The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X

by Marcum, David;

  Never mind Hugo Oberstein! The true leading international agents are Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

  Roger Johnson, BSI, ASH

  February 2018

  Undershaw: An Ongoing Legacy for Sherlock Holmes

  by Steve Emecz

  Undershaw, Circa 1900

  When the first three volumes of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories came out less than three years ago, I could not have imagined that in May 2018 we would have reached volumes IX and X, and over two-hundred-and-thirty stories. It has been a fascinating journey, led by our editor David Marcum. We have raised over $25,000 to date for Stepping Stones School - the majority of which from the generous donation of the royalties from all the authors, but also from some interesting licensing deals in Japan and India.

  MX Publishing is a social enterprise, and getting introduced to dozens of new authors has also helped our other major program - the Happy Life Children’s Home in Kenya. My wife Sharon and I have spent the last five Christmases in Nairobi, and now lots of the Sherlock Holmes authors are helping out with Kenya too. Long may the collection continue! It’s brought us many new friends, and is something that all involved can be very proud of.

  You can find out more information about the Stepping Stones School at www.steppingstones.org.uk

  Steve Emecz

  February 2018

  A Word From the Head Teacher of Stepping Stones

  by Melissa Grigsby

  Undershaw, September 9, 2016

  Grand Opening of the Stepping Stones School

  (Photograph courtesy of Roger Johnson)

  Undershaw proudly grows with over eighty young people, with hidden disabilities and barriers to society flourishing and growing. Holmes states, “It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light.” Whilst his comment is about dear Watson, I feel that my staff are also deserving of such comments: Calm and intelligent, they support and guide those under their watch to become the best they can be and embrace life ahead.

  Undershaw offers us a home and place to support each of these young people to shine, with its beautiful demeanour providing the perfect place for the staff to ignite the light of learning in each young person’s mind.

  Melissa Grigsby

  Executive Head Teacher, Stepping Stones, Undershaw

  February 2018

  Parts IX and X of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories are respectfully dedicated to Jim French, who passed away at the age of eighty-nine on December 20th, 2017, the same date that this script was being edited for these books. He was very supportive of this and other related projects from the first time that he was approached, and what he accomplished over his lifetime in the fields of radio and entertainment and imagination is immensely respected by all of those who knew him or were entertained by his efforts. He will be missed.

  Sherlock Holmes (1854–1957) was born in Yorkshire, England, on 6 January, 1854. In the mid-1870’s, he moved to 24 Montague Street, London, where he established himself as the world’s first Consulting Detective. After meeting Dr. John H. Watson in early 1881, he and Watson moved to rooms at 221b Baker Street, where his reputation as the world’s greatest detective grew for several decades. He was presumed to have died battling noted criminal Professor James Moriarty on 4 May, 1891, but he returned to London on 5 April, 1894, resuming his consulting practice in Baker Street. Retiring to the Sussex coast near Beachy Head in October 1903, he continued to be involved in various private and government investigations while giving the impression of being a reclusive apiarist. He was very involved in the events encompassing World War I, and to a lesser degree those of World War II. He passed away peacefully upon the cliffs above his Sussex home on his 103rd birthday, 6 January, 1957.

  Dr. John Hamish Watson (1852–1929) was born in Stranraer, Scotland on 7 August, 1852. In 1878, he took his Doctor of Medicine Degree from the University of London, and later joined the army as a surgeon. Wounded at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan (27 July, 1880), he returned to London late that same year. On New Year’s Day, 1881, he was introduced to Sherlock Holmes in the chemical laboratory at Barts. Agreeing to share rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, Watson became invaluable to Holmes’s consulting detective practice. Watson was married and widowed three times, and from the late 1880’s onward, in addition to his participation in Holmes’s investigations and his medical practice, he chronicled Holmes’s adventures, with the assistance of his literary agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in a series of popular narratives, most of which were first published in The Strand magazine. Watson’s later years were spent preparing a vast number of his notes of Holmes’s cases for future publication. Following a final important investigation with Holmes, Watson contracted pneumonia and passed away on 24 July, 1929.

  Photos of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson courtesy of Roger Johnson

  The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories

  PART X - 2018 Annual

  (1896–1916)

  A Man of Twice Exceptions

  by Derrick Belanger

  A man who sits with fingers steepled

  A man for all to see

  A man who is much more than a man

  resides at 221b

  A man who claims to have no friends

  But he has one friend true

  A man who is a thinking machine

  But with emotions too

  Some call this hawkish one detached

  Without a care for fellow man

  Solving crimes is quite enough

  Consequence of actions not part of plan

  But I argue

  And you should see

  There is much more to the man

  Than pocketing a simple fee

  Would a mere thinking machine

  Ask his one friend, dear

  To acknowledge his mistakes

  With Norbury whispered in his ear?

  Would a man consumed with thoughts

  Of murder and of crime

  Accept Miss Adler’s photograph

  As payment for his time?

