Laurie R. King

XVXVI, or 10-5-10-5-1, yielded H-E-H-E-A, which, unless she wanted to show her derisive laughter, made no sense.

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defense I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that my feelings towards the little man were distinctly maternal. Good God, I thought, how utterly revolting, and I turned my mind firmly to the problem at hand.

I could never, I knew then, lose myself "in love." Margery had accused me of coldness, and she was right, but she was also wrong: For me, for always, the paramount organ of passion was the mind. Unnatural, unbalanced, perhaps, but it was true: Without intellect, there could be no love.

Pray tell,_ she said, although her voice told him not to.He ignored her tone, let out a thoughtful cloud of smoke, and said, ...

Everyone is allowed a weakness, even women of the twentieth century.

That's what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate.

I took to the Bodleian library as to a lover and ... would sit long hours in Bodley's arms to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books.

Tell me about yourself, Miss Russel."I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead, I found myself grinning at him."Why don't you tell me about myself, Mr. Holmes?

You see why I married her, Mycroft? The exquisite juxtaposition of ladylike threads and backhanded compliments proved irresistible.

I would have stolen it for you, had I known you were interested." His voice was muffled by the door to the lumber room down the hallway, and I heard thumps and a crash.I raised my voice a trifle more than mere volume required. "I'm interested because she was. Both of them, come to that--Damian's art is infused with mystic symbols and traditions."Holmes' voice answered two inches away from my ear, making me jerk and spray a handful of maps across the floor. "Religion can be a dangerous thing, it is true," he remarked darkly, and went out again.

You cannot help being a female, and I should be something of a fool were I to discount your talents merely because of their housing.

Life has ill-prepared me for finding any enjoyment in a press of merrymakers.

I undid the wrappings with great curiosity, for Holmes did not normally give gifts. I opened the dark velvet jewller's box and found inside a shiny new set of picklocks, a younger version of his own. "Holmes, ever the romantic. Mrs. Hudson would be pleased.