When I got back, they were in the sitting room, Louisa placidly mending and Mary sitting on the floor playing with little Tom.

“Mary” I began gruffly, “You tell me right now. Is there anything, anything at all, that you did connected with this painting. No secret beau you met in the park? No notes delivered with the milk? No one asking you questions about the household?”

She looked up at me, hurt and maybe a little scared. “No Charlie, nothing, really nothing. Honest. It’s a good job and everyone’s nice as they can be. I wouldn’t do nothing like that, ever.”

“Good,” I answered. She could be a flighty little thing, but I knew deep down she was solid like her sister and I believed her. But where did that leave it, I wondered.

“I will be able to go back to work, won’t I?”

“I’m sure the police detectives will have the whole matter solved soon,” Louisa said. But I wasn’t so sure. There didn’t seem to be many possibilities, and I could see why Inspector Brokins focused on Mary.

“What about the rest of the staff? “ I asked Mary. “How many people work in the house?”

“There’s seven of us. Mrs. MacPherson the cook, and Annie the scullery maid, Mr. Hunter, Robert the groom, Miss Stevers, that’s Lady Shockley’s maid, and then me and Liza the parlor maids. Liza’s my best friend and she wouldn’t do nothing like this. None of them would. Even Miss Stevers who’s always going about with her nose in the air thinking she’s better than anyone. Oh my, but she looked funny when the cat scared her. On Tuesday afternoon that was. She was looking for the Mistress’s riding gloves, but too uppity to ask any of us. She just went through the drawing room opening drawers and cupboards, mumbling about the poor state of housekeeping. And finally she went upstairs and opened the big hall closet and out popped the Master’s cat – he’s a big tom. He jumped right past her and she screamed like she had seen the devil. Well, first we thought something awful had happened and we all ran upstairs.”

“Mary,” Louisa interjected. “Tell him about the house staff.”

“Well, I was saying,” she said. “Mr. Hunter is very strict with everyone, but only because it’s his job. Mrs. MacPherson is very kind. She said she would show me how to make a soufflé. ‘Mary,’ she said, ‘Some day you are going to be a wife, and you should be ready to do a bit a fancy cooking for your husband. Men appreciate that.’ But Robert, he said....”

But I dozed off in my chair and never did find out what Robert said. When I woke up Mary had put Tom to bed and Louisa was banking the fire. “Come on, luv,” she said. And we went up to bed.

“How did the cat get in the closet?” I asked the next morning. I couldn’t say why I was interested in the story, but it was in my mind. We all three sat at the table in the kitchen. Louisa was dandling Tom on her knee feeding him porridge. She looked at me as if I had gone daft, but Mary picked right up on the story.

“Someone left the door open, I suppose, and he wandered in looking for a warm place for a kip. Poor old thing, all he does anymore is sleep.” she said.

“Who would leave the door open? What’s in the closet?”

“Well, it’s not a proper closet for hats and coats, it’s more like a box room, all ajumble with things people don’t use regular like. I don’t know who left the door open, there’s no reason anyone should be looking in there.”

“So why would Miss Stevers look for riding gloves there?”

“Oh, I expect she was looking everywhere by that time. She can get in an awful fluster. And no one wanted to tell her they were on the table by the back stairs exactly where she left them. Oh my, she was angry when she finally found them. But I think it serves her right. We would have told her if she had asked politely.”

After breakfast, I went to work a bit early, hitched up Rosie and drove over to Baker Street. There was only one person I could think of who might be able to help poor Mary. Of course I didn’t know Mr. Sherlock Holmes personal like, but a lot of us cabmen knew him from driving him and Dr. Watson here and there; always in a hurry, and sometimes to some very queer places too. It was a little bit of excitement even if he was only going to the train station or Scotland Yard. Later I’d read in the papers how Mr. Holmes had solved another difficult case, and I’d feel like I was involved, even if only a little bit.

But when I arrived at Baker Street it was only Mrs. Hudson there and I was sorely taken when she told me Mr. Holmes was away in Devonshire and not expected back for some days.

I drove that morning with a heavy heart. Poor Rosie could feel it in the reins and every time we stopped she’d turn her head and nicker at me. I was happy that Louisa had packed me a piece of kidney pie. I didn’t want to eat at the cabman’s shelter with all the talk and noise; I needed a quiet place to think about things. After I took two ladies to Harley Street, I turned into Regent’s Park and found a bit of shade. I gave Rosie her nose bag and I sat under a tree to eat.

