The Redacted Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2

by Orlando Pearson

  Holmes paused after this long speech and lit another cigar.

  “But,” I objected after a considerable period of reflection of my own. “People have always been prepared to suffer and die for dubious causes. That alone is surely not sufficient to validate John’s claims.”

  “It is of course true that people have always been prepared to suffer and die for dubious clauses,” countered Holmes thoughtfully. “But consider this: only the leader’s key followers had an interest in the theft and concealment of the body. So if it disappeared after its interment, it can only have been they that took it. It is surely implausible that those followers would then have been prepared to suffer as they did to defend a deceit that they themselves had perpetrated. Their actions bespeak far more knowledge of an ascent from the tomb rather than mere faith in the possibility of it.”

  “So what is to happen now?”

  “If you are free tomorrow, I have arranged for John to come to Baker Street to discuss his current draft with us. I think he is looking for advice from you as much as from me. In the future, by the way, when his work is published, he proposes to go by the name John the Evangelist. You may need to consider whether you want to become known as John the Chronicler to avoid confusion with him. He has a great story to tell and I am sure that his writings will generate a boundless flood of further writings.”

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