Sherlock Holmes and the Engineer's Thumb 1 | Page 31

returned from his volunteering work which was supposed to finish at six o’clock last
night, and the contents of this envelope is the only evidence I have that he has not
left me.”
“May I see?” Sherlock requested, carefully taking the envelope as it was offered to
him. With Alice’s approval he pried open the paper package, letting the contents
drop onto his hand. Two objects had fallen out: a folded up piece of paper (quite
obviously a letter) and a navy blue engineer’s glove covered in dried oil. As
expected, Sherlock’s attention was captured by the glove.
“Watson, if you could be so kind to read the letter aloud,” he muttered, not fully
paying attention to anything around him. Gingerly, I took the letter, unfolding it whilst
sparing a glance at Alice. She was watching me, still shaking with both fear and
curiosity in her eyes. Clearing my throat, I read the letter out loud.
“‘Dear Miss Alice,’” I spoke, “‘It is with sorrow and regret that I write this letter. Your
beloved, Robert Connopy, has been involved in an accident. You will-’” My voice cut
off as my mind continued reading the last sentence. Doing this only caused Alice to
grow more concerned.
“What is it?” she asked meekly, voice a lot quieter and more threaded with worry
than before. Sherlock had tilted his head up to look at me, eyes narrowed as he
silently voiced his concern towards my actions. After a gulp, I heard myself reading
the last six words that I knew would probably break poor Alice’s heart.
“‘You will never see him again.’”
Two hours later, Sherlock and I were sitting face to face at our kitchen table, the oil
covered glove lying between us. He was staring intently at the glove, eyes steeled
over with determination to find something; I was watching him, hoping he would soon
find something that could indicate what had happened.
After I had revealed the dreadful last sentence of the letter, Alice had lost her ability
to stand. We had escorted her to a chair, where she had gladly offered some
hopefully helpful information to us, probably because she thought we were the last
people who could get this ‘Robert’ back to her. Afterwards we had made sure she
could get back home safely, hailing a cab and paying her expenses.
Honestly, we could have tried to go on a trail there and then, right after she had left.
But Sherlock had insisted on eating first (“Can’t go investigating on an empty
stomach, I’m sure.”) and he had also wanted to investigate this glove.