A Study in Abstruse Detail

by Wendy C. Fries

“Good heavens, Watson, out with it already!”

It is a mark of my state of mind that at first I didn’t hear my friend Sherlock Holmes, instead interpreting those words as my own frustrated thoughts.

It wasn’t until a lean shadow cast itself over my work, and I looked up to see his scowling face looking down, that I realised he’d spoken.

I glanced at the papers in my lap, most with but a few notes, then scowled back at my companion. The January evening was cold, the fire burnt low, and I - too aware of Holmes’s opinion on my record of his exploits - was in no mood to be chivvied again for my devotion to these “fairytales.”

“I’m out of sorts and mumbling to myself. It’s nothing.”

Holmes collapsed into the chair across from me, peered over his steepled fingers. “My dear fellow, you’ve tapped out and recharged your unlighted pipe twice in thirty minutes, hoisted an empty brandy glass three times, and, most tellingly, taken four deep breaths and held them for long seconds at a time.”

Already discontent, I took nothing of my usual delight in Holmes’s attentions, so I’m afraid my reply was snappish. “And what of it? The surgery was dull, I don’t much care for my new tobacco, and all this snow has given me a chill.”

Holmes patted his chair and then himself, eventually unearthing a packet of shag, which he tossed to me. “You’re writing, Watson,” he accused. “Or rather, those are your tells when you’re not.”

Despite what my friend might say, I do see and observe, so I’ve both seen Holmes pick up my accounts of his adventures, and observed his frown as he scans the prose. I tossed the shag back to him and was about to make a bad thing worse, arguing for the sheer distraction of it, when Holmes stood again.

He moved with the quick and economic stride he so frequently uses to cover a crime scene, but that energy was this time expended in refilling our glasses with brandy. He glanced at my papers as he handed me mine. “Those are your notes for the Smith-Mortimer succession. What will you call this escapade?”

I recognised his solicitous tone. It was the same one he uses to relax over-excited clients, and I was resentful in the face of it. “That’s just it! It wasn’t an escapade at all, you barely rose from your chair or finished that terrible brew Scotland Yard has the nerve to call coffee!”

As I ranted, Holmes wandered to our dining table, peering at an experiment that looked to me like an effort to grow dirt.

“True enough, it was a very simple matter, even more so than that business with the Harpsichord Widow - really, who wouldn’t have noticed the woman had no stoop? I expected more from Inspector Gregson. I don’t know why I’m forever surprised by the incompetence of London’s detective class.” Holmes poked at the loamy black culture with his finger, then jerked it away at the sound of a faint hiss. With a pencil he pushed the vicious flora into the bin. “Present company excepted.”

I recognised this solicitous tone, as well. It was the same one my companion uses when he’s bored and wants distraction. I was about to take him to task for this obvious manipulation when I realised the bin was on fire.

“Holmes, the bin is on fire.”

Before my companion could answer, I rose and upended my half cup of cold tea over the small blaze; a puff of smoke followed. I watched the grey cloud drift and felt sure I was about to channel its darkness, taking Holmes to task for his carelessness, when instead we both broke into gales of laughter.

Minutes later we were in repose again, me with my papers, Holmes slumped like a discontented idler in his chair. When possessed by his nearly-frantic energy, Sherlock Holmes’s limbs are a whirlwind and it is all I can do to stay at his heels. When the torpor is on him, I have more than once given in to the impulse to see if he is breathing. By his splay-legged slouch, I knew an east wind of such discontent was coming, so decided my trifling problems could provide us both suitable distraction.

“If you’ve nothing pressing, I’ll tell you what I have so far.”

I gestured to Holmes for his tobacco pouch, which he dutifully sailed my way. “I seem to have accidentally murdered my black mould, and it’ll be a few hours yet before the Mayflies hatch, so my schedule is yours. Share with me your fairytale, dear Watson, and I’ll do my best to supply it with a few cold, hard facts.”

Holmes hoisted his glass and I read aloud my evening’s endeavours.

“‘Ah ha!’ cried Holmes.”

I relit my pipe and waited.

Holmes gestured for the tobacco, which I tossed back to him. He smiled sly as he refreshed his briar. “Well done, you’ve pared back from your usual florid embellishments.”

