he 'ad.” She felt her face. “Really 'urt. For a moment there I thought 'e was wearin' 'eavy gloves, but then I seen the marks on 'is skin.”

“Marks?”

“Yeah, like I don't know, scratches or somethin'. An' a real 'eavy breather he was too. Kept findin' it 'ard to catch 'is breath. Don't mind tellin' yer, sent shivers down me spine.”

Holmes nodded, taking notes as she spoke.

“You are sure he was Canadian?”

“Oh yeah. Scary, 'e were.” Her eyes clouded over, and for a second the self-assured woman of the streets was banished, and looking out of those hazel eyes was a small, frightened girl. “Terrified, if I'm 'onest, sirs. Knocked me right down, 'e did, and then 'e stands over me, rantin' and ravin'. Thought me number was up, I tell no lie. Fact is, think it would have been, 'ad not a copper I know come along an' run 'im off. I still remembers the look in 'is eyes! Pure 'ate, it was. I tells ya, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, not the Ripper 'imself coulda 'ad such 'ate in 'is eyes. Looked at me like I was an insect, or summat. I'll remember that look to me dyin' day.”

She shivered, and Holmes poured her a brandy, which she knocked back in one gulp.
When she had calmed down, I asked her if the police had given chase. She shook her head.

“Nah. By the time Percy – that is, PC Butler – had checked I was all right 'e were long gone. 'e asked me t' come down to the station an' give a description, but I wanted nothin' more to do with the bloke. 'sides, I reckoned with them scars 'e was probably a sailor, an' would be gone by the mornin'.” She winked impishly at me. “A girl in my line o' business, Doctor, spends enough time in the nick without invitin' more.”

“Nick?” I looked at Holmes, who rolled his eyes.

“The police station, Watson! Goodness, how you need to update your local slang!”

Stung at little by my friend's, as I saw it, unnecessary rebuke, I turned my attention to the lady.

“How did you know,” I asked, finding my voice after several attempts and keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the top of the door, “that he was from Canada? Surely he could have been an American?”

She gave me the same sort of look Holmes did when I made a stupid error, or asked him something he considered I should already know.

“Nah, Doctor,” she said with conviction. “I knows Americans, and 'e weren't one. See, I 'ad a regular few years back, came over from Toronto, fur trapper. We 'ad, well, we 'ad I suppose wot yer might call a love affair, but 'e pushed his luck once too often at cards and, well...” Her eyes clouded for a moment, and I felt an instant of real pity for her. Had her man not been killed, perhaps he would have rescued her from this life. As it was, here she was. “Any o' the other girls woulda taken 'im for a frog, but I know 'ow them Canadians speaks, with their bilong.. boling.. belong... oh!” She snarled in irritation, and my moment of pity evaporated as I saw a woman who would, and probably had done what she needed to survive. For a moment only, I was transported into her world, and it was not an experience I relished.

“What do you call it? When someone 'as, you know, 'nother language they speaks?”

“Bilingual?” I offered. She snapped her fingers, pointed at me.

“That's it!” she declared. “Boilin' gull. Always slippin' from English to French, was Marcel. Drove me nuts it did. This bloke last night, 'e was the same. Got real hot under the collar, he did, and started spoutin' French at me. No idea wot he was sayin', but I recognised it as French.” She frowned. “Think of all the blokes 'e would have been the last to turn me down, wot with 'is face all cut up like it was.”

Holmes looked sharply at her.

“Cut up?”

“Yeah.” She seemed to be trying to remember. “Same as 'is ' ands, like 'e 'ad been in one o' them knife fights or sumthin'; face all scratched to 'ell, beggin' yer pardon sirs.”

“I see. Can you, I wonder, Miss Penny, remember exactly what this man said?” Holmes had extracted another sovereign, its appearance changing the girl's pensive look to one of naked greed as he held it before her.

“Well like I says, sir, 'tweren't nothin' I unnerstood. I only knowed it was frog talk bein' as 'ow my fancy man used it when we was together like. But even then, never did cotton on to wot any of it meant.”

“That's all right,” Holmes smiled. “If you can just repeat it, as you remember it, it may make some sense to me. I am somewhat fluent in the language of romance.”

“Ooh!” she blushed, then screwed up her brows in concentration. It was quite a thing to see. “Let's think. Hmm. Somethin' like... uh, jay oon artist a veck la stork – no, no wait. Weren't stork. Sork? Sork? That a word? Maybe in frog speak.”

Holmes nodded. I had some small smattering of the tongue myself, and began to apprehend the words.

“Go on,” he said encouragingly. “You're doing very well. Anything else?”

“Yeah. 'e said – lemme see if I can recall – too fam ay the ablee. Too ay dam in in fur.” She opened her eyes. “That's all I remember, Mr. Holmes.”

Holmes smiled again, dropped the coin in her hand. She grinned back.

“Oh yeah,” she said, fishing in her cleavage, to my intense discomfort. “Nearly slipped me mind. I lifted this from 'is pocket.” She handed something to Holmes, which he glanced at, smiled and put in his own pocket.

“You've been most helpful, Miss Penny. I wish you good day, and thank you.”

She dropped another curtsy, as I quickly averted my eyes.

“Charmed, I'm sure!” she breathed. “You're a toff, Mr. 'Olmes, and no mistake. If ever you're on my patch, you just come an' see me, ye hear? Ye won't pay a penny for it, I do vow!”

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018