Chapter 2

The mystery deepens as Sherlock and Dr. Watson travel to the house where the murdered man lived.

They decided to take a cab straight to the address that Mr. Rogers had given them, rather than wait for too much time to pass.  The house was massive, with a wraparound porch, 3 stories high, and at least 7 bedrooms, according to Sherlock, anyway.  The house was a drab brown color, and had large windows.  As they walked up the steps to the door, they noticed that the steps creaked and groaned, though the rest of the house seemed like new.  “Interesting,” said Sherlock as he leaned over to examine the steps, “these steps are crooked, and the nails driven in are bent.  You would think that with as much money as Mr. White had, he could afford better steps.”  Just then, the door opened and the middle aged woman who came outside introduced herself as Eleanor Cutter.  “I was told by Mr. Rogers that you would be coming here to ask about Mr. White.  Please, come inside.”

            Once inside, they walked down a long hallway, past several doors to a large living room.  The floors were of a tan colored carpet, very clean, with the exception of some scorch marks here and there on the floor.  The furniture was obviously very expensive, and well taken care of.   Off to the side of the living room was a large grandfather clock, and next to it was a small coffee table covered in notes and letters.  Once they were all situated, Ms. Cutter asked, “Would either of you like anything to drink? I just made some tea.” “Yes, please,” said Watson, “that would be nice.”  While Ms. Cutter left to get the tea, Sherlock turned to Watson and whispered, “Well, looks like Mr. Rogers did not know Mr. White as well as he thought.”  “What do you mean?” asked Watson.  “Simple deduction, see those scorch marks on the floor?” Sherlock asked, “Those are caused by cigarette ash falling to the floor, not much, but just enough here and there to be noticed if you look closely.  The only way one would be careless enough to allow ash to fall on a floor as nice as this would be if he was a little drunk.  I can’t get away from cases involving people with drinking problems.” 

            When Ms. Cutter brought the tea for Watson, Sherlock asked, “Did Mr. White have any enemies that you know of?”  “Why, of course not!” exclaimed Ms. Cutter, “He was the kindest man you could meet, and he always treated me and everyone else who came here as if they were royalty, and he would always ask about them and rarely talked about himself, though he could have quite easily talked about all of his accomplishments.”  “It sounds like you knew him quite well,” said Sherlock, “did he ever smoke or drink, to your knowledge?”  “Well,” said Ms. Cutter, “he was never into any of that, just an occasional cigar or maybe a little wine, but only with company and only to make everyone else feel at home as well, but he never had any problems with it, until about three weeks ago, that is.”  At this, Sherlock leapt up from his seat.  “What is it?” he asked, “What about the last three weeks?”  “He started to smoke more regularly, until it was every day, and he even started drinking, which shocked me because he had always been so against them both.  He seemed almost depressed, paranoid, worried, all the time.  I didn’t know what to make of it, and I fear that he might have known something that caused him to be murdered.”  “Yes, yes,” said Sherlock, “that makes sense.  Someone who normally does not smoke or drink, driven to it because of fear, but fear of what exactly, that is the question.  Ms. Cutter, may we take a look around the house to see if we can find any clues as to what he was fearful of?”  “Certainly,” replied Ms. Cutter, “whatever you need to do to help find out who did this.”

            

Sherlock and Watson began exploring the house.  There were 8 bedrooms, a large living room that they had already seen, a sitting room, a dining room with a fireplace, and a table large enough to seat 20 people, a large kitchen, and four bathrooms.  Watson took notes on the contents of the rooms that seemed important, such as the types of candles on the table in the dining room, which were gingerbread scented.  In Mr. White’s bedroom, they found that one of the drawers in his dresser was locked, with no key in sight.  After looking around the room, Sherlock exclaimed, “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.  Our first key to the mystery requires a literal key to find, now, the question is, where would one find such a key?”  “I haven’t the foggiest.” replied Watson.  “Wait a minute,” said Sherlock, “look at the lock, a regular key won’t fit in it, there must be some object that fits in, but where is it!”  He looked over the little bedside table and saw a pen.  He grabbed it and shoved it into the lock.  A click sounded, and the drawer popped open.  “Sherlock, how did you know that the pen would open the lock?” asked Watson.  “Easily,” said Sherlock as he tossed the pen to Watson, “the coating has been rubbed off on the sides, thus making it a good bet that it would open the drawer.”  He began looking through the drawer carefully, a notebook, a pistol, ammunition, more pens, crumpled paper, and a key were inside.  “Now this is getting better,” said Sherlock, as he lifted the key out of the drawer, “what could this possibly open? A safe, a door, a secret door, or maybe even a key to a storage building?”  Watson was looking over the objects, when he suddenly grabbed the crumpled papers.  “Sherlock,” he said, “you might want to look at this.”  He spread out the paper, which turned out to be a crudely drawn map of the house and yard, with a strange note in the bottom right corner, “Fire shows the integrity of a building.”  “That makes no sense,” said Watson, “why would he write that?”  “Because it is a code, think man! When something makes no sense, it has a strong likelihood of being a code!  The real question is, what does the code mean?”  “Maybe the other paper will give us a clue.” said Watson.  He spread out the second paper, only to reveal a random jumble of letters, which read, “YMJ PJD TUJSX YMJ HQTHP”  

