Secret Letters Read Online Free Page B

me and grabbed my hands. “Dora, why didn’t you wait for me?” she exclaimed. “How could you go out alone?”
    There was no need to answer her question, I decided. She would forget all about it anyway when I gave her my sad report. I threw the newspaper down, sank onto the windowsill next to her, and laid my head against her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Adelaide, I didn’t know,” I whispered. “Sherlock Holmes was just killed in Switzerland.”
    I felt her flinch beside me.
    “He was—he was what ? My goodness, Dora, how did you find out?”
    “It was in the Times . I have the article here—if you want to read it.”
    “Oh, you can’t be serious! I can’t believe it,” she gasped and reached out for the paper by my side. “How could this happen?”
    “It doesn’t say,” I answered wearily. “The report is very vague. They say he drowned; that he was attacked by an old enemy at Reichenbach and was pushed into the waterfall.”
    She nodded and ran her fingers absently through my hair. “It is a tragedy, of course, but I wasn’t speaking of Mr. Holmes. I meant, how could this happen to us? We’ve traveled up to London for no purpose. Oh, Lord, what will I do now?”
    I didn’t know what to say at first. I had not yet absorbed the shock of my discovery, and what I wanted most just then was comfort and sympathy, not more dilemmas. But Adelaide had already moved on to her own concerns, and honestly I couldn’t blame her. Sherlock Holmes had been a potential solution to her problem, nothing more; and now that he was gone, she had to find another. I loved my cousin more than anyone, but at that moment she seemed so far away from me. It was not her fault; I knew that very well. I had chosen to keep my secret from her. She could not sympathize with my grief if she was not aware of it.
    Still, if I had to mourn, I realized that I would have to do so on my own time. I had come to London with my cousin because she needed my support. I couldn’t withdraw it at the moment when she needed me the most. And yet—how could I help her now? Would she be interested in speaking to someone else about her problem? I wondered. Was it worth telling her about my meeting with Peter Cartwright?
    And—more importantly, was all of this really worth the trouble? Adelaide had never really explained to me why these letters were so crucial to her. In fact, she had only confided in me because I had accidentally stumbled into her room just after she’d received the blackmail threat. I’d been shocked to find her weeping on the floor—my cool and confident cousin was actually sobbing out her fears to me! It was the first time in our lives that I had been the calm one, the one offering support instead of the one receiving it.
    But what if Adelaide’s case wasn’t really as dark as she imagined it? She’d only mentioned that the letters were old love notes that she’d written to her young music tutor some years ago. How incriminating could they be? Perhaps in the end she could reconsider consulting a detective and return home to Newheath.
    “I don’t understand why you’re so worried about these letters, Adelaide,” I told her finally. “Is it so important that you get them back?”
    She paled a little and nodded grimly. “I can’t tell you what was in the letters, Dora. I’m afraid you’d never trust me again.”
    I sat up and took her hand in mine. “You don’t really think that, do you? I wouldn’t love you any less, no matter what was in those letters. And surely your husband would forgive you if you were honest with him. It was so long ago, before you even met him.”
    Her jaw tightened, and she shut her eyes. “You don’t understand. Richard sees me as a lovely innocent angel, pure as a child until our marriage. I believe he loves that image of me more than he loves me. He’s so proud of me, Dora. It may sound ridiculous to you, but I can’t bear to lose that.”
    “But that’s absurd!” I cried. “You’re