Remember, Remember: a Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery Read online

  Now the three pictures align themselves in my mind, like portraits hung in a row on a gallery wall:

  The old man who shared my bench and later accosted me in the street.

  The elderly flower vendor from last night.

  And lastly, this itinerant organ grinder standing before me now.

  They’re all the same person.

  All three of them, one and the same.

  My heart beats sickeningly. “Thank you so much. I would love to see your performance. I will be sure to come out in just a few moments.”

  I rattle the words off so quickly that I hardly even know what I am saying.

  The organ grinder’s face creases in a frown, and he opens his mouth—but I step back before he can get a word out, banging the door in his face and bolting it behind me.

  I fly to the inner room—where I find Becky, sitting bolt upright on the bed.

  “What’s happen—” she starts to say.

  I interrupt her. “Quickly. We need to leave now—at once!”

  I’m already scanning the room, looking for any other exit. Our only option appears to be a single window, set high in the wall and covered by a gingham curtain. “Are there any bars on that?” Crossing to push the curtain aside, I answer my own question. “No. Good. It will be a tight fit, but I think we can manage. Here. You go first.”

  I start to boost Becky up.

  “What about Prince?”

  I stop, shutting my eyes. But there is no chance that I can heft the dog’s weight up to the height of the window. I doubt he would fit, in any case.

  “He’ll be all right.” I hope, hope, hope that that is true. At least if ever a dog looked capable of defending himself, it is Prince.

  “We just need to go and find your brother—and then Prince will be here waiting for us when we all come back.”

  I doubt Becky believes the situation is as simple as that. But thankfully, she doesn’t argue. She lets me boost her up feet first through the window, hangs briefly by her hands, then drops down out of sight.

  The need for haste pounds in my veins. How long do we have before my mysterious visitor decides to come around the back and see for himself whether or not I have escaped? Surely not more than a few minutes, at best.

  I follow Becky through the window—pausing only to snatch up a thick woolen shawl that I happen to see hanging over the back of Becky’s chair.

  “Now,” I whisper, when I’m crouching next to her in a narrow, extremely dirty alleyway. “Which way do we go to find your brother’s station house?”

  16. REMEMBER, REMEMBER

  The route that Becky takes me on is convoluted enough to make an entire fleet of cartographers beg for mercy.

  We dodge through a network of alleyways, cross traffic-clogged streets, and once actually climb a ladder up onto the roof of a building, then back down the other side.

  My headache has come back, the lump on my skull throbbing sourly with every jarring step—as though wishing to remind me that someone out there wants me dead.

  Maybe it was the disguised organ grinder who struck the blow.

  At the moment, that seems hideously likely.

  Finally, we emerge from the mouth of a narrow side-lane and step into the bustle of Oxford Street. From there, we make our way to Great Russell Street.

  “Jack’s station house is that way.” Becky gestures. “But he won’t be there. He’ll be out walking his beat by now.”

  She’s right. I should have thought of that for myself.

  I pull the shawl I took from her room more tightly around my head and shoulders. It is not much of a disguise, though—and I feel horribly exposed out here, on the busy street. The back of my neck prickles with the expectation that a nameless attacker will come at me from behind.

  “Do you know the route he walks?” I ask.

  Becky shakes her head—then waits, quietly for me to decide what we’re going to do now.

  What are we going to do?

  “I’d rather be Irene Adler,” Becky says.

  I’m focused on trying to decide our next course of action—and looking around for any sign of our many-faced visitor among the crowds of people all around.

  I look at her blankly. “What?”

  Becky’s eyes are bright, her cheeks a healthy pink. She doesn’t appear any the worse for our panicked flight.

  Of course, for her this morning’s exercises were probably a distinct step downwards from being threatened with a meat cleaver.

  “You told me I could play that I was Sherlock Holmes,” she says patiently. “But I said, I’d rather be Irene Adler. She was a girl—and she outsmarted Holmes.”

  I smile despite myself—then stop short as my eyes land on the stately bulk of a building up ahead.

  The British Museum.

  It is almost as though this place is a magnet, drawing me back time and time again.

  I make up my mind. “Come along.” I put a hand on Becky’s shoulder. “We’re going inside.”

  The British Museum should be a safe refuge. At best, maybe I will be lucky enough to find out some clue as to why Constable Kelly found me here yesterday morning.

  My heart sinks as I see the large printed sign affixed to the museum’s front entrance.

  The Public are admitted to The British Museum on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, between the hours of 10 and 4.

  We’re too early. On the way here, I heard a church clock strike nine. To my surprise, though, a uniformed guard opens the doors for us with a nod and a friendly smile.

  “Miss Smith. Nice to see you again.”

  He’s a middle-aged, fatherly-looking man with dark hair turning gray at the temples and a slightly rotund figure.

  I fight the urge to look behind me, to see whether he could be addressing someone else. “I—what did you say?”

  The man looks taken aback. “I only said it was nice to see you again. Oh, and I have your sketchbook and pencils here, too.”

  He searches behind the wooden lectern he’s using for a desk. “You must have accidentally left them when you were here the other night.”

