The Adventure of the Crazed Concierge
By John H. Watson
(From The Baker Street Chronicle, Volume 4, Number 2, March-April 1984)
Editted by Brad A. Keefauver

Stormy days were quite common to London that season in 184 that the re-markable affair of the gutted milkmaid came to our attention. The pomegranate-sized hailstones that were crashing through our windows at 2218 were another matter entirely.

One had already obliterated Holmes's latest wax bust of himself by the window, and it soon seemed as if our lodgings were going to suffer the same fate.

"Don't get over-excited, my friend," Sherlock Holmes said to me from where he sat comfortably next to the fireplace. Pipe in hand, he was watching a hailstone sizzle and melt at the fire's center.

"These unusual incidents of weather rarely last long," he calmly told me. "I should think this one is due to let up any minute. Your terror is entirely unjustified."

"My terror? Why, Holmes, I was doing my best to remain the soul of placidity, a veritable calm center at the eye of the typhoon, as it were. How could you tell?"

"Clear as glass, dear old Watson. When the hail began, you immediately looked at me for a reaction. Seeing none, you chose also to act with restraint. Yet your subsequent glances at your mother's portrait and our King James version Bible gave away your fear of sudden death."

"Good, Holmes, good," my nervousness at the still-crashing hail prevented me from uttering any Polysyllabic words of praise. Holmes lifted one eyebrow in irritation at my meagre efforts to compliment his brain-work, then went back to watching the hailstone vanish in the grate.

Within a fortnight, the giant hailstorm was over, and a knock came at the door. Holmes bid the knocker enter, and Mrs. Hudson came into our rooms with a deck of cards on a salver.

"Whist, anyone?" she asked In her Scottish, yet playful, accent.

"Just what we need to clear away the hailstones, wouldn't you say, Watson? lf Holmes said and rose from his chair. "But we'll need a fourth, Mrs. Hudson; did you have anyone in mind?"

"Inspector Lestrade is downstairs to see you, Sir," our landlady told him as she made her way to the table, sat down, and began to shuffle the cards. "You could ask him."

Holmes went to the door and shouted down the stairs for the Scotland Yardman to come up. He then seated himself across the table from Mrs. Hudson. I joined them, and Lestrade was soon seated as well.

"What brings you to our hail-shattered doorstep?" Holmes asked Lestrade as we all picked up our first deal of the cards.

"Nasty business. Case of a gutted milkmaid," Lestrade said, frowning at the hand held been dealt.

"Let's not have any gory details while we're playing cards,” our matronly landlady warned. "I've got tea and sugar biscuits for later, so let's not chase away our appetites.”

"Are there Some less gruesome aspects of the case you can tell me, Lestrade?" the detective persisted.

“Well, there is the strange business of the milkmaid's two lovers and her pregnant sister.”

"Nothing scandalous, there's a lady present,” I notified him.

"Anything not scandalous?" Holmes inquired.

"There was the matter of the milkmaid's favorite cow, Effie, and what she did in the night-time while her mistress was murdered."

"What did the cow do in the night-time?”

"The cow did nothing in the night-time. The milkmaid was murdered on the other side of town. Got ya there, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!” Lestrade roared with laughter.

Holmes raised an irritated eyebrow. I drummed my fingers upon the table-top.

"It's your turn inspector," Mrs. Hudson said menacingly. "Play.”

Lestrade pulled his face back together and got about the business of playing whist. His next play was a total failure, however, and the hand went to Holmes.

"Well!" the Scotland Yard man exclaimed, rising from his seat, "perhaps you 'consulting detectives' have time to sit around and play whist with your landladies all day, but some of us lave work to do. Good day!"

With that, Lestrade stumbled over his chair as he headed for the door. Recovering what little dignity he had left, the inspector marched out, slamming the door behind him.

"Poor sportsman, I must say," I commented, cutting off a less reserved outburst by Mrs. Hudson before it reached her Scottish tongue.

"It seems we are once more short of a fourth player, which more or less cancels our game,” Holmes remarked.

But Mrs. Hudson was already at the doorway, shouting down the stairs: "Billy!”

"Yes, ma’am,” our page reported breathlessly for duty after a quick scramble up the steps.

"D'you play whist lad?" Mrs. Hudson asked, fixing one eye upon the boy sternily.

"Uh, no, ma'am."

"We'll teach you then. Have a seat."

"No ma'am, I can't."

"CAN'T?!?" our landlady's voice took on a quality I had never heard before and hope never to hear again.

"Me mum says that cards are old Beelzebub's calling cards. Picking one up is the same as getting an introduction to Scratch limself," Billy piped up reverently. It was plain he feared Mrs. Hudson's wrath; any sentient creature would have. But his convictions backed him up well.

"That will be all, Billy," Holmes interceded, "You can return to whatever you were doing."

"Thank you, sir," Billy breathed and rumbled back down the stairs.

“What ‘er we to do, Mr. Holmes!" Mrs. Hudson wailed like a Scottish banshee. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I thought that she was eyeing the syringe and cocaine bottle on the mantlepiece.

Taking up a pen and paper, Holmes began scribbling furiously. Upon finishing his note, he folded it and wrote and address on the outside.

"Mrs. Hudson, would you be so kind as to deliver this for me?" Holmes asked, handing our landlady the note. "The address is not far from here, and it's a matter of the utmost importance."

"But the game?"

"We can resume it immediately upon your return, if You still feel up to it,"

Holmes told her. t'I believe the streets are clear now, if my ears do not fail me. Now that that dreadful storm is over, a walk might do you some good."

Reluctantly, Mrs. Hudson left us, once again ready to perform above and beyond the call of her landladial duties.

"What was that all about, Holmes?" I asked as I watched Mrs. Hudson heading down the street through our shattered bay window.

"I've sent her to the Gentleman's Whist Club,' Holmes casually explained.

"The proprietor owes me a favor, and the note I sent with her calls the favor due, telling him to somehow get the dear woman into a game of whist and to keep her there until she falls faint from exhaustion. That should cure her mania?"

"Mania?" I inquired in disbelief at Holmes, diagnosis.

"A variant strain of what is known in the colonies as 'cabin fever'. An effect of being involuntarily restrained from leaving one's domicile by severe weather or other restrictive conditions. Fortunately, our characters withstood the test, did they not, Watson?"

"Of course, Holmes," I agree wholeheartedly.

"While Mrs. Hudson is away," he said with an ominous gleam in his eye, "why don't we make her return a bit easier and tidy up a bit.”

"A capital idea, Holmes. I'll go for a broom.”

"And I shall go for my cap," Holmes replied as he put on his Inverness cape.

"But Holmes, aren't we . . ."

"Of course," the detective donned his deerstalker, "you sweep up, while I, as our American friends say 'get the hail out of here.’”

With that he was out the door.

Picking up one of the largest of the remaining hailstones, I took a post in our now glassless bay window and waited for Holmes to reach the street.

My own “cabin fever” was to be cured any moment.