Selections from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by edited by John Joseph Adams

  Selections from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  by

  edited by John Joseph Adams

  Table of Contents

  Night Shade Books Presents . . .

  Selections from

  The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  tales of mystery and the imagination detailing the adventures

  of the world's most famous detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes

  edited by John Joseph Adams

  With Assistance Provided by

  the Distinguished Gentleman

  Mr. David Barr Kirtley

  Night Shade Books

  San Francisco

  The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes © 2009 by John Joseph Adams

  This edition of Selections from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes © 2009 by Night Shade Books

  This sampler is licensed for individual use only.

  Cover art © 2009 by David Palumbo

  Cover design by Michael Fusco

  Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart

  All rights reserved

  Introduction © 2009 John Joseph Adams

  Author Notes © 2009 John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley

  An extension of this copyright page can be found on page 452.

  Digital Edition

  The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  ISBN 978-1-59780-160-7

  is available at better bookstores everywhere

  Night Shade Books

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  Other Anthologies by John Joseph Adams

  By Blood We Live

  Federations

  Seeds of Change

  The Living Dead

  Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

  Forthcoming Anthologies

  Brave New Worlds

  The Living Dead 2

  The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination

  The Way of the Wizard

  Acknowledgment is made for permission to print the following material:

  "The Adventure of the Lost World" by Dominic Green. © 2004 Dominic Green. Originally published online in BBCi Cult Sherlock Holmes Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Horror of the Many Faces" by Tim Lebbon. © 2003 Tim Lebbon. Originally published in Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Dynamics of a Hanging" by Tony Pi. © 2005 Tony Pi. Originally published in Shred of Evidence. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "Merridew of Abominable Memory" by Chris Roberson. © 2008 Monkeybrain, Inc. Originally published in Gaslight Grimoire. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "A Sherlockiana Primer" by Christopher Roden. © 2009 Christopher Roden. Original to this volume.

  "The Adventure of the Pirates of Devil's Cape" by Rob Rogers. © 2009 Rob Rogers. Original to this volume.

  "You See But You Do Not Observe" by Robert J. Sawyer. © 1995 Robert J. Sawyer. Originally published in Sherlock Holmes in Orbit. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Death-Fetch" by Darrell Schweitzer. © 1994 Darrell Schweitzer. Originally published in The Game is Afoot. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Green Skull" by Mark Valentine. © 2008 Mark Valentine. Originally published in Sherlock Holmes: The Game's Afoot. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Introduction

  by John Joseph Adams

  Sherlock Holmes. The name is ubiquitous, familiar to everyone in the world whether or not they've read of his exploits. Pretty impressive for a fictional character created more than 120 years ago.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Holmes in the late-nineteenth century, with the first adventure, A Study in Scarlet, appearing in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. Conan Doyle's entire output of fiction featuring Holmes consists of only four novels and fifty-six stories[1]—a staggeringly small body of work considering the tremendous influence Holmes has had—but something about the detective captured the reading public's imagination like no other character of his era, and he has continued to delight and captivate readers ever since.

  Holmes, the world's first (and most famous) consulting detective, was one of the first great literary action-adventure heroes whose defining qualities were his intelligence and deductive reasoning rather than bravery or brawn. Which is not to say that Holmes is a coward or a weakling; being well-versed in the art of boxing and the martial art of Bartitsu[2], he is capable of besting almost anyone in a fight—he'd just rather outwit you than beat you up.

  Holmes's devotion to evidence and observation were quite revolutionary in his day, and to Conan Doyle's Victorian readers his methods must have seemed a bit like science fiction. To the modern reader, it's obvious that Holmes is employing rudimentary forensic science—a huge advantage in an age when many people still believed in fairies (as Conan Doyle did) and other supernatural phenomena.

  Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was keenly interested in the supernatural, Holmes eschewed such ideas and believed only in what he could prove. And while Conan Doyle did place Holmes into some situations in which a supernatural explanation seemed to be a possibility, in every instance, Holmes managed to find a prosaic solution. After all, as Holmes once said: "The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply."[3]

  Which leads us to the focus of this anthology and to another of Holmes's famous quotes: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."[4]

  As a rationalist, I agree wholeheartedly with Holmes's assessment of the world. But as a science fiction and fantasy reader, I enjoy wondering what if. So that's the question: If Holmes investigates a crime scene and has all of his deduction techniques at his disposal, but one variable has changed—Holmes can't eliminate the impossible—what then?