Mary was a lovely girl, but she couldn’t live with us forever. Tom was growing like a sprout and with a little luck there would be another on the way in not too long. I wanted to get this matter settled not only for Mary, but for me and Louisa too. But what could I do? I couldn’t snoop around Lord Shockley’s house to investigate, and who would answer questions posed by a cabman? Still, I knew I had to try. I tried to think through the situation logically, like Mr. Holmes would have done. If Mary wasn’t involved, then it must have been some other member of the staff. That is, if Inspector Brokins was correct about the method of the crime. But maybe it wasn’t an “inside” job at all, and all the staff were innocent. But in that case, how did the robbers get in, and how did they get the huge painting out? I turned it all over in my mind for the rest of the day as I drove. The rain started up again and I had a busy afternoon, driving from Parliament to Fleet Street, and up to Jerusalem Coffeehouse. Towards the end of the afternoon, I dropped an elderly gentleman at Chelsea Hospital and then drove to Cadogan Square, wanting to talk to Mr. Hunter again.

As I drove up to the house, a young man with a doctor’s bag came hurrying out, and over to the cab.

“Victoria Street, I’ll tell you where.” he said as he disappeared inside the coach.

Obligingly I shook the reins and Rosie trotted on. So this was Dr. McCarty, presumably. But who was ill, and where was he going in such a rush? As always, it was slow going on Victoria Street. Just beyond the Army-Navy Store he banged on the ceiling of the coach.

“Stop here.” he ordered. He jumped out of the cab and almost threw the coins at me. I watched as he hurried down the street and into an office marked ‘Wilbraham’. Where had I heard that name before?

I turned around and went back to Lord Shockley’s. Mr. Hunter invited me in. We sat in the kitchen at a large deal table as Mrs. MacPherson served tea and cheese biscuits.

“I saw the doctor coming out of the house.” I began cautiously, “I thought there might be an upset.”

“No, no, nothing wrong at all. Dr. McCarty was just on his way back to his surgery, dropped by to check on the Mistress again. But she’s in the country, so we had a good natter about the robbery and the police investigation. Very interested he was.”

“Would that be Dr. McCarty of Victoria Street?” I asked.

“No, no. He keeps his surgery right here on Edbury Street, and lives above it.”

That was an expensive neighborhood for a young doctor, I thought, and why he was lying about going back to his surgery?

We were interrupted by Stephen the groom, “Beg pardon, Mr. Hunter, them blokes from Mr. Wilbraham’s is here, ready to load up the carpets. And if Mr. Thatcher could move his hansom.”

Wilbraham? I thought, remembering now that they were involved in doing the redecorating. So the doctor was visiting Mr. Wilbraham. But why? I stood up and said, “Of course, I’ll move it right away.” The three of us went out the kitchen door and up to the sidewalk.

Pulled up in back of my hansom was a large green van with the name Wilbraham painted on the side in gold. The horse had his head down the way they do when they know they are going to be there a while. I walked Rosie forward a bit, and a workman did the same for the van so that it was closer to the front door. Two workmen came out of the house, carrying between them the rolled up carpet from the study. Suddenly, I had an idea.

As they stepped up to the van ready to load the carpet inside, I whistled loudly. Wilbraham’s horse perked up and took a few nervous steps, jerking the van forward. Surprised by the movement, the first workman dropped his end of the carpet, and the second workman, unable to carry the entire weight, dropped his end, too. The carpet unrolled onto the street. But instead of the red rose pattern, it revealed a raw edge of canvas and a scene of misty mountains and grazing sheep.

“Hey, there, what’s that?” I asked loudly and pointed to the carpet. Hunter looked at me in surprise. Wilbraham’s men were nowhere to be seen, but their running steps echoed down the street.

“It was the cat in the closet,” I explained to Inspector Brokins and Mr. Hunter when we all had our pints. We met that evening at a pub near Cadogan Square, and Inspector Brokins stood us a round.

“He must have gotten in when the Doctor was hiding the painting.”

“Yes,” agreed Brokins. “And you were right about the Doctor, poor lad. He was happy to tell us everything, felt right guilty he did. He couldn’t pay off the money he borrowed to get his practice started. Wilbraham found out. Told him if he did this one thing he could make enough to get out of debt, and McCarty agreed. He went into the study after his Tuesday visit to Lady Shockley. Cut the painting out as it hung there, then pulled the frame off the wall, and left that scratch. Hid it all in the back of the closet. That must have been when the cat got in there. A few days later, in come Wilbraham’s men, they retrieve the painting from the closet, roll it up in the carpet and Bob’s your uncle they’re away.”

“Nasty business all around,” Mr. Hunter added. “You were clever, Mr. Thatcher, to work it all out. A regular Sherlock Holmes you are.

“A cabman detective,” Inspector Brokins said with a smile. “Never seen that before.”

I walked home happy that evening.

“A cabman detective.” I said out loud and laughed. It will be a good story to tell young Tom when he grows up a bit.