Consulting Detective Vol 5, page 1
Volume Five
Airship 27 Productions
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, Vol. 5
The Adventure of the Other Man © 2013 Chuck Miller
The Adventure of the Stolen Centennial © 2013 Aaron Smith
The Abominable Merridew © 2013 I.A. Watson
The Adventure of the Invisible Assassin © 2013 Andrew Salmon
The Napoleon of Crime © 2013 Ron Fortier
Cover illustration © 2013 Mike Fyles
Interior illustrations © 2013 Rob Davis
Editor: Ron Fortier
Associate Editor: Gordon Dymowski
Production and design by Rob Davis
Promotion and marketing by Michael Vance
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Airship 27 Productions
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Sherlock Holmes
Consulting Detective
Volume V
The Adventure of the Other Man
By Chuck Miller.....................................................................................................................When Holmes is arrested for attempting to seduce the wife of a married man, Dr. Watson begins to worry that his friend has truly lost his mind.
The Adventure of the Stolen Centennial
By Aaron Smith .........................................................................................................................
Why would someone cruelly murder a man only a few months before he turns one hundred? That is the mystery put before the Great Detective and his loyal companion in a truly bizarre affair.
The Abominable Merridew
By I.A. Watson ...........................................................................................................................
A murderous fiend is loose on the streets of London and is pursued by two very different hunters, Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis, Prof. Moriarty.
The Adventure of the Invisible Assassin
By Andrew Salmon ...................................................................................................................
When a cunning murder attempt leaves Sherlock Holmes incapacitated and at death’s door, it is up to Dr. Watson and Mycroft Holmes to bring a fiendish plot to an end.
The Napoleon of Crime
By Ron Fortier ............................................................................................................................
Being a commentary on Professor James Moriarty and his place in the Holmes stories.
Sherlock
Holmes
in
“The Adventure
of the
Other Man”
By
Chuck Miller
I had seen but little of my friend, Mister Sherlock Holmes, in the months since my marriage, though I made a habit of calling at 221-B Baker Street whenever I found myself nearby with an hour or two to spare. Relations between Holmes and myself were such that no prearranged appointments were necessary. Indeed, owing to the erratic nature of his schedule, planning a personal call in advance was quite useless. If he happened to be in, which was not often, I was received with as much warmth as he was capable of displaying, depending upon his mood. He might be distracted by some investigation to the point of brusqueness, or he might be touchingly effusive. But we had, inevitably, drifted apart. After my marriage to Mary Morstan, I had moved out of our digs in Baker Street and busied myself with my new wife and my medical practice, leaving Holmes to his own devices.
Such news as I had of his investigations came to me through the public press. His name appeared two or three times a month, in connection with some celebrated criminal case. It had never occurred me to wonder about his personal life. The concept seemed irrelevant where Sherlock Holmes was concerned. His personal and professional lives were one and the same.
One morning in the late spring of 1889, as I was sitting down to breakfast my wife said, “Have a look at this awful news item.”
The newspaper she was waving in my direction was one that I recognized, but had always made a point never to purchase or read. It was one of those miserable sheets that catered to the lowest common denominator amongst the British reading public. The dubious reportage consisted in the main of highly sensationalized accounts of the most appalling crimes and natural disasters. Several pages were devoted to “society news,” a lurid catalog of rumor, gossip and innuendo involving royal personages and other celebrated figures, actors, writers, and other luminaries.
“Mary,” said I with a frown, “when did you start reading this trash?”
“Never. It was brought to my attention by someone, and now I am bringing it to yours,” she said, handing the thing to me and pointing to an item in the middle of an inside page.
This is what I read:
“We see that one of London’s wisest and best men has been playing the fool of late. Rumors surrounding the doings of a certain consulting detective have been confirmed by this reporter, who witnessed a rather touching scene at a popular restaurant this Monday evening past. It seems that this intellectual paragon has taken it into his head to pay court to a young woman. The lady in question has made no comment upon the situation, at least not within earshot of any member of the press. One must wonder what sort of an accounting of herself she gives to her husband.”
“Of all the damnable calumny!” I exclaimed, tossing the offensive thing onto the floor. “What twaddle! If I were Holmes, I would sue them for libel!”
Mary nodded. “It does seem an unlikely tale. They were careful not to use his name, you’ll have noticed.”
“Cold comfort! It could refer to no one else. Why, Holmes would no more conduct himself in such a manner than would... why, the Archbishop of Canterbury!”
“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Mary said, amused. “He took your departure from Baker Street rather hard. Perhaps he’s lonely and it has driven him to behave foolishly.”
