The Finical Problem, Part One

With the summer season hard upon them, the usual Phillimoric column-writing team has gone off on a two-month hiatus. In their stead the good Dr. Watson has been asked to step in with a two-part tale that both updates us on what he's doing currently and serves as a reminder of certain events in the Hansoms of John Clayton’s past.

THE FINICAL PROBLEM
By John H. Watson, M.D.

"Don't do it, Doctor," Thorne admonished me in his usual, yet pleading tone.

A bleary day of rheumy sleet had come immediately following the tragic outcome of the Bradley Shaw case of '79. Every action I had taken in the matter had been in vain, and now Jackadora Tracano sat in a small room somewhere across town, hopelessly stark raving mad. After attempting to read our sleet-sodden newspapers, I had rapidly fallen into a brown study. For a time I sat, staring into our cacophonous unlit hearth, until my hand ultimately started reaching for the tantalus my companion had come to dread. Then came his warning.

My companion, Robert Thorne, had weaned me from the bottle during the first hard year of our residence together, just as I had weaned Holmes from the villainous cocaine in earlier times. He was not about to see his efforts go down with one quick swallow of brandy. I'm sure it was an act of friendship, although Thorne did have a considerable amount invested in the detective agency he had built around this weary old man I now am, based on what skills I picked up from Holmes during our long association.

Whatever Thorne's motive, I pulled my hand back, and instead lit a cigar. Just as I relaxed into the-chair to resume my glum meditations, young John, our page, entered.

"A gentleman to see you, Dr. Watson," he announced, adjusting his crutches so they didn't interfere with his broken arm.

"Send him up, John," I told him. "And tell Mrs. Winterfield to hold breakfast until after he's gone."

The young man nodded and hobbled away. Shortly afterward, a black-bearded man in New England fisherman's rain garb strode saltily through our sitting-room doorway.

"In what fashion may we agsleviate your costimoronidation?" Thorne asked the seaman.

"How may we help you?" I interpreted, noticing our caller's confusion at my companion's love of the multi-syllabic.

"Me name's T.K. LaHooch," the seafarer began. "I work on the tug, Port of Amaretto, down on the river."

Mr. LaHooch had hardly begun, but his case had already whetted my interest.

"It all began," LaHooch continued, "when the captain hired on Ginny Rumsford as a cook. Well, that snort of made sense, but before you know it, he's hired her sisters Sherry and Brandy as well. But they ain't too bad lookin' so what the 'ale, I say. A guy gets mighty tired of starin' at ugly old Sam Gria all day, y'know?"

"Get back to the facts," Thorne grumbled at out client, showing a sudden irritation. I could see no cause for his discourteous behaviour, as our client's story seemed to be progressing nicely.

"Last night I hears a shot!" LaHooch went on with spirits undampened. "I run over to the captain's cabin, and find Sherry standin' over him. 'You know this wiver,’ she lisped to me. ‘Thailing it is a wisky busineth.’”

"I'll be jiggered!" I found myself exclaiming.

"The cabin lites were out," he continued, "but moonshine streamed in the window, and I saw it wasn't Sherry after all, but Margarita, Cap'n Jack Daniels’s mistress, with something in her hand. Thinking it might be a Colt .45, I schnapps it up, but it weren't a gun at all . . .“

He pulled an attractive bottle from his coat pocket.

"Smell this," he said, uncorking the bottle. A pleasant fragrance wafted my way, and I found myself licking my lips uncontrollably, my senses sharpening as I became eager to take on the case from which this bottle came. My reverie was cut short, however, as the bottle exploded before my eyes.

I turned to find Robert Thorne holding my smoking service revolver. He casually pointed the pistol at our client, reached over, and pulled the man’s beard off. Beneath the sailor’s whiskers was an insidiously evil face of Oriental extraction.

“The game is up, Sim San!” Thorne told the Chinaman. “Your feeble attempt to prove Watson an alcoholic has failed!”

Or has it? Find our next month, with “The Finical Problem” concludes.

(Printed in Plugs & Dottles, September 1986)