Free The Baker Street Translation by Michael Robertson

Sherlock Holmes. There never is. And even if there were, I’m afraid I just couldn’t be of any help to you at all.”
    She slurred those last three words together, and with just a bit of a twang, which made them sound, when run together, like a nautical term. She smiled just slightly when she did it.
    Mistake. She saw the man take a moment, his eyes appraising her more fully now, and then she saw the look that crosses a man’s face when he’s shifting the agenda from business to sex.
    â€œOh, I don’t know about that, ma’am,” he said with a quick grin.
    In a flash, he’d gone from annoyed to randy.
    Which meant that, as angry as he was, his stake in the matter—whatever the matter was—had its limits.
    The Texan sat down at the linen-covered table. “Maybe we can talk about it over dinner? I’d suggest an Italian place that folks have been telling me about, but it looks like you’re already set up.”
    A lawyer, Laura concluded.
    â€œAnd don’t worry about this,” said the Texan, removing his Stetson. “It comes right off.”
    â€œNow you’re messing with me,” said Laura. “And I’m in no position to be messed with.”
    â€œSorry to hear that,” said the man. “I’ll tell you why I’m here, then.”
    â€œYou aren’t here to see me,” said Laura. “And I don’t have the time in any event. You may leave your card, if you like.”
    â€œAs you wish,” he said. He stood and gave her a card from his wallet. Laura glanced at it.
    Carl Stillman, J.D. Houston, TX.
    Yes, a lawyer.
    For a moment, the man was all business again. “You can give that to whoever needs to see it; I’ll expect to hear from someone at this chambers, and I won’t leave London until I do.”
    And then he paused at the door. “Or,” he added, “you can use it yourself, at your convenience. In my book, there’s no such thing as geographically undesirable.”
    â€œBye now,” said Laura.
    Laura closed the door after Stillman left. Then she picked up the phone and got Lois on the interior line.
    â€œI don’t know what he wanted, but be sure he leaves,” she said. “And don’t let him back in until Reggie returns.”
    â€œOf course,” said Lois.
    Laura hung up the phone. She looked about at the linen and trappings for the nice brunch she and Reggie had not quite enjoyed together. After all his preparation.
    She sighed. Then she stepped into the corridor and shut the door to the chambers office.
    She exited Dorset House on Baker Street and took a cab for Robert Buxton’s headquarters at Tobacco Wharf.

12
    Reggie had taken a cab from Baker Street; to find parking in any of the business streets in Piccadilly or Soho at almost any hour was always impossible.
    The taxi drove down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus, where four transportation arteries and the busiest tube stations in the city conspired to dump all manner of people, with all manner of purposes and destinations, into one bright square of neon lights. At any hour, Piccadilly was always filled with black cabs and roaring double-deckers, and a mass of humanity trying to dodge them all and get to Lillywhites, or the Criterion Theatre, or to the Boots pharmacy or the Burger King, or down the side streets that led to something more off-track in Soho. There was street construction under way, as there always was; Reggie had concluded long ago that the only purpose of it was to make the whole place more difficult to pass through, in the same way that department stores position display cases to block any direct route out of the store that might let you escape without a purchase. It was Piccadilly Circus. You were obliged to stop and buy something.
    In front of the winged statue of Eros, the driver turned left onto Shaftesbury. Then the cab slowed as they passed the Trocadero, with its throngs and