I shook my head. “Absurd. Why would Holmes pay court to a married woman?”
“Irene Adler was married, was she not?” Mary countered. “In fact, Mister Holmes witnessed her wedding. That must have been quite a blow in itself, and not so very long ago.”
“Holmes had no romantic feelings toward Mrs. Norton...Irene.” I protested. “He was in awe of her intellect and ability.”
Mary laughed. “Don’t tell me you actually believed him when he said that!” She shook her head. “You men may be able to fool one another, but a woman is not so easily gulled. A man does not cherish a photograph of a woman, as Mister Holmes does Mrs. Norton’s, because he admires her thought processes. You wrote that he once described her as ‘the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet.’ That goes somewhat beyond the academic, wouldn’t you say? I swear, John, you have such a blind spot where he is concerned. You see only what he wishes you to see. You must keep in mind that he is a human being with human foibles.
“And,” she continued, eyes shining with emotion, “since you are his best, and possibly only, friend in the world, you might want to pay a call on him to see if you can be of assistance. You have been apart from him long enough now that you may be able to look at him with fresh eyes. I hate the thought of him suffering in his loneliness, and perhaps behaving rashly in an attempt to alleviate it. I will admit that it is difficult to picture Mister Holmes as the ‘other man’ in a love triangle, but his is a complex nature, John, and we both owe him a very great deal.”
“...you might want to pay a call on him to see if you can be of assistance.”
She was right, of course, and I found her concern for my friend touching. I was ashamed that I had failed to display the same attitude. I realized that it had been more than a month since I had last paid Holmes one of my impromptu visits. I resolved to speak with him that very evening.
===
After I had finished with my patients for the day, I made my way to Baker Street and that familiar house which had been the starting point for so many great adventures. Though it had been no more than half a year since I had lived here with my friend, it seemed already a relic of some bygone age, and it was with an acute feeling of nostalgia that I tugged at the bell pull. In less than ten seconds, the door swung open, and there stood my former landlady, Mrs. Hudson.
“Oh, Doctor Watson!” she exclaimed, before I could so much as say hello. “Thank goodness it’s you! Look at this message I just wrote down.” With that, she thrust a scrap of paper into my hand. I read what was written there and frowned.
“This message must be in error, Mrs. Hudson,” I said. “There is a mistake in the wording, surely.”
“I thought so too,” she said. “So I asked the gentleman who telephoned here to repeat it. Three times. There was no mistake. I took it down word for word.”
I looked once more at
“Mister Sherlock Holmes is being held at the Dorset Street police station, charged with malicious mischief, assault with intent, and wanton destruction of private property. No bond has been set at this time.”
“Mrs. Hudson,” I said reassuringly, “I am sure this is a misunderstanding, probably related to a case he is investigating. He does employ unconventional methods, you know, from time to time.”
“He commits crimes, you mean,” she said knowingly.
I cleared my throat. “Well, he might only in a very good cause, you understand, if it is necessary to see true justice done step outside the strict letter of the law now and again.”
In fact, he made quite a habit of it. This I knew full well, having been his accomplice more than once. But he never acted without good reason. I was quietly grateful that my friend was not being held on a charge of grand larceny, burglary or manslaughter. I also felt a small pang of guilt. Had I been available to assist him.
“Oh, I understand how the world works,” Mrs. Hudson said. “The law and morality are often two very different things. I would not cast aspersions on Mr. Holmes’ character, you know that. I have complete faith in him. That’s why this troubles me so. I always thought he was much too clever to be caught at anything.”
I sighed. “One may press one’s luck only so far, I suppose.”
“Circumstances may turn against anyone, no matter how clever he is,” the landlady said worriedly. “And if I may say so, Mister Holmes has not been himself lately. I fear that a public scandal might be his ruin! Thank goodness you rang the bell when you did! I had only just hung up the telephone and was wondering what to do. Coming on the heels of that queer incident last night... I considered calling on you then, but I didn’t think it was my place. But this...”
The poor woman seemed on the verge of tears. It was plain that there was more than this brief communiqué weighing on her mind. “You must tell me everything, Mrs. Hudson, and I shall see what I can do to help him.”
===
After the distraught woman had led me into her small parlor and onto a divan, with a cup of tea in my hand, I asked her, “What was the queer incident you referred to?”
My question quite obviously caused the poor woman a great deal of discomfort. She squirmed in her seat, took a large swallow of her own tea, and said, “I suppose I can tell you, as you are his closest friend. You’ve been more a brother to him than Mister Mycroft Holmes ever has. It’s rather embarrassing, but... Two nights ago, Mister Holmes had what I can only describe as a drunken row with a woman in the middle of the street in front of this house!”
