The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part IX

by Marcum, David;

  Then, one morning at the end of November, Mrs. Hudson brought up an envelope, bearing a Dover postmark. I thought nothing of it until Holmes let out a cry and threw several sheets of paper across the kippers to me.

  “See what you make of that, Watson!” he declared. “I did not fall so far from my mark. Read it aloud, if you will.”

  It was a woman’s handwriting, flowing and elegant. The letter ran thus:

  My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes:

  By the time you receive this letter, I shall have left England for good. I will not return. When last I saw you, you asked me for a name. You will never know that name. But that no one should be in any doubt, I thought someone should know the events which transpired that night, and the nature of the evil man who met his end.

  I was a dancer in Amsterdam when I met my husband. I was young and thought myself in love. He was charming and handsome. He was also a thief. I did not know this when I married him, but even though I became aware of the source of his income, still I was content to live in grand style from the proceeds of his crimes. Then one day he received a letter, claiming to be from his father. He had told me he had been born in England, in Jarrow, which he had taken for his surname. His mother had died a few days after his birth, not before leaving a letter in which she claimed that he was the natural son of a well-born roué. That same man had known of his existence, and on his death, had bequeathed to my husband, as his eldest son, a diary, listing the dates and times of his many liaisons and the children who had resulted from his affairs.

  I cannot speculate as to his intentions, unless to supply another living soul with evidence that his life had not been entirely without purpose, even one so base. For my husband, however, it was an opportunity. He began contacting the people named in the diary, demanding payment for his silence. They paid, fearing that even a breath of scandal would threaten their good names and inheritances.

  Again, I said nothing. I enjoyed the money. Then one day, a payment did not arrive. We learned a few days later the young man concerned had killed himself. From then on, the money was poison to me. The food it bought turned to dust and ashes in my mouth. For all my silks and velvet, sackcloth was my preference. I saw my husband for what he was, and told him I would leave. He said he would not let me leave, and if I tried, he would find me and kill me rather than let me be with another. Despite his threats, I did escape him, taking the diary with me, so that he could blackmail no one else with its secrets. For three years, I ran from him, always moving on whenever I thought he was close to finding me.

  Then, when my money was exhausted, I came to England and, to my shame, I used the diary, not for blackmail, you must understand, but for assistance so that this foul document might never fall into my husband’s hands. The man I chose agreed to help me, though he had the most to lose: His wife, his children, his home, his reputation. In exchange, I swore on the Bible that I would never betray his secret. This man was not wealthy, but he said he would find me the money for passage to Australia. Until such time, he provided me with enough to find lodgings to live comfortably. I chose Manstone Green, believing it to be insignificant enough to escape the attention of my husband. My knight errant, as I shall call him, visited me occasionally in the guise of my husband, so as not to attract the suspicion of the neighbours.

  All was well until one evening a letter arrived. It was from my husband. He said he meant me no harm for he loved another and wished to start a new life in Canada. He said too that he would leave me in peace forever if I gave him £500, enough to pay for his ticket and a comfortable life abroad. I was cautious, but agreed to meet him at the house. He was older and greyer, but I recognised him. I told the landlady he was my father to allay her curiosity, although in truth he was but five years older than my knight. I told him I had limited funds, but I would see what I could raise. He agreed to return.

  He was contrite that evening and seemed a changed man. But I was not convinced. I told my knight of his visit and we agreed that the sum must be found. My knight was the trustee of several funds, and he took the money from those accounts, with every intention of paying it back. I also advised him that we should take precautions, as I did not trust my husband. My knight said he would come armed. I did not know he meant a gun, but I thank Providence that he did, for surely I would not be here today.

  On the evening of the 4th November, my husband returned earlier than expected. He was belligerent and had been drinking. By the time my knight arrived, he was angry, demanding not only the money, but the diary too. I refused to give it to him. He raised his fist to strike me and that is when my knight produced the gun. My husband leapt at him and they struggled. Somehow the gun went off. My husband was killed instantaneously.

