The Sign of Fear by Molly Carr

Author:Molly Carr [Carr, Molly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-907685-04-0
Publisher: MX Publishing
Published: 2010-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Watson was at the station when we arrived back from our sudden and unexpected, not to say unplanned, adventure of the aluminium crutch. He said he’d been there for hours. But he seemed very pleased to see us and I guessed he’d been lonely, just as I used to be when he went off with Holmes. Neville St. Clair was also there with the children and said he had planned a trip to Italy for himself and his family. If his wife would care to come with him to Cook’s newly opened Travel Agency he would get the tickets there and then and reserve places for them all to leave in a week’s time. Emily jumped at the chance. I’m sure she was thinking more of banditti than cathedrals and art galleries. Giving me M. Clément’s cheque to bank, she fair raced out of the station again–with the children running behind and her husband pleading for a little more decorum.

As John and I left the station he took out his whistle from an inside pocket of his jacket to summon a hansom, and when it wheeled over from the opposite side of the road handed me in as if I had been a lady who (like the gentry) had all the time in the world. But, after I had explained about the luggage by saying it had all gone to Bayswater and we were both safely inside the vehicle, he disturbed me horribly by suddenly saying, “A telegram came for me this morning.” After all the excitement in Nantes, the fatigue of the journey and the pleasure I felt in being home I could have wept. Surely he hadn’t found another Holmes while I’d been away?

“No,” said John as if he had read my thoughts. “We’re wanted in Ballarat!”

Well, once we reached home what was left of the evening was spent talking endlessly about that telegram and getting used to the idea of such a tremendous undertaking as a trip to Australia. The next day I set about providing myself with a number of new outfits. I was already feeling that a journey to Victoria and one of the most famous gold-mining towns in the world could be quite exciting. It would, I guessed, be completely different from France. Even John seemed to relish the idea, though travelling by train from London to Liverpool and boarding the SS Devonia to New York was at first quite uneventful. Thanks to my portion of M. Clément’s cheque, we were able to travel first class. This was such a luxury and so comfortable that I was surprised to see when I came out of our state room one morning that Watson was leaning over the side and looking a little white round the gills.

“What’s the matter?” I asked cheerfully, moving nearer to him. “You’re not seasick?”

For answer he drew me behind a stanchion. Just as a tall, hard-faced man passed us on his way to the back of the vessel. “That’s him,” he hissed.

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