Sherlock Holmes
Never Dies
Collection Four
The Silver Horse, Braised
The Box of Cards
The Yellow Farce
The Three Rhodes Not Taken
Craig Stephen Copland
Copyright © 2016 by Craig Stephen Copland
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system – except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the web – without permission in writing from Craig Stephen Copland.
The characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are in the public domain, as are all of the original stories that served as the inspiration for the stories in this book.
Published by:
Conservative Growth
1101 30th Street NW
Washington, DC 20007
Cover design by iUniverse
NOTE TO SHERLOCKIANS:
All New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries can be “borrowed” FREE through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited/Prime.
Note to Sherlockians
These four novellas are pastiche stories of Sherlock Holmes. The characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are modeled on the characters that we have come to love in the original sixty Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The settings in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras are also maintained. Each new mystery is inspired by one of the stories in the original sacred canon. The characters and some of the introductions are respectfully borrowed, and then a new mystery develops.
If you have never read the original story that served as the inspiration of the new one—or if you have but it was a long time ago—then you are encouraged to do so before reading the new story in this book. Your enjoyment of the new mystery will be enhanced.
Some new characters are introduced and the female characters have a significantly stronger role than they did in the original stories. I hope that I have not offended any of my fellow Sherlockians by doing so but, after all, a hundred years have passed and some things have changed.
The historical events that are connected to these new stories are, for the most part, accurately described and dated. Your comments, suggestions, and corrections are welcomed on all aspects of the stories.
I am deeply indebted to The Bootmakers of Toronto (the Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada) not only for their dedication to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes but also to their holding of a contest for the writing of a new Sherlock Holmes mystery. My winning entry into that contest led to the joy of continuing to write more Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
Over the next few years, it is my intention to write a new mystery inspired by each one of the sixty original stories. They will appear in the same chronological order as the original canon appeared in the pages of The Strand. Should you wish to subscribe to these new stories and receive them in digital form as they are released, please visit www.SherlockHolmesMystery.com and sign up.
Wishing joyful reading and re-reading to all faithful Sherlockians.
Respecfully,
CSC
Contents
The Silver Horse, Braised
The Box of Cards
The Yellow Farce
The Three Rhodes Not Taken
About the Author
More Historical Mysteries by Craig Stephen Copland
The Silver Horse,
Braised
Chapter One
The Race is On
"I AM AFRAID, WATSON, that I shall have to go," said Holmes, as we sat down together to our breakfast one morning.
"Go? Where to?"
“Not far. Just over to Surrey; Epsom to be precise.”
“Ah, I am not surprised. You have been called regarding the death of that poor jockey, have you? Or has some other crime been committed already, even before the Century Race has been run?”
Three days ago the press had reported on the tragic death of one of England’s greatest jockeys, Nester Leggatt. He had been on an early morning ride on top of Lord Commodore, one of the favorites to win the Century Race. While at full gallop, the horse had suddenly lurched, sending the jockey crashing into a furlong pole. He was dead by the time the other trainers and jockeys got to him. The horse’s owner, Lord Biggleswade’s oldest son, Baron Julian, had immediately called for an inquiry and set up a fund for the chap’s family. He was duly admired for his prompt and compassionate action.
“No on both counts, my good doctor,” replied Holmes.” The death of Nester Leggatt is still ruled accidental, although Lestrade is, quite rightly, somewhat suspicious. But that event, combined with the silly disappearance of another favored jockey, has given rise to the imagining of every conceivable crime that could possibly take place before such an enormous event. Inspector Gregory is in Epsom and has requested my assistance, with the hope that we may be able to prevent such crimes before they happen. I do not object to assisting him. He is quite a bright police office even if lacking in imagination.”
Officially the race was called the Wheatcroft Cup, but everyone was simply calling it The Race of the Century. It was scheduled three weeks after the Derby, was to be a one-time final event of the racing season in the last year of the glorious Nineteenth Century, and was acclaimed as the final judgment on which country, England or America, bred the finest racehorses. A wealthy nobleman, Lord Wheatcroft of Cork, had offered an exceptional prize of twenty thousand pounds to the winner, with additional record-breaking prizes for place and show. Seven of the best five-year-olds from America had been brought across the Atlantic to compete with the seven top-ranked five-year-olds in England. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch fourteen of the finest thoroughbreds in the world run against each other in what promised to be a breath-taking spectacle. The annual Derby at Epsom Downs was normally the climax event of the racing season, but this extraordinary one would surpass all that had come before.
Even the dear old girl herself, Our Gracious Queen Victoria, now in the sixty-second year of her reign, was invited. Some members of the press had promised that she would be there, Union Jack in hand, cheering on the Empire. The betting, Queen and Union Jack or not, had been terrific. The registered bookmakers had already taken in over one million pounds and it was guessed that several times that amount had been wagered in the pubs and back rooms across all of Great Britain. In addition to that, we could not, in our wildest dreams, imagine how much had been laid down in America.
