The Last Notes From the Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD
Page 1
The Last Notes
From the Dispatch-box
Of
John H. Watson MD
Some Recent Comments on Hugh Ashton’s
Sherlock Holmes Titles
“Hugh Ashton maintains his place as one of the best writers of new Sherlock Holmes stories, in both plotting and style.” (The District Messenger, newsletter of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London)
“As a (nearly) lifelong fan of SherlockHolmes, I have received the works about him by modern authors with initial enthusiasm, only to be replaced by disappointment. Such is not the case with Hugh Ashton, who has caught the tone of the original canon perfectly.”
“I hardly ever give 5 stars to any Sherlock Holmes pastiche because I don’t believe that anyone can measure up to the master, A. Conan Doyle, but Hugh Ashton never disappoints me. His stories are always high quality in the style, structure and feel of the originals. I have read too many pastiches to mention and Hugh Ashton’s stories would be at the top of the heap.”
“Hugh Ashton takes the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson back to their origins. I have to admit I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan and have enjoyed the many reincarnations of the character in books, movies and TV series. Hugh Ashton, though, has a more genuine feel and understanding of the original characters, and reading this story I couldn’t help feeling a touch of nostalgia for the original Conan Doyle stories.”
“Hugh Ashton writes so near to the original style of Sherlock Holmes, it is a joy to read. Anyone who is a fan of Sherlock will be a fan of Hugh Ashton.”
About Hugh Ashton
Hugh Ashton arrived in Japan in 1988 to write manuals for musical instruments and audio equipment, and has remained in the country since then, living in Kamakura with his wife, Yoshiko. He is a member of various Sherlockian societies, and has contributed to the literature on the subject. Rather than the Stradivarius violin played by Sherlock Holmes, he plays a resonator guitar (“Dobro”).
He can be contacted at HAshton@inknbeans.com
Other books by this author
From Inknbeans Press
Sherlock Holmes titles
(all approved by the Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd.)
Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD
More from the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD
Secrets from the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD
The Darlington Substitution (novel)
Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson MD
Further Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson MD
The Reigate Poisoning Case: Concluded (short story)
The Death of Cardinal Tosca (novel)
Without My Boswell
The Trepoff Murder (short story, ebook format only)
The Deed Box of John H. Watson MD (hardcover collection)
For children:
Sherlock Ferret and the Missing Necklace
Sherlock Ferret and the Multiplying Masterpieces
Sherlock Ferret and the Poisoned Pond
Others:
Beneath Gray Skies – a Brian Finch Malloy Adventure
Red Wheels Turning – a Brian Finch Malloy Adventure
Tales of Old Japanese
At the Sharpe End
The Last Notes : From the Dispatch-Box of John H Watson MD
Hugh Ashton
ISBN-10: 0692310444
ISBN-13: 978-0692310441
Published by Inknbeans Press, 2014
© 2014 Hugh Ashton and Inknbeans Press
Grateful acknowledgment to Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. for permission to use the Sherlock Holmes characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are written in respectful tribute to the creator of the principal characters.
www.inknbeans.com
www.221BeanBakerStreet.info
Inknbeans Press, 25060 Hancock Avenue Bldg 103 Suite 458, Murrieta CA 92562, USA
Acknowledgments
As always, I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported me and assisted me in my re-creation of the 19th-century London of Sherlock Holmes.
It is a pleasure and a privilege to be working with a publisher and editor who can contribute much more than editorial pencil marks to my work, and whose encouragement and kind words help me to keep going, even at times when things are not the easiest from a personal point of view. Thank you, Jo.
When it comes to proofreading, I see, but I do not observe. Thank you once more to the eagle-eyed Al Basile, who both sees and observes.
Thank you to Yoshiko, who is now resigned to the fact that the shelves of our bookcase are filling with the products of my imagination, and who continues to provide me with a supportive and comfortable environment in which to work.
And lastly, thank you to all my readers, who are scattered around the world. Your reviews and praise (as well as your constructive criticism) keep me writing.
Contents
About Hugh Ashton
Other books by this author
Acknowledgments
Colophon
Preface
Sherlock Holmes and the Russian Bear
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Hand of Glory
Sherlock Holmes and the Disappearing Spoon
If You Enjoyed These Stories…
About Inknbeans Press
Colophon
The punctuation is carried out according to the rules apparently followed by the Strand’s typesetters. These include extra spacing after full stops (periods), thin spaces following opening quotation marks, and spaces on either side of punctuation such as question marks, exclamation marks and semi-colons. This seems to allow the type to breathe more easily, especially in long spoken and quoted exchanges, and we have therefore adopted this style here.
