Two for One Read online

  ‘WHAT WAS NOT EARNED

  MUST BE RETURNED

  —Confuscius (trans.)’”

  It was then that the phone rang. Being congenitally incapable of doing two things at the same time, I put the paper down, taking care to avoid Mike, who exercised a dog’s prerogative to change his mind and was now licking up the cookie scraps and giving the desk a well-needed polish at the same time.

  I picked up the phone and a man’s voice said in an immaculate Oxford accent that I had heard somewhere recently—

  “My dear Mr. Watson, I do apologize for serving you the dessert first but I have every hope that I shall not be required to serve you the main meal. It may prove less to your taste. You see, my friends and I are looking for a little bird that belongs to us and we have every hope that you will lead us to it. Rest assured that we shall monitor your every move. For instance, you should get the dog to lick the rest of the desk. That walnut veneer he is revealing is most becoming. Au revoir, Mr. Watson.”

  And there was a humming as he disconnected.

  Instinctively I knew that Holmes had heard the conversation without needing to hear it.

  Veneer, huh? The guy who sold it to me swore it was solid walnut. But I digress …

  “The plot thickens, eh, Watson? Yes, this affair is certainly not without certain points of interest. You realize, of course, that your telephonic correspondent was the gentleman we were introduced to as Mr. Kai-Ling?”

  The nickel dropped. Of course. It did occur to me to wonder why a man with a perfectly good day job should also run a Chinese restaurant but, then, these Chinese had the work ethic in spades. I decided to keep the thought to myself. In any case, it looked as though Kai-Ling had given up his day job.

  “I don’t know about you, old fellow, but I think I have had just about as much of modern living as I need for a while. What do you say we step back into the past and go and examine a few antiques? Ah, but wait a moment …”

  As he spoke, Holmes had been instinctively drifting—and I use the world advisedly—over to the window. Frankly, I couldn’t see much point in that. The Chinese waiterwas long since gone and was probably sitting comfortably somewhere in front of a plate of American take-away.

  “Come over here, Watson. You appear to have another visitor …”

  I joined him at the window and peered down at the familiar street below. The usual kaleidoscope of faces and figures moving like ants without a sense of purpose. But then I saw what must have caught his eye.

  When the eddies in a stream move, they move in some sort of pattern and anything that does not have a pattern of its own stands out in relief. Among the eddies down below one figure was disturbing the flow by moving erratically to and fro, as if involved in some convoluted dance.

  It was a young woman in her late twenties, I would have take several determined paces towards our building, hesitate, then retreat a couple, as if she moved to a rhythm we could not hear.

  “A client for you, old fellow, or I miss my guess. Her body language tells us all. She is anxious to communicate something, yet frightened of the consequences. It has taken most of her courage to come this far and she is now trying to summon up the rest. And, yes, she has done so …”

  The woman disappeared from our view under the building’s portico and I had barely time to arrange myself in my best casual-and-relaxed P.I. pose before there was a timid knock on the office door.

  “Pray come in, madam.” A little orotund, perhaps, but Jack Watson knows how to treat a lady.

  The door inched open and in came—Nana Kane.

  Four

  And yet she was not the Nana Kane we had seen in the many mansions of her father’s house.

  That lady may have been scared and skittish but she had the kind of surface sophistication.that could have stepped—and probably had—from the pages of Vogue or Womens’ Wear Daily.

  This one had the same classic profile, the same long, aristocratic nose, the same full, predatory mouth—the same everything but seen in one of those distorting fairground mirrors. The pale blonde hair was pulled tight and taken up in a spinster’s bun, the face was devoid of make-up and she wore a long gray cotton dress that almost met up with sensible flat shoes and gave no hint of a female shape beneath it. To cap it all, she had a pair of wire-framed glasses that clearly didn’t quite fit, for she was constantly pushing them back up on her nose.

  “I felt my sang froid melting by the moment. What the hell was going on here?

  “Aren’t you going to ask the lady to sit down?” It was Holmes inside my head.

  “Won’t you take a seat, Miss Kane?” I said, dusting it down as I indicated the only chair she could possibly take.

  She pulled back as though I had laid hands on her—which, I assure you, I had not the slightest inclination to do. This was a fragile lady who might easily come to pieces in your hands.

  “How do you know my name?”

  Then the answer seemed to come to her and soothe her a little.

  “Oh, but of course, you have seen my sister, Nana.”

  Sister?

  She curtseyed into the chair as though afraid it might have lecherous designs on her.

  “Mr. Watson—it is Mr. Watson, isn’t it?—I’m afraid I am being most discourteous. I should introduce myself properly. My name is Anna Kane, though I choose not to use the name Kane. As far as I am concerned, that vile man does not exist for me. And I know I do not exist for him. Nor have I for a very long time.

  “Nana told me you had been to see—him—and that is why I felt I must come and see you. You must help us, Mr. Watson. You must help her! I know my father is your client but there are things about him—about us—that you need to know before you go any further.”

