Fic for mundungus42: The Possibility of the Improbable
Title: The Possibility of the Improbable
Recipient: mundungus42
Author: graycardinal
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, various OCs
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Words: ~3900
Summary: The case of the vanishing boomerang appeared at first to be a trivial matter. But it revealed an aspect of Sherlock Holmes’ past that shed new light on his character - and only many years later did its true impact begin to come to light.
Read on Archive of our Own:
The Possibility of the Improbable
Read on LJ:
When Sherlock Holmes investigated the affair of Professor Glendennis’ boomerang in the fall of 1899, it gave every indication of being a trivial matter - the challenge to Holmes’ deductive faculties was exceedingly slight, and the solution rested in no small part on what I put down at the time as no more than a coincidence, albeit a startling one.
But now, some thirty-five years later, I find myself recalling the matter in quite a different light - and only now, perhaps, do I begin to understand certain of the more peculiar aspects of my friend’s character. I record the following brief account to ensure that the relevant biographical details are not lost to history.
#
The one respect in which the Glendennis affair was initially notable was the way in which Holmes entered it, as neither the Professor nor Scotland Yard chose to consult him on the matter. Rather, it was early afternoon on a gray April day when Mrs. Hudson entered our rooms wearing a faintly puzzled expression. “A telegram for you,” she said, handing Holmes a single sheet of paper.
“Curious,” Holmes replied, rising from his armchair. “I do not recall hearing a messenger set foot on the doorstep.”
“Nor did I,” Mrs. Hudson admitted. “But I was just passing the door a few moments ago, and this had been slipped under it.”
Holmes perused the message thoughtfully, then handed it to me.
ATTENDING TO FAMILY EMERGENCY. PLEASE SEE GLENDENNIS RE: BOOMERANG, CAV. SQUARE. LOGIC NEEDED, NOT POLICE.
“Regarding a boomerang?” I gave Holmes a skeptical glance. “Surely this is a joke of some kind.”
“I think not,” my friend replied. “There was a short item in this morning’s Times; one Professor Aaron Glendennis of Cavendish Square is missing a rare Australian boomerang from a collection of aboriginal artifacts - quite an irreplaceable item, it seems. Inspector Gregson is on the case, and of course suspects the Professor’s conveniently vanished governess.”
“Who is, no doubt, the source of this most peculiar telegram.”
Holmes nodded briskly. “Very good, Watson. An accurate conclusion, quite unlike Gregson’s.” He paused, regarding me with a curious expression. “Wait, though - by what means, if I may ask, did you deduce that fact?”
I chuckled. “Your own testimony, Holmes. Clearly you do not suspect the governess, based on your dismissal of Gregson’s theory. Yet your direct knowledge of the case derives from just two sources - the newspaper account and that telegram - and you have always maintained that you do not engage in guesswork. Therefore some physical feature of the telegram, which I admit eludes my own observation, has caused you to eliminate the governess as a suspect. And the simplest explanation for that is that the governess herself has sent the message. I would also venture the possibility,” I added, “that you have had some prior acquaintance with this individual, providing some basis for your ability to draw clues from the telegram. That, however, is rather more speculative on my part.”
Sherlock Holmes stared at me for several moments, then broke into robust laughter. “Neatly reasoned, Watson - and accurate in every particular. Now, however, we had best call on the Glendennis household without delay. I would not wish to be in Gregson’s shoes if we fail to resolve the case before the governess returns.”
#
Professor Glendennis’ home proved to be a sizeable townhouse within a short distance of Cavendish Square proper. Holmes and I were greeted courteously and shown into a well-lit parlour. A few moments later, the professor himself entered the room, a serving-maid with a tea tray following in his wake.
“It’s quite good of you to take an interest in my problem, Mr. Holmes,” he said, once tea and biscuits had been distributed, “especially as Scotland Yard insists on haring off in quite a wrong direction.”
“Indeed,” Holmes returned. “Mind you, it is an understandable error. In any ordinary case, the sudden departure of a...servant or governess in these circumstances would be grounds for grave suspicion.”
The professor had nodded at Holmes’ mid-sentence pause. “Quite so. But servant scarcely describes the situation here.”
“You are undoubtedly correct as to that,” Holmes said. “Am I, then, also correct in noting the presence of that person’s umbrella in the foyer? The handle is most distinctive.”
The professor blinked in surprise. “Now that you mention it, I believe you are right.”
“Excellent,” Holmes said at once. “That above all else is a sure sign that she will return. Now, then, let us turn to the matter of the boomerang. When precisely was it discovered to be missing?”
“Just after luncheon, two days past. I am presently engaged in preparing a catalogue of my collection, and that morning I had taken it from the cabinet in which it is normally kept. I had left it, together with the sketch I was making, on my desk while partaking of the noon meal. When I returned to my study, only the illustration was there.”
Holmes nodded. “One gathers that there were no obvious signs of burglary.”
“There were not. There is a French door leading onto a balcony, but it is kept locked and neither the lock nor the glass had been disturbed. Likewise there were no damp foot-marks on the floor or rug, such as an intruder would have left if he had come in from out-of-doors.”