“My dear Mrs. Hudson!” I was taken aback, and scarcely knew how to react.
“I know, Doctor, I know!” she said, with a stricken look on her face. “You’ve no idea how painful it is for me to utter those words.”
“The woman was drunk?”
“She may have been. Mister Holmes certainly was.”
“I cannot believe it!”
“Nor could I, but there it was, right in front of me! He was staggering drunk! I saw and heard the whole thing myself.”
This was troubling, to say the least. Holmes’ use of cocaine had been of great concern to me, as his friend and as a physician, but I had never known him to drink to excess, and had never seen him even mildly inebriated. He had always seemed a model of self-control. But the autumn of 1888, I knew, had been a taxing time for my friend. In the month of September, he had achieved happy resolutions to the perplexing case of the Sign of the Four and the dark and deadly affair of the Hound of the Baskervilles.
He had exerted himself to the utmost, and had much to be proud of. But Holmes was unable to rest and savor his triumphs. He felt that those successes were overshadowed by his failure to capture the fiendish murderer known as Jack the Ripper. The faceless madman had butchered at least five women in the East End, and in spite of Holmes’ Herculean efforts to bring him to book, the monster remained at large. I knew this had cut him to the quick, and I felt certain that he had turned to cocaine for solace.
I thought about everything Mary had said to me that morning. I knew that I must heed her advice and keep my mind open to all possibilities, no matter how unpalatable they might be.
“Tell me what happened, Mrs. Hudson.”
She composed herself and began her narrative.
“I know that Mister Holmes is given to some very eccentric behavior at times,” said she. “But I have never before seen him conduct himself as he did last night, and would not have believed him capable of it. He seems never to take what I would call a healthy interest in women, but he is never anything less than a perfect gentleman around them.
“At about ten o’clock, a hansom cab stopped at the front door. I was in the front parlor replacing some curtains, and was in an excellent position to observe the events. Mister Holmes climbed out, unsteadily, onto the pavement, then leaned back into the compartment. The other passenger, a young woman, placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him full on the lips! This went on for no less than three minutes, perhaps longer. Then Mister Holmes stood up straight and extended his hand to help the woman alight from the cab. She shook her head. They exchanged a few words, too softly for me to hear, and she shook her head again, more vigorously this time.
“This seemed to incense Mister Holmes. He loudly demanded that she accompany him up to his rooms. There was no doubt about what he had in mind.” Mrs. Hudson’s cheeks reddened. “When she refused, he proceeded to berate her, using some of the most shocking words, I am sure, that have ever been uttered in this street. Then he reached in with both hands and attempted to bodily remove her from the vehicle.
“ ‘Don’t be a fool!’ the woman shouted. ‘A cafe is one thing, but if my husband caught me in there with you, it would be both our necks!’
“ ‘You do not care for me!’ said Mister Holmes, in a voice that tore at my heart.
“ ‘I do care for you, Sherlock,’ was the woman’s reply, ‘but I cannot afford to jeopardize my marriage.’
“ ‘You care only for money!’ he accused.
“ ‘That isn’t so. You must know that. I shall leave him, as I have told you, but it must be in my own time and on my own terms.’
“At that, Mister Holmes made one more attempt to drag her out, but lost his grip and fell sprawling onto the pavement. As the cabbie made haste to depart, Mister Holmes got to his feet and stood swearing and shaking his fist.
“Thank goodness there was no one about to see, save for a shabby-looking loafer idling in front of Camden House across the street. Mister Holmes eventually fell silent, dusted himself off, and let himself into the house, cursing all the while. It took him several tries to get his key into the lock!
“I stood stock still where I was, holding my breath. I did not want to embarrass him by letting him know I had witnessed that awful scene. He made it up the stairs and into his rooms, and that’s the last I’ve seen of him. And now, this!”
We sat in silence for several minutes, sipping our tea and thinking our own thoughts. What could I say to Mrs. Hudson to comfort her, or her to me? I finished my tea and awkwardly took my leave, patting the dear woman on the shoulder and assuring her that all would be well. Part of my mind believed that to be true, while another part fretted and wrung its hands.
===
There was nothing for it but to go to the Dorset Street police station. It was small and dingy. A uniformed police sergeant sat behind a desk in a small reception area. Behind him, a doorway opened onto a narrow corridor that ran the length of the building, no more than twenty feet, leading to a single cell. As I entered, I caught a glimpse of a solitary, shadowy figure behind the bars.
