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Judith Holmes' First Case, or
The Mystery of the Broken Flower Pot

By Andrea Johnson

I watched the daughter of my age kneel on all fours amid the debris of a shattered flower pot, rich soil, and dying aspidistra. Her long, angular nose twitched a little like that of a bloodhound puppy. When at length she looked up, her gray eyes were gleaming with the thrill of solving her first case.

"Father, I know who made this big mess," she exclaimed.

The mystery of the broken flower pot began earlier that day when Mrs. Hudson and I heard a loud crash through the open kitchen window. We arrived upon the scene of the crime too late to catch the culprit in the act, but of course my housekeeper had her suspicions. The terra cotta flower pot had been located next to an oversized container (a whimsical item my half-American wife called a "cookie jar" when she purchased it during our trip to San Francisco years before) in the shape of a bumblebee. The jar had been found overturned on the kitchen counter. Since Mrs. Hudson had neglected to count the number of biscuits in the jar, she was unable to determine for certain whether any were missing. Still, she felt circumstances pointed suspiciously towards the daughter of the house, who had a fondness for such delicacies and had been playing with her dolls in the next room. The two of us had been in the garden; Judith's nanny was enjoying her day off in town; and Russell, who also enjoyed Mrs. Hudson's oatmeal "cookies," had an iron clad alibi. She had been ensconsed at the Bodleian in Oxford for the past two days.

"Next time just ask me if you want a biscuit, Miss Judy," Mrs. Hudson said, and ruffled Judith's strawberry blonde head. "You'll spoil your dinner."

"But I didn't steal a biscuit," insisted Judith righteously, holding her immaculate hands out for inspection. "Do you see any crumbs?" She gestured dramatically at the front of her blue and green plaid frock, which was also completely free of crumbs.

Mrs. Hudson smiled.

"No, my lamb, but you would have hidden away the evidence," she said. "Your name isn't Holmes for nothing. Don't worry, dear. There's no real harm done. I'll just get the broom and sweep away this mess."

"I didn't take one, not today anyway," Judith said scrupulously, setting both hands on her hips and scowling furiously at my housekeeper. Mrs. Hudson smiled indulgently and fetched the broom and dustpan.

My long-suffering housekeeper had been clearing away the messes of the Holmes family for more years than I cared to count. At least my offspring had not as yet seen fit to shoot her initials into the wall of her bedroom (Four years of age, even I had to admit, was too young to handle a revolver.) Still, in imitation of my own idiosyncratic habit of storing tobacco in an old Persian slipper, small Judith had of late taken to hiding her forbidden peppermints in the toe of an American Indian moccasin that once belonged to her mother. And, alas, she was proving as untidy as Mrs. Hudson claimed her mother and I both were. Judith had too many ongoing art projects and growing artifact collections to spare time to tidy her living quarters.

"There were fifteen whole biscuits when I counted them last night, and there are still that many," Judith assured Mrs. Hudson.

I deduced from this statement that there were sixteen or more of the treats in the bee-shaped cookie jar when last Judith counted. However, though she may have stolen a biscuit the night before, there was not enough evidence to convict her of today's misdeed.

"You believe me, don't you, Father?" Judith implored.

"Of course I do, Judith," I said.

I knew my daughter to be entirely capable of misleading the adults in her life and of manipulating us to gain what she desired, but she had never told us a direct lie. However, curiosity compelled me to add the next sentence.

"But if you were not the culprit this morning, at whom should we point the finger of blame? What do your eyes tell you?" I asked.

Mrs. Hudson looked amused.

"Mr. Holmes, the child is only four," she reminded me. "Isn't it a bit early to begin tutoring her in detection?"

Judith grinned at me like a dog, reminding me suddenly and powerfully of the day her mother, my first apprentice, had beat me handily at chess for the first time. Judith looks entirely too much like her mother for my peace of mind. To date she is equally oblivious of the effect of her own beauty. Never once has she batted her eyelashes or smiled winningly to wheedle a favor or played the coquette as other pretty little girls have been known to do with their fathers or grandfathers. Her clear and transparent honesty and joyousness make her smiles all the more devastating. When I imagine the men who will swarm about her like bees around honey, my heart skips a beat.

In the preceding sixty-odd years before her birth, I had never willingly given a hostage to fortune. The loss of my first son had made me distinctly unenthusiastic about the prospect of fathering another child. I must acknowledge that the likelihood I will not be there to protect her in her adolescence as a father should still worries me deeply.

I would never have considered the possibility of fatherhood were it not for Russell. The night I saw her cradling Jessica Simpson, the American Senator's daughter, in her lap made many other things between us possible. Her decision to seize the moment and rescue the girl herself from her kidnappers proved Russell's maturity and ability to serve as a full partner. But the way Jessica clung to her like a limpet, the way she hugged Russell and called her "Sister Mary," the way she loves my wife even to this day planted other seeds in my mind. I was not consciously aware of this at the time, of course, but in that moment I saw the girl I had loved at first sight as a potential mother as well as a potential wife and partner.