“That is well observed,” Holmes told the professor, his eyes alight. “What, then, of the rest of the household?”
Glendennis pursed his lips as he gathered his thoughts. “My wife, Caroline, was visiting her dressmaker that morning; she took Tabitha with her. Mrs. Lancaster was in the kitchen, baking. Stephen, our handyman, was on an errand from which he returned just past two o’clock, and my sons Will and Nolan-”
“-were doubtless with their governess, engaged in lessons of some sort,” Holmes interjected.
“I believe so,” the professor said. “I have found it wisest to interfere as little as possible with their education, as they are quite lively and as yet altogether unsuited for the sort of tutoring I would attempt to provide.”
“It is a shrewd man indeed,” Holmes agreed, “who knows his own limits. I shall want a look at the study, of course, though there will be little enough to read there now, after Gregson and his men have tramped through.”
“Of course,” said the professor. Let me show you.” Rising, he led us upward to the townhouse’s first story, then along a hallway toward the rear of the structure and through a wide, ornately carved door. “As you say, Mr. Holmes, the police have been over the place, but very little has actually been disarranged.”
Holmes conducted his usual rapid yet thorough inspection of the entire chamber, paying particular attention to the tightly woven rugs adjacent to the professor’s desk. He also gave only a few cursory glances at the glass-fronted cabinets along the room’s innermost wall, wherein a great variety of objects were displayed as if in a museum. Two of these cabinets were specifically given over to the Australian artifacts mentioned in the Times - including simple musical instruments, tools, and several boomerangs of various sizes, though an empty space marked where the missing item had once rested.
After a brief examination of the French door’s mechanism, Holmes thrust his magnifying lens back into his pocket. “If this was a burglary,” he said, “then it was singularly expert. There is no trace of a stranger’s passage whatsoever - save, of course, for the intrusion of Gregson and his men, and that did not occur until well after the boomerang had vanished.”
Professor Glendennis eyed him sharply. “But if that is true-”
Holmes nodded. “The implications are unpleasant, but they must be considered. In the circumstances, I cannot chide Gregson too harshly for his suspicions of your governess.”
“Perhaps not,” the professor said, grudgingly. “But I cannot believe she would commit such a theft.”
“In that we agree. However,” Holmes continued, “investigating her actions may nonetheless shed light on the present mystery. If I may ask, who has charge of your sons in her absence?”
“That would be Stephen. Tabitha is entirely unsuited to the task, and Mrs. Lancaster cannot be spared from the kitchen. I believe they are presently in the back garden.”
At Holmes’ request, Professor Glendennis led us downstairs again, out through a rear door, and into a compact garden enclosed by a tall iron fence. At each corner of the property stood a tall, slender poplar tree. Beneath one of these poplars stood three individuals. Stephen was a sturdy young man of no more than twenty-five years, relatively slight of frame but well-muscled. His charges appeared to be perhaps nine and seven years old respectively. The elder, introduced as Will, was dark-haired and long of leg; his brother Nolan was the stouter of the two, with blonde hair cut very short.
Holmes spoke first to the handyman. “I am told you were absent from the house at the time of the boomerang’s disappearance. What manner of errand were you about?”
“Two, sir,” Stephen replied promptly. “I went by the glazier - Jack Averill, in Hallam Street - about a new pane for the window in Mrs. Lancaster’s room. And I was over to Grafton Mews to ask after a new chimney sweep; the man we’ve been using took ill and moved to Kent, where his daughter lives. Aye,” he added, with a slightly rueful smile, “and I did stop for a ploughman’s lunch with my lass Kate at the Brass Boar in Mortimer Street, that being just round the corner from the apothecary shop where she works.”
Holmes chuckled. “An admirably organized schedule. If I may, then, I would like to borrow your charges for a few minutes.”
Stephen returned Holmes’ amused expression. “Certainly, sir. Just go with Mr. Holmes, now, and Dr. Watson,” he told the boys.
A few moments later, Holmes and I were ensconced in the parlor with Will and Nolan Glendennis. At Holmes’ request, the professor had retreated to his study upstairs, leaving the four of us to our own devices.
“You’re really Sherlock Holmes?” Will wanted to know.
“I am.”
“Then where’s your hat?” Nolan demanded. “You always have a hat in the pictures.”
Holmes laughed, though not unkindly. “As it happens,” he said, “that particular hat is a figment of Mr. Paget’s imagination. And even if it were not, a gentleman does not wear his hat indoors. But now it is my turn for a question.”
Reluctantly, the two youngsters nodded. “What is it, then?”
“What happened to the boomerang?”
Will and Nolan looked quickly at each other, then back at Holmes, then at each other again.
“We didn’t-”
“It wasn’t-”
“It was all your fault!”
“No, it was the-”
“But he won’t ever believe that!”
“He would so!”
Sherlock Holmes gave a quick, sharp whistle and held up a hand. “If I may?” he said, his tone calm and patient yet firm.
