The Soprano's Last Song Read online

  “Did he tell you, by chance, where they met up afterward?” I asked.

  “This I do not know,” Lupin admitted. “But I’ll ask the lawyer tomorrow.”

  “All right. But now — part of the story is missing. The part where things go wrong. Terribly wrong,” Sherlock said, taking his chin in his hands.

  “That’s right,” Lupin agreed. “Here’s what happened . . . my father left our room around one in the morning, convinced that I was sleeping. He went onto the roof, as always, but this time he never came back. He got to the Hotel Albion, climbed a drainpipe — the one next to the door in the back — and entered Santi’s room. Father told Nisbett that he immediately was suspicious because the window was ajar.”

  Lupin took a breath and then continued. “Soon after he entered the room, he saw a lifeless body lying on the ground. At that point, he followed his instinct, grabbed the jade statue, and fled, going out the window through which he had just entered. However, there were already policemen waiting outside. They must have been informed by the real murderer, who was pretending to be a civilian.”

  “A trap,” Sherlock said.

  “Yes,” Lupin confirmed angrily, pounding his fist on the armrest of his chair. “The villain who came up with it did everything perfectly! And now if we cannot prove my father’s innocence, and prove it quickly . . .” He trailed off.

  At that comment, I felt a pang of anxiety. I turned suddenly to Sherlock, who nodded gravely.

  “What is it?” I asked, guessing that the two boys had exchanged information that they considered not suitable for the ears of a young girl.

  “As Lawyer Nisbett says, my father is at risk of receiving the scarf of Tyburn,” Lupin said in a faint voice.

  “What’s that?” I asked, alarmed.

  “Hanging,” Sherlock Holmes replied, frowning.

  Chapter 11

  THE RIVAL

  That night, Mr. Nelson and I went down to the Claridge’s restaurant pretty late. The long and intense afternoon made me somewhat quiet.

  “Don’t you have an appetite, Miss Irene?” Mr. Nelson asked me.

  I stared at the broth in the bowl in front of me without really seeing it. “Not really,” I said. “Actually, no.”

  “Did your friend deliver you bad news?”

  “Oh, no, no,” I answered quickly. “Nothing important. I am not worried about him.”

  “So, is this about your mother?”

  “Maybe,” I said, hoping my answer would put an end to the conversation.

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it. And I know how you feel,” Mr. Nelson said out of the blue. He put his spoon on the table and carefully folded his napkin next to his plate. “I want to tell you something, Miss Irene . . . something that only your father knows about, and nobody else. A secret,” the butler said mysteriously.

  A server came to clear the table, and Mr. Nelson said, a little bashfully, “Thank you.” Clearing the table was something he usually did himself, at least back in Paris. Then he went on, “Before doing what I do now, I was a sailor.”

  “A sailor, Mr. Nelson?” I burst out. “But you get sick during our journeys at sea.”

  “Don’t judge, Miss Irene. When I was young, I was a sailor, and I didn’t suffer from seasickness. But here is what I want to tell you. My days of sailing ended when I arrived in London and I was arrested due to an insulting accusation — that I had killed a passenger and had thrown her into the sea.”

  “You, Mr. Nelson?” I asked, shocked.

  “I was the perfect culprit. I was strong enough to be able to drag her and throw her overboard, and I was poor enough that I wouldn’t be able to defend myself against the accusation.”

  “Who was killed?” I whispered.

  “A Prussian noblewoman, who, I discovered later, was traveling undercover on our ship. I worked room service, and for this reason, I was the first and only suspect. The police from the Scotland Yard arrested me right here in London. And they made a huge mistake,” he explained. Mr. Nelson continued, “I certainly didn’t do anything. In fact, that lady had treated me kindly. She was a wonderful lady, Miss Irene . . . a beautiful lady with a sad look about her.”

  I understood from the look he gave me that his story wasn’t simply a test of confidence. But what I didn’t realize at that point was that it was related to the mystery wrapping up my own past — about which he knew much more than he could reveal to me at that point.

  That evening, anyway, he told me about how he was arrested and, briefly, about being taken to trial.

  “I saw something strange, Miss Irene. I saw a man outside that woman’s room on that first day of our journey. And when he saw me, he seemed very embarrassed. I had surprised him. He had a bundle, more or less this big.” Mr. Nelson held his hands a short distance from one another, indicating the size, and then continued, “‘It’s very valuable,’ the man told me when he noticed me standing there.”

  “Jewels?” I asked.

  “It was everything the woman had brought with her,” Mr. Nelson answered before continuing his story. “The man walked away quickly, and I knocked on the lady’s door to make sure she was all right. I quickly realized that something had happened in that room. But I didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t my place to ask. She told me just one thing, ‘Even if somebody asks, sailor, don’t ever talk to anybody about this evening. Do not talk to anybody, and I promise that nothing bad will happen to you.’”

  I gulped, asking myself why Mr. Nelson had decided to tell me about what exactly had happened that evening. And why now?

  “Then I forgot the matter and even the woman, because the next day I was given another job on the boat and I didn’t see her again. When we arrived in London, I found out that she had fallen into the sea. The police arrested me because they believed that I was the one who threw her overboard that first and only night I met her.”