Rejecting the bait, I continued. “The problem as I see it, is that the case itself was solved so quickly that there’s really nothing to it, yet I’ve been often asked about your involvement in this one, due to the famous lady involved.”

Holmes waved his spent match, tossed it into the fire. “The morbid curiosity of gossips who feel ever justified in hounding the exceptional.”

I won’t go into whether Holmes’s bitterness came from knowing this truth, for indeed the ordinary often think they have “a right to know” about the lives of the extraordinary - and Miss Mortimer was certainly that - or if his rancour was more personal.

“If you’d rather I not share these curious cases and how they highlight your talents, I promise you I’ll cease this instant.” I rose with my papers and stepped to the fire.

I have mentioned that Sherlock Holmes is sensitive to flattery, and he himself admits how much he enjoys the attention when a case affords the occasional dramatic moment, so I wasn’t surprised when he waved his hand in the air.

“Oh, sit back down and stop encouraging my vanity. I understand why you share some of our adventures, adventures which might show the ease with which even the complex can be understood, but why this particular case? If I recall, we were at that same time sorting out the much more interesting problem of the Hammersmith Wonder.”

While Holmes aimed blue smoke ceiling-ward I again took my chair. “Yes, but Mr. Vigor was neither rich, famous, nor a legendary beauty. Miss Mortimer was all three and was followed by many behind-the-hand whispers in her day. Your readers - “

“Your readers,” Holmes corrected airily.

“My readers of your adventures have more than once taken me to task for mentioning but not detailing some of your more abstruse cases. And the many I don’t mention at all are themselves mentioned by the press. For their absence I’m also lectured.”

“An ungrateful public is a terrible thing,” said Holmes, grinning.

“Laugh, but you can’t deny it, if left to your own devices these two words-” I waved the small sheaf, “-would be the only colour in your report of Miss Mortimer’s case. Yet what you call my florid embellishments are often nothing more than your method made clear.”

Holmes swirled a long finger through a lazy cloud of smoke. I noted that his inflammatory mould had left a chemical burn and rose to fetch my bag.

“Then forget the Smith-Mortimer problem. That was the matter of noticing one or two abstruse details, as you say. How about ‘The Affair of the Shooting Star’ or ‘The Conk-Singleton Forgery’?” he asked when I returned to treat his blistered finger.

“You know perfectly well that publishing anything of the first would lose a Lord his parliamentary seat, and an account of the second would take even less time to tell than Miss Mortimer’s story. You solved that when Mr. Singleton said his watch had stopped at thirteen hundred and not at one pm. You’re being no help.”

Holmes conceded every fact with an insouciant shrug. “There’s that matter of the Venomous Lizard. A fascinating array of chemicals in lizard venom,” he said, inspecting his neatly-dressed wound.

“Really now! A murderously toxic creature that turned out instead to be perfectly harmless, unmasked in seconds when you tickled it with a feather.”

Holmes chuckled, as if he himself had been poked with a bit of plumage. “I knew a herpetologist in Soho and once did a rather unsystematic study of her menagerie, which consisted of fifty-seven distinct species, including both the highly-toxic Gila monster and the beaded lizard. Each creature has a forked tongue, so it was but a matter to tickle the accused in this particular case and get it to stick out its blue, bulbous one at us.”

Holmes sighed dramatically, as if unfairly put upon. “Oh, you’re right as always, Watson. Sit down again and we’ll craft things so that the Smith-Mortimer Succession offers a moment of distraction to your readership. Now refresh my mind on the case, would you? This January blizzard’s wiped away its particulars completely.”

Whether Holmes was truthful in his forgetfulness, “my” readers no doubt remember the extensive press given this case at the time, involving as it did a distinguished family and the right of succession to their family fortune.

The last of the Smith-Mortimer line, Miss Mariam Penelope Caroline Mortimer, was once a familiar name to every reader of The London Leader and the Illustrated Courier, both of which followed the young lady’s world-travelling exploits, frequently spangling their pages with her elegant, cool-eyed image. That is, until Miss Mortimer disappeared from the City’s social whirl under mysterious circumstance.

The lady’s departure from the public eye of course aroused speculation and suspicion, from a love affair gone wrong, to behaviours too shameful to gossip about in polite company.