The boys, silenced by Holmes’ action, gazed up at him from the chairs they occupied. “Yes, sir,” they said as one.
“Better. Now then. So long as I am told the truth - no matter how extraordinary - I am prepared to believe what you have to tell me. And you should know this: I was at one time very well acquainted with your governess.”
Two small pairs of eyes went very wide. In a soft voice, Will asked, “Truly?”
“Indeed.”
“Well, then,” Will said, visibly gathering himself, “it was this way. We were talking about Papa’s things, and where they came from.”
“Australia,” Nolan put in.
Will made a shushing gesture at his brother. “Right, and how really old they were. Only she started explaining about the people who made them - the ab-o-ridge-in-ees,” he said, saying the word syllable by syllable. “About how they lived part in the regular world and part in dreams.”
“So I wanted to know,” said Nolan, “what would happen if we dreamed about ab-o-ridge-in-ees.”
“And she said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know, but I expect you could find out easily enough.’” Will’s imitation of a grown woman’s voice was surprisingly good, conveying an air of immense self-assurance that was somehow both warm and slightly frightening.
“So we got right in bed and went to sleep,” Nolan said. “And sure enough, we had a dream about an ab-o-ridge-in-ee. And the ab-o-ridge-in-ee wanted to know where his things were. And we explained about Papa having collected them.”
Will took up the story again. “That was when things got complicated. All of a sudden the dream was happening here in our house, and we were in Papa’s study. We’re not allowed to go in his real study,” he added, “but we thought we were just in the dream. Except when the abo-o-ridge-in-ee saw the boomerang lying right there on Papa’s desk, he said it was his. And he tried to pick it up and take it.”
Nolan was bouncing up and down in his chair excitedly. “But I wouldn’t let him! I grabbed it first, and put it right in Papa’s safe and made the lock spin.”
“That made the ab-o-ridge-in-ee really angry,” Will said, “because once Nolan did that none of us could open it. Only Papa knows the combination. The ab-o-ridge-in-ee couldn’t make the lock work or break the door open or smash through the outside. So he went away again, and we woke up-”
Sherlock Holmes regarded the two youngsters with a remarkably composed expression. “And discovered that in fact, there had been a boomerang on your Papa’s desk - which had now mysteriously vanished.”
“Just right,” said Will. “Papa was horribly upset and sent for the police, and now here we are.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes. “And has anyone thought to look in your Papa’s safe for the missing boomerang?”
Both boys shook their heads. “No, sir. No one even asked us anything about it till you came.”
Holmes nodded gravely. “Nor, of course, would you have been taken seriously had you volunteered that tale to anyone else.”
I stared at my friend in amazement. “You cannot seriously believe that this - dream episode - has anything to do with the theft of the genuine boomerang. Can you?”
“Come now, Watson,” he replied. “The aboriginal notion of the Dreamtime is authentic and well-documented. There is no doubt that the natives themselves believed in it wholeheartedly. Likewise, our two witnesses here are entirely sincere - and in the way of the young, they too believe that dreamscapes are genuinely real.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, Holmes, the boys’ own words make it impossible. Nolan says that he put the boomerang into the safe - but Will says that no one but the Professor himself can open it. That would require the safe to have been standing open, which surely cannot have been true here in the physical world.”
Holmes merely smiled. “You forget the peculiar logic of dreams,” he said. “I submit that the safe did not manifest in the Dreamtime until young Nolan had need of it - and that Nolan’s very need for the safe to be open caused it to manifest in that state. But come,” he added. “We are debating might-have-beens, when we can easily confirm the facts of the matter.”
As Holmes rose, Nolan spoke up. “Are you going to tell Papa about the ab-o-ridge-in-ee? And what we did?”
My friend turned and dropped to one knee, meeting the young man’s gaze eye to eye. “I think,” he said, “that we four shall keep that story to ourselves. In itself, the boomerang’s recovery will be enough to overshadow the question of how it was mislaid, and I suspect that you and your brother know from experience how difficult it is to persuade even an extraordinary person that something genuinely improbable has occurred in their vicinity.”
That drew a bark of laughter from both young Glendennises. “Right enough,” Will said, as we returned the boys to Stephen’s care.
That done, it was the work of moments for us to ascend once more to the study. Holmes swiftly confirmed first the existence of a safe concealed in one of the wall cabinets, and then that the boomerang was in fact lying within it, resting neatly on a packet of financial documents. Professor Glendennis was at once delighted at the lost artifact’s recovery and bewildered by its presence in the safe, which he swore had been closed and locked at all times on the day in question.
Holmes declined the professor’s efforts to press a generous cheque upon him in compensation for his efforts. “If anyone deserves a reward in this matter, it is she whom Inspector Gregson so greatly misjudged. An additional sovereign a month, I should think, would not be taken amiss.”
“Perhaps you are right,” the professor said. “Very well, I shall see to it.”