  You may ask why we did not both leave. My knight feared discovery if his description was given to the police and I was tired of running. After three years, I was finally free of Anthony Jarrow. And so we devised a plan whereby it would appear that my knight, the man believed to be my husband, had been killed the next day. I will never know how you discovered the truth, Mr. Holmes. We took such care.

  As half-brothers, my knight shared a close enough resemblance to pass as my husband. My knight shaved my husband’s beard where he lay and stuck the whiskers to his own face. Then he powdered his own hair and left, making sure he alerted Mrs. Higgins on the way out. He returned only to find that the glue had stuck fast and I had to pull the hair from his face, leaving red marks upon his skin. We went out together so that the people would see us. At midnight, he dropped my husband’s body from the back window and carried him in a wheelbarrow to the bonfire. If anyone had stopped him, he would have said the body was a Guy for the fire. The next morning, he left and I later alerted the police that he had disappeared.

  You were not too far wrong when you mentioned a brother, Mr. Holmes. Your only mistake was that it was my husband’s relation and not mine. You will never find him. The diary was the only evidence of his blood-tie to my husband and that was burned in that bonfire alongside an accursed man, who was surely his father’s son. I do not regret my actions. My knight killed in self-defence. Without him, I would be dead. Because of him, I would rather have died than had his death on my conscience. I kept my promise to him and all the others that wretched diary had damned.

  I have paid for my sins, for the anguish I helped him cause to others and the lives he thought nothing of ruining. Now I must exorcise the ghost of the Jarrow name and begin my life anew, trusting that through my deeds, I may seek the forgiveness of a higher power.

  Yours respectfully,

  Anna Jansen (formerly Jarrow)

  A silence fell over the table as I finished reading. Holmes had been listening with his chin sunk upon his chest and his gaze fixed on the fire. Slowly, he lifted his head and listlessly reached for the letter.

  “I fear I have been like the dull, tiresome fellow of whom Dr. Johnson said ‘he seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one’.” Holmes sighed. “Ah, the folly of youth, Watson. On the one hand, I had too much information; on the other, not enough. Had I known of Jarrow’s history, had Smith seen the hair colour of the dead man, then my conclusion would have been different. As it was, I placed too much importance on Mrs. Higgins’s evidence about the eyes.”

  “The eyes?” I queried. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The landlady said she knew it was the father because she recognised the eyes. She also said that the eyes had unnerved her, as though they were familiar. Of course they were. She had seen those same eyes in the brief glimpses she had had of the face of Mrs. Jarrow’s ‘knight’.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Well, Watson, potius sero quam nunquam, as Livy has it.”

  “‘Better late than never’ indeed,” I agreed. “But perhaps not too late, Holmes. Now you have the full facts, you could discover the name of her accomplice.”

  Holmes stared at the sheet and nod
ded slowly. Then suddenly, he screwed the pages into a ball and threw it into the fire. The flames caught and the paper shrivelled, glowing at the edges until nothing was left but a few blackened fragments.

  “Yes, I could,” said Holmes, rising briskly to his feet and brushing the crumbs from his trousers. “But I will not. The lady has furnished me with the facts because she knows I will not use them. Besides, without the diary, what other proof of this man’s lineage exists? No, my dear fellow. Time enough has been wasted on this venture and we have other cases more pressing. The other letters in my morning post included a missive from Mycroft, demanding my presence at his club on a matter of some urgency. One should never appear too eager, especially where one’s relations are concerned, but I feel I should make the effort to put in an appearance. Well, Watson, have you breakfasted sufficiently? Then come. The Diogenes awaits!”

  The Adventure of the Disappearing Dictionary

  by Sonia Fetherston

  “But the manuscript... is intimately connected with the affair.”

