“I’d rather deal in quantifiable transactions,” she said. “But she said she’d made a killing at poker and reminded me that her allowance is staggering. After that, she sat me down in front of her laptop and made me help her pick out something called a minaudière. It looks like a bejeweled toad.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering what it meant that Holmes had never once offered to pay me.
“I have a rainy-day fund, you know,” she said, not quite looking at me. “Until recently, it was raining . . . rather a lot. But I . . . I’ve been trying to use an umbrella.”
“See, and you say you’re bad with words. I’m stealing that.” I scrawled it down.
She drifted over to her bookshelf and lit a cigarette. With the toe of her shoe, she tapped her copy of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes before she leaned down to pick it up. I could tell I’d lost her to her thoughts.
It seemed as good a time as any to do the thing I’d been avoiding.
The hospital corridors were empty when I arrived, carrying a bunch of flowers. It wasn’t hard to find the right ward. They had it guarded like Fort Knox. Thankfully, Detective Shepard had had the wherewithal to put my name on the visitor list, and after showing my ID to two separate policemen, I was allowed into her room.
I’d been told that she was awake, but her eyes were closed when I came in. She looked terrible. Her blond hair was matted to her head with sweat, her arms wound in tubes and tape. Strangely enough, she was clutching a whiteboard to her chest in the way you would a teddy bear. As quietly as I could, I put the flowers on the table beside her bed and debated writing her a note. Was that what the board was for?
While I stood there, Elizabeth opened one eye, then the other.
“Hi,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind that I came.”
She shook her head no, though I wasn’t sure if it was No, I don’t mind, or No, actually, leave.
“May I sit down?”
A nod.
“How long until you get your voice back?” I asked. When Detective Shepard said that Elizabeth had been unable to speak to the police, I hadn’t thought he meant it literally.
Slowly, achingly, she pulled a marker out from the folds of her blanket and scrawled something down on the board. I peered over at what she was writing. Don’t know, it said.
I didn’t mean to interrogate her. That wasn’t why I’d come. Besides, Shepard had told us that Elizabeth’s parents had asked the police for a few days’ grace for their daughter. They said that she had been through enough without being forced to relive it all.
“I’m sorry,” I told Elizabeth, looking down at my hands. I’d come to apologize. It was why I hadn’t brought Holmes. Apologizing was the kind of thing that made her break out in hives.
A scribbling sound. For what?
“For what happened to you. You didn’t deserve this. Any of it. I’m sorry.”
I don’t remember all of it. But the detective told me you found me and got help. Thank you. Her exhausted eyes met mine. Exhausted, and gentle. I didn’t deserve that gentleness.
“I hope you feel better soon,” I said, standing to leave.
Scribbling again. Detective said “blue carbuncle” to my parents. He thought I was asleep. Explanation?
I sat back down. “Do you know the story?”
A headshake. She scrubbed her board blank with her hospital gown and wrote Talk fast. My parents went to get takeout. They won’t tell me anything but I need to know. She furiously underlined the last four words.
I understood what it was like, being kept in the dark.
“It’s a Sherlock Holmes story,” I began, “about a rare missing diamond. A blue carbuncle. One that a policeman finds in the throat of a dead Christmas goose on the street. Holmes and Watson trace the goose back to its breeder, and from there, to the breeder’s brother. He’d stolen the gem from a countess and hidden it in a goose’s craw.”
It was the quick and dirty version, the boring one—all facts, no flair. It left out all the details that made the story something I loved. But Sherlock Holmes’s strategies and Dr. Watson’s observations didn’t have a place in this guarded hospital room.
Even so, Elizabeth listened avidly. When I’d finished, she held up her whiteboard. So I guess I’m the goose.
I hesitated, and she lifted her eyebrows in a challenge. “Guess so,” I said.
Fucked up.
“Yeah.” It was, impossibly so. “How much do you remember about that night?”
Not much. Seeing you. Making out with Randall. They showed me the thing that was in my throat.
“Did you recognize it?”
No. Her eyes were imploring. Do you know anything about it?
“The police are trying to solve this as fast as they can.” I took a deep breath. “Did Randall do this to you? Do you remember?”
She shook her head, blushing a little. I don’t remember his face, but I DO remember what the guy said. “Give my regards to Charlotte Holmes.” I don’t think Randall would say that.