Unless he was hired by someone else.
“I told you he was alive.” She pulled her sword from its sheath, smiling as she did so, but her eyes were fierce. “But how long he remains so is up to him.”
The crown prince watched his sister approach her assailant, sword in hand—and he felt a twinge of pity for the bastard.
Danilo thought of the English finishing school his father was sending Elena to. Danilo was well acquainted with English manners and the fine parties of the season. Breakfast, shopping, and morning calls to close friends. Rides in Hyde Park. After dinner, soirees or the opera, followed by balls and dances.
There was a fierce, bloodthirsty expression in Princess Elena’s beautiful dark eyes as she touched the tip of the sword to the man’s throat, demanding answers.
London will never be the same.
CHAPTER THREE
3
“Who are . . . ?” Sherlock Holmes asked, his pipe almost falling from his lips. “And what are your qualifications, Miss . . . Miss?”
The young lady quietly moving about his laboratory glanced up at him inquisitively.
She knew very well that the Great Detective was unaccustomed to being surprised—and that there were few who had been allowed the privilege of seeing him so. He glanced at the burning logs in the fireplace and at the glistening bottles drying on the racks with something approaching displeasure if not surpassing it.
She curtseyed, taking her simple cotton sheath dress in both hands. “My name is Miss Mirabella H—”
“—Not important,” Sherlock interrupted. “What is important is that you were dismissed from your prior place of employment—and that you are a relative of Mrs. Hudson’s, so I have no reason to think you were hired for your credentials. How can I trust you will follow my directions to the letter, which most certainly includes not using my laboratory for your personal experimentation?”
How would he have known about her last position? Aunt Martha would never have told him. Mirabella felt her jaw drop in shock, which did not bode well for her powers of communication.
And how did he know she was Mrs. Hudson’s niece? Technically she was a relation by marriage and bore her aunt no resemblance. True, they were both Scottish, but that was quite common in London. And Martha Hudson was from the north of Scotland, while Mirabella was from Dumfries, in the south. A keen detective such as Sherlock Holmes would easily detect the difference in their speech, not to mention their upbringing. The former Mr. Hudson, a successful merchant seafaring man, was brother to Mirabella’s father, a curate, who had taken far more interest in education than his adventuring brother. Mirabella’s father had educated all his children at home, even the girls.
Suddenly her prospective employer threw himself into a full circle, narrowly avoiding knocking over jars of explosive chemicals. He then moved to grab something on the newly cleaned wooden laboratory desk, waving it wildly in front of her nose. “What is this?” he demanded.
Before she could stop herself, she clutched Sherlock Holmes’ wrist to prevent him from knocking her glasses off her head. She hoped it didn’t anger him, but she could ill afford to replace them—either her glasses or her head. “Why it’s a . . . a . . . spatu . . .”
“What is wrong with you, girl, can’t you speak?” He grew wilder and most certainly closer, and she tightened her hold despite his piercing stare which would have frightened Genghis Khan.
Despite his well-tailored clothing, everything about the great detective’s appearance was disturbing. Arched angular eyebrows, dark overlong wavy hair flying everywhere, and a pronounced unshaven jaw line framed by a cut on his lip as if he had quite recently been in a bar brawl. Could there be any doubt that he was not entirely stable mentally?
Not to mention that when she walked into this flat she had been met with the disturbing odors of tobacco, strong chemicals, rotting food, mold, dog hair, dust, liquor, a strange floral scent, and an overall impression of decay.
“Grrrrr! ZZZ-Zzzz-ZZzzz SNORT!” And she had been faced with a sleeping bulldog which vacillated between snoring and growling. As if the attack to her nose had not been enough, she had lived in fear of the dog awakening and attacking her in the flesh. When the dog awoke from his slumber and opened his mouth to display his massive jaws, her worst fears realized, he was less frightening than the man now before her.