Our business being concluded, he graciously led us downstairs to show us out. We had just reached the foyer when the house’s front windows rattled and the noise of a great whoosh of wind passed outside. A moment later, the door swung briskly open and a striking young woman entered, a sturdy carpet-bag held firmly in her right hand. Despite the bluster of a moment earlier, not a strand of the dark hair visible beneath her lace-trimmed navy blue hat was disarranged, and every pleat of her modest skirt was crisp and not the least windblown.
The professor’s face lighted with pleasure at once, but before he could speak, his two sons raced into the foyer and crowded around the new arrival. “Mary Poppins! You’re back!”
“I should think that was obvious,” she told them in a cool tone, though a certain sparkle in her eyes softened the mild rebuke. “I thought I had left a pair of young gentlemen here, not a brace of half-trained puppies.”
For half a moment, Will’s and Nolan’s shoulders drooped, but then they straightened and gave their governess a brisk salute. “Welcome home, Mary Poppins!” they said together. Their voices were no less cheerful than they had been a few seconds before, but somehow they had acquired greater clarity and self-confidence.
“Much better,” she said. “Now, upstairs with the both of you. I will be along presently.”
Professor Glendennis took the opportunity to interject. “Welcome, indeed,” he said. “I had not expected you back so soon. You are just in time to meet Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.”
Mary Poppins favored each of us in turn with a rapid, searching glance, then addressed Holmes. “One gathers that you have done quite well for yourself - not that I should be surprised. As to Master Mycroft-” She paused, her expression severe. “tell him that if he does not take himself in hand at once, I shall have a word with the chefs at the Diogenes Club. I will not see so great a gift lost to so great an appetite.”
I listened to this speech with no small astonishment, casting a wary eye on Holmes lest he react with a show of temper. But the smile my friend gave Mary Poppins was almost meek in character. “I can say no less of you,” he replied in an amiable tone. “And I will certainly relay your message. I have little influence on my brother in such matters; yours may well be of greater effect.”
“So we shall hope,” she replied, then focused her attention on me. The strength of her regard was considerable; while I did not step back, her gaze seemed to penetrate far past my outward appearance.
“Consider,” she said at last, “that the possibility of the improbable greatly exceeds the probability of the impossible. That it requires an extraordinary mind to distinguish the one from the other. And that it requires an extraordinary heart to encompass both at once.”
Then Mary Poppins reached out, lifted my broad-fingered hand in her own dainty one, and traced the tip of one elegantly polished fingernail across the skin at the base of my own fingers. And while I cannot have fallen asleep on the spot, I knew no more until I found myself seated once more opposite Holmes in our rooms at 221B.
“Who is she?” I demanded of my friend. “What is she?”
Holmes’ smile was faint but utterly sincere. “I can scarcely begin to answer, save perhaps by paraphrasing her own words. Mary Poppins is improbability personified - not least because she does not appear to have aged since I last saw her, and that is a gap of more than three decades.”
“More than-” I stopped before the word impossible crossed my lips. “You did say you had met her before.”
My friend nodded. “I did. What I neglected to mention is that she was Mycroft’s and my governess and tutor, just as she now fills that role for Will and Nolan Glendennis. I find that highly suggestive.”
And so it was that Sherlock Holmes kept a quiet but steady watch on the Glendennis family for many years thereafter. Curiously, neither of the boys have become prodigies of any note, though both presently lead comfortable and successful lives. Nor did we hear of Mary Poppins again until just this year, when - to my great astonishment - the literary volume bearing her name appeared in the popular press. I instantly secured a copy for myself, and forwarded a second to Holmes’ Sussex retreat.
Less than a week later, I found myself seated across from both Holmes brothers in the Strangers’ Room of the Diogenes. “It is,” said Mycroft - now much reduced in girth, though his physical presence remained imposing - “no little enigma.”
Sherlock Holmes nodded. “The Travers woman - actually one Miss Goff - has clearly altered a great many details. Insofar as I can discover, the Banks family as her narrative describes them does not exist.”
“Indeed,” Mycroft returned. “Yet they are certainly distinct both from our parents’ household and that of Professor Glendennis.”
“One wonders,” I put in, “how Miss Poppins herself can approve of the volume. She can hardly now continue her career without drawing attention to herself - not, at least, under her own name. Yet it is difficult to imagine Miss Goff having published her memoir without Mary Poppins’ knowledge...or over her objections.”
Mycroft regarded me with an amused expression. “That is true. But consider this, Doctor. You yourself, in chronicling Sherlock’s adventures, have granted him a degree of influence on the public consciousness quite out of proportion to the impact of the investigations themselves. Who is to say that Mary Poppins, in allowing her own life to be publicized, is not hoping to achieve much the same effect?”
“Who, indeed?” his brother echoed. “Mycroft, I believe you have hit upon the answer.”
I looked at them both, shaking my head. “Do you mean to say that I am in some way responsible for the existence of Miss Goff’s book?”
Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair, an uncharacteristic grin upon his face. “Not directly, perhaps. But I think, my dear Watson, that you may well have opened the door.”
# # #
Note: As Watson’s account suggests, this manuscript describes the character of Mary Poppins as portrayed in the book by P. L. Travers, and does not take into account either the Walt Disney feature film or the subsequent stage musical.
