Title: An Interesting Choice of Footwear
Fandom: My Dearly Beloved Detective
Rating: G
Length: 536
Summary: Shirley Holmes solves a case in which a lot depends on the footwear.

Shirley Holmes smiled at Jane Watson as she poured the tea.  It had been a very satisfying case, brought to a swift conclusion, despite the client’s initial reluctance to consult them.  As so often happened, she had come expecting to find Sherlock Holmes, and been surprised to find he was only a creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.  The client had been on the point of leaving, when Shirley’s expert deduction of her current circumstances, from the state of her footwear, had caused the client to rethink.

In fact, Shirley reflected, a lot of the case had involved footwear one way or another.  She stretched out her foot and admired the new plum-coloured boots she was wearing.  She wondered whether she could include the cost of them in her expenses, since the visit to the boot maker had been undertaken during the course of the investigation.

Jane smiled at her as she brought the tea over.  “It’s amazing what one can learn from a person’s footwear, isn’t it.  Looking at your boots they might say they showed a slightly conservative person, who prized respectability, whereas,” she circled her own foot in its fetching green shoe, “I might be accused of frippery.”

“And yet,” Shirley added, “the person who considers only the colour and whether it is a boot or shoe misses so much of importance.  Observing a governess with shoes which would never be suitable for the rigours of the job, is a case in point.”

“Quite.  Can you imagine walking round one of the museums with your charges in tow wearing heels like that?  You’d be longing to remove them before you were half way round.  And then there was the soil on the supposed brother’s boots; you did well to identify it.”

“To be fair, I did not identify its origin, merely that the soil did not correspond with the place the brother claimed to have come from.  But that was sufficient for our purposes.”

“And don’t forget the limp he had later that day,” Jane said, and they both laughed at the memory.

“I suppose someone might have been fooled by the footsteps he’d left,” Shirley said.  “But they really were most peculiar.  Trying to pass the robbery off as the work of his cousin, and wearing boots two sizes too small in order to do so.  Whatever was he thinking?”

“I’ve no idea, but I suspect he regretted it afterwards.”  Jane laughed again.  “Do you think the client was happy with the outcome?”

“She said she was, but I’m not convinced.  I think she was pleased to learn her suspicions about the potential governess were justified, but I don’t think she wanted to find out the actual details.  However she paid the fee without objection, and your share will cover the cost of those shoes.”

“More than cover them.  They cost about a quarter what you paid for yours, since the boot maker was keen to sell them, as nobody liked the colour, and they just happen to go perfectly with my dress.”

“Indeed.”  Shirley turned to the pile of unopened mail which was waiting for her on her desk.  “Right, let’s see what enquiries have come in for us since this morning.”