A Study in Sherlock

“So Anthony shot him in the back,” I said. “And in the head, though fortunately that bullet merely grazed him. I’ve talked to Dr. Smith, and he assures me Robert will recover. You, on the other hand, Anthony, are doubtless going to the electric chair.”

“No! No! I have no gun. It was Alice! And it’s no use telling me to shut up, Alice, because I won’t!”

“What happened after she shot him?” Slye asked.

“It was miserable out there, but I trussed up the colonel while Alice tried to hunt down Robert. Then she came running back, says there’s no time to lose, the delivery boy is coming up the hill—she told me to put the colonel in his car and hide it in the horse barn, and wait there for her. She went tearing off, then took the Rolls up the road at lightning pace. I waited until the delivery boy went past, then took the car up along the service road out to the barn. We knew the servants would be busy talking to the lad on the other side of the house, getting the village gossip, and wouldn’t see us. And I did just as she asked—even carried the old bugger up into the hayloft, and that wasn’t easy, I tell you!

“I really thought we might pull it off. She had even thought to bring a change of clothes for each of us, so that by the time we went into the house, we didn’t look so disheveled or damp.”

“But the Rolls is designed to be noticed,” Slye said, “and was noticed by the delivery boy, which made the staff wonder why it took so long for you to enter the house. Not only that, the housekeeper caught sight of the colonel’s car, and wondered what was keeping him.”

“You got the floorboard of the Rolls muddy!” Wishy said, as if this was the worst offense of all.

“Must I listen to this fake Holmes?” Alice shouted.

The room fell silent. Then Slye said, “Yes, for it would do you good. He has an excellent head and a genuine heart, both of which you lack.”

Carlton Wedge, as it turned out, felt himself to be at rock bottom, and was eager to take the colonel up on his offer to undergo treatment for alcoholism. We helped them find a facility worthy of their patronage.

Dr. Smith began driving out to Slye’s place, asking me to consult with him on some of his cases. I find the work interesting, but not as interesting as helping Slye to recover, and with the little problems that come his way.

Aloysius Hanslow still dresses like Holmes and invites us to come with him whenever Sheriff Anderson calls. Wishy has stopped flinching when he looks at me.

Slye continues to improve, although those moments in the colonel’s horse barn caused a minor setback. He talks of returning to the city, which he was never wont to do before now.

For the time being we are in the country, where old men tell young boys of war, and some of us who’ve seen it hope it never comes again, knowing it always will.

Jan Burke is the author of fourteen books, including Bones, which won the Edgar for Best Novel, Disturbance, and The Messenger. Her novels have appeared on the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists and have been published internationally. She is also an award-winning short-story writer.

In college a boyfriend urged her to read The Hound of the Baskervilles, which soon led to the purchase of the entire Canon. Though she ultimately came to her senses about the value of the boyfriend, Burke’s admiration of Sherlock Holmes only grew over the years, and she believes the respect for the power of physical evidence in Conan Doyle’s writing not only influenced her own writing, but also laid the groundwork for her later advocacy for the improvement of public forensic science. In 2006, Burke founded the Crime Lab Project, a nonprofit organization supporting public forensic laboratories throughout the United States.

A SPOT OF DETECTION

Jacqueline Winspear