And then the poor woman was found dead in her large and lonely home, sitting in her favourite wingback chair, dressed for dinner and clutching new pearls. At first, foul play was suspected and once again Miss Mortimer was in every paper. It was soon discovered that criminal trespass had not cut the young lady’s life short at thirty-two, but a sadly weak heart, legacy of the Smith side of her clan.

Soon after, it was discovered that this last scion of a proud family had no family after her and, despite an extensive search for cousins, nephews or nieces, none were found. Aunts and uncles, parents of parents, all had long since passed. Hope of a successor was thought lost, and within a month a new beauty captured public attention.

Then, not quite two years after, Dr. Lealand Bentham, the Smith-Mortimer’s old family physician, sat nursing a gin at Simpson’s long bar and let slip a very interesting fact to a very interested man.

The fact given away was this: Young Miss Mariam had been deaf upon her passing. Her hearing loss had begun soon after her thirtieth birthday, the garrulous physician told the obliging man buying his expensive drinks, and it was this early-onset deafness - a legacy of the Mortimer side of her line - that had lead the young lady to withdraw from society.

That was when the interested man, he called himself Stephen Smith Larkyns, devised a plan: He would pose as a lost member of the Smith-Mortimer clan. He knew he bore a striking resemblance to Miss Mariam herself, a fact that acquaintances had more than once remarked upon. As a matter of fact, over years of reading newspaper accounts of the family, and once exchanging a word with its matriarch, Larkyns had become more than half-convinced he must be related, and so was justified in succeeding Miss Mortimer to the family’s fortune.

“Nothing gives a lie the varnish of truth quite like self-delusion, eh Watson? I remember the case now. Larkyns did indeed bear a striking resemblance to young Miss Mortimer, yet of course that wouldn’t have been proof enough. He couldn’t very well manifest the bad heart of the Smiths, but at all of twenty-six he did seem to suffer the early deafness of the Mortimers.”

“The executors of the estate suspected he was lying, as did Gregson,” I said. “They wanted only for a bit of proof, which you provided in seconds.”

Holmes’s small smile belied his words. “You give me too much credit, as usual. It was Inspector Lestrade who solved this particular case.”

“I’m sure he’d be surprised to hear you say so.”

“It’s true. You may have noticed the good inspector is quite tone deaf, and yet often amuses himself by humming, whistling, and turning perfectly serene environments into music halls.”

“He’s even more bombastic when he thinks he has one up on Gregson!”

“Just so. Which explains why the inspector was lurking that day, whistling away. He was sure Gregson was about to blunder and wanted to be near when he did. Of course it was Mr. Larkyns, alias Stephan Plum, Hampton Bishop piano teacher, who did the blundering.”

Holmes tapped out his pipe, placed it on the table beside him, then brushed stray ash from his dressing gown. After his housekeeping, he looked briefly thoughtful, then slumped in his chair, eyes closed, fingers laced over his heart, looking for all the world like a man settling down for a doze.

I checked my watch. It was only a bit past eight. As I’ve said, the winter night was cold and neither Holmes’s mood nor mine were at their highest. Yet, we’d lived long enough together to learn how to cope with one another’s fuss and foibles, so I knew that, with little more to do than wait for his Mayflies, Holmes craved distraction as much as I craved a good tale to tell.

I waved my papers until the rattling opened my friend’s eyes. “I was there, I’ve written down the climax of that blunder perfectly. ‘Ah ha!’ You unmasked the man easily, but I’m still not sure how.”

Holmes pretended for a moment longer that he preferred a catnap to clarification, then he straightened slightly in his chair.

“It was the E-flat, Watson! You remember that Mr. Larkyns insisted that, though deaf, he could read lips well. You saw after our initial written introductions that we spoke face-to-face? As it will, this put us in fairly close proximity. While he busily insisted on his veracity, Inspector Lestrade lurked in the background, repeatedly hitting an F-sharp in the popular ditty he was whistling, instead of the E-flat for which he should have been aiming. Each time he did this and only when he did this, Mr. Plum’s right ear shifted a fraction. It was after observing this that I realised how to prove our man could indeed hear. I quickly arranged what I needed, and then knew I need only depend on human reflex.”

