Consulting Detective Vol 4, page 1
Airship 27 Productions
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, Vol. 4
The Adventure of the Clockwork Courtesan © 2013 I.A. Watson
The Problem of the Coincidental Glance © 2013 Aaron Smith
The Adventure of the Black Katana © 2013 Bradley H. Sinor
The Adventure of the Anonymous Heiress © 2013 W.R. Thinnes
The Adventure of the Limehouse Werewolf © 2013 Andrew Salmon
Interior llustrations © 2013 Rob Davis
Cover illustration © 2013 Chad Hardin
Editor: Ron Fortier
Associate Editor: Ray Riethmeier
Production and design by Rob Davis.
Published by
Airship 27 Productions
www.airship27.com
www.airship27hangar.com
ISBN-13: 978-0615758237
ISBN-10: 0615758231
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without
permission in writing from the copyright holder, except by a reviewer, who
may quote brief passages in a review.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sherlock Holmes
Consulting Detective
Volume IV
The Adventure of the Clockwork Courtesan
By I.A. Watson.........................................................................................................................4
When a noted collector of clockwork automatons is murdered, Holmes and Watson find themselves on the trail of cunning foreign agents.
The Problem of the Coincidental Glance
By Aaron Smith......................................................................................................................53
Watson follows Holmes on a chase through London after the Great Detective is startled into action by something he sees through the window overlooking Baker Street.
The Adventure of the Black Katana
By Bradley H. Sinor..............................................................................................................69
Holmes & Watson chase after a stolen Japanese sword which could lead them to a deadly espionage ring.
The Adventure of the Anonymous Heiress
By William R. Thinnes.....................................................................................................,,109
The mysterious death of a race horse holds the key to a young woman’s safety.
The Adventure of the Limehouse Werewolf
by Andrew Salmon............................................................................................................129
A mysterious fiend is killing policemen on the streets of London and it is up to Holmes and Watson to discover his identity.
The Mystery of Mr. Holmes
..................................................................................................................................................173
An Afterword by writer I.A. Watson
Sherlock
Holmes
in
“The Adventure
of the
Clockwork Courtesan”
By
I. A. Watson
The Vienna Automaton was stolen from a customs house at Dover at one fifteen in the morning. A night-watchman surprised the thieves and was beaten within an inch of his life. The robbers came prepared with a heavy wagon and the crated treasure was hoisted aboard and vanished, seemingly without trace.
Sir Harry Wickham, the collector who had bought the piece at auction in Amsterdam, wasted no time in contacting Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
My initial impressions of that case were ones of haste and rapid travel. Summoned from my practice at three a.m. with hardly time to refer my patients to my long-suffering locum, I was bundled aboard an express from Charing Cross; before I had even heard the reason for my sudden departure we were speeding down to the channel port.
Holmes was alert despite the hour, his penetrating stare warning other passengers to stay well clear of him.
“The Vienna Automaton, Watson,” he briefed me as the train hurtled through the night. “A marvel of eighteenth century engineering, following on from the works of Pierre Jaquet-Droz. It was the fashion for a while to create lifelike simulacra that moved by clockwork and reproduced human behaviour. Jaquet-Droz and his collaborators created three significant works that yet survive and function: a mechanical woman who actually plays an organ, a mechanical child that can draught four different pictures, two of them said to depict Louis XV and Marie Antoinette, and another that actually writes sentences up to forty characters long[1]. The Vienna Automaton follows from that tradition and is considered a masterpiece of the clockmaker’s art. It sold at auction two weeks ago for seven hundred guineas.[2]”
“Am I to understand that this device has been stolen, Holmes?”
Holmes nodded as he packed his pipe. “Within hours of disembarking from the ferry. The whole thing has been planned with an efficiency I find attractive. The thieves knew when and where their target would be. They came prepared and equipped to efficiently extract it despite its bulk and weight. They made good their getaway and the police are, as the news-sheets are so fond of saying, baffled. A wonderful problem.”
“And so you have been called in to consult on the matter?”
Holmes frowned slightly. “The criminals made one error. Apparently the regular night-watchman was absent due to his child’s illness so a substitute took his rounds. This new man’s routine was clearly different from the regular guard’s circuit and so he stumbled upon the theft and was assailed. I do not yet know what the victim’s condition might be.”
“But you believe that he may be able to give some testimony that will help to find the culprits?”
“Perhaps later, when and if he awakes. The information telegraphed to me is perforce sketchy, Watson, but I am given to understand that the man is unconscious. However, that disruption seems to have been the only unforeseen event in an otherwise well-planned theft, and disruptions are where we shall find any mistakes our felons might have made.”
