Free SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK by Braven Page B

mind with grief and terror!"

Chapter Seven
    I started toward Miss Adler in alarm, saying "Holmes! Great heavens, man, the lady's at the end of her tether!"
    Holmes snapped, "Watson, fetch some brandy!" then grasped her firmly by the upper arms and looked at her with an intensity that was almost ferocious. "Irene, get hold of yourself!" said he. "We have no time! I must know precisely what happened."
    She seemed on the verge of struggling in his grasp, then relaxed and looked up at him with a calmer ex pression. Her voice was even when she spoke.
    "Yes, yes, of course."
    Holmes opened his hands and dropped them to his sides. Irene Adler stepped away from him, went to the tasseled bell-pull that hung down one wall, and tugged it once.
    "The brandy's on the sideboard, Dr. Watson, in the decanter. I will have a drop, thank you."
    "Of course, my dear lady. Of course, of course!"
    I poured out what I judged to be a medicinal doze of the liquor into a crystal balloon glass that stood next to the cut-glass decanter; enough to relax the ten sion that was fairly tearing her apart, not so much as to dull her wits. Its aroma proclaimed it to be of ex cellent quality, but now was not the time for either Holmes or myself to sample it; it looked as though we should need the clearest of heads, even the tightest- strung of nerves, in order to see this ominous business through.
    I handed Irene Adler the glass, and she took a sip. I could see her relax perceptibly, as much, I judged, f rom the realization that her dread secret was now shared and that she was to have the help of Sherlock Holmes (and John Watson, though I doubted that my presence weighed very heavily in the balance with her) as from the warming effect of the brandy.
    Summoned by the bell, Heller, the butler, entered through the archway.
    "Yes, ma'am?" said he.
    "Heller," Irene Adler asked him, "will you . . . will you ask Frau Reichenbach to come down right away, please?"
    "Of course, ma'am."
    He turned and left, moving with the deft silence characteristic of his calling. Apparently even Ameri can butlers cultivate the ideal of appearing to operate like well-oiled machinery.
    "Frau Reichenbach is . . . ?" said Sherlock Holmes.
    "It was she who was with Scott when he . . ." Irene Adler took another sip of the brandy. "She is the boy's governess."
    She could scarcely have been mistaken for any thing else, when, moments later, she stood just inside the archway and gave her account of the events of the afternoon. Her severely starched uniform, the hair pulled into a tight bun atop her head, the stiff stance with hands folded in front of her, the immobile face and light-blue eyes bespoke both her occupation and her nationality. I judged her age to be not far past thirty.
    I had allowed myself to sink into a comfortable wingchair. Irene Adler was seated on the sofa, still holding the brandy glass. Holmes paced back and forth as he questioned Frau Reichenbach.
    "I had gone to meet the young boy at school," said she in a marked German accent, "and we were walk ing home, which we do each day."
    "You're referring to this afternoon, Frau Reichenbach?"
    " Ja. "
    "Describe what occurred, please."
    "Three blocks from here, maybe four—we were coming up Twentieth Street—a carriage drew up be side us and stopped. A man was on top, driving a horse. It was a closed carriage and all the shades were down. A man leaped out of the inside . . ." She fal tered in her speech.
    "Yes? Go on, please!"
    "He seized and kicked me!"
    I was shocked.
    "Good heavens! The brute!" said I.
    "Watson, please! Seized and kicked you, Frau Reichenbach?"
    The governess nodded vigorously.
    "First by the hair, like this!" She tugged mightily at the knot of it on top of her head, in demonstration. "And then with the foot, like this!" She lashed out with the pointed, polished toe of her shoe, and added a comment which momentarily startled me: "In the chin!"
    It seemed a bizarre method of attack, but a sec ond's thought gave