Death at the Diogenes Club: a Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery (The Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mysteries Book 6), page 1
DEATH AT THE DIOGENES CLUB
THE SEQUEL TO THE JUBILEE PROBLEM
A NOVEL OF SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES
Lucy James and Sherlock Holmes must solve a mysterious locked-room murder at London’s exclusive Diogenes Club. But Lucy is still coping with the traumatic after-effects of their last case, and her romantic relationship with a handsome young police detective is growing more complex. Emotions intensify and the dangers become life-threatening as they find themselves drawn into lethal conflict with the most ruthless gang leader in London.
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THE SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES MYSTERIES
The Last Moriarty
The Wilhelm Conspiracy
Remember, Remember
The Crown Jewel Mystery
The Jubilee Problem
Death at the Diogenes Club
The Return of the Ripper
Die Again, Mr. Holmes
Watson on the Orient Express
THE SHERLOCK AND LUCY SHORT STORIES
Flynn’s Christmas
The Clown on the High Wire
The Cobra in the Monkey Cage
A Fancy-Dress Death
The Sons of Helios
The Vanishing Medium
Christmas at Baskerville Hall
Kidnapped at the Tower
Five Pink Ladies
The Solitary Witness
The Body in the Bookseller’s
The Curse of Cleopatra’s Needle
The Coded Blue Envelope
Christmas on the Nile
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DEATH AT THE DIOGENES CLUB
A NOVEL OF SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES
BY ANNA ELLIOTT AND CHARLES VELEY
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Death at the Diogenes Club
Text copyright © 2017 by Anna Elliott and Charles Veley. All rights reserved.
The Spectre of Scarborough Castle
Text copyright © 2020 by Charles Veley and Anna Elliott. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Sherlock and Lucy series website: http://sherlockandlucy.com
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Cover design by Todd A. Johnson
Table of Contents
OTHER TITLES BY ANNA ELLIOTT AND CHARLES VELEY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
EPILOGUE
A NOTE TO READERS
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
BONUS STORY (EBOOK AND AUDIO)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CHAPTER 1
Contrary to Doctor Watson’s chronicles, the biggest drawback to Sherlock Holmes’s character wasn’t his use of cocaine, or smoking shag tobacco, or his—admittedly somewhat accurate—view of himself as vastly more intelligent than the entire rest of the human race.
No. I decided within a week of knowing him that the real trouble with Sherlock Holmes was that he had no switch to turn his mental powers off and on. Entering into conversation with him was like being a butterfly and asking to be skewered by an entomologist’s pin; if you spoke to Sherlock Holmes, you placed yourself under the fierce lens of his scrutiny—inescapably.
It made him an excellent detective. As a father, however, it made him more than slightly maddening.
At the moment, he was fixing me with the keen gray gaze that felt as though it could penetrate clear to the back of my skull.
“I understand that you are seeing Constable Kelly tonight.”
“How?” I demanded. “How can you possibly know that?”
We were standing in the sitting room of number 221A Baker Street, where I had been living for the past two months.
In fairness, it would probably have been easier to keep secrets from Holmes if I had not been living directly downstairs from his own address of 221B. But despite my best efforts, the thought of returning to the flat I kept in Exeter Street still made my skin crawl.
“No, wait, don’t tell me.” I let my eyes travel across the room. “While I haven’t yet changed clothes, the boots I intend to wear are standing ready by the door, I’ve re-done my hair three times—which is far more trouble than I usually take with it—as evidenced by the scattering of hairpins on my dressing table. And the corner of the music I intend to give to Becky tonight is visible at the top of my handbag.”
It was five o’clock on a September evening, which meant that my curtains were drawn against the fog that crawled through the London streets outside. The gas jets above the mantel were lighted, their glow patching Holmes’s hawk-like countenance with shadow and throwing his sharp, intelligent features into relief.
He gave me a calm look. “While all those indicators are, now that you mention it, entirely true, in this case my knowledge stems from the telephone call I received earlier from young Miss Kelly. She wished to make sure that you would be coming to St. Giles tonight.”
I blew out a breath, silently counting to ten inside my head.
It was not Holmes’s fault that I had spent much of the past ten weeks alternately feeling as though my skin was stretched too tight with the effort of containing my frustration with life in general and then at other moments jumping at every noise and seeing an intruder lurking in every shadow.
Holmes was still watching me. “How is Constable Kelly faring?”
