The name of a typist in My Late Wives, Mildred Lyons, inevitably recalls Laura Lyons, also a typist, of Baskervilles fame. The Sherlockian salute is subtler than the name of the winsome Maureen Holmes in Behind the Crimson Blind, but unmistakable nonetheless.

  The unconventional, unforgettable Sir Henry Merrivale appeared in 22 novels, one novelette and one short story between 1934 and 1956. Sherlockians would find them well worth seeking out, for there is much that they will find familiar in the wacky world of H.M.

  d

  Dan Andriacco, a long-time Sherlockian, is the author of Baker Street Beat: An Eclectic Collection of Sherlockian Scribblings and nine Holmes-themed mystery novels and collections. His amateur sleuth, Sebastian McCabe, and brother-in-law Jeff Cody appear most recently in Bookmarked for Murder. A frequent contributor to SHMM, Dan blogs at www.DanAndriacco.com

  1 Only in the third to last novel do we learn her name, Clementine, and that she is a blond former chorus girl. “Clemmie’s years and years younger than I am.”

  ROEBIUS THE ROBBER

  by Eugene D. Goodwin

  It was my most baffling case, a series of bank robberies and the thief did something so unusual that nobody could believe it, including me.

  The robber’s name was—is—Roebius. How do I know? He told me so.

  My name is Lt. Warren T. Sutton of the Markheim Colorado police force, where I’ve served for nearly twenty years. Next year I retire.

  There are three banks in our town, whose population is about 40,000.

  On the morning of April 1st four years ago, a wobbly little fellow (that’s how the security guard described him) entered the First Bank and Trust at the corner of Third Street and Brewster Avenue and walked up to said guard.

  “Do you see that teller?” he asked the guard. “The last time I was here, he stole five hundred dollars from me.”

  “He wouldn’t do that!”

  “Yes, he did. I gave him seven hundred dollars in cash, but when I got the receipt, it only credited two hundred of it. I’ve decided to talk about this with the bank manager before consulting my attorney. Would you fetch the manager, please?”

  “Why don’t you ask the teller?”

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with him!”

  “All right. Wait here. But you can see how busy it is. This may take a while.”

  “That’s OK.”

  So the guard went into the offices at the rear of the room. As soon as he was gone, the complainant—Roebius—approached the teller in question. When his turn came, he placed a leather attaché case on the counter and handed him a note.

  READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING OR PEOPLE WILL DIE!

  Place $5,000 and no more or less in this case. You have one minute to do this. If you exceed the time limit, I will begin shooting. If you press the security alarm, I will begin shooting. I will not shoot you, but if anyone dies, it will be all your fault. You are now being timed, so get going!!!

  I still have this note. It was printed by an Epson, not that that’s important.

  Well, the teller complied and as he handed the now full attaché case to the robber, he heard him say, “I’m leaving now. If anyone in here opens the door to the street in the next three minutes, he will be shot.” Roebius smiled. “Have a nice day.”

  They respected the time limit and, of course, when they finally went outside, there was no one there.

  * * * *

  I got there along with various police officers and officials, and we had a lot to do. Questions, interviews, statements written and signed, but we came up with bupkis, which is usually translated as “nothing,” but my granddad Lew told me it really meant “goat shit.”

  When I finally got done, it was time to go home, but my wife left me last year, so an empty house was not inviting. Instead, I went to the policeman’s home—and office—away from home, the bar called Slainté, which is the Celtic equivalent of “Cheers” and is pronounced “Slann-jeh,” with the second syllable almost whispered. It’s a place halfway between the Markheim police station and my high-rise apartment. The bartender is a fellow in his late twenties named Benny, but he’s wise for someone twice his age, and he’s both my pal and occasionally brother-confessor (being too callow to be a father-ditto). He looks a lot like Dean Stockwell when he did that show, Quantum Leap, only much younger. Benny has a ridiculous handlebar mustache and dresses like a sixties hippie. His blue jeans are tattered and patched, which I understand is the new style. He wears thick glasses; his eyesight is apparently atrocious.

  Well, as soon as he saw me, he poured me a generous measure of Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks and asked me what’s up. I told him about the bank robbery, and he nodded thoughtfully.

  “Bank robbery—the great American pasttime. No one thinks it a real crime. Y’know why?”

  “Sure. Everybody wants to pull one off.”

  “Right,” he smiled. “Be right back.” Benny busied himself with other customers, but the place was fairly empty, so he got back to me soon. “Any leads?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nada.”

  “You’ll catch him.”

  “I’ll certainly try.” I mulled it over for a moment, then said, “You know, Benny, in most ways this is just another bank job, though I’m not sure if he had a partner waiting in a getaway car. But there’s one thing that’s very different about this robbery.”

  He topped off my scotch. “I’m listening.”

  “He only took five thousand dollars. Here’s the note, see?”

  Reading it with difficulty, the bartender removed his glasses, squinted, and then his eyes widened. “‘No more or less’—well, that’s truly weird.”

  “There’s only one reason that I can see for it.”

  “Shoot.”

