A Study in Sherlock

by Laurie R. King

  Simms peered down at his vest in dismay and hastened to correct the buttoning problem.

  “I thought you said they were here to help,” Alice said to the sheriff. “I really don’t think an itemized list of my brother’s sartorial mishaps is what we were hoping for.”

  Sheriff Anderson ignored her and invited us to take seats near the fire, then began to tell us about the case. “At six this morning, Colonel Harris, an early riser, had breakfast with his son.”

  “His so-called son,” Alice interrupted.

  “If you please, Miss Alice!” the sheriff snapped.

  She sighed dramatically, then fell silent.

  “I should explain,” the sheriff said, “that the colonel had only recently been reunited with his son. It seems that during the colonel’s service in the previous war—er, well—I should say, the war with Spain.”

  “Ah, yes,” Slye said. “The ‘splendid little war.’ He fought in Cuba.”

  “Yes,” the sheriff said. “Not a Rough Rider, but with the regular army. A major at that time, then promoted again not long before he left the military. He had been in the cavalry since the Civil War.”

  “Bunny and I used to love to listen to his war stories,” Wishy said.

  “When we were children, yes,” Slye said. “But you were going to tell us about his son?”

  “Yes, of course,” the sheriff said. “The colonel has outlived his two sisters, his only siblings, but to the surprise of their offspring, he recently revealed that while he was in Cuba, he married an American woman whose family had been living in Havana for some years.”

  Alice said, “Oh, no. We’ve known about the marriage for years. It was Uncle’s Tragic Love Story. At the ripe old age of fifty-three, he fell head over heels for his nurse—a dark-haired woman thirty years his junior—while he was delirious with yellow fever. Typical silly old man, wasn’t he? He recovered and was shipped back before he could make arrangements for her to join him. But here’s the thing—according to my uncle, she died there. I remember Mama saying it was for the best, or we would have been mortified by the spectacle he would have made of himself. For my own part, I thought it was good to know the old dickens had had a bit of fun.”

  “The colonel didn’t quite look at it in that way,” the sheriff said repressively. “He thought the woman he loved had died. Turns out, she didn’t. That is, not at that time. She gave birth to a son, and continued to live in Cuba until she died two years ago.”

  “Never contacting her husband—her wealthy husband—during those twenty years!” Alice said.

  “Nor bothering to divorce him,” the sheriff said. “And he didn’t make any effort to go down there and find her, now did he? Perhaps that hurt her. I don’t know. In any case, according to her son, she decided she didn’t want to leave Cuba or her family. She told him his father had died of yellow fever. We have no opportunity to ask her what her motives were, and it hardly matters now. As for the colonel’s wealth, her own family is extremely wealthy—wealthier than the colonel, by what the colonel told me. They own a sugar plantation.”

  Alice subsided.

  “Anyway,” the sheriff went on, “Robert—his son—was told on his twenty-first birthday that his father the soldier had not died of the fever, as Robert had long believed, but was alive and well. He was given some papers that helped him to track down the colonel—no difficult thing, after all. He came up here last year, and the colonel was delighted to meet him. Welcomed him into his home, couldn’t have been prouder.”

  “Look, we came over here several times to try to get to know Robert,” Anthony said. “Welcome him into the family, all that. We just became convinced he was a con man taking advantage of our uncle.”

  Anderson turned to give a hard stare to the Simmses. “He told me himself that he had no doubt that Robert was his son, but that his nephews and niece weren’t taking it too well.”

  “Nephews?” Wishy said. “Plural?” He looked around as if expecting to find another of the colonel’s relatives hiding behind a chair.

  “My men are still looking for Carlton Wedge, his other nephew.”

  “Carlton Wedge!” Wishy said. “Now I look at you, Mr. Simms, I see a family resemblance—no insult intended. You could knock me over with a feather. Never knew he and the old man were related!”

  “Well, Uncle really hasn’t been part of our lives until recent years,” Alice said. “Our mother and Carlton’s were much younger than the colonel. He was their half brother—after his mother died, our grandfather married a much younger woman.”