  “When I was here—” I close my mouth, endeavoring to force my sluggish brain into some form of coherent thought.

  I had hoped for some clue as to why I came to the museum. That I might actually be known here never occurred to me.

  And what did the guard just call me?

  Since I can hardly ask him my own name, I finally manage to say, “Are you sure that the sketchbook and pencils are mine?”

  “Of course. Haven’t I seen you working away with them every day this week? Besides, your name’s written on the inside jacket of the sketch book, plain as plain.”

  He is still rooting behind the lectern, but now straightens with a crow of triumph. “Aha—here they are. Slipped down behind some books old Professor Peabody left. But here they are. I knew you’d be back for ’em.”

  He hands over a slim notepad with a brown paper cover and a tin of colored pencils.

  Numbly, I take both articles and look them over. Just as the guard said, there is a name scrawled in pencil on the inside cover of the sketching book.

  Ariadne Smith.

  I stare at the words blankly for what must be ten or eleven echoing beats of my own heart. Then I swallow and dredge up a smile.

  “Thank you so much! I was so afraid that I might have lost them. I wonder”—I manage a small laugh—“I have been so absorbed that I have quite lost track of the days. When was it that I left these here?”

  If the guard sees anything odd about my inquiry, it doesn’t show in his expression.

  “Well, now. That would have been …” He pauses, his brow creasing in an effort of remembering. “Yes, it would have been the night before last. Don’t you remember, you asked whether you could stay a bit past closing, on account of you were nearly finished with your sketching in the Fourth Egyptian Room? And I said, seeing as it was just this once and I’d be here on night duty anyway, I didn’t see
the harm. I said I’d let you out of the front door here when you were done. But you must have got out on your own while I was making my rounds, because I never saw you leave. Only found your pad and pencils there, like I say.”

  “Oh yes, of course. I do remember now; when I realized the time, I left in a hurry.” My smile is feeling rather fixed, so I exchange it for an expression of contriteness. “I am so sorry to have given you any trouble.”

  The guard beams at me. “That’s all right, miss, no harm done.” He nods genially towards Becky, still standing beside me. “And now today you’ve brought a young friend along with you to see the sights?”

  “Yes, that’s right. This is my s—” I stop myself. I have no idea how extensive my chats with the guard have been. He might know whether or not I have siblings.

  “My cousin, come up from the country to spend a few days here in town with me,” I finish. “I thought that I would show her”—what was it the guard said I was sketching?—“the Fourth Egyptian Room.”

  “A very good choice, Miss Smith.” The guard nods approval. “She’ll enjoy it, I’m sure. Some new installations just going in, too. Some artifacts that even you won’t have seen.”

  “Wonderful!” I beam at him and begin to move off—but the guard calls me back almost at once.

  “Miss!”

  I stop. “Yes?”

  The guard’s face is puzzled. “That’s the way to the Fourth Egyptian Room.” He gestures. “If you go that way, you’ll have go though the Terracotta Antiquities Room, and the Bronze Room, and the Etruscan Room and all the Vase rooms, besides.”

  “Yes, of course.” I keep my smile firmly plastered on, putting a hand on Becky’s shoulder. “My little cousin here is passionate about the Etruscans. She begged me to start our tour of the museum there.”

  Becky, to her credit, doesn’t say a word.

  The guard’s face clears. “Ah, I see. Well, enjoy then.”

  He gives us a final smile—and I almost run towards the first gallery I can see through the doors to my right.

  Terracotta Antiquities Room, a placard outside the door reads—just as my friend the guard said.

  The room is filled with … things. Statues and ancient-looking pots standing on pedestals and inside glass cases.

  I barely see any of it, though. The gallery’s chief attraction for me is that at the moment it is entirely deserted, save for myself and Becky.

  There is a gilded and upholstered bench halfway down the gallery, set against one wall. I walk straight to it and collapse onto the seat.

  It does not look as though it could be part of the display—and if it is, that is just too bad.

  Becky lands beside me. “Do you remember any of that?” she asks in a whisper.

  I shake my head. I grip the tin of colored pencils so tightly that the edges are digging into my palms. “No. Not at all. At least—”

  Is there anything familiar about the guard’s story? Or am I just trying to persuade myself that there might be?

  “Let’s have a look through your papers, there,” Becky suggests. “It might tell us something. Or make you remember something more.”

  She peers at the name inscribed on the flyleaf. “Ar-i-ad-ne.” She sounds the name out slowly, then looks at me doubtfully. “Is that you? It doesn’t seem like the sort of name you would have.”

  “You don’t think so?” In a way, it’s a relief to hear that, because the name stirs nothing in me—not a whisper, not a trace of recognition.

  Ariadne. I try it out experimentally inside my own mind. My name is Ariadne Smith.

  I should be happy … or at the very least relieved to have a name for myself. But instead all I feel is an overwhelming sense of wrongness.

  The guard most definitely recognized me as Ariadne Smith, though. And he doesn’t seem to have any malicious intent. So, was I here using a false name?

  A clenched knot inside my chest tightens as I think of Becky and of Constable Kelly. Please let me not have been committing any crimes here.

