Page 28 of Three Meows

A half opened letter envelope on the desk immediately caught my attention and I pulled the piece of paper out and gave it to Elijah, who dutifully read the contents out. It was a missive explaining a man has been killed and his daughter implores Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson to find the murderer. She hopes her father’s study provides some insight.

We had our case!

With excitement, we began scouring the room for clues.

I had an old-fashioned paper in my clutches while Elijah was fiddling with various objects on the desk. A gasp made me look up.

“Look at this! A note behind the mirror!” my brown-haired assistant beamed.

“Someone was trying to blackmail him,” I concluded after reading the slip of paper demanding the man show up in a certain location on the night before his murder.

“A lover?” Elijah suggested.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data,” I tsked, quoting Sherlock.

“You’re right,” Elijah nodded. “Let’s find more info! I bet I can find more clues than you.”

“It’s the quality that counts, not the quantity,” I sniffed. “But you are so on.”

Our search took a frantic note as we went through the room like a localized tornado while shooting looks at each other every now and then. My competitive spirit was on fire. When we converged again after ten minutes, I was pretty happy with my haul.

Until we started to compare our finds.

“…and this report has mysterious initials ASH which I found in several places,” I pointed out proudly. “It has to mean something.”

Elijah shook his head.

“That’s the name of the housekeeper, Alana Sabrina Hetford. It’s a red herring.”

In the end, the clues we found were mostly debunked by what the other person had found.

“I think the room won this time,” Elijah said.

“Yeah,” I laughed and threw an arm around my partner’s shoulders. “Maybe we should actually start working together if we want to get out of here anytime soon.”

After that we investigated together, sharing ideas, solving puzzles, and having a blast.

Frequent quoting of Conan Doyle’s works only added to the mirth.

“Excellent!” Elijah cried when we reached a nifty conclusion.

“Elementary,” I responded.

We giggled like two schoolchildren.

A cipher, a secret key, a message that had to be read in the mirror… the escape room challenged our thinking skills and it was extremely satisfying when we reached the conclusion.

We rang the bell, signaling we were ready to give the answer, and the attendant opened the door and raised an expectant eyebrow.

“It’s the daughter!” I blurted out.

“She wanted to frame the mistress, but we saw through all those false clues!” Elijah grinned.

“Congratulations on solving the mystery! When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” the attendant quoted and gave us our spoils for solving the case, a small but beautiful edition of Hounds of Baskerville.

“Dinner?” I asked when we left the escape room behind, still riding the high of playing Sherlock and Watson and succeeding at our task.

“I would normally go to a restaurant with good food… but I think we deserve fast food today.”

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