“He’s … fine.”
If struggling to adjust to a life of having a badly damaged leg could be considered fine.
“He says that he’s managing.”
Holmes’s expression didn’t change, exactly. But the look in his gray eyes told me that he was no more convinced by Jack’s statement than I had been.
“I will turn my attention to thinking what may be done for him.”
“Have you any thoughts on what may be done for him?” Ordinarily, I would respect Jack’s privacy too much to consult with Holmes about him, but at the moment I was willing to try anything.
Holmes’s brow furrowed. He was wearing an elaborately patterned silk dressing gown over shirt and trousers, which I took to mean that he wasn’t currently involved in any cases.
“My own sovereign remedy springs to mind.” He spoke half to himself.
“I think Jack has troubles enough without your encouraging him to become addicted to cocaine.”
“That was not the solution to which I was referring.” Holmes was silent a moment as though pondering something, then turned his attention back to me. “And how are you faring?”
“Fine. Also fine.”
Holmes’s eyebrows rose slightly, but he didn’t question my answer. He had no need to. I knew from looking in the mirror that I had faint purple shadows under my eyes; it wouldn’t take a deductive mind like Holmes’s to conclude that I hadn’t been sleeping well.
Knowing him, he had probably deduced the subject of my recurring nightmare too, though at least he refrained from saying, I told you so.
He had warned me of the cost of taking part in his investigations, but I had refused to leave him to face the danger of tracking down a particularly vicious traitor to the crown alone.
And, really, nightmares were a small price to pay for the fact that my father was alive and unharmed.
“Hmmm.” Holmes’s eyes unfocused, his expression turning to the faintly bored look that meant his thoughts were following some complicated inner track. “I believe I might have heard of something that would suit …”
Without another word, he turned and vanished back up the stairs.
I crossed to close the door behind him and then went into the bedroom to
The second disadvantage to having Holmes for a parent: Only now, after nearly two years’ acquaintance, was I becoming even remotely skilled at guessing what he was thinking. And in this case, I had no idea at all.
The extra trouble I had taken with my hair was actually wasted since whenever I visited Becky and Jack I tucked it under a cloth newsboy’s cap. I also wore boots, trousers, and a loose-fitting tweed overcoat so that I could pass for a boy somewhere in his teen years.
Becky and Jack’s neighborhood of St. Giles was a warren of dirty, poverty-stricken streets and houses so decrepit that they looked as though a single push would send them falling over. Those same houses were also dens for criminals of all types: pickpockets, smash-and-grab men, prostitutes and their procurers …
The street where Becky and Jack lived was too narrow to accommodate a carriage, so I had to walk the last block or two. I attracted less notice if I wore male attire and, in the event I had to defend myself, boots and trousers were also significantly more convenient for fighting than petticoats and corsets.
Tonight, a small girl with blond braids was waiting for me at the end of the road, with an enormous brown and white dog seated on the ground beside her.
There were a few other pedestrians about, but even the roughest-looking gave the pair of them a wide berth. Prince, Jack and Becky’s mastiff, was an extremely effective deterrent against being assaulted or robbed.
“Becky!” My heart tried to jump up into my throat at the sight of her. “Is something wrong?”
Jack’s wounds were healed—externally so, at any rate—and the danger of sepsis had passed. His life could well and truly be considered out of danger. But I couldn’t prevent the unpleasant lurch of fear. Another memento of the days when we weren’t sure whether Jack was going to live or die.
“Yes—I mean, no.” Becky shook her head, looking up at me. “I mean, it’s Jack. He’s not sick or anything, but he’s …” She stopped, clearly searching for the right words. “He’s all wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I was fairly sure that I already knew the answer, but I didn’t want to say it out loud, especially not to Jack’s little sister.
Becky’s shoulders were stiff. “He hates it. I know he does. He hates everything about not being able to walk properly anymore. But he never says so, and he never complains, never.”
“It will take time, but he is getting better—” I started.
“Pigswill!” Becky interrupted. She looked up at me. In the greenish glare of the street lamps, I could see that there were tears standing in her blue eyes.
“Jack’s never out of temper, he’s never anything but calm—because he never lets himself be anything but calm,” Becky went on. “It’s like he’s keeping himself locked up, tight. But he barely sleeps, and he does those exercises that Doctor Watson gave him so often that I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself. I can hear him at night, when he thinks I’ve gone to bed. He almost never laughs anymore, either, and he won’t talk to me, not really, not about anything important, and it’s all wrong.”