            “Very interesting,” said Sherlock, looking deep in thought, “We have two pieces of paper, and two different codes. Let’s start with the first, what could it mean by ‘Fire shows the integrity of a building’?”  “Well,” said Watson, “what if it’s not so much a code, as a figurative?  Maybe if we hold the map over a flame, it will reveal something?”  “Excellent idea Watson,” exclaimed Sherlock, “grab one of those candles from the drawer and light it, then we shall see what this code is.”  Watson quickly lit the candle and Sherlock held the paper over the flame, “This may take a few minutes depending on how recently this was written,” said Sherlock, “but I expect that it was fairly recent.”  Fifteen minutes passed and nothing happened.  “Well,” Sherlock said with a sigh, “I suppose this was not the answer to the code, rarely will it take more than 5 minutes to reveal, and we have waited three times that!  We need to think this one through, fire, integrity, house, what do they have in common?”  “Well,” replied Watson, “perhaps every word in that code is figurative?  Maybe it isn’t a reference to actual fire, or houses?”  “No,” answered Sherlock, “though Mr. White was a businessman, he still was a fairly ordinary man, which means he would not have gone to the trouble of creating an elaborate code, therefore, this is a literal code, the question is, what do the three key words have in common?”  “I have no idea,” replied Watson, “this is one of the strangest codes I have seen.  It makes no sense at all and-”  “Wait a minute,” interrupted Sherlock, “I’ve got it!  Watson, what does a fire, a house, and integrity all have in common?”  “ I have no idea whatsoever.” answered Watson.  “A chimney!” exclaimed Sherlock, “It is so simple, I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner!”  “How can that be,” asked Watson, “how does integrity fit in there?”  “Quite simply,” replied Sherlock, “homes have chimneys, which have fire in them, and chimneys are often a part of the support, or integrity, of a building.”  “So what is so important about a chimney?” asked Watson, “It appeared normal when we were in the dining room.”  “That is a very good question, let’s go back down and take a good look at it.” answered Sherlock.

 

They went back downstairs, taking the strange map with them, and Sherlock began examining the fireplace.  After a few minutes, he exclaimed, “Of course!  He put a little shelf just inside the left side of the fireplace!”  “How can you tell that?” asked Watson.  “Easily,” replied Sherlock, “see how the ashes have all been gathered to the right side of the fireplace?  It is obvious that they are on that side because of the air currents in the fireplace, they were not swept to the side.  And since it is the right side, one can deduce that there must be some kind of obstruction in the fireplace on the left side to cause an air current to sweep to the right.”  “Well,” said Watson, “that seems like a reasonable explanation, but how do you know the ashes were not swept to the side?”  “It is obvious,” answered Sherlock, “Ms. Cutter is right handed, if she were to sweep the ashes to a side, it would be the left so that she could reach in with the brush or broom, and hold the dustpan with the left.  But the ashes are on the right side, so that leaves air currents as the only explanation for them being there.”  With that, he crouched by the fireplace and reached inside on the left side.  After a moment, he turned back to Watson with a look of glee, “Just as I said, a small shelf on the left side! And look at what was on the shelf!” he said, as he removed his hand from the fireplace and stood up.  In his hand was a key, covered in soot from the fireplace.  “This key obviously opens something very important for Mr. White to build a shelf in a chimney to hide it, and then create a code to keep it hidden, the real question is, what does it open?” mused Sherlock.

Author's Note

This is my first book. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome!

Reviews

[Kimberly Miller]

I really liked this chapter! It flowed well from the other one and the humor mixed in is well done. I also like how Watson is endlessly amazed at Sherlock's wit and deduction skills!

[Jeremy Hiles]

Thank you! Yes, Watson can't seem to understand how Sherlock does what he does! Thank you so much for your reviews!