A Study in Sherlock

Watts stared at Boothby. Boothby stared back. I looked from one to the other and back again. No one said anything. The tension was like ozone before a lightning strike: I could smell it.

Boothby stirred. “If you’ve been seriously snorting and I squeeze your nose—damn, squeeze your own nose—it’ll hurt like hell and you’ll get a nosebleed. If you haven’t, you won’t. Please help us both.”

Watts looked out the window again, put his left elbow on the arm of the chair, and rested his chin in his palm. There was silence. The longer the silence lasted the more my suspicion grew.

Finally Watts gazed at Boothby. “You ain’t squeezing my nose, Linwood.” His voice rose. “Nobody’s squeezing my nose. This whole conversation abuses my integrity, and nobody’s abusing my person as well.” His face got bright red. “You were just leaving, weren’t you?” He spat the last two words.

Boothby seemed ready for it. “Not unless you physically throw me out. Maybe you’re mad because I’ve offended a sensitive and innocent person, or maybe you’re mad because I’ve cornered a less-than-innocent person. I need to know it’s the former. Please, Gibson.”

Watts jumped to his feet. “You’re out, Boothby! Get out of here, and take your lackey with you!” he roared.

It was intimidating how he towered over us as he raged, but neither Boothby nor I moved. The arteries in his neck stood out, throbbing. He was breathing quickly and heavily, and trembling as he glared at Boothby, practically gasping for breath. A drop of blood slid from one nostril. His hand shot into his pocket and produced a handkerchief. More blood dripped from his nose. He wiped it and stared at the handkerchief, then at Boothby, then back at the handkerchief. A moment later his eyes seemed to get wet. He kept staring at the handkerchief. Tears slid down his cheeks, and blood flowed freely from his nostrils. He pressed the handkerchief to his nose and dropped back into his armchair, the handkerchief covering his face, shaking and weeping uncontrollably.

Boothby slowly got to his feet. He put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Gibson, get a lawyer. Please.” He motioned to me and I followed him out.

The next Tuesday afternoon I was in the law library thrilling at Maine’s case law on easements by prescription when the court clerk told me Boothby wanted me to meet him in the park again. It took a while, but finally I found him by the pond. He looked grumpy, so I decided to try to lighten his mood.

“Hi, Judge.” I pointed to the three Canada geese paddling across the pond. “You know how to tell a male Canada goose from a female Canada goose?”

“I don’t know, Artie. How do you tell a male Canada goose from a female Canada goose?”

“Simple: the males are white and gray and black, whereas the females are black and gray and white.”

Boothby raised his left eyebrow and looked at me, snorted with the tiniest smile, and shook his head.

“Artie,” he said, “how the fuck did you ever pass the bar exam?”

Well, it worked, sort of. He watched the geese for a while, then pulled out his Pall Malls for his afternoon treat. His movements were unhurried, and he didn’t say anything. Nor did I.

Finally: “I just learned—don’t tell anyone—that Gibson Watts has taken leave to attend a four-week rehab program.” He put a cigarette to his mouth and lit it.

I nodded. This would end Watts’s judicial career and maybe bring him beyond the tipping point for reasonable doubt about murder.

“After dropping you off on Saturday,” he said, “I called the State Police. I told their investigator everything we’d learned. And I’ve hardly gotten any sleep since.” An inhale followed by a smoke ring. “What did you learn from this experience, Artie?”

“It’s good to be suspicious of coincidences.”

“Right. And it’s good to exercise logic. Over the past few days you and I analyzed the evidence logically, so we probably solved the crime—in fact, an especially odious one because, if I may paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when a judge goes wrong he’s the worst of criminals. And we’re just like Holmes, aren’t we? We achieved a triumph of logic. And that’s what we lawyers are trained for. So I should feel triumphant, shouldn’t I? So why do I feel like dogshit?”

I couldn’t resist; nobody was going to out-Conan-Doyle me: “Because,” I said, “as Moriarty once told Holmes, the situation had become an impossible one. In other words, there was no satisfactory outcome.”

“That’s true.” He flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. “But that’s not what’s bothering me.” Another inhale. “Now that we’re in Sherlock Holmes mode, do you remember ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’?”

Well, he had me there. “No,” I admitted.

“Then let me enlighten you with my favorite Holmesian quotation.” He smiled at me unenthusiastically. “ ‘Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.’ What do you think of that, Artie?”

I didn’t have a clue, so I shrugged.