“Well, Mr. Plum seemed to lack at least one of those. I’ve never seen a man with no startle reflex.”

I proved I had one when Holmes stood abruptly, shouting, “Agaricus gardneri!” No sooner had he risen than Holmes fell to his knees.

“Watson, move your knees!”

I bounded from my chair and Holmes immediately stuck his head under its skirting. He shouted, “My tea!” then reached out a long arm.

I handed him his half-empty cup, heard a triumphant crow, and then he emerged, smiling. “I was afraid my mushrooms had succumbed, but it seems luminous Agaricus gardneris is far more resistant to neglect than Mrs. Hudson.”

Now, it’s not uncommon for Sherlock Holmes to inform a room of his final deduction before he’s granted us knowledge of his first, but often I can belatedly follow his logic. This was not one of those times. “Mrs. Hudson?”

Holmes dusted his knees, handed me his empty tea cup, then sprawled languid into his armchair again. “Haven’t you noticed? When the clock went eight, our dear landlady started muttering. By a quarter past she began banging pots. By half eight her pique was so great she over-roasted the potatoes, which has only increased the muttering and the pots. Watson, we’ve again neglected to inform Mrs. Hudson when we want dinner.”

The kitchen noises were indeed much louder than usual, and I hastened to go apologise to our landlady, when Holmes waved a hand.

“Sit, sit, she’ll be up shortly and we can beg forgiveness then. We could no more prevent the dear lady from feeding us than we could hope to outwit every criminal in London.”

“Lord knows you keep trying to achieve both,” I said. While my friend laughed, I hesitantly approached my chair.

“It’s all right. I moistened the mushrooms with my tea. It’ll be interesting to see if a bit of milk fat fattens up the spores. Soon I’ll be able to add an even dozen Agaricus gardneri to the Kew herbarium’s sparse collection.”

I resisted the urge to peek under my chair and took my seat, jotting Agaricus gardneri in the margin of my notes, never sure when just such abstruse detail might be useful later. “So, you were about to tell me how human reflex gave that imposter Plum away.”

“I take it you thought it unusual that the man didn’t startle when Constable Margola snuck up behind him, dropping that weighty book on the floor?”

“I know how powerfully the human body will protect itself. The instinct to snatch your hand from a candle flame or jump at an unexpected noise is all but impossible to resist.”

Holmes tapped out his pipe, began cleaning the stem with a bit of wire. “‘Unexpected’ being the key! Constable Margola is an eighteen stone man. To be sure he moves with a rare grace, but you cannot be that large without affecting the things around you, even the air. Why do you think I became a consulting detective, Watson?”

Trusting this sudden deviation was driving a point home, I said, “Because you’re very good at it.”

“Precisely! My skill is for noticing small things, and for recognising when those things add up to something larger. The same goes for a man like Mr. Plum, who probably learnt early on that he had an exceedingly fine-tuned ear, that he could hear things others did not. Such as a student’s misstep on the keys of a piano, the stealthy tread of a heavy man, or the slight gust of air as a large book falls to the floor. In short, Plum was prepared for the sound, which is why he did not startle.”

“And this betrayed him?”

Holmes was now sitting fully upright. “A deaf man would have felt the vibration of that weighty tome striking the floor just behind him and turned - that same protective reflex of which you spoke. That Plum did not was all I needed. After I crowed ‘Ah ha!’ the man realised his error. His immediate and simple human reflex was guilt - which was the same as an admission.”

I sighed. “Of course! He could have passed off his error if he’d simply maintained his charade. It’s always so simple when you explain, and I’m surprised that that still surprises me.”

“Another human reflex, I expect,” said Holmes, who then took up his position of a half-hour previous, peering at me over the tips of his fingers. “Now you have your account drawn up, all it needs are the romantic embellishments.”

A harsh wind rattled the windowpanes and again the snow was falling thickly. I rifled through the notes in my lap. “On its own, the Smith-Mortimer Succession may be a bit short, perhaps we can flesh it out with another one of your small cases. What of that incident last week with the Grosvenor Square furniture van?”