“It’s a P-p-platina spatula,” she managed to utter. Only when she saw that he was instantly calmer did she release his wrist. Fighting terror, her eyes were glued to the charismatic, devilishly dark man before her. The esteemed Sherlock Holmes was a madman—and a bully.
And yet she would give anything in the world to work for this scientific genius.
She must be crazy too.
“How did you know so much about me, Mr. Holmes?” she whispered. “I know my aunt wouldn’t have told you.”
“I don’t need to be told anything, my girl. I can deduce it for myself.”
“Then . . . how?” she gulped, backing away from the man.
“You certainly put yourself forward a great deal for someone who is asking something of me,” Sherlock glared, rubbing his left wrist and appearing to be in some degree of exalted pain—like one of those strange people who finds pleasure in pain. Well, she didn’t mean to grab him so hard, but the man was dangerous.
“Sir, you only just chastised me for not speaking”—she mustered her courage—“but now you are chastising me for speaking?”
“Impressive. She thinks,” he murmured, his recently bloodied lip twitching as if he were fighting a smile. “I suppose I cannot fault you for wishing to know the magnificent workings of my mind.” Suddenly he turned to move towards his study. As if on impulse, he beckoned her to follow him, and when she did so—anyone else would dare say she was crazy to think so—but she knew very well the great man reached out his foot and tripped her!
Flailing her arms about wildly, she perceived instantly that she was going to knock something over. To avoid such a mishap, she forced herself to fall to the ground, her palms spread out in front of her to block her fall.
Either way, standing or lying down, she had no hope of being given this job. Possibly it was for the best. Even so, she would be mortified to break even the smallest, most inconsequential knick-knack belonging to Sherlock Holmes, or more importantly, bones belonging to her (not inconsequential).
He glanced down at her with the furrow in his brow much reduced and a curious expression on his face—not a smile, precisely, but something which might become one in a century or so.
“Take my hand, if you please,” he offered. She stared at the strong hand of the incomparable detective for a moment, wondering what he had in store for her next. Possibly to pull her half-way to her feet and then throw her out the window.
Mirabella glanced at the window. It was closed.
She gave him her hand.
“You’re not a feather of a girl, are you?” he grunted, assisting her to her feet. “Just as I thought.”
“Well, I never!” There was no hope of obtaining this position anyway, so why should she allow him to talk to her that way? Outside of the fact that the sun rose and set on him as far as she was concerned. “Mr. Holmes, no girl growing up on a farm and accustomed to hard work is particularly light. But I do not have an ounce of fat on me! In fact, some consider me too thin!”
“Did I call you fat, miss?” the great detective asked her pointedly, rubbing his back momentarily. Suddenly he frowned, disapproval evident. “Most certainly I did not. I wished to learn if your deceptively feminine frame is as muscular as was indicated. And, as usual, I was right.”
“But . . .” She was truly confused now.
“Furthermore . . . I will satisfy your curiosity, miss, regarding my prior knowledge of your familial and employment status since you are clearly incapable of deriving the pattern of my thought processes for yourself.” He smoothed his ivory ascot tie into a silk vest, seating himself on the stool in front of his laboratory
, one leg extended.
“Your clothing is neatly pressed,” he continued, “but well worn and certainly not of the first fashion. You have had a job in a laboratory—there is a hole on the sleeve of your dress which has been patched—a chemical burn, not a kitchen burn by the looks of it. Further supporting this theory, you have recently lost a patch of hair: it has grown back lighter and of a different length than the rest of your hair—an explosion of some type is responsible, I believe. Was it your error? I must presume so or you would still be in that employ. No doubt you were mixing something you shouldn’t have been?”
“I was mixing something, but whether I shouldn’t have been is a different matter—it was in an attempt to serve my employer.” She ran her hands over her simple white and green cotton dress, fitted to the waist, with embarrassment. She might not be rich, but her clothes were clean and ironed. She checked to see if her brown hair was still pulled back into a neat bun, and if the green ribbon remained symmetrical after the violent attack upon her person.
