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holmes_minor2024-04-23 02:54 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote in holmes_minor2024-04-23 02:54 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Seat: Gen
Title: Seat
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Note: cribbed from the chapter "Introducing Mrs. Warren" of Whoduit Puzzles by Tim Dedopolus
Summary: Holmes is asked by a hotel manager to investigate a robbery.
“Of course, we have a house detective on the premises,” began the manager obsequiously, “but as you were dining in the hotel restaurant and are such a close friend of the proprietor…”
“Very well,” said Holmes, cutting him off with a wave. “Let’s have a look.”
I followed Holmes into the guest room, watching as his quick, keen eyes took in the interior from carpet to ceiling.
Attention was naturally drawn to the shattered lamp.
“The rooms have identical furnishings,” explained the manager. “The thefts have been going on for a month, but without a regular pattern.”
Holmes stopped in front of a chair which was placed against a far wall. “Sir, you note these?”
There were clear footprints on the seat of the chair.
“Small,” I observed. “A woman.”
The manager cursed.
Holmes hummed. Then he looked up.
The ceiling was painted in a pattern of intricate fleur-de-lis, but there was a ventilation grille in another corner.
“Is this bronze?” asked Holmes, pointing, and the manager assured him it was.
“Rusted,” I observed.
“Come here,” Watson,” said Holmes when he was directly under the grille.
I dutifully came.
“Bend.”
I bent.
The manager did not know what was coming, but I did.
“I say, Mister Holmes!” protested the manager at our acrobatics.
“He went to a rugger school,” muttered Holmes by way of explanation for him using me like a footstool or ladder.
“Is that rust?” I asked, not daring to look up.
“Real bronze doesn’t rust, my dear man. Yes, it comes loose very easily, but not without consequence. Thank you.”
Holmes had just returned to terra firma when one of the hotel staff interrupted.
“It’s the lady, sir, in 215. She says someone has put blood in her shoes! She make a big fuss and wants to talk to you!”
The shoes turned out to match exactly the marks made on the seat of the chair, and Holmes was able to advise the manager to look for an employee with bloody knuckles and an right foot with an injury that might be aggravated by wearing shoes too small for it.
A maid was identified, and she quickly gave up the whole ring.
--
“I suppose it was a horrid version of the tale of Cinderella,” I said as Holmes and I finally said good-bye to the Excelsior. “The shoe didn’t fit, but it gave her away anyway.”
“Yes, she had brains, but not brains enough. She pilfered shoes to stand on the chair to reach the grille but forgot about the condition of her feet and the telltale traces she might leave behind. She broke a lamp to distract attention, but due to haste or carelessness or some other factor, she grazed her knuckles on the brass grille where she hid the pilfered loot and failed or was unable to clean up the blood.”
“She probably reads far too much romantic literature,” I said, but then feeling the accusatory heat of Holmes’s gaze, added, “and not enough forensic monographs.”
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Note: cribbed from the chapter "Introducing Mrs. Warren" of Whoduit Puzzles by Tim Dedopolus
Summary: Holmes is asked by a hotel manager to investigate a robbery.
“Of course, we have a house detective on the premises,” began the manager obsequiously, “but as you were dining in the hotel restaurant and are such a close friend of the proprietor…”
“Very well,” said Holmes, cutting him off with a wave. “Let’s have a look.”
I followed Holmes into the guest room, watching as his quick, keen eyes took in the interior from carpet to ceiling.
Attention was naturally drawn to the shattered lamp.
“The rooms have identical furnishings,” explained the manager. “The thefts have been going on for a month, but without a regular pattern.”
Holmes stopped in front of a chair which was placed against a far wall. “Sir, you note these?”
There were clear footprints on the seat of the chair.
“Small,” I observed. “A woman.”
The manager cursed.
Holmes hummed. Then he looked up.
The ceiling was painted in a pattern of intricate fleur-de-lis, but there was a ventilation grille in another corner.
“Is this bronze?” asked Holmes, pointing, and the manager assured him it was.
“Rusted,” I observed.
“Come here,” Watson,” said Holmes when he was directly under the grille.
I dutifully came.
“Bend.”
I bent.
The manager did not know what was coming, but I did.
“I say, Mister Holmes!” protested the manager at our acrobatics.
“He went to a rugger school,” muttered Holmes by way of explanation for him using me like a footstool or ladder.
“Is that rust?” I asked, not daring to look up.
“Real bronze doesn’t rust, my dear man. Yes, it comes loose very easily, but not without consequence. Thank you.”
Holmes had just returned to terra firma when one of the hotel staff interrupted.
“It’s the lady, sir, in 215. She says someone has put blood in her shoes! She make a big fuss and wants to talk to you!”
The shoes turned out to match exactly the marks made on the seat of the chair, and Holmes was able to advise the manager to look for an employee with bloody knuckles and an right foot with an injury that might be aggravated by wearing shoes too small for it.
A maid was identified, and she quickly gave up the whole ring.
--
“I suppose it was a horrid version of the tale of Cinderella,” I said as Holmes and I finally said good-bye to the Excelsior. “The shoe didn’t fit, but it gave her away anyway.”
“Yes, she had brains, but not brains enough. She pilfered shoes to stand on the chair to reach the grille but forgot about the condition of her feet and the telltale traces she might leave behind. She broke a lamp to distract attention, but due to haste or carelessness or some other factor, she grazed her knuckles on the brass grille where she hid the pilfered loot and failed or was unable to clean up the blood.”
“She probably reads far too much romantic literature,” I said, but then feeling the accusatory heat of Holmes’s gaze, added, “and not enough forensic monographs.”
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