Holmes slumped in his chair again. “Oh, Watson, I’m no help with these! That was so obvious, even the greengrocer suspected. I’ve no idea why the duchess came to me, though I was happy to pocket the fee. Barium of Baryta does not come cheap.”

“Well, what of the Account of the Red Room? The problem of the Marques of Breadalbane? The Case of the Misplaced Gavel? How about - “

When Holmes scowled and slumped further in his chair I knew he was moments from a serious brood that might have him reaching for a particular diversion for which I have no fondness. “You once mentioned the case of Vamberry, the wine merchant. I recently asked Inspector Lestrade about it.”

Holmes straightened in his chair the smallest bit, eyes narrowed. “Pray tell, what did the inspector say?”

“He said you solved the case because Vamberry was vain.”

Holmes sat straight up in his chair. “As ever the inspector does not see what’s in front of him waving the equivalent of semaphore flags! It was the smell of tar!”

As if that were that Holmes slumped again, and it was at this time Mrs. Hudson came in with a tray and pointedly did not look at either of us. She put a pot of tea on the crowded dining table, laying around it a Scandinavian repast of small plates. Beef, roast potatoes, bread, horseradish, pickled onions, sliced gherkins. She did this in silence, and in silence Holmes and I rose and came to the table. While I took my seat and made apologies for our neglect regarding supper, Holmes opened one of the innumerable drawers in his card cabinet and extracted a long packet, loosely wrapped in a pretty pale tissue paper.

“You are far more patient than we deserve Mrs. Hudson,” he said, holding the packet toward her, “We’ve been saving these for just such a moment. Please consider them one of many future apologies for our being such trying tenants.”

Mrs. Hudson looked at Holmes and then at myself. I mirrored Holmes’s expression. There was nothing else I could do. I had no clue what was in the package.

Mrs. Hudson looked at the thin packet with a wary eye, then unwrapped it. “Oh, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson!” she said, face quickly spangled in smiles. Pushing newspapers, magazines, and dinner plates out of the way, Mrs. Hudson spread the contents of the packet on the table. Those contents were these: Feathers. Dozens of gleaming feathers from chaffinches, siskins, kingfishers, herons, and peacocks.

Suddenly I remember what I had seen but not quite observed on upward of twenty journeys to and from crime scenes: Holmes snatching something up from ground or a shrub, then pocketing it. Feathers. For months he had been collecting feathers.

“We hope these will suit your millinery efforts dear lady, and have assurances from the veterinarian at Holland Park that when the white peacock drops his finery he will save that bounty for you.”

Mrs. Hudson looked from Holmes to myself again, then walked to the window. Shortly she buffed away a non-existent smudge on the glass, sniffing softly. After a few moments she nodded at us, collected her avian finery, said, “I already know just what to do with the chaffinch,” and left.

As we settled down to our dinner Holmes said, “I sometimes think that good human relations are like detective work. If you observe but the smallest thing about someone and then perform a kindness related to it, most people are touched out of all proportion to your efforts.”

As usual, Holmes seemed to underestimate the magnitude of his gifts. Instead of saying this, I thanked him for including me in his considerations to our dear landlady.

“Ah, but that’s a small apology offered to you as well, Watson, for not only am I a trying tenant, I’m aware I’m not the most common of flatmates,” my friend said, waving as if by example to the unseen mushrooms beneath my chair.

I did not tell Holmes it was just such small excitements that added the grace of colour to an often-dreary world.

“Pass the horseradish if you would Watson, and let’s hear more of Lestrade’s version of this story.”

I did as asked, claimed the gherkins, and continued retelling the tale of Vamberry the wine merchant, just as I would tell it to you, dear readers.

“Vamberry was the Spanish Infanta’s wine merchant, Mr. Holmes, reported to be her most loyal servant, above reproach, or so they thought until he scarpered with her small pleasure craft and only enough gold coin as he hoped would go unmissed!”

Sherlock Holmes stopped dead in the doorway of Scotland Yard.

“Sorry sir,” said Inspector Lestrade, hastening forward, “I didn’t mean to jump right in. We’re a bit eager to have a solution to this mess. You know how things stand with Foria.”

Sherlock Holmes followed Lestrade through Scotland Yard’s busy corridors. “Strained as always. The Forian royal family seem to find the rest of humanity a disappointment, just so many idlers and dilettantes.”

