Nancy Springer - The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline

Table of Contents

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Copyright 2009 by Nancy Springer. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Springer, Nancy. The case of the cryptic crinoline : an Enola Holmes mystery / Nancy Springer.
p. cm. Summary: In late-nineteenth-century London, fourteen-year-old Enola Holmes,
much younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes, turns to Florence Nightingale for help when
her investigation into the disappearance of a Crimean War widow grows cold.
[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Missing personsFiction. 3. Characters in literature
Fiction. 4. Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910Fiction. 5. London (England)History
1800-1950Fiction. 6. Great BritainHistoryVictoria, 1837-1901Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S76846Care 2009 [Fic]dc22 2008040475

eISBN : 978-1-101-02481-2

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To my mother

ALSO BY NANCY SPRINGER

THE ENOLA HOLMES MYSTERIES

THE TALES OF ROWAN HOOD

THE TALES FROM CAMELOT

SCUTARI, TURKEY ,
1855
(The faint of heart may proceed directly to Chapter the First.)

ON THE HILLTOP ABOVE THE HARBOUR STANDS THE huge square building that used to be the barracks for the Turkish army, but is now Hells home on earth. The stench of bloated carcassescow, horse, humanfloating in the sea is nothing compared with the stench within that massive masonry cube. Shoulder to shoulder on its stone floors lie wounded, sick, or dying men, mostly young British soldiers, many without even a straw pallet beneath them or a blanket for covering. Hell is relatively quiet; so deeply desperate, helpless, and weak are the patients that they languish almost soundless, dying by the thousands of infection, gangrene, and cholera.

One of those lying insensible, not likely to live through the approaching night, is a young fellow just twenty years of age. By his side crouches a frightened girl even younger than he, his bride of less than a year, who has come to this awful place with him. Most of the mens wives have come along, trailing the regiments with babes in arms, for no way is provided for the soldiers to send home their pay, and separated from their husbands the women will starve.

Many of them are starving anyway.

Watching her husband die, the girl maintains the mute, shivering, and mostly silent misery characteristic of Scutari, for she has seen too much death; she realises that she herself might well die, and she does not dare to hope that the new life she carries within her thin body can survive.

A little farther down the ward, a woman wearing a shapeless grey wrapper and cap washes crusted mucus from a soldiers eyes. Since recently arriving from England, the small group of determined nurses has managed somewhat to improve matters in Scutari. They have scrubbed filthy floors, bathed filthy bodies, boiled the lice out of some of the blankets. The soldier with the infected eyes may go blind, but, as fewer than half of those who enter Scutari come out alive, he should consider himself lucky.

Keep your hands away from your eyes, now, the nurse tells him, no matter how much you wish to rub them, for your touch transfers foul matter into them.

Walking through the eight miles of wards comes another nurse, a thin, aristocratic woman who carries a lamp, for night is falling. Her oval face is remarkably sweet, symmetrical, and placid. Her hair, parted precisely in the middle, lies smooth like brown wings beneath a white lace cap that ties under her chin. Slowly she progresses, pausing at the foot of many a patients pallet and speaking in a soft, melodious voice. The letter to your mother has been sent, Higgins.... Not at all, you are very welcome. Did you eat today, OReilly? Good. I should have a blanket for you tomorrow. Did you use a fresh sponge, Walters? As she pauses where the nurse ministers to the man going blind: Good. Go to your quarters, now; its getting dark.

As the nurse leaves, the Lady with the Lamp walks forward again, to pause where the trembling girl crouches beside her unconscious husband. After a look at him, the lady sets down her lamp, seats herself likewise on the cold stone floor, takes the mans blue bare feet into her lap, and begins briskly to rub them with her hands, perhaps warming them a bit.

It is the only comfort I can give him, she tells the girl, who sits mute and huge-eyed by his side. You must go now, child. You may come back in the morning.

The thin young wife gazes back at her, wordless and imploring.

The lady replies to that gaze as if to a spoken plea. I know you wish to stay with him, child, but the rule is that there are to be no females in the wards at night, and if we do not obey, the army may send us back to the kitchen or, even worse, back to England. Her soft voice never rises, and her face, although thin, shows no weariness, resentment, or frustration; it remains angelically serene even as she says, If that happens, then there will be no nursing for the unfortunates, not even in the daytime. So we must go. Do you understand?

And, assuming that the girl can hear her, perhaps she thinks the child does understand. Although the younger woman fails to move, there is no defiance in her eyes, only wretched exhaustion.

Come. Placing the dying mans feet gently back on the floor, the lady takes her lamp and rises. Come, I will walk with you and light your way. She offers the girl her hand, and after a moment the young bride reaches up to accept that warm grip. The older woman helps her to her feet. For a moment the two of them stand, hand in hand, over theone might as well call it a body.

The girls thin lips move three times before, with an odd plangent abruptness, she speaks. Es my usband, she states helplessly and unnecessarily.

I know, dear, but you still cannot

Es a good man, the girl goes on without seeming to hear. Is name is Tupper. Thomas Tupper. Somebody besides me oughter remember.

Yes, of course they should, soothes the Lady with the Lamp. Those who survive Scutari will make famous the comfort of her quiet voice. Come along now, Mrs. Thomas Tupper.

CHAPTER THE FIRST

MISS MESHLE, SAID MRS. TUPPER AS SHE TOOK my empty plate away, if ye ave time to set an talk a while...