Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets Read Online Free PDF

you.”
    “Beg you?”
    Holmes set the Oxford Gazette aside, oblivious to Watson’s affronted tone, and leaned back, waving airily at the paper the doctor had in hand. “You’re holding a letter from someone residing in Stourbridge with whom you regularly correspond. The letter is brief, compared with other such missives you’ve received from this person, and contains news of a troubling nature, judging from your expression as you read it. Something about the matter is suspicious and, dare I suggest, bizarre. Hence your desire to ask for my aid.”
    “Well, that is it exactly, Holmes. You will recall my mentioning a benefactor, Rev. Lilly?”
    Holmes grunted an affirmative.
    “The matter concerns the daughter of Mrs. Mills, his housekeeper. It seems she’s been accused of murder.” Watson cleared his throat of residual embarrassment. “By maleficium.”
    It was not often that Watson could surprise his friend, and never so much that the man’s mouth hung open. Even so, astonishment turned quickly to action. “You country people and your witches,” Holmes said, bounding from his chair. He then set about making travel arrangements with an irrepressible and unholy glee.
    T HE DUMPLINGS MADE by Mrs. Mills, all fluffy and tender and coated in gravy, dwelt in John Watson’s memory with such high regard that he started awake from a dream of being in a storm at sea and trying to catch the dumplings in his mouth as they rolled back and forth along a plank. The dumplings only stopped rolling when the coach in which he dreamt also stopped rolling. On the bench across from him, Mrs. Malpass’s little spotted spaniel stared haughtily at him a moment, then politely averted its eyes as Watson wiped a bit of drool from the side of his chin.
    His fellow travellers within the coach had dwindled over the course of the journey to just himself, Mrs. Malpass, her daughter and the dog.
    The ladies, only just awakening themselves, looked about in confused hopefulness and were immediately cross about it. “What now?” the older woman said. She leaned across to open the shutter only to draw back at the ominous growling of her dog. The daughter shrunk against the older woman, whimpering, “Oh, Mama!” as the carriage door was thrown wide, to the screams of all and sundry.
    Sherlock Holmes stood in the blinking sunshine. “Do calm yourselves, ladies.” He cocked an eye at Watson. “And gentleman .”
    Seeing it was only Holmes, the spaniel set to wagging its tail enthusiastically. Holmes reached over to give it a quick scratch behind the ears. “We were plunged into a nasty rut in the road just then. Tully and son need to check for damage, and we’re being encouraged to make what ablutions we are able, and to breakfast if we are so fortunate as to still have food.”
    Watson’s stomach whined fretfully. “How long a delay?”
    “If there is no damage or little, we should reach Stourbridge by noon.”
    Ideally it would have been mid-morning, but ideal travel schedules were rarely met even in midsummer when the roads were passable. Midsummer was a busy and opportune time for highwaymen as well, and they’d kept good luck on that count too.
    Though they’d both paid for the relative comforts of the coach’s interior, Holmes had forgone those early on, preferring to ride up top with his pistol at the ready. Despite being covered in travel grime, he looked annoyingly well rested.
    The spaniel ran off into the trees as soon as it was on the ground. Mrs. Malpass indicated that she and her daughter intended to follow it into a wooded area, and that they would be within shouting distance if they needed assistance. Watson took their meaning and went the opposite direction to relieve himself.
    As he wandered back toward the coach, wondering if he could scrape together a meal of the crumbs left in his pack, the little dog burst through the brush ahead of its mistresses and dropped to the ground to worry at whatever it had in its mouth.