This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
More Holmes for the Holidays
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by Tekno-Books, Jon L. Lellenberg, and Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh
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ISBN: 0-7865-1631-3
A Berkley Prime Crime BOOK®
Berkley Prime Crime Books first published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
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First edition (electronic): December 2001
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Introduction” copyright © 1999 by Jon L. Lellenberg.
“The Christmas Gift” copyright © 1999 by Anne Perry.
“The Four Wise Men” copyright © 1999 by Peter Lovesey.
“Eleemosynary, My Dear Watson” copyright © 1999 by Barbara Paul.
“The Adventure of the Greatest Gift” copyright © 1999 by Loren D. Estleman.
“The Case of the Rajah’s Emerald” copyright © 1999 by Carolyn Wheat.
“The Christmas Conspiracy” copyright © 1999 by Edward D. Hoch.
“The Music of Christmas” copyright © 1999 by L. B. Greenwood.
“The Adventure of the Christmas Bear” copyright © 1999 by Bill Crider.
“The Adventure of the Naturalist’s Stock Pin” copyright © 1999 by Jon L. Breen.
“The Adventure of the Second Violet” copyright © 1999 by Daniel Stashower.
“The Human Mystery” copyright © 1999 by Tanith Lee.
INTRODUCTION
Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M.D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid . . .
wrote Dr. Watson in “The Adventure of Thor Bridge,” published in 1922.
It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had at various times to examine. Some, and not the least interesting, were complete failures, and as such will hardly bear narrating, since no final explanation is forthcoming. . . . Apart from these unfathomed cases, there are some which involve the secrets of private families to an extent which would mean consternation in many exalted quarters if it were thought possible that they might find their way into print. I need not say that such a breach of confidence is unthinkable, and that these records will be separated and destroyed now that my friend has time to turn his energies to the matter. There remain a considerable residue of cases of greater or less interest which I might have edited before had I not feared to give the public a surfeit which might react upon the reputation of the man whom above all others I revere.
This statement by Sherlock Holmes’s collaborator and amanuensis has intrigued readers of his adventures for over seventy-five years, and not merely for Watson’s tantalizing description of several of the cases that Holmes failed to solve—“that of Mr. James Phillimore,” for instance, “who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world,” or of “Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science.” Many other writers, professionals and amateurs alike, have endeavored to make up for the continued withholding of Dr. Watson’s marvelous, and seemingly bottomless, dispatch-box, and to give the public their own versions of these and other Unrelated Cases of Sherlock Holmes.
The stories in this volume are ones in that dispatch-box wrapped in leftover Christmas present wrapping paper, and tied up with green and red ribbon. They relate little problems in detection that came to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson at Christmastime during the years they dwelt at 221B Baker Street, London. For Victorian Englishmen like Holmes and Watson, the holiday of Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ nearly two thousand winters before with lights, greenery, gifts that recalled the Magi who traveled to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Saviour, and a spirit of brotherhood and spiritual renewal. It was, as Sherlock Holmes remarked in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” the Season of Forgiveness, and in that tale by A. Conan Doyle, Holmes let a guilty man go free so long as an innocent one did not suffer—a Christmas gesture worthy of the great detective, who never confused Justice with Law whenever a difference between those two things occurred in the many cases he investigated.
The stories in this volume are also salutes to the world’s first consulting detective by modern mystery and detective story writers, who have followed in the footsteps of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Holmes and Watson and so much else that entertained the Victorian and Edwardian Ages. They are Magi themselves, bearing gifts resembling as closely as possible—and yet not so slavishly as to rob them of their own authors’ creative spark—the original tales that formed their own reading as boys and girls, when the Christmas season still possessed all its wonder and excitement for them. Whether their own preferred forms today of the genre Conan Doyle defined are mysteries in a contemporary vein, or police procedurals, or American hard-boiled detective stories, or the nostalgic British “cosies” that have emerged in recent years to fill the void left by Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and others, they have come together here under Conan Doyle’s star to pay their respects to a colleague who a century ago revolutionized the detective story, held a worldwide audience spellbound and hungry for more for forty years, and left a literary legacy that continues to compel attention today. Some contributors to this volume are, in fact, less mystery writers than writers of fantasy or of nonfiction (albeit largely about the literature of mystery and detection), and at least one of them is an amateur magician of considerable ability.
But upon all of them Sherlock Holmes has worked his own magic, and these tributes are part of the result. To all of their authors, we are very grateful.
Jon L. Lellenberg
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT
Anne Perry
My friend Sherlock Holmes is not an emotional man. I have seen him excited by the chase when he knows the game is afoot, and I have seen him deeply angered by injustice. But I have no doubt whatever that the most moved I have seen him, beyond the ability or the desire for words to express, is by the music of the violin, when in the hands of a master.
