Contents
Cover
Available Now from Titan Books The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Series:
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
About the Author
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:
THE ALBINO’S TREASURE
Stuart Douglas
THE COUNTERFEIT DETECTIVE
Stuart Douglas
THE IMPROBABLE PRISONER
Stuart Douglas
THE STAR OF INDIA
Carole Buggé
THE WHITE WORM
Sam Siciliano
THE GRIMSWELL CURSE
Sam Siciliano
THE WEB WEAVER
Sam Siciliano
THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA
Sam Siciliano
THE RIPPER LEGACY
David Stuart Davies
THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD
David Stuart Davies
THE VEILED DETECTIVE
David Stuart Davies
MURDER AT SORROW’S CROWN
Steven Savile & Robert Greenberger
THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN
Daniel Stashower
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman
THE SEVENTH BULLET
Daniel D. Victor
Stuart Douglas
TITAN BOOKS
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE IMPROBABLE PRISONER
Print edition ISBN: 9781785656293
E-book edition ISBN: 9781785656309
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First Titan edition: July 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 2018 Stuart Douglas
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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For Scott
Chapter One
In all my long acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes, there were few occasions when I was more grateful for his friendship and support than in the autumn of 1898. Even now, recollecting those months between the end of a pleasantly warm summer and the onset of a blustery, wet winter, I can picture in my mind’s eye only darkness and squalor and cold. The faded newspaper clipping I hold in my hand is on its own enough to cause a dull, leaden dread to settle in the pit of my stomach and turn my mouth as dry as ash. Barely legible though it is after the passing of these many years, I can still make out the headline and bring to mind the events it presaged.
DOCTOR JOHN WATSON ARRESTED!
CHRONICLER OF THE FAMOUS DETECTIVE SHERLOCK HOLMES CHARGED WITH MURDER!
More Inside!
But perhaps it is time, as I near the end of my life, finally to record those events I have kept hidden for so long, and to allow the world one further chance to marvel at the wisdom of my dearest friend.
Yet the chain of events that almost led to my death began in an entirely commonplace manner.
I was building up a small practice that had initially proved somewhat less busy than I might have hoped, and thus I was often to be found visiting my more elderly and infirm patients in the evening. So it was on one occasion, as I left the rooms of a bedridden old soldier whom I had been treating every night for a week, and made my way from Warrington Crescent towards Baker Street.
With the distance under two miles, I had adopted the habit of walking, trying out lines for my latest story in my head as I did so. It was a sharp autumnal evening but I was well wrapped up and, the old soldier being my last port of call, I allowed my mind to wander as my feet did likewise, replaying in my head as I walked an earlier conversation with a charming nurse.
Had it not been for my distracted state of mind, I might have been more attentive and avoided the terrible months that followed. Holmes would no doubt lambast me for wasting time in idle speculation, but still the thought nags at me that had I taken a cab, or even a different route, then I would never have known the inside of Holloway Prison, never have heard the name McLachlan – or made the acquaintance of the notorious Matthew Galloway.
Holmes would be right, though. Any such speculation is a waste of time and effort, for the fact of the matter is that I was not fully attentive when I heard running feet in the darkness of a side street, nor when a dishevelled young woman called my name as she ran into the bright sphere of the gas-lit main thoroughfare.
“Dr. Watson! Are you Dr. Watson?” she cried in obvious distress. “They said you’d be passing this way on your way home, and I have a terrible need of your assistance, sir!”
The girl was around eighteen or nineteen, with hair almost silver in the streetlight, a small, round face and large, dark eyes. She was well, if plainly, dressed, but wore no coat or jacket, which was not to be recommended on such a cold evening.
“I am Dr. Watson,” I confirmed, with what I hoped was a reassuring expression, though whether I was successful was hard to judge, so distressed was she. She pulled at my arm and gestured back along the alleyway from which she had emerged.
“My grandmother!” she cried, with a choked sob. “I think she’s dying! Please, please… come and help her, I beg of you!”
Were I not a doctor, and so bound by my oath to assist, still I would have gone with the girl and done what I could, so heartfelt were her entreaties. I nodded my assent and hurried after her as she ran into the alley.
