Happy holidays everyone! So excited to be doing the Challenge once again!
1. From That SassyCaptain: Shocking Murder! Holmes has never seen a case where the fatal instrument was a...
"Blunt force trauma?" Holmes said, with little enthusiasm. "Watson, didn't we do one of those last week?"
"Two weeks ago," I said. "Nevertheless, you should let the man say the rest, Holmes."
Holmes slunk deeper into his chair, which he was half falling out of and clearly uninterested in getting back in, as he had been in his strange position for nearly two hours before Lestrade had arrived. "Very well."
"As I was saying," Lestrade said. "The victim was found in his kitchen. He was last seen by his wife in the very early morning, leaving bed, and at that time he said he was in search of sustenance. The kitchen is somewhat separated from the main house, as one needs to ascend a small staircase to reach it, but any disturbance would've been heard by the servants, who live nearby. The kitchen was locked- both from the inside and the out- and the head housekeeper swears none of her girls went past her room into the kitchen from that door."
"So he locked the kitchen after himself?" I asked. "A bit odd, isn't it?"
"Odder still was that there wasn't a single thing out of place in the kitchen," Lestrade said. "No footprints, blood, or even a hair. And yet the victim's skull was partially crushed, and he was covered in bright red welts in the shape of an odd club."
"Hm," Holmes said in a way that seemed to me that he was thinking, despite feigned disinterest. "Nothing missing at all?"
"Well, one thing," Lestrade said, with a strange look on his face. "But we're not sure it's related."
"What was it, pray tell?"
"The cook's favorite spatula."
Holmes sat up. "I should like to see the body at once. How, I don't know, but I'm quite certain the missing spatula will match the victim's wounds."