Open Writing

The day after Farnley came to town to visit his widowed sister he introduced himself to Watson and me in the Crown. We had a pleasant chat.

'I thought you'd be gone by now,' I said, three weeks later, when I met him in the high street.

'So did I,' he replied, 'but my sister won't hear of it. She says I need looking after. . . proper meals and all that.'

'Hm, but it must be to her benefit as well,' I said. 'You do the shopping, by the looks of it... and I assume you're useful about the house.'

'Oh, yes, I certainly do my share of the cleaning - and gardening.'

'But what about your own house in, er, where is it... Margate?'

'Oh, that's no problem - my wife's quite capable of looking after it.'

'Your wife? Sounds like a curious arrangement to me,' I said.

'It is,' he chortled. 'Now, let's go for a pint, shall we?'

*

'Haven't seen Farnley,' I said to Watson in the Crown a fortnight later.

'No, you won't have. He's gone back to Margate.'

'Well, I assumed he would at some stage, his wife being there.'

'Ah, yes, I'm told it was his wife who turned up to fetch him. She more or less bundled him into a car and off they went. Just like that.'

'So what about his sister, then? How did she - ?'

'Ha, ha, nothing's ever simple or straightforward, is it?'

'Is that a clue? . . . Well, let me guess. She wasn't his sister, then?'

'Got it in one, Sherlock,' said Watson. 'Now, whose round is it?'