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time Mrs. Watson jumped up with a cry. “Mr. Holmes!” She stretched both hands towards him. “Have you—is there—any news of John?”
    To judge by his taut and sombre face, not any good news. As if capturing two fluttering doves he took Mrs. Watson’s hands in his kid-gloved grasp, but he did not speak, only made a shushing motion with his lips and threw a warning glance in my direction.
    “Oh! How thoughtless of me!” Hardly what he meant to convey; he wanted her to get rid of me, but she seemed to feel that she had been rude, forgetting to introduce me. Freeing her hands, she turned to me. “Miss, um…”
    If one is literally trembling with ill-mixed emotion, one might as well make the best use of it. Relieving Mrs. Watson of the necessity of remembering my name, I squealed, “Is this really Mr. Holmes, the great detective?” Simulating great girlish excitement, I hurried forward, smiling, nay, grinning like a skull. “Oh, I am so thrilled!” I squeaked, my voice a full octave above its usual level. Even as I quaked in fear that my brother might recognise me, I grasped one of his gloved hands in both of mine. “Oh, just wait until I tell my aunt that I met the famous Mr. Sherlock Holmes!”
    My effusions had the effect I desired: If a sewer rat had crawled upon Sherlock it might have repulsed him less. He could not bear to look me in the face, turning his head away as he said frostily, “Miss, ah…”
    “Everseau. Miss Viola Everseau,” I burbled.
    “Miss Everseau, will you kindly excuse us?”
    “Of course . Absolutely. I know you and Mrs. Watson—that is, you have important matters to discuss—I am frightfully honoured and delighted to have met you—” Twittering inanities, I allowed myself to be ushered away by the faithful parlour-maid Rose, who had appeared for that purpose with my wrap in her hands.
    Even after I heard the front door of the Watson residence close behind me, I could not quite believe my escape. Mincing down the stone steps, I expected at any moment to hear Sherlock shout, “Wait a moment! Enola? Enola! Constable, stop that girl in the wig!”
    But instead I heard his voice speaking to Mrs. Watson: “There is no very good news, I am afraid.” The words, although quietly and gravely spoken, carried clearly to me through the partially opened parlour windows. “But I have found something. I have found Watson’s medical bag.”
    I stopped on the pavement where I stood. Oh. Oh, my goodness, I couldn’t simply leave; the sound of my brother’s voice acted upon me like a magnet upon needles and pins. I had to know more—but what if I were caught listening?
    Pretending to search my pockets for something, I glanced up and down the street, which lay quiet except for a milkmaid making her deliveries and a cab or two. London is odd that way; slum streets brawl always with women standing in open doorways shouting at one another, children running amok in the muck, beggars, vendors, drunkards, idlers—but the better residential streets lie almost empty. There, scrubbed doorsteps lead up to closed doors flanked by windows without a single broken pane of glass—instead, one sees potted geraniums, a canary in a hanging cage, a meek little “Room to Let” sign, lace curtains.
    But one cannot tell whether one is being watched from behind the lace curtains.
    Holmes spoke on. “I found it at his club, where someone had stowed it out of sight behind a davenport. It remained unnoticed until today.”
    “But…John would not have left…” Mrs. Watson’s quiet voice struggled against tears.
    “Exactly.” My brother’s voice also repressed strong emotion—my heart swelled when I heard such controlled anguish in his words. “No doctor, least of all Watson, would ever willingly be separated from his black bag.”
    Wary of my own feelings, I realised I was quite likely to betray myself with a whimper or some equally undignified involuntary utterance. Enola, you silly chit , I mentally