A Study in Sherbet by Stephen Marsh

Author:Stephen Marsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, Moriarty, crime, humour, Dr Watson, Inspector Lestrade, Baker Street, 221b, Irregulars, deduction, London, Conan-Doyle
ISBN: 9781785389320
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2018-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Part V

Much later, I was in my room working on my stamp collection and heard Holmes’ voice shouting my name, so I stopped what I was doing and joined him in the study.

“What on earth was all that banging coming from your room Watson?” he asked.

“Oh that!” I replied. “I have been studying the foot-stamping habits of various African tribes and was just practising a few which I have accumulated from my visits to the British Museum”.

Over the next ten minutes I proceeded to demonstrate the many and varied stamp variants ranging from the Bakongo ‘boot’ and the Mandinka ‘manageable’, all the way through to the Fulani ‘foot wobble’ and the Tuareg ‘toe-tap’.

I could tell that I had impressed my friend by the open-mouthed expression upon his face. Without saying a word, he went back into his room and I thought I could hear stifled laughter coming from the other side of the door but obviously I was mistaken. After several minutes, Holmes emerged wiping his face and it was then I realised how much the emotion of my performance must have affected him and that there was another side to the man I had known for many years as a cold and unemotional thinking machine. Just as I was about to offer a few more demonstrations there came a tap on the door.

“Come in Mrs. Hudson,” Holmes shouted.

“How did you know it was me, Mr. Holmes?” she said as she entered.

“I could smell your slippers,” he remarked. “Now, what is it?”

“There was a telegram came for you whilst you were out Mr. Holmes. I will step forward and hand it to you,” she said, rather loudly for some reason.

Holmes looked at her quizzically. “You do not need to describe every action you take, Mrs. Hudson, you are not in a work of fiction, you know.”

“I am turning towards the door and exiting your room now,” she announced once again noticeably shriller than usual and then turned and shuffled out of the room mumbling to herself, as she had been doing these past few months.

“I say Holmes,” I said. “Did you notice that she had a marshmallow behind her left ear?”

“Yes I did,” he replied. “That, and the fact she had chocolate up her fingernails leads me to suspect that Mrs. Hudson is not all she seems.”

Holmes then held a finger up to his lips and indicated for me to follow him. We went stealthily downstairs and came to a halt outside Mrs. Hudson’s room which was immediately below ours. Holmes pressed both his ears to the door (a trick he’d learned from his travels in the East; Cleethorpes I think it was) and after only a few seconds whispered to me what he was about to do. His voice was so muted that I could not understand one word of what he was saying and I indicated as much. He grabbed my arm and quietly led me along the hallway and as we reached the front door he bent close to my ear and whispered the message again.

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