Case the Second: The Case of the Flaming Curtains

Upon reaching the end of the first chapter, I slammed the book closed in dismay, and hurled it across the room at the closet door. It struck the door with a loud thud, fell to the ground with a second loud thud, and sat there on the ground with a third, fourth, and fifth loud thud. This seemed odd. It took a tremendous effort of my notoriously puissant will power to avoid thinking about it further, and concentrate on the matter at hand.

What was Watley's game? This "tale" he had "written" was a deceitful goulash of lies, half-lies, quarter-lies, eighth-lies, and whatever-half-of-an-eighth-is-lies. I resolved to do the division later, when I had more time and a slide rule. Why, according to the "story", Watley wasn't even present during the case! How could he have written it all down, every last damnable truthful word of it? The odd thing is, I remember him sitting there in the corner of the room while Miss Winston jabbered away at me, furiously scribbling in a leather-bound notebook. Perhaps if he'd been paying attention instead of whatever it was he as doing with that pen and book, he would have gotten some of his facts straight. I resolved to tell Watley as much, next time I saw him—unless, of course, he were already dead—and with even more scare quotes. If only there were some mechanism by which I might record the resolution, freeing my highly reliable remembering capability from the burden. Perhaps then I could devote more energy to recalling where I'd stashed my filberts.

Here I spied the book, lying by the foot of the closet door, mysteriously thumping. With a flash of insight the likes of which have made me block-renowned for my mental acuity, I resolved to note down my resolution, using writing, in the book, where it would be available to me at any future time. That is, assuming that I resolved to look in the book. But how might I record a reminder to do so? Here I leapt to my feet, avoiding a Charybdis of infinite mental recursion with only long minutes to spare, and crossed the room in quick, long strides redolent with determination. As I picked up the book, I noted with annoyance that the thumping seemed to be coming from within the adjacent closet. Confound Watley and his noisy closets!

Settling back into the chair, I flipped open the book. Whatever my intentions had been, they were immediately displaced by my astonishment upon seeing another chapter heading, and I began to read "The Case of the Flaming Curtains" ...

*******

She swept into the room like a woman who is accustomed to knowing where she is going and why. Below an elegant hat and above a stunning black silk dress hung a face of delicately delineated beauty. I observed her flushed cheeks and slightly agitated breathing from my seat in the corner of the walk-up flat. I could tell she was worried about something.

"Mr. Sleuthe!" She shot the words out, fixing me with a penetrating stare. Hazel eyes. "I'm extremely worried."

"So I gathered. Take a seat, Miss Athershaughm. Tell me everything, from the beginning."

She sat down in the chair facing mine, and peered at me over her impossibly long nose. I felt the blood beginning to race through my temples. Hazel eyes. I took a handful of filberts from the bowl on the table beside my chair, and tossed a few into my mouth to hide my momentary discomfort. The oil from the nuts mixed imperfectly with my saliva, generating a slight irritation. I felt myself about to cough, and put my pipe to my lips in order to forestall it. Injudiciously, I inhaled deeply just at the moment I was swallowing the filberts, and suddenly my windpipe was blocked. Rather than let my lovely guest observe the discoloration of my face and the bulging of my eyes that would surely result, I thought to stand and turn my back to her, as if gazing out the window in solemn reflection. As I arose, however, the lack of oxygen reaching my brain induced a certain clumsiness of movement. My chair flew over backwards behind me, and when I flung my arm forward to regain my balance, my pipe shot sailing through the air, setting the curtains alight.

As I struggled, sputtering, to disentangle myself from the fallen chair, I stole a discreet glance at my guest. Fortunately the crackling flames, which had now completely engulfed the curtains and were beginning to lick hungrily at the edges of the wallpaper, had completely arrested her attention. I took the opportunity to snag another handful of filberts. Reflected flame had gilded her hazel eyes with a sunset glow. Quickly brushing myself off, I stood and summoned up my most assured tone of voice. "Miss Athershaughm! Outside, quickly! I'll follow." The urgent calm of my commands evidently pierced her veil of terror. She leaped up from her chair, and turned towards the door. In a flash I was past her, hurtling down the stairs to the landing as fast my long legs could carry me. Apparently my momentary clumsiness had not left me; I tripped on one of the lower steps, and saw the world spinning crazily around me. There was a crushing blow. Slightly stunned, I found myself flat on my back gazing up at the ceiling chandelier swaying gently above the staircase. A black apparition appeared over the stairs, a tumbling mass of silk, and spiraled down toward me. I deduced that Miss Athershaughm had tripped on the stairs as well. Two pools of hazel consumed my field of vision; then all was black.

* * *

A slightly sour filberty flavor penetrated the mist first. My mouth was dry; I had probably eaten too many nuts. A ringing filled my ears. Gradually the ringing sharpened, coalesced and took form. It had become more of a shrieking. "Mr. Sleuthe! Mr. Sleuthe! Wake up!" Despite the edge of panic in the voice, I recognized the warm brown undertone. Was it chocolate? Not quite. With an intense effort of will, I hauled up my eyelids. They creaked and groaned like an old drawgate.

It was her. When she saw that I was not dead, the lines of her face softened and her voice lost its strident edge. "Oh, Mr. Sleuthe, thank heaven!"

"Call me Lance," I offered generously, and then grimaced, as if the effort had been painful.

"Lance. How can I ever thank you?"

My mind raced. Those enticing hazel eyes .... I was trying to frame my reply delicately. Too late, I realized her query was merely rhetorical. She was already well into her next sentence.

"... you truly are the world's greatest deductive genius! Those flaming curtains were exactly the stimulus needed to bring my old repressed childhood memories alive again! I can see it all now ... the drafty library in the castle of my father, the Duke of Haughey-Upon-Howghey; the great wall hangings rippling languorously as the flames consumed them and cast burning billowy pieces off to float gently to the floor. And outside, scurrying across the lawn, the subhuman figure of the man who killed my father! As I stared into the flames, I lived again that moment, and for the first time clearly saw the face of the man who has brought my life to this sorry and ignoble state. And who, who should it be? No other than ..."

I had stopped listening. The logical sequence of events was too complex for me to follow, so I took instead to speculating on whether any other portions of her body might possibly match the warm dark color of her hazel eyes. I closed my own eyes again, and allowed the monotonous drone of her smooth brown voice to wash over my weary brain.

When I awoke, she was gone. Vanished. I could think of no way to track her down. After all, I knew nothing about her other than her name and physical appearance. Oh yes, and the name of her father and location of her ancestral home. Also, of course, I had taken her phone number when she first called to make an appointment. But these meager facts were all I had to go on, and they could lead nowhere as far as I could see.

That night I went through three jars of filbert nuts, but still had trouble falling asleep. Sometimes it's no picnic being the world's greatest living detective.