I was glad to see my friend roused from the ennui that often shrouds him when he lacks an intellectual challenge. We settled in our seats and let the mail train rush us to the docks.
***
Sir Harry Wickham was a civil servant attached to the Foreign Office, a fussy plump man with a thin waxed moustache and a worried frown. He waited at the customs house and was in the courtyard to meet us before we had even alighted from the growler we’d taken from the station.
“Mr Holmes, Dr. Watson, it was good of you to come!”
Holmes returned Sir Harry’s handshake perfunctorily. Already his gaze was turning to the service alley where a gate-door had been forced. A pair of uniformed constables now belatedly guarded the entrance.
“How do you do, Sir Harry,” I responded, relegated as usual to the task of returning the common courtesies while my friend’s remarkable mind raced on other tracks. “I gather it was you who sent the telegram seeking assistance?”
“I am the owner of the stolen automaton,” the civil servant agreed. “I am very concerned for her well-being.”
“Her well-being?”
“The model is shaped like a beautiful woman, Dr. Watson. It is hard to think of such a work of art as a mere ‘it.’”
Holmes ignored the conversation and strode over to examine the open gate-door. He gave the sundered padlock a mere cursory inspection, paused for a moment to check the cobblestones for wheeltracks, then vanished inside the customs shed.
Sir Harry was a portly man who sweated. Concern had made his face red and unhealthy. The civil servant latched onto me to express his losses. “The article in question has quite a history, although no-one is aware of her actual origins[3]. She is often known as the Clockwork Courtesan because she is gowned and jewelled as a high lady of the Chinese court. She sits on a Louis XV chair supporting a small harp on her lap, and when set in motion she plays this instrument while a small caged bird, also of cunning clockwork, dances beside her. The piece was presented at the Austrian court in 1785 to great acclaim. It is extremely valuable and quite irreplaceable.”
“Her purchase and transportation to this country would be well reported then?” I surmised.
“In certain circles, yes,” agreed Sir Harry. “I gather the bidding was quite vigorous when she was auctioned in the Amsterdam saleroom. Fortunately my agent prevailed and I acquired the piece for my collection.” His face fell. “I had acquired her.”
“You collect automata?” I enquired.
“I collect clocks,” the civil servant told me, “but as a horologist I could hardly ignore so wonderful and significant a piece of clockwork as the Vienna Automaton.”
I was keen to find Holmes and see where his investigations had led him. “Perhaps we could discuss this inside?” I suggested to Sir Harry. “We will need more details of your purchase: how your agent shipped the object, what route it took, what precautions were taken for its security, what
Sir Harry assented and we walked towards the gate-door; but just then Holmes strode out, his long coat billowing out behind him. “Come, Watson!” he called. “There is no time to lose. We need to charter a fast train to London!”
“I beg your pardon!” objected Sir Harry. “The investigation…”
“Leads to London, Sir Harry,” my friend insisted. “I know now how to find where your Automaton is likely to be taken and time is of the essence. To the station!”
***
“Come, Watson! There is no time to lose. We need to charter a fast train to London!”
If the name of Mr. Sherlock Holmes did not prompt the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company to secure a private train and car for his immediate use, the urgings of Sir Harry Wickham did. The staff at Dover moved with admirable alacrity at odds with the line’s usual reputation and we were steaming back to London less than an hour after Holmes had quit the customs house.
“Perhaps now you could explain to us the reasons for this urgent dash?” I asked the great detective once we were settled into our private lounge car. Sir Harry was fit to burst, so it seemed appropriate to win him some exposition. As a medical man I was concerned at his choler.
When Holmes is in full chase his mind runs far ahead of those around him and it is often difficult to convince him to explain for those who cannot match his acuity. I found it fortunate that Holmes was now accustomed to my portuning and willing to explain his reasoning.
“As I told you before, Watson, the best chance of finding a clue to the crime was at the scene of the interruption where the night guard came across the intruders. The burglary had otherwise been well-planned. There are some interesting lines for later investigation, to discover how the thieves knew in good enough time when the Automaton would be unshipping to be able to scout the watchman’s routing and to make such diligent preparations. However, the unforeseen accident of a substitute guard with a different routine caused them to diverge from their plan sufficiently to leave a trace.”
“What did you find in the warehouse, then that sent us haring back to London like this?” Sir Harry demanded.