  - The Hound of the Baskervilles

  “Someday, Watson, I should like it very much if one of those regrettable stories you spin for The Strand would dispense with terror and evil. The time has come for you to write about the lighter amusements that arrive on our doorstep.” Sherlock Holmes stood gazing from the bow window of our sitting room, his eleven o’clock cigarette in one hand and a book in the other. He glanced over his shoulder at me, gray eyes sparkling merrily.

  “‘Regrettable stories?’ Really, Holmes!” I admonished. I hope it will not sound immodest when I say that readers seem to enjoy my accounts of Holmes’s exploits. Naturally they involve terror and evil. Sherlock Holmes is the world’s foremost consulting detective, a man to whom desperate or frightened people turn when they need justice.

  It was a fine spring morning, a little more than a month after my friend returned to London following his hiatus connected to the death of Professor Moriarty. I had joined Holmes again at our familiar Baker Street address, heeding his advice that work - at his side, of course - would be the best antidote to sorrow. After taking an early breakfast, Holmes and I busied ourselves, he making a few notes in his commonplace books, while I composed a letter to Captain Mumphries, a fellow officer I met while convalescing at the base hospital in Peshawar some years before. Holmes and I both were considering the next thing to do when he made his disparaging remark on my published works.

  I expected he would let this subject drop, but my friend suddenly gestured toward the street below our window. “Here is just the sort light amusement I mean, Watson,” he prompted. “There is Lestrade trying to free himself from the clutches of a couple of ancient fiends.” I rose and quickly went to his side, where I beheld the wiry little Scotland Yard Inspector struggling on the pavement, his ferret-like features flushed with anger and exertion. To my astonishment, two old men were grasping Lestrade’s elbows and pulling him toward our doorstep. I lifted the latch and raised the window. We could hear the strangers gibbering insensibly while our policeman friend cried out, “Stop! Stop! You’re mad!” and then “Stop!” again.

  Holmes spun around and thundered down the seventeen steps. A moment later, he led Lestrade and his captors - their hands still clutching at him - into our sitting room. The settee in front of the fire was hastily cleared of yesterday’s newspapers, and the three of them were made more-or-less comfortable while I rang for coffee. Our visitors sat like a pair of bookends, propping up the exhausted Lestrade in their midst. “Well, Inspector,” Holmes commenced, rubbing his hands in anticipation, “you appear to be in custody. After you’re convicted of whatever it is you’ve done this time, perhaps Watson and I will visit you in your prison cell.”

  The Scotland Yard detective recovered with a snort, gave Holmes a withering look, then brushed his captors’ handprints from his jacket sleeves. “This is the pair who belong behind bars, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade said in his high, strident voice. “I should have known better than to try and help such obvious hooligans.” As he spoke, I examined the hooligans in question. The one on Lestrade’s right appeared to be a whirlwind contained in a small, stout body, his white curls protruding at odd angles from under an incongruous flat velvet cap. To the other side of Lestrade sat the antithesis of the first one, a tall, cadaverous man with a bleak, unhurried manner. He balanced a high black hat on his knee, revealing a close-cut steel-gray tonsure.

  “We’re not hooligans, we’re scholars!” the one under the velvet cap replied with a flourish of his hands. “Mr. Holmes, I am the despairing William Bourne Forster.”

  “And I am the inconsolable Robert Dyvelstone,” his companion added. “Doubtless you know our names. After all, we are preeminent in our chosen field.”

  “Which is?” I politely queried.

  Holmes himself answered. “Why, the Northumbrian dialect, Watson. Obviously.” He dipped a long finger into the toe end of the Persian slipper hanging beside the fireplace and extracted some tobacco, which he gently tamped into the bowl of his briar. I, being accustomed to what my friend called his “Method”, made a rapid inventory. There were ink stains on the right middle fingers of both men, indicating that they engaged in a great deal of writing. I perceived a slight indentation for five inches along their sleeves just above the cuffs, the result of prolonged resting their wrists on a desk or table. Deep creases between their eyes suggested intellectual contemplation. Scholarly types, I granted, but how Holmes arrived at the Northumbrian dialect as their specialism utterly mystified me.

