Death at the Diogenes Club: a Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery (The Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mysteries Book 6) by Anna Elliott & Charles Veley

Author:Anna Elliott & Charles Veley [Elliott, Anna & Veley, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Wilton Press
Published: 2017-11-24T05:00:00+00:00

“Don’t worry,” Uncle John murmured in an undertone. “Holmes knows what he is doing. He always does.”

“I know.”

We were huddled in a doorway across from Flint’s coffee house on Clement Court—not at the front of the business, but around the back, where the rear entrance to the shop opened onto a cold and dingy side street.

True to Jack’s prediction, the coffee house seemed to be doing as lively a business as ever tonight, the brightly lit windows revealing rooms crowded with customers.

Here outside, the street was nearly deserted, thanks to both the lateness of the hour and the chill, sullen drizzle of rain that had begun to fall.

Though at least tonight the weather was more or less a match for my mood. My heart had squeezed into a cold, painful lump of anxiety that Uncle John’s words of reassurance did nothing to dispel.

“It’s basic human nature,” Uncle John went on.

His voice, steady and reassuring as ever, formed an almost ludicrous contrast with his appearance.

Holmes, aided by the greasepaint and theatrical paraphernalia of the theater, had used the full powers of his skill in the art of disguise on Uncle John. Now one of Watson’s eyelids drooped, marred by a thick, ropy scar that ran from his brow to his chin. His upper lip was twisted into a permanent leer, and his head was covered by a gray wig that looked as though it ought to contain an entire colony of lice and other wildlife.

He patted my arm. “When trapped in a burning building, we instinctively race to save whatever is most precious to us.”

I stopped myself from pointing out that the last time Holmes had relied on that same principle of human behavior was during the Irene Adler case, and the episode hadn’t exactly turned out in Holmes’s favor.

Instead, I focused on the back door to the coffee house, where somewhere inside, Jack was at this moment setting Flint’s house—in a metaphoric if not a literal sense—on fire.

“What if Flint has already sold the weapons?” I hadn’t meant to speak, but the anxiety inside me seemed to crank tighter with every passing moment, the words coming out on their own. “Or what if he’s handed them over to his buyer and doesn’t know where they’re being stored now?”

“Then Holmes will come up with an alternative plan.” Watson’s answer was unhesitating. “He always has one of those too.”

“I’m sorry.” I forced my clenched fingers to relax. “I hate having to sit and wait.”

“Do you really?” Uncle John’s voice was mild. “I would never have guessed.”

The back door to the coffee house opened, and both of us stopped speaking, drawing instantly back into the shadowed cover of our doorway.

Footsteps echoed on the cobbles, moving down the street away from us. I waited a count of ten before risking a quick look out.

Flint. His head was slightly turned, and I could see his profile in the glow of light from the coffee house.

Holmes’s plan was designed to drive as much of a wedge

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