  My inveigling the guard into allowing me to stay in the museum after hours does not seem like an especially good sign.

  “Look at this!” Becky is turning pages in the notebook.

  The sheets of paper are mostly covered with half-finished pencil sketches—pottery urns and jars with animal heads, of the same type that I saw in Dr. Everett’s office.

  But the page Becky has stopped on is more complete, and executed in color instead of only lead pencil.

  The drawing shows a mask.

  A funerary mask. The proper term slides smoothly into my mind.

  A funerary mask, the face molded from gold. Two huge, black-outlined eyes stare hauntingly out at me from the page, and above the mask’s brow rears a headdress, worked in what could be strips of enamel or inlaid stones.

  “Did you draw this?” Becky asks.

  “I … I suppose,” I say slowly.

  I did draw it. I know I did.

  A tiny, fragile seed of memory springs to life inside my mind.

  I remember it. My hands instinctively curve with the remembered sensation of holding my pencils. Working to get the shape of those eyes just right, to find the proper shade of blue for the stones in the headdress.

  “Come with me.” Jumping up, I stride rapidly—and almost unseeingly—through several more galleries before I finally come to a sign that reads, Fourth Egyptian Room.

  The gallery is dusty and crowded with antiquities that appear to have been set on display in no particular order. Scrolls of papyrus jostle with carved marble statues and brilliant blue scarabs.

  There are a dozen or so visitors here, wandering slowly from display to display, peering into cases containing what I think must be mummies.

  I look at the other visitors quickly, trying to satisfy myself that none of them is the organ grinder in disguise.

  Then I turn to Becky. “Help me find this—this same mask in the picture, here.”

  17. THE GAME’S AFOOT

  We start a slow circuit of the room. I let my eyes travel over the glass cases and the statues on pedestals—but it is difficult to focus on any of them.

  I was here, not long ago. I can feel my memories hovering just beyond my reach.

  “It’s a fake,” a voice beside me suddenly says.

  I turn with a start of surprise to find a thin, dried-up looking little man in a brown suit and bowler hat standing nearly at my elbow.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  A short ginger-colored beard traces the man’s jaw—and for a wild second, I am tempted to yank on it to see whether it is only a false one, fixed on with spirit gum.

  But no. A glance at the man’s ears is enough to assure me that he is not the false organ grinder. The shape of his lobes is quite different—and he is several inches shorter than the organ grinder, as well as being at least a stone lighter.

  He gives an irritable click of his tongue, gesturing to the statue of a black cat at which I have been mindlessly staring.

  “I said, it’s a fake!” His voice is dry, scholarly and precise. “As Mr. Budge—the Keeper of the Egyptian collections here at the museum—really ought to have known.”

  He peers at the paper tag affixed to the pedestal on which the cat statue rests. “Donated by Dr. William Everett, MD.” He shakes his head, his face pinched with disapproval. “These dilettante collectors. They mean well, but they will persist in buying up any shamelessly forged article that those rascals in Egypt try to pass off as ancient.”

  I stop, staring at him. “Do you mean to tell me that this statue is a forgery?”

  The man gives me an irritated look and a sniff. “Have I not just been saying so?”

  I barely manage to restrain myself from seizing him by his coat lapels and dragging him towards me. Memories are exploding like fireworks behind my eyes.

  “How certain are you?”

  The small man’s expression changes from annoyance to looking slightly taken aback by the intensity o
f my tone.

  “I am as certain as I can be, without actually examining the article myself. There are certain tests … but if you will look at the hieroglyphic inscription on the statue’s base, you will see that the carving is slightly incorrect for the time period from which the state purports—”

  He launches into a lengthy explanation of which I understand perhaps one word in ten. But one thing is clear: the artifact donated by none other than Dr. William Everett is a fake.

  I press my fingertips to the sides of my temples, barely noticing when at last the small man’s lecture runs its course and he wanders off.

  The memories are more than just occasional bright flashes. Large blocks of recollection are now dropping into my head with the solidity of bricks falling from the sky. My name is not Ariadne Smith. And I haven’t been working on a plot to rob the museum. Just the opposite—

  “Are you all right?” Becky asks in concern.

  “Yes, just for a change—I am all right.”

  I remember. I remember staying here in the museum after closing time. Descending into the basement, then hearing voices—

  A shiver slides across my skin as the last painful fragments of memory slide into place. But the simple fact of actual knowledge instead of supposition and uncertainty makes me feel as though a leaden weight has just rolled off my shoulders. “I’m better than all right. I—”

  I stop, looking down at her. But there is no time for me to explain. “I need to get down to the docks.”

  Please let me be in time.

  Becky’s eyes widen. “I can take you there. But—”

  I interrupt her, fresh realization dawning. “No. No, I’m sorry, you can’t. It could be dangerous. I need to find you somewhere safe to stay.”

  Constable Kelly would never forgive me if I knowingly brought Becky into danger. I would never forgive myself if I allowed harm to come to her.

  “Come along,” I tell her. It must be nearly mid-morning by now. “I’m sorry. I promise that I’ll explain everything to you later. But for right now, we need to hurry.”