Free SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK by Braven

cultivated person was here, little different from what I might have expected to find in a similar establishment in the West End of Kensing ton, though I had the vague sense that something about it reminded me of a stage set—a certain unused look to the plump cushions and soft chairs. Though that, I supposed, was natural enough, considering Irene Adler's profession. I could not see what there was to arouse Holmes' obvious attention.
    "May I ring for some refreshments?" said Irene Adler, cool and composed as any hostess receiving in vited guests, not at all indicating that she was speak ing to two middle-aged gentlemen who had burst in upon her and (one of them, at least) shoved her but ler aside and bawled a peremptory demand for her presence. "Coffee? Brandy? Would you care to sit down? You're looking quite well, Sherlock. You've hardly changed in the years since last we met. Dr. Watson, are you quite well also?"
    I was about to reply that I was, without going into any particulars of my health, although I was aware of a certain shortness of breath which might have re sulted from the excellent dinner at Delmonico's, when Holmes forestalled me.
    "We were at the theater tonight," said he.
    Irene Adler stood as still as a statue. "Did the per formance go on?"
    "With your understudy. The audience, of course, were disappointed at the substitution."
    "Miss Robson is a very promising young per former."
    "What is this 'indisposition' from which you are suf fering?"
    Holmes' tone left no doubt that he was little in clined to credit the existence of such an illness, and, indeed, I myself could detect no sign of any malady in the splendid, though somehow constrained, woman who stood before us.
    "A trifling matter, really. I'll be quite all right in a matter of—"
    "Irene!" Holmes' voice, deep and harsh, seemed wrenched from his very depths, and Miss Adler stepped back from him, as if shaken by its force. " Why did you not go to the theater tonight?"
    She could not meet his gaze, and her voice came in faltering tones.
    "I . . . I . . . Didn't Mr. Furman explain that I was—?"
    "I insist that I be spared this masquerade! It de means a friendship of almost ten years' standing!"
    Sherlock Holmes' words and manner were dra matic enough for the scene, but I found myself as much fascinated by the change I saw in him as by the drama that was going forward. I had seen my friend in a variety of moods, and in the grip of many kinds of emotion in the course of my association with him: a savage exultation at bringing to book some particu larly vile criminal; regret and mourning at the fate of a victim which a turn of luck might have prevented; deep concern, once, when it seemed that I had been gravely wounded; morose despair when one of his pri vate fits of depression was on him. Yet this vigorous urgency, which seemed somehow the attribute of a younger and less cerebrally inclined man, was new to me.
    He continued in the same vein, giving a stern nod in response to her anxious look.
    "Yes! It's time for the truth, Irene! What is it that holds you in the grip of almost unbearable terror? What message are you awaiting, and why are you prepared to remain up the entire night—and not leave this house until you receive it?"
    I blinked, wondering, in spite of my long familiarity with his methods of deduction, how he had arrived at this conclusion. There certainly seemed nothing any where I could see to sustain it.
    Irene Adler, however, did not trouble herself with that sort of question, and gave a short, harsh laugh with a high pitch to it I didn't like the sound of.
    "I should have remembered," she said. "One can not pretend in front of Mr. Sherlock Holmes!"
    Her tacit confirmation of what her inquisitor had said bewildered me.
    "Yes, but look here, Holmes," said I. "How did you know about—what was it?—a message. Staying up all night? Not leaving the house? Surely—"
    "It's simplicity itself!" Holmes seemed to find relief in reverting to his