“The thieves used a crowbar to break the sturdy McWilliams padlock and backed their dray right up to the doors. The wagon had a wheelbase of seven feet two and a half inches and steel-rimmed wheels with a width of four and a quarter inches. The rear wheels had a circumference of four feet nine, as evidenced by the regularity of an imperfection in one track which left a mark each time it turned. A pair of dray horses had muffles tied to their hooves.”
I admitted that this sounded like a professional operation.
“There were five men, although one remained with the dray and kept the horses quiet. Each thief wore new boots, probably intending to discard them after this adventure. They went straight to the rack where the Automaton was crated.”
“How could they know where the device would be stored within the warehouse?” I wondered.
“There is only one area suitable for containers of that size,” Holmes replied. “The actual crate was numbered and a manifest was readily available on a clipboard hung on the wall. However, the evidence suggests that the robbers must have identified the location of their target earlier in the evening. Another line of enquiry.”
“Then why are we leaving such leads behind?” demanded Sir Harry. “I was told that you were thorough and tenacious.”
Holmes ignored him. “The thieves knew the crate to be heavy. They used the custom house’s own block and tackle to transfer the pallet onto piano wheels they had brought for the purpose. It was at this point that their plan hit the snag.”
“The night guard heard them,” I guessed.
“The lifting had been timed for the moment when the regular man would have been checking the far sheds,” Holmes said. “Thus the noisiest and riskiest part of the operation would have taken place in relative safety. Instead, the substitute guard came upon the felons and challenged them.”
“One man against four or five?” Sir Harry frowned.
“His discarded whistle is still lying beneath one of the pallets,” Holmes reported. “I surmise that three men were lifting the crate but a fourth was keeping watch from a place of concealment. There is slight evidence that a man in grey gabardine concealed himself in a niche between two piles of boxes. Whatever the case, he had come armed. Judging from the description of the watchman’s injuries, he was first stunned with a gat or cosh then generally set upon with fists and boots.”
“These men showed no mercy,” I shuddered.
“And that was their mistake. In the tussle one of their dark lanterns must have fallen to the floor. The spilled oil pattern is quite distinctive. It must have been extinguished and needed relighting. The thief used this match.”
Holmes unwrapped his handkerchief and showed us the charred remains of a small wooden stick.
Sir Harry was unimpressed. “I fail to see why that has sent us racing to London.”
“It is a red phosphorous match,” Holmes told him impatiently.
Sir Harry looked blank.
“Most matches are dipped in white phosphorous. It is cheap and readily available but can flare unexpectedly and is dangerous for the workers who have to prepare the matches.”
“There was a strike about it three years ago,” I remembered. “Embarrass-ing to the prominent liberal, William Bryant, whose match factory was brought to a halt.[4]”
“This match has the distinctive odour of red phosphorous,” Sherlock Holmes explained. “It is made of British pine rather than the aspen used by Swiss manufacturers. And just this month a safety-match factory was opened up in Bow by the Salvation Army to provide better conditions for the children used as match-dippers[5]. There are other ways of acquiring their product than from the match-sellers on Bow Street, of course—our criminals might be habitual subscribers to the War Cry[6]—but it is a useful first indicator.”
“I still fail to see…” Sir Harry objected, but Holmes cut him short. The detective took a black woolen glove from his pocket and handed it to the civil servant.
“To light the match our felon had to remove his glove,” Holmes said. “In the thieves’ haste to stick to their schedule he either forgot it or had no time to hunt for it. Turn it inside out.”
Sir Harry reluctantly inverted the object and I craned my neck to see what Holmes had spotted. “Coloured thread?” Stitched inside the glove’s wrist were strands of red, lilac, and pink cotton.
“A pawnbroker’s mark,” Holmes supplied. “An identifying mark to prevent shoplifting and to pin together a pair of gloves that might otherwise be separated.”
“Are pawnbroker’s colours distinctive, then?” I wondered.
“For the most part,” Holmes agreed. “This particular tag is regularly used by one Jimmy Shreeve, who operates an emporium on Maiden Lane… just off Bow Street.”
***
It was still early when we returned to London. Dull grey dawn barely penetrated the dirty air. The first hawkers were beginning to fill the streets but most curtains remained closed. That did not prevent Holmes from hammering on the pawnshop door until Jimmy Shreeve appeared to help with our enquiries.
“Allow us to see your register entry for the sale of this glove and we shall look no further into the others,” Holmes told the quivering pawnbrowker. From this I concluded that my friend knew Shreeve to be a petty fence or swindler.
