Chapel Noir (2 page)

. . . she has a soul of steel. The face of the most beautiful of
women and the mind of the most resolute of men
.

—
THE KING OF BOHEMIA
, “
A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA
”

Editor’s Note

The release of this volume is extremely satisfying. Discreet chiding in academic circles has for some time labeled me an outlaw editor. My “crime”? Allowing several years to pass before presenting this fifth installment of the Penelope Huxleigh diaries, which record the life of the only woman to outwit Sherlock Holmes, the late Irene Adler of revered and enduring memory. Even my publisher and the public have joined in the general clamor for more.

Rumors abound that the publication delay proves that the content of all the Huxleigh diaries is confabulated, that I am simply slow in carrying on the masquerade.

As is usual with clamor and rumors, nothing could be farther from the facts. The reason for delay is the astounding nature of the following testaments that I have spent so many years verifying.

In addition, I encountered among the Huxleigh material yet another document from a completely, shall I say, alien source? This yellow-bound journal or casebook apparently had been seized, or perhaps, more innocently, had fallen into the hands of the principals mentioned in the diary. It was written in a language other than English so I had to find a circumspect translator familiar with nineteenth-century usages who was willing to sign a letter of utter silence on the source and contents of this account.

Let my critics know that I am working feverishly to complete work on the next and companion volume even as this one goes forth to meet its public.

—
Fiona Witherspoon, Ph.D., A.I.A.
*

April 2000

*
Advocates of Irene Adler

Cast of Continuing Characters

Irene Adler Norton:
an American abroad and a diva/detective who is the only woman to outwit Sherlock Holmes in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” reintroduced as the protagonist of her own adventures in the novel,
Good Night, Mr. Holmes

Sherlock Holmes:
the London consulting detective with a global reputation for feats of deduction

Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, King of Bohemia:
the Crown Prince who courted Irene years before, then feared she might disrupt his forthcoming royal marriage. He hired Sherlock Holmes to recover a photograph of Irene and the Prince together, but she escaped, promising never to use the photo against the King. They crossed swords again in
Another Scandal in Bohemia
(formerly
Irene’s Last Waltz
)

Godfrey Norton:
the British barrister who married Irene just before they escaped to Paris to elude Holmes and the King of Bohemia

Penelope “Nell” Huxleigh:
the orphaned British parson’s daughter Irene rescued from poverty in London in 1881, a former governess and “typewriter girl” who lived with Irene and worked for Godfrey before the pair were married, and who now resides with them in Paris

Quentin Stanhope:
the uncle of Nell’s former charges when she worked as a London governess; now a British agent in eastern Europe and the Mideast, he reappeared in
A Soul of Steel
(formerly
Irene at Large
)

John H. Watson, MD.:
British medical man and Sherlock Holmes’s sometimes roommate and frequent companion in crime-solving

Inspector François le Villard:
a Paris detective and admirer of the English detective who has translated Holmes’s monographs into French and worked with Irene Adler Norton in
The Adventuress
(formerly
Good Morning, Irene
)

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild,
head of the international banking family’s most powerful branch and of the finest intelligence network in Europe, frequent employer of Irene, Godfrey, and Nell in various capacities, especially in
Another Scandal in Bohemia
.

Chapel Noir

Prelude

Little gleams of light . . . seem to come from tiny hut windows
in the forest. “Driver, can’t we stop a minute at one of those
huts, where the lights are?” “Lights! They’re wolves.”
—
K. MARSDEN

FROM A YELLOW BOOK

He is hungry tonight.

He came home, such as it is, exhausted, confused, clad in a rough shirt other than he had worn on leaving. I insisted he wash his hands. (This is one habit he resists). The wash water swirled with a pink, pulpy substance he could not explain.

He is a wanderer, as am I. Homeless and free, like a wolf in the woods, a hawk in the air.

Sometimes I think he is a god and I am a devil.

Sometimes he is a devil and I am a god.

Which will win, good or evil?

Who will win, God or Devil?

I love this awkward language that yet plays a bit of unholy fun: subtract an “o” from “good” and you have a god. Subtract a “d” from “good,” add it to “evil,” and you have a devil.

Another game of words: an Englishman, surely one of God’s most contradictory creations (or the devil’s) would like this. God backwards, in English of course—and to an Englishman there is no other country, no other ambition, no other arrogance—spells “dog.”

So, another game of words: in the place of god or devil, let us put master and beast.

So I am his master.

So he will be my beast.

And which of us is most god or devil? He, she. You, me. Good or evil? Writing in a language not one’s own permits all. Living in a land not one’s own excuses all. Having no god destroys the devil, so we cannot have that.

This I record, whatever bestiality it celebrates, whatever gods and angels fall, whatever devils triumph.

This I have chosen as my experiment. And one last question. Which is stronger, life or death?

The answer is not as obvious as all the civilized world likes to think.