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

Regarding the Events of One
Sherlock’s Scandalous St. Valentine’s Day
    Christine Danse
     
    Published by Christine Danse at
Smashwords
     
    Copyright 2010 Christine Danse
     
    Cover design by Christine Danse, using
Artweaver and Picnik.com
    Photograph of woman by
Patryk Choiński, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1294218
    Photograph of cog by Martin
Walls, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/385418
    Photographs used under this
image 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 on
Valentine's Day to find the door ajar, my wife missing, and a note
waiting for me on the mantelpiece.
    I was holding a bouquet of brilliant blue
violets, Annette's favorite. I had picked them up from a small girl
on the street corner during my rush home from the Sherlock office.
Annette and I had reservations for dinner. I expected to come home
to 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 by
a wave of guilt and another, more frightening thought: that she had
been kidnapped for ransom. Or perhaps she was playing a game.
Perhaps she had simply left on an errand and absentmindedly left
the door ajar behind her, as she was wont to do.
    I approached the
mantelpiece rather like it was a bristling mastiff ready to spring
and bite me at any moment. With trepidation, I read the note. It
simply read, Find me .
    A game, then! A flood of relief and
irritation washed all of the thoughts of fear and guilt from me.
What a saucy, terrible girl. Perhaps I should have married a
gentler, more obedient woman. I shook my head. No, no one could
replace Annette in my heart. She had me by the drawstrings, I'm
afraid.
    The note was just that: a piece of paper
torn from her stationary with words written in her peculiar
shorthand. There was nothing else new or amiss on the mantelpiece.
She evidently wanted me to use my Bell detective skills to find
her. She was very clever. Though I was secure in my skills as a
Sherlock, I actually worried that she might outwit me.
    I took the note to the
kitchen and cranked the dynamo lamp to better analyze it. I
observed a tiny smudge of grease on the page. In the dimness of the
sitting room, I had missed it at first. Indeed, on one of the torn
back corners appeared a small spot that had the distinctive odor of
engine grease. A quick trip upstairs to our bedroom confirmed my
suspicion: My spare station keys were missing from their hiding
spot. 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. Without
a doubt, she was at the police engine room. If she was
discovered--with my unauthorized spare keys, nonetheless!--I could
be out of a job. I took up my cane and the bouquet of violets and
set off at once for Scotland Yard.
    The Bell detectives had a contract with the
station to operate the analytical engines at night, so it was not
uncommon to find one or more Sherlocks loitering there, smoking
pipes and reviewing casework by gaslight. Tonight, to my relief, I
found the station windows dark and the door firmly locked. If
Annette was here, then she had at least taken more care with
securing this door than ours at home.
    I found the engine room to be just as quiet
and dark as the front room. However, when I approached the last of
the three silent engines, I found that a halo of heat that bespoke
very recent use still surrounded it. (The other two had already
grown cold after the day's work.) I looked in the