“I say, Agatha!” calls Wodehouse from across the tea room. “You’re frightfully good at puzzling things out, what?”
“So I am,” responds Christie.
“Perhaps you could help me out with a bit of a mystery. My cow creamer has disappeared.”
“Why would you need to cream a cow?”
“No. It’s a creamer in the shape of a cow. Are you sure you’re very good at this?”
“Pardon me?”
“Well,” says Wodehouse, “I mean to say, if you can’t figure out what we’re discussing, then perhaps I should hunt down another sleuth. That Patterson chappy seems sharp.”
“We’re discussing a cow creamer.”
“You’ve wrapped your head around the fact now?”
“Indeed. Please give me the facts of your Creamer Case and I shall endeavor to put your mind at ease.”
“Thanks.” Wodehouse sips his tea.
“Though it would be difficult to find an easier mind than your own.”
“Thanks. As I was saying. I sat down to tea with a bloke of my acquaintance. We talked of this and that and that and this. Throughout the whole of the meeting the creamer remained upon the table, excepting when it was used. Now it is nowhere to be found.” He sips his tea again.
“I see. Here is the table at which the tea took place?”
“Yes.”
“There are two teacups, one empty, one full. A bowl a sugar, a teapot, a tray of biscuits and a space where the creamer should be.”
“Hence my concern over the creamer’s absence.”
“Indeed. Did your acquaintance partake of cream in his tea?”
“No. He is not a cream chap. Two teaspoons of sugar only.”
“You’re certain?”
“Most certainly certain. I remember like it was just a moment ago. I lifted the creamer to off my acquaintance a drop or two. He said ‘No, no, not a cream chap myself. Just two teaspoons of sugar.’ I nodded, knocked a drop or two into my own cup and that is my last memory of the creamer.”
“Perhaps the best way to go about following a creamer is to follow the cream,” Agatha says.
“Logic at it’s finest!”
“Thank you. Now, after you poured your drop or two, was your tea sufficiently creamy?”
“The creamiest!” He sips.
“And I see there are two cups here at the table. One empty. One full.”
“You’ve said that already.”
“And you say that you put cream in your tea?” Christie asks.
“Yes. I have said that already. I’m truly to beginning to doubt your attention to detail. To recap: There are two cups of tea on the table because my acquaintance and myself were having tea…and this is Britain, not Afghanistan. Having confirmed my tea was the creamiest tea imaginable, I think you would gather that I poured a drop or two into my tea cup.”
“Yet the full cup of tea has no cream. The trail of cream we have followed has gone cold.”
“What does this mean?” Wodehouse asks.
“It means I know where the cow creamer is located.”
“You do?”
“Indeed.”
“Well, where is it?”
“In your hand,” Christie declares.
Wodehouse looks down. “So it is.”
“You stated that you placed cream in your tea, but as you see here, there is no cream in the full cup of tea. Plus, it is a full cup of tea, meaning you must have drunk from another cup. As you stated your drink was the creamiest, and there is no creamier beverage than cream, I deduced you must be drinking from the creamer.”
“Brilliant!”
“And I saw it in your hand as soon as you said ‘I say, Agatha!’”
“Ah.”
Leave a Reply