  “I saw a bit of fanfare in The Advisor last week about a new volume on the Northumbrian tongue. Then, in yesterday’s Record, there was a brief advertisement,” he explained as he struck a match. “‘Apply to Bourne Forster and Dyvelstone with information about a missing manuscript. Reward upon return of said.’” He viewed them through a blue haze of pipe-smoke. “And unless I am badly mistaken, those were Geordie blasphemies you were directing at friend Lestrade when I saw you through my window just now.” So that was the nonsensical chatter I’d overheard. Holmes settled into the basket chair, winked at the inspector, and crossed his long legs. “Illuminate me, if you please, gentlemen. Tell me why you’ve disturbed my pleasant morning in the company of my friend and colleague Dr. Watson, to say nothing of disordering Scotland Yard’s most eminent investigator.”

  “Our life’s work!” Bourne Forster suddenly wailed. “It’s gone missing.”

  “We went to the police, of course,” Dyvelstone added, and he jabbed at Lestrade. “This feeble excuse for an inspector laughed at us, so we came to consult with you.”

  “And you brought the feeble excuse with you? Good.”

  Lestrade glowered wordlessly at Holmes, as Mrs. Hudson’s stately tread was heard on the stair. She appeared in our doorway bearing coffee and rolls, and placed the tray on the table in front of the settee before subsiding into a corner so as to save us the trouble of ringing should we need anything further. Bourne Forster spoke again.

  “Northumbrian vocabulary is the most distinct and difficult of all the provincial dialects. A great many words and expressions are so peculiar, one forgets that the local people really are speaking English. Why, from one valley to the next words change so that inhabitants of one rural settlement may have trouble understanding their neighbors just over the burn.”

  “It’s more than the odd diphthong, or singular ‘r’ overheard in the marketplace,” Dyvelstone added. “The uniqueness is so pronounced that, left to its own devices, Northumbrian would soon evolve into a distinct language all its own. Over the years, we’ve managed to isolate some twelve-hundred unique words and quaint phrases.”

  “Very impressive,” Holmes murmured, sending a blue smoke ring toward the ceiling. “Far more than Brockett collected for his 1829 glossary, which is still, I believe, considered authoritative.” His unexpected acquaintance with an unusual subject surprised me. I made
a mental note to add “Northumbrian babble - functional” to my list of Holmes’s acquired knowledge. “Pray continue,” he said.

  “We’ve spent years traveling across Northumbria, for the most part on foot, listening to the speech of dairymen, servants, drovers, and fishing families,” Bourne Forster explained. “The collier’s speech is different from that of the shepherd not ten miles distant. The words a shopkeeper from Morpeth uses are very unlike those of his brother shopkeeper from Wooler. Everywhere we go, we interview the folk and catalog local derivations.”

  “Derivations, distortions, and distinctions,” Dyvelstone interjected. “And the complex twists! Where you and I eat turnips, a Hexham man calls them ‘neeps’, while his cousin in Berwick knows them as ‘baggies’. An apple core is a ‘gowk’, not to be confused with the village idiot, who is also a ‘gowk’. And the animals! Kittens are ‘kitlings’, owls are ‘howletts’, a hen is a ‘clocker’, and a donkey, of course, is a ‘cuddy’.”

  “Of course,” Lestrade repeated under his breath. He helped himself to an empty cup. As I watched, he measured five spoons full of sugar into the bottom of it, and added coffee.

  “Some men accumulate stamps, Mr. Holmes, and others hang Dutch masters on their walls,” Dyvelstone concluded. “We are collectors of words.”

  “We are gatherers in the green meadows of expression,” his colleague Bourne Forster corrected. “We endeavour to find out the everyday authorities - those who use the words beside their own hearths - and instruct others as to the philological state of things.”