Hello everyone! I'm so excited to participate again. This is one of my favorite parts of December. Big thanks to Hades, as ever, for hosting!
What follows is the start of a case! As the prompts allow, I will finish it within a few days, I hope.
December 1: "Candle" (from W. Y. Traveller)
"Why Holmes," I remarked, upon glancing out of the sitting room window to check the progress of the snowfall and spotting a familiar figure exiting a carriage and rushing down the lane, "there is our old friend Lestrade coming down the street. Do you suppose he is coming for more advice on that matter with the Hatterly family and their disappearing footman?"
"Oh, no," my friend replied from his armchair, and puffed on his pipe. "The footman was found unharmed in the early hours of the morning— I must have forgotten to tell you."
"That is excellent news," I replied, as the Inspector left my line of sight and I heard the ring of the bell. "In any case, Lestrade must have something pressing to be dashing down the street in that manner."
Holmes half closed his eyes and smiled. "We have not long to wait and we shall see what little problem the Inspector brings to us today."
A moment later, the pageboy showed Lestrade into the sitting room.
"Am I ever glad to find you both at home," he said, somewhat breathlessly. "Would you be able to accompany me to Charlotte Street? I have a cab waiting. I can fill you in on the particulars on the drive."
Well, such was my friend's esteem of the Inspector by this time in our association that he gave a curt nod and we bundled into our coats and ulsters and without a moment's delay our carriage was clattering and sloshing through the melting snow across London, toward one of its most prominent neighborhoods.
"Now," said Lestrade, "to what extent are you gentlemen aware of Sir Harry Carter?"
"I have some small knowledge of him," I replied, "from the society pages, and from seeing the occasional painting of his on display. He has quite a way with color. And he was married recently, was he not?"
"Quite so," Lestrade replied.
"I very likely have a note or two on him in my index, but I recall nothing of him off-hand," said Holmes. "Pray, fill us in on any particulars of which we ought to be aware."
"Sir Carter is a painter of some renown, and in his mid fifties. He lives with his daughter Elizabeth, from his first marriage, and now his young wife, an artist in her own right from a prominent Italian family, by the name of Maria. While Sir Carter's mode of expression is the gauche and the canvas, his wife is partial to intricate carvings, particularly into candles. In any case, the gentleman was widowed some fifteen years ago, and while the new Mrs. Carter is scarcely thirty, his daughter is four and twenty. You can imagine, I am sure, the discomfort of the daughter upon learning her father was to marry a woman only six years her senior, but according to all accounts, the wedding went off without a hitch. Sir Carter's household includes a butler who also serves as valet, one lady's maid shared between the two ladies, a chambermaid, and a cook, along with a girl who helps in the kitchen and a middle-aged man who tends to the garden, but neither live in the house and so are unlikely to be concerned in the matter. Still, it does not narrow our suspect list very much."
"My dear Inspector," Holmes interjected, a sardonic smile playing upon his thin lips, "While I appreciate all of the detail you have provided thus far, you have neglected to tell us what crime has been committed."
"Oh good heavens," replied Lestrade, rubbing his temple. "The crime was this: Maria Carter has been murdered. Her body was discovered in her private suite of rooms set aside for her art, in which she locked herself the previous evening and to which she had the only key."
"Ah, I see," Holmes replied softly. "Pray, continue."
"Well, yesterday Sir Carter's family had dinner with a young man called John Wright, a doctor who has expressed some interest in Elizabeth, and was to be engaged to her in the coming months. His class is somewhat lower than the Carters, but that has not seemed to bother the father or daughter terribly. The stepmother, it seems, was a different story. From what little I gathered from father and daughter, she had convinced her husband on multiple occasions to delay the engagement of his daughter, stating that Elizabeth might come to change her mind and seek out a man of a better station.
"In any case, the four had scarcely finished dining when Sir Carter complained of a headache and retired to his rooms. Mrs. Carter expressed that she should like to work on some carving of hers, so Dr. Wright excused himself for the evening and Elizabeth retired to her rooms. This much all of the members of the household whom I interviewed agree. Sir Carter fell asleep early and slept soundly, so that he did not notice the absence of his wife until the early hours of the morning. He says he is a habitually hard sleeper, and his wife keeps unusual hours, so he did not immediately remark upon it. And no one in the house heard anything unusual in the night. But when it was nearly ten this morning and no one in the house had seen Mrs. Carter since dinner the previous evening, the husband began to some concern for his wife's wellbeing. He knocked upon the door to her studio, but heard no answer. The door was fastened tightly, and so he summoned the butler and the two of them put their shoulders to it and knocked it down, discovering, to their horror, the body of Maria Carter sprawled upon the floor."
"And has the body been moved?" Holmes inquired.
"No," Lestrade replied. "I very much wished for you to see the room as I found it, with as little interference as possible, for as soon as I had taken a look around, I knew I was out of my depth. I could see no way that any assailant could have reached her, for she had locked herself in, and the household is quite insistent that she has the only key. It was one of her eccentricities, that she should be the only one with access to the room in which she produced her art. Sir Carter husband had no objections to this, as he is, in his own words, 'an artistic man, who values the privacy which is sometimes necessary for creativity,' and so understood perfectly his wife's unusual request. That is, I believe, all that I know," Lestrade concluded.
The carriage slowed to a stop, and I looked out the window to see a stately front door flanked by two police constables. "And just in time, Lestrade, for unless I am very much mistaken, we have arrived at the home of the unhappy Sir Harry Carter."
To be continued...