The Fall (3 page)

The maid with her yellow hair, pulled into a tight bun, crowned by a cap that resembled an embroidered mushroom. If her apparent naiveté was genuine, I could possibly extract information without her noticing.

I opened my eyes and looked up. The lamp hanging from the ceiling was out of reach. It looked entirely different from any gas lamps I had seen. I pulled up a chair and investigated the contraption. Inside it was a glass sphere shaped like a pear, along with a cable leading from the lamp to a switch next to the door. Electricity!

Hopeful, I rushed back to the window, trying to find something familiar. Visible were only trees, bushes, lawn, a fence, and more trees and lawn. I tried the window. It opened easily and I leaned out. Far to the right I spotted the bluish roof of a large house with a small tower in the middle. It too was obscured by trees, but looked strangely familiar.
 

There were no other houses on the premises, which was good. But there was neither a house nor a street within view. Sending light signals would make little sense.

The water in the jug was still warm. I opened the package, revealing a small can of tooth powder, a tooth brush, a hair brush, and a piece of soap. The scent of patchouli curled up, contrasting with the stinging odour of vomit stuck to my hair. I washed thoroughly. My temple was still sore from Moran’s punch, but I found no blood on it.

The maid had draped a towel over a chair. I rubbed the moisture off, thinking that whatever I would find in this house was either important or irrelevant to my father’s survival. Whatever came to me, I would step over it without emotion. But my heart wouldn’t listen. It was still trying to crack my ribs.

With nothing else to wear, I dressed in the nightgown again and pulled the bell rope. The maid arrived a few minutes later.

‘Miss Gooding, could I ask you to lend me a dress? These here,’ I waved at the wardrobe, ‘are too large.’ The maid was slender and small, her clothes should fit. But my enquiry seemed to shock her.
 

‘Oh, but Miss, the tailor should arrive any minute now.’

‘The tailor?’ I was stunned. ‘Miss Gooding, can you tell me whose room this is?’

‘Why, it’s yours.’
 

I wanted to jump at her. ‘Who lived here before me?’

She shrugged. ‘No one.’

‘Whose dresses are in the wardrobe?’ I got desperate. Suddenly the door opened and she clapped a hand to her mouth.

‘Gooding, go back to where you came from. Dr Kronberg, questioning the maid is useless. She knows next to nothing.’ The man who had entered was pudgy. His skull shone through sparse hair. His white shirt and black suit with tails made him look like an austere house martin. The maid slipped past him and out the door.

‘I am Alistair Durham, the manservant. The tailor will arrive in a minute, and supper will be served in an hour. That is all you need to know for now.’ He turned on his heels, shoes squeaking, tails flying. The door snapped shut, and I relaxed my fists.
 

A knock announced the tailor. He was a small man with mouse-like features. He rushed in, closed the door with a flick of his arm, and scurried towards me. His small hand took mine gingerly and he bent down to breathe on my knuckles. He introduced himself as Nicolas Smith, pulled out a measuring tape, flicking it here and there, scribbled numbers onto his notepad, and was finished within seconds. ‘What materials and colours do you prefer, Miss?’

‘Dark please. Simple cuts without buffs or laces, as they would hinder my work. I’d also prefer front buttoned dresses.’

His pointy face collapsed in shock. Upper-class women were expected to dress elaborately, with useless appendages that made it impossible to even lace one’s own shoes. God forbid they dress and undress without the help of a maid. But as a woman I had no social status whatsoever — for years I had masqueraded as a man. The results were an obscene urge for independence and an education that far exceeded what most upper-class woman could ever obtain. Up until now, I had observed such social categorisation from a safe distance. I would have to pay attention now, as I was being placed in the same cage as all the other pretty birds — wives, sisters, and daughters of men with more money than need for. I already missed the freedom a pair of trousers provided.

The tailor hesitated, then lowered his head in sad acknowledgement.

‘Thank you, Mr Smith.’ I bowed a little, making him blush. ‘Could you tell me how long it would take to finish one dress? Mine were destroyed, and now all I have is this nightgown.’

‘Oh, I see. I think under these circumstances I could finish the first dress in two days. Would that be acceptable?’

Two days in a nightgown? ‘Mr Smith, do you think you could make one of these fit by tomorrow morning?’ I said, walking up to the wardrobe and offering him the contents.

He inspected each dress and chose one made of dark green silk. ‘This one should be fairly easy to resize. I could deliver it tomorrow morning.’

‘I am deeply indebted to you, Mr Smith.’

He chuckled, red-cheeked again, and left with a bow and a ‘Farewell’.

I stared at the closed door, as though it were his back. The man seemed friendly and caring, but blushed so easily that I did not think him fit to lie for me without being discovered. Certainly, Durham was already wondering about Mr Smith’s state. I slapped my forehead. How stupid and slow I was! Why did I not listen at the door as he left? I could have easily overheard whether Durham had questioned the man or ignored his slightly excited state.

