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 IX - 2018 Annual
(1879–1895)
Violet Smith
by Amy Thomas
I know the hand of judgment quick
To condemn with incisive, sharp
Strokes woman alone, dissecting
Her every point, analyzing
All she saw, all she is. Reduced
To a single moment of fear.
I ring the bell, subsume my fear.
My heart beats a tattoo too quick,
Afraid to be again reduced
By eyes, by voice, by pen so sharp
It denounces by analyzing,
Each word, expression, dissecting.
Open door, commence dissecting,
Extracting every ounce of fear.
My hand shakes for his analyzing;
I speak too low, too soft, too quick,
Feeling his gaze upon me sharp.
I refuse to be reduced.
Become my specimen reduced.
Commence, my own dissecting.
He finds my gaze to be as sharp
As any man’s, I fancy. Fear
Has no place in his movements, quick,
clean. He endures analyzing.
I speak sweetly, analyzing.
Each item in his room reduced
By my magnified wit, placed quick
Under my glass for dissecting.
I pull focus from my fear.
Tables turn; examination sharp.
I miss nothing; I am too sharp.
I see him cease his analyzing,
Devoid of judgment as of fear.
I am augmented and reduced
By his suspended dissecting.
Client. Classification quick.
Extinguished fear; my mind is sharp.
We’re both too quick with analyzing.
Sherlock Holmes is not a man reduced by shared dissecting.
The Adventure of the Temperance Society
by Deanna Baran
It was autumn when I returned to our lodgings to find Holmes working diligently upon his mementos past. A dozen piles of newspaper clippings were spread over the table, sideboard, and floor, and six or seven scrap-books lay spread about in a rough crescent before him. It was the first time I had seen him in three days.
“I take it you found a happy conclusion?” I inquired.
“Indeed I have,” he replied. “It was one of the assistant sommeliers, of course. The rough shape of the matter was obvious from the first, but it required a little effort to determine which one, because it would have been unjust to indiscriminately punish them all. Once I realized that I was seeking a colour-blind Belgian, things fell into place.”
“Now, surely, you’re being sarcastic,” I said. “A colour-blind Belgian, indeed!”
“I do not jest,” said Holmes placidly. “You would agree that the English spoken or written by a Londoner, a Scotsman, and an American is not the same, whether in accent or word choice or, perhaps, spelling? That there are regional differences, depending on one’s upbringing, that influence the way one conveys ideas? Just the same, there are differences between a Parisian, a Belgian, and a Québécois. They are not freely interchangeable. They may be told apart. Although, as it turned out, it had been his grandmother who was the Belgian; he himself was from Hornsey. But it was a timely reminder to me about the impact previous generations may have upon their offspring, and even after they are buried tidily in the churchyard, their habits may still be observed preserved within their posterity. It is an interesting thought. I must cultivate it.”
“I’m afraid you’ve quite lost me, Holmes,” I said.
“Take this man, for example. He is not French; he has never been to France or any other French-speaking country. Yet he learned his French at his grandmother’s knee. So he does not learn French of to-day; he learnt the French that his grandmother knew, and expresses his grandmother’s idioms of his grandmother’s day and his grandmother’s region. You may see a similar occurrence in the descendants of a left-handed woman, whose handedness has never been corrected. Perhaps she performs a common task, such as sewing or spinning or ironing, left-handed. She teaches her daughter how to sew or spin or iron, and her daughter teaches her own daughter how to sew or spin or iron. That characteristic of left-handed sewing or spinning or ironing may be preserved through infinite generations of right-handed women, if they never take the time to analyze the motions that have been taught to them.
“You may observe it in handwriting as well. One’s character brings certain distinguishing traits to a hand and will always make it unique unless pains are taken to suppress that character expressing itself upon the page, and making the shape of the letters conform to the dictates of the model. However, there are still those characteristics of the hand itself that change with time and fashion, and various hands become the handwriting of one’s forebears and are not normally seen upon modern correspondence. Suppose a man was taught the hand that was popular when he was a boy - say, perhaps, a fine Italian hand. That youth grows up, and acquires a job as a tutor. He teaches the hand he knew in his youth, even though thirty years may have passed and it is no longer in vogue. One of the girls of the household grows up, having acquired that fine Italian hand in her childhood, and proceeds to teach her own children to write in that hand, yet another twenty or thirty years in the future. And her children may continue to preserve that hand, even into their own old age. The hand is thereby promulgated, even though it may be a century out of fashion long before he ceases to write.”
“I almost fear to ask you how you hit upon the colour-blindness.”
“A person who is unable to properly perceive colour is more likely to stumble over certain mistakes that would never have been committed by someone who could properly observe the full spectrum. In this instance, it made no sense at all, because of the red jacket. But then it occurred to me - what if he mistook the red jacket for a green one? And then it all made sense.”
“Sometime, you will have to put down all the facts for me. I cannot possibly comprehend a story told in fits and starts and mild hints,” I said.
“Perhaps. It was so pedestrian, I fear to bore you with it any more than I already have. The other case might be more to your taste for the sensational, and would require significantly less embroidery to inject the romantic element. Before I left, I was able to clear up a small matter for an Indian maharajah who happened to be staying at the hotel. It had to do with a very fine turban ornament in pearls and emeralds. You would have liked it.”
“Was it stolen, Holmes?”
