The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XI

by David Marcum

  In 2011, I published my first Holmes story collection, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes (later reprinted by MX in 2013). I desperately wanted it to be included in Phil’s database, because to me that felt like I was actually (and finally) a part of this amazing World of Holmes. Phil and I began emailing, and I learned that he also wrote very respected Holmesian reviews. I was very thrilled when he took the time to review my book.

  Later, when the first of the MX anthologies appeared, he was one of the most supportive fans. I still treasure his comment about the first volume, where he said: This first volume, on its own, is the finest anthology of Sherlockian fiction I have ever read.” That means a lot coming from a man who has read so many Sherlockian adventures.

  Over the years we continued to communicate. He sent me copies of his scholarly articles, and I learned that, not only did he list in his database when a story was an Untold Case, but he had also done a lot of research into defining all of them, as well as devising his own story-title code, rather like what Jay Finley Christ did for The Canonical stories. Back in November 2011, we traded emails where he lamented that that he had found a story for every one of the Untold Cases except for “The St. Pancras Case” (as mentioned in “Shoscombe Old Place”), where a cap was found beside the dead policeman, and Merivale of the Yard asked Holmes to look into it. I was able to point him toward a fan-fiction called “Merivale of the Yard” by the uniquely named “AdidasandPie”, and he was able to cross it of his list.

  Also in 2011, Phil wrote a book with Sherlockian Bob Burr, The Punishment of Sherlock Holmes (MX Publishing), demonstrating his great love of puns. A couple of times he offered to write a pun-filled story for the MX anthologies, but I had to turn him down, as the scope of the books was absolutely Canonical. Conversely, I never stopped trying to get him to write a traditional adventure, because I thought that he, who had done so much to support post-Canonical adventures, should be a part of these books. He didn’t feel that he had one in him.

  On January 31st, 2017, Phil wrote to Steve Emecz and me with an idea for a future anthology volume. He stated:

  [M]y suggestion is that you produce an anthology in this series devoted to The Untold Tales.... One of the good features of this project is that authors would discover that there are more than the two- or three-dozen commonly told Untold tales, some quite obscure, but intriguing. Another is that authors could fit almost any story idea into the one-hundred-and-thirty available subjects.

  As you can see, Phil’s idea stuck in my head, and on February 19th, 2017, I issued the first invitations for submissions to what became the volume that you hold in your hands.

  I wanted Phil to write a foreword to this book, and on July 19th, 2018, I sent an email to follow up on that. Three days later, I received a reply from Phil’s wife, Phyllis Jones, indicating that Phil had passed away in June 13th, 2018.

  I was stunned, and when I related the information online to various Sherlockian groups, there was shock, as well as a great outpouring of what a great guy Phil was, and what a loss this was to the community.

  Therefore, as you’ll see, these two concurrent volumes, Parts XI and XII: Some Untold Cases, are dedicated to Phil Jones. He was the Untold Cases Scholar, and the theme for these books was his idea. If he wasn’t able to write a foreword, at least he can be honored in this way.

  “Of course, I could only stammer out my thanks.”

  - The unhappy John Hector McFarlane, “The Norwood Builder”

  These last few years have been an amazing. I’ve been able to meet some incredible people, both in person and in the modern electronic way, and also I’ve been able to read several hundred new Holmes adventures, all to the benefit of the Stepping Stones School at Undershaw, one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s homes. The contributors to these MX anthologies donate their royalties to the school, and so far we’ve raised over $30,000.

  First and foremost, as with every one of these projects that I attempt, I want to thank my amazing and incredibly wonderful wife (of thirty-plus years!) Rebecca, and our truly awesome son and my friend, Dan. I love you both, and you are everything to me!

  I have all the gratitude in the world for the contributors who have used their time to create this project. I’m so glad to have gotten to know all of you through this process. It’s an undeniable fact that Sherlock Holmes authors are the best people!

