Title:The Sherlockian
Author(s): Graham Moore
Publisher(s): Twelve
Pages: 368
Year: 2010
Format: EPUB
Language: English
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The random article:
As he searched the floor, Harold adopted a rodent’s-eye view of the area where the taupe carpet met the off-white wallpaper, below the vertical streaks of fleur-de-lis patterning that provided most of the wall’s decoration. He reached into his coat pocket and removed the magnifying glass that had previously found use only as a finger toy when he became nervous or bored.
At the sight of Harold with his glass, Jeffrey shook his head in shame.
Harold began a methodical examination of the hotel room’s walls. He could see puckers in the wallpaper through the lens, as every unevenness in the paper’s application to the drywall seemed to pop out like a series of sand dunes. What was Holmes looking for, when he searched through that fateful Lauriston Gardens house in his first case? That room had been dilapidated, dust-covered, and mildewy from years of inattention. Holmes dug through the dust and shone bright match light into the darkest corners, discovering the word “RACHE”—the German for “revenge”—written in blood at the bottom of the wall in an empty, unused portion of the room. But, thought Harold, sensational though such a clue might be, what was Holmes looking for when he found it? You couldn’t expect a real murderer to conveniently leave you a message explicating his motivations, could you? Stepping back, all Harold saw here was clean hotel wallpaper and freshly vacuumed carpet. He couldn’t possibly hope to find a clue as dramatic as Holmes’s, after all; there would be no bloody messages here. He was being responsible in his expectations. But Holmes’s method—that would work. It simply had to. So what the hell was Harold supposed to be looking for?
Harold’s search swung, inch by inch, 180 degrees across the room, to the wooden desk and chair. The top of the desk was a mess of papers and pens—whoever ransacked the room seemed to have been particularly concerned with making sure no lost diaries had been hidden in the hotel’s “Guide to Your Pay-Per-View Channels.” Harold pushed the chair away and crawled under the desk, continuing his examination. The darkness underneath made this difficult, however, so he reached up and brought the overturned lamp from the desktop to his assistance.
He flicked it on and pointed its bulb at the wall.
Then he dropped it, his body ricocheting as he gave a start. The bulb shattered, rousing both Sarah and Jeffrey from their thoughts and sending them rushing to Harold’s side. What they saw at first appeared to be a small, murky, dark stain on the bright, clean wall. Then, as they knelt beneath the desk, they began to make out red-brown letters, messily scrawled above the carpet line, as if by finger painting. No magnifying glass was needed to read the still-drying message.