And they said this was the good part of London.
Who was the deranged man before her to criticize her appearance anyway? His ivory silk ascot tie was stained—with blood, no less! His clothing was mismatched, and though well tailored, wrinkled. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he had neither slept nor bathed in the prior week. Certainly he had not had a haircut in a month, and it might have been that long since he had combed his hair. His face was fighting a beard, which was not successful in camouflaging various scars which appeared to be of recent attainment.
Sherlock Holmes might be a genius, but he didn’t have any business correcting anyone with a pulse on proper grooming. In point of fact, there were those among the only recently deceased presenting a better appearance than the man before her.
“Have you never had anything go wrong in your laboratory, Mr. Holmes?” she demanded, her indignation rising. “Before you answer, recall that my aunt has lived in the same building with you for some time.”
“Impertinence.” Once again a smile seemed to be tugging at his lips, but again was quickly subdued, unable to win the battle. “What I have or haven’t done is none of your business, young lady; it’s my home and I can do as I please. And it goes without saying that if you are running experiments in someone else’s laboratory, you shouldn’t be. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir. B-but how did you know I am a relative of Mrs. Hudson’s? Technically I am her late husband’s niece and I bear her no resemblance.”
“You smell the same.”
“I beg your pardon?!?”
“Same laundry soap, I would imagine.” He rose from the stool and began to circle the room, weaving in and out of the dining table in front of the fire, stepping on the bear skin hearth rug, and moving to glance out the bay window facing Baker Street.
“No doubt the same soap which is used to clean your clothing, Mr. Holmes.”
“Let me assure you, Miss Hudson, you and I do not smell the same,” he murmured before turning to face her. “Well, then. I have no objection to a thinking person—in fact I prefer it, but it must be tempered with discipline and obedience—until you have your own laboratory which you may destroy at will. As I am convinced you someday shall.”
“So m-may . . . I have the position?” she asked hopefully. Sherlock Holmes was young to his field, he had solved a few very difficult cases which Scotland Yard couldn’t solve—she knew from her Aunt Martha—and he had already invented a scientific test for hemoglobin in blood, enabling the police to determine categorically if a stain was, in fact, blood or an old stain resembling blood.
This man before her, as unlikable as he was, was destined for greatness. Mirabella knew this as surely as she knew she was a country girl from Dumfries in Scotland. She could learn so much from him while saving to go to university. “It is the greatest wish of my heart. I am a true student of science, you know, and you are positively brilliant, Mr. Holmes.”
“Very true.”
“To merely be in your presence . . .”
“But should I like to be in your presence?” He moved to stoke the fire, his eyes averted from her. “That is the relevant question my girl. What I should like is to forget you are here and to find my work completed. I am of the opinion that you cannot manage it.”
“Oh, but I can. You shall never find a harder worker, Mr. Holmes.”
“Can you fix a cup of tea, young lady? Or will you argue about what is and isn’t your job as Mrs. Hudson is always prone to do? It is quite clear to me that you are far too curious and intelligent for your own good.”
“Oh, no. I mean yes, I make a very nice cup of tea.”
“Then to it.”
Scurrying to the kitchen, Mirabella hurriedly moved to light the wood stove. Her panic began to overtake her, knowing she could not make a cup of tea in under twenty minutes. It would take that long to get the stove hot enough and the water to boiling.
I so wish Aunt Martha had allowed Mr. Holmes his say! At this moment she wished with all her heart that her Aunt Martha had permitted Mr. Holmes to install a gas stove, as she knew he had desired. The tea would have taken far less time to make. Aunt Martha had refused, saying that Sherlock bloody ‘Olmes didn’t need any help blowing up the building.
Mirabella had seen the gas apparatus in Mr. Holmes’ laboratory; if her Aunt Martha didn’t know what it was, a student of science certainly did. That was information best kept to herself for the preservation of the peace, Mirabella reflected.
