Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes, The, The Read Online Free PDF

we kept our rendezvous with Miss Pilkington, Watson.’
    We strolled back towards the Regal Hotel in a leisurely manner and were just drawing level with the steps leading up to its entrance when the doors were thrown open by a flunkey and a small figure dressed in grey emerged from the foyer and, pausing to glance up and down the seafront, set off purposefully along the esplanade in front of us. We were not more than ten yards away and we could see quite clearly the folded newspaper she was carrying in her right hand.
    ‘Our correspondent, I think,’ Holmes remarked as wefell in behind her, keeping our distance but making sure we did not lose sight of her among the crowds.
    We continued in this manner for several minutes until, with a backward glance at us, she turned down a side street and entered a modest little tea shop with lace curtains at the window and a sign, ‘The Copper Kettle’, hanging above the door. Holmes and I followed her inside and joined her at a small round table tucked away in a discreet corner.
    ‘Miss Pilkington, I assume?’ Holmes remarked pleasantly. ‘I am Sherlock Holmes. May I introduce my colleague, Dr Watson?’
    We shook hands in turn with a short, plain, little woman in her fifties, I estimated, with grey hair drawn back into a neat, no-nonsense bun and whose crisp, forthright manner suggested an experienced governess or schoolmistress.
    ‘Now,’ Holmes continued as all three of us were seated and he had ordered tea and cakes from the elderly waitress, ‘as I stated in my telegram to you, Miss Pilkington, I am most interested in the account you put before me in your letter, but before I take the matter any further, there are certain facts which I must first establish. You will, I trust, have no objection to that?’
    ‘No, of course not,’ Miss Pilkington replied. ‘I am only too happy to assist you as it is the facts of the situation regarding my employer, Mrs Huxtable, thatare causing me so much disquiet. I wish to know if these new acquaintances of hers, Dr Wilberforce and his sister, are to be trusted.’
    ‘Ah, Dr Wilberforce!’ Holmes murmured. ‘Could you please give me a few details about him? His age, for example, and his appearance?’
    ‘Well,’ Miss Pilkington drew a deep breath before beginning an account of such fluency that I suspected she had rehearsed it in her mind several times already, ‘Dr Wilberforce is a well-built, middle-aged man, bald-headed and clean-shaven, with a rather florid complexion.’
    ‘An excellent description!’ Holmes remarked and I was amused to notice that she blushed a becoming pink at the compliment. When he wished to, my old friend had an enviable talent for setting his clients, especially women, at their ease. 4 ‘Now were there any distinguishing features about him that you also noticed, such as a scar or a birthmark?’
    As he spoke, he cast a quick sideways glance in my direction as if to draw my attention to a certain significance in his remark, but it meant nothing to me at the time and neither, apparently, to Miss Pilkington, who shook her head.
    ‘Not that I noticed,’ she replied.
    Holmes seemed disappointed but continued smoothly as if her answer had had no effect on him at all, ‘Very well, then. Let us move to another aspect of the matter, that of the doctor’s personality. What was it about him that roused your suspicions?’
    This time Miss Pilkington hesitated before speaking, which made me conclude that she had not given this side of the matter the same attention she had applied to his physical appearance and that probably she was relying on her intuition rather than any rational consideration. However, after a long moment she said in a rapid little burst of words, ‘It sounds ridiculous, Mr Holmes, but he smiles too much.’
    ‘Ah!’ Holmes said softly as if he perfectly understood. ‘“A man may smile and smile and be a villain.”’
    Miss Pilkington’s face lit up.
    ‘Shakespeare, is it not, Mr