“Substituted in paste by a son who had come to England to study, and had fallen into gambling debt,” said Holmes absently, placing a clipping upon a page. “The boy’s mother had fallen out of favor, and the maharajah was happy for the excuse to disinherit him. I got a very fine Mughal ornament for my trouble, out of gratitude for clearing up a sticky family situation, and the Langham’s master sommelier, not to be outdone by a foreigner, arranged to send along a few of bottles of wine in addition to my fee from the hotel management. I was rather hoping you would share one with me this evening as we dined.”
“Which should be imminent,” I remarked. “Do you suppose now is a good time to tidy up and allow them to lay our supper?”
“Note how the stones are polished, rather than cut,” said Holmes, casually reaching into his pocket and handing me a small golden object almost vulgar in the number of colorful gems it displayed. “And they are set into small golden cups, rather than the claws favored by our European jewellers. A detective runs into gemstones occasionally, and it’s good to have a working knowledge of such things.”
“My word, Holmes! This pendant must be worth a small fortune!”
“Undoubtedly. But the exchange rate for such things is rather poor. I suppose I shall keep it as a souvenir, as it is rather artistic in its own way, and I certainly cannot wear the thing.”
“If, someday, you ever become affianced, you may well find yourself pleased that you hung on to such an expensive bauble.”
Holmes paused in what passed for tidying long enough to fix me with a piercing look. “If I ever become linked with a creature who would be seen in public with that around her neck, I beg you to take the utmost pains to restore me to my senses.”
It was at that moment that dinner made its arrival. Momentarily flush with income from grateful clients, the ascetic Holmes had indulged in a huge Barbezieux capon truffled to the breaking point to complement the gifted vintage. It was some time before conversation resumed, as both of us turned our concentration to the scents, flavors, and textures that assailed our senses and demanded our full attention.
“I take pride in my abilities as a housekeeper,” remarked Holmes, considerably later that evening. “Would that I had the purse to properly pursue my ambition.”
“You prioritize your brain, at the expense of all the rest of you, neglecting sleep and food alike when tasked with a difficult problem. At times like these, it is surprising that one who is can be so deliberately bereft of creature comforts as a matter of course is able to keep a table such as this!”
“Perhaps I shall write a monograph on the pairing of food and wine on a moderate budget for a bachelor household,” said Holmes. “I shall find the research quite pleasant, but I admit that I prefer to be a connoisseur of crime than anything else, and will happily give up any number of feasts such as this for one truly masterful problem. Petty sneak-thieves pay the bills, whether they are of the better class of servants or the sons of nobility, but I freely admit I find myself in a drought for that which I truly crave.”
“I have never tasted a proper comet vintage before,” I said, eyeing the empty bottle with some dejection and my thoughts lingering upon the word “drought”. “I shall not be able to drink wine again until Christmas, for until the memory fades, it would only compare unfavorably with tonight’s vintage. I remember the Great Comet of 1874, but not enough time has passed to appreciate its effects preserved within the bottle. In fact, I’d say the only thing that marred my enjoyment of this most excellent repast was this stack of papers at my side.”
Holmes looked rather hurt, and I hastened to explain, not wishing him to think I had returned disparagement for his generosity.
“You see, the way the papers were shuffled in their stack on the floor by my chair, there was this handbill at the very top. It was published by the Temperance Coalition, you see. ‘The brittle artery, the softened heart, the gouty kidney, and premature decay’-and here I am on my third or fourth glass of the finest vintage I’ve ever consumed, yet my mind is distracted in thinking about its possible deleterious effects resulting in an irregular heart!”
His face cleared. “That! Oh, that was a memento of a case of mine back in ’79 when I was living in Montague Street.”
“Montague Street?”
“Very near the British Museum. I had made up my mind to become a consulting detective, you see, so I had migrated to London, the center of ever so much criminal activity, to establish myself in its combat.”
“Pray tell,” I said, settling into my comfortable chair, the better to digest both my dinner and his words.
“I would expect you to have been abroad at the time, but there was a gang of female thieves who were very notorious during a certain period. The modus of these ladies was to go about dressed in either full or partial mourning. Given the number of women who have lost someone dear to them - a husband, a child, a parent, a sibling - you can imagine that there is, at any given time, a number of women dressed in similar raiment, and as a matter of course, are generally treated with sensitivity.”
“The finest ladies usually stay isolated from society during their full mourning, and do not amuse themselves in public,” I agreed. “But women - yes. There is always life to tend to.”
“The reason, of course, was the very opaque and concealing veiling that is not amiss upon a woman in bereavement,” said Holmes. “It’s the most natural thing in the world for a woman, attired thusly, to preserve perfect anonymity. This gang of women took advantage of the etiquette that accompanies mourning to obscure their features. At some prearranged place, at some prearranged signal, fifteen or twenty of them would suddenly descend upon a shop, which, more often than not, was a jeweller’s. They would wreak destruction and havoc upon that shop for less than a minute, but what a minute it was! Their garments even were sewn to have special pockets to help facilitate their absconding with as much small, portable, valuable plunder as possible. Then they would melt away into the crowds of London in sundry different directions before the authorities could be alerted or sharp wits could delay them. This happened throughout the West End and Holborn. They might descend twice in a week, or go a fortnight without making a move. Needless to say, the shopkeepers of ever so many high-end stores lived in terror for the safety of their shop-windows and display-cases. Glass is not much of a deterrent for those who lack scruples in their dealings.”
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part IX Page 5
