The Lammas Curse Read Online Free Page A

mad. Secondly, she’s not
after money. She’s quite wealthy in her own right. And finally,
well, she has these mannerisms that uncannily mimic Sherlock.”
    “Such as?”
    “She has large hands for a
woman with astonishingly elongated fingers which she steeples
whenever she is cogitating.”
    “You described that mannerism
in your books. She could merely be play-acting according to
script.”
    Dr Watson grimaced
thoughtfully. “Yes, I guess so, but when she speaks I hear Sherlock
in every word that falls from her lips.”
    “I see.”
    “And sometimes when I aim a
glance, not a studied look, mind you, I see Sherlock. It’s
something in the set of her mouth or her eyes or the way she holds
her head. I cannot put my finger on it but it is there all the
same. It has happened more than once. The only significant
difference is that she does not disdain society. She does not
regard humanity as a scourge to be endured.”
    “Just as well. What is condoned
in men is rarely tolerated in women. Does she play the violin?”
    “Not as far as I know.”
    “Is she addicted to
cocaine?”
    “No, er, well, I don’t think
so. There has not been any indication of it so far.”
    “At least she is not adhering
to scripture too scrupulously. How old is she?”
    “Twenty-four.”
    “That puts her birth at
1875.”
    “Yes.”
    “You failed to mention her
name.”
    “Countess Varvara
Volodymyrovna.” Dr Watson enunciated the name like a schoolboy
reciting a line of alphabetic alliteration. Mycroft’s bushy brows
moved north, which was something of a coup. According to Sherlock,
Mycroft was not a man who was easily surprised.
    “She is not a British citizen,
then, but Russian.”
    “Ukrainian.”
    “That’s twice I have been wrong
tonight. Russians would of course say Vladimir not Volodymyr. Who
does she claim as her mater?”
    Dr Watson took a sip of golden
ambrosia to lubricate his voice-box, or perhaps to defer the moment
and score another coup. “Irene Adler.”
    Mycroft was not taken by
surprise a second time. His lips formed a cynical smile as he
puffed on his cigar. “Ah, another reason as to why you came to me,
old boy. Let’s see now. Miss Adler was born in 1858. That would
have made her 17 years of age at the time of the birth, and 16 or
17 at time of conception. And Sherlock would have been four years
older. That puts him at 20 or 21. He would have completed his
degree at Cambridge and found himself cast adrift, the ivory tower
behind him and the mean streets of London before him, drifting
aimlessly through the fog of endless boredom, dabbling in opiates,
not yet settled on a vocation, not yet stumbling upon his metier.
It is not improbable that in the clutches of the cocaine demon he
may have conducted a hazy liaison with a young woman as he briefly
trod the theatrical boards, possibly someone working as a pretty
chorus girl or stage actress prior to recasting herself as a diva
with the Warsaw Opera, whereby he fathered a child of which he knew
nothing. And there’s no escaping the fact that Miss Adler has the
singular honour of being the one and only woman who has ever
rattled my little brother.”
    “Yes,” concurred Dr Watson with
a resolute nod of his head, “in fact, to say he may have been
secretly infatuated with her would not be stretching the point.
After that incident at Reichenbach Falls I was trawling through his
papers and in a secret compartment of his desk I found a photo of
That Woman, yet I would not have described her as the most
beautiful female who ever crossed the threshold of 221B Baker
Street.”
    “Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder,” reminded Mycroft, flicking cigar ash onto the fire, “and
let us not forget That Woman was possibly the most beguiling. It is
possible Sherlock remembered her from their first encounter, either
liminally or subliminally. What else do you know of her
background?”
    “Miss Adler or Countess
Volodymyrovna?”
    “The latter.”
    “She claims her