  Next, I’d like to thank those who offer support, encouragement, and friendship, sometimes patiently waiting on me to reply as my time is directed in many other directions. Many many thanks to (in alphabetical order): Bob Byrne, Mark Mower, Denis Smith, Tom Turley, Dan Victor, and Marcia Wilson.

  Additionally, I’d also like to especially thank:

  Steve Emecz - Always supportive of every idea that I pitch - and there are some forthcoming projects that aren’t common knowledge yet. It’s been my great good fortune to cross your path - it changed my life, and let me play in this Sherlockian Sandbox in a way that would have never happened otherwise. Thank you for every opportunity!

  Lyndsay Faye: I remember first reading her wonderful Holmes-versus-The Ripper novel Dust and Shadow (2009) while in a motel room in Asheville, NC, where my son and I had taken a weekend trip. (I see from the note on the front page where I wrote my name that it was a gift from my wife and son for my birthday that year.) By then, I’d been keeping my Holmes Chronology for over ten years, so I read it while making notes as to how it would fit into the Autumn of Terror, 1888 - since that’s a very complex period, and certainly Holmes’s finest hour.

  I recall seeing in several interviews that this book - her first - was written during a period of unemployment. Since it was published in 2009, possibly she was unemployed in 2008 - a year when I was also jobless, laid off from an engineering company at the start of The Great Recession and using my time to pull some stories from Watson’s tin dispatch box.

  I continued to read her stories as they appeared in The Strand magazine, beginning with “The Case of the Beggar’s Feast” - an Untold Case! - in issue No. 29, (October 2009). She clearly had hit a hot wire running into the Great Watsonian Oversoul.

  In January 2015, I had the idea for these anthologies and started writing to a few Sherlockian authors that I really admired, hoping that they might be convinced to join the party. On January 25th, 2015, 11:16 am, I wrote to Lyndsay, explaining the project, and hoping against hope that she would be interested. At 4:54 pm - the engineer in me had to go and check - she wrote back with: Hi David, I’d be happy to - when do you need it by?

  Later, when it became obvious that this would be a series instead of a one-time thing, I contacted everyone who had previously participated, including Lyndsay. However, her many commitments as a professional author prevented additional contributions - until now. On March 27th, 2018, I wrote to see if she would write a foreword. The next day, she replied, Hey David, I would be absolutely delighted to write a foreword!

  Lyndsay is a true Sherlockian, and I’m very jealous that she’s up there at Ground Zero of the U.S. Holmesian world, with Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop and various Baker Street Irregular activities, while I’m looking on from out here the Delta Quadrant. Sometimes when I’ve pestered her too much for a story, or when she thinks that I’ve been too public with my views about certain television shows, she’s made the effort to write and tell me how I’ve vexed her - and I’m glad to have her thoughts on these matters, even if she hasn’t changed my mind. I’m very grateful for her time and the support that she’s given to these books - and also personally to this Tennessee Sherlockian!

  Roger Johnson - From the first time I reached out to Roger, upon the occasion of my first published book, he has been amazingly supportive, and I’m glad that he’s my friend. He and his wife Jean were incredible hosts when I stayed with them as part of Holmes Pilgrimage No. II in 2015, and I’ll never forget the times that he has showed me Chelmsford, Colchester, an
d parts of London. He led me to the market where I purchased my black deerstalker - because even though I have two-dozen other deerstalkers, I absolutely needed a formal black one. And I’ll also never forget when our late afternoon train to leave Colchester was delayed, and we were walking briskly through the crowds, back-and-forth, from one platform to another, trying to get the next train. I was having fun - after all, I was in England, and I was wearing my deerstalker on a British railway platform racing for a train. I told Roger that we were having an adventure, and he said indignantly, “I don’t have adventures!”

  Roger has supported these and other books from the beginning, and I am incredibly thankful.

  Derrick Belanger - Even as I was putting these books together, I was editing stories for a three-volume set of stories from Belanger Books, Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Beyond the Canon, featuring twenty-nine sequels to the original tales. This is just one of many past and future projects that Derrick, his brother Brian, and I have going. But additionally, I’ve enjoyed getting to know Derrick over the last few years, ever since our first enthusiastic emails sharing all sorts of Sherlockian thoughts. Derrick: Thanks very much for your friendship, as well as the Sherlockian opportunities.