  “Please calm yourself, Miss—please calm yourself, Anna,” I said, summoning up my best bedside manner, as I tried to make head or tail of the situation.

  “Mr. Kane told us—told me—that he had twins. A daughter, Nana and a son who was adopted. Now you’re telling me there were three of you?”

  “My mother nearly died giving birth to triplets, Mr. Watson. I’m told my father looked into the crib, decided that one little girl, Nana, was going to be a beauty but that my brother and I were runts in the litter and would have to go. In the Book of Life according to Kane only perfection is tolerated …”

  The cleansing of the master race, I thought to myself.

  “I was adopted and so, I believe, was my brother. I have never seen him—I never knew either of them existed—and I have no idea whether he is alive or dead. Nor, I’m sure, does Mr. Kane. I won’t bore you with my history. Suffice it to say that I came back to this part of the world fairly recently and something inside me made me decide to find out about my origins. What I found sickened me, Mr. Watson. My life may have been dull but at least it has not been degraded like …”

  “Like what?”

  She swallowed hard and did not answer the question but I knew the information would not be long in coming. This, after all, was why she was here.

  “I saw my sister’s photograph in one of the society magazines. I made some inquiries that made sense of some of the things my foster parents had said that I didn’t understand at the time and quite suddenly the pieces fell into place. I knew then that I had to make contact.

  “I waited for her one day outside ———” (she named a fashionable couturier) “She was shocked but intrigued, for she had no suspicion of my existence either. We went to a club she knew—Birdland—that belongs to a friend of hers and we had a drink. We must have looked a strange pair. You have seen us both now, Mr. Watson. Are we not two sides of the same coin?

  “I didn’t realize how different until she told me about her life. It sickened me, I tell you, sickened me! She has had all that tainted money can buy but the price she has had to pay! Our father began to sexually abuse her
when she was very small and only stopped when he could no longer …”

  She pulled out a bunch of crumpled tissues that had seen previous service and mopped her eyes. When she had controlled herself, she continued …

  “When she was older and as beautiful as he had hoped she would be, she told me he would offer her to his special friends at dinner parties. Nothing was too degrading and she was expected to obey like a good little …”

  “Nazi daughter,” I completed the thought in my mind.

  “Later came”—she paused, as if editing her thoughts—“oh, it is monstrous, Mr. Watson, beyond belief. My life has been dull but at least it has been safe from harm. Why couldn’t my sister have been me? If I had been her, I swear I would have fought him and beaten him, even if I had to kill him! When I hear these things, I hate men and everything to do with them …”

  Then seeming to realize that she was addressing someone who qualified for that category, she smiled timidly in apology and it was as though the sun had broken through for a moment. Now I could see the resemblance.

  I also couldn’t help remembering all those movies when the hero leans across, removed Miss Prim’s glasses and lets her hair down before exclaiming— “Why, Miss Smith, you’re beautiful!” I thought on balance that probably would not be a good tactical move on this occasion.

  Then it was as if the fever had broken. She actually sat back a little in her chair. She tucked her tissue away somewhere and even crossed her legs. Her expression became thoughtful more than anguished.

  “So why does she stay?” I asked to keep the conversational ball rolling. “Your sister is a grown woman. Is it the money?”

  “Oh, no, she has put away plenty of money over the years and she could earn a lot more as a model or an actress, if she wanted to. My sister is a very beautiful woman …”

  She raised her chin and said this last almost defiantly, as if challenging me to disagree.

  “Indeed, she is from what little I have seen of her. Indeed, you both are.”

  I said it in an attempt to be mock-gallant, then realized that I meant it. There was something about her that stirred the Sir Galahad in a lad.

  She looked up momentarily from beneath her eyelids. “Yes, Miss Smith …” I thought.

  Now she was all seriousness again. We were reaching the Big Finish.

  “But the other day a terrible thing happened, which is why I am here today …”

  She now took a delicate lace handkerchief from her purse and began to twist it between her fingers. As she did so, I caught the whiff of an expensive perfume that triggered a memory I could not quite catch. I nodded for her to continue.

  “Mr. Kane had been particularly harsh to my sister. He treats her as if she were still a small child and she had done something to annoy him, which is not difficult to do. He had her locked in her room for three days as a punishment and forbade her to see her friends and one friend in particular—Nicky, who owns Birdland—the place I told you about

  “When she was allowed out of her room, she was desperate to do something to spite him, so she stole something he values above all else and certainly above her …”

  “The Borgia Bird,” I said.

  “Then you know? That is why he hired you? I knew it—we both knew it.”

  Then surprisingly she reached over and seized my hand in both of hers.

  “Oh, Mr. Watson—may I call you Jack?—you must help us. If you find it—when you find it—I beg you to say nothing of her involvement. It would go very badly for her and I think already he suspects her. I’m sure you can find a way to prove to him she was not involved …”

  I could feel a check for a thousand dollars burning a hole in my inside pocket. It focused the mind wonderfully.

  “Why doesn’t she simply put it back where she found it?” I have the kind of mind that cuts through the crap.

