The Case of the Three Table Legs
Chapter 2: Wonderful Woodworm
For a moment, I could only stare, numb with horror at this scene of devastation. Then I panicked. Holmes had been working on this infernal concoction for four days, and, as it neared completion, I had ruined it with spectacularly blundering effect!
The next thought to race through my brain was not to my credit:
"Holmes must never know it was I!"
My conscience reared up for a instant, and sternly charged me to confess my iniquity to Holmes, but I frantically overruled it – unthinkable! The man's wrath would be terrible to behold. I must even confess I toyed with the ignominious scheme of bribing an Irregular to take the blame, and it was as much my conviction that Holmes would see through the deception as my virtue that dissuaded me.
Could I replace the fluid in the glass? Absinthe, plus a little blue ink, possibly? No, absurd! Holmes would discover the substitution immediately. Oh, Lord, if he didn't spot my switch, what lives may hang in the balance, what scientific discoveries may be misrepresented? No, it would have to be faced, Holmes would and should discover the destruction of the experiment if I attempted to conceal it.
At this point, a less involved party could only have found my perambulations around the room enormously comical, but I saw no humour in the situation at all. I darted backwards and forwards across the room, sometimes reaching to tidy the apparatus, then flinching away, then heading for the door.
Yes, the door! I would take myself off until the storm had blown over. I would write Holmes a note, apologising and explaining, then get upon a train, and stay in a hotel for a few... days? Weeks? I would need funds, and my chequebook was locked in the desk drawer. I could prise the lock. No, ridiculous. Besides, I suspected Holmes would find me. I would have to think of a better scheme.
How could I make the accident appear an accident for which I was entirely blameless? The idea struck me so suddenly that my breath was almost taken away by my own genius. The desk must have collapsed! Woodworm! God Bless the wonderful woodworm!
In the storeroom above my bedroom was this duplicate desk, awaiting an appropriate opportunity to dispose of it, as it was riddled with the noble parasite. I raced upstairs and into the attic. I inspected the legs. The liquid had spilt towards the front left hand side. I inspected the corresponding leg, and to my joy, I beheld that it was completely unsound. All the legs were completely unsound, as a matter of fact. I would only have to be cautious that I did not break the thing in the removal of it. It must be broken in the correct manner, that it would appear to have suddenly snapped, propelling the contents of the table to the floor.
I used my penknife to unscrew the leg, wincing as I drove a large splinter under my fingernail, and stubbornly ignoring the sneering voice inside my head, mocking me for a dolt. With my prize in hand, I raced down to the living room, and crawled under the desk. Rapidly, I unscrewed the sound leg, and replaced it with the unsound one. Carefully, I then snapped the leg where I judged it must cause a wobble, and stepped back judiciously to survey my handiwork. Just to be safe, I took the sound leg back upstairs, and reattached it to the rotten table. I broke my penknife in the process, and cursed. I rotated the table, so the sound leg stood next to the wall. I returned to the sitting room.
I then poured myself a large brandy, to steady my nerves, and ready myself for the difficult task of lying through my teeth to Holmes. I carefully cleared up the apparatus, placing it on the dining room table. What else would I usually do, had I really been sitting here peacefully when the experiment collapsed? I placed my book open on my chair arm, careful to advance it beyond the point I had reached when Holmes was in the room earlier.
A good room-mate would replace the leg, of course. An even better idea struck me. I jogged down the seventeen steps to the street, opened the door, and whistled. Morgan, one of Holmes' Irregulars shuffled up to me, nonchalantly concealing his eagerness to be given a job.
"Morgan, the desk in our rooms has broken. Woodworm in one of the legs. Doesn't Charlie's brother do a bit of carpentry?"
The child looked a little disappointed at so mundane an engagement, but he brightened at the sight of the half-crown I offered him to run my errand.
I returned to the sitting room, and checked my watch. Holmes must be returning soon, if he had left the Bunsen burner alight.
Holmes arrived back with perfect timing. Charlie's brother Bob was just reattaching a new leg to our table, and the old one lay broken and rotten upon the carpet.
I rose to my feet, my mouth dry, as he took in the scene.
Oh dear. Watson, what a tangled web. Will Holmes be fooled? Find out in chapter 3!