Some of the orthography has also been deliberately changed to match the original — for instance, “ Baker Street” has become “ Baker-street” throughout.
Preface
It is with a sense of great sadness that I find myself looking at the bottom of that famous dispatch-box, the second such deposited in the vaults of Cox & Co. by Doctor John H. Watson, late of the Indian Army.
Two of the three adventures contained here, however, should prove of great interest to Sherlockians, the third being more of a trivial, if amusing, curiosity than an account of Holmes’ battle against the criminal classes.
-oOo-
The first of these, which was untitled by Watson, but which I have taken the liberty of naming “The Case of the Russian Bear”, involves the British Government, as represented by Mycroft Holmes. The circumstances surrounding it are mentioned in “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax”, where Holmes mentions to Watson that it would be impossible for him to leave London while “old Abrahams” is in such danger. We are not told any more about Abrahams in the Canon, but he may be identified as Sir David Abrahams, who makes his appearance in “The Enfield Rope[1]”.
In it, we see Holmes’ varied interests, including Kaballah, and some knowledge of the anarchist and revolutionary movements in Russia at the end of the 19th century (the last no doubt at least
as the result of his work for Mycroft).
There can be little doubt in my mind that Watson witheld publication of this adventure on account of its political sensitivity.
-oOo-
The second adventure recorded here, “The Hand of Glory”, is a purely domestic adventure, taking place as it does in a small unnamed Warwickshire market town, which it is impossible to identify from the sketchy description here.
Holmes’ knowledge of the esoteric superstitions of the past stands him in good stead here, and leads him to a satisfactory elimination of a criminal conspiracy, set up and masterminded for reasons of personal revenge.
The grisly elements in this story are beyond anything described elsewhere by Watson, surpassing even “The Cardboard Box” and “Black Peter” in their gruesome nature. It seems to me that this would form a reason for this adventure to remain unpublished by Watson.
-oOo-
Lastly, we turn to the “Disappearing Spoon” ; a light-hearted look at a very minor incident in which Holmes renders assistance to a former schoolfellow. Disappointingly, though, we are not informed which school he attended (my personal belief is that Holmes was educated at Stonyhurst College, but there is no way of verifying or disproving this from the material available here).
-oOo-
Although these adventures have emptied the second box of Dr. Watson’s papers to come my way, I do, however, live in hopes that there is more to come, and that Doctor Watson has left some more notes in a location yet to be discovered.
It would be a sad day indeed, were we to discover the last of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures to be recorded, knowing it to be the last such.
Hugh Ashton
Kamakura, 2014
Sherlock Holmes and the Russian Bear
My friend Sherlock Holmes was the possessor of a powerful intellect, allowing him to engage his faculties on more than one case simultaneously where the resolution of only one such would doubtless prove an insurmountable challenge for lesser mortals.
Nonetheless, on several occasions I have known him to gather up the tangled threads of several unrelated seemingly inexplicable sequences of events, and move from one to the other, solving each problem with as much ease as if it were the only occupation upon which he was engaged.
Add to this the fact that he was often also engaged in the composition of a musical piece for the violin, or research into one of the numerous topics that from time to time engaged his fancy, and you will have an idea of the kind of man I was proud to call my friend.
On one such occasion, I was away from London at Holmes’ request, paying an extended visit to Lausanne in the matter of the Lady Frances Carfax. Holmes had remarked to me that he was unable to attend to the matter himself, due to the danger in which “ old Abrahams” found himself. The gentleman in question to whom Holmes so cavalierly referred was Sir David Abrahams, the financier, with whom Holmes had struck up an acquaintance during the matter of the pearl necklace belonging to the Enfield family. It transpired that Abrahams and Holmes shared similar tastes in music for the violin, and such entertainments not always being to my taste, a fact of which Holmes was well aware, his chosen companion was very often Sir David, who was raised to the knighthood by the Prince of Wales soon after our initial acquaintance. Holmes was therefore engaged in the protection of his friend, as well as the investigation of Lady Frances, as well as on several other matters, the time for the revelation of which is not yet ripe.
I was living in with Holmes at the time, sharing the rooms in 221B Baker-street, leading the bachelor existence which Holmes relished. The presence of Woman in our lives, save in the position of housekeeper, would have been abhorrent to his style of life. Undoubtedly she, had she existed, would have attempted to restore order from the seeming chaos which surrounded him, and thereby plunged his work into disorder. I knew for myself, from my well-meaning efforts to instil a little discipline into his work, that traditional notions of neatness and method were not for Sherlock Holmes, though it was with some reluctance that I tacitly accepted the Persian slipper, the coal-scuttle, and the other aspects of Holmes' peculiar ideas regarding housekeeping.