  “It’s such a small amount, comparatively, that it’s not going to stir up a major ruckus. And this town is big enough to keep me plenty busy, which means if I don’t crack this soon, I’m going to have let it slide.”

  “Warren, I remember you telling me once that it usually takes no more than a week or two to catch a robber because of the trail they leave.” He freshened my drink. “This one’s on the house.”

  I thanked him, drained my glass, paid up and then went home, grateful that he’d reminded me of the trail I’d soon pick up and follow.

  Only the robber didn’t leave one.

  * * * *

  Fast-forward one year. The same date, April 1st. The place: Stevenson Savings and Loan at 435 Hyde Avenue. At about the same time of day, the busiest time, a skinny middle-aged woman entered the bank and walked up to the security guard. (Yes, both banks are small and only feature a single guard at each place.)

  “See that teller?” she asked. “The last time that I was here, he made lewd suggestions to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the guard, a hefty black gentleman in his early forties, “but why are you telling me?”

  “I’ve decided to complain to the bank manager. Would you get him for me?”

  “He’s in that office,” the guard said, pointing to the other end of the room.

  “But I want him to come out so I can watch the teller’s face when he sees what’s happening.”

  He sighed. “All right, lady, wait here. I’ll see if I can bring him for you.” He stepped away. As soon as he was gone, she went to the teller’s line and pushed ahead of some irate customers. “Please,” she said, “it’s a matter of life or death.” So, grumbling, they let her go to the head of the line, where she promptly produced an attaché case and a copy of the note that you’ve already read.

  * * * *

  “Benny,” I groaned, settling onto a bar stool, “it happened again. This time it was Hyde Savings and Loan.”

  “The same guy?”

  “It must be, though he was disguised as a woman.”

  “How much did he get?”

  “The same. Five thousand.”

  Benny put the bottle of Johnnie Black on the counter and a bucket of ice. “Take as much as you want for twenty bucks. You obviously need it.”

  * * * *

  This time, though, the robber got cocky enough to send me an e-mail (probably so that I couldn’t work on his handwriting). It said, “Dear Lieutenant, after causing you so much trouble for the last year, I think it is only polite to introduce myself. My name is Roebius, pronounced Ree-bee-us. I’m sorry for the inconvenience I’ve been, but if you have patience for a while longer, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”

  Well, maybe he wanted to be caught. After all, knowing his last name (I doubted that it could be his first), I now had something to work on. I checked on the name Roebius and found two of them in city limits: Jean Roebius MacFarlane and Benedict Roebius. I checked on her first.

  Jean lived on a tree-lined street in the suburbs. Her name sounded familiar, and that’s because she was married to one of my old deputies, now retired, Hank (Henry) MacFarlane, who was now the watchman at the Markheim Falls shopping mall. On a hunch, I went out to the mall and lucked out because Hank was having lunch with his wife. She was a slim older woman, not so much beautiful as handsome, and she wore a checked dress and warm smile.

  “My maiden name was an error when my great-great-grandfather came to America. His name,” she explained, “was Richard Moebius, a direct descendant of the man whose name is best known for that peculiarity, the Moebius strip. Now my great-great-granddad, I’m told, always wrote his name as R. Moebius, and that somehow got mangled by a doubtlessly overworked customs official into Richard Roebius, and that’s been the family name ever since.”

  I thanked her for the story and asked whether she knew the other Roebius in the city, Benedict.

  “Why, sure!” she told me. “He’s my uncle. He lives—let me think—oh, yes, somewhere on Freeman Avenue near the pasta factory. I haven’t seen him for a while, but he’s a dear. Doesn’t get around, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was wounded in Viet Nam … or somewhere in the Orient. Needs a wheelchair and—this is terrible!—the same explosion that ruined his legs took away his eyesight.”

  So it was highly unlikely that he was my thief. Still, I looked him up and went out to visit him. He was an amiable old duffer with a grey mustache and a sweet smile. He did, indeed, sit in a wheelchair, one of the modern variety that could take him almost anywhere, if it were not for his inability to see. I asked him if he had any relatives living in town and he said there were two.

  “There’s my niece Jean.”

  “I’ve met her. She sends you her love.”

  “What a dear girl! And her husband is a good man.” He fumbled in his bathrobe.

  “May I help you?”

  “No, that’s all right. I just wanted a breath mint. I’m afraid I didn’t brush my teeth this morning.”

  “That’s all right, I’m not close enough to tell. Now you said you have a second relative in town?”

  He nodded. “My son. But I don’t know where he is. From time to time, he drops in and brings me things—food, beer, clothing. But he never lets me know where he lives, and I don’t have his phone number. It’s rather frustrating.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Carter. I named him after President Carter, who I once met. A fine man.”

  I wasn’t that much closer to a solution, but because this Carter Roebius didn’t even let his dad know where he lived, I decided provisionally to tag him as my bank robber. His pa described him for me: medium height, brown hair and eyes, and the friendliest of smiles. When I asked his father what his son did for a living, he said he didn’t know what his current job might be, but he used to be a … bank guard.

  Aha!

