The Mysterious Lady Law by Robert Appleton Read Free Book Online

could she appear eager without coming across as a desperate spinster besmirching the memory of her dearly departed sister? Perhaps this was too soon. Living life like Georgy had couldn’t possibly end well while her heart was still so heavy. But wasn’t that the point? Prolonging a chance at happiness, even for a day—Georgy would not want that for her.
    And after all, Grant had come up with the Dover flyover date, whatever his true feelings might be.
     
    “Post is here for ye, Sir Horace,” announced Mrs. Barleycourt, Holly’s old housekeeper, in her usual flustered, irritable tone. “Or shall I toss these out wi’ the rest of ‘em, for all the good it’s doin’ to keep pilin’ ‘em up like this. You’re after bein’ behind on yer bills again if yer no’ careful.”
    He slammed his pen down, glared up at her from his desk. “Are any of those personal letters?”
    Skimming through the dozen-strong pile, she picked three out and checked the postmarks. “One looks Portuguese, and the other two—from Scotland.” Holly scoffed and resumed his note-taking. “The rest are from banks and loan companies—expedition business, surely,” she went on. “Sir Horace, does this mean yer’ve cancelled yer Africa trip?”
    “What? What was that, woman?” He didn’t bother looking up.
    “I said, seein’ as yer’ll nay open these bank replies, have yer changed yer mind about the expedition?”
    “Fiddlesticks, woman! If I receive a letter from Josh, hand it over at once. Anything else, I couldn’t give two hoots. Now leave me be.”
    He heard the slap of paper on the sideboard, then heavy marching steps and plenty of muttering in the hallway. Mrs. Barleycourt could be an unconscionable nag, but she meant well and had never skimped on a single chore in twelve years. Holly had grown almost immune to her abrasiveness.
    Undeterred, he read on from Josh’s journal: “…yet the question remains: if a full-size psammeticum lens mounted on the Leviacrum telescope is only able to detect 4 millijoules of psammeticum energy from a collapsing star, how can my portable lens, at a fraction of that sensitivity, read hundreds of joules coming from somewhere in London?”
    “Hmm.” Holly licked his thumb and eagerly turned the page.
    “October 14 th —After much trouble, have fine-tuned my prototype telescope. It can now detect cosmic psammeticum energy with decent accuracy. But the London reading is now even more troubling—forty-eight KILOJOULES of energy! From where? If only we knew what psammeticum really is, and what it means. That it doesn’t occur anywhere else in space that we know of, other than in the jaws of solar destruction, is a terrifying notion. London may be in very serious danger. This is my discovery, but lest I be humiliated, I must investigate this baffling phenomenon firsthand, and prove its authenticity beyond doubt before submitting my findings.
    “October 15 th —Have pinpointed the energy’s origin to a house on Challenger Row, No. 144. The psammeticum readings are very erratic: this morning, over fifty kilojoules; this afternoon, barely three kilojoules. Don’t know who lives there but they were not home when I called. I shall call again tomorrow.”
    Scratching his sideburns, Holly checked back over the energy readings. A single kilojoule was not much, about equal to the amount of solar radiation received by one square meter of the earth in one second. But Josh and his scientific peers clearly hadn’t figured out what they were dealing with yet. Psammeticum energy, a recent cosmological discovery, had been found through the use of pioneering subspace lens filters, which was Josh’s main area of study. If anyone had the chops to perfect a reliable portable alternative, he assured himself, it was Josh.
    “October 16 th —Residents of 144 Challenger Row absent again. Damn it! An unexpectedly wonderful day, though. Met Georgina Bairstow, part-time maid at 144. Beautiful girl, wonderful