Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets Read Online Free

paw. Drebber’s held the knife. A third can turned up at Mary Watson’s home. Inside was a necklace fashioned after a snake.”
    Haus launched himself out of his chair, and in two long strides he was out the door.
    “Crash!” Trenet called after him. To me she muttered, “Come on.”
    We followed him at his blistering pace—well, I hobbled as quickly as I could all things considered—as Haus led us back toward the siren song of the carousel and hawkers. He swept the folds of a tent apart with his long hands and barked to the assembled crowd.
    “Everyone out.”
    Though there were murmurs and complaints, no one dared argue with the glare Crash passed. Of course, his painted face was rather ghoulish, which might have had something to do with their compliance.
    Haus had led us into the sideshow tent. Tables and ramshackle shelves were covered in little curiosities. Jars of amber fluids and specimens—two-headed lizards and the like, as well as fetuses—were caked with dust. One such jar contained only a thumb. A wooden box on a table nearby held a bit of rock. The card in front of it heralded the item as the Mazarin Stone. There were other such relics; a beryl coronet, a tree branch from Tunguska, the stake used to kill a vampire.
    “What’s this about, Sanford?” Trenet asked.
    He led us to an empty bell jar and plucked the card from its display. “The Devil’s foot is missing. Tell me, did the paw you found look anything like this?”
    I eyed the photograph. “To a tee.”
    Haus tossed the card and hissed another black curse. Flipping his hand toward an ornate jewelry box, he snarled, “And the Borgias’ torque is missing as well.”
    I padded to the box and read the card. Apparently, the necklace usually kept there was the property of that most notorious family. The card said that Lucretia used it to deliver poison to her rivals. And it was modeled after a scarlet snake.
    “Matches the one found at Watson’s scene,” I muttered. “Right down to the speckles on the snake’s head.”
    “What did they say?” Haus snapped at me.
    “The snake?”
    “The letters, damn you! The letters found with my stolen property?”
    “Just the same two words, every time: memento mori .”
    Haus seethed with palpable rage. The tendons in his fists popped as he clenched. “Arty.”
    A grizzled old bearded lady joined us. “Boss? There a reason no one been by my stall in five minutes?”
    “Where’s Arty?” he bellowed.
    Agent Trenet took Crash’s temper in stride, but the bearded lady jumped back, startled. “Ain’t seen ’im tonight. He never showed up for call. He’s probably drunk behind the wheel.”
    Crash growled and spun on his heel. Over his shoulder he called, “Tell the talkers to let the towners back in. Business as usual.”
    He was a hound on the hunt, leading Trenet and me back into the strange back alleys of the circus. The equipment housed here had seen better days. Trunks of props were open. I saw a few performers grab what they needed, then dash back into tents. Though my thigh ached with the fire of Hell itself, I felt the old rush of excitement that came with having a mission; a goal. Hadn’t felt that surge since a time when I had both legs, but that night—stomping through the carnival’s backlot—I felt more whole than I had in damn near twenty years. This might have been my first case for Pinkerton, but I was hardly a greenhorn.
    That swell of confidence helped to mask the pain and lit a fire that let me keep up with Crash and his spidery legs.
    “Where are we going?” Trenet called.
    Crash had no time for explanations as we came up on a looming disc. Small metallic triangles glinted from its surface— the points of knives. We were looking at the back of a knife wheel. And one of the exposed blades—this one exceptionally long—was red with blood.
    Crash was the first to round the wheel. He spat a few salty words, then kicked up a cloud of dust.
    Arty sat in a reeking puddle.