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 small and feel of all those books.

I dislike the idea of a murderer employing children,’ said Holmes darkly. ‘It is, I agree, bad for their morals, and interferes with their sleep.’ ‘And their schooling,’ added Holmes sententiously.

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...

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

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...

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...

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.

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,...