Chasing Portia Adams

Desperation

It takes me ten minutes to shake free of the massive constable, and then another ten to calm down enough to decide on my course of action.

I pace back and forth 20 yards from my prey, my stomach growling and my patience wearing thin.

"I warrant he's warming up to her." A constable says to a Captain as they walk by my position. I reach into my purse to pull out a well-worn compact, pretending to dab at my nose as I listen in.

"Well Dawes can talk about nothing else but her, so I suppose that's bound to rub off."

"You don't agree?"

"I agree that she's a doll to look at, but so what that she lives at Baker Street?"

My ears perk up. Baker Street?

"That don't make her Sherlock Holmes." The Captain says with a nod, and they step through the cordon.

I take off at a run, headed for the nearest tube stop. With any luck, I can get home, get supper on the table for the boys and be back out at Baker Street before Portia Adams gets home.

The tube is busy, but I make good time, opening my front door 45 minutes later.

"You should share!"

"No, you ate yours already!"

I sigh, removing my jacket and placing it on the hook before following the raised voices to the kitchen. My twin 12-year-old brothers are wrestling in the kitchen, and they take almost a minute to realize my presence.

"Annie!" Liam chirps, the older of the two by almost seven minutes. He leaps off his brother to stand awkwardly in front of me. 

"Liam." I reply, my arms crossed at him as I glare down at him, "Explain yourself."

Larry answers instead, as he gets to his feet, brushing the dust off his hand-me-down uniform, "He ate his cookie, and now he wants mine."

"Mine was smaller." Liam reports, his chin quivering.

I sigh again, this time reaching for my apron and tying it about my waist, "Mrs. Winson made those cookies, and she had no reason to hand one of you a bigger or a smaller one."

"But I'm hungry," Liam confesses.

"So am I!" Larry says.

My brothers look up at me and my heart aches a little. We have been living on the bare minimum this past week. With our father working in Canada and sending money back our way, my job at the newspaper kept us afloat. But now that I had no real source of income, we had to stretch that one income from father much further.

"Tell me what we have to work with tonight, and then we'll talk about how you two can get back into my good graces."

They scamper off to gather the meagre groceries they managed to trade or buy. When they're not in school, Liam and Larry travel all over London on foot looking for the best food they can buy at the cheapest price. They trade item for item, a handful of potatoes for a can of beans. That can of beans for a chicken leg.

Today their booty is very small, a pile of mushrooms that are dried almost beyond recognition, a small lump of white cheese and a mouldy bun.

Instead of despair, I project excitement, "Well this will make a nice creamy soup! Larry, get me a few herbs from the drawer, and Liam, you get me the last of those mashed potatoes - I'll use it to thicken the soup."

A half hour later, I'm ladling soup into two bowls, the boys fairly drooling on the table. 

"I already ate," I explain, before they can ask where my bowl is, and that is all they need to dive into the meal. I turn towards the sink to wash up the dishes. Maybe Mrs. Winson will drop by with more cookies before I'm forced to actually take food from the mouths of my own brothers.

Sated, I set the boys to finish their homework at the kitchen table, promising to be home to check over their sums before they go to bed.

I head back out to take the tube down to Baker Street. Portia Adams is my ticket out of this situation, and there are two boys depending on me to convince her to help me.

An hour later I'm starting to reconsider my plan. I can't feel my feet or hands, and I think the lack of food in my system is making me drowsy.

"Miss Coleson, whatever are you doing out here?" Says a voice, breaking through my sleepy thoughts.

I lift my head to recognize the person I have been waiting for and manage to say  "Waiting for you, of course!" 

She reaches down and takes my elbow, holding it secure while she unlocks the front door I have been leaning against. Then she pushes me up the stairs without another word, opening the door to what I must assume is her apartment. I stand at the front door as she immediately goes to her fireplace and starts the fire. My eyes are all over the room. So this is where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solved so many crimes! And where London's newest consulting detective will hang her shingle.

"Come in, please," she says, now standing over her small stove where she has set a kettle to boil.

I force my frozen limbs to move, pulling off my coat and hat, tucking my gloves into the pockets and placing everything on a hook near the door.

There are small dots in front of my eyes but I straighten my back to walk over to the two comfortable chairs in front of the fire. I just manage to lower myself into one of them when my legs give out. A glance at my hostess but her back is turned.  I wonder how much longer I can keep my pathetic condition from her. She sweeps back in front of me, her braid long and loose now that she wears no hat, and puts a blanket over my lap, and then brings over a tray of tea and cups.

Part of me wants to burst into tears when she presses the warm teacup into my hands but my pride won't let me. I must maintain control. I need her respect if I am to convince her to work with me.

"Now, Miss Coleson, tell me that you were not waiting outside my home since I last saw you — I can already surmise that it was more than an hour."

I decide there's no benefit to answering that question, so instead I say "I needed to talk to you, Miss Adams, and I couldn't find you at the college, so I came here. I left, had a bit of tea, came back, and left again to warm up, and then came back again, I knocked, but no one answered the front door." 

"Surely it could have waited for tomorrow?" She says in a tone a teacher might have used on an unruly child. "Especially when I did not immediately turn up?"

"I would have spoken to you at the docks if not for the interference of that odious sergeant!" I answer, the tea warming my belly, her words heating my wrath. "A month ago he was very helpful when he thought he was the subject of my article, but as soon as I began asking questions about you, he became most unreasonable ... to the point that ... well, you saw what happened today!"

I add two teaspoons of sugar to my tea before taking another heavenly sip. It's been months since I had access to sugar. 

She must have noticed my enjoyment because she asks "Miss Coleson, forgive my asking, but when was the last time you ate?"

Damnit. I have to remember that I'm dealing with a detective here. "I told you, I had a tea about an hour ago at The Orchid, down the street."

"Your last full meal, Miss Coleson?" She says.

Instead of answering I cast my eyes around the room. "When the college told me your relationship with Dr. Watson, I wondered if the rumors about you were true. Is it your immersion in this place where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solved so many mysteries that makes you so observant? Or is it truly in the blood, as your classmates believe? How well do you know the Watsons? Have you been over to the doctors' estates?"

I sensed annoyance in her face, but before I could enjoy turning the tables on her, she turned towards her front door. She sprang up from her seat and walked down the stairs where I could hear her speaking with someone else.

I spooned another bit of sugar into my cup and refreshed my tea as I strategized. Putting a source on the defensive was not usually a tactic I used, but Portia was not a normal target. She asked more questions than she answered, and would need to be convinced that she needed my help.