Christine Danse - Regarding the Events of One Sherlock’s Scandalous St. Valentine’s Day

Regarding the Events of OneSherlocks Scandalous St. Valentines Day

Christine Danse

Published by Christine Danse atSmashwords

Copyright 2010 Christine Danse

Cover design by Christine Danse, usingArtweaver and Picnik.com

Photograph of woman byPatryk Choiski, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1294218

Photograph of cog by MartinWalls, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/385418

Photographs used under thisimage license agreement: http://www.sxc.hu/help/7_2

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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I arrived home an hour late from work onValentine's Day to find the door ajar, my wife missing, and a notewaiting for me on the mantelpiece.

I was holding a bouquet of brilliant blueviolets, Annette's favorite. I had picked them up from a small girlon the street corner during my rush home from the Sherlock office.Annette and I had reservations for dinner. I expected to come hometo an angry wife. Instead, I found her gone.

A swarm of thoughts buzzed in my mind.Perhaps, in her anger, she had left me. This thought was chased bya wave of guilt and another, more frightening thought: that she hadbeen kidnapped for ransom. Or perhaps she was playing a game.Perhaps she had simply left on an errand and absentmindedly leftthe door ajar behind her, as she was wont to do.

I approached themantelpiece rather like it was a bristling mastiff ready to springand bite me at any moment. With trepidation, I read the note. Itsimply read, Find me .

A game, then! A flood of relief andirritation washed all of the thoughts of fear and guilt from me.What a saucy, terrible girl. Perhaps I should have married agentler, more obedient woman. I shook my head. No, no one couldreplace Annette in my heart. She had me by the drawstrings, I'mafraid.

The note was just that: a piece of papertorn from her stationary with words written in her peculiarshorthand. There was nothing else new or amiss on the mantelpiece.She evidently wanted me to use my Bell detective skills to findher. She was very clever. Though I was secure in my skills as aSherlock, I actually worried that she might outwit me.

I took the note to thekitchen and cranked the dynamo lamp to better analyze it. Iobserved a tiny smudge of grease on the page. In the dimness of thesitting room, I had missed it at first. Indeed, on one of the tornback corners appeared a small spot that had the distinctive odor ofengine grease. A quick trip upstairs to our bedroom confirmed mysuspicion: My spare station keys were missing from their hidingspot. In their place was another note torn from her stationary.This one appeared to be a code of some sort . LTYN-7835 .

I did not have time to decipher it. Withouta doubt, she was at the police engine room. If she wasdiscovered--with my unauthorized spare keys, nonetheless!--I couldbe out of a job. I took up my cane and the bouquet of violets andset off at once for Scotland Yard.

The Bell detectives had a contract with thestation to operate the analytical engines at night, so it was notuncommon to find one or more Sherlocks loitering there, smokingpipes and reviewing casework by gaslight. Tonight, to my relief, Ifound the station windows dark and the door firmly locked. IfAnnette was here, then she had at least taken more care withsecuring this door than ours at home.

I found the engine room to be just as quietand dark as the front room. However, when I approached the last ofthe three silent engines, I found that a halo of heat that bespokevery recent use still surrounded it. (The other two had alreadygrown cold after the day's work.) I looked in the engine'spunchcard slot and found that it was empty.

A closed box of punchcardshad been left on the table nearby--recent case studies, mostlikely. I opened this, riffled through it with my index finger, andimmediately located a card buried amongst the others that was stillwarm. On its subject line were the same letters and numbers on thenote I had found: LTYN-7835 . Seeing them this time,they struck me as more familiar, as if I had seen this code beforeor something quite like it.

Although the engines had been set up withsteam power, they still retained their original crank handles. Thiswas to my advantage, as I did not have the preapproval to use onetonight, and when powered by steam, they made considerablenoise.

Crank-powered, the enginetook twice as long as usual to make its calculation. At last--afternearly five minutes of cranking--a piece of paper appeared in theoutput bin. It read: Freight car LTYN-7835registered Thomas Harrison departing London 22:00 arriving Paris02:30 .

A train to Paris! I dearly hoped she did notexpect me to meet her there! After I found her, I would surely haveto chide her about abusing my station as a Bell detective as wellas her own as an Ada coder (for, no doubt, it was she who coded thepunchcard). God only knew where she was now and what kind of dangershe was putting herself in!

I went immediately to thetrain yard and picked my way through the rubble and tracks until Ifound a faded red freight car near the end of a rather long train.The white letters LTYN-7835 appeared along its side. The door was open but afoot.

"Anna?" I called, softly, as I approached. Ihad spied at least one guard strolling through the yard with a handtorch and did not fancy meeting him. I waited until I was at thedoor before I called out again. "Anna, are you there?"

"Jeremy! Is that you?" came her voice, sosmall and sweet, from the darkness within.

I was relieved and angered. "Annette, I haveno energy to play these games! I was looking forward to a nice,pleasant dinner out with you. Come out at once before we are caughtand I lose my job!"

"Oh, Jeremy. I'm sorry you're upset. But Ican't."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm bound," she said.

At those words, I hoisted the train dooropen wide enough to admit myself and leaped inside like a madthing. I could see her only barely. She was on the ground againstone of the walls with her legs stretched out, slumped so low thatshe was nearly lying.

"Wait!" she said, as I began to stridetoward her. "You will need to light the lamp first so that you cansee. There."

I looked down and saw a gas lamp only a fewfeet away. When I stooped toward the thing, my hand brushed a boxof Lucifers on the ground next to it. After I had fumbled the lighton, I turned to my wife (eyes watering from the acrid smoke of theLucifer) and was nearly breathless as I took in my first real viewof her.

Her dark ringlets floated all about her headlike a doll's, and her face was made up as sweet and innocent asone. She wore a corset; my favorite, the black one with fair lace.The mound of her breasts curved from the top of this, as soft andfair as baby's flesh. She wore her patent leather buckle boots,polished to a shine. But that was all.

She wore no shirt, no dress, noundergarments. She was naked from her waist to her shins--allsmooth, alabaster skin. Her legs were splayed open, displaying thevoluptuous, white curves of her womanhood. She had shaved.

I believe I must have blanched a solid shadeof white. She smiled at me. "Are those for me?" she asked, and Irealized she meant the bouquet of violets, which I had left on theground next to the lamp.

When I began to approach her again, shesaid, "Wait!" but I ignored her this time. I reached for herwrists, which were bound to a rope that hung from the freight car'sceiling, but I had hardly touched the massive knots beforesomething struck me soundly and sharply against the shin. I criedout and recoiled several feet.