The Detective and the Woman Read Online Free PDF Page B

observational abilities. ‘It was the eyes,’ I said quickly. ‘Yesterday, they were your own. Today, their cloudiness belonged to someone else.’
    ‘Well spotted,’ said Holmes, pulling forth a small pipe. ‘I did not mind driving a cab with the eyes of another, but only the eyes of the great detective himself could be put to the purpose of meeting Irene Adler again.’
    I wondered if he intended to mock me, but he seemed dead serious. He puffed away at his tobacco for a moment and then drilled me with his gaze. ‘From now on, we are Bernard and Lavinia James. Use those names as often as possible until they are second-nature. We can’t afford to slip.’ I nodded, slightly annoyed at his schoomasterish tone. I certainly wasn’t stupid enough to have failed to assimilate the necessity of subterfuge.
    ‘Come, my dear Lavinia, and let me show you the letter I’ve received from our friends.’ Holmes motioned to me to join him on his side of the car, and I did so, unable to keep from smiling at the conspiratorial glint in his eyes.
    ‘Very well, Bernard,’ I answered, sitting myself down primly. Holmes handed me a sheet of paper that contained a handwritten list. I read it with interest.
    1)Barnett is Miss A’s solicitor.
    2)Sanchez is a Central American trying to make his fortune in the citrus-growing industry.
    3)Both men have some sort of design on Miss A, perhaps on others as well.
    4)The exact nature of the connection between the two men is unknown.
    5)Sanchez is a frequent guest of the Edisons, though neither husband nor wife appears to have any particular preferential fondness for him.
    6)Barnett has extensive ties to both England and North America, though none as-yet-discovered to Central America.
    7)An ongoing investigation into Miss A’s finances, conducted under the supervision of Mycroft Holmes, turns up nothing amiss, though some records cannot be accessed without her personal permission (or that of her solicitor, who is unaware of the investigation and might act in dangerous ways if provoked before he is fully captured). In addition, the finances of her American tour are not fully accounted-for as of yet.
    8)Barnett represents many wealthy clients, and investigations have begun into the accounts of several of the more prominent, though no inconsistencies have been uncovered to date.
    9)Sanchez is almost certain not to know what Miss A looks like; therefore, personal contact will not present unreasonable risk.
    10)Once Miss A’s physical safety is secured, the next phase of the case must include deeper infiltration into Fort Myers society.
    I read the list with interest, noting the mixture of Holmes’s terse observations and expanded explanations for my benefit. ‘I get the impression—I mean, do you suppose the implications of the threat to be wider than a crude plot by a solicitor against a wealthy client?’ I asked, looking at my companion curiously.
    ‘I think it likely, as does my brother,’ he answered, his face in a cloud of grey smoke. ‘A common criminal would have already betrayed himself in a thousand ways. If Barnett desired to steal, innumerable ways to do so exist before him. But he’s been too careful. Why, too, did he include the man Sanchez? The whole thing reads differently from a petty crime.’
    ‘I must also ask, Bernard, how my brother-in-law (I nearly laughed aloud) came by the letter from our friend in the first place.’
    ‘That, my dear Lavinia, is one of the more interesting facts of the case. A clerk by the name of Michael Morgan caught sight of the letter on his employer’s desk right before it was posted. He thought the contents odd and mentioned them that evening when he visited his doctor for treatment of a chest cold. His doctor’s name, you might have guessed, is one John Watson, a London physician of considerable reputation who recently lost his dear friend of several years. In the absence of this friend, the good doctor gave the information to the