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“Mr. Holmes!”
Something clattered to the floor simultaneous to Mrs. Hudson’s low growl. Unintelligible voices still clearly conveyed a guilty Holmes trying to ease Mrs. Hudson’s irritation at his newest kitchen raid, and I shook my head with a grin. With the calendar still firmly in November, I had not truly expected him to start yet.
I could not claim surprise at the attempt, however. Not when I had asked Mrs. Hudson for a pie that she did not usually make until much closer to Christmas. The beginning of the Christmas cooking always brought another, somewhat less dire case to London. Baker Street’s “Case of the Missing Ingredients” remained the only case in which our resident detective took the role of “culprit”—thankfully for the city at large—but it had several times over the years gotten him chased out of the kitchen.
As it apparently would today. Another clatter probably dropped whatever Holmes had tried to pilfer, and hurried feet darted through Mrs. Hudson’s rooms, up the stairs, and into the lower bedroom. The door slammed shut just before Mrs. Hudson could jam the lock with the spatula in her hand.
“Mr. Holmes!”
The other door slammed as well, then something dragged against the rug to brace against the knob. I struggled to silence my laughter when she took the extra work as an invitation, waiting only for him to start blocking the other door before the small panel I had installed in the wall let her pop the lock from the other side. A shout of indignation rose when the next moment removed his brace to let the door swing open, and a quiet thump heralded his exit via the window. I waited for irritated defeat to become a quiet huff—and for my laughter to let me breathe—before I spoke.
“What did he do?”
“Raided my pantry,” she confirmed with a scowl. A long moment reassembled the hidden access to prevent Holmes from removing the panel. “Several spoonfuls of sugar and a few other ingredients are missing, as well as both pies. I only have time and ingredients to remake one of them, and the church social is tomorrow. I will not be able to make the pie you requested for a few more days.”
I did not need to fake a smile, a silent wave brushing the worry aside. “That’s alright, Mrs. Hudson. I’m in no hurry. Do you need help cleaning up?”
She shook her head before I finished the question. “He didn’t make too much of a mess this time. I would think he had just started if not for those missing pies, and don’t think I missed your pace on the stairs earlier. Stay up here so you’ll be mobile for whatever he drags you into tomorrow.”
That was true enough, for all that I disliked the implication of inability. Both leg and shoulder protested an incoming storm, and I had spent most of the morning on a long list of errands. I had no wish to leave the fire.
I would, though, if she needed help. She refused again, however, and with one more frown at Holmes’ room, she headed back downstairs. I waited for her to reach the kitchen before retrieving the dish I had shoved in a desk drawer.
If Mrs. Hudson had noticed the scent, she had clearly blamed Holmes, but he did not have a monopoly on raiding the kitchen for the small dessert pies Mrs. Hudson usually made for our suppers.
I simply had not made a game of pilfering ingredients and baked goods, and if Mrs. Hudson found Holmes in the pantry on her return, she remained more than happy to blame him. Even Holmes’ many protestations of innocence would not faze her when Holmes had obviously raided the ingredients and eaten the remaining pie. I happily enjoyed having dessert for supper, secure in the knowledge that I would get a second pie sometime next week.
Considering Holmes believed that I had tried to talk him out of raiding the kitchen, I doubted he would even pay me back for using him to cover my own “pilfering.”