  Would an uncaring, emotionless man

  Smile and proudly accept

  Heaped upon statements of praise

  from Scotland Yard’s best?

  Nay, I say

  For I have assessed

  That Holmes is a man

  Twice exceptionally blessed

  A man of exceptional mind

  A man of exceptional heart

  When a detective requires both love and logic

  Then Sherlock Holmes should play the part

  The Horned God

  by Kelvin Jones

  The year 1896 marked a turning point in the career of Sherlock Holmes. The Affair of the Zoroastrian Order and its devastating consequences had placed such pressure upon my companion that by the April of the New Year he had suffered a partial nervous breakdown. It left him listless and melancholic, and it became apparent that he required a complete rest and change of scenery or would have to face the consequence of a relapse. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to receive a letter from my old friend, Colonel Winget, asking us to spend a few days with him at his home near Ludlow, Shropshire.

  Holmes’s response to my suggestion was at first unenthusiastic, until I mentioned our destination.

  “Linden? Why on earth did you not mention it before?”

  “Because I did not consider it to be important.”

  “My dear Watson, it may not be of any importance to you, but to a student of ancient religions, it is a name steeped in mystery.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage.”

  He jumped up from the basket chair where he had been sitting, draped in his old mouse-coloured dres
sing gown, and began to pace the room, his lean face flushed and animated.

  “You mean you have not read of Professor Goldman’s discoveries there?”

  “I confess I have not.”

  “Then you are not, like myself, a keen student of archaeology. On the hill overlooking Linden is a curious collection of blue stones. The resemblance to Stonehenge is most striking. They were put there by the Beaker people - at least that is what Professor Goldman believes - but the stones attracted other visitors. The Celts appear to have used the stone circle for ceremonial purposes.”

  “Religious sacrifices?”

  “We have no proof - none scientifically verifiable, anyway. But among the finds from the later period were the bones of animals, buried entire. In addition, the body of a five-year-old boy was unearthed. It was unusual, for the cranium had been shattered by a sharp implement - probably a stone hurled from a sling. However, perhaps the most puzzling find was that of a huge collection of stag horns discovered in a long barrow lying to the east of the circle. The results make fascinating reading.”

  He picked up a box of matches at this point and lit the oily briar that was his constant companion when confined indoors.

  “Indeed, I cannot think of a more suitable location for the rejuvenation of the spirit than Linden.”

  I began to sense the danger signs when my friend said this, for his cheeks were flushed and his eyes bore that wild, excitable look which I had witnessed before at the height of his illness.

  “If we do go, will you please make a promise to me?”

  “That depends on what it might be, my dear fellow,” he answered, his head cocked on one side like some strange bird.

  “That you drop any work you have on hand. That you forget work all together.”

  He gave a theatrical bow and smiled as he lit his reeking pipe, tossing the spill into the fireplace.

  “You have a most obedient and compliant patient at your disposal, Doctor.”

  And there, for the moment, the matter rested.

  * * *

  The next day dawned bright and sunny, and we arose early to a magnificent breakfast of eggs and bacon which my friend doggedly abjured, forsaking the plate for one of his oldest and most disgusting cherry-wood pipes. It was not long before we had caught a cab and were on our way Paddington Station to catch our train to the borderlands of England and Wales. Holmes sat back in the railway carriage for the greater part of the journey - his chin sunk upon his chest, saying nothing.

  Outside, the wind and the rain beat mercilessly at the carriage windows. Inside, snug within the confines of our first class railway compartment, our legs swathed in travelling blankets, time seemed suspended. My companion and I are both inveterate pipe smokers and, by the conclusion of our journey hours later, the air inside the compartment had become stale and offensive in the extreme. At one point, I looked up from my volume of Tennyson’s Idylls of The Kings to observe the hawk-like face of the detective, the lids of his eyes lowered and pipe smoke wreathing his face. At such times, I knew that he was not asleep, but wrapped in contemplation.

  At last the reverie was broken by the arrival of the guard, a lean young man with an impatient gait. Whilst he clipped our tickets, I gazed out through the windows at an ancient landscape of deep-ridged valleys and hills bordered by twisted oaks and gnarled beech and ash. The sky had grown stormy during the course of our journey and a series of dark clouds gathered on the horizon, a single shaft of sunlight piercing the great masses of cloud above us. In a brief moment I saw, perched on the summit of a hill, the spire of a solitary church and beneath it fallen sarsen stones.

  It was not until we were some three miles from our destination that Holmes suddenly sat up, put away his pipe, and pointed out of the window.

  “See! We are entering the domain of the Celts!”

  I followed his gaze and beheld on the side of a hill an enormous shape, cut out of the earth. It was a quadruped of some sort, but its shape seemed unfamiliar to me.

  “Whatever is it?”

  “It is almost certainly a horse. The horse had a magical significance for the Celts, Watson. They lived and breathed and traded with those magnificent beasts. You remember Pwyll in the Mabinogion?”

