Free A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King Page B

good crumbly cheddar, and the offer of a box of congealed after-dinner mints, which I refused in favour of a second wedge of the cheese. Holmes cleared the plates off onto a tray.
    “Thank you, Holmes,” I said politely.
    He paused with a soup bowl in one hand, scowling down at the scum of dirty brown-red liquid that had been the result of wine meeting soup.
    “Do you know, Russell,” he mused, “I once earned an honest living for six entire months as a sous-chef in a two-star restaurant in Montpellier.” He shook his head in self-reproach and rattled the dishes off into the cupboard-sized kitchen, leaving me to stare openmouthed at his retreating back.
    Never, never would I get his limits.
    He came back some minutes later with black coffee and a bottle of crusty port, handed me a cup and a glass, and lowered himself with a sigh into the other chair, feet towards the fire.
    “So, Russell, are you going to tell me why you have suddenly become a church-goer, or shall I invent another topic of conversation?”
    “If you knew I was there, you must know whom I went with. Did you find me through that amazing tea shop?”
    “You left your philanthropic tracks across London like hob-nailed boots on a snowy hillside,” he snorted in comfortable derision. “What on earth moved you to give that child five whole pounds? The entire parish was on fire before noon, though there was considerable disagreement over whether the series of gifts was, like lightning, a solitary occurrence or if it marked the beginning of a run of angelic visitations, and, if the latter, whether the better approach would be to wait calmly to be one of the chosen or to drag in benighted strangers from the streets and force food and drink into them. You may laugh,” he protested, “but your little gesture has caused the whole of Limehouse to be overrun with beggars. Word got out that good meals were to be had, and hungry men from all over the city are now lurking under all the steps. Or they would be, if they weren’t snatched up and fed before they had the opportunity to settle. At any rate, yes, after that, the general drift of your movements led me to the chestnut-seller who had found silver among the ashes, various elderly and unprosperous ladies of the evening, and finally to the denizens of the dockside tea shop. All except the chestnut seller remembered the inexplicable and unrewarded generosity of a bespectacled young man dressed for the country, and at the end, one of them knew the whereabouts of the young lady this singular young man finally went away with. Discreet enquiries proved that she was in the habit of going to hear the words of a certain woman of the cloth, if that be the right term, of a Monday night. That lady is not listed in Crockford, but I found her, and you. I had not realised you should be closeted with her for half the night, though. My bones protest.”
    “Come now, Holmes, your rheumatism only bothers you when it’s convenient. Besides, you hadn’t been there all that long.”
    “Why do you say that?” he asked, a spark of amusement in his grey eyes.
    “The coat was damp, but the water was on the surface,” I answered him unnecessarily. “If you had been in the doorway for very long, the water would not have shaken out so easily.” He twitched his lips in appreciation and approval, and it occurred to me that since the term began, I had been either absent or preoccupied. Had he missed our exchanges, too? It was not something I could ask. I smiled back at him. “You might have saved your bones the discomfort by ringing the bell and asking the watchman to give me a message.”
    “And risk disturbing you at a case?” He sounded shocked, which meant he was making a mild jest.
    “There’s no case here—I’m sorry to disappoint you, Holmes. Nothing but my own peculiar interest in things theological. And yet, if you can set aside your instinctive response to these irrational matters, I should like your