Read The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets for Free Online

botany were considered to be a female hobby.
    “And she studied asparagus? I’ve never seen it placed in a bouquet before.”
    “Neither have I.” But if the greens were bizarre, the blossoms were worse; their significance chilled me.
    Taking care not to reveal this in the tone of my voice, I asked, “Mrs. Watson, are you familiar with what is sometimes called the language of flowers?”
    “Only a little. There has been small occasion for such communication in my life.” She said this with gentle good humour. “The may signifies hope, does it not, and the poppy, comfort?”
    “In the French tradition, yes.” But this was England, and in British folklore, hawthorn—what she called “may”—was a shrub long associated with pagan deities and with faeries, a powerful symbol of bad luck. No countrywoman would ever bring a sprig of its pretty cluster blossoms indoors, for to do so might bring down calamity upon the house, even death.
    I did not say this. But I did say, “The red poppy implies comfort, I believe, but the white poppy symbolises sleep.”
    “Really?” She thought about that for a moment, then actually smiled. “Well, I certainly could use some sleep.”
    “What a very odd bouquet. Who, might I ask, gave it to you?”
    “Why, I don’t know. I believe a boy brought it to the door.”
    Setting my cup of tea aside, I stood, crossing the room to have a better look. The poppies must have been forced in a hothouse—all flowers except snowdrops came from hothouses at this time of year; nothing remarkable in that. But that the asparagus should have been so cultivated—most peculiar. Explicable, perhaps, if someone had a boundless yearning for the vegetable—but the hawthorn? Who on earth would trouble with such a useless prickle-bush as hawthorn in a hothouse, when like a weed it grew everywhere in the countryside?
    Upon studying the hawthorn more closely, I saw that its jagged branches were wound round with tendrils of a delicate vine whose white flowers had already wilted.
    Bindweed.
    A sort of wild trumpet-flower, bindweed would be as common as sparrows in country hedgerows come summertime. But like the hawthorn, this early in the year, it must have been forced indoors. More, it must have been cultivated with the hawthorn, to entwine it so.
    Bindweed? More correctly known as convolvulus, the plant indicated something convoluted—something stealthy, entangling, twisted.
    And this ominous bouquet, it seemed to me, had come from quite a twisted mind. I had to find out—
    But as I turned to question Mrs. Watson in more detail, the parlour door burst open and, without waiting for the maid to announce him, a tall, impeccably clad yet vehement gentleman strode in, almost swooped in, his manner as hawklike as the keen profile of his face: Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

C HAPTER THE S IXTH
    I REGRET TO SAY THAT I GASPED ALOUD, BOTH IN terror and in admiration—those two emotions seem always to attend my dealings with my renowned brother. To me his craggy features were the most handsome in England, his grey eyes the most brilliant, and if circumstances were different…but there was no time for pointless dreams. I fully comprehended all the peril of my situation, and I admit that I felt a strong inclination to flee. Luckily, in contemplation of the bizarre bouquet I stood so near the wall that it checked my impulse to back away. Had I made such an ill-considered move, I am sure my brother might have noticed.
    But he barely glanced at me, although it took me several thudding heartbeats to comprehend why, for there I stood in plain sight, his tall, gawky, long-nosed sister Enola—until I realised that my disguise had kept him from really looking at me. Indeed, the moment he saw a winsomely coifed and attired young woman in the parlour along with Mrs. Watson, he turned his attention elsewhere. One might think he disliked to be in company with such a woman.
    And if I gasped aloud, he did not hear it, for at the same