Sherlock Holmes: Tales From the Stranger's Room by David Ruffle

Author:David Ruffle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock Holmes, mystery, crime, british crime, sherlock holmes novels, lyme regis
ISBN: 9781780921389
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

“God rest ye merry gentlemen...”

The Mystery of the Missing Gingerbread

Kathryn Waldron-Hyden

“Watson, by now I believe you are well-used to my methods of deduction enough so as to enable me to deduce certain things about your person without running the risk of causing some offence, slight or otherwise,” my friend remarked one December evening.

I was jolted out of my doze by this long introduction into a conversation I was not expecting. Seeing my bleary-eyed bewilderment, he smiled and repeated the statement. I sat up properly and folded the broadsheet away from my face.

“But of course, Holmes!” I exclaimed. “What of it?”

“Watson, I am faced with the most inexplicable of mysteries this evening,” he said, by way of answer. “And I believe you are both the cause and solution to it.”

Baffled – yet intrigued (so often those two emotions went hand in hand around my friend) – I leaned forward out of my chair. “Well, in that case Holmes, you had better out with it,” I replied. “If I am truly the cause then my sincerest apologies; if I am the solution then I shall be delighted to be of service.”

He too leaned forward in his chair, his expression decidedly serious. I wondered what I could have done to put such a look in my friend’s eyes; I had seen that gaze directed towards master criminals, but never me.

“Watson,” he began slowly. “Today I was intent upon working on my indexes; C through G in particular needed my strict attention. You seem to be slightly concerned with your belt, by the way.”

I stared, amazed. “Good heavens! Now really, Holmes, how did you deduce that?”

“Your rhythm as a doctor is regular; today you are on house call. Since you are not for lack of money you had the option of taking a buggy to your destinations; however by the state of your shoes and trouser ends you decided instead to walk. This indicates to me that a man who intends to walk rather than take a buggy is a man who worries about the notches on his belt.”

“Brilliant, Holmes!” I said, delighted as ever with his breaking down of such obvious events. His dour expression remained somewhat mulish, however, and I hastened to add, lest he thought I was endangering my health in the temperamental English weather, “I did come back to fetch my umbrella, though.”

This did not seem to relieve him as I thought it would. If anything, his expression grew darker. “Yes,” he said. “I realised that you must have come back between the hours of two and four, because that was the time I chose to take a nap.”

Slightly bewildered, I nodded. “Yes, it was around three o’clock. What of it?” He exhaled as though he were about to pronounce something dreadful.

“Today Mrs. Hudson brought me a small jar of freshly baked gingerbread biscuits; the first batch of the holiday season, apparently. I made sure that I kept one for after my nap. However, when I woke and finished with sorting index F, I turned to the jar and realised, to my disbelief, that it was empty.

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