Vassily Golkov is without question a violinist not only of such superb skill but of such subtle interpretation that I needed no deductive powers whatever to be perfectly certain that when he was giving a concert in London three days before the Christmas of 1894, nothing would prevent Holmes from attending. Even the most complex and intriguing crime would have had to await its turn in his order of priorities.
I was delighted that he should invite me to accompany him.
“Of course, my dear fellow,” I said eagerly. “I should be mo
st happy to come.”
He looked at me with a slightly skeptical eye. He knows I am rather fonder of the piano than of stringed instruments. There is something in the soul of the violin which troubles me; perhaps it is the very similarity it has to the range of passion in the human voice. Nevertheless he did not argue but took my acceptance in good part. I rather think he meant it as some nature of gift to me, considering the season. He did not require company to gain the fullest possible pleasure from the music himself. Indeed I would have been surprised if he had uttered two words to me from the beginning of the concert to the end. And I would swear a year’s income I should have received little answer had I interrupted his immersion in the glorious sound by speaking to him.
We took a hansom from Baker Street to the concert hall in the Strand and alighted onto the pavement in a sparkling frosty night with a thin rime of ice already forming over the cobbles. The air had a pleasant crispness to it and I felt in remarkably good spirits.
We were shown to our seats amid a crowd of people similarly buoyant in mood. The excitement of Christmas was everywhere apparent. I saw several women beautifully attired, their pale shoulders gleaming, slender necks adorned with jewels, bright hair shining under the blaze of chandeliers in the foyer. People called out to one another with greetings and compliments of the season, wishing each other happiness and good health.
Holmes sat down with a smile of expectancy in his keen face, his eyes already focused on the curtained stage, awaiting the appearance of Vassily Golkov.
A hush fell upon the audience as a gentleman came from the wings. It was not Golkov, and it took only a merest glance to recognise that he was in a state of extreme agitation, not to say embarrassment.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began unhappily. “It is with the profoundest regret, and apology to all of you, that I have to tell you that Mr. Golkov has been taken ill . . . quite suddenly . . . and will not be able to appear before you this evening. . . .”
A murmur of dismay ran through the gathered assembly, like a sighing of wind through the edge of a forest. It seemed they were too stunned to complain.
“I’m sorry!” the man on the stage repeated, his face very pink, as if he were somehow at fault. “I’m so sorry. Of course the management will . . .” The rest of his words were swallowed up in the noise of people rising to their feet and muttering their frustration.
I glanced at Holmes, sensing how acute would be his disappointment, not only for himself, but because he had treated me to the evening.
But far from mortification, I saw a look of puzzlement on his face, and he did not turn to leave, but grasped me by the cuff of my coat, and ordering me with him, started forward towards the stage.
“Where on earth are you going?” I protested. I had some fear that he was so determined to hear Golkov play that he imagined I might be able to help the poor man sufficiently to enable him still to fulfil his engagement. “I do not have my medical bag with me!” I protested, following him up the steps onto the stage and between the heavy curtains. All the lights were still on and it was instantly apparent that there was no one else present.
That did not deter Holmes at all. In half a dozen strides he was across the boards and into the corridor beyond, leaving me to follow him, or remain alone.
I charged after him and emerged from the stage door into the street in time to see a long-legged young man with a shock of wild, dark hair loping down the alley, with Holmes after him, shouting, “Come Watson!” without even turning to see if I were following.
I obeyed, compelled by curiosity. Who was the young man, and why were we pursuing him? We had come to hear one of the most gifted violinists in the world, and here we were running helter-skelter into the crowded street, watching startled men and women move out of our way as the young man hailed the first passing cab and leaped into it. Holmes, shouting and waving his arms, hailed another and flung open the door. Panting rather heavily, I scrambled up ahead of him as he called to the driver to follow the cab in front, and then threw himself in beside me.
“Who is that young man?” I gasped. “And why in heaven’s name are we chasing him?”
“That is Vassily Golkov, of course,” he replied, far less out of breath than I. “And he is no more ill than you are! In fact, my dear fellow, I would say rather less.”
I resented his reference to my condition, and I did not reply until I could do so without seeming in the least out of composure. Meanwhile the hansom moved at a brisk pace through the icy streets, the horses’ hooves clipping sharply.
“I understand your disappointment,” I said at length. “But even if that was indeed Golkov, you can hardly chase him down and ask him to play for you! Even if he is not ill, he is obviously in some great distress.”