The house to which she led me was in the centre of Linhope Street. It was three storeys high, a former family home now converted to individual rooms; not so grand as it once had been, but a respectable enough address for all that. Scaffolding shrouded the buil
ding immediately adjacent, which consequently was cast in shadow, but otherwise the street was unremarkable. The girl pushed open the main door and I followed her in. Inside, a door on each side of the hallway presumably led to what had once been private rooms, with a staircase directly ahead and to its left-hand side a further corridor, dimly lit and leading I assumed to the back garden.
“Upstairs,” the girl said breathlessly, already mounting the first stairs.
Again, I followed, round the bend in the staircase and onto the first floor, which largely mirrored the one below. “In here,” she said, pushing open the door on our left for me and inviting me to go inside.
The room was spacious and in the daylight would have been well lit by a large bay window, but at the moment was illuminated by a series of candles, which guttered and cast soft shadows on the walls and the over-sized print which hung opposite the bed. There was little by way of furnishings. A wardrobe with a cracked mirror stood against the wall by the open window, with a lady’s robe of decent quality draped over its door. A small, tarnished table holding a washbasin, a jug and an old-fashioned lorgnette had been placed just beside it. These few items aside, however, there was only a large double bed, in the centre of the room, in which I could make out the shape of the girl’s mother. She was unmoving and silent as I approached, and I feared that any speed we had made had been wasted and the woman was already beyond my help.
I fancied I heard the door fall shut behind me, but I gave it no thought other than to wonder if the girl had some premonition that we were too late and so found it excessively painful to enter. Having no such luxury myself, I placed my bag on the edge of the bed and pulled back the top of the heavy cover.
The scene that confronted me was one I am never likely to forget. Violent death is no stranger to me, nor does it hold many terrors, but I was younger then than now, and for all my time in the army, this was the first woman I had seen so brutally slain. The body of an elderly lady lay now exposed, her eyes wide open in terror, her mouth slackly agape. She had been stabbed many times, as was clear from the amount of blood which stained her night-clothes and the open wounds I could see around her neck and on her arms, but something – shock, perhaps, or the ingrained sense of duty I had as a doctor – forced me to check for a pulse and to lift her up enough to ascertain that rigor had begun to set in.
Only as I lowered her back to the sodden bedclothes did my common sense begin to function again. I strode to the door, intent on taking hold of the girl who had brought me here and who, evidently, was no more a concerned granddaughter than I was myself. The door, however, was locked and no key to be seen. I was trapped in the room with the murdered woman.
I gave the door a kick and pulled at the knob, but to no avail. The house may have seen better days, but its doors were as solid as the day they were built. I ran to the window and heaved it open, but the street below was empty and quiet and though I shouted for help, nobody answered. Left without choice, I returned to the door and began to kick it in fury, all the while shouting for help, crying out that murder had been committed.
I estimate that less than a minute passed in such frenzied actions before I heard heavy footfalls coming up the stairs and became aware of a hand turning the same doorknob I still held, only from the other side of the door.
“Open up in there,” someone cried from the hall, then, “Police! Open this door!”
“Do you not think I would if I could!” I snapped. “There is no key and someone has locked me in! Quickly, man, murder has been committed!”
“Murder—” I heard the faceless policeman mutter in the sudden silence as I broke off my own assault on the door. “Stand back then, sir, for I will have to force my way in!”
I did as instructed, retreating to the end of the bed. The door shuddered under the policeman’s assault but failed to open. Next thing, I heard footsteps rushing down the stairs and, crossing to the window, I saw a uniformed figure running down the street. A few minutes later, he reappeared, with several other men behind him. Moments later, the door flew back, crashing into the weak plaster of the wall and partially rebounding from it. The constable rushed in, followed by several working men and, roused by the commotion, a thin, elderly woman whom I later learned was the landlady of the house.
At that moment, everything seemed somehow excessive – the room too hot, the body too obscene in its mutilation, the landlady’s scream from the doorway too piercing. I had seen corpses before, but I had been, at least in part, prepared for those deaths. Now, though, in this otherwise unexceptional room, I felt a profound disquiet, a deep-rooted sense that events were moving beyond my understanding. As though at one remove from my surroundings, I felt my senses become dull and muted. Perhaps it was this dislocation that initially prevented me from hearing the constable as he examined the body and began to ask me questions.