I drank all water that was left to wash out the remaining poison. Then I inspected the room again, starting with the area around the bed. There were no openings in the walls to neighbouring rooms. Good. I wasn’t certain whether or not I tended to talk in my sleep.

Something essential was missing, though. I rang for the maid.

‘Miss Gooding, I could not find the chamber pot….’ Her lopsided smile stopped me.

‘We have water closets, Miss.’

‘Oh.’ The rich all had plumbing and hot water. I had forgotten that.

‘May I show you to it, Miss?’
 

‘Where is Mr Durham?’ I had barely finished speaking when his heels came clacking over the floorboards, briefly dulled by the carpet, and then his head showed in the door frame.

‘Miss Kronberg wants to see the water closet,’ the maid explained, head bowed, gaze turned away from the manservant.

‘I will take it from here,’ Durham said. ‘Follow me, please.’

We walked through a corridor and turned to the right where he opened a door to a small room with wood panels on the walls and a flowery porcelain bowl with an oak seat standing at the far end.
 

I had never seen a water closet in a private home before. Its drain looked different from the ones I had seen at Guy’s and the medical school — it was s-shaped and not straight. The nonexistent stink caught my nostrils. It appeared that the water standing in the s-bend prevented the foul odours from rising up through the plumbing. If every Londoner had a water closet installed, would it prevent the spreading of diseases? We could possibly even get cholera epidemics under control. How would London change if people no longer dug cesspits? I stood back, wondering whether the problem of disease transmission would only be relocated, together with the waste. Then a thought struck me — water was the one thing that left this house unsupervised!

Durham was waiting at the door when I opened it a minute later.

‘How can I reach it when you are not available?’ I asked him, cringing at the thought of being at his mercy for such private business.

‘Gooding will bring you a chamber pot for emergencies.’

Back in my room, supper waited on a small table. The smell of cabbage was sickening.

It was past eleven o’clock at night. An oval moon peeked through the window, casting silver onto the floor. My bare feet walked irregular helices, in and out of the moonlight, from the rug to the naked floorboards and back again, gradually covering the entire area. By the end of my third round, I could recall every one of the sixteen places that produced a squeal when stepped upon.
 

I took a break and drank some water, forcing the patterns out of my mind and watching the yard below. The moonlight had painted the maples’ foliage silvery-blue. Fog started to rise and swirled up where the dogs were running. Four large, broad-chested animals with short coats and flapping ears — Mastiffs, maybe? I had never been afraid of dogs, but I knew well enough that they could be ferocious predators. In that, they did not differ much from mankind.
 

I closed my eyes, turned from the window, walked blindly to the door and back to my bed without producing the slightest noise. Satisfied, I went to the door and used the empty water glass like a stethoscope on the wall.

Shuffling. Quiet breathing. Durham must be leaning against the wall precisely where my head was. I pushed away and went all around the room, listening at every wall, but could hear nothing. The wall facing the corridor was the weakest, probably measuring only a few inches thick. The others were all weight-bearing and fairly massive. Durham could easily listen to all movements in this room; I felt as though I were being displayed in a fishbowl. Was Moriarty aware it worked both ways?

I took the small clock off the sideboard, placed it in the sheet of light pushing through the gap underneath the door, and eavesdropped. Durham didn’t seem to move much. I sat down, wrapped in my blanket. It would be a long night.

Despite my exhaustion, worries about my father kept me wide awake. I tried to push my imagination aside. It only served to terrify me. I replaced it with old memories, closed my eyes, and smiled at the small horse he had made for my tenth birthday. Its mane and tail were bits of rabbit fur, its glass eyes had tiny lids made of thin black leather. A little worn, with eyes not as shiny as eighteen years ago, it now stood in the window of my old room gazing out into my father’s garden.
 

I pressed my face into my sleeve and the tears back into my eyes, shifted my weight, and focused on eavesdropping. Close to one o’clock I heard sharp footfall in the hall. Someone climbing the stairs, passing through the corridor below. Stairs creaked again, this time closer, then feet approached and stopped at my door.

‘Professor,’ Durham said.
 

‘Durham, you may retire now.’
 

My heart galloped and I pressed my palm against my chest.

‘Is she inside?’ asked Moriarty.

That confused me. Certainly he would know I was here with Durham guarding my door?

‘As you wished,’ was Durham’s answer.

‘Bolt that door.’

‘Of course, Professor.’

A key was being turned, a bolt slid into place. Two pairs of feet walked in two different directions. Durham’s softer footfall left for the stairs, while Moriarty’s sharper heels went only a few steps further. A door was being unlocked, then snapped shut.

I crept to my bed and pushed my ear to the wall. He had entered the room next to mine. I heard him kick off his shoes and walk about softly. An occasional rustle, a clonk, possibly from his watch being placed on a table or dresser. I thought I heard him go to bed with a growl. But he was tossing and turning, not finding rest. I listened for another half hour until a noise sliced through my ears, forcing goosebumps across my skin, and my head off the wall — a woman’s quiet cry.