Chapter 1 THREE FRIENDS Would you believe that I was the first and only girlfriend of Sherlock Holmes the famous detective When we met though he wasn't a detective yet And he wasn't famous I was twelve and he was only a little older than me It was summer the sixth of July to be exact And I can still remember perfectly the time I first met him He was sitting in a corner on top of the city walls his back up against the creeping ivy In the sky above him seulls circled in slow spirals There was nothing beyond him but the sea an endless expanse of dark and sparkling blue Sherlock had his chin resting on his knees and he was completely absorbed in reading a book He was almost scowling at it as if the world depended on him finishing it I don't think he would have even noticed me if I hadn't spoken to him Since I'd just come to Saint Malo I asked him if he lived here No he said without even taking his eyes off his book I live in a house Forty nine Rue Saint Sauveur What a strange sense of humor I thought Of course he didn't live on top of a wall by the sea I knew that a battle of wits had just begun between us
I wasn't from the city of Saint Malo I'd only just arrived after a long carriage ride from Paris We were on vacation and staying there had been my mother's idea I was excited Until then I'd only seen the sea a few times when I'd gone with Papa to Calais where he took the ship to England I'd seen it once in Sanremo in Italy too but my parents said I was too young to remember that But I did remember it I really did So the idea of spending all of the summer of 1870 at a seaside resort was wonderful And my father had even said that we could stay longer if we wanted to So even though I eventually had to go back to school this was going to be a nice and long summer And it turned out to be the summer that changed my whole life The trip to Saint Malo had been terrible The problem wasn't the carriage which my father had spent a lot of money to hire as he always did when he was looking after my mother and me It was a carriage fit for a king with four black horses a coachman with a top hat and seats covered with silk cushions Even still the six hour trip under the watchful gaze of Mama and Mr Nelson made it seem like an eternity Mr Horatio Nelson was our butler He was very tall very quiet and seemed very concerned about every little thing I did The rest of the servants had left the week before to prepare our summer house for us Mr Nelson was the only one who'd stayed back And he never took his eyes off me He always seemed to be about to say to me Perhaps it is not appropriate for a lady to behave that way
Miss Irene Perhaps it is not appropriate Miss Irene I thought Mr Nelson always said that whenever I was doing anything fun And that was probably why at the first chance I got I escaped from our summer house and climbed up the winding path to the top of the city walls Our vacation home had two floors Although it was small it was very pretty with a big skylight in the roof and bigger bow windows which I used to call boat windows when I was little There was a trellis covered in ivy that crept all over the walls When we first got there my mother said Heavens That ivy will be just full of animals It took a few days before I realized what she'd meant I'd left my bedroom window open one night and the next morning Mr Nelson found a snake slithering across the floor Perhaps it is not appropriate Miss Irene to leave the window open at night Mr Nelson had said sternly entering my room He'd then taken the poker from the fireplace and began to walk toward the snake Please don't kill it Mr Nelson I'd cried Mr Nelson then sighed put the poker down and grabbed the snake in his hands Then I shall politely escort our little guest to the garden Mr Nelson was a grumpy man but he always knew how to make me laugh
