The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets Read Free

took the papers from her hands.
    However, she did not then go away. Instead, she straightened her short, hunched form to its limit and fixed me with her watery gaze. “Miss Meshle,” she declaimed with the bravado of one who has decided to perform a Moral Duty, “it’s no good yer shuttin’ yerself up this way. Now whatever ’appened, and it’s none of my business, but whatever it was, it’s no use gittin’ pale about. Now, it’s a nice day out, wit’ a bit uv sun and startin’ to feel springish. Now whyn’t you git yer bonnet on an’ go out for a walk, at least—”
    Or I believe she said something of the sort. I barely heard her, and I am sorry to say I shut the door in her face, for my gaze had caught upon the Daily Telegraph ’s headline and fixed there.
    It said:

    SHERLOCK HOLMES ASSOCIATE MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS DR. WATSON’S WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN

C HAPTER THE S ECOND
    N OT PAUSING EVEN TO TAKE A SEAT, BUT STANDING where I was, with the skirt of my cheap cotton at-home dress nearly in the fire, I read:

    Events sure to send a frisson of horror through any spine with delicacy of feeling have unfolded in Bloomsbury, with implications taking in the whole of London, if a missing British gentleman is not soon found. Dr. John Watson, a respected physician perhaps best known as companion of, and chronicler of the adventures of, the famous detective Mr. Sherlock Holmes, has most mystifyingly disappeared without a trace. Foremost among the thoughts of the absent man’s family and friends, of course, is terror lest he might have fallen into the hands of some criminal enemy of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, to be used as a pawn in some nefarious scheme, bandied as a hostage, or dispatched for the sake of revenge. Alternatively, concern has been expressed that, carrying his black bag identifying him as a physician, he might have been attacked by an anti-vaccination mob in the East End. No form of foul play at this time may be ruled out. Attempts are being made to trace Dr. Watson’s movements this Wednesday last, on which day he departed to perform customary calls and errands but failed to return to his home and business in the evening. Cab-drivers are being questioned…

    And so forth, a great many words to describe, essentially, nothing. An absence not newsworthy at all if it were not that my brother’s name could be deployed in the headline. Dr. Watson had kissed his wife good-bye on Wednesday morning; this was Friday afternoon—the good doctor had been gone for two days. I imagined the police were saying, with some justification, that any number of harmless events might have caused the doctor’s absence, and at any moment a telegram or letter should arrive explaining where and why he had been detained. “Attempts are being made” meant that the police were not yet investigating; otherwise the newspaper would have named the inspector in charge. No, at this point the only people really trying to locate Dr. Watson were two: his wife and his friend, my brother Sherlock Holmes.
    And now one more: me.
    But wait. What if Watson’s absence had been arranged by my brother as a scheme to entrap me?
    Sherlock knew that I had embroiled myself in two cases of missing persons. And while he might not understand that I had invented Dr. Leslie Ragostin, Scientific Perditorian, quite possibly he knew I had worked for the man. Did he appreciate that this was my life’s calling, to be a finder of the lost?
    Did he guess how very fond I was of the fatherly Dr. Watson?
    Should I not, then, regard recent developments with the utmost suspicion?
    But even as these eminently sensible considerations traversed my mind, already I was throwing the newspaper on the fire, then rummaging in my wardrobe, considering possible ways to disguise myself, possible strategies to find out the details of Dr. Watson’s disappearance, how best to approach the matter. Indeed, a strait-jacket could not have stopped me.
    Although I knew I would have to be