  Brian Belanger - Brian is incredibly talented graphic artist who grows from success to success. Additionally, he’s a positive and gifted person. Brian: Thank you so much for all that you do - it’s appreciated by many people besides me!

  Richard Dannay - I’m very grateful that I can write Richard every few months with a question, or just wanting to discuss some aspect of Ellery Queen, and he quickly replies with exactly what I need. It’s a thrill being able to correspond with him.

  Ian Dickerson - In the previous MX anthology volume, Part IX (1879-1895), Ian explained how he came to be responsible for a number of long-lost scripts from the 1944 season of the Holmes radio show, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and written by Denis Green and Leslie Charteris (under the name Bruce Taylor). When I was writing this foreword and researching various versions of “The Giant Rat”, I came across mention of the Basil Rathbone version. It was simply going to be mentioned in passing, and then I thought to ask Ian about it.

  He’s published one set of the scripts - Sherlock Holmes: The Lost Radio Scripts (2017), and more recently another set - Sherlock Holmes: More Lost Radio Scripts (2018). I either wanted to mention the Rathbone “Giant Rat” if it’s going to be in the current volume, or possibly use it if it won’t be published until a later collection. Ian informed me that “The Giant Rat” isn’t in the current book, and that I could have it if I wished for this collection. Of course I wanted it.

  Ian then worked like a crazy man, transcribing the original script into a new Word document, and within a very few days of my request, I had it in hand, and ready for editing. It was an incredible effort.

  I’m very grateful to Ian for allowing this one to appear in these volumes before it’s reprinted in one of the other upcoming volumes. When I first discovered Holmes, I quickly found a number of Rathbone and Bruce broadcasts on records at the public library, and that was where I first “heard” Holmes. I can’t express the thrill of getting to read these rediscovered lost treasures, having been tantalized by their titles for so long. Many thanks to Ian for making these available.

  Andrew Gulli - For resurrecting The Strand magazine, and then for (usually) including a Holmes story, I’m very thankful. Additionally, your support, especially in publishing some of my own Holmes adventures in The Strand - truly a bucket list item fulfilled! - and also for your kind words about me during your interview on I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere are very much appreciated.

  Joel Senter - While these volumes were being prepared, Sherlockian Joel Senter passed away. I’ll write more about him in the next MX volumes (in Spring 2019), but I’m grateful for everything that he did to support me personally over the years, and also how he helped these books in so many ways, including writing (with his wife Carolyn) the final story in the original three-volume set, Parts I, II, and III. He will be missed.

  Melissa Grigsby - Thank you for the incredible work that you do at the Stepping Stones School in at Undershaw Hindhead. I was both amazed and thrilled to visit the school on opening day in 2016, and I hope to get back there again some time. You are doing amazing things, and it’s my honor, as well that of all the contributors to this project, to be able to help.

  In addition those mentioned above - Bob Byrne, Derrick Belanger, Roger Johnson, Mark Mower, Denis Smith, Tom Turley, Dan Victor, and Marcy Wilson - I’d also like to especially thank, in alphabetical order: Larry Albert, Hugh Ashton, Deanna Baran, Jayantika Ganguly, Paul Gilbert, Dick Gillman, Arthur Hall, Mike Hogan, Craig Janacek, Tracy Revels, Roger Riccard, Geri Schear, and Tim Symonds. From the very beginning, these special contributors have stepped up and supported this and other projects over and over again with their contributions. They are the best and I can’t explain how valued they are.

  Finally, last but certainly not least, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Author, doctor, adventurer, and the Founder of the Sherlockian Feast. Present in spirit, and honored by all of us here.

  As always, this collection, like those before it, has been a labor of love by both the participants and myself. As I’ve explained before, once again everyone did their sincerest best to produce an anthology that truly represents why Holmes and Watson have been so popular for so long. These are just more tiny threads woven into the ongoing Great Holmes Tapestry, continuing to grow and grow, for there can never be enough stories about the man whom Watson described as “the best and wisest... whom I have ever known.”

