Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares by James Lovegrove Page A

said, “Surely you cannot be serious, your lordship, to suggest that a summer’s day in London could be the equal of a summer’s day in Paris?”
    “Surely I can, Monsieur Holmes,” came the reply. “Have you ever been in Paris in August? It is unbearable. The heat makes one’s clothes stick to one’s skin in a most uncongenial manner, and it is so oppressive that one can barely walk down a street without feeling faint. And the stench. Mon Dieu ! It is not as bad nowadays as it was in my youth, not since Haussmann set to work revitalising the city, but even so, sometimes on hot days the smell from the slums floats over the bourgeois areas and everywhere the air stinks like a farmyard. No, there is much to be said for a temperate climate. And good sewers.”
    Holmes pounced on the remark. “You admire our sewer system too?” The question, though casual-sounding, carried weight. He was probing for a reaction.
    Did Holmes think that de Villegrand and Baron Cauchemar were one and the same? It was hard to believe, yet that was the line of enquiry he appeared to be exploring. Accordingly, I took a closer look at the vicomte, reappraising him. He was tall, well built, and seemingly in excellent physical condition. For all that he dressed with a certain flamboyance and was clearly not immune to the sin of vanity, he was not someone, in my view, to be taken lightly or trifled with. There was a dark slyness in those eyes of his, and his forehead, though not a match for Holmes’s in size, was still broad and high, suggesting that behind the effusive bonhomie lay a considerable brain.
    “Paris, of course, had sewers long before London,” he said, “and they are extensive and supremely effective. Yours, though, are a marvel of modern sanitation all the same.”
    “How tactfully put,” said Holmes.
    “But of course. I am, after all, a diplomat. A cultural attaché, to be exact, affiliated with the French embassy. And what is a cultural attaché’s function but to appreciate the accomplishments of his host nation, while at the same time trumpeting the accomplishments of his own? Ah, here is Benoît again, with Aurélie.”
    The manservant had re-entered, accompanied by a maid carrying a salver on which sat a crystal decanter and glasses. The maid was young and exceedingly comely, and de Villegrand’s gaze did not stray from her once while she was in the room. Neither did Benoît’s, who followed her every movement closely. There was no need for Benoît to look on while she performed her duties of pouring out the sherry and distributing it to her master and his guests, but he watched her like a hawk anyway.
    Aurélie herself kept her eyes demurely lowered, scarcely glancing at anyone. Nor did she utter so much as a single syllable, even when, in a moment of inattention, she tipped my glass and poured a few drops of sherry onto my lap. Her reaction then was to blush profusely and bow her head in abject shame, much like a dog that knows it is in disgrace. I reassured her, in my rudimentary French, that she had done nothing wrong, accidents happened, it was pas de problème, mademoiselle , and I dabbed away the dampness with my handkerchief. Aurélie seemed little comforted, however, and left the room in distress, Benoît guiding her by the arm and speaking softly to her in their mother tongue.
    “I must apologise, Doctor,” de Villegrand said. “Aurélie is not normally so clumsy.”
    “It is quite all right. No harm done. Quiet girl, though.”
    “Yes. But do not be perturbed by her silence, nor for that matter Benoît’s protectiveness. He is her older brother, you see, and Aurélie is... How to put it? Simple. Painfully introverted. A congenital condition. She seldom speaks and is shy to a degree that would seem like rudeness to the uninitiated. Yet she does what she is told to do, that is her saving grace. Give Aurélie an instruction and she will perform it to the letter, usually without error. She is like an