The combination of the spectacle, the amount wagered, the tragic death of the jockey, and the fact that Americans were involved had given rise to all sorts of rumors and speculation in the press about crimes that were in the works. Murders, abductions, threats, bribes, the administering of opiates to horse or rider, immoral seductions, and the circulation of false statistics had all been mentioned. Odd-looking characters had been spotted throughout London and Sussex, dressed in loud, gaudy short suit jackets, and speaking in a dialect of the Queen’s English that was incomprehensible to an English gentleman.
For several days a story circulated through the populace, aided by it's being repeated in the press, that one of the nation’s most successful jockeys, Bob Sockmaker, who had been assigned to ride an English favorite, Vindication of Yarmouth, owned by Lord Atherstone, had vanished. He had last been seen on the Saturday afternoon of a week ago while throwing back pints of ale at Ye Olde King’s Head in the village of Epsom. Immediately it was suggested that he had been abducted by some American syndicate so that he wou
ld not be able to participate in the Century Race. Sherlock Holmes dutifully applied himself to the situation for a mere ten minutes before throwing down the newspaper and muttering, “Imbecilic nonsense. Anyone can see that he was three sheets of the wind. He will reappear when he is sober.”
That was indeed what happened.
“How could you tell?” I asked, incredulously, as is often the case in my questions to Holmes.
“Elementary, Watson. The accounts in the various papers quote five different witnesses who say that they watched him down three or four pints of ale. All five claim to have been in the pub at different times on Saturday afternoon and evening, which means that at a minimum Mr. Sockmaker drank fifteen to twenty pints. He is next thing to a midget in size and cannot weigh more than nine stone. By nine o’clock in the evening, he must have been blind drunk when he failed to return from yet another trip to the loo. I will guarantee that he passed out within a block or two of the pub and will return once he regains consciousness and finds himself a clean pair of knickers. My knowing this is nothing more than the application of the art of the reasoner.”
He was right. But by the time the jockey reappeared the press, having had enough of dead and drunk jockeys, moved on to other rumors.
Our friends at Scotland Yard were normally immune to nonsensical reports, having heard every one imaginable over the past century. This time, however, they were erring on the side of caution since, after all, if Americans were involved there was always a very real possibly of nefarious criminal activity. The inspectors’ burning desire was to spot the most likely culprits and stuff them on a boat back across The Pond before their evil intents could be brought to fruition.
The fact that the Yard had requested the help of Sherlock Holmes was a strong indication that they had concluded that at least a few of the rumors might have substance to them.
"I should be most happy to go with you if I should not be in the way," said I.
“As my knowledge of horse racing is limited to knowing which end of the horse moves forward,” said Holmes, in his habit of feigned modesty, “and since you are an avid sportsman, I should be most grateful for your invaluable help. And, by the way, I would you oblige me by bringing your very excellent field glasses.”
And so it happened that an hour or so later I found myself in the corner of a first-class carriage flying along on route for Epsom, while Sherlock Holmes, with his sharp, eager face framed in his ear-flapped travelling-cap, dipped rapidly into the bundle of fresh papers which he had procured at the Victoria Station. He made his way through the Chronicle, the Telegraph, and the Times.
I concentrated my reading on The Sporting News, the tabloid followed religiously by all true sportsmen, those who were prepared to demonstrate their passionate commitment to sport by putting down a quid or two on the results. The histories of all fourteen racehorses were provided in detail along with the odds offered on each. It was not surprising that the odds differed little from one horse to another, given that every one of them had a record of winning many races over the past three years. Every writer had made a case for his particular favorite, and they all disagreed with each other. I had given some consideration to placing a wager or two on the race, but given the shortening of the odds, I was inclined to refrain.
Although I was quite sure of the response I would receive, I could not resist engaging Holmes in the topic.
“What say, Holmes? Are you going to add to the excitement of our excursion by putting down a few quid on your favorite nag?”
He gave me a look that was not the dismissive glance I had expected but was rather on the thoughtful side. He said nothing for several minutes while he stuffed some strong black tobacco into his beloved pipe, lit it, breathed in, and gave a long and slow exhale.
“Men,” his finally said quietly, “gamble to lose.”
“Oh come, Holmes,” I protested. “All of us, myself included, place our bets with the hope of winning.”
“And you are fools in doing so. The fundamental arithmetic accuses you. The total winnings distributed to the lucky few must, of necessity, be less that the total amount bet. Otherwise, the gambling house, the bookmakers, the jockey club, the publican, and all others who make their income from the practice of gambling could not exist. The inevitable conclusion from such an observation is that any man with even a modest intellect knows that over time he must become poorer by gambling. Yet it is not the absurd stupidity of the institution that intrigues me, as an even more puzzling matter.”