  “Apples not falling far from trees,” Slye murmured to me.

  “My uncle was a grown man, out west fighting Indians when his sisters were born,” Alice went on. “He was hardly ever home. So the family has never been what one might call close-knit. But in the last five years or so, my uncle has been doing his best to change that.”

  “Carlton Wedge,” Wishy repeated. “Can’t think how one would find him. Gambled away the homestead years ago.”

  “Before the Volstead Act,” Slye said, “one would merely have to ask which bar was doing the most business. Now I suppose it will be necessary to search for him in speakeasies.”

  “As we mentioned to the sheriff,” Alice said, “Carlton also drives a Model T.”

  “No help. So do tens of millions of other Americans.” He turned to the sheriff. “Where is Robert Harris? Er—I assume the newly found son is using the colonel’s surname?”

  “Yes. As for where he is—he is in Mercy Hospital, fighting for his life.”

  This announcement drew astonished gasps from Hanslow and me, but Slye only said, “As fascinating as these family histories are, I see we have interrupted you too often. Would you please give us the tale from the beginning?”

  “Yes, certainly. As I said, the colonel and his son, Robert, had breakfast at six this morning, then spent time together in the colonel’s study. Rawls believes they were going over some business papers—apparently the colonel has been including Robert in more and more of his business dealings. The phone rang at eight, and the colonel answered it himself, as is his custom. Then both gentlemen hurried from the house without telling any of the servants where they were bound. They left in the colonel’s Model T.

  “Shortly before nine o’clock, the housekeeper looked out from one of the upstairs windows. Though it was raining, she caught a glimpse of the colonel’s car returning, coming up the road through the woods. She made her way downstairs, to tell the cook that the gentlemen would soon be back, and might want something to eat. But the gentlemen did not enter the house.”

  He paused, then said, “She is getting on in years, and visibility was limited, so perhaps she was mistaken about the vehicle, because a short time later, Mr. Simms and his sister arrived. They tell me their uncle had asked them to come here, to speak to them about Carlton.”

  “Carlton had called him in a drunken rage,” Alice said. “Threatened him. Said he was convinced Robert was a fraud, pretending to be someone he couldn’t possibly be.” She looked pointedly toward Wishy, who was busily writing notes. Hearing her pause, he looked up. She smiled at him in the way a shark might smile at a sardine, then said to Slye, “I hasten to add that Uncle wasn’t in the least afraid of Carlton—in fact, he’s rather fond of him. But he thought it was time to have the dear boy committed to a sanitarium.”

  “Sheriff Anderson,” Slye said, “have you asked Rawls about this threatening call?”

  “Yes. He confirms that the colonel not only received a call from Mr. Wedge yesterday, but that two days earlier, Mr. Wedge, while in an inebriated condition, attempted to visit him. The colonel barred him from the house, told him to sleep it off in the horse barn, and, according to Rawls, added that he’d better not show his face around here again until he’d gained some sense. But he also added that the colonel was embarrassed about Mr. Wedge, and never discussed him with the staff.”

  “Mr. Simms, did you know of this drunken visit?”
r />   Anthony Simms glanced at his sister, then shook his head.

  “No. Shocking.”

  “He mentioned it to me,” Alice said. “Sorry, darling,” she said to Anthony. “I should have told you.”

  “Interesting,” Slye said. “But we are interrupting again. Sheriff, please do continue.”

  The sheriff consulted his notes. “Shortly after the Simmses arrived, a delivery truck from the village grocer drove up to the back of the house. Normally the boy would have been here early in the morning, but the storm made him decide to make deliveries to his customers who lived on less well maintained roads before those lanes became impassable. He had been delayed all the same, and a lucky thing that turned out to be. The housekeeper, certain that she had seen the colonel’s car, wondered if he might have had a flat tire, or some other problem. The young man told her he had seen the Rolls, some distance ahead of him, but not the colonel’s Model T. But he promised the housekeeper that he’d keep an eye out on his way back to the village.