Recipient: mundungus42
Author: graycardinal
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, various OCs
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Words: ~3900
Summary: The case of the vanishing boomerang appeared at first to be a trivial matter. But it revealed an aspect of Sherlock Holmes’ past that shed new light on his character - and only many years later did its true impact begin to come to light.
Read on Archive of our Own:
The Possibility of the Improbable
Read on LJ:
When Sherlock Holmes investigated the affair of Professor Glendennis’ boomerang in the fall of 1899, it gave every indication of being a trivial matter - the challenge to Holmes’ deductive faculties was exceedingly slight, and the solution rested in no small part on what I put down at the time as no more than a coincidence, albeit a startling one.
But now, some thirty-five years later, I find myself recalling the matter in quite a different light - and only now, perhaps, do I begin to understand certain of the more peculiar aspects of my friend’s character. I record the following brief account to ensure that the relevant biographical details are not lost to history.
#
The one respect in which the Glendennis affair was initially notable was the way in which Holmes entered it, as neither the Professor nor Scotland Yard chose to consult him on the matter. Rather, it was early afternoon on a gray April day when Mrs. Hudson entered our rooms wearing a faintly puzzled expression. “A telegram for you,” she said, handing Holmes a single sheet of paper.
“Curious,” Holmes replied, rising from his armchair. “I do not recall hearing a messenger set foot on the doorstep.”
“Nor did I,” Mrs. Hudson admitted. “But I was just passing the door a few moments ago, and this had been slipped under it.”
Holmes perused the message thoughtfully, then handed it to me.
ATTENDING TO FAMILY EMERGENCY. PLEASE SEE GLENDENNIS RE: BOOMERANG, CAV. SQUARE. LOGIC NEEDED, NOT POLICE.
“Regarding a boomerang?” I gave Holmes a skeptical glance. “Surely this is a joke of some kind.”
“I think not,” my friend replied. “There was a short item in this morning’s Times; one Professor Aaron Glendennis of Cavendish Square is missing a rare Australian boomerang from a collection of aboriginal artifacts - quite an irreplaceable item, it seems. Inspector Gregson is on the case, and of course suspects the Professor’s conveniently vanished governess.”
“Who is, no doubt, the source of this most peculiar telegram.”
Holmes nodded briskly. “Very good, Watson. An accurate conclusion, quite unlike Gregson’s.” He paused, regarding me with a curious expression. “Wait, though - by what means, if I may ask, did you deduce that fact?”
I chuckled. “Your own testimony, Holmes. Clearly you do not suspect the governess, based on your dismissal of Gregson’s theory. Yet your direct knowledge of the case derives from just two sources - the newspaper account and that telegram - and you have always maintained that you do not engage in guesswork. Therefore some physical feature of the telegram, which I admit eludes my own observation, has caused you to eliminate the governess as a suspect. And the simplest explanation for that is that the governess herself has sent the message. I would also venture the possibility,” I added, “that you have had some prior acquaintance with this individual, providing some basis for your ability to draw clues from the telegram. That, however, is rather more speculative on my part.”
Sherlock Holmes stared at me for several moments, then broke into robust laughter. “Neatly reasoned, Watson - and accurate in every particular. Now, however, we had best call on the Glendennis household without delay. I would not wish to be in Gregson’s shoes if we fail to resolve the case before the governess returns.”
#
Professor Glendennis’ home proved to be a sizeable townhouse within a short distance of Cavendish Square proper. Holmes and I were greeted courteously and shown into a well-lit parlour. A few moments later, the professor himself entered the room, a serving-maid with a tea tray following in his wake.
“It’s quite good of you to take an interest in my problem, Mr. Holmes,” he said, once tea and biscuits had been distributed, “especially as Scotland Yard insists on haring off in quite a wrong direction.”
“Indeed,” Holmes returned. “Mind you, it is an understandable error. In any ordinary case, the sudden departure of a...servant or governess in these circumstances would be grounds for grave suspicion.”
The professor had nodded at Holmes’ mid-sentence pause. “Quite so. But servant scarcely describes the situation here.”
“You are undoubtedly correct as to that,” Holmes said. “Am I, then, also correct in noting the presence of that person’s umbrella in the foyer? The handle is most distinctive.”
The professor blinked in surprise. “Now that you mention it, I believe you are right.”
“Excellent,” Holmes said at once. “That above all else is a sure sign that she will return. Now, then, let us turn to the matter of the boomerang. When precisely was it discovered to be missing?”
“Just after luncheon, two days past. I am presently engaged in preparing a catalogue of my collection, and that morning I had taken it from the cabinet in which it is normally kept. I had left it, together with the sketch I was making, on my desk while partaking of the noon meal. When I returned to my study, only the illustration was there.”
Holmes nodded. “One gathers that there were no obvious signs of burglary.”
“There were not. There is a French door leading onto a balcony, but it is kept locked and neither the lock nor the glass had been disturbed. Likewise there were no damp foot-marks on the floor or rug, such as an intruder would have left if he had come in from out-of-doors.”
