A Study in Sherlock

I was spared a lecture on his automotive identification scheme when the chauffeur opened his car door before ours, causing Wishy to remonstrate with him, and to switch his attention to the topic of automotive etiquette, and his strong view that his passengers should have been allowed to exit first.

The colonel’s elderly butler, Rawls, knew my companions—I noticed he did not attempt to relieve Wishy of his deerstalker. He looked pale and shaken, but maintained a dignified pace as he guided us to a parlor on the first floor. Sheriff Anderson, a stout man of sixty with luxuriant mustachios, stood by the fireplace, studying a small notebook. He looked up as we were announced and smiled. “Aloysius, thank you for coming! And you’ve brought Mr. Slye and Dr. Tyndale! Excellent!”

“Is this some sort of jest?”

We turned toward the speaker—a frowning, elegantly dressed young blonde, who lounged carelessly in a large chair at the opposite end of the room. She flinched when she beheld my beauty, and quickly busied herself with taking a cigarette from a gold case and fitting it into an ebony holder.

She was not alone. A pale, sandy-haired gentleman, whose clothes were equally fine, stood just behind her. He blushed when our eyes met, then moved to light her cigarette.

“You own the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost parked in the drive,” Hanslow said with some reverence, removing his hat in the lady’s presence.

She lifted her brows and addressed the sheriff. “Is this play actor supposed to find my uncle?”

“Allow me to introduce Colonel Harris’s niece and nephew, the children of his youngest sister,” Sheriff Anderson said coldly. “Miss Alice Simms and Mr. Anthony Simms.”

Anthony Simms came forward and shook hands with each of us as the sheriff named us. He had an athletic build and a firm grip, but his palms were damp.

Alice stayed where she was.

“Mr. Simms works in an office,” Hanslow began. “He rushed here today from work. Note the smudge of ink on his vest—”

“Are you certain that’s ink, Aloysius?” Slye asked.

Hanslow held up a large magnifying glass and bent closer to Simms.

“Now, see here!” Simms protested. “I don’t know what you’re blathering about but I don’t care to be—”

Wishy straightened and said with resignation, “No, might not be. But it is a smudge. And it’s improperly buttoned.”

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.