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By Root 296 0

when they heard my tubercular cough, establishing my presence in the neighbourhood and making quite certain that no one was following me. Eventually, I wound up across from the Temple’s front entrance, along with the handful of buskers, acrobats, and pavement vendors who come out of the stonework whenever a crowd is about to pour out. This lot was considerably less skilful and affluent than their West End counterparts. The acrobatic midgets were stretching their backs as if to ease rheumatism while quarrelling violently with their musician, who held a violin case under his arm. The pie-seller’s wares looked flaccid and misshapen. The two flower sellers chatted with a surprising camaraderie, considering the usually fierce territoriality of the breed. And here came another odd one, a massive woman whose full bust strained the bright yellow satin of her dress above the tray she bore, a selection of glittering geegaws. With the ponderous dignity of the profoundly intoxicated, she took up a strategic position across the street from the doors, and no sooner had they opened with the first of the released crowd than she burst into full-throated song.

“ ‘I’m called Little Buttercup—dear Little Buttercup, tho’ I could never tell why,’ ” she warbled in a nearly accurate contralto, the jet beads on her primrose bonnet quivering with effort. She was remarkably successful, and one could imagine that the chief value of the baubles purchased lay in the story that would accompany its display—“You’ll never guess where I bought this hideous thing. There was this creature, from the nineties, I swear, my dears…”

When the tumult had subsided and the buskers were making off, I walked over to examine the dregs in Buttercup’s tray. She had finished with Gilbert and Sullivan (“Sailors should never be shy…”) and moved up in time to Al Jolson.

“ ‘It’s time for mating…’ ” she gushed in a quavering Jolson tenor. “ ‘Anticipating… the birdies in the trees.’ Buy a pretty, my pretty?” she broke off to trill at me with a gust of gin. I poked a scornful finger through the brooches and chains and found a ring, a chip of red glass set in a silver band that would discolour my finger before morning. I put it on.

“Loverly, dearie, a piece of real ruby that is. You’ll treasure it forever.”

“I doubt that,” I said dryly, and haggled her down from her ludicrous price to a couple of farthings. I paid her, tucked my near-empty purse back into its pocket, and turned to look at the doors again.

“I shall stay on the street until you come out, Russell,” said Holmes in his normal voice.

“As you know,” I muttered with my hand over my face, “there is a good doorway up the street.”

“If you find the path blocked, do not force it. We will return.”

“Your singing voice is unearthly, Holmes, and the hat is ungodly. Nonetheless, I am glad you are here. I shall see you in a few hours.”

“If you do not appear by dawn, I shall storm the city of women,” he declared, but the jest was paper-thin. I drifted off.

Twenty minutes later, when the nearby pubs were calling for final orders, I eased into a dim corner for my final preparations. Makeup was all very well and good, but it would not fool a doctor, and I suspected that I would be examined in the shelter. I took a small wide-mouthed bottle out of my coat pocket, put it to my mouth, and sucked at it until it had attached itself firmly to my lip. I left it there for a minute, and when I broke the suction, I felt the flesh instantly begin to swell. I spent a few more minutes loosening my hairpins and pulling a small rent in the sleeve of my dress, stowing away my spectacles and running a layer of grime over face and clothes, then placed the bottle in a corner, peered cautiously out to be certain there was no eye on me, and stepped onto the pavement. I held myself as if my ribs pained me and walked up to Margery Childe’s refuge for women.

* * *

TWENTY

Saturday, 5 February-

Sunday, 6 February

I, Fire, the Acceptor of sacrifices, ravishing away from them their darkness, give the light.

—Saint Catherine of Siena (c.