Oh, my goodness, there is a gas ring in the kitchen! Her eyes alighted upon the device and hope re-entered her heart. No doubt it was for instances such as this when a pot of tea was quickly desired.
So many modern conveniences! A laboratory with a microscope, vials, Bunsen burner, Geisler Tubes, and Bouquet Tubes—and a gas ring in the kitchen!
This place is heaven in its advancement. My heart longs to obtain this position!
Frantically she rummaged in her reticule which was wrapped around her wrist, her heart pounding in her chest. I have a schilling! The matches were easily found. Quickly she searched for the teapot, which must be found before inserting her only schilling into the coin slot of the gas ring to release the gas.
The teapot is empty. Next she looked about for the water. Please, holy Father, let there be water. She didn’t want to have to run down to the first floor flat where she and Aunt Martha lived, that would take even more time. Aunt Martha had installed indoor running water—but for the first floor only. Just as the only toilet in the building—which, by necessity required running water—was on the first floor and shared by all the building’s tenants. And thankful they all were to have it! The rest of the middle-class neighborhood on Baker Street shared a privy, which was nothing more than a hole over the ground in a brick building, similar to what Mirabella had grown up with on the farm, shared by her family.
Thank the heavens, there is a bucket on the counter holding water. She filled the teapot and set it on the gas burner before inserting the schilling. The water must boil for at least three minutes and the tea steeped for almost as long.
Next, Mirabella rummaged the cabinet for the tea leaves, easily found in a canister. The tea set itself was difficult to miss: a beautifully elaborate and exotic oriental pattern in navy blue and orange poppy, Mason’s Mandalay Blue Pattern.
“I hope I haven’t kept you too long, Mr. Holmes,” she murmured, returning to the sitting room with the tea set.
“Precisely five and a half minutes,” he murmured. He seemed displeased, but no more displeased than she had left him.
He appeared to be fixated on something observable through the window. Mr. Holmes was seated next to the fireplace, giving her the opportunity to observe him more closely.
“You might have asked me for a schilling,” he stated without looking up.
“I presumed that you would wish me to resolve the situation myself,” she replied softly.
Upon closer inspection, she wa
s more approving of his attire if not his cleanliness. His clothing was fine, though looking as if it had been worn for many days.
Despite his gentlemanly attire, Sherlock Holmes had the physique of a middle-weight boxer. His muscles were taut and well-formed and he was slim. He had dark, almost black, overlong wavy hair. But his strongest and most alarming feature—which she always returned to—was the intensity of his gaze. As if he could discern one’s darkest secrets.
Which was proving true.
As his eyes moved to settle on her, there was a definitive sarcasm intertwined with his unrelenting stare, as if he considered everyone inferior but was making a concerted effort to be amused by it rather than annoyed.
With little success.
Tick tock! Tick tock! She waited anxiously for the verdict. Mr. Holmes took a sip of the tea and frowned. Slowly he lowered the saucer to the mahogany marble table beside his armchair.
“What is it? Is something wrong with the tea?” She had steeped the tea in boiling water for precisely three minutes, just as her Aunt Martha had shown her.
“Quiet, girl! If there were something wrong with the tea, I would tell you. Have no doubt on that score.” He was seated comfortably in a wing-backed armchair in a rose satin damask fabric situated next to a velvet purple settee. He did not motion to her to sit beside him, leaving her standing beside the walnut fireplace mantle.
Gasp! Her eyes completely took in the purple couch for the first time, which was possibly a mistake, given that her pulse was racing without any assistance from the décor. On the other hand, certainly if her heart had stopped and she had proceeded to heaven, seeing this couch in her dreams might have frightened the vital organ into its former rhythm and returned her to this room.
Mr. Holmes added a touch of cream to his teacup and then stirred it meticulously. “It is an excellent cup of tea. You cannot work for me, young lady, if you continue to put words into my mouth: I shall derive my own, and you shall attend to them. Do I make myself clear?”
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess Page 2