Read Online Jewel of the Thames (A Portia Adams Adventure) by Angela Misri - Free Book Online Page B

of course, and I colored at her observation, made after only knowing me for a few months. Once in a while I would find myself distracted from whatever was capturing my attention, and it was at those moments that memories of my mother would overtake me, like milk simmering on the stove that goes from a light bubble to spilling over the sides at a fast boil. In the same way the sadness would overflow out of me and I fought hard against it, as did Mrs. Jones in her own way.
    I looked up at her beautiful face in the flickering firelight. She was incredibly intelligent, evidenced both by her perfect memory and her own keen sense of deduction. More often than not, when I would speak excitedly about a crime currently in the newspapers, she would quickly shred my solution with a few well-thought-out arguments. Far from discouraging me, her intelligent debates drove me to work harder. I should be cognizant of her encouragement toward my education and more thankful of her efforts.
    “ You are right, of course, Mrs. Jones,” I said, taking a deep breath at her answering smile of approval. “I will focus on the future you have secured for me.”
    In my head, I swore to prove myself worthy of my mother’s faith in me, of my lost father’s memory, and of the ghost of my grandfather in this very room.
    I didn’t yet allow myself to put a name to this destiny; the very act of thinking of myself as an aspiring ‘detective’ felt arrogant at this point. But I promised myself at that moment to focus my learning, my actions and my very thoughts toward this unspoken goal.
    Brian’s time was taken up with a rash of local burglaries, so, naturally, my attention swung that way in terms of research. I separated out some of Holmes and Watson’s cases that were specifically about thievery and made copious notes on them, also referencing my legal books and changes to laws since my grandfather’s time.
    The constabulary’s continued frustration with the unsolved cases kept my interest high, and I spent hours on the streets of London, walking from one crime scene to another. The smoke from the exhaust of the cars combined with the breath of the people walking the sidewalks in this winter season, but the traffic and the types of traffic varied, and I noted it all. Unlike Toronto, which was a very new city when compared to the one I now lived in, London had distinct populations, smells, activities and yes, even tastes when you traveled from one borough to another. The smells of detergent and cleaning solvents assailed me as I walked around Acton as surely as the smell of fish heralded my arrival in Barking. I took the tube to most of my destinations, but walked home for hours once I had my fill of the sights, often stopping to stare up at stately buildings or to peer into the dusty windows of closed-down shops. Surely I must have looked mad to the Londoners who passed, but I cared not; it made me feel even closer to Watson and Holmes as I tried to imagine what they would have done were they on the case.
    Determined to learn more than could be gleaned from textbook and diary, I once again made a visit to the dusty old attic above my apartment. Finding a ratty old suit and beard, I disguised myself as an old man with a huge nose. Consulting some of Holmes’s notes, I reduced the size of the nose (“the key to anonymity is to have no distinguishing features by which you might be remembered”).
    Turning this way and that in the mirror, I found something was missing. I grabbed one of my simple frocks and stowed it under my shirt so that I looked as though I had a slight belly. Perfect!
    I carefully left 221 Baker Street, trying to disguise my exit, and hailed a horse-drawn hackney. My notes indicated that although the burglaries seemed to occur at random spots in the city, two had resulted in a chase, and the chases had both ended down near the river. The robberies were starting to form a pattern: four in the last thirty-four days, and there