Mrs Hudson and the Samarkand Conspiracy by Martin Davies

Author:Martin Davies
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

I returned to the city that day with mixed feelings. We arrived at Waterloo a few minutes before noon, and after the green sweetness of Revennings and the airiness of Frog Hall, London came as a shock. As I stepped down from the carriage, the heat that rose up to meet me seemed thicker and somehow more malignant than the high temperatures of the countryside; and it felt much harder to breathe, too, as though the very air was being squeezed from the city’s streets. But the smells of the station were rich and familiar – people and horses and hot tar, engine oil and coal dust, dusty leather and blocked urinals and the defiant drift of lavender from the flower girls at the platform’s end – and the noise and bustle struck my ear like a welcome. For all its dangers and discomforts and iniquities, this was home.

It was well that Mrs Hudson and I had travelled ahead of the rest of our party, for the rooms at Baker Street felt stale and stagnant, as well as suffocatingly hot, when we arrived and threw open the shutters. And we had not been back many minutes – there had scarcely been time for me to unpack our bags and separate out the dirty laundry – when we were disturbed by a knock at the front door. Pausing only to pull on a clean apron, I opened it to a gentleman of perhaps forty or fifty years of age with a luxuriant and curly moustache, who, much to my surprise, was also sporting a delicate parasol in very fine French lace.

‘My sister’s,’ he explained before I had time to say anything at all. ‘I know it looks a little peculiar, but why not? Need all the shade I can get, and couldn’t find an umbrella. And just you wait, if this weather keeps up, these things will be all the rage for the fashionable gentleman. Mr Holmes in?’

I explained that my employer was not expected home until the evening.

‘Excellent. I’ll pop back then.’ He produced a striking card case of purple leather from inside his jacket, then, realising that he needed a second hand to open it, was forced to hand me his parasol before producing his card. ‘The name’s Alba, Egbert Alba. Please tell Mr Holmes that Sir Torpenhow Franklin has asked me to call, about developments in the Carpathians. Will that make sense to him, do you think?’

It was hardly my place to say, so I bobbed politely and took the card.

‘No, seriously, child, I’d value your assistance. You see, I’ve no idea how much Sir Torpenhow has already told Mr Holmes, and if it isn’t very much then I will have a lot of talking to do when I call. But I take it that the two have enjoyed quite lengthy discussions already. Is that right? I’m hoping your answer will be “yes”, because I’m rather hoping to be away in good time tonight, to catch the fireworks down in Westminster.

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