The Gospel of Sheba by Lyndsay Faye Read Free Book Online Page A

well, send The Gospel of Sheba home with any upstarts and they would at once fall ill and surrender. Frankly, though, Mr. Holmes, I agree with Watson—I don’t see why they shouldn’t be prosecuted for poisoning their supposed friends.”
    The sleuth waved his hand in the air bonelessly. “Watson does, though, now you’ve stated the case so clear. Explain the legal difficulties to your friend the sublibrarian, there’s a good fellow.”
    Watson’s face gave the oddest twitch imaginable as he stifled a laugh while half-rolling his eyes. “I am afraid,” he confessed when the fond exasperation had passed, “that no one can say when or where the poison itself was introduced. The book was discovered, the book was presented to the group, and later the book was lent out. Therefore, among the Brotherhood—”
    â€œEveryone touched it, thus everyone is a suspect,” I realized, wincing. “After all, they are convinced Pyatt likewise was sickened by the text. And Scovil professed to abhor the notion of presidency to me, but later, he could simply claim he failed to study his find altogether due to business obligations or some such, and thus escaped unscathed. Nothing ties him to the poison directly.”
    â€œWhen did you suspect him first?” Mr. Holmes inquired, head listing towards me as he pulled a cigarette case from behind a settee cushion. “You’ve a keen eye and a wit to match, but you’re no detective. As a fellow man of science, I can understand your hesitancy to believe a supernatural agency at work, but what led you to decide Scovil was the mastermind?”
    â€œHe warned me to handle the book with care explicitly when he lent it to me,” I recalled. “I found it … superfluous. I’m a bibliophile and a sublibrarian. It was a nonsensical thing to say.”
    Nodding, Mr. Holmes pulled matches from the pocket of his dressing gown and lit a fresh cigarette, watching the smoke spiral upwards. Watson crossed his legs, cogitating. We were quiet briefly.
    â€œThere’s something else troubling you, Mr. Lomax,” Mr. Holmes said after several long seconds. “Can I help?”
    â€œNot unless you can remove all the canals from Strasbourg.”
    â€œPardon?”
    â€œNo,” I said hoarsely. “You can’t.”
    A quicksilver flash was all it was, without any movement of his pale profile, but the famous detective glanced at me. There was a great deal in that peripheral stare—catlike curiosity, intellectual interest—but also sincere goodwill, which confirmed what I had long suspected as a reader. Dr. Watson tolerates the company of Mr. Holmes not because they are very different and thus complimentary, but because they are at heart very similar.
    A disquieting thought occurred. I would have to like Mr. Holmes, in that case, I realized. I’d have to like him despite his theatrics, his glib remarks, and his almost childlike demand that all attention be riveted upon him perennially, achieved alternately by fluid, frenetic movement and by absolute stillness. I’ll confess the prospect was a little daunting.
    â€œNever mind, then,” Mr. Holmes said, half-stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, and once again it was a cryptic message. He did not mean he was uninterested; he meant that I need not speak of what pained me. Almost at once, I relaxed my brittle bearing.
    â€œFriend Watson, are you yet convinced we are clearly the law of the land in this matter?” the detective continued in a more grave tone. “I ask for efficiency’s sake as much as anything. Do we pass judgment ourselves, or do we tie up the courts with aristocrats who’ll be declared innocent after all of three minutes of jury deliberation? I leave the matter to you and the sublibrarian.”
    The appellation “the sublibrarian” was ostensibly dismissive, of course. But it was not an empty