  “The storm eased about then, and so as the delivery boy made his return trip, he looked down each of the lanes as he passed them. At the fourth such lane, he was greeted with a startling sight—young Mr. Harris, his face covered in blood, lying next to a car.

  “The boy hurried down the lane, thinking there had been a terrible accident, but the car appeared to be undamaged. He hardly gave it more than a glance, though, because when he got out of the truck and knelt next to Robert Harris, he saw that the colonel’s son had been shot.

  “I’ll say this for the lad—he had presence of mind. He looked around quickly, and seeing no sign of the colonel or anyone else, put Mr. Harris into his truck and drove as fast as he could toward the village—smart enough to figure out that the doctor would be there, rather than wasting time taking the wounded man back up here, where they’d only have to wait for the doctor to come up. The doctor did the best he could for him, then drove him to Mercy Hospital over in Tarrington.”

  “They’ve an excellent man there,” I said. “Dr. Charles Smith. We served together overseas. He’ll know what to do for such injuries.”

  “I’m glad to hear that—that’s the very man who’s caring for him. I’ve also got two of my deputies there to guard him, and to see if he can tell them anything once the doctor permits them to question him.”

  He rubbed a hand over his forehead, as if to clear his thoughts.

  “So while Robert Harris was being cared for by the medical men, I was called, and the boy took me back to the lane. I was quite anxious to find the colonel, of course. Unfortunately, although his car is there, he’s nowhere nearby.”

  “May I take a look at it?” Wishy asked.

  “Yes, I hope you will, because I must say there’s something—” He glanced at the Simmses and said, “We can discuss all this along the way.”

  He rang for Rawls, and asked him to fetch his deputies up from the kitchen, where they had been offered hot coffee and sandwiches.

  “Are we to be kept prisoner here, then?” asked Alice.

  “It’s best for now if you wait here, under guard. I would hate to see any further harm come to any member of your family.”

  “For our own protection, then?”

  “That, and because I feel certain I’ll have more questions for you.”

  “Can I at least stroll around the gardens now that the sun is out?”

  The sheriff hesitated, glancing at Slye, who gave the slightest shake of his head. “No, miss,” the sheriff said, “I can’t risk it. You’ll stay in this room, please, and if you have need, there’s a lavatory just across the hall. Should you need anything else, food or drink, just ring for Rawls and I’m sure he’ll bring it to you.”

  She pouted, but clearly saw she’d not win him over. Anthony tried to argue that they should at least be given the run of their own uncle’s house, but the sheriff, I was quickly learning, was a man who could assert his will when necessary.

  The trip to the lane where the car was still parked was brief but productive. Wishy wouldn’t hear of taking the Pierce-Arrow down the narrow muddy track, so we cautiously made our way on foot. Fortunately, the summer sun had been out for a little while, so at least we weren’t making the trip in the rain.

  The sheriff’s deputies posted there had made good use of their time, one staying with the car while three others searched the woods. “No sign of the colonel yet, sir,” the one at the car reported. “Though it seems obvious that poor young gentleman crawled out to the lane after being shot. We followed your orders and didn’t touch the car. Any idea when the fingerprint man will be here?”

  “Any time now.”

  I saw that Hanslow, when in his element, was not the idiot I had assumed him to be. He could not be dissuaded from mimicking what he believed to be Sherlock Holmes’s manner of investigating, making use of the magnifying glass, muttering to himself, and frowning a great deal. Slye several times had to point out that there was more than one way to interpret the tire tracks and boot marks Wishy observed in the mud. But these were mere preliminaries.

  When Aloysius Hanslow stopped playing at being the Great Detective and really looked at the vehicle mired in the lane, he did what none of the rest of us could do—and with a degree of confidence that transformed him. Some part of my brain registered this transformation, but not for long, for the shock of his pronouncement dislodged all other thought.

  “Dear me, Bunny!” he said. “This isn’t the colonel’s car!”

  Slye had an arrested look, as I’m sure we all did. Then he smiled and said, “Tell us how you know.”