  “And what did you do?” I asked.

  “I did what I promised her I’d do. I didn’t say anything. I kept quiet, and I almost accepted the idea of being found guilty for a crime I had not committed.”

  “But it’s unfair!” I protested. “You should have defended yourself!”

  “Not everyone knows how to fight an accusation, Miss Irene,” Mr. Nelson said. “It takes knowledge to do it. And in order to have that knowledge, you must have studied. It is easier to fight an accusation if you know how to do it.” His smile was perplexing. “But I have never been alone in this,” he continued. “I had a friend onboard — the captain of the ship. He knew from the beginning that it wasn’t me. ‘I know it, Horatio. Don’t worry. Whatever the policemen say, I know it wasn’t you,’ the captain told me. He fought so hard to prove my innocence that he left the command of the ship to another captain. He did so much that in the end . . . he succeeded.”

  It took all my effort to keep from clapping my hands. “And then?” I asked. “What happened to your friend — the captain?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know,” Nelson said. “Many years passed, and we never saw each other again. I came to know your father, Miss Irene, and I accepted a position to work for him.”

  “And then I was born?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, Miss Irene,” the butler answered. “You were already born.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I told you this story because I know how your friend’s father must feel. And I know that Mr. Lupin can count on you and Mr. Holmes. But this does not mean that you can take risks or do crazy things. I told you my secret because, if you need to, you can tell me about your secret, Miss Irene. You can trust me. But do not imagine that you will be allowed to do anything you wish to do, even if it is to help your good friend. I will not dismiss the obligations I have to your father.”

  I thought about that for a minute. Then I asked him, “Did they ever discover who threw the lady into the
ocean?”

  Mr. Nelson shook his head slowly.

  “I understand, Mr. Nelson,” I whispered.

  “So, what are you up to with your friends today, Miss Irene?”

  “We want to help Lupin’s father, it’s true. But we don’t exactly know how,” I admitted.

  “Should I worry?”

  “No. Don’t worry, Mr. Nelson.”

  “Really? Can I trust you, Miss?”

  “Yes. We won’t take any useless risks,” I answered. I hoped he would not ask Sherlock, Lupin, or me for a clearer definition of what we consider to be “useful,” and that he would not want to know why Sherlock and Lupin were, at that moment, waiting for me a short distance away, just outside of our hotel.

  * * *

  Only a person who knew Sherlock at this age could confirm what I am about to say. The boy who would become one of the greatest detectives of all time has never had a strict moral code. He hasn’t ever thought of things as “right” or “wrong,” preferring instead to use the terms “possible” and “impossible.”

  It is for this reason, I think, that on that day he was chatting with the laundress at the Hotel Albion, Sherlock didn’t hesitate for a second to steal the woman’s master key.

  We went in the hotel through the back. We soon found that the inner doors were locked from the inside, so Lupin climbed the outside wall to a second-floor window that had been left open. He sneaked in a room, just the way his father had done a night before, and came downstairs to open the door for Sherlock and me.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Lupin whispered, moving quickly up the stairs. “If they see us, we will end up in jail like my father.”

  Scotland Yard had staked their claim on Alfred Santi’s room, where they had arrested Lupin’s father. But the other two, the rooms of Barzini and his assistant, Duvel, had not yet been taken over by the police. We were most suspicious of Duvel, so we held a secret meeting in the hallway outside his room. We knew the room number because Sherlock, in the time that Lupin was gone, had pretended to deliver a package to Mr. Duvel.

  “Let’s try it!” I said, standing in front of the door.

  I knocked. When nobody answered, I motioned for Sherlock to use the master key.

  Clank. The door opened.

  “Go,” Sherlock said to Lupin. “If there is any evidence related to your father, you will see it first.”

  Lupin went ahead and nodded for us to follow. He found a light switch and flipped it on. “Long live the expensive hotels and their luxuries,” he murmured.

  Sherlock went to guard the staircase while Lupin and I looked around. He would be ready to warn us in case someone was coming.

  Duvel’s room was very messy. On the floor under the window, there was an open suitcase. The doors of the closet were open, and its contents were spilling out. There were some pegs in the closet where there hung strings holding dozens of sheets of music — music that looked as if it had been recently written.

  “Do you know how to read music?” Lupin asked.

  “Yes. I am taking singing lessons,” I replied.

  “And how are these?”

  “They are nothing special, I would say . . . but I am not an expert,” I said, looking them over.

  “Duvel is not a poor man!” Lupin exclaimed, snatching a book from the ground. It had a small hole carved into the pages, which was filled with rolled-up bills.

  “I don’t know for sure what we are looking for,” I said, taking the book from him and putting it back. “But probably not that.”

  “We are looking for a connection,” Lupin whispered, going through the suitcase. “Something that could tie Duvel to my father, or to the Spaniard who commissioned the theft.”

  “Maybe a jade statue?” I dared.

  “Exactly.”

  We searched the room for a whole hour before we heard Sherlock in the hallway. “Hurry up!” he warned us, throwing the door open. “Duvel is coming!”

