from

“THE VANISHING IN LOUDOUN COUNTY”

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

“Good heavens, Holmes,” cried the doctor, as he examined the documents placed before him. “It’s as if an entire blasted county vanished before our very eyes! The devil, I say! Simply put, it’s an impenetrable mystery!”

Holmes smiled thinly at his old friend, who was given to declaring that perfectly obvious and transparent events were a baffling oddity fit only for a cabinet of curiosities.

“I quite agree with the doctor,” interjected Mr. McAuliffe. “Someone has stolen my rightful votes and I demand to know the responsible party!”

Holmes sat quietly and filled his pipe.

“I submit to you, Mr. McAuliffe – and to you, my dear Dr. Watson – that there was no theft here, no mystery. I have solved the Vanishing in Loudoun County and have determined that the person responsible is – you, sir!”

Holmes didn’t bother to look up from his pipe. He continued to fill it while extending a forefinger along the bowl, in the direction of Mr. McAuliffe.

“Lord love a duck, Holmes!” cried Watson. “Explain yourself!”

Holmes smiled. “It’s quite simple, doctor. I shall tell you how I came to know this. Yesterday, whilst you and Mr. McAuliffe were listening to a programme on the National Public Wireless, I slipped away and headed to a local purveyor – a Target, I believe is the name.”

Holmes pronounced the name carefully, as it was new to him and his trip there had clearly been a remarkable adventure.

“I took the opportunity to interpose myself between two young people I immediately knew were parents of young children – ”

“The devil you say!” Watson erupted. “How on God’s green earth did you deduce that?”

Holmes sighed.

“By observation, dear Watson. Observation. The gentleman of the couple was wearing a sweatshirt stained with food particles. The distaff member was essentially asleep on her feet. Neither of them noticed the empty perambulators they were both pushing – ergo, they were both exhausted parents out for a round of shopping, neither of them sentient enough to notice that their charges – a little girl and a little boy, if my deductions are correct, though these days, to be quite honest with you, gentlemen, I am often wrong in this detail – neither of them, to sum up, aware that their children had escaped and were roaming about the shop unaccompanied.”

“What dreadful parents!” shouted Mr. McAuliffe. “They should be immediately remanded into custody!”

“Ah yes, well, Mr. McAuliffe, I took that precise moment to ask them how they felt about such an action, about the government telling them how and in what fashion their children should be educated. And both of them, in the strongest possible terms, objected.”

“And?” barked an irked McAuliffe.

“Sometimes, my friends,” Holmes answered with a mysterious air, “we hire a detective to look for things that are, in fact, in plain sight. The voters of Loudoun County did not vanish, sir. They are still there. They have always been there. You, sir, simply stopped seeing them.”

McAuliffe sputtered in rage. “The devil take you, Mr. Holmes!”

“I say, steady on, McAuliffe!” cried Dr. Watson. “Steady on!”

from

“IN A BLUE STATE”

by Raymond Chandler:

“That’s very interesting, detective. So the election was lost because of, what? A theory that can’t be found?”

“Maybe,” Marlowe said.

“You know what I think? I think people are racists!” She hissed that last word, but she sure liked saying it.

The blonde kept walking to the table and it looked like two puppies fighting in a sack. Marlowe kept his eyes on the gun in her hand and told himself that she knew how to use it but she wasn’t going to use it.

“I’m eager to hear your thoughts,” he said. “I’d be a lot more eager if you’d put down that gat.”

She looked at him for a moment, then pouted slightly and put the gun on the table next to the cigarette case. She pulled out a smoke, tapped it lightly on her bracelet, put it to her lips, and looked at him again.

“A gentleman lights a lady’s cigarette.”

“A lady hands over the piece, butt first.”

She shrugged and handed over the gun. He pocketed it, struck a match on the base of the lamp, and lit her cigarette. The light danced on her face.

“People are fools,” she said. “They keep looking for a thing that doesn’t exist! Critical race theory! It’s a nothing! A zero! There is no such thing!”

Marlowe shrugged.

“When people keep telling me that something doesn’t exist, and that I’m an idiot for looking for it, I tend to think they’re lying. I tend to look harder. I’m funny that way.”

Marlowe lit a cigarette.

“You know what I think, lady? I think you’re a liar.”