Lestrade gestured to a chair across from his desk, signaled a passing constable for coffee. Only once the steaming cups arrived did the men take a seat.

“I don’t know much about that, but I do know this mess might make a mess of diplomatic relations. We’ve promised to not only find out why Vamberry fled, but why to England.”

Holmes eyebrows rose and he replaced his cup upon its saucer. “Most interesting. The Infanta, like the Borgias from whom she descends, is famous for both her superb capacity to rule and her lack of sentiment to those who betray her. With a little effort, perhaps we can give the lady the answers she craves.”

“Well you’d be the man for that, Mr. Holmes.” Lestrade leaned across his desk, dropped his voice. “You may have noticed some of my men have a roughness about them. You employ softer ways, put people at their ease, and I’m afraid you will need that, as Mr. Vamberry is exceedingly tight-lipped. To be perfectly honest, I think we’d get more from a stone. Or at least another go at his boat.”

Holmes steepled his fingers. “Tell me about it.”

Lestrade shrugged, “The boat? Not much to tell. It’s one of those new-fangled vessels that can be sailed by one man, though roomy enough for two. A pretty thing, all full of gilt and carved follies. Apparently the Infanta once let Vamberry take his boy and hers out on it.”

“Interesting,” said Holmes, leaning forward in his chair.

Lestrade placed his hands on his knees, ready to respond to a sudden burst of energy. Certainly Mr. Holmes would ask to see the boat now, or the suspect, perhaps someone’s left shoe. It was never entirely clear where Sherlock Holmes would start an investigation, and so Lestrade had learned to expect anything.

What he got was nothing.

Instead of bounding to his feet, Sherlock Holmes leaned back, crossed his legs, and reached for the coffee that Lestrade had himself made - truly it was the only way to get a good cup.

While Lestrade is often startled by Mr. Holmes’s tendencies to dash about a crime scene, falling upon his belly and looking beneath carriage wheels, this precise opposite of his usual behaviour was frankly disappointing. However, Lestrade is not an inspector at Scotland Yard for nothing. He’s keen of eye and so he knew Sherlock Holmes was –

Holmes paused in pursuing a gherkin with his fork. “Did he call himself keen-eyed, Watson? Did he really?”

Even in her pique Mrs. Hudson makes a fine roast potato. I finished mine with relish, sipped some port. “Oh, he did indeed, as his retelling of the case advanced, both you and he gained ever-greater powers of cunning and deduction.”

Holmes laughed and then looked at me side-eyed. Suddenly it was I who did the deducing. “Yes, Holmes, be glad Inspector Lestrade is not your biographer, for by the end of any story he told, I suspect you’d be able to fly, and he the wind beneath your wings!”

Eventually we’d finished with our supper and our laughter. Port in hand, we again settled by the fire. Holmes doffed a hat he wasn’t wearing, “I find myself grateful for a restraint I never realised you show, dear biographer. Do please continue.”

“Well, Mr. Holmes, don’t you want to see the boat?” Lestrade asked. “As I said, we’ve gone over the craft carefully and found nothing.”

“Soon. Tell me, what do you think of the Infanta’s wine merchant?”

The inspector leaned over his desk again, keen to share his finely-observed opinions. “He will not look at any one of us, much less talk. I think there’s something sinister about Mr. Vamberry.”

“Why?”

“He’s arrogant! Not once has he addressed me by title or name, he simply says ‘you.’ He’s what I suspect you’d call imperious. He twice told me to fetch him tea. He’s treated my men as if they are here to buff his shoes. And when I told him we’d called you and who you are, he said you’d be no better than a dancing bear at finding what he never took.”

Holmes laughed, “That might prove quite true, one never knows.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself, Mr. Holmes. He doesn’t know how well regarded you are here. Anyway, you might form your own opinion, as they’re bringing the man himself through now. Mr. Holmes, this is Constable Hynes and Mr. Vamberry.”

Sherlock Holmes stood to find standing before him two small, dark men. Only one looked off in the middle distance as if he were alone in the room.

It was to this one Holmes addressed himself. “Mr. Vamberry, I am Sherlock Holmes. I’m delighted to meet a member of the distinguished Infanta’s household. I hope you’ll answer a question or two for me.”