  But that’s the extent of what I managed to milk from the name. Months passed and I turned to my attention to other constabulary duties. And then it was a year later.

  * * * *

  There was only one more bank left in Markheim Colorado, so I assigned all of my available men to surround the building, known as the H & H Bank, officially the Hawkins Hamish Bank & Trust, on April 1st.

  Nothing happened.

  After waiting it out for most of the day, I returned to the police station just before six p.m. and found a message waiting for me that said, “Happy Birthday to me!” which suggested Roebius’s birthdate. His father confirmed it, so now I was certain his son was the man I was looking for.

  I was about to go home, when the telephone rang. It was Benny the bartender. “Warren, could you come over here? Somebody left a package for you.”

  “Who? Can you describe him?”

  “Short guy. Nothing unusual about him.”

  “Wait for me. I’ll be right over.” I treated myself to the luxury of a taxi and was at the Slainté in less than fifteen minutes. Benny greeted me. “It’s in the back room.”

  I went in there alone and found a tattered brown attaché case. Next to it were two envelopes. The first bore the printed inscription: READ ME IMMEDIATELY, THEN OPEN THE CASE. The second envelope said OPEN ME LAST.

  Well, I really wanted to see what was in the case, but first I tore open the envelope and read this:

  Dear Lieutenant, the only reason I did all this was because I was bored. I wanted to see if I could bring it off and not be caught. Now that I’ve done it, I have no more use for the contents of the case. With admiration, C. B. Roebius.

  I snapped the attaché’s latches and found inside it $10,000 in cash. When I ripped open the final envelope, I was not surprised to find it contained two items: a pair of thick eyeglasses and a handlebar mustache.

  C. B. Roebius … Carter Benedict Roebius.

  I never caught him.

  Not that I tried very hard.

  d

  Gene Goodwin is a fan of Colorado, since that’s where he learned to love TexMex food.

  A CLOWN AT MIDNIGHT

  by Marc Bilgrey

  Jack Miller woke up in the dark, breathing heavily and sweating. He’d had the nightmare again. He looked at the luminous digital clock on his night table. It was four thirty in the morning. He knew that getting to sleep again would be difficult. It always was. When he could get back to sleep at all.

  Hours later, Jack walked through the icy February wind and into Benning’s Art Store, yawning and rubbing his eyes. His boss, Mr. Stevens, was behind the counter helping a customer when he noticed Jack. Stevens asked an employee to take over for him, and directed Jack into the back office. Stevens sat behind his desk, as he motioned for Jack to sit down on a chair in front of him.

  Stevens asked Jack if he knew what time it was. Jack shrugged and said that he thought it was about ten thirty. Stevens told him it was eleven and that the store opened at ten. Stevens frowned and said that had this been an isolated incident, he might have been able to overlook it. But Jack had been late four times in the last month and as a result he had no choice but to let him go.

  Jack considered responding, but knew it was pointless. If he told the truth it would just make him sound crazy. Stevens told Jack that he would send him his last pay-check then dismissed him. Jack left the office, walked through the store and outside to Fourteenth Street.

  As he went past fast food restaurants, luggage stores, and discount electronic shops, it occurred to him that he should feel awful but instead he only felt numb. If anything he was surprised that he’d lasted as long in the job as he had. Two months was a record for him. Usually, he only made it for a few weeks before he was fired. He wondered what he would do now. In this economy even finding a minimum wage job wasn’t that easy. He yawned, then went down a set of stairs into the subway, and took the train uptown. When he got to his apartment he pulled off his clothes, got into bed and took a nap.

  * * * *

  That night, Jack met his friend Mike Phillips at a local Chinese restaurant. Mike worked in the circulation department of a neighborhood newspaper. After they ordered dinner, Mike took a gulp of his diet Coke and said, “You’ll get another job.”

  “It’s not that,” said Jack. “It’s the underlying problem.”

  “You’re not going to start with that dream again, are you?”

  “It’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare. How about a little sympathy?”

  “Jack, I’ve been giving you sympathy for over twenty years.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it. I’m upset.”

  “Here,” said Mike, handing Jack a Post It note.

  “What’s this?”

  ”It’s the name and number of a hypnotist. Someone at my office went to see her, she helped him quit smoking. She does sleep problems, too.”

  Jack looked at the little yellow piece of paper and frowned. Could anyone really help him? Over the years he’d tried self-help books, exercise, meditation, talk therapy, and positive affirmations. He’d had high hopes for each one but none of them had worked. He couldn’t help being skeptical. After such a long time he was resigned to never getting any better.

  Despite his doubts, Jack called Dr. Jennifer Anders the next day. It turned out that she had a cancellation and was able to see him that afternoon. At four o’clock, he walked into her West Side office and sat down on her couch. Dr. Anders was a pretty blonde in her thirties, dressed in a white blouse and black skirt. She smiled warmly and sat down on a chair opposite Jack.

  “How can I help you?” she asked.

  “I have a lot of trouble sleeping,” said Jack, “ and because of that, I can’t hold down a job, or even have a relationship.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Jack took a breath. “It’s all because of the nightmare.”

  “The nightmare?”