A SherLyle Holmes Adventure:  The Mystery of the Mangled Loaf

It was a misty November morning and I had recently retired to my reading room with my violin. I have found that music reorders my tangled thoughts.  After a particularly challenging encounter with a squirrel and my far-too-short bungee leash, I had been looking forward to calming myself with Brahms.

I was just played the first notes of his Concerto in D Major when a tall woman arrived at the door.  I could tell just from a glance that she was harried and upset.  She was disheveled and a few crumbs of something still clung to her fingertips.  Interrupted in the midst of her breakfast, I thought.  A robbery, perhaps.  We shall see.

"Are you the famous SherLyle Holmes?" she asked.

"At your service," I replied, bowing.  "Please have a seat.  Allow me to guess:  something happened to you during your breakfast?"

"How did you know..." she broke off, glancing at the crumbs on her fingers.  "Uncanny," she said.  "I need your help solving a crime."

"A robbery?" I queried, although I already suspected it was so.

"Why, yes, in fact, or more accurately an attempted robbery.  Or a partial robbery."

My curiosity was piqued.  The woman related a summary of the events leading up to the crime while I listened carefully, assimilating the facts.  "I will meet you at the scene of the robbery in 15 minutes.  Please gather all your household members to be present for questioning."

"Oh thank you, Mr. Holmes.  I can't tell you how grateful I am."  And she rushed out the door, leaving a few crumbs behind.  I sniffed them carefully.  Flour, butter, cinnamon, sweet potato?  What sort of delightful confection is this?

I arrived precisely on time at the woman's home and she led me into her kitchen.  I took in the cast of characters, or perhaps suspects? at a glance.  A stout terrier-type with a surly expression sat on the floor next to a man who I took to be the woman's husband.  He appeared to be short tempered and in a foul mood.  Next to the woman sat a big-eyed hound who appeared nervous, or perhaps shy.  I immediately knew which of them to question first.  The shy ones always have the most to hide.

"You there, miss, what's your name?" I asked.

"Maebe," she replied, her voice tremulous.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

She looked up at the woman anxiously, blinking fast.  This one has answers, I thought.  "Doesn't he already know, Boss Ma'am?" Maebe asked.

"Please, I would like to hear everyone's version of the robbery.  By the way, what was stolen?"

The angry-eyed man gestured to the scene of the crime.  On the kitchen countertop rested a half-eaten loaf of bread.  He scowled at me and said, "Someone ate half a loaf of freshly baked sweet potato bread this morning while I was upstairs working on the computer." Likely excuse, I thought.  He's a suspect, I noted.  "Some dog is in big trouble," he added.

So that's the source of those crumbs, and, lo, another suspect comes to the fore.  "Miss Maebe, where were you while the bread was cooling?"

"I was upstairs in the office with the Boss Man and the Boss Ma'am.  I heard the noises and came downstairs with them to find the bread was almost gone.  I didn't eat any of it."  She looked a little disappointed.  And perhaps a bit untrustworthy.

"You look like you would be a very good jumper," I observed.

Maebe smiled proudly and said, "Oh, yes, I am.  I can jump higher than anyone else in the house.  Would you like to see?"  And she launched from a dead sit to about 3 feet off the floor, her head easily clearing the level of the countertop.  I narrowed my eyes and nodded.  As soon as she realized what she'd done, she gasped.  "But I didn't steal the bread!  I swear!  The countertop is too slippery.  I could never jump on to it, I would slide right off!  I didn't do it!  Boss Ma'am, please tell him!"  Her eyes filled with tears and the woman reached down to comfort her.  Accomplice, I thought.

I turned to the surly terrier and said, "And where were you this morning?"

She replied sharply, "What's it to you?" Another suspect, I noted. Four members of the household and four suspects.  A difficult case, to be sure.  But the terrier was high on my list--her rotund physique suggested she never missed an opportunity to eat.

"Just trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle," I replied evenly.  I didn't want to raise the ire of this one.  She had trouble written all over her.

"Well, as if you didn't know, I was also upstairs in the office with the Boss Ma'am and the Boss Man and Maebe."

An inconsistency, I realized.  I turned to Maebe and said, "You didn't mention that the fat terrier was in the office with you."

"You know my name, you big dumb ox!  Who the heck do you think you are, you crazy mutt?" shouted the fat terrier. 

"Could you please escort her off the premises?" I asked the woman.  The woman picked up the terrier, who protested vigorously.  I turned back to Maebe and asked, "Was that one with you?"

She thought for a moment and replied, "Oh, yes, she was.  I remember because she growled at me for trying to sit next to her.  And at the Boss Ma'am when she tried to kiss her head.  Yes, Spring was definitely there."

Interesting development. I turned to the man and asked, "And you?  You said you were working on the computer.  But what brought you downstairs?  Was anyone with you when you first arrived in the kitchen?  Could you have eaten the bread?"

The man scowled at me and replied impatiently, "I told you I was upstairs the whole time.  We all heard something moving around in the kitchen and I was the first to come check it out.  Spring was right behind me and the Boss Ma'am and Maebe couldn't have been more than a second or two after that."

"There are some who could eat a lot of bread in a second or two, I suspect," I told him. 

"I'm sure that's true," he replied.

"Let me examine the loaf," I said.  I stepped over to the countertop and examined the half-eaten loaf.  It smelled delicious.  I found that if I stood on my hind legs and reached to my fullest height, I could just reach the end of the loaf closest to me.  But it was on a wire cooling rack and slid away as I came near it.  I was forced to go around to the other side of the counter to examine the remainder of the loaf.  I discovered it had been eaten from both sides.  A crucial bit of evidence that did not escape my notice.  "It appears that the perpetrator did not use utensils on the bread," I remarked.  The edges of the loaf were ragged and torn and no knife was in sight.  "Perhaps the criminal lacks opposable thumbs...or declines to use them."  I eyed Maebe suspiciously, then turned my gaze to the man.  "I can solve your crime for you," I announced.

"Really?  Already?" the woman asked, incredulous.  "Don't you want to send samples of the bread for DNA?"

"I'll take a sample of the bread, thank you, but I don't need any DNA testing.  I can tell you right now it was the Boss Man, in the kitchen, with a candlestick...I mean, with his teeth."  They all gasped.  The man looked miffed.  I got you, I congratulated myself.  "He set up the scene of the crime to look as though a dog had perpetrated it.  But clearly no dog was able.  Maebe could not have jumped to the counter without causing a great deal of noise.  And the chunky terrier can't leap that high.  She might have been able to climb up a chair but I deduce that she is not that clever.  The woman does have crumbs on her fingers, but I see it is as a result of examining the evidence.  That leaves only the man and his undeniable guilt.  Case solved."