Femme Fatale Read Online Free Page A

pacer, an indefatigable walker in town and country.
    Rapid steps on the hall stair saved us from further attempts at conversation. Irene, as usual, was clattering down the staircase like a schoolgirl.
    “Here it is,” she announced, a bit breathlessly.
    Instead of the producing the small, yellow moiré-bound diary kept by one of the principal villains during our Continental pursuit of Jack the Ripper after Whitechapel, she cradled a sheaf of papers in the crook of one arm, a raw manuscript, written by hand.
    Mr. Holmes met her halfway across the room, accepting the untidy sheaf of paper with avidity.
    “Excellent! May I ask whom you employed to translate it?”
    “An east European actress. I told her it was from a novel.”
    This was news to me, but while I stared agape, Mr. Holmes nodded. “The tale this tells reads better as fiction, I suspect. A discreetand clever solution to a vexing problem. If the material is unabridged.”
    He hefted the manuscript, matching his gesture with a lilt of one dark eyebrow. “I should put it in my coat.” With that he vanished into the hall, allowing Irene and I to exchange several significant glances, none of which was quite clear to either of us. Consultation after his departure was clearly needed.
    He returned so swiftly he was caught in the crossfire of our latest voiceless consultation. His hand still held the manuscript, which was odd.
    Then he hefted it up for our inspection and I saw it was a small red-bound book rather. “I offer an exchange of prisoners,” he said. “Please accept this small token: my friend Dr. Watson’s first foray into authorship.”
    Irene took it before I could intercept her.
    Oh, no! Had that dreadful manuscript called “A Scandal in Bohemia” actually been printed by some penny-dreadful press? And would Sherlock Holmes have the colossal nerve to pass on a fiction that publicly described his fascination with the very woman, the very married woman, who now held the dangerous volume in her hand? Would Godfrey be forced to challenge him to a duel because of it? Godfrey and Sherlock Holmes . . . would it be pistol or sword? Would I risk seeing both of my dear friends distraught and perhaps even destroyed because of this miserable bit of fictioneering?!
    I rushed to snatch the small volume from Irene’s hands. “Dr. Watson? An author? Oh, I must see! Right now!”
    “Nell—!” Irene remonstrated mildly.
    One oddity I noticed at once. “It says ‘by Conan Doyle.’ ”
    “Watson is modest,” Mr. Holmes said, “and doesn’t want his medical profession confused with his literary hobby. That is the name of his literary agent.”
    “ Hmmm .” The publisher was Ward, Lock and Company, a London house, at least, I observed. I paged through, encounteringsome illustrations. In one a lounging gentlemen had ranks of scruffy street Arabs lined up and saluting like some grubby regiment. The caption read: “ ’T ENTION,” CRIED H OLMES IN A SHARP TONE .
    Although the figure purporting to be Holmes more resembled Oscar Wilde, I could just see him ordering around an array of street Arabs.
    “The illustrations are by Mr. Doyle’s father, Charles Altamont Doyle, a rather well-known sketcher in his day.”
    “ Hmmmm .” I was not about to admit that I found the entire package mystifying as well as disturbing.
    I closed the volume. My fingers traced the large elaborate letters of the title, which seemed composed of Oriental slashes. A Study in Scarlet .
    There was nothing scarlet about Irene’s Bohemian adventure, unless you cast her in the role of Scarlet Woman. . . . The villain! That is exactly the sort of lurid character assassination I should expect from a physician who has nothing better to do than scribble stories instead of prescriptions. If Irene was utterly upright in any one area, it was in resisting any temptation to become what the French so coyly term a Grand Horizontal: in other words, a woman who will sleep for her supper.
    “I cannot