“That is well observed,” Holmes told the professor, his eyes alight. “What, then, of the rest of the household?”
Glendennis pursed his lips as he gathered his thoughts. “My wife, Caroline, was visiting her dressmaker that morning; she took Tabitha with her. Mrs. Lancaster was in the kitchen, baking. Stephen, our handyman, was on an errand from which he returned just past two o’clock, and my sons Will and Nolan-”
“-were doubtless with their governess, engaged in lessons of some sort,” Holmes interjected.
“I believe so,” the professor said. “I have found it wisest to interfere as little as possible with their education, as they are quite lively and as yet altogether unsuited for the sort of tutoring I would attempt to provide.”
“It is a shrewd man indeed,” Holmes agreed, “who knows his own limits. I shall want a look at the study, of course, though there will be little enough to read there now, after Gregson and his men have tramped through.”
“Of course,” said the professor. Let me show you.” Rising, he led us upward to the townhouse’s first story, then along a hallway toward the rear of the structure and through a wide, ornately carved door. “As you say, Mr. Holmes, the police have been over the place, but very little has actually been disarranged.”
Holmes conducted his usual rapid yet thorough inspection of the entire chamber, paying particular attention to the tightly woven rugs adjacent to the professor’s desk. He also gave only a few cursory glances at the glass-fronted cabinets along the room’s innermost wall, wherein a great variety of objects were displayed as if in a museum. Two of these cabinets were specifically given over to the Australian artifacts mentioned in the Times - including simple musical instruments, tools, and several boomerangs of various sizes, though an empty space marked where the missing item had once rested.
After a brief examination of the French door’s mechanism, Holmes thrust his magnifying lens back into his pocket. “If this was a burglary,” he said, “then it was singularly expert. There is no trace of a stranger’s passage whatsoever - save, of course, for the intrusion of Gregson and his men, and that did not occur until well after the boomerang had vanished.”
Professor Glendennis eyed him sharply. “But if that is true-”
Holmes nodded. “The implications are unpleasant, but they must be considered. In the circumstances, I cannot chide Gregson too harshly for his suspicions of your governess.”
“Perhaps not,” the professor said, grudgingly. “But I cannot believe she would commit such a theft.”
“In that we agree. However,” Holmes continued, “investigating her actions may nonetheless shed light on the present mystery. If I may ask, who has charge of your sons in her absence?”
“That would be Stephen. Tabitha is entirely unsuited to the task, and Mrs. Lancaster cannot be spared from the kitchen. I believe they are presently in the back garden.”
At Holmes’ request, Professor Glendennis led us downstairs again, out through a rear door, and into a compact garden enclosed by a tall iron fence. At each corner of the property stood a tall, slender poplar tree. Beneath one of these poplars stood three individuals. Stephen was a sturdy young man of no more than twenty-five years, relatively slight of frame but well-muscled. His charges appeared to be perhaps nine and seven years old respectively. The elder, introduced as Will, was dark-haired and long of leg; his brother Nolan was the stouter of the two, with blonde hair cut very short.
Holmes spoke first to the handyman. “I am told you were absent from the house at the time of the boomerang’s disappearance. What manner of errand were you about?”
“Two, sir,” Stephen replied promptly. “I went by the glazier - Jack Averill, in Hallam Street - about a new pane for the window in Mrs. Lancaster’s room. And I was over to Grafton Mews to ask after a new chimney sweep; the man we’ve been using took ill and moved to Kent, where his daughter lives. Aye,” he added, with a slightly rueful smile, “and I did stop for a ploughman’s lunch with my lass Kate at the Brass Boar in Mortimer Street, that being just round the corner from the apothecary shop where she works.”
Holmes chuckled. “An admirably organized schedule. If I may, then, I would like to borrow your charges for a few minutes.”
Stephen returned Holmes’ amused expression. “Certainly, sir. Just go with Mr. Holmes, now, and Dr. Watson,” he told the boys.
A few moments later, Holmes and I were ensconced in the parlor with Will and Nolan Glendennis. At Holmes’ request, the professor had retreated to his study upstairs, leaving the four of us to our own devices.
“You’re really Sherlock Holmes?” Will wanted to know.
“I am.”
“Then where’s your hat?” Nolan demanded. “You always have a hat in the pictures.”
Holmes laughed, though not unkindly. “As it happens,” he said, “that particular hat is a figment of Mr. Paget’s imagination. And even if it were not, a gentleman does not wear his hat indoors. But now it is my turn for a question.”
Reluctantly, the two youngsters nodded. “What is it, then?”
“What happened to the boomerang?”
Will and Nolan looked quickly at each other, then back at Holmes, then at each other again.
“We didn’t-”
“It wasn’t-”
“It was all your fault!”
“No, it was the-”
“But he won’t ever believe that!”
“He would so!”
Sherlock Holmes gave a quick, sharp whistle and held up a hand. “If I may?” he said, his tone calm and patient yet firm.
The boys, silenced by Holmes’ action, gazed up at him from the chairs they occupied. “Yes, sir,” they said as one.