  Well, dear reader, you're about to find out. In the pages that follow you'll find twenty-eight different mystery scenarios, but when you investigate the crimes alongside Holmes you will not be able to eliminate the impossible, for in some of these stories the impossible does happen.

  That's the idea behind this volume—to showcase the best Holmes pastiches of the last thirty years, mixing the best straight-up mystery stories with the best of those tales tinged with the fantastic[5]. Meaning that some of the cases you'll read about have prosaic solutions, while others will have a decidedly more fantastic resolution.

  Whether you're already quite familiar with the great detective or you're just now going to be reading about him for the first time; whether you're primarily a fan of mysteries or primarily a fan of fantasy and science fiction—welcome. Holmes's world is big enough for all of us.

  A Sherlockiana Primer

  by Christopher Roden

  Fog swirls thickly in the streets, its gloom penetrated from time to time by the weak gleam of a gaslight; a hansom cab grinds its steady way through the murk; there are occasional shouts from vendors and street urchins, whistles as policemen go about their business. It is the London of 1895, the London that will bring a stream of unusual characters to 221B Baker Street seeking help from the world's first and greatest consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

  When Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) first created the great detective, little did he know that he was beginning a series of stories that would still be read some 120-odd years later. But Conan Doyle was an inventive writer, and the characters that filled his stories gripped the imagination of his readers, wh
o devoured episode after episode of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In many ways the characters of the Holmes stories are often more interesting than the cases themselves.

  So who are the major players on the Baker Street stage? Putting Holmes himself aside (for Holmes is recognisable even to people unfamiliar with the stories themselves), Dr. John H. Watson has to be given pride of place. A veteran of the second Afghan War, Watson, who served as a Duty Surgeon, had been injured by a Jezail bullet at the battle of Maiwand, and saved from certain capture by the courage of his orderly, known to us only as Murray. Pain and illness followed and an urgent return to England became necessary. Watson naturally gravitated to London where, following an introduction by a former colleague, Stamford, he made the acquaintance of Sherlock Holmes. It did not take the two long to decide to share rooms in Baker Street. Throughout the adventures Watson is the ever faithful companion, willing to accompany Holmes at a moment's notice. He is never as smart as Holmes—indeed, his conclusions are often considerably off the mark—and Conan Doyle cleverly does not allow Watson to appear more perceptive than his readers. But without Watson there would be no Holmes stories, for Watson chronicled Holmes's adventures and made Holmes famous by publishing them for the reading public in The Strand Magazine.

  Although Holmes knew that he could always rely on Watson's companionship and assistance, even a detective as astute as Holmes occasionally needed the wisdom and advice of others. But whose knowledge and deductive skills would be sufficient to assist our genius hero? Obviously someone who shared Holmes's faculties of deduction and analysis—possibly to an even greater degree. For that person we need look no further than Holmes's older brother, Mycroft. Mycroft is an unusual character indeed, a larger-than-life figure who spends his days passing between his lodgings in Pall Mall, his office in Whitehall, and the Diogenes Club ("the queerest club in London").

  It came as something of a surprise to Dr. Watson to discover that Holmes had a brother at all, and he could never have dreamed of Mycroft's influence on national affairs. ("Occasionally," Holmes told Watson, "he is the British Government . . . . His position is unique. He has made it for himself. There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts of any man living . . . . The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearing-house, which makes out the balance. Other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience . . . . Again and again his word has decided the national policy.")

  Quite a man. It's no wonder that Holmes was able to entrust his affairs to Mycroft during the years of his "hiatus" following his presumed death at the Reichenbach Falls.

  Our next major player is the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson, Holmes's landlady—a saint if ever there was one for her tolerance of Holmes's chemical experiments, the foul odours from his pipes, and his indoor pistol practice (who else, we ask, would have put up with a tenant who peppered the wall of his room with Boxer cartridges to carve out "a patriotic V. R.[6] done in bullet-pocks"?)

  Smaller players, but invaluable to Holmes, are the band of a dozen or so ragged children (described as "street Arabs") known as the Baker Street Irregulars, who can go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone, and provide vital information to the great detective.

  Given the nature of Holmes's business, it is inevitable that Holmes should attract his fair share of enemies, and chief among his adversaries has to be Professor James Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime—"the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city." Although Moriarty plays a major role in only one canonical story, his presence seems to pervade the canon. He is a criminal mastermind with "a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them." As Holmes noted, Moriarty did little himself—he was the planner with numerous agents, and there was little or no reason for the authorities to suspect him of misdeeds. In what became the "Final Problem," Holmes lured Moriarty and his henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran, to Switzerland, where a final confrontation took place above the Reichenbach Falls—a struggle which Moriarty failed to survive.