When Russell first told me she was carrying our child, it was that image of her of a tall, fierce-eyed eighteen-year-old cradling a traumatized six-year-old in her lap like a Renaissance portrait of madonna and child that rose to my mind. I knew she would protect Judith like a mother lioness and would love her just as tenderly, even if I were not always there to help her. As in so many other aspects of our life together, fatherhood required that I trust Russell as I have never trusted any other human being.

From that first moment, Judith seemed fated. There was never any doubt as to her name. Clearly, she must be named after Russell's mother. There was also no doubt as to her sex. Somehow Russell and I both knew she was carrying a girl. Unlike my poor lost son, I knew my daughter from the moment of her conception. I felt her kicking in her mother's womb, and I fought officious nurses and doctors and ridiculous hospital policies to sit beside her mother during a long, trying labor. I wiped beads of sweat from Russell's brow, endured her sharp tongue, and tried to provide what encouragement I could. Then Russell, with heroic effort, at last pushed our daughter into the world. She slipped from the birth canal: bright red, caked in blood and mucus, and crying her indignation. I felt a strange mixture of relief and terror and exultation. My brave, cherished wife was exhausted but alive. Throughout the pregnancy, I had lived in secret terror that I might lose her during childbirth. Despite today's medical advances, far too many young women died in this way, even in December 1926.

My eyes were wet, but for once I was not ashamed by the untoward display of emotion in public. "I love you," I whispered, and kissed my wife on her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. "My dear Russ." She was still with me. The worst had not happened. "Holmes, I love you too," she whispered back.

Across the room, our daughter was screaming her lungs out as the nurse weighed and measured her and gently wrapped her in a pink receiving blanket. I was a father again in my old age. What ever was I going to do now? As the doctor tended to Russell, the nurse placed the blanketed Judith in my arms. "Well, then, little Miss Holmes, best say hello to your daddy," she said. "He's waited a long time to meet you."

As I cradled her, awkwardly at first, her cries turned to whimpers. I inspected the tuft of light hair on her head (like her mother's, I deduced, hoping that she would resemble Russ in other ways as well.) But I recognized the long, slender fingers and the unfocused gray eyes as my own. Holding her for the first time, I fell head long in love. Never did I expect such a rush of emotion. Just as I had loved her mother at first sight, I also loved my daughter.

In the years since, this feeling has only grown stronger. Her beauty, her brains and her spirit, her growing strength of character have all delighted me. Today, the fun and excitement of the challenge I had presented her with had obviously overriden her indignation at having been falsely accused.

"May I please use your magnifying glass, Father?" she inquired politely, knowing precisely what I had suggested.

I reached into my shirt pocket and held it out to her. She accepted it gravely and used it to carefully examine the scene of the recent disaster. She dragged a stool over to the counter to look at the traces of dirt beside the overturned cookie jar. She knelt beside the shards of flower pot to peruse the telltale prints there.

I was gratified to see that she did not disturb evidence. I did not have to tell her this; she instinctively knew what required doing. The corners of Mrs. Hudson's mouth twitched as the little girl nodded her head knowingly and clicked her tongue as she made her discoveries. We watched her lay supine until her face was inches away from the fine layer of dirt. Her eyesight, like her mother's, was poor, and made worse by much reading. Soon she would need glasses to help her see clearly despite her myopic eyes. Her long hair, still unplaited for the day, fell in her face. She brushed it aside impatiently.

"Aha!" she said, sitting up at last. "Father, Mrs. Hudson look! It was Peaches the cat. See, here's his paw print, and here's where his tail dragged across the floor," Judith said.

She rose to her feet, triumphant, and walked to Mrs. Hudson.

"See?" Judith said, gesturing at the tell-tale paw and tail prints. "It's quite simple."

Mrs. Hudson laughed.

"I see now, my lamb," she said. "And I'm sorry for doubting you. You shall have two biscuits with your tea to make up for it, how's that? But how do you know 'twas Peaches when we have three pussycats about?"

Judith looked at Mrs. Hudson strangely.

"Peaches has an extra toe on his foot," she explained. "Look at the paw print. It's different from Marmalade's and Chutney's."

Then, as if on cue, the feline mastermind sauntered across the kitchen floor, his plumed tail flitting insolently in the air.

"There you are, you naughty cat," Mrs. Hudson cried. She apprehended the suspect and lifted him high. Peaches, like most criminals with superior minds, had done his best to remove the trace evidence with his tongue. Still, he had missed a spot. A trace of dirt remained on the tip of his apricot-colored tail. With expert eyes, I determined that it had most certainly originated from the flower pot that lay shattered at our feet.

"He is the author of this morning's crime," I declared, and rubbed the cat behind the ears. "Well done, Judith. Very well done."

Judith beamed with pride.

"Thank you, Father," she said. "Now, will you come and braid my hair? You do it better than Mrs. Hudson does. Then I will share my biscuits with you."

"I should be delighted," I said, and held out my hand. My daughter placed her hand in mine trustingly. "We'll let Mrs. Hudson do the clearing up, shall we, as she does it better than the two of us."

"And that's a fact. Judith has proven herself her father's daughter," Mrs. Hudson said with a laugh as we exited the kitchen. "As if there were any doubt."