-oOo-
Accordingly, we were sitting at breakfast one morning — though I say “ sitting”, Holmes' attitude might better be described as “ lounging”, as he reclined on the sofa as if on some Oriental divan, taking in his toast and eggs in a languorous manner, perusing the morning's post while clad in his dressing-gown.
“ Bah ! Sheer piffle, Watson ! ” he exclaimed, throwing one epistle into the fire, where it burned merrily. “ The woman seems not to have the sense to see what is in front of her nose. The ring she has been given is a fake, and so is the betrothal. I have had enough of this sort of affair to last me several lifetimes.” So saying, he picked up the next envelope in the pile, which I noted was of a somewhat less refined appearance than those comprising the rest of the morning's correspondence. “ From old Abrahams, if I am not mistaken, from the writing. No doubt it contains the tickets for next Saturday's concert, which explains the strangeness of the envelope when compared to his usual choice of stationery.” He opened the envelope and withdrew a single sheet of paper, at the sight of which his face fell. “ I am sadly in error, Watson, not as to the writer, but as to the content. If I am to take this message seriously — and I have no reason to do otherwise — our friend is in some peril. See for yourself.” He tossed the paper to me, and I read the following.
“ ‘My Dear Holmes,
Please accept this humble missive, for which I cannot
help but apologise. I hope that you will find it in you to forgive
me but I will be unable to join you on Sunday for Gaspari's recital,
as circumstances beyond my control have rendered it necessary that
I must decline the invitation. As you can readily imagine, I
am not happy that this unfortunate circumstance places you
in a position of considerable inconvenience which must cause
great disappointment.’
And then a word of letters that I take to be his signature in the Hebrew tongue. I see no peril here, though.”
“ And what do you make of the letter, in that case ? ”
I was accustomed to this kind of inquisition, and studied the paper carefully. “ It was written in haste, as can be seen from the way in which the pen has dug into the paper in places,” I said.
“ Good, Watson. You are coming on well.”
Emboldened, I went on. “ The paper is of a quality not usually employed for such communications. There is a strangeness about the formation of certain of the letters which may or may not be of importance. As to the Hebrew,” I shrugged, “ that is beyond me.”
“ An excellent summary of the obvious. It is true that you have missed most of the major points relating to this letter, but other than that, you may be considered to have done well.”
I was somewhat nettled at this criticism. “ What, in your opinion, did I overlook ? ”
“ First, you failed to note the significance of the paper, other than the somewhat trivial fact that it was unusual. It is a somewhat thick paper, of a coarse and fibrous nature, which as you pointed out, accounts for the pen digging in at times. However, the pen itself, if you will take the trouble to examine the strokes carefully, is not of the finest type. There is a slight nick from the tip of the nib which imparts a jagged quality to the downstrokes of the letters. Returning to the paper, I would say that it is butcher's paper, and has been torn, albeit neatly, from the corner of a larger sheet. You will see that two sides of the paper are cut, while the other two are torn, possibly using a ruler or some similar straight edge as a guide.”
“ But what does this mean ? ” I asked.
“ The answer lies in the letters you just described as ‘strangely formed’, and these letters
here,” he said, pointing to the strange Oriental script.
“ And the other letters ? ”
“ Pish ! The first word of each line is written more boldly than the other letters, and therefore may be assumed to have a greater significance. Read out those words.”
I scanned the paper again and read “ Please ... help ... me ... as ... I ... am ... in ... great ... and then I cannot read the last word, as it is in Hebrew, which is a language unknown to me.”
“ It is unknown to me as well,” said Holmes, calmly. “ However, I know the meaning.”
“ How is this possible ? ”
“ Because this appears to be to be not a Hebrew word, but rather one in the Yiddish language. A form of High German, with many Russian and Hebrew words, and written using Hebrew characters. Spoken by Jews in Europe, and familiar to men such as Sir David. I have sufficient knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet to be able to read the sounds from the letters, and sufficient knowledge of the German language to interpret the meaning.”
“ And that meaning is ? ” I examined the shapes shown below, but could make no sense of them.
געפאַר
“ I am reasonably certain that the word may be read as ‘gefar’, meaning ‘danger’. It seems clear to me that Abrahams expected this letter to be read by other eyes than mine, and therefore wished to hide his warning, disguising it as a signature. He is well aware that I am conversant with the Hebrew alphabet as a result of the interest that I took at one time in the study of Kabbalah, and it was impossible for him to include the word in English without alerting those who were forcing him to write the letter. That he has been forced into writing the letter is surely indisputable, you will surely agree.”
“ So Abrahams is in danger, and wrote this message to you, attempting to disguise its true meaning ? ”