The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird (learn to read books txt) 📕

and waved them at us, her face black with rage. Opening her reticule to receive them, she then thought better of it, and with a dramatic gesture stuffed the papers down the front of her dress.

She stared triumphantly at the two of us as though she had just thwarted a mad effort to stop her.

But neither of us had moved. Holmes remained seated. He smiled.

‘Forgive me if I don’t stand, Madame Borelli.’

‘You beast!’ she cried, facing Holmes. ‘You lie to me!’

Looking around, she seized upon a life-size plaster head of Goethe and hurled it at my friend, who leaped from his chair just in time to miss being concussed by the philosopher.

Goethe bounced off the chair and landed on a small Moroccan table, upending it, and sending a teacup and some books crashing to the floor to join in the general chaos there. The bust splintered into several pieces.

Given the state of disarray, this hardly worsened the room.

‘Pagan! Reprobate! Liar! Thief!’ she shouted, then lunged at him. I caught her mid-stride, grasping her by both arms. She appeared dainty but was muscled like an athlete.

‘Madame, please sit down,’ I said. ‘You are clearly distraught. Let us help you.’

‘Distraught! Help me?’ Her voice rose to a shout. ‘This man, he misrepresents himself. Says he is a scientist. But then I read in the newspaper he is famous detective. I ask Scotland Yard, one man there say amateur only.’

I laughed.

She turned to me. ‘But … what do you say? He is pastry chef? He is ironmonger? And who are you?’

‘I am Doctor John Watson, this man’s friend. Yes, he is a detective and a scientist. Please … calm down, dear lady.’

She took a deep breath and stopped struggling. I removed my hands from her arms. ‘Forgive me, Madame. May I pour you a brandy?’ I asked. ‘Please, do sit down.’

She ignored this and turned to Holmes.

‘The Great Borelli, he knows. Dario mio, he finds these pages missing, and he knows. Look!’

She undid a button at the cuff of her dress and rolled up the sleeve. A series of bruises was evident.

Holmes was instantly at her side. He gently took her arm and examined the injury. ‘Oh, Madame,’ he said. ‘I would never have – oh, not for the world—’

‘Let me have a look, would you?’ I brushed him aside. ‘I am a doctor.’

Mollified by the caring attention of two men, the woman seemed to calm herself into some semblance of normality as she let me examine her bruises.

‘It looks like someone grasped you hard enough to leave these marks,’ I said.

‘I never should give you the pages, Mr Holmes,’ said the lady.

She looked around her and took in the utter chaos that was our sitting-room. As she did so, a frown passed over her lovely features. Her skin was pale olive, her hair nearly black but burnished with red. She was indeed a fiery beauty.

‘And you lie to me,’ she said. ‘You told me you are scientist. I see no science, but only big mess.’

Her eyes fell on Holmes’s chemistry table.

‘Ah, science, yes, over there. But that is not the escape science, that is chemistry. No, it is physics. Who are you, Mr Holmes? You lied to me!’

‘By omission only, and I apologize. I shall indeed write a small monograph, Madame Borelli, but fear not, I will not reveal all,’ said Holmes. ‘Please do sit down.’ She did not. ‘Stage conjuring, and escapology in particular, has long been a topic of interest to me. Most people enjoy trickery, but it is particularly vexing that some illusions – your husband’s for example, are attributed to supernatural gifts. I wish to set the record straight.’

‘I forbid it! The illusion is the magic. It is part of the performance, Mr Holmes. Dario and I – we will not be happy if you choose to expose him. You promised me to write in such a way not do this. And to do this later, much later. But—’ She gestured angrily to the straitjacket, still hanging from the ceiling. ‘Then I see you trying to duplicate this trick. Traitor! But, of course you cannot. What you do not know is—’

She broke off, staring hard at Holmes. He seemed nonplussed, but I knew my friend well enough to recognize discomfort. She walked over to him. He stood his ground. She suddenly reached around with her right hand and punched him in the shoulder. The left shoulder. The hurting one.

He gasped. I was on her in an instant, taking her from behind with both arms. But she was not to be held back. She trod on my right instep with her sharp heel, and I cried out, releasing her.

She withdrew a tiny Beretta from her reticule, pointing it at Holmes. We both froze. She backed up so that neither of us could reach her in a single move. This was certainly a lady who could look after herself.

‘You are not the first to try this. I created this trick especially for Dario. He has – how you say? – the double joints. Over time, he developed, just like a strong man develops muscles. Which he also does. But he is special: a loose man. Bends like rubber. That is not in those pages. You cannot know this unless you are very smart, and you hurt your own shoulder trying this. Ha, ha, you lying man!’

‘Madame Borelli, one thing I am not is a performer.’

I stifled a laugh. He most certainly was, although perhaps not on the stage.

‘I am a scientist and repeating results of something another man has devised is exactly what scientists do.’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘What a woman has devised. I invent this trick! Not Dario!’

‘Nevertheless, repeating the results—’

‘Are you double jointed, also?’ I asked Madame, straining to picture it.

‘Watson, good grief! Forgive us, Madame. I can see how this might be construed.’

‘No performer, you say? Then what is this?’ Madame Borelli strode to my chair and scooped up something from the floor next to it.

It took a