The Incident Concerning The Alsatian Dog.

Chapter 9

I had gathered the whole of the house together, and we were all sitting in the lounge. Barnes and Fisher had joined us, the latter sitting, unsurprisingly, next to Isabel. I was standing by the mantelpiece, where I had a clear view of the grandfather clock on the opposite wall. I needed to be keeping an eye on the time constantly for this plan to work. Broker and the doctor were sitting with Hettie on an isolated sofa to my right. I had placed them there deliberately, as most of my evidence was actually hidden under that chair, and I wasn't too keen on anyone else getting their hands on it. My three friends were unknowingly acting as my jail-keepers. Newham was, nowhere in sight.

The rest of the acting troupe were dotted around the room, sitting on chairs or sharing sofas, and as I was satisfied that everyone was here, I clapped my hands for silence.

"Now" I began. "I suppose you can all guess why I've brought you here this afternoon."

"No" Ellie said bluntly. I sighed. She was obviously setting out to make my life difficult again.

"Alright then, for anyone who doesn't know why I've brought you here, it's because I'm going to tell you all what went on in this house two nights ago" I corrected myself politely.

"What did go on here two nights ago?" Ellie asked instantly. I refrained from throwing something and instead adopted a tone I might have used for a small, innocent child.

"Well, I tell you what. I'll continue talking to everyone else without your interruptions, and by the end, let's see if you can work it out, shall we?"

It was taking patronising to the extreme, I knew that, but really I just needed her to shut up so I could get on. It worked.

"Right" I smiled at the room, who were all hiding giggles. "As with most of my cases, when I'm explaining them, I tend to have difficulty knowing where to start, so I'm just going to begin at the beginning with what we know and then try to put it into some sort of context, shall I?"

There was a general murmur of consent. I fancied the room was still reeling from the way in which I had dealt with Ellie's heckling.

"Good. Now, I'm going to start with quite a minor point that may have been overlooked" I began again. "In truth, this point tells the start of our story, and if you missed it, then you would have assumed that the whole saga began this morning."

"Then when did it start?" Barnes asked. I smiled at him.

"Last night."

"How can you know that?" Hettie said confusedly.

"Well" I started to explain. "Remember when we first looked through Matthew's room Het. What did you find?"

"I found a cocoa mug stain on the bedside table" Hettie replied, still looking puzzled.

"Dr. Scott" I carried on, moving to address the doctor. "I asked you to examine said mug stain, what was in it?"

The doctor had been chuckling to himself throughout my previous few statements. It seemed he had latched on to my scheme to ensure there could be no doubt what I said was the truth. Therefore, he knew what he needed to say to move the story on.

"The cocoa in the mug had reasonably high levels of a powerful knockout drug, so powerful that even inhalation would cause some side effects" the doctor told the room. I nodded.

"Hettie, do you remember what I did to check the stain was actually cocoa?" I asked a still confused Hettie.

"You...smelled it!" Hettie gasped, realisation dawning. "That's why you nearly fainted that first time!"