Becky stopped, swiping a hand angrily across her eyes.
I put an arm around her, and she leaned against me.
When Becky and I had first met—nearly a year ago now—she had been dressed up as a boy and running away from an enraged tavern owner because she had snuck in to secretly play his piano.
I had known on the spot that we were kindred spirits.
“I’m sorry,” I told her now. “It is all wrong. The trouble is, I have no idea how to put it right again.”
CHAPTER 2
“Try …” I scanned the front page of the newspaper, searching for as short an article as I could find. “Here, try this one.”
I pointed to an article headline that read Public Notice.
We were sitting side by side at the Kellys’ battered and scarred dining table. Becky and I had sung through her music lesson already, and now she was asleep in the inner room of the two rooms of rented lodgings that she and her brother shared. Prince was in the next room too, collapsed across the foot of Becky’s bed.
“Public notice.” Jack read slowly. “Please be advised that due to normal maintenance, the gas lamps on Pall Mall will be unlit from September 8 through September 16 so that said normal maintenance may be carried out. During the routine maintenance period—”
Jack stopped, and I studied his face, feeling the familiar tightening around my heart, an odd ache that was painful and yet I somehow wouldn’t wish away.
It wasn’t just that he was handsome—though he was, breath-catchingly so. Jack had almost gypsy coloring: very dark brown hair and eyes, with chiseled features and straight dark brows. He was broad-shouldered and lean, athletically strong in a hard-edged way.
At the moment, he was looking down at the paper with a slight frown between his brows.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I was just thinking—using ‘normal maintenance’ that many times in one paragraph? It’s like saying, Pay no attention to the tiger at the breakfast table. Not the kind of thing you’d say if everything actually is just normal routine.”
He shook his head. “Never mind, it’s probably not important.”
He turned back to the newspaper, rubbing his eyes as though they were aching—not that he would have admitted it to me if they were—before going on.
“Pedestrians and carriage traffic should be advised to carry their own”—Jack hesitated for a second—“lamps.”
I bit my tongue, stopping myself from correcting him by saying light. Except that not correcting him probably wasn’t doing him any favors. That was the entire purpose of my being here, after all.
Nearly two months ago, Jack had stepped in front of a gun aimed at my father and had been shot twice in the process. The first bullet had struck his shoulder and luckily missed hitting the bone. He had nearly regained the full range of motion of his arm and his strength. But the second bullet had torn through the muscle of his right leg, damaging nerves, ripping tendons, and nearly costing Jack his life.
Now Jack was a beat constable who could no longer walk a beat, and he still had Becky to support.
The Metropolitan Police had strict rules about promotion through its ranks. Usually constables were older and more experienced than Jack before they were encouraged to apply for a promotion to the rank of sergeant. Jack was only twenty-three and had served in the London Metropolitan Police for just under three years.
But he had not only saved the life of Sherlock Holmes, he had also been wounded while foiling a plot to detonate a bomb at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, assassinate His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and bring down the government.
Jack’s superiors had informed him that he was eligible to take the exams to qualify for a sergeant’s position. To pass the exams, though, he had to have fluent skills in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the study of English law.
Jack was one of the most quick-witted, observant, and intelligent men I’d ever met, but he had never been to school of any kind. His mother had abandoned him when he was younger than Becky, and he’d grown up alone and homeless on the London streets. It was amazing that he’d taught himself to read as much as he had.
“That wasn’t right, was it?”
Jack’s voice broke in on my thoughts.
I sighed. I might have known Jack would be able to tell if I tried to make this easier on him.
“No. It’s light. i-g-h almost always says i.”
Jack nodded without speaking. The earlier fog had turned into rain that spattered against the windows and drummed on the roof over our heads.
Three months ago, he had radiated a kind of controlled energy and a competent self-assurance that said he was strong and quick to respond to any threat and that any criminal who crossed paths with him was extremely unwise.
Now Becky was right; the control was still there, but it was … harder, somehow, seeming to shut out everyone from coming too close.
Or maybe it was only me he wanted to shut out.
He went on reading slowly but steadily, in an all-but-expressionless tone, moving on to the article just below the notice about the lamps, which seemed to be about the ongoing conflict in northern India. “The two brigades which compose—”
I interrupted him in mid-sentence. “You hate this, don’t you.”