“Better. Now then. So long as I am told the truth - no matter how extraordinary - I am prepared to believe what you have to tell me. And you should know this: I was at one time very well acquainted with your governess.”
Two small pairs of eyes went very wide. In a soft voice, Will asked, “Truly?”
“Indeed.”
“Well, then,” Will said, visibly gathering himself, “it was this way. We were talking about Papa’s things, and where they came from.”
“Australia,” Nolan put in.
Will made a shushing gesture at his brother. “Right, and how really old they were. Only she started explaining about the people who made them - the ab-o-ridge-in-ees,” he said, saying the word syllable by syllable. “About how they lived part in the regular world and part in dreams.”
“So I wanted to know,” said Nolan, “what would happen if we dreamed about ab-o-ridge-in-ees.”
“And she said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know, but I expect you could find out easily enough.’” Will’s imitation of a grown woman’s voice was surprisingly good, conveying an air of immense self-assurance that was somehow both warm and slightly frightening.
“So we got right in bed and went to sleep,” Nolan said. “And sure enough, we had a dream about an ab-o-ridge-in-ee. And the ab-o-ridge-in-ee wanted to know where his things were. And we explained about Papa having collected them.”
Will took up the story again. “That was when things got complicated. All of a sudden the dream was happening here in our house, and we were in Papa’s study. We’re not allowed to go in his real study,” he added, “but we thought we were just in the dream. Except when the abo-o-ridge-in-ee saw the boomerang lying right there on Papa’s desk, he said it was his. And he tried to pick it up and take it.”
Nolan was bouncing up and down in his chair excitedly. “But I wouldn’t let him! I grabbed it first, and put it right in Papa’s safe and made the lock spin.”
“That made the ab-o-ridge-in-ee really angry,” Will said, “because once Nolan did that none of us could open it. Only Papa knows the combination. The ab-o-ridge-in-ee couldn’t make the lock work or break the door open or smash through the outside. So he went away again, and we woke up-”
Sherlock Holmes regarded the two youngsters with a remarkably composed expression. “And discovered that in fact, there had been a boomerang on your Papa’s desk - which had now mysteriously vanished.”
“Just right,” said Will. “Papa was horribly upset and sent for the police, and now here we are.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes. “And has anyone thought to look in your Papa’s safe for the missing boomerang?”
Both boys shook their heads. “No, sir. No one even asked us anything about it till you came.”
Holmes nodded gravely. “Nor, of course, would you have been taken seriously had you volunteered that tale to anyone else.”
I stared at my friend in amazement. “You cannot seriously believe that this - dream episode - has anything to do with the theft of the genuine boomerang. Can you?”
“Come now, Watson,” he replied. “The aboriginal notion of the Dreamtime is authentic and well-documented. There is no doubt that the natives themselves believed in it wholeheartedly. Likewise, our two witnesses here are entirely sincere - and in the way of the young, they too believe that dreamscapes are genuinely real.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, Holmes, the boys’ own words make it impossible. Nolan says that he put the boomerang into the safe - but Will says that no one but the Professor himself can open it. That would require the safe to have been standing open, which surely cannot have been true here in the physical world.”
Holmes merely smiled. “You forget the peculiar logic of dreams,” he said. “I submit that the safe did not manifest in the Dreamtime until young Nolan had need of it - and that Nolan’s very need for the safe to be open caused it to manifest in that state. But come,” he added. “We are debating might-have-beens, when we can easily confirm the facts of the matter.”
As Holmes rose, Nolan spoke up. “Are you going to tell Papa about the ab-o-ridge-in-ee? And what we did?”
My friend turned and dropped to one knee, meeting the young man’s gaze eye to eye. “I think,” he said, “that we four shall keep that story to ourselves. In itself, the boomerang’s recovery will be enough to overshadow the question of how it was mislaid, and I suspect that you and your brother know from experience how difficult it is to persuade even an extraordinary person that something genuinely improbable has occurred in their vicinity.”
That drew a bark of laughter from both young Glendennises. “Right enough,” Will said, as we returned the boys to Stephen’s care.
That done, it was the work of moments for us to ascend once more to the study. Holmes swiftly confirmed first the existence of a safe concealed in one of the wall cabinets, and then that the boomerang was in fact lying within it, resting neatly on a packet of financial documents. Professor Glendennis was at once delighted at the lost artifact’s recovery and bewildered by its presence in the safe, which he swore had been closed and locked at all times on the day in question.
Holmes declined the professor’s efforts to press a generous cheque upon him in compensation for his efforts. “If anyone deserves a reward in this matter, it is she whom Inspector Gregson so greatly misjudged. An additional sovereign a month, I should think, would not be taken amiss.”
“Perhaps you are right,” the professor said. “Very well, I shall see to it.”
Our business being concluded, he graciously led us downstairs to show us out. We had just reached the foyer when the house’s front windows rattled and the noise of a great whoosh of wind passed outside. A moment later, the door swung briskly open and a striking young woman entered, a sturdy carpet-bag held firmly in her right hand. Despite the bluster of a moment earlier, not a strand of the dark hair visible beneath her lace-trimmed navy blue hat was disarranged, and every pleat of her modest skirt was crisp and not the least windblown.
