The Case of the Missing Marquess Read Online Free PDF Page A

she may now have progressed from oddness to senile dementia.”
    Hero or no hero, he—his manner—was beginning to annoy me. And distress me, for my mother was his mother, too; how could he be so cold?
    I did not know then, had no way of knowing, that Sherlock Holmes lived his life in a kind of chill shadow. He suffered from melancholia, the fits sometimes coming upon him so badly that for a week or more he would refuse to rise from his bed.
    “Senility?” Mycroft asked. “Can you not arrive at any more helpful deduction?”
    “Such as?”
    “You’re the detective. Whip out that lens of yours. Detect. ”
    “I have already done so. There is nothing to be learned here.”
    “Outside, then?”
    “After a full day of rain? There will be no traces to tell which way she’s gone. Foolish woman.”
    Dismayed by his tone and this comment, I left, carrying the vase of withering flowers downstairs to the kitchen.
    There I found Mrs. Lane crouched upon the floor with a scrub brush, scouring the oak boards so fiercely that I suspected she, also, was perturbed in her mind.
    I dumped the contents of the Japanese vase into the wooden slop bucket, on top of vegetable parings and such.
    On her hands and knees, Mrs. Lane told the floor, “Here I was so looking forward to seeing Mister Mycroft and Mister Sherlock again.”
    Setting the green-slimed vase in the lead-lined wooden sink, I ran water into it from the cistern tap.
    Mrs. Lane spoke on, “And here it’s still the same old story, the same foolish quarrel, they’ve never a kind word for their own mother, and she maybe lying out there . . .”
    Her voice actually broke. I said nothing, so as not to further upset her.
    Sniffing and scrubbing, Mrs. Lane declared, “Small wonder they’re bachelors. Must have everything their way. Think it’s their right. Never could abide a strong-minded woman.”
    A bell rang, one of a number of bells poised on coiled wires along the wall above the stove.
    “There, now, that’s the morning room bell. I suppose that’s them wanting luncheon, and me up to my elbows in the dirt of this floor.”
    Having had no breakfast, I quite wanted luncheon myself. Also, I wanted to know what was going on. I left the kitchen and went to the morning room.
    At that informal room’s small table sat Sherlock smoking a pipe and staring at Mycroft, who sat across from him.
    “The two best thinkers in England ought to be able to reason this out,” Mycroft was saying. “Now, has Mother gone off voluntarily, or was she planning to return? The untidy state of her room—”
    “Could mean that she left impulsively and in haste, or it could reflect the innate untidiness of a woman’s mind,” interrupted Sherlock. “Of what use is reason when it comes to the dealings of a woman, and very likely one in her dotage?”
    Both of them glanced up at me as I entered the room, appearing hopeful that I might be a house-maid, although they should have known by now that there were none. “Luncheon?” Mycroft asked.
    “Heaven knows,” I replied as I sat down at the table with them. “Mrs. Lane is in an uncertain frame of mind.”
    “Indeed.”
    I studied my tall, handsome (to me at least), brilliant brothers. I admired them. I wanted to like them. I wanted them to—
    Nonsense, Enola. You’ll do very well on your own.
    As for my brothers, they paid me no further heed.
    “I assure you, Mother is neither in her dotage, nor demented,” said Mycroft to Sherlock. “No senile woman could have compiled the accounts she has sent me over the past ten years, perfectly clear and orderly, detailing the expense of installing a bathroom—”
    “Which does not exist,” interrupted Sherlock in acid tones.
    “—and water closet—”
    “Likewise.”
    “—and the constantly rising salaries of the foot-men, the housemaids, the kitchen maid, and the daily help—”
    “Nonexistent.”
    “—the gardener, the under-gardener, the odd man—”
    “Also nonexistent,