Vamberry looked in the very opposite direction from Holmes. To no one in particular, he said in perfect English, “I still await my pomegranate tea.”

Lestrade looked in exasperation at Holmes, at Hynes, at the same spot in the distance at which Vamberry stared. “I have told you Mr. Vamberry, we can offer you as much plain tea as you like. I really don’t know where a man would find pomegranate tea in London.”

Holmes interrupted me with a laugh. “Oh, it’s a shame you weren’t there then, Watson. You could have laid bare London’s tea underbelly, you who has found in our city’s byways shops to not only satisfy your taste for Afghan and Egyptian teas, but also located that awful sea salt brew you like from Ullapool.”

Here Holmes shivered in memory at accidentally taking a sip of this north Scotland specialty when I had left my steaming cup near his microscope.

As if to wash away the memory, Holmes delicately sipped at his port, smacking his lips with relish. Momentarily he nodded at me in apology. “I’m sorry, do go on.”

After his pronouncement regarding tea, Vamberry fell silent, ignoring any and all questions no matter from whom they came.

Holmes observed all of this in keen silence, and then said, “The Infanta is quite angry, sir.”

For but a moment, Vamberry frowned then cleared his expression, blinking slowly as if bored.

“Perhaps if we could share with her why such a trusted servant has done this unthinkable thing, she would find within her mercy.”

Another fiercer frown, this one chased away by a haughty lift of the chin.

“If you and the noble lady fall out, I’m sure her son and your fine boy will grieve.”

At this all expression washed from Vamberry’s face. And it was this response that helped Sherlock Holmes solve the mystery.

With a sigh I rose to refill my port glass. At the extended silence, my friend cracked open one fire-dozy eye.

“I’m afraid the inspector stopped the story there,” I said, returning to my chair. “He quite belatedly said it was not his story to tell. Diplomatic secrets.”

Holmes straightened in his chair, lifted his own glass. “Mr. Lestrade has unexpected wells of reserve, though tardy. He told you more than enough to un-secret this diplomatic secret. Ah, well.”

At that, Mrs. Hudson quietly entered, and began serenely collecting our dinner plates. As we thanked her for the fine meal - I suspect we laid it on a trifle thick - my gaze went repeatedly to Holmes. When our landlady withdrew I leaned close, “Well, what happened? Why did Vamberry’s lack of reaction to your remark about his son solve the case?”

“That last is the good inspector quoting something I said later and it’s overstating the matter. I did not solve the case then. However, as with Plum, it was Mr. Vamberry’s opposite response to the expected one - even greater arrogance - that told me we were close to his nest, so to speak.

“You must understand Watson, to Vamberry I was certainly no better than any other detective in that station - worse, in fact, as I’d been suddenly called from home that day after a fussy experiment left me with yellow-stained fingers, a singed collar, and a small plaster on my cheek. I looked disreputable. My discussing his royal employer in familiar terms rankled a man that class proud. The lack of his response when I was even more familiar in talking about his son - that told me this issue might be about his son. Following a brief viewing of his boat, it was then the case was solved.”

Suddenly my friend bolted restless from his chair, then grousingly began pacing the sitting room, pushing aside rumpled dressing gowns, sheet music, and newspapers, careless of where they landed.

“I’ve told Mrs. Hudson I have a method and that her tidying - ah, here it is!” Tossing aside a bird’s wing and a magazine on its belly, Holmes snatched up a blue waistcoat. Mumbling something about the secret pocket he’d only half-installed inside the snug silk, he settled again across from me with needle, thread, and thimble.

“So sorry, Watson, where was I? Ah yes, it was then that our small party of four decamped to the sailing vessel Ayng.

“Once onboard, there were two things of note. The first was the deplorable mess left by the police search. The narrow mattresses had been turned up, the dish cupboards ransacked, a child’s small bucket been overturned, and its wet sand pawed through. Despite the disarray, I was assured no stolen coins had been found.

“The other thing of note was the familiar scent of tar. The very commonality of this odour is what likely prevented the good Inspector from perceiving it, or that the scent of it was especially strong. Yet, as Lestrade had mentioned, the boat was new. It was also a royal vessel, so no doubt kept in prime condition. So why had it been so freshly tarred the scent was strong?

