In need of a change of environment, Alice Whitmer finds herself travelling to London. On her first day in her new flat, she meets Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. What surprises Sherlock is that Alice is almost as clever and as good at deductions as...
Alice was surprised to find Sherlock and John sitting with a client in the living room. Few clients had shown up to the flat in person since Sherlock's return was still considered relatively recent.
"Alice, please meet Hilton Cubitt of Norfolk," Sherlock introduced, pointing to the client sitting in the middle of the room. "He's just married an American who has had some disagreeable associations,"
"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Cubitt. What's troubling you?"
"It's my wife, Elsie. I'll start at the beginning. I came to London in 2012 in celebration of the Queen's Jubilee. It was then I met Elsie- Elsie Patrick. Through some miracle, we became good friends and after a month we returned to Norfolk a newly married couple. We've been married for a year now and have been nothing but happy, but a month ago my wife received a letter," Hilton said as he handed Sherlock a slip of paper with the image of a sequence of stick figures.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"How many of these messages has she received?"
"I don't know. She received the first one a month ago from America- I recognised the postage. Her face turned pale and she threw it into the fire after reading it. About a week ago I found a number of these little figures drawn on the window sill with chalk. Naturally, I washed it off and told my wife about it later that day at dinner. She then begged me to let her see them if I found any more. Yesterday, I found this paper on our sundial in the garden. When I showed it to Elsie, she nearly fainted. Since then, her eyes have been filled with terror,"
"Forgive me, Mr. Cubitt," John interrupted, "But wouldn't it be easier if you asked your wife about these messages?"
Hilton shook his head. "When we got married she said that she had disagreeable associations in her life and that she wanted to forget about them. I promised my wife to never ask about her past, I intend to keep that promise,"
"It's very noble of you to do so," Alice complimented.
"Has there been any talk of interesting strangers in your neighbourhood?" Sherlock questioned.
"We get tourists all the time, naturally an odd one or two will pop up,"
"It's a code," Alice observed, taking a photo of the letter on her phone. "Were there more, other than this one and the two from before?"
"Not to my knowledge,"
"Go back to Norfolk and if there are more send us images of each message in the order they were sent," Alice said as she handed the letter back to Hilton. "If there are any in your house, these images, send us a photo of them as well. Sherlock and John's emails are on the blog,"
Hilton Cubitt nodded and left the flat, thanking them or taking his case.
"What do you think?" Sherlock asked from his armchair as Alice came back into his flat with her laptop.
