Sherlock Holmes by Barbara Hambly Page B

however little harm had befallen
Mrs. Wolff or Mrs. Berg’s bosom friend at the Friendly Gentleman’s
hands, I guessed he was not quite as friendly as he seemed.
    It was when I found myself in Portman Square,
nearly a week later, in quest of a patent fountain pen for John’s
birthday, that I bethought myself of Mr. Holmes – not that he ever
had the slightest idea of when John’s birthday was, nor his own,
I’m sure. And the thought occurred mostly because it had been some
weeks since I had visited Martha Hudson.
    It was only the knowledge that Sunday
afternoons frequently found her at leisure in the narrow town
garden behind 221 Baker Street that induced me to turn my steps
along Audley Street. Ordinarily I would never have interrupted her
work, which I knew – she being the landlady of two sets of rooms
and two single chambers – was both physically demanding and
virtually unending.
    I found her, however, as I had suspected,
pruning back her roses for the winter preparatory to wrapping the
more delicate varieties in straw against the cold, her tall form
swathed in a very atypical (for Martha) dress of blue and white
calico and her fair hair, instead of being confined to its usual
firm bun, hanging in plaits down her back like a schoolgirl’s. She
greeted me with a smile and a hug, and I sat on the single iron
bench in the bare garden until she’d finished, when we went inside
for tea. both her widowed sister-in-law, Jenny Turner, who was
living there then (thought she moved out not long after), and her
maid-of-allwork, the egregious Alice, were away for the afternoon.
The kitchen was warm and extremely pleasant with its smells of
cinnamon and sugar, and we covered a wide variety of topics from
John’s birthday (soon) to the shape of this winter’s hats (idiotic)
to the progress of John’s novel (frustrating, owing to the demands
of making a living for himself, a household, and a dowryless
wife).
    “Had he not been wounded and sent home,” I
mused, “I think he would have remained with his regiment forever,
writing tales of adventure and romance and battle in the hills out
beyond Peshawar. For he has never wanted anything else, really. No
wonder he drives poor Mr. Holmes to distraction with ‘making
romances out of logic.’”
    And the two of us gently laughed. “But had he
not been wounded and sent home,” Martha said, “he would not have
met Mr. Holmes – which would have been a shame, I think. Your
husband is good for him. I know it would never have occurred to Mr.
Holmes to seek out a friend, or to work at unraveling the mystery
of another human soul as your husband did at unraveling his. Mr.
Holmes watches people, the way he will watch the bees among the
roses in the summer: fascinated but apart.”
    Which led us, naturally enough, to
speculation about why a man of evident substance should be going
about Whitechapel buying doped drinks for penniless women.
    “I thought it sounded like the kind of thing
that would intrigue Mr. Holmes,” I said, dropping a fragment of
strong-tasting brown sugar into my tea. “I would have mentioned it
to Dr. Watson, only he worries about me enough going down there –
not that I would ever accept the offer of a glass of mild and
bitters from a total stranger. Certainly not in one of those
pubs.”
    “No.” Martha gazed thoughtfully through the
many-paned glass of the pantry window out into the bare yard, her
large hands cupped around the blue-and-white porcelain of the cup.
“Though mind you, they’re simply neighborhood pubs. If you mind
your own business there you’re as little likely to come to grief as
you would be at the Lamb down the street – unless you drink the
gin, of course. Still… It’s curious you should mention the matter.
Something of the kind happened – or almost happened – two weeks ago
to old Mrs. Orris, who sells flowers, knitting, and apple dolls
about the streets.”
    My whole face must have turned into a pair of
raised eyebrows,