The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

Sunday licences, scrubbed and shining in order that cleanliness might actually contain godliness, brought various neighbours, including Mrs. Watson, home from worship.
    Mrs. Watson, I noticed, took a few moments to pat the cab-horse; rare was the woman who would do that, especially at the risk of besmirching her Sunday best. I regarded Dr. Watson’s winsome wife with mingled admiration and pity; she wore black, as if already she were in mourning.
    After the churchgoers had gone indoors, nothing at all happened for an hour or so.
    Eventually a bent old woman in a shawl limped from door to door, selling violets from a large flat basket.
    That was all for the next half hour or thereabouts.
    A water-wagon passed at a trot, the horse with tail handsomely lifted, pleasing to watch until one realised the nag was littering the length of the street with horse-apples. Ironic, as the purpose of the water-wagon was to clean London’s streets, typically covered with muck a respectable slug would not have crawled in. The labour of clearing it could not pause even for Sunday rest, for there were a great many horses in the city, and each one produced forty-five pounds of waste per day, or so Mum had once told me—
    Don’t think of Mum.
    To distract myself, I tugged at the tasteful opal brooch centered upon my dress front, thus drawing the slender dagger sheathed in the busk of my corset, the opal being its pommel. Hefting my weapon by its hilt, I felt reassured. I had used it once, on a garroter. Although once an attacker of a different sort had used a knife on me—but my corset had foiled his attempt to stab me. Thus convinced of the value of corsets, I had provided myself with several specially made so that their metal ribs did not nip my waist or jab me under the armpits, only protected me from the likes of Jack the Ripper, while supporting the bust enhancer and hip regulators which disguised my stick-like figure while serving as carryalls, containing emergency supplies plus a small fortune in Bank of England notes—courtesy of Mum.
    Do not think about Mum!
    Hastily slipping my dagger between the buttons on the front of my dress, returning it to its sheath in my bosom, I set myself to taking mental inventory of the other items therein. Bandaging, scissors, iodine, spare stockings, needle and thread—
    In her best blue cape and bonnet a nanny walked past on the street below, pushing a parasol perambulator with one hand while with the other she led a toddler in a lacy pink dress and white pinafore.
    Yawn.
    —head-scarf, hair extensions, pince-nez eyeglasses for disguise, lorgnette by way of magnifying lens, smelling-salts, sugar candies, biscuits—
    Around the far corner of the street appeared a small, ragged boy carrying a bunch of flowers nearly bigger than he was.
    Inventory and ennui at once forgotten, I grabbed for my opera glasses and peered through them, trying to identify the blossoms in the bouquet. But the boy, confounded ignorant street urchin, carried it under his arm, head down, as if it were likely to bite him otherwise. I could hardly see the flowers at all, and had to content myself for the moment with memorising the boy’s scruffy plaid clothing and rather stupid face. He paused with his mouth open to study each house number.
    Very possibly he might not be looking for the Watson residence at all, might not concern me whatsoever.
    My heart pounded in protest at the thought. Nonsense. It has to be—
    It was.
    After studying the number beside the door at inordinate length, he turned to ascend the steps of the Watson residence.
    Only then, as he put his back to me, could I catch a clear look at the flowers in the bouquet.
    Laburnum.
    Harebells.
    Convolvulus again.
    Wispy sprays of asparagus again.
    Sprigs of yew.
    Ye gods.
    Dropping the opera glasses, I sprang up, popped my wig (hat and all) onto my head, snatched my mantle and ran out of my temporary lodging and down the stairs, intent on catching that boy as soon as