The Woman Who Kissed Sherlock Holmes

"You'll be interested to hear that I am engaged."

"My dear fellow! I congrat -"

"To Milverton's housemaid."

"Good heavens, Holmes!"

"I wanted information, Watson."

"Surely you have gone too far?"

"It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising business, Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have talked with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I wanted. I know Milverton's house as I know the palm of my hand."

"But the girl, Holmes?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"You can't help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as best you can when such a stake is on the table. …"

She could not have known how Charles Milverton made his money. A intelligent blackmailer picks servants as dumb as they come, and this one could give Marilyn Monroe lessons in acting clueless.

Still, Marilyn's dumb blondes were smart flirts, and Milverton's housemaid had that look of being wiser than she looked.

"You are the only woman in Dr. Watson's memoirs who kissed Sherlock Holmes," I began. "You were engaged, so you must have kissed."

"I didn't know he was Sherlock Holmes at the time. I thought he was Charlie Escott with a good plumbing business. If I had, I might've insisted on him marrying me."

"Or sued him for 'breach of promise'?"

"Oh, no! I'd want him, not his money. So masterful! And what a kisser!"

I had to ask. "He was good?"

She grinned like a kid who discovers hidden cake. "Was he! Lips. Mouth. Hands and …" She winked. "Let's just say he wasn't off me."

I was dumbfounded. That good? Sherlock Holmes? I thought he dismissed the 'fair sex' to Watson.

"He was ever so insistent," the housemaid said, simpering. "But ever so nice. We'd walk out every evening and he'd buy me treats and take me to supper at Lyon's Corner House, and to the 'alls to see Vesta Tilley and Dan Leno perform. And late at night … Oooh! It was scrumptious bein' with him!" She hugged herself, her eyes shining. "Eight days after we met he proposed and I said 'yes'."

"I should've known he was a toff right off," she confided. "None of my other swains were so free with pampering and kisses. He right swept me off my feet. And so interested in all I said and did. He wanted to know all how I worked and where. So insistent to see every single room I been in." She giggled and repeated, "Every. Single. Room."

I caught on, and my breath nearly cut off. Sherlock Holmes in a woman's bedroom? I saw the movie; but … well, Holmes disliked and distrusted women. Dr. Watson said so. And Holmes was a gentleman. Wasn't he?

He said the stakes were high but would he play that deep a game?

The housemaid slowly licked her lower lip.

He did. It made sense. She would have demanded payment against the risk of Milverton sacking her for showing him around his house. A lover was excellent security; a fiancé even better.

"He jilted you," I reminded her.

Her face fell. She bit her lip. "It hurt." Then she brightened. "But Joe, my steady, was so miffed at being cut out that he perked up his attentions and now I'm engaged to him."

"But he's no Sherlock Holmes," she sighed.