  I couldn’t completely follow all that followed, but I could grasp that some sort of difference in radiators and other features of the machine itself were nothing compared to what one could learn simply by looking at—and smelling, through a window that was not quite closed—the interior of the automobile. “Bunny, this car was not owned by a man of the colonel’s disposition!”

  He was right. The car was strewn with wads of paper, bits of tinfoil wrappers, and empty bottles. It stank of cheap gin and emitted other unsavory odors of unmistakable but unnamable origins. I thought of the neat, well-kept home I had just been in and knew Wishy was absolutely correct.

  “Carlton’s?” Slye asked.

  Wishy surprised me by considering the question carefully as he put on a pair of gloves. “I believe so. Sheriff, you said you’ll have a fingerprint man up here soon?”

  “Yes, he’s on his way. But Aloysius, you know that Carlton’s fingerprints on his own car, if it is his car—”

  “Certainly—of no use. But if the fingerprints of the colonel and Mr. Robert Harris are on the inside of the vehicle—”

  “I don’t think anyone other than a driver has recently occupied this vehicle,” Slye said, peering in through a side window. “The seats are covered with too much detritus. At the very least, those wads of paper would have been crushed and flattened. I suspect if you are brave enough to look through them, you will find evidence that this is indeed Carlton’s Model T. In fact, I can see several envelopes addressed to him lying on the backseat.” He stepped away from the car. “Wishy, could a Rolls-Royce be driven down this lane?”

  “Not without damage to the paint. That’s why we left my car on the paved road.”

  “The grocery truck?”

  “It’s a Model T truck. No wider than this car.”

  “Confound it,” the sheriff said, “this only raises more questions! If this is Carlton’s car, then what happened to the colonel’s car? And if no passenger sat in this car, how did Mr. Robert Harris come to be here?”

  “Sheriff,” Slye said, “our answers are undoubtedly at the house. I’d like to return there as quickly as possible. Also, I’m afraid Carlton Wedge may be in some danger.”

  “My men are looking for him, I assure you. I intend to try to get the Simmses to be more forthcoming about his recent whereabouts.”

  With this we had to be satisfied.

  Once ba
ck at the colonel’s house, the sheriff went into the study to use the telephone, while Wishy, given specific instructions by Slye, walked toward the Silver Ghost. I followed Slye into the kitchen, where I frightened a young maid into giving a little scream. I begged the cook not to carry out her threat to beat some sense into the girl. Slye asked if Rawls and the housekeeper could be brought there without alerting the Simmses to the fact, which the maid readily agreed to.

  Slye questioned these two worthies about the arrival of the Simmses, thanked them, and strode outdoors. He stood gazing toward the outbuildings. Wishy hurried up to us. “You were right, Bunny. The floorboards are filthy. A shame, to muddy a car like that!”

  “I suspect they were rather rushed.” He paused, then said in one of the gentlest voices I had ever heard him use, “I’m afraid I must next look into the horse barn, Wishy.”

  “Oh,” Wishy said, turning pale.

  “Would you like to search the other outbuildings, while Max helps me there? Or report your findings to the sheriff?”

  “I’ll search the other buildings, if that’s quite all right.”

  “Most helpful,” Slye said.

  “Good, then.”

  We walked together toward the outbuildings. Hanslow studiously avoided looking at the horse barn. Before we had drawn very close to it, he said, “I’ll meet you back at the house, then. But if you should need me—you know I’ll come, Bunny.”

  Slye put a hand on his shoulder. “Never a doubt of it, Wishy.”

  Hanslow looked at me, for what was probably the longest period of time he had ever gazed directly at my face, then said to Slye, “You can tell him about her if you’d like. Understanding sort of fellow, Max.”

  “Yes, he is. Thank you, Wishy. See you in a bit.”

  “Oh—ah, Bunny, what am I looking for?”

  “You might come across a gun, muddy clothing, or some other important clue.”

  “Right!” He marched off with renewed purpose.

  Slye said nothing more until Wishy was out of earshot, then smiled at me. “You’ve had an honor bestowed on you, Max.”