  “Ah yes. And the White Horse of Uffington of course...”

  “And others. This carving is yet another memorial. But how closely it resembles the dragon of folklore! Look at that ferocious head and beak and those cruel eyes! I wonder if its function was purely symbolic, as archaeologists suggest.

  Even as he spoke, the train rounded a bend and we entered a green valley, in the midst of which was a collection of low stone houses. The terrain was peculiar, having the rough, uneven quality of heath land, matched by patches of grass so violently green that it almost took my breath away. Here and there small fields lay separated by stone walls that looked as if they had survived for centuries, tinged with a melancholy beauty.

  Time stood still here, it seemed, and the hand of Man was less in evidence than anywhere in the south.

  We emerged from our first class carriage amid clouds of steam to see a solitary figure standing on the platform.

  “Colonel Winget. This is Sherlock Holmes”

  The colonel stepped forward briskly to shake Holmes’s hand, a tall, stocky man with greying hair and keen blue eyes.

  “I am most honoured. I have heard so much of your exploits through the pages of The Strand.”

  “Ah, then you must thank my friend Watson for those colourful accounts. I am merely the catalyst for the chronicles, not its chronicler!”

  “The pleasure is mine, anyway.”

  “And I am pleased to be here. Excuse me for saying so, but that is a most interesting cranium, Colonel.”

  To my amazement, Holmes had leapt forward and with both hands grabbed the colonel by the back of the head.

  “Really, Holmes!” I cried, anxious to apologise for my friend’s extraordinary behaviour.

  “A finer specimen of a Celtic head I have not seen,” he concluded, releasing the colonel’s head and ignoring my remonstrance. “You see, Doctor, there is no doubting the depth of the parietal fissure and that classical Indo-European nose.”

  Winget laughed at this last remark, for by now my face had coloured and I had opened my mouth ready to take further issue.

  “Don’t take umbrage, Doctor. He is quite right in his assessment of my origins.”

  “But your name!” I objected. “Surely it is Anglo-Saxon in origin?”

  “No, my ancestors changed it at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The original family name was Gwynedd.”

  “An unfortunate decision on their part, if you don’t mind me saying so,” said Holmes. “I confess that I much prefer the sound of the original.”

  “So do I, but there is no allowing for one’s antecedents’ little quirks. Still, allow me to take your bags, won’t you? It is a cold day, and I have a trap outside ready to take you to my home.”

  Holmes and I climbed into the back of the trap, the driver passing us two thick rugs to protect us from the cold. We left the station drive and passed into a series of narrow stone-walled lanes lined by ancient yews. The deep greens of the countryside were even more in evidence here, where the early spring flowers raised their meek heads.

  Slowly the trap climbed a barren, stone-strewn hill, and we gazed out into the valley beneath us - a wild, desolate, and forbidding piece of countryside, the fields worked into a rugged patchwork where ancient lynchets protruded. On the summit of the hill shone a circle of white stones.

  “Pwyll’s Cavern,” observed the colonel. “One of the highest spots from hereabouts, and once an Iron Age hill fort. Look over there!” he continued, pointing to another hill, set in an easterly direction. “A Celtic cemetery, no less. It yielded rich finds when we excavated so
me ten years ago.”

  “An ancient landscape, Colonel,” Holmes observed, nodding.

  It was indeed, as Holmes and the colonel had suggested, a place where the dead almost seemed to hold sway over the living. At each turn and twist of the road, one was confronted with signs and symbols of a race long since departed whose presence was still strongly felt.

  Colonel Winget lived in a rambling mansion some distance from the town of Linden. It was a remarkable building, which originally had been built in the Middle Ages, but which had suffered much from the strife engendered by the Civil War and the further excesses of neo-Gothic architects. This had led to a bewildering confusion of styles and, on entering the driveway, we were confronted with a hybrid of arched windows and neo-classical pillars,

  After we had revived ourselves with some of his excellent vintage brandy, the colonel began to expand on the subject of his ancestry.

  “I found my family tree fascinating and easy to trace, for Linden is a small place and there is little movement of the population from one century to the next. My earliest ancestor appears to have been David ap Gwynedd, who was thought to have been the brother of Taliesin, the Welsh bard. At one time all the land hereabouts belonged to him. He was of course a Druid of a high order. Actually, it was Professor Rhys who supplied me with much of the information.”

  “Professor Rhys?” said Holmes. “Not the Professor Rhys, the expert on Welsh medieval literature?”

  “The same.”

  “I found his work on the four branches of the Mabinogi most instructive and entertaining. I had no idea that he lived in Linden.”

  “Yes. After he retired from Bangor University, he purchased a small house on the edge of the town. In fact, he and his brother recently started to set up a small museum in the old Corn Exchange after Professor Goldman`s discoveries were published. They are both keen amateur archaeologists.”