Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(49)

Which meant either the fire was an accident, or someone capable of sending intimidating emails had made good on their threats.

I thought of the second enigmatic message: Police officer police officer police officer. If you don’t do whatever it is, I shall tell the police, that pictogram seemed to warn. Tell the police what?

Someone was blackmailing Ms. Moran; I’d thought that from the beginning. Why else send a message that only the receiver can understand? Because if caught, the sender can easily deny the purpose, and no court of law could prove otherwise.

“There is nothing to do but wait,” I instructed Arthur Daley over the grumble of a fire truck’s throbbing engine. “Go home, Arthur. Let the firefighters finish. If you hear from Ms. Moran, notify me instantly. If not . . . well, sir, let me think. It is what I do best.”



There would be no sleep for me. Or Watson either, who insisted on accompanying me back to our offices. We sat side by side, staring out our front window into the glow of the streetlights. Watson poured a brandy, a stout Haut Armagnac given to us by a grateful client, and this night, I joined her. The heady liquor did nothing to salve my fears.

“I’m exhausted,” Watson said. “From dancing. And the rest of it. Where’s Penelope Moran, do you think?”

I felt, though I would never say it, that we had failed. Failed Mr. Daley, who came to us for answers. And failed Ms. Moran, a graceful young woman we had seen only in a romantic dance, who now had disappeared, her family home in shambles.

“Watson, what are our tangible facts?” I asked. Sometimes it is beneficial to speak a conundrum out loud. I have discovered the subconscious somehow provides answers when the questions become real.

“The emails. Whatever they mean. And Stoke Moran,” she added. “I Googled it, by the way. ‘Stoke’ means ‘estate,’ did you know that? Built around 1810. I looked up the Morans, too. Seems like they both died twenty-some years ago. I couldn’t find a will, though. Penelope Moran would have been—”

“A child,” I said. The night seemed especially dark, and our puzzle—along with Ms. Moran’s fate—increasingly bleak.

“A series of cryptic emails,” I went on, hoping to dispel my melancholy with cogitation. “For which we can endlessly conjure meaning, none of which we can ever prove. A woman in distress, who, though there is no sign of foul play or abduction, now seems to have disappeared. A suspicious fire that almost destroys her family home.”

Who what where, I often say to myself. In this case, the “where” was the secluded home of the Morans, left to the only remaining heir, little Penelope. If she were no longer alive, what would happen to the estate?

“He calls her Penny.” Watson swirled the dark liquid in her snifter.

Making something out of nothing is a pitfall of our business. When answers are urgently needed, sometimes the range of the search produces incorrect ones. Sometimes our initial responses are wrong.

Apple, smiley-face, heart, I thought. Sun, moon, wind.

“Police officer” was the only pictogram to be repeated. The obstructionist police Lieutenant R.T. Moore? His hand is in all that is unpleasant here in Norraton.

I had tossed my soggy shoes under my desk, and now feared for their restoration. Taking the morning Times from my desk, still folded and unread, I ripped away the front page and crumpled it, preparing to stuff the toe of my pumps. Page three of the Wednesday paper was now visible, showing a grainy photo of a group of people. I started, for one of them was Mr. Brett, my “Stardust” partner. TOWN FATHERS SEEK ECONOMIC SOLUTION the headline read. I skimmed it, curious, remembering Mr. Brett’s wandering paws. “Just under ten percent of soil in Norraton is potentially . . .” I paused, reading the rest.

Police officer, police officer, police officer, I thought.

Watson’s chin had sagged to her chest, her eyes closed, her feet still propped on the low sill of our front window. Peacefully asleep. And let her be so.

Careful not to disturb my colleague, I turned to the bookcase behind me, crouching to face the second shelf from the bottom, the place I kept my geology volumes, as well as the ones I’d inherited. Far less valuable than a rural estate, but all my own modest family could afford to bequeath. I selected one of Father’s personal favorites, and opened it. We’d looked at it, together, when Father was still alive and my life had not yet unfolded.

We’d traveled many a rocky pathway together, walking the rolling hills of Norraton, filling our pockets with rocks and our heads with dreams that would never be fulfilled: father and daughter, traveling the world and studying its treasures. One evening, after we’d organized our discoveries on the kitchen table, Father offered me a tattered leather-bound volume, Final Report on the Geology of Massachusetts, published in 1841. He’d pointed out the author’s name. Hitchcock, just like the master of suspense.

“The earth itself is a mystery, and offers constant surprises,” Father had told me. “It is our job to discover the solutions.”

I hadn’t thought of that in years. Ironic, now, that my current vocation also dealt with mystery. And solutions.

I scanned Hitchcock’s table of contents, but it was frustratingly long and, for my purposes, illogical. I flipped to the appendix, which, reliably, was in alphabetical order. Ran one searching finger past the list of A—agate, alabaster, amber, apatite; and past the list of B—basalt, beryl, bloodstone.