Free The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes by Paul Gilbert

threeminutes Jarvis, James’s valet, finally opened the door to me. He greeted me with a strange questioning glance, as if unaware of my reason for standing there.
    “‘Yes sir?’ he queried.
    “‘Jarvis, please be so kind as to give my brother this message. Let his umbrella be hanged! He must join me in the cab this instant or we will surely be late for our own meeting!”
    “‘Now I should point out that, although Jarvis had not been in my brother’s employ for very long, he had proved himself to be a most loyal, efficient and level-headed kind of fellow and a most able manservant. Therefore his reaction to my explosive rhetoric was all the more surprising.
    “‘I beg your pardon sir,’ he replied in his customary quiet, measured tones, ‘but Mr James has already retrieved his umbrella and returned outside to join you. Surely he has not mistaken another cab for your own?’ There was a slim blue and white Chinese vase, by the front door, wherein James always stowed his umbrella, but which was now empty and Jarvis pointed to this to confirm the validity of his previous statement.
    “‘What nonsense!” I rejoined. “No other vehicle has passed this way since I pulled up outside, a full half-hour ago. My brother is merely malingering, as is usual, and employing you to stall for him for his own inexplicable reasons. Let me pass, Jarvis, and I shall search the house for myself!” With that I shoved the poor fellow roughly against the wall and barged my way through. I went from room to room, leaving no stone unturned, even pausing to ascertain that each window was still locked from the inside. Then, to my annoyance and great confusion, I had to concede that Jarvis had been speaking the truth. My brother was nowhere to be seen!”
    ‘At this point, Holmes, you caused him to pause and asked him to explain why he had thought it necessary to check the locks on each window, since it displayed surprising presence of mind in the unusual circumstances. His reply was as follows:
    “‘James is well renowned for his eccentric behaviour and it would have come as no great surprise to find that in order to avoid both me and the annual general meeting, an event he had no great desire to attend, he had left his house by a less than conventional means.”
    “‘Mr Phillimore, you are indeed describing a most singular event and I can assure you now that I shall take up your problem with all dispatch. Please describe your subsequent course of action.”
    ‘With understandable and considerable relief, Phillimore bowed in acknowledgement of your pledge before continuing with his remarkable story.
    “‘After offering Jarvis a thousand apologies, I had to acknowledge that James could only have departed through the front door and that a combination of the poor visibility and my constantly glancing at my timepiece, had caused me to miss his hurried departure. Though why he chose to avoid me and the cab, heaven alone could know.
    “‘However, upon my rejoining the cab, the driver confirmed everything that I had seen and was also unable to offer a rational explanation of the events we had just witnessed. He offered to drive me around the empty neighbouring streets to see if we could discover James departing on foot. Mr Holmes, we drove around for a full hour, before returning to my brother’s house in the vain hope that he had returned. Jarvis was undoubtedly as bemused as were both myself and the driver and so, as a last resort, I handedthe matter over to the police. Alas, their response and results they achieved proved to be as negative as I have previously described to you.”
    ‘With that, Phillimore completed his narrative and shortly afterwards he reclaimed his partially dried clothes and departed, encouraged by the hope that you would solve the mystery of his absent brother.’
    ‘A hope that proved to be vain and somewhat premature, eh, Watson? As I recall, our visit to Phillimore’s home proved as fruitless as that of