The Case of the Left-Handed Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

Enola.”
    A statement I had always accepted as rather a compliment.
    But on this particular day, with the pain in my throat exacerbated by a lump that had arisen therein, I suddenly, achingly realised that I wanted – I wanted something. Or someone.
    I wanted no longer to be alone.
    Enola, alone, with no one to walk by my side.
    With no one to confide in.
    With no one to comfort me.
    Yet I knew quite well that any companionship simply could not be, not for another seven years – for until I became legally adult, every person who knew me posed a threat to me, of discovery. Joddy, a danger if he learned too much. Mrs. Tupper, likewise. The grocers and bakers who supplied the food I gave to the poor, the washerwoman who did my oddly assorted laundry, the whitesmith who had made my daggers for me, each a risk. I had thought of keeping a pet, but even a dog could ruin me just by recognising me at the wrong time. Old Reginald, the collie from Ferndell, if he were somehow transported to London and encountered me, would hurl himself at me with ecstatic canine cries, no matter how I might be disguised. And if Lane the butler were with him, and Mrs. Lane, if they found me, she would burst into happy tears, for she had been like a mother to me, more so than –
    Stop. Enola Holmes, you stop snivelling this instant.
    I needed to get up, get moving, accomplish something.
    Very well. There was nothing I could do concerning Mum, or concerning Sherlock’s distress until I had heard from Mum. And – although I fervidly wished for justice, or, indeed, revenge! – at this point there was nothing I could do about the unknown garroter who had distressed me .
    But there was , surely, something I could do concerning my life’s calling: being a perditorian. Something I could do about Sir Eustace Alistair’s missing daughter. I had promised myself that, for “his” first case, “Dr. Ragostin” would find her.
    I needed to know the particulars.
     
    After some thought, I rose and made my way back through various passageways to the kitchen, where the cook and the housekeeper were having their mid-morning cup of tea. Both looked startled to see me enter that room, and apprehensive, because normally I would have simply rung for service, so what was wrong?
    “Mrs. Bailey,” I croaked to the cook, “I do not feel quite well. My throat is most dreadfully sore. Do you suppose – ”
    “Of course,” cried Mrs. Bailey, relieved, answering my request before I could frame it. Illness, you see, explained my presence in the kitchen, which due to hearth, stove, and water-heater was by far the warmest place in the house. “Tea?” She jumped up to put the kettle on.
    “The very thing. Thank you kindly.”
    “Do sit down, Miss Meshle,” invited the other one, Mrs. Fitzsimmons, the housekeeper, offering me the chair closest to the fire.
    At the table with the two of them, I sipped, briefly answering their inquiries about my health, after which they resumed their conversation. Mrs. Bailey had been to a music-hall the night before to see a Mesmerist, or magnetiser, “one of them pursy, swarthy, shaggy-browed Frenchmen with wolf eyes.” He had been assisted by “a wench in one of them French clinging gowns” who lay on an examining-couch while he had her stare at the usual shiny object – in this case, a candle-flame – and flicked his hands at her face as if sprinkling her with his “vital principle,” then made the customary magnetic passes over her entire person. “Scandalous close to ’er ’is ’ands come, but ’ee didn’t touch her. She lay wit ’er eyes open like a corpse, an’ ’ee told ’er to eat soap an’ she chewed it down like it was toffee.’Ee told ’er she were a pony an’ she whinnied. ’Ee told her she were a bridge, picked ’er up an’ put ’er down again across two chairs and there she lay stiff like stone. ’Ee fired a pistol near her ear . . .”
    Sitting and listening, I concealed my impatience with