The Closet of Possibility

A Stranger In the Lumber Room

"How do you know Harry is a boy?"

"Our unexpected visitor wore a plain gold band on his left ring finger. He is a married man, then, of several years judging from the signs of wear. The inevitable question to follow is the existence of children. Young master Harry has the necessary degree of knowledge and intelligence that allows him to devise the means in which he made a stranger temporarily appear in our lumber room. The stranger's youthful appearance makes the existence of grown children unlikely. Of course, Master Harry may be a relative or older family member, but the creases on our guest's clothes tell us he has been in his shirtsleeves the entire day, had not donned a tie for the same length of time, but no one commented on his deplorable state of extended undress. If we hypothesize Master Harry is the perpetrator of the prank, and the victim is our guest, then Master Harry is a boy, probably our unexpected guest's oldest son, which we can infer from the way he addressed him by his Christian name."

"How extraordinary!" said I. "If your reasoning is true, then young Master Harry's skill must surpass that of the famed escapologist Houdini; even he would find it difficult to replicate what happened here."

"I agree; and as you undoubtedly noticed, there was no sign of preparations and there were no contraptions within our storage space," said Holmes. "It was, in fact, entirely as we have last accessed it, albeit with more dust. Should we ever see our guest I again, I would love to question him how Master Harry did it."

The discussion on the matter ended on that note. I turned to bed shortly afterward, leaving Holmes to brood over our latest perplexing mystery. In the dreamy landscape between slumber and consciousness, I heard a door open and close from the floor below. I assumed it was the sound of Holmes entering his bedroom.

I awoke to a chilly morning. The pale sun roused above the jungle of man-made structures that had been huddling helplessly against the imperious storms of the night before. The windows still bore the remnants of last night's assault from elemental forces, dripping muddy water droplets like blood from a wound. Our landlady had stoked a good fire and laid out our breakfast by the time I came downstairs. Holmes was already seated at the table, smoking his morning pipe.

"Another visitor came last night," said Holmes as he poured the coffee. "It was a young man, no more than eighteen years of age, tall and lean of stature, and a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. He also wore the most absurd combination of clothes I've ever laid my eyes on: form-fitting blue laborers' trousers on his legs, a grey undershirt and red cardigan on his torso, round spectacles on his face, and black shoes with white rubber soles and laces on his feet. He opened the lumber room door from the inside, peered at me with apprehension rather than surprise, and shut the door behind him before I could reach him. When I opened the lumber room door again, it was exactly as we found it last evening."

"No new additions?"

"None whatsoever."

"Did our new visitor say anything?"

"He said 'oops', a rather mild self-admonishment considering the magnitude of the circumstances."

I munched on my toast thoughtfully.

"Could it be," I started, "that these series of incidents are-"

I didn't continue, as the lumber room door opened from the inside again and the visitor we saw last evening stuck out his head from the crack. This time, he was wearing a blue dressing gown, black trousers that had very narrow legs, and a shirt that was a deep plum colour. Like the evening before, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone and he lacked a tie and proper waistcoat. He also glowered at us with frank annoyance before turning to the unseen space behind him.