Good Night, Mr. Holmes Read Online Free PDF Page B

him to go. What will you do with the ring?”
    “I couldn’t have paid him anyway,” she mused. “My purse is almost as empty as yours after tea.” I stood stunned at her matter-of-factness.
    “As for the ring...” Irene’s head tilted, dusk veiling her features more effectively than her hat’s spider-silk netting.
    “I believe I’ll... keep it as a memento of lost love, loyalty and revenge large enough to furnish an Italian opera.”
    Her profile lifted against the muddy aura of light at alley’s end to watch the bulk of Jefferson Hope’s cab swell until it blotted out the gaslights beyond. Then the vehicle turned a corner and the street lamps were burning through the stinging mist like blurred stars. I could not read Irene’s expression, but I believe she smiled.
    “Or, if I ever have to—pawn it.”
    I gasped my shock again, most futilely.
     

Chapter Three
    P ERFIDY A MONG T HE D RAPERIES
     
     
    “ May I see it?” I finally couldn’t refrain from asking Irene that evening.
    She smiled in the mingled glow of gaslight, paraffin lamp and the cozy fire before which we sat, our stocking-clad feet toasting on the fender.
    “Here.” The object of my curiosity sailed into my lap. “An unremarkable ring, save for a certain grim sentimental value. It’s the newspaper notice that intrigues me”
    The wedding band lay in my hand, gleaming in the firelight, a perfect “O” of gold. I was tempted to slip it over my own finger. Perhaps I would sense some surviving spirit of the wronged and long-dead Lucy Ferrier who had worn it briefly in a blasphemous marriage. I felt a thrill of tempting horror at the idea.
    “He loved her in his desperate, dogged way, that man,” I commented. “Though revenge is an utterly empty emotion.”
    “Mr. Hope seemed far too satisfied to be considered empty,” Irene answered.
    I regarded her. Here we sat in humble yet comfortable circumstances with a ring that represented the violent deaths of four people, given to us by a man whose fingers virtually clutched the very knocker of death’s door, and Irene was squinting over a small-print advertisement.
    “The Telegraph item is useless now,” I said definitely. “Mr. Hope regained the ring, even if he didn’t keep it. We’ll never know whether the finder meant to trap him or not.”
    “You would do well to read the agony columns more closely,” Irene returned. “That is where the real stories are written in a metropolitan newspaper.” Her alabaster forehead furrowed. “Two-twenty-one-B Baker Street... I have read this address before. But where?”
    She rose and paced before the fire, her brocade wrap rustling around her like half-folded wings. I took advantage of her abstraction to survey our surroundings. On arriving at the top of four flights of stairs in an anonymous structure around the corner from where Mr. Hope had left us, I had been relieved to find Irene’s rooms clean and cozy.
    Yet she kept the ceiling gasolier and table lamp turned low, whether to obscure our modest surroundings or merely for effect I could not tell. Irene Adler seemed to be highly enamored of effect. The parlor thronged with an exotic geography of furniture, and shadowy artifacts crowded us like ill-seen but close friends.
    Earlier, Irene had retired to her bedchamber to loosen her laces and trade her street ensemble for a crimson silk Oriental robe dramatic enough to clothe a Borgia, preferably Lucrezia.
    “Baker Street.” Irene stared toward the ceiling gaslight, oblivious to the exotic picture she presented. “I have seen that address printed before with peculiar requests for information.”
    “It is near Regent Street,” I volunteered.
    “I know where it is! I wonder what it is.”
    “Likely a doctor’s consulting rooms.”
    “So far off Harley Street?”
    “A beginning doctor, with a small, struggling practice.”
    “Brava, Nell. You show a talent, however small, for extrapolation.”
    “No one’s ever called me