The Private Wife of Sherlock Holmes (Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes novella) Read Online Free PDF Page A

scaled skin until the head and neck raised at the click of a latch. Inside was a storage space filled with upright discs.
    “This python,” I noted after going over to see the cache, “has swallowed a most indigestible meal.” I knelt beside the ottoman to pull out some discs, each labeled in the middle with the name of its subject.
    “Montague is not the only fly caught in the gramophone’s audible web,” Holmes noted as he examined other discs. “Here is his record.”
    I took it in my gloved hand, knowing my fingers held Sophie’s fate. I stood to slip it into my capacious skirt pocket.
    “Women are much better attired for subterfuge,” Holmes observed, “especially with the sleeves presently in fashion, although they make passage on the street difficult.”
    I couldn’t but agree with him. Fashion now called for an extravagant version of a Regency riding jacket over our bell-shaped skirts, this meant lace collars up to our chins and fabulously wide leg-o-mutton sleeves above the elbow. I no doubt could thrust at least four vertical recording discs down each sleeve of my lace-lavished pastel-flowered jacket. The tight lower sleeves to the wrist laces would hold them prisoner in their airy, lace-winged cages. So I suggested.
    He fell to rapidly investigating the other names, tsk ing repeatedly as he handed them up to me. “Revelation of this would tumble the financial markets. This the House of Lords. This the Church of England! What a blackmailer’s treasure chest! Do you think the Eminent Personage knows what game’s afoot here?”
    I’d deftly inserted the hard circles under my flagrant jacket lapels and into the huge puffed sleeves that forced me to turn somewhat sideways to pass through most doors.
    “I doubt it,” I said. “He can be selfish and self-gratifying, but his vanity requires an illusion that his many conquests come to him totally willingly.”
    Holmes rose, dusting off his hands as if they had been contaminated by poisonous “devil dust.” “I must ensure that this operation ceases at once.”
    Before we could discuss the matter further, the door latch snapped.
    Mrs. Hemphill stepped in to find me perched on the snakeskin ottoman and Mr. Holmes with his back to her holding a stereoscope to his face like a mask. This clever modern device was a viewer that made double images seen through lenses look vividly dimensional. The photo cards available for the popular parlor toy usually showed scenery, but those kept here were presumably French postcards, for the backs of his ears were very red.
    “Mr. and Mrs . Montague,” she greeted us. “You’re a bit early.”
    She eyed me up and down, her gaze so searching that I hoped no vestige of that morning’s maid remained. I was very glad that modern invention didn’t yet permit looking through clothing, which would no doubt be quite the entertainment here.
      “Now I see why our Eminent Personage is so taken with Mrs. Montague. She is a peerless beauty, good sir, fit for a Peer of the Realm. I see you’ve finally made her see reason. Being a bit early is all to the good. She’ll need to change into one of our piquant French dressing gowns. Our EP is not one to dawdle and he has an important dinner later.”
    So poor Sophie was to be a quick appetizer! Really, Bertie should be shot!
    “The recording, Mr. Montague, will be given to your wife when she leaves the establishment.”
    Holmes set down the stereoscope and turned to reveal his face.
    She gasped, then recovered herself. “Ah. The husband has chosen another escort, I see. Wise perhaps. Husbands are an inconvenience here, men never.”
    Holmes spoke with authority. “I will stay to ‘escort’ Mrs. Montague and the recording home.”
    “An odd sort of emissary you are. I can’t quite fix your station. You are neither thug nor gentleman, but a bit of both.”
    Holmes laughed coldly. “You have exactly put your finger on it, Madam madam.”
    I had no idea what we were to do