“I’m afraid I then did that thing which seems to so alarm the tidy mentalities of Scotland Yard. I began climbing over the interior furniture of the little boat, and was quickly rewarded with what I sought: a fine black seam of tar at the bow. I dug into it with my thumbnail and within a few seconds had unearthed edge-on a gold coin, a bit more effort revealed a second.

“The inspector was jubilant, Vamberry unmoved, and here is where one of the more abstruse bits of deduction comes to the fore Watson. You must always remember that, though you’ve found what you’re looking for, keep looking.

“While Lestrade went about the messy business of prying gold coins out of stiffening tar, I went about my business: I continued searching the boat. After a while I located in the hull near the stern another tar seam, this one better hidden and even thinner than the first. Two seams perpendicular to it also gave in to my nail. I knocked against the hull; the sound was hollow - and followed by a small-voiced whimper.

“Then, quoting Poe at his most grimly poetic, it was like ‘a hideous dropping off of the veil.’ All was clear, and I knew why this proud and trusted man had risked so much when he seemed to want for so little.”

Holmes paused here to put on his freshly-tailored waistcoat. He spun in a slow circle, arms akimbo. Only after I assured him that I couldn’t spy the location of the newly-installed secret pocket did my friend settle in his chair again and this time complete his story.

“I returned to the wine merchant. ‘Mr. Vamberry, please allow us to help you.’ Still the man said nothing, and so I said, ‘Then I’m afraid we shall have to burn your boat.’

“At the bow of the boat, Lestrade stopped buffing gold on his trouser leg. ‘Beg pardon, Mr. Holmes?’

“‘The criminal is in hand Lestrade, and we have found the missing treasure. The Ayng is taking up valuable space in a dock already short of it. If I recall today’s headlines, the 2nd Earl of Westfriars has requested berth in this same snug harbour and been denied. I say burn Mr. Vamberry’s boat.’

“It was then Vamberry’s iron spine crumbled. ‘For the love of God, no!’ he cried.”

“Why, Holmes?” I cried, starting forward in my chair. “Why?”

“I didn’t make the nest analogy lightly, Watson. Like a mother bird who flaps on the ground as if wounded, leading a predator away from her chicks, once Vamberry knew he was caught - and for diplomatic reasons Scotland Yard announced their intention of boarding his craft a full half hour before doing so - Vamberry flapped us away from his nest. He hid the coins at the bow, in sight of the observant, while at the stern he more carefully covered the seams of the hidden door cut into the Ayng’s hull, and behind which lay his ill son.”

“No!”

“Yes. Vamberry’s child was desperately sick, and the wine merchant with not enough resources to help the poor boy. Vamberry’s brother, a physician, lives in London, and so in desperation the Infanta’s pleasure craft and a pittance of her gold were stolen, the boy secreted on board, and Vamberry sought safe haven for both of them here. When he knew he would be boarded, he hid his young son in what any diplomatic vessel holds: A hiding spot.

“Vamberry’s failing in all of this was pride, Watson, which made him both blind and rash. Though it is true that the Infanta and her kin do not much truck with weakness, any good ruler understands mercy. Not only had this never occurred to Vamberry, but he, who hews so strictly to lines of class, did not believe the Infanta could hold him or his family in tender regard, so he simply never thought to ask for her help. Fortunately all ended well. Father, child, and boat were returned to Spain, and after a time the boy was made well. As a matter of fact, both Vamberry’s son and the Infanta’s son made the papers recently, together starting University at Oxford.”

With a faint smile, Holmes nestled further in his chair. “And so you see, simple cases hinging on a few abstruse details. I hope they suit your needs, Watson?”

I agreed that they gave me more than enough to while away the rest of the cold winter evening.

And so it was, while Holmes dozed contentedly in his chair, I crafted the heart of each missive you’ve read here. It was a bit past midnight, and as I was banking the fire, that my friend woke with a start and shouted.

“The Mayflies will be hatching!”

Sherlock Holmes rose and ran to his water-filled jars lined upon the window sill and began to tut-tut at an experiment that would take him busily through the night.

For my part, I took down an encyclopaedia and began reading up on Mayflies.