No Place Like Holmes Read Online Free PDF Page B

help wondering how much trouble it would get him into. His uncle had made it very clear that he was not to come back home until dinner. Then again, this woman needed help and he couldn’t abandon her. His uncle claimed to be a private detective. If he really were one, then it seemed right to notify him about her situation.
    When the door to his uncle’s apartment opened, Griffin was so nervous about how his uncle might respond to his breaking his rules that he could hardly find the words to speak. But after a moment he gathered his courage and told his uncle about the woman he’d met in the street and who was now lying unconscious in the hansom cab.
    To Griffin’s surprise, Snodgrass’s curiosity seemed to be piqued. “She specifically asked for Sherlock Holmes?” he asked. “But didn’t know where to find him or what he looked like?”
    Griffin nodded.
    A crafty expression flickered over Snodgrass’s features. Then the scruffy man trotted down the steps toward the waiting carriage. “We mustn’t leave the poor woman unattended,” he called back to Griffin. “Tell Watts to brew some tea.”
    What? Evidently his uncle was throwing all of the rules out the window. Griffin couldn’t be more pleased. His uncle might get a case, and he was able to get a closer look at the robot.
    â€œRight away, Uncle!” Griffin called.
    Dashing back inside the musty house, Griffin didn’t have to look far to find the mechanical butler. He was in the entry, holding a strange cleaning device that made a sucking sound as he dragged it over the threadbare, Persian rug.
    Griffin shouted over the loud roar of the machine. “WATTS, COULD YOU PLEASE MAKE SOME TEA?”
    The robot didn’t seem to hear him. It continued what it was doing, oblivious to Griffin’s command. Griffin moved closer to a small, protruding button on the side of its head, something he assumed might be the robot’s mechanical ear, and tried again.
    â€œTea! TEA!”
    But once again, there was no response. At that moment, Griffin’s uncle appeared, red faced and puffing, as he carried the unconscious woman up the stairs and into the entryway. As he made his way past his nephew and into the cluttered parlor, he called back to Griffin, “As I told you last night, he will only take orders from me. It will only work if you start every command with ‘Rupert says.’ Don’t be stupid, boy.”
    Griffin was offended. He was anything but stupid. It wasn’t fair to expect him to know how to do something that he had never been instructed how to do.
    Turning back to the robot, he pronounced loudly, “RUPERT SAYS . . . MAKE TEA FOR THREE!”
    At that command the mechanical man suddenly shuddered to a stop. Then it turned off the loud cleaning device, strode over to the kitchen, and began to brew a cup of Snodgrass’s weak, watery tea.
    Griffin smiled. The mechanical man was marvelous! As he watched Watts brew the tea and then pour it into three chipped cups, he heard a soft moan coming from the other room. Griffin hurried into the parlor, where he saw his uncle bent over the woman, massaging her hand.
    â€œWhere am I?” she asked in sleepy, disoriented voice.
    â€œSomewhere safe,” Snodgrass replied.
    â€œAre . . . are you Mr. Holmes?” the woman asked.
    Griffin was shocked to hear, instead of the usual, angry outburst at the mention of his nemesis’s name, his uncle reply in a very sweet voice, “I’m at your service, madam.”
    He had avoided answering her question directly, but his uncle was clearly trying to trick the woman. He was allowing her to believe he was the great detective so that she would hire him. Griffin couldn’t let his uncle lie to that poor woman. It just wasn’t right.
    â€œMa’am, I think what my uncle is trying to say is that while he’s not actually Sherlock Holmes, he is