A Study in Charlotte

I wondered if Dobson was nauseous, before he died. I’d never had a concussion before. Was nausea a symptom? Was it a symptom of arsenic poisoning?

That’s it, I thought. Holmes can come up with the next plan.

In the half-light, Bryony was a dark silhouette, all except the shining hair that fell across her face as she leaned down over me. She had a strange, hot electricity to her. I thought, in my confusion, that she might kiss me, or slap me across the face, that she would pick up the pillow and smother me with it.

But she put a cool hand to my forehead instead. “Get some rest, Jamie, so you can see that girl of yours again tomorrow,” she whispered, her breath hot on my face. “The other nurse will be in first thing.” She gathered her things and left.

I didn’t even try to sleep. Instead, I stayed up listening to the quiet clock of my heart, wondering every moment if I was about to stop breathing. I’d been careless with my life, I knew I was, but if I died tonight, I was going to be furious. I debated texting Holmes a thousand times. If I was wrong, I’d look like an idiot.

Around dawn, I threw the water glass to the floor, needing to hear something shatter. It was plastic. It bounced. When the morning nurse came in—an older woman with round Midwestern vowels—I was shivering with the effort to stay awake.

But she washed and filled the same cup, gave me pills that matched the ones I’d taken earlier. She made some crack about how I looked as if I’d been chased through hell, and I was overcome with the sensation that I was missing something, something huge.

WHEN I FINALLY GOT SIGNED OUT OF THE INFIRMARY, IT WAS dinnertime. Mrs. Dunham insisted on escorting me back to my room.

“Now get into bed,” she said, waiting with crossed arms until I did. “I’ve already talked to Tom, and he’s going to bring you something back from the dining hall. I want you to call me if you need anything, or if you start feeling terrible, and we’ll get you right to the hospital.”

“Yes, Mrs. Dunham,” I said unhappily. I was horribly ripe—I hadn’t showered since before rugby practice—and starving, and ragged at the edges from my all-night vigil, and I just wanted to be left alone.

She bustled around, gathering extra blankets for my bed and picking Tom’s clothes up from the floor. “I got special permission for an after-hours visit, if you’d like to see Charlotte.”

“Thanks. I don’t really need anything else,” I said, because she was genuinely sweet, and she wasn’t showing any signs of leaving.

“I love that you two are friends,” she said. “Those stories were my favorite when I was younger.”

I smiled tightly at her. It was terrible, the way my stomach contracted at that sentence. I’d used to love hearing people talk about the Sherlock Holmes stories, and now I couldn’t help making anyone who mentioned them to me into a suspect. “They were mine too.”

When Tom returned, he was juggling a sandwich, a pair of apples, and a cup of hot cocoa. “There you are,” he said, arranging it all on my desk with a flourish. “I heard you ate it pretty hard at practice. Incredible catch, though, according to Randall.”

I tore into the sandwich. “How are you? How are things with Lena?”

“She’s good. What’s Charlotte paying her off for? Lena’s, like, rolling right now.”

“That’s from poker,” I said, mouth full. I wanted to leave the investigation behind at least long enough to get through dinner.

“Well, are you and Charlotte still prime suspects?” he asked, pulling over a chair.

I shrugged. It hurt to. “Can we talk about something else? What did I miss in my history class? I got all my other assignments.”

His face fell. “Nothing really,” he said, and waited, as if he expected me to cave and tell him all about my adventures. I wished he knew how stressful and humiliating those adventures actually were. It wasn’t my job to educate him on that, though, so I let the conversation die, crunching into one of the apples he’d brought. Eventually, Tom gave up on me.

Holmes swung by an hour later. Thankfully, I’d had a chance to shower. “How’s the patient?” she asked as she perched on the edge of my bed.

I was always suspicious of Holmes in a good mood. “Has someone else been killed?” I asked, only half-joking.

She smiled at me. “Better. Try again.”

Without turning around, Tom tugged out one of his earbuds, then the other. I don’t know why it annoyed me so much, his clumsy attempt at spying. Maybe I was done being grist for the gossip mill. I lifted an eyebrow in his direction to tip Holmes off, but she’d already noticed. She whipped out her phone.

“I’ve got a date,” she announced, texting furiously. My phone lit up silently on the bed between us, and I craned my neck to see. Apparently Wheatley’s brother keeps snakes in NJ.

“Where’d you find the guy? Craigslist? The sewers?” Any missing? I texted back.

Shepard’s running it down. “Funny. You’re funny. Look, I thought tomorrow you could help me write a poem for him. Maybe show it to Mr. Wheatley tomorrow after class, get his opinion?” Interrogate him.

Why don’t you? “Love poems? It sounds serious.”

“Oh, quite. He’s dreamy.” Because you’re his student. He doesn’t know me. She swung her legs off the bed. Furtively, she fished a chocolate bar out of her coat pocket and slid it onto the desk. It was a Cadbury Flake; she must’ve ordered it online. I don’t know how she knew it was my favorite. “Feel better,” she said, smiling crookedly at me, and then slipped out of the room.