Sherlockian Stories and Studies by Gayle Lange Puhl

Author:Gayle Lange Puhl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: short stories, sherlock holmes, collection, essays, Criterion Bar, Agra Treasure box, Vincent Starrett, folk tales, diary, persecution, murder, supernatural, long-case clock, ghost, curse, voodoo, New Orleans, Sherlock Holmes Museum, robbery, bacon, pork, jewels, actors, sherlock holmes on television
ISBN: 9781787055834
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2020-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

The Case of the Refurbished Room

“You see the problem, Jeeves?”

“I do, sir.”

“Do you have any thoughts?”

“The problem appears quite insoluble, sir.”

“Yet you agree that something must be done?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have been thinking about it since breakfast, Jeeves, and I think I have a solution.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Since we can’t count on co-operation from Aunt Agatha, I think we need a detective.”

“A detective, sir?”

“Yes. One of those chappies so good with disguises and spotting suspicious characters lurking about the butler’s pantry with one eye on the silver and the other on Milady’s jewels. A detective could sort this whole thing out. Do you know any detectives, Jeeves?”

“As a matter of fact I do, sir. An experienced man.”

“Is he any good?”

“He has been called so by others.”

“What is his name?”

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, sir.”

“What, the bloke in the stories in that magazine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought he was just a fictional construct.”

“He is as real as you or I, sir.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Well, sir, as a matter of fact, he is my uncle.”

“Your uncle?”

“Strictly speaking, he is my great-uncle.”

I stared at Jeeves in surprise. Somehow I had never thought much about his relatives. He brought them up now and then in conversation, but the impressions left were fleeting. If I had thought about his origins at all, I had rather believed he had sprung full grown, like Minerva, from the wainscoting just before I had opened my apartment door that first day and found him standing in the hall.

“Didn’t one of those stories say he was going to retire?”

“Yes, sir, and in fact he is currently residing in a cottage on the South Downs. But he still does a little work for old friends and family members.”

“And you are a family member.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, that would explain a few things. Would you call him up, apprise him of our problem and get him up here?”

“I will do so at once, sir.”

Jeeves shimmered away and left me sitting on the sofa in the library of Woollam Chersey, my Aunt Agatha’s estate in Hertfordshire. I had carefully chosen the library for my rendezvous with Jeeves because with Agatha’s husband, Spencer Gregson, away to Sumatra looking out for his rubber stock interests, the room was guaranteed to be as deserted as Death Valley at high noon during a heat wave.

I was at Aunt Agatha’s digs for my health. That is, after a little practical joke aimed at Tuppy Glossop had misfired at the Drones and left the entire place awash knee-deep with Sunlight Soap suds, I had decided that a little holiday away from London might be beneficial for my well-being. I had accordingly wrangled an invitation to Woollam Chersey without disclosing to my formidable aunt the true reason why. I admit that Aunt Agatha is not the most sympathetic of relatives, but Aunt Delia was spending the summer in Monte Carlo spending some of the proceeds of the sale of her magazine Milady’s Boudoir so my options were limited. Besides, Anatole, Aunt Delia’s unsurpassed chef, was at Woollam Chersey.

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