The Adventure of the Skittering Shadow: Sherlock Holmes in Space Read Free Page B

with making meal selections and putting in our orders at the table’s small ordering station. When the minutia of daily life had finally been dealt with, Mr. Chapman leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, and regarded us with frank interest.
     
    I regarded him with equal curiosity. A man who bagged sisters – or was bagged by sisters depending on one’s perspective, I supposed – with no hard feelings on anyone’s part was a rare man indeed.
     
    “When you contacted me, Mr. Holmes, you said that Helen had hired you to help her sort out the mystery surrounding Julia’s death,” said Mr. Chapman. “What can I do to help?”
     
    “What can you tell us about the sisters Stoner?” inquired Holmes, while leaning forward in his seat. His expression had thinned with predatory interest.
     
    “Are you looking for anything in particular?” asked Mr. Chapman nervously.
     
    “Not yet. Simply tell us what comes to mind about them.”
     
    Chapman still looked uncertain so I added encouragingly, “Things like their friends, enemies, and peculiarities could be very useful.”
     
    Looking relieved, Mr. Chapman slouched down in his seat and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He stared moodily into the middle distance for some moments before he said at last, “I don’t think that they had any enemies or very many real friends either. They were both friendly enough and easy to like, even love, but there was always a distance to them, except from each other. They were like those sister stars that rotate around each other. Others could be pulled into their orbit, but their primary pull was on each other. It was kind of poetic that they were identical.”
     
    “What were their daily routines like?” prompted Holmes.
     
    “Julia liked routine. When we were married, she was out of bed at seven every morning and in to work by eight thirty. What time she came home was a little more varied, but she always ate lunch from one to two and dinner from seven to eight. She was usually in bed by ten. Helen doesn’t believe in schedules. When we were married, she’d stay out all night drinking with her buddies then catch a shuttle off-world the next morning or sleep all day on her day off. They were both wild, but Julia hid it better.”
     
    “Wild?” I asked, surprised. Given the woman’s rigid routine, I had assumed that Julia Stoner would be equally inflexible in other aspects of her life. “How was Julia Stoner wild?”
     
    “In a brainy way,” responded Chapman, while making a vague gesture with one of his hands. “They both enjoyed gambling but they went about it differently. Helen relies on luck and quits when her streak runs out, but Julia would count the cards or do the math to make sure that she won more than she lost. If they were betting on a sports team, Helen would pick the one that felt good. Julia would do the research on both teams, fickle around with the math, and pick the one with the greatest probability of success. They took different routes, but they usually ended up at more or less the same place.”
     
    “When we asked Miss Helen Stoner about her sister’s work, she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us anything,” said Holmes as the robotic server brought our meals. “What, if anything, do you know about it?”
     
    “Not much,” admitted Chapman, grimacing. “I was married to Julia for three years, and I still don’t know any more about her work than I learned the day that I met her. If Helen knows anything about what Julia was working on, it probably isn’t anything useful. Julia is – was good at keeping secrets; Helen, not so much. But even if she knew something, Helen wouldn’t tell you. She always tried to keep Julia’s secrets.”
     
    The conversation lulled as the robot, its assigned task completed, trundled back to the kitchen, and we bent our heads to the task of eating. The meal was drawing to a close when Holmes resumed the conversation.
     
    “To your