“Sir, excuse me, sir!” His voice interrupted my reverie suddenly, like the crack of a cab driver’s whip.
I brought my chin up from where it rested on my chest and refocused my eyes on the room and the man now shaking my arm.
“Sorry. I don’t know… that poor woman… my mind must have wandered... What were you saying?”
“Your name, sir, for one. And how you came to be in this place, for another.”
He was young but slightly balding, I noticed, and seemed entirely competent. He had pulled the blanket back over the body (I should have thought to do that, I realised), and stood in front of me with a notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other.
“Your name, sir?” he repeated.
“John Watson. Dr. John Watson.”
“Right then, Dr. Watson it is. Now, Doctor, can you tell me how you come to be in this room with this unfortunate lady?”
I was pleased to hear genuine enquiry rather than veiled accusation in his voice. At the mention of my professional status, he had relaxed, to the extent one could do so in the present circumstances. I explained as well as I could the events leading up to his appearance in the room, while he took extensive notes, asking me now and again to repeat some fact or expand on another. He was, predictably, particularly interested in my description of the girl who had claimed an infirm grandmother. Finally, he accurately summed up what I had said, and indicated that I would need to give a formal statement at the local police station that night.
Looking back on the next few minutes, I am astonished at my naiveté. I recall thinking that I would prefer to make a statement the following morning, and considering whether to suggest that Holmes be called at once, to provide assistance to the police in their endeavours. Madness to have thought of the events of that evening so dispassionately, as though I were not at all involved and it could be treated as simply one more mystery for my friend to investigate. In fact, I was on the verge of suggesting that Holmes and I return in the morning when daylight would aid our examinations, when a voice behind me rendered such considerations moot.
“Here, Constable,” one of the working men called. “Did I hear your man say that the door was locked and there no key to be had?”
I turned round to look at the fellow. There, hanging at a slight angle from the lock on the inside of the door, was a key.
The policeman walked across to the door and turned the key in the lock, causing the bolt to recede back into the mechanism.
“Would you care to explain, sir,” he said after this exhibition, “how the door could be locked on the inside, if you were trapped as you say in this room?”
Of course, I could not. I might have pointed out that it had been I who had brought the dead woman to his attention by calling out, but in truth my head was heavy, and I found myself struggling to concentrate. With no other choice, I suggested that we move the discussion to the station, where I might also telephone a friend to come to my assistance.
The constable agreed, and indicated that we would wait outside while he sent a man ahead to the station. With an ever-growing sense of the unreality of the situation, I slumped down
on my haunches in the corridor, and waited.
Chapter Two
The next few hours in the police station were but the first of several new experiences for me. Never before had I been one of the accused, and consequently my time there was very different from previous visits. I was fortunate that the sergeant who took my details recognised my face and, after a whispered but energetic debate with the constable who had brought me in, escorted me to a disused office, with the promise to send word to Holmes immediately. He could not have been more friendly, bringing me a cup of tea and assuring me that we would “soon clear this misunderstanding up”, but I noticed he locked the door when he left.
I did not have long to wait, thankfully. Within half an hour, I heard a commotion outside, and Holmes’s voice demanding access. Softer, calmer voices could also be heard, and presently the office door opened and my friend hurried inside, a paper-wrapped packet tucked under his arm.
“You are entirely well, Watson?” he asked as he handed me the packet, which I was pleased to see contained a clean shirt. “You were not harmed?”
I was touched by his solicitude, of course, but feared he had misunderstood whatever message the sergeant had sent. “Harmed, Holmes? No, not at all. But I suspect that matters have not been explained to you properly. I was never in danger of harm, merely discovered alongside it.”
Holmes waved a hand at me in dismissal. “Never in danger? Of course you were. Indeed, of course you are. Are you not suspected of a terrible murder? Is not your life in peril, should that suspicion become something more concrete? The danger is very real, Watson.”
He paused for a moment, reached for a cigarette, then thought better of it and took a seat instead.
“You realise, of course, that this whole affair is a snare designed specifically to capture you? You are fortunate that whoever concocted the plan decided that it fitted his purpose better to humiliate you than to kill you. Had he not, you would even now lie dead and I would be undertaking an investigation into your murder, and not your innocence of that crime.”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Improbable Prisoner Page 1