The professor’s face lighted with pleasure at once, but before he could speak, his two sons raced into the foyer and crowded around the new arrival. “Mary Poppins! You’re back!”
“I should think that was obvious,” she told them in a cool tone, though a certain sparkle in her eyes softened the mild rebuke. “I thought I had left a pair of young gentlemen here, not a brace of half-trained puppies.”
For half a moment, Will’s and Nolan’s shoulders drooped, but then they straightened and gave their governess a brisk salute. “Welcome home, Mary Poppins!” they said together. Their voices were no less cheerful than they had been a few seconds before, but somehow they had acquired greater clarity and self-confidence.
“Much better,” she said. “Now, upstairs with the both of you. I will be along presently.”
Professor Glendennis took the opportunity to interject. “Welcome, indeed,” he said. “I had not expected you back so soon. You are just in time to meet Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.”
Mary Poppins favored each of us in turn with a rapid, searching glance, then addressed Holmes. “One gathers that you have done quite well for yourself - not that I should be surprised. As to Master Mycroft-” She paused, her expression severe. “tell him that if he does not take himself in hand at once, I shall have a word with the chefs at the Diogenes Club. I will not see so great a gift lost to so great an appetite.”
I listened to this speech with no small astonishment, casting a wary eye on Holmes lest he react with a show of temper. But the smile my friend gave Mary Poppins was almost meek in character. “I can say no less of you,” he replied in an amiable tone. “And I will certainly relay your message. I have little influence on my brother in such matters; yours may well be of greater effect.”
“So we shall hope,” she replied, then focused her attention on me. The strength of her regard was considerable; while I did not step back, her gaze seemed to penetrate far past my outward appearance.
“Consider,” she said at last, “that the possibility of the improbable greatly exceeds the probability of the impossible. That it requires an extraordinary mind to distinguish the one from the other. And that it requires an extraordinary heart to encompass both at once.”
Then Mary Poppins reached out, lifted my broad-fingered hand in her own dainty one, and traced the tip of one elegantly polished fingernail across the skin at the base of my own fingers. And while I cannot have fallen asleep on the spot, I knew no more until I found myself seated once more opposite Holmes in our rooms at 221B.
“Who is she?” I demanded of my friend. “What is she?”
Holmes’ smile was faint but utterly sincere. “I can scarcely begin to answer, save perhaps by paraphrasing her own words. Mary Poppins is improbability personified - not least because she does not appear to have aged since I last saw her, and that is a gap of more than three decades.”
“More than-” I stopped before the word impossible crossed my lips. “You did say you had met her before.”
My friend nodded. “I did. What I neglected to mention is that she was Mycroft’s and my governess and tutor, just as she now fills that role for Will and Nolan Glendennis. I find that highly suggestive.”
And so it was that Sherlock Holmes kept a quiet but steady watch on the Glendennis family for many years thereafter. Curiously, neither of the boys have become prodigies of any note, though both presently lead comfortable and successful lives. Nor did we hear of Mary Poppins again until just this year, when - to my great astonishment - the literary volume bearing her name appeared in the popular press. I instantly secured a copy for myself, and forwarded a second to Holmes’ Sussex retreat.
Less than a week later, I found myself seated across from both Holmes brothers in the Strangers’ Room of the Diogenes. “It is,” said Mycroft - now much reduced in girth, though his physical presence remained imposing - “no little enigma.”
Sherlock Holmes nodded. “The Travers woman - actually one Miss Goff - has clearly altered a great many details. Insofar as I can discover, the Banks family as her narrative describes them does not exist.”
“Indeed,” Mycroft returned. “Yet they are certainly distinct both from our parents’ household and that of Professor Glendennis.”
“One wonders,” I put in, “how Miss Poppins herself can approve of the volume. She can hardly now continue her career without drawing attention to herself - not, at least, under her own name. Yet it is difficult to imagine Miss Goff having published her memoir without Mary Poppins’ knowledge...or over her objections.”
Mycroft regarded me with an amused expression. “That is true. But consider this, Doctor. You yourself, in chronicling Sherlock’s adventures, have granted him a degree of influence on the public consciousness quite out of proportion to the impact of the investigations themselves. Who is to say that Mary Poppins, in allowing her own life to be publicized, is not hoping to achieve much the same effect?”
“Who, indeed?” his brother echoed. “Mycroft, I believe you have hit upon the answer.”
I looked at them both, shaking my head. “Do you mean to say that I am in some way responsible for the existence of Miss Goff’s book?”
Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair, an uncharacteristic grin upon his face. “Not directly, perhaps. But I think, my dear Watson, that you may well have opened the door.”
# # #
Note: As Watson’s account suggests, this manuscript describes the character of Mary Poppins as portrayed in the book by P. L. Travers, and does not take into account either the Walt Disney feature film or the subsequent stage musical.