My calm demeanour convinced him, along with his new friend’s eagerness. But before they got out, I said to Terry, “Oh—and would you look around for a violinist dressed as Zorro? Please? He’ll want to know I’m here. Thanks.”
The next boat chugging along the Grand Canal held our fearless leader. Elsa Maxwell disembarked grandly into the muscular bare arms of the Greeks, followed by an extraordinary number of passengers in a sort of circus clown-car effect. I made the Greeks (they weren’t Greeks, they were a mix of dock-workers from all over) tie that boat down at the far end—which meant that the third boat to arrive would put in beside the Runabout.
By this time, rumour of the gate-crashers, or perhaps of my dramatic arrival down the peaceable waterway, seemed to be percolating among the Porters’ guests, a few of whom had come out onto the balcony—which had strings of electric lights rather than torches—to view the entertainments below.
I kept my Harold Lloyd mask in place, and waited for the next boat and its small, golden passenger.
It came at last, lumbering down the waterway, barely nosing out the fourth in our procession, which had left the Lido on our heels. The two would dock nearly simultaneously. I could not take a chance at it being the wrong side.
I clambered out to jump onto the slippery forecourt, grabbing one substantial biceps to keep from going down. “Hold this rope for a minute,” I ordered, and pushed between his fellow Grecian stevedores to await the next invaders.
The lumbering boat slowed more, turned its nose, and came into the light, directly in front of me. I stepped onto its prow before any of its passengers could move.
She’d taken off the golden mask, her naked face staring up at me as I dropped down beside her.
“My lady—Vivian—wait here a moment.”
She jerked back, terrified at the sound of her name from a concealed and unknown man. The nurse’s arm came forward—and with a curse under my breath, I shoved up my bespectacled mask. “It’s me, Ronnie’s friend, Mary. Mary Russell, remember? We met at…at Bedlam.”
Three years before, I’d had long hair gathered atop my head, steel-framed spectacles, and the pallid complexion of an Oxford undergraduate. Vivian stared, one timid hand reaching out for the support of her friend. At last she glanced sideways, by way of consultation, and I let the mask drop so as to restore my vision. “I’m terribly sorry about this,” I began, but my explanation was cut short when her gaze flicked upwards to the Porters’ official guests, gathered along the upstairs balcony.
Her mouth dropped open, a rictus of pain underscored by a high-pitched moan. Her hands snapped up, her body bent away, and the nurse wrapped strong arms around her, searching for the threat.
When I looked up, I saw it staring down, caught in a flare of the fiery torches.
Edward, Marquess of Selwick.
Chapter Forty-four
“COME!” I SNAPPED, PUTTING ONE arm around the smaller woman and half-lifting her into Terry’s boat. Nurse Trevisan hesitated, not having seen the Marquess, but faced by Vivian cringing in terror and a stranger in a Harold Lloyd outfit offering escape, she decided to go now and sort it out after.
I’d left the boat’s motor running for precisely this reason, and slapped it into Reverse, nearly yanking my Greek attendant into the Canal. The instant our prow was clear of the other hulls, I spun the wheel and shoved the handle into Forward. The throaty engine bit into the water, nearly obscuring the shouts from behind—but when I looked back, I immediately took it out of gear and let the nose drift towards the side.
The dark figure racing along the narrow frontage tore off his mask and, as our two paths coincided, he simply took to the air—to come crashing against the rear passenger well just as two figures in black burst out of the palazzo in pursuit. I waited until my new passenger’s legs had drawn up towards safety, then slapped the motor into gear and headed for the mouth of the Canal. A backwards glance assured me that he was in—and that one of the pursuers had gone down on the slick stones, the other man stopping to help him.
But the boats at the palazzo would all have their keys in them, so I pressed on the speed, and flew as fast as I dared over the dark water.
I felt his presence at my back, and shouted over my shoulder. “Welcome aboard, Holmes.”
“Had I known that Zorro would be required to take flight,” he answered, “I’d have rigged a line from the roof-top.”
We were under the Accademia Bridge when a woman’s voice came. “Slow down, and turn here.”
Nurse Trevisan. I throttled back, and followed her directions into the side canal.
“Pull to the side up there, just after the sandòlo, and shut down the motor.” Figuring she meant a kind of boat, I pulled into the only gap I saw. As we slowed, she clambered onto the Runabout’s front to shut down the forward light, then retrieved the dripping rope, stepping onto the fondamenta to pull us in. Holmes turned off the aft light and took hold of a cleat set into the walk-way. Our motion stopped. There was not enough light down here to reveal us—unless they, too, came down the canal.
We waited. And waited…
Two minutes, three—and a boat roared past the mouth of the canal.
I let my shoulders slump with the relief of tension, but I made no move to get us going again. Instead, I asked Holmes to see if there were any travelling rugs under the back passenger seats. When he found one, I waited until the nurse had wrapped it around Vivian’s shoulders against the night.
And then I asked the woman to walk away out of earshot.
She looked to Vivian, who hesitated, then nodded. The boat bounced as Nurse Trevisan’s weight left it, and I waited until her footsteps faded before I spoke, keeping my voice low.
“Vivian, this is my husband, Sherlock Holmes. We’re here because I promised Ronnie and her mother that I’d find you. But before I can explain any further—and certainly before I can decide what to do—I need to know what is going on. Why did you leave England so suddenly, and steal the necklace, and not tell anyone where you were going? Didn’t you realise it would look as if something had happened to you? Am I right in thinking you’ve been hiding on…” I heard my voice rising, and forced myself to stop. We could sit here all night while I pelted her with questions—and that was before I tried to explain how her brother came to be here.
First things first: “Vivian, I simply need to know who’s in charge of your life.”
She had looped the ties of the mask around her left wrist, and played with it now, its ornate surfaces gleaming in the faint light. “I am sorry…I intended to write Dorothy and Ronnie as soon as I could find someone to post a letter from some town far away. I do understand how concerned the two of them must be. But in truth, Miss Russell, I took nothing that was not mine to begin with. And there is nowhere I wish to be other than here.”
“All right, well, let’s begin with that last. I’m guessing you’re on Poveglia, right? Look, last night Holmes and I went out there and we saw that…that doctor, who lives on the island. He’s doing some dreadful things there.”
Vivian looked amazed—but then, to my astonishment, she burst into merry laughter. It was a startling sound, one I had never heard before—one I’d not expected to hear ever, much less in reply to a question like that.
“I believe I should invite you home,” she said, and raised her voice a fraction. “Rose?”
Nurse Trevisan’s footsteps returned out of the darkness, until she stood looking down into the boat.
“We shall have guests,” Vivian told her.
The nurse looked from me to Holmes, then nodded and went to light the front lamp. Holmes did the same to the rear one, and I nursed the big engine into a slow crawl up the narrow canal.
Near its end, Nurse Trevisan had me pull aside and wait while she walked up to the Giudecca Canal to look for our pursuers.