  David Marcum

  August 7th, 2018

  The 166th Birthday of Dr. John H. Watson

  Questions, comments, and story submissions may be addressed to David Marcum at

  thepapersofsherlockholmes@gmail.com

  Lose Yourself in New Pastiches

  by Lyndsay Faye

  When kindly folks ask me to write about Sherlock Holmes, my answer ought to be carved into a woodblock so I can stamp it on every occasion: I would love to. Yes, absolutely! But I do this for a living, weirdly - the writing, storytelling, etc. And it takes me about three weeks to craft a good short story, so I am careful about my pro bono projects. I always say, if you’re not good enough for poetry, write short stories. And if you’re not good enough for short stories, write novels.

  I write mostly novels, by the way.

  I can recall the exact moment when David asked me to contribute a Holmes pastiche for the first volume to benefit Undershaw. I remember it because I immediately said absolutely yes, turned it in, saw it in print, and then was relentlessly hounded for more pastiches until the point when I said (pretty much) never ever ask me this again.

  So he asked me to write a forward.

  I’m not telling this story in a negative light, in case anyone was wondering. In fact, David is responsible for a huge amount of new stories existing. He badgers, he cajoles, he solicits, he wheedles, and he cadges. It works. I value very few things more than I value new Sherlock Holmes stories, so I applaud these results.

  Let this be a proclamation: David Marcum, and the authors featured herein, have brought more Sherlock Holmes stories into the world. The tales are fantastic. They are traditional, which is tricky. They are labors of love. And David Marcum loves Sherlock Holmes the way I do, never quite forgetting about him as we walk around grocery shopping or vegetable chopping or bar hopping.

  Lose yourself in new pastiches. Nitpick them. Love them. Analyze them.

  Whatever you do with them, I’m simply glad they exist in the world.

  Lyndsay Faye

  BSI, ASH

  July 2018

  Known Unknowns

  by Roger Johnson

  To borrow a phrase from a very different discipline, the cases that Dr. Watson mentions but doesn’t actua
lly relate are known unknowns.[1] We know that Sherlock Holmes did investigate the singular affair of the aluminium crutch, the Smith-Mortimer succession case, and the adventure of the old Russian woman, but the details are not recorded in the sixty Canonical accounts, and therefore remain unknown.

  A recent meeting of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London was devoted to some of these unreported exploits. Eleven members were each invited to select the story that best deserved to be published and, within five minutes, to explain why. We were encouraged to avoid the likes of the giant rat of Sumatra and the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant, but there were more than eighty others more to choose from.

  I commended the case of the Second Stain.

  “The Adventure of the Yellow Face” opens thus: “In publishing these short sketches based upon the numerous cases in which my companion’s singular gifts have made us the listeners to, and eventually the actors in, some strange drama, it is only natural that I should dwell rather upon his successes than upon his failures. And this not so much for the sake of his reputation - for, indeed, it was when he was at his wits’ end that his energy and his versatility were most admirable - but because where he failed it happened too often that no one else succeeded, and that the tale was left forever without a conclusion. Now and again, however, it chanced that even when he erred, the truth was still discovered. I have noted of some half-dozen cases of the kind; the affair of the second stain and that which I am about to recount are the two which present the strongest features of interest.”[2]

  Fascinating! But in “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty”, we’re told that the case of the Second Stain occurred in “the July which immediately succeeded [Watson’s] marriage” and that it “deals with interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to make it public. No case, however, in which Holmes was engaged has ever illustrated the value of his analytical methods so clearly or has impressed those who were associated with him so deeply. I still retain an almost verbatim report of the interview in which he demonstrated the true facts of the case to Monsieur Dubuque of the Paris police, and Fritz von Waldbaum, the well-known specialist of Dantzig, both of whom had wasted their energies upon what proved to be side-issues.”