  “Because she no longer has it. She—gave it away. I’m not sure but I think she got that vile Perlman person to help her.”

  “Gave it away?”

  “She wanted no part of it. But she didn’t want him to have it, either.”

  “Who did she give it to?”

  Even as she said she didn’t know, I knew she was lying through her pearly whites. It’s little things like the way the thumb hovered near the mouth and the handkerchief got screwed up into a ball that tell us professionals what we need to know. Body language speaks louder than words. And you may quote me Watson’s Wisdom.

  I looked over to Holmes for confirmation but he was looking at the ceiling for some reason.

  “Okay, then, so I’ll have to talk to your sister.” That snapped her out of it but fast.

  “Oh, but you mustn’t!”

  “You mean, she’s not been well and is easily upset?” I recalled the way Kane had explained things.

  “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “Tell her it is your business to know things that other people don’t. That is your trade.” It was Holmes’s voice inside my head. So he hadn’t been studying my peeling ceiling after all.

  “It’s my business to know things other people don’t, honey,” I heard myself say.

  “That’s my trade.”

  “And that’s why you came here,” Holmes added.

  “And that’s why you came here.” Pretty impressive.

  She seemed to think so. We had the eye routine again.

  “I will—we will be guided by you, Jack, but could I ask that to begin with you let me be the go-between? Just until Nana grows more comfortable with the idea.”

  I nodded. There was little else a gentleman could do, particularly when a potential client is holding his hand as if both their lives depended on it.

  “Since your father is my client, I can do nothing officially,” I said gently, “but I’ll see what I can do.” That didn’t come out quite as cogently as I’d intended. I prized her fingers off as considerately as I could.

  She gathered her things together and got up to go.

  “Nana and I will find some way to reward you, you have my word on it.” And for the first time she looked me full in the eyes. Once again I caught a whiff of that elusive perfume. Who was the mousey sister now?

  “How can I contact you?”

  “Don’t worry, Jack. I shall contact you …”

  And with a walk that suggested for the first time that there was a woman under the dull gray dress, she left the office.

  Following Holmes’s earlier advice, I hurried to the window to watch Anna Kane cross the street. There was no doubt about it, I had clearly managed to give the lady new found confidence. There was a lilt in her step. She was a different woman.

  I turned back to my partners in crime.

  “Well, Holmes? I thought I handled that pretty well.”

  “As I have often had occasion to tell you, Watson, the fair sex is your department and always has been. I bow to your abilities. The lady was clearly impressed by your grasp of the situation.”

  “What points struck you in particular, Holmes?” A little low animal cunning here. Pick his brains first.

  “Oh, very much the ones that struck you, I imagine, old fellow. The curious case of the dog in the day time, for instance …

  “The dog?”

  “Yes, don’t tell me you have forgotten the case of Silver Blaze, the champion race horse that was stolen. Surely you remember that the clue to the whole affair was the fact that the guard dog did nothing in the night time. It did not bark at the murderer, because it knew him.”

  “Ah—yes …”

  “Similarly, Mike here—who normally takes an unhealthy interest in anyone new—stayed well away from Miss—Kane. Something about her disturbed him.” He puffed thoughtfully on his pipe. I noticed that he had politely refrained from lighting it in Anna Kane’s presence, even though it gave off no smell.<
br />
  Then I had the answer. Obvious.

  “It was probably her perfume. A little cloying. I noticed it myself.”

  “As, indeed, did I—even in my present ‘state’. A woman’s perfume is her signature, Watson, never forget it. I once identified seventy-five different perfumes—I even wrote a small monograph on the subject. By now I am sure there are many more but each of them is as individual as a fingerprint.

  “The lady’s sister was wearing the identical perfume this morning. It reached even me on the bend of the stairs as we entered the hall.”

  Of course. Holmes was right. That was where …

  “Rich sister gives favorite perfume to poor sister to celebrate their renewed relationship. Women are always sharing personal things like that,” I added knowledgeably.

  “Possibly, Watson, possibly. They certainly have many tastes in common. Even though the day is hot and the other young ladies in the street outside are going about in the lightest of clothing that would have shocked Her Majesty considerably, you will have observed that both of our young ladies prefer to wear dresses with long sleeves. And, of course, you observed that all of Miss Anna’s clothes were brand news?”

  “How can you possibly be sure of that? She is clearly a careful woman?”

  “Not careful enough to remove the price tag from the back of her dress. And did you not notice that she did not know where to find the pocket? A whole life may be determined by the wear on a sleeve or the hem of a dress. My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser.

  “She also dropped something when she retrieved her handkerchief. You will find it just under your desk there.”

  I bent over and disinterred a crisp new business card from among the dust balls—

  Anna K. Adam

  “Adam,” Holmes mused. “The primal name. Taken from her foster parents, I wonder? Or chosen to re-christen herself?”

  But another thought was going through my mind that I didn’t think worth bothering Holmes with at this point. By the way the type was set the initial letters stood in relief. Another way of looking at ‘Anna K. (K for Kane, despite her protestations?) Adam was—