Watson's Choice Read Free Page A

and Manoel is coming to this Sherlock Holmes thing, and that’s all I know, so keep calm. Have a nice trip to Montreal, and look out for icebergs on the way. ’Bye!’
    Disregarding a blasphemous prayer for patience from the other end of the line, she gave a delicate little cat-smile and rang off. Then she went to the table and picked up the book which had accompanied Sir Bohun’s invitation.
    ‘Royal command,’ she soliloquized, carrying the book to a deep armchair beside the electric fire. She curled her sleek body and wriggled until she had achieved the maximum of comfort and then she glanced down the index page of the complete collection of the Sherlock Holmes short stories. ‘You will take the part of Miss Mary Sutherland in A Case of Identity ,’ she remarked, quoting from Sir Bohun’s peremptory letter. ‘Shall I, dear Bobo? Let’s see.’
    She turned to the story and read it. As she did so, a little frown, half angry, half ruefully amused, appeared between her dark brows. She looked up as the door opened.
    ‘Hullo, Brenda,’ said a voice uncertain of a welcome.
    ‘Oh, Joey! You darling!’ exclaimed the siren, patting the arm of her chair. ‘Come and sit down and listen to this! Did you ever in all your life!’
    ‘I thought you’d be annoyed with me for coming,’ said the tall cavalier who had entered. ‘You sounded undeniably terse over the phone just now.’
    ‘That was to get you flying round here. I meant what I said, though. But, first of all, just listen to this! This is to be me at this Sherlock Holmes party. I could massacre Sir Bohun, the ill-natured old miser!’
    ‘Is he old?’
    ‘He’s nearly fifty. I suppose that isn’t old for a man.’
    ‘If he’s a miser he won’t cough up for Toby or you or anybody, so don’t you count on it.’
    ‘He’s my godfather.’
    ‘Nonsense! You’re thirty-one!’
    ‘All right, don’t shout. Listen to this, and tell me whether it’s intended to be funny or insulting.’
    ‘Get up, then, and let me sit down.’
    Mrs Dance obliged, and, when he was sprawled in the chair, she draped herself comfortably over him, stuck an elbow in his chest so as to be able to support her book more easily, and read, in an agreeable voice, Doctor Watson’s description of the self-deceived, myopic heroine of A Case of Identity .
    ‘“Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee-colour, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish, and were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn’t observe. She had small, round, hanging, gold ear-rings, and a general air of being fairly well to do, in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.”’
    ‘He’s determined to teach you where you get off,’ commented Mr de Philippe unkindly. ‘Serve you right for creeping and crawling to miserly, rich old men when you might be week-ending in a civilized fashion with me.’
    ‘How do I come by such an outfit, do you suppose? – Oh, he might have let me be Irene Adler, the mean old moke!’
    ‘You’ll have to have a lot made, and a pretty penny it’ll cost you, and a dead loss it will be, for it won’t even do for a fancy-dress dance on board ship if we go to the West Indies next spring. Ha! ha!’
    ‘Ha, ha, to you, and see how you like it! And if you want another good laugh, here it is: I have to be prepared to join in competitions to show my knowledge of the Sherlock Holmes stories! Come and read one to me while I have my bath. Sir Bohun is the type who might give a prize of a thousand pounds. He’s perfectly stinkingly wealthy.’
    ‘Prizes of that sort give rise to wangles,’ said the experienced Mr de Philippe. ‘The thousand will stay in the family. “Kissing goes by favour” isn’t a proverb; it’s a truism.’
    ‘There isn’t