Here he stopped and gave a few more puffs on his pipe. I posed the obvious question.
“And what might that be?”
“That wherever gambling is taking place, crime invariably follows.”
Epsom, in Sussex, is a pleasant little town in the North Downs, about fifteen miles south of London. It was famous first for its Epsom Salts and now, of course, for the Derby.
Holmes and I had both visited it several times over the past two decades and I expected that we would take a cab immediately to our preferred hotel, The Chalk Lane, just north of the racecourse. Holmes had other plans. He directed the cabbie to take us straightaway to the scene of the crime, the racecourse. Once there he made inquiries as to who it was who had witnessed the accident that led to the tragic death of Nester Leggatt. No one, it turned out, had actually seen what had happened, but we were sent to find a fellow named Robert Blinden, a stable boy who was first on the scene and found the body.
Blinden was said to be working in the large stable barn in which the horses that were to run in the Century Race were being kept. Armed guards and dogs were stationed outside the doors of the barn and we were not permitted to enter. A message was sent in and shortly afterward a man appeared and walked toward us. I was immediately struck by his appearance. He was of average height and weight, but his head was overly large for his body. His face was excessively round and had I not known that he was gainfully employed I would have taken him for a mongoloid, and mentally deficient.
He walked with his head down and, on meeting us, kept looking at his shoes while speaking. He confirmed that he had been the first witness to the tragedy. He had been working outside the barn when he looked over to the far side of the track and saw that one of the horses was riderless, and walking back and forth on the turf. He said he knew that something might be amiss and ran over to the horse, and it was then that he discovered the body of Nester Leggatt lying beside the track and already dead.
He imparted these few things as we walked across the fairgrounds that occupied the inner section of the racecourse. At the top of the hill, kitty-corner from the stands, he stopped and said, “Sir, this is where I found him. He was lying right here, Mr. Holmes.”
“Now my good man,” said Holmes. “Might I ask you to think very hard and try to remember exactly what you saw when you arrived here? Could you do that for me?”
Holmes’s tone of voice was of the sort that one might use when speaking to a child. The fellow responded, continuing to look at the ground in painful shyness.
“Yes sir, I can do that. And please Mr. Holmes, I am not a child and I am not stupid. Everybody thinks I am because of my big stupid face, but I know that there is nothing wrong with my brain. And sir, I have read every one of the stories that Dr. Watson has written about you. I’ve read them many times, sir. So I knew right off when I got here that something did not seem right, sir, and that I should try to look closely at as many little things as possible before a whole crowd of people got here and trampled all the evidence. I did try to do that sir, just as I thought you would, had you been here, sir.”
Holmes positively lit up with a smile. “Did you now, Robert? That is splendid. You fill me with interest and you must tell me all that you observed. Should we be successful in solving this mystery I am certain that Dr. Watson will give you all the credit you deserve. Is that not correct, Watson?”
I nodded vigorously. “Entirely correct, entirely.”
Robert Blinden appeared for a m
oment or two to be nodding his head and moving his lips, perhaps rehearsing his unprecedented opportunity to be of assistance to his hero.
“The first thing I could see, sir, was the terrible mark on his neck. The constable who came later said that the half-furlong pole must of struck him in his neck and broken it, and that was why he was dead.”
“Yes,” said Holmes. “That does seem a reasonable conclusion, is it not?”
“Well, no sir, it was daft,” said Blinden, now looking directly at Holmes. “The mark was straight across his neck, like this.” He brought his hand straight across his neck in a gesture usually used for indicating the slicing of one’s throat.
“Indeed,” said Holmes. “Why do you say ‘daft’ ”?
“Well, sir, I have worked at a racetrack now for over ten years and I have seen a fair number of horses jolt, or fall, and their jockeys tumble. I have never seen a one where the jockey turned completely sideways in the air. They all tend to continue in the same position they were in, sir. They sort of jump off the horse and come forward with their head up and their feet down. Then they land, hitting the ground first with their feet and they roll forward. That’s how they come off their horses, sir. But poor Mr. Leggatt, sir, if the mark on his neck was from side to side then he must have flipped sideways off the horse and that just does not happen, sir.”
Holmes nodded in appreciation. I scribbled notes diligently. I could see evidence of an accidental death diminishing.
“Continue, please, Mr. Blinden,” said Holmes.
“Well, sir, when I was a schoolboy I had to learn about Sir Isaac Newton and his laws. And I remembered that he said that if some object is moving in a certain way, then it keeps going in that same way. Isn’t that right sir?”
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies- Collection Four Page 1