  Moriarty's second-in-command, Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian Army, and the best heavy game shot that Britain's Eastern Empire ever produced, attempted to wreak vengeance with an air rifle for Moriarty's death, in the adventure titled "The Empty House," only to be deceived by a silhouette cast by a wax bust commissioned by Holmes from the craftsman M. Oscar Meunier of Grenoble.

  Other villains worthy of mention are the master blackmailer Charles Augustus Milverton ("the worst man in London"); the evil Dr. Grimesby Roylott, whose demise was brought about by the swamp adder with which he'd planned to kill his step-daughters; and the disgusting Baron Adelbert Gruner, murderer, and author of a "lust diary" which "no man, even if he had come from the gutter, could have put together."

  While the Sherlockian canon is dominated by men, Holmes encounters strong women, too. Prominent among these are Kitty Winter, a victim of Baron Adelbert Gruner, who takes her revenge for mistreatment at Gruner's hand by throwing vitriol into his face. Nor should we overlook Rachel Howells ("a very good girl, but of an excitable Welsh temperament"), the jilted fiancée of the butler Brunton[7], who took her revenge by incarcerating her ex-lover in a cellar at Hurlestone Manor. Maud Bellamy[8] impressed Holmes: "[She] will always remain in my memory as a most complete and remarkable woman." But of all the women Holmes encounters during his investigations, Irene Adler, or the woman, as Holmes thinks of her, stands out. Irene appears in only one story[9], but her presence casts a shadow over the entire canon. In this spirited, intelligent, daring, and courageous woman, Conan Doyle created the female counterpart to Sherlock Holmes: a woman who lives by her wits, is equal to Holmes in her use of disguise, and has a splendid disregard for the mores of the time.

  Inevitably, Holmes's business brings him in contact with the official police force from time to time, and during the course of the adventures we encounter a number of officers: some who are capable, and some who do little more than frustrate Holmes. We encounter the official force in the very first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, when Holmes is approached by Inspector Tobias Gregson. "Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders," Holmes tells Watson. "He and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot." In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes also encounters Inspector Lestrade ("a little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow," according to Watson), and he becomes a regular of the Holmes adventures, appearing in thirteen of the stories. Despite occasional difficulties with the official force, Holmes is always prepared to assist; but on occasion Holmes is also prepared to stretch the law for his own ends, as instanced by the wonderfully humorous episode (which shows Holmes's quiet contempt for the official force) in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" when Lestrade visits Baker Street on the morning following Milverton's murder:

  "Criminals!" exclaimed Holmes. "Plural!"

  "Yes, there were two of them. They were, as nearly as possible, captured red-handed. We have their footmarks, we have their description; it's ten to one that we trace them. The first fellow was a bit too active, but the second was caught by the under-gardener, and only got away after a struggle. He was a middle-sized, strongly built man—square jaw, thick neck, moustache, a mask over his eyes."

  "That's rather vague," said Sherlock Holmes. "Why, it might be a description of Watson."

  "It's true," said the Inspector, with much amusement. "It might be a description of Watson."

  Of the remainder of the official force, special mention need only be made of Stanley Hopkins ("for whose future Holmes had high hopes"), who appears in three of the adventures, and who seems the most likely of all to have been invited to Baker Street for a pleasant evening of conversation.

  Despite the wealth of characters who appear in the Sherlockian canon, we lack information
of a goodly number of others who are given no more than passing mention. We know that Holmes was involved in many more cases than are reported, because both Holmes and Watson tell us so. Who would not love to know more of the characters from the unreported cases: the Grice Patersons, who had singular adventures in the island of Uffa; Mr. & Mrs. Dundas, who separated—not through any cause of infidelity, but because Mr. Dundas was in the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife; Merridew, of abominable memory, who is recorded in Holmes's index[10]; Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife; Mr. James Phillimore, who stepped back into his own house to get his umbrella, and was never more seen in this world. And who is not prepared to ponder what political disgrace may have ensued had the story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant been released to the public?

  We should marvel at Arthur Conan Doyle's creativity and the characters he gave us. Over the years others have built upon these characters, adding more of their own in an attempt to ensure that there is always a supply of new Holmes adventures. In the pages that follow you will find characters new and old—and some "rivals" of Sherlock Holmes—making their way through the fog and the gaslight to the door of 221B Baker Street. Hark! A barrel-organ is playing at the corner of the street, the light brightens in the window of Holmes's room, and the scene is set for another adventure. The game is afoot!