Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years by Michael Kurland

Author:Michael Kurland [Kurland, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, General, Suspense, Fiction, Traditional British, Short Stories
ISBN: 0312351569
Google: caOLuchfHvoC
Amazon: B008SMJ83M
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2004-11-04T18:30:00+00:00

15

“The man is infuriating!” Quincannon ranted. “Insufferable, insulting, exasperating!”

“John, for heaven’s sake …”

“Thinks he’s a blasted oracle. Sees all, knows all. He’s an expert on every arcane subject under the sun. He’s full of—”

“John.”

“—hot air. Enough to fill a balloon and carry it from here to the Sandwich Islands. Rattlepate! Braggart! Conceited popinjay!”

“Lower your voice,” Sabina said warningly. “The other diners are starting to stare at us.”

Quincannon subsided. She was right. The Cobweb Palace, Abe Warner’s eccentric eatery on Meiggs Wharf in North Beach, was a noisily convivial place at the dinner hour, and to draw attention there required a considerable amount of bombast. The ramshackle building was packed to its creaking rafters on that evening—with customers partaking of the finest seafood fare in the city, and with the usual complement of monkeys, roaming cats and dogs, and such exotic birds as the parrot that was capable of hurling curses in four languages. Warner had a benevolent passion for all creatures large and small, including spiders; his collection of rare and sundry souvenirs, from Eskimo artifacts to a complete set of dentures that had once belonged to a sperm whale to rude paintings of nude women, were draped floor to ceiling in an undisturbed mosaic of cobwebs.

At length Sabina ventured to say, “I don’t know why you carry on so about Mr. Holmes. He may be a bit full of himself, but there’s no gainsaying the fact that he has a brilliant mind. Frankly, I find him charming.”

“Charming! You haven’t spent nearly as much time with him as I have. Today’s trek through the Barbary Coast and Chinatown was interminable. He insisted on seeing every squalid nook and cranny. Opium dens, gambling hells, wine dumps, half the pestholes from Dupont Street to the waterfront … yes, and the Hotel Nymphomania and Belle Cora’s, among other parlor houses. He even stopped half a dozen street prostitutes to ask the prices for their services, not only for comparison here but with streetwalkers in London’s Limehouse. Faugh! I had half a mind to bribe Ezra Bluefield to feed him a mickey and turn him over to the shanghaiers—”

“Hush, now! That’s enough.”

Quincannon subsided again. He gave his attention to his abalone supper, attacking the succulent shellfish with a vengeance. Neither the attack nor his silence lasted for long, however. He laid his fork down after half a dozen bites. Gall had diminished his appetite; his stomach burned with dyspepsia. And now gloom was creeping in to dull the edge of his indignation.

He said, “That doctor friend of Holmes’s in England, what’s-his-name, the one who sensationalizes all of his adventures …”

“Watson. And I wouldn’t be too sure that he’s a sensationalist.”

“Bah. I suppose he’ll write up this bughouse caper, too. And give Holmes all the credit for solving it. Omit my name entirely.”

“I rather doubt it,” Sabina said. “Holmes won’t want it widely known that he was sleuthing in San Francisco or anywhere else during the past three years. Dr. Watson and the world at large have been led to believe he is dead, remember.

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