The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes by Loren D. Estleman Page A

you.”
    â€œOh. All right. I shall try, even if I lay myself open to your ridicule.” Perhaps I had not escaped the edge of his tongue after all.
    â€œGood.” He rubbed his thin dry hands together, and suddenly I was fixed with the probing eye of an entomologist. “I see before me one Mary Russell, named after her paternal grandmother.”
    I was taken aback for a moment, then reached up and fingered the antique locket, engraved MMR, that had slipped out from the buttons of my shirt. I nodded.
    â€œShe is, let us see, sixteen? fifteen, I think? Yes, fifteen years of age, and despite her youth and the fact that she is not at school she intends to pass the University entrance examinations.” I touched the book in my pocket and nodded appreciatively. “She is obviously left-handed, one of her parents was Jewish—her mother, I think? Yes, definitely the mother—and she reads and writes Hebrew. She is at present four inches shorter than her American father—that was his suit? All right so far?” he asked complacently.
    I thought furiously. “The Hebrew?” I asked.
    â€œThe ink marks on your fingers could only come with writing right to left.”
    â€œOf course.” I looked at the accumulation of smears near my left thumbnail. “That is very impressive.”
    He waved it aside. “Parlour games. But the accents are not without interest.” He eyed me again, then sat back with his elbows on the chair’s armrests, steepled his fingers, rested them lightly on his lips for a moment, closed his eyes, and spoke.
    â€œThe accents. She has come recently from her father’s home in the western United States, most likely northern California. Her mother was one generation away from Cockney Jew, and Miss Russell herself grew up in the southwestern edges of London. She moved, as I said, to California, within the last, oh, two years. Say the word ‘martyr,’ please.” I did so. “Yes, two years. Sometime between then and December both parents died, very possibly in the same accident in which Miss Russell was involved last September or October, an accident which has left scar tissue on her throat, scalp, and right hand, a residual weakness in that same hand, and a slight stiffness in the left knee.”
    The game had suddenly stopped being entertaining. I sat frozen, my heart ceasing to beat while I listened to the cool, dry recitation of his voice.
    â€œAfter her recovery she was sent back home to her mother’s family, to a tight-fisted and unsympathetic relative who feeds her rather less than she needs. This last,” he added parenthetically, “is I admit largely conjecture, but as a working hypothesis serves to explain her well-nourished frame poorly covered by flesh, and the reason why she appears at a stranger’s table to consume somewhat more than she might if ruled strictly by her obvious good manners. I am willing to consider an alternative explanation,” he offered, and opened his eyes, and saw my face.
    â€œOh, dear.” His voice was an odd mixture of sympathy and irritation. “I have been warned about this tendency of mine. I do apologise for any distress I have caused you.”
    I shook my head and reached for the cold dregs in my teacup. It was difficult to speak through the lump in my throat.
    Mr. Holmes stood up and went into the house, where I heard his voice and that of the housekeeper trading a few unintelligible phrases before he returned, carrying two delicate glasses and an open bottle of the palest of wines. He poured it into the glasses and handed me one, identifying it as honey wine—his own, of course. He sat down and we both sipped the fragrant liquor. In a few minutes the lump faded, and I heard the birds again. I took a deep breath and shot him a glance.
    â€œTwo hundred years ago you would have been burnt.” I was trying for dry humour but was not entirely successful.
    â€œI