  “Let’s get out of here!” I cried out, bashing into Sherlock, who was standing still in the doorway.

  “There is no time!” he said. “It seems he is running. We won’t be able to avoid him if we leave through the door.”

  Sherlock looked out the window. I started to panic. “I am not going out the window!” I protested.

  “Then we don’t have many choices!” Lupin turned off the light and hid under the bed. I followed him, and Sherlock ducked under the other side. We squeezed in the middle in order to avoid being seen. I had my face in front of Lupin’s chest and his arm was around my back. I felt Sherlock’s bony joints on my back as well.

  I heard Duvel’s hurried footsteps coming closer, and then the key twisting in the keyhole. I watched his ankle boots move nervously between the door and the closet. All three of us stopped breathing.

  Duvel seemed frantic. He kicked his suitcase and looked in the closet, cursing a lot.

  It turns out he was searching for the book with the money. When he found it, he stopped cursing, threw it down, turned off the light, and left the room without closing the door entirely. I counted to ten and started to breathe again. I felt my friends doing the same.

  “We must go now or we will lose him,” Sherlock whispered, freeing me from a forced hug. He rolled onto his hip and got up, not even considering the possibility that Duvel might return.

  It was then — right in the midst of that absurd situation — that Lupin kissed me.

  I didn’t even realize what was happening at first. He was embracing me in a hug, and I had my face pressed against his shirt, which smelled fresh. After Sherlock slid out from under the bed, I felt Lupin stroking my hair gently, and I let him do so without fighting. In the dark, our lips touched lightly. They remained this way — I don’t know for how long — until Sherlock called us anxiously, forcing us to come out.

  * * *

  Lupin and I didn’t speak for the rest of the night. We were dizzy and stunned, trying to keep up with our friend who was chasing our suspect through the streets of London.

  And we didn’t talk about it later on, when other events and much more significant kisses were part of our memories. One thing I can say, even if I couldn’t explain it . . . I never had any kiss better than that one.

  It was certainly the event that I remember best from that evening, even if it wasn’t the most dangerous.

  “This way! Hurry up! We’ll lose him,” Sherlock said, moving like a cat through the darkest, most filthy streets in town. At first, gas lamps illuminated our path, but soon the well-lit streets gave way to wet alleys that were cloaked in strange shadows. Noble houses in the fresh, Victorian style morphed into ruins and huts that gave off startling smells. The carriages disappeared, and suddenly we were surrounded by beggars passing through the shadows.They looked at us with hungry eyes.

  “Come on!” Sherlock encouraged us.

  We dove into the heart of the city and emerged in an area only few people had the courage to visit. The St. Giles neighborhood.

  It was a place that carriage paths avoided. This neighborhood was far from any luminous lampposts. Everything was damp here, and mist hung in the air. Every encounter, every glance reminded me of the promise I had made to Mr. Nelson to stay away from trouble. I wondered what my punishment would be for lying to him so boldly.

  Sherlock stopped at an intersection with his arm held out like a scarecrow’s. “Shh . . .” he said. He leaned over a wall beyond which he had seen Duvel disappear. “He went in the front door,” Sherlock said.

  We all looked over the wall, protected by the darkness. The front door was elegant. The building must have been impressive at one time, but now it looked as if it should have been abandoned years ago. In front of the main door, there was a bonfire burning in the street, crackling noisily and bursting flames and grayish smoke into the sky.

  “Who do you thi
nk those people are?” Lupin asked Sherlock, pointing out two shady characters standing in front of the fire.

  “I don’t know,” Sherlock said. “But I doubt you go there for the pleasure of it.”

  “Wait for me here,” Lupin told us just then. He stood up and walked toward the main door, which was guarded by the two shady men.

  “He is insane,” I whispered, watching him from behind the wall.

  “I didn’t know how insane,” Sherlock Holmes said, crouching beside me.

  We watched the scene from a distance, recreating it when Lupin eventually came back. First, Lupin introduced himself to the guards of that mysterious place, saying he had tobacco to deliver to someone inside. When they asked him to show it to them, he showed them a snuffbox that he had stolen from Duvel’s room (yes, he had stolen it under my gaze, and I wasn’t even aware).

  The two men each rolled a cigarette, and then allowed Lupin to enter. There were endless moments for Sherlock and me as we waited outside, asking ourselves if we should step in. But if the answer was yes, we did not know how to.

  Just as I was beginning to think the worst, Lupin came out, said farewell to the guards, and came whistling toward us.

  “It’s just a gambling house,” Lupin said, shrugging his shoulders as he approached us.

  Despite the darkness, I noticed again the proud, fearless sparkling in his eyes that had struck me during the summer. And I did not know for sure if I wanted to slap him or ask him to kiss me again.

  “And what does Duvel do in there?” I asked as we started walking.

  “He’s a gambler. He was watching a ball that was spinning around inside a wheel and betting on his money,” Lupin said.

  “Roulette,” Sherlock said scornfully.

  “No Spaniard. Nothing useful there,” Lupin whispered, disappointed. “No darn connection to our investigation.”

  Chapter 12