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?He went around me and up the two steps of an elevated platform, where the other members sat behind a table. With care, I walked up the steps and moved to the last remaining seat.
?Right next to Sheryl Homes.
?She gave me a glance and her expression grew hard.
?“Have a good time last night?” she muttered in an undertone.
?I peered at her in puzzlement.
?“I saw you go into Candy’s room,” she went on, still in a low voice. “And now you show up here with a hangover.”
?I’d thought I’d carried myself so well! I challenged her, “What makes you think I have a hangover?”
?“Simple! First of all, I watched you last evening, and your natural tendency is to move quick and decisively. Today, your movements are slow and deliberate. Secondly,
your eyes are a bit bloodshot, though it would take a trained observer to notice. Finally, yesterday you were dressed immaculately. Today you got ready in a hurry and carelessly.”
?“Careless in what way?”
?“For one thing,” she said, and her voice dropped to a whisper, “your fly is open.”
?Once again, I turned beet red, and with a glance to my left and right, I zipped myself as subtly as I could manage, hoping the tablecloth on the table in front of me hid the move from the audience.
?“I could go on,” Sheryl sassed, pleased with herself, “but I believe we’ll be starting soon.”
?She was correct. The room rapidly filled up with people. I was sure many of them were at my lecture the previous night, and as Ms. Homes was here, they came to see if our battle would move into round two.
?I looked at the other end of the table to see Allen Alexander smirking at our little exchange.
?I bit my lip, adjusted my glasses, and tried to focus on the matters at hand.
?I thought after our meeting at the ice machine she might be nicer. And yet, for me there had been a moment, when she looked down at the floor and murmured her apology that she looked so beautiful and so vulnerable, that all I wanted to do was take her into my arms.
?Why did I keep seeing her that way? Next to me sat the real Sheryl Homes, a know-it-all that no man in his right mind would give a second thought.
?Then again, her observations had been dead-on.
?And very Holmesian.
?The moderator rose, and I recognized Ms. Cunningham. She was in another Chanel-style suit and looked very classy. I couldn’t help but notice that the Holmes cameo was absent from her lapel.
?“I am Winsley Cunningham, and I am a charter member of the New York branch of the Northeast Mystery Club,” she said. “I teach the history of Sherlock Holmes at the New School. I am grateful to have such a turnout—”
?She quickly introduced the members of the panel, which besides Homes and me consisted of the editor of the Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, a writer who wrote a semi-religious adventure that had Holmes seeking proof of the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the final member was Allen.
?We each were to open with a statement, and then the floor was open to questions. It was basically an hour-and-a-half Q&A.
?Ms. Cunningham approached Holmes from a scholarly point of view and recommended several works that gave both Holmes’ and Watson’s biography and timeline.
?The editor, a short man with a towering intellect, spent his introduction explaining the sort of stories his magazine sought. This was listened to with rapt attention, as many of the attendees were writers who wanted to sell their own Holmes stories.
?The Christian writer brought the idea of blending faith with Holmes’ intellect.
?Allen got up and stated that Holmes stories were a challenge, as a writer had to get the feel and the atmosphere correct, as well as giving the characters the ability to grow further than Conan Doyle allowed.
?Since I had read Allen’s published work, I thought he should follow his own advice instead of writing the claptrap I’d read in his awful book.
?I stood, my headache ignored as I faced the audience and gave the briefest of summaries of my speech from the previous evening and sat down.