“Obviously, Watson,” he said tartly, staring forwards as if he would make out in the darkness and glittering street lamps where we were headed. “Does that not pique your curiosity? Do you not hunger to know what drives a genius like Golkov, dedicated to his art, a man who truly would ‘fiddle while Rome burned,’ to abandon his audience without warning, and career through the night in such a manner? We are going north, Watson, and I believe west!”
The cab was lurching around at an alarming speed. I confess I was concerned for our safety, and for that of the poor animal being thus driven.
“Whatever the reason, we have no business pursuing him!” I protested. “Even if we catch up with him, what can we possibly do?”
“Be reasonable, Watson!” Holmes protested with an injured tone to his voice. “How can I answer such a question until I know the cause for his flight? And for the lie to his audience who had paid a handsome sum to come out on a winter night to hear him play. Whatever is wrong, mark my words—it is serious.”
We swung around a corner, throwing Holmes almost into my lap. He righted himself without a word, and as we passed close to a lamp I saw his face in the momentary light, lean, high cheek-boned, eyes staring ahead as keenly as those of a bird of prey who has sighted its quarry.
“I know where we are!” I cried in amazement. “The next crossroad is Baker Street! We are all but home!”
“You are right Watson!” he agreed. “Now do we stop here, or do . . .” His words were cut off by the sudden lurching of the hansom as it swayed around, went another twenty yards, and came to a halt.
“ ’Ere you are, gents!” the driver said proudly. “Feller as yer wants is further up there ahead o’ yer, ’ammerin’ on somebody’s door. Yer’d best ’urry, or ’e’ll be let in an’ yer’ll ’a missed ’im.”
Holmes scrambled out. “Thank you!” he said appreciatively. “You have done exceedingly well.” And he handed him a coin without waiting for change.
I stepped out after him, the ice-sharp air stinging my face, and found myself not a dozen yards from Holmes’s front door, upon which Vassily Golkov was flailing with his fists in a most desperate manner. Before I could express my amazement, the door opened and Mrs. Hudson’s alarmed face was clearly visible.
“Who are you, young man?” she demanded. “And what do you think you are doing making a noise like that and disturbing decent folk? Can’t you ring the doorbell, like everyone else?”
“I must see Sherlock Holmes!” Golkov replied, his voice rising in desperation. “It is of the greatest importance . . . please! I implore you, ask him if he will see me!”
Mrs. Hudson looked very doubtful. Even from where we stood I could see in the lamplight that she was perturbed. She had to have recalled that Holmes was out—she had wished us a good evening as we left—and yet the young man’s distress had moved her to sympathy.
“Mr. Holmes is not in,” she replied, shaking her head a little. “But if you . . .” She stopped as she saw Holmes starting across the street, his figure with its lean body and swift stride so easily recognisable. “Why, Mr. Holmes!” she cried in surprise. “Is something wrong, sir?”
I caught up just as the young violinist whirled around and his dark face li
t with relief and a resurgence of hope.
“Mr. Holmes? Mr. Sherlock Holmes? Sir, I beg you, I have a most desperate need of your help! I am at the end of my wits, and I know of no other man who can save me.”
Holmes could never have resisted such an appeal, both to his sense of honour, and his undoubted vanity. Coming from a young man with a sublime gift of musical genius it was doubly appealing.
“You had best come inside and tell me what it is that so troubles you,” Holmes invited him. “This is my colleague, Dr. Watson. You may trust him absolutely.” He did not wait for any answer, but assuming it in the affirmative, he thanked Mrs. Hudson with a glance, and went past her and up the stairs, leaving Golkov and myself to follow behind him.
As soon as Golkov was inside and I had closed the door, Holmes, having thrown off his overcoat, faced the young man, his features eager with anticipation.
Golkov did not need a second invitation. He did not even bother to shed his jacket, the only protection he had worn against the bitterness of the night. They looked oddly alike, these two men, although Holmes was perhaps fifteen years older. They had the same fierce leanness to them, the angular body filled with energy and the kind of grace which comes from the most excellent coordination of muscle and an intense sensitivity to balance, as if all the force of mind and will would be harnessed to one overriding purpose.
Golkov began immediately, his voice vibrant and made individual by a slight accent I was unable to place.
“I am of insignificant family, indeed I do not know my father—I regret my mother may well be able to add nothing to that. . . .”
Holmes’s face darkened. He did not care for such personal confidences, and he found the young man’s aspersion on his mother distasteful.
Golkov read his expression and understood it. “You think I speak disrespectfully. It is not so. I have the highest regard for my mother. Her beauty was more of a misfortune to her than a blessing. . . .”
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