The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline Read Online Free PDF

missing, kidnapped, maybe injured or even—despatched—and there I stood gawking at embroidery ?
    Thrusting the crinoline into the wardrobe, I continued my search for something that might help explain what had happened to Mrs. Tupper, or give me some clue as to her whereabouts. After putting away her few remaining clothes, I examined her bed as I put it back together, looked under her night-stand and her wash-stand, even studied her stacks of gossip-and-fashion periodicals, but without any helpful results. I even turned up her carpet, and found nothing under it. With a sigh, I sat down on her bed, looking about me and trying to think. I had looked at the floor. I studied the walls. I lay down to scan the plasterwork of the ceiling. . . .
     
    I was awakened only an hour or two later by Florrie. “Oh, Miss Meshle,” she gasped, “such a turn ye gave me. All the lamps on and no sign of ye downstairs or in yer room—I thought they’d come and got ye, too!”
    “What? Who?” I mumbled, unable momentarily to remember where I was or what I was about or even who I was. Miss Meshle? I thought my name was Enola Holmes.
    “Miss Meshle,” said Florrie anxiously, “ye don’t look like yerself. Why, ye’ve lost that much weight overnight wot with worrying about Mrs. Tupper and all, it’s a wonder ye’re yet alive.”
    The simple girl had never seen me without my padding, plus the rubber devices I usually stuffed into my mouth and nostrils to fill out the shape of my face. I looked quite different, I am sure, and she thought the change was wrought by Mrs. Tupper’s disappearance.
    “Now she may well be dead, wot me mother says—”
    This jolted me upright. “Florrie, do please hush!” Mrs. Tupper, perished, murdered? Such nonsense—well, perhaps not nonsense—still, it did not bear saying.
    Florrie did not hush. “—but the rest of us must go on living, an’ if you hain’t et something yet, you should ’ave an egg an’ a cup of tea straightaway.”
    What an odd creature the girl was, with her clumsy bony personage and her round childish face. Trying to take care of me, forsooth. I found myself almost smiling as I sat on the edge of my landlady’s bed. “Florrie,” I asked gently, “is there any news of Mrs. Tupper?”
    “I don’t know wot you’d rightly call it news, miss, for folk talk of nothin’ else, and some says she were taken by Red Anarchists, but others says it’s them gangs from the dockyards are to blame, and some even says it’s Jack the Ripper.” Florrie shivered. “It couldn’t be that, could it, miss? Mrs. Tupper were a respegguble woman.”
    Her use of the past tense, already, jarred me to my feet. “She still is, I hope. You’re quite correct, Florrie, I need something to eat so that I can better think what to do.” According to Dr. Watson’s accounts of my brother Sherlock, starvation and sleeplessness increased the acuity of the great detective’s mental processes, but alas—for I begrudged the time—I found that I functioned much better when rested and fed.
    “’At’s right, miss.” Florrie started downstairs.
    But as I turned to follow her out of the room, my glance caught on the wardrobe still hanging open, and on its contents.
    “Florrie,” I called after the girl, “would you happen to know why Mrs. Tupper kept this?” I pulled out the exquisite old-fashioned blue silk dress.
    “Oh, yes, miss!” With considerable enthusiasm, Florrie reversed course, running back into the bedroom. “She showed it to me once, miss, because it were given to her by the lady I was named after. Or not me, exactly, bein’ I were named after my aunt, but my aunt were named after her.”
    Confound the babbling girl, she made my head ache. I think I persevered only because there was nothing else to do. “Who?”
    “The lady, miss, the one wot gave Mrs. Tupper the dress!”
    I took a deep breath. “Start over, Florrie. Slowly, please. Who gave Mrs. Tupper this gown?”
    Anxious to