Trollheart

II: Word Games

When she had left, I breathed an audible sigh of relief and sat down, like a man who has spent an entire night's watch holding his breath. Holmes didn't seem to notice, or if he did, refrained from remarking upon my discomfort. He was looking at the piece of paper his visitor had passed to him, his eyes shining.

“Watson, I do believe my nets, cast for so long and so far, are finally close to entrapping our prey,” he declared with a grim smile. “And I may say, it is a quarry which has eluded the finest criminal minds outside of England. But I will have him, Watson, that I will. Look at this.”

He presented his notebook, with the words he had written down as Miss Penny had relayed them back to him.

“Not difficult at all to translate, eh Watson?” He winked at me, and I nodded, lighting my pipe to calm my nerves.

“Surely, Holmes,” I agreed, unsure of what I was agreeing to. He came over with his notebook, pointed with the pen.

“Jay oon artist – well, that is obviously j'ai une artiste – I am an artist. Next we have a veck la sork – the charming Miss Penny,” he looked up at me with an amused look. “She was charming, was she not, Watson?”

“Most charming,” I agreed stiffly. I was sure Holmes was repressing laughter, but he made no more of it.

“She originally thought it was stork, but this does not sound like any French word I have ever heard. So then, sork it is. A veck is surely avec – with.” He pursed his lips, tapped the pen against the pad. “Sork, sork, sork. That is not so simple. And it may have been stork, though I feel it unlikely a man speaking French would suddenly lapse into English for one word.”

“Unless,” I offered, “he was unaware of the French translation of the word.”

“True.” Holmes shook his head, giving the lie to his reply. “But usually our foreign cousins have a habit of adding 'how-you-say', to indicate they do not know the word in their own language. So had he said avec la – how you say – stork – then yes, we might consider that. But on balance I think no. So if we assume sork as the word, and allow for the inflections various dialects would put on such a word, given that the man is a Canadian, perhaps the word becomes – by Jove, Watson! Sirc!”

“Sirk?”

“Circe,” he corrected me excitedly, writing the word down. “Circe with a c. It is the French word for circus.”

“Looks like that witch I suggested earlier,” I could not resist noting. He shook his head.

“They are spelled the same,” he allowed, “but the witch of Greek legend was called Circe, pronounced sir-say. This is circe, pronounced, well, as our charming agent heard it, sirk, though she heard sork. This is news indeed, Watson!”

I was afraid to admit I could not see how. He stood over me, pointing at the words.

“It begins to fit, Watson! It begins to fit!”


“Does it?” I asked, unconvinced. "What about these other words she spoke - too fam ay - ah, whatever it was?" I could not recall all the words. Holmes had of course written them all down, and he referred to them now with almost a cursory glance.

"Oh yes. That. Well, mere invective Watson, I assure you. He was accusing her, and all her sex, of being - ah - the devil, and pronouncing them damned. Not a man," he raised his eyes from the pad, "who enjoys the company of women, my friend." He flipped back through the notebook, pointing his pen at an older page in which he had written.

“You remember the words our – ah, ghostly friend wrote on Mrs. Fraser's wall? One of them was CIRC. Surely this can only be meant to read CIRCUS? And – oh Watson! I see it all now, or much of it anyway. Look!”

He turned the page, showing me the one on which he had written down the spectral words that had appeared before our eyes that morning. He pointed to the three small words.

CAN
AD
A

“I thought this was part of a sentence!” He slapped his forehead in frustration at his own error. “Can add a something. But it's not, Watson, it's not! It is in fact one word. Look!” He rewrote the word on another line, leaving no space between the letters. We were now looking at a single word, which made much more sense in the light of what we had just learned.

CANADA

“Add this to the CIRCUS, the fact that the man with the scratched face described himself as an artist and,” he rummaged for yesterday's newspaper, thrust it in front of me. “The story of the monkey who attacked an acrobat. Watson! Look again at the words. A CRO BAT. Once again I have been a fool. Not a crow and a bat. One word: acrobat! An acrobat, with a connection to Canada, working at a circus. It can only be our man! And here, look, his name – Francis Deschamps, one of a troupe of acrobats with the Farrington and Nilsson Circus! It all fits!”

He was pulling on his coat as he spoke.

“Are we going out, Holmes?”

He threw a scarf around his neck, headed for the door. “I shall call a cab, if you could perhaps slip your service revolver in your pocket, my friend.”

“But, but where are we going?”

“Why, Watson,” he winked, “how long has it been since you were at the circus?”

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