The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part IV

by David Marcum

  “He will be caught,” I said. “They both will.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” said Lady Hornung. “And they will both be well paid for their trouble. I have even offered to use my husband’s influence to restore Clay’s title once he has again served his time. Myra will then be rewarded by becoming his wife.”

  “And Raffles?” I asked.

  “A private joke, Doctor. A lure to attract an inquisitive detective. A lure, I might add, that he followed most eagerly. In your tales, the game is always afoot, but it has always been Sherlock Holmes’s game. Tonight, even if your friend does not realize it, he is playing my game, and it is a game that I, the daughter of James Moriarty, have won.”

  I remembered Holmes earlier words to me, that this had all been a performance for our benefit, but saw no advantage to revealing that Holmes had not been as taken in as she assumed. “But to what end?” I said. “I still do not understand.”

  “It’s very simple,” said Lady Hornung. “I want you to record that victory, Doctor. I want you to write down the adventure where one of Moriarty’s bloodline bested Sherlock Holmes.”

  “But that’s absurd,” I said. “I know the truth! Your victory will only last until I inform Holmes that it was you, Lady Hornung, who was behind this Raffles farce, and behind the theft of your own emerald!”

  Lady Hornung smiled, and reached into her pocket book, removing the emerald necklace I had seen in the Hornung’s safe only an hour ago. “You are, of course, correct, Doctor. Here is the genuine emerald necklace, safe in my possession. But you will never reveal the truth to Sherlock Holmes. Not if you value his life.”

  “I do not take kindly to threats, Lady Hornung.”

  “It is no threat, but a certainty. You see, Doctor, Sherlock Holmes thought he had dismantled the engine of my father’s criminal empire, but he was wrong. That engine, that network, still remains, only awaiting someone to step in, to sit in the center of that spider’s web and take charge.”

  “Someone like you, I suppose,” I said

  “None other,” she said. “And, in my father’s name, I would make Sherlock Holmes’s destruction my life’s ambition. It would be war between us, and a war in which I would take no prisoners. Sherlock Holmes was lucky to escape with his life the last time. Who is to say he would be lucky again?”

  “You’re mad,” I said.

  “There is, of course, a way for you to prevent this.”

  “How?” I asked

  “You must keep this secret, Doctor,” she said. “Keep it from your friend, Sherlock Holmes, but record this case for posterity. Write this story, store it away in the vaults at Cox and Company, and I promise my campaign against your companion will go no further than here tonight.”

  I began to protest but Lady Hornung silenced me with a chilling smile.

  “You will resist, of course,” she said. “You will swear to me that you will never record this conversation or this adventure, as it reflects poorly upon your Mr. Holmes. Yet, some day, you will. You are a writer, Doctor. The transcription of adventures is in your very nature. It is in your blood. And when the tale is revealed to the public, as I know it will be someday, everyone will know that a Moriarty had the pleasure of defeating Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I do not think I ask much for peace, Doctor. Only your silence, and your pen.”

  I looked at her, peering into those reptilian eyes which only hours earlier I had regarded as rude and superficial. I saw now staring back at me an intelligence, a ruthlessness, that I have only ever seen in the blackest of criminals. It made my blood run cold.

  “I will consider it,” I said at last.

  “Very good,” said Lady Hornung. The coach slowed and came to a stop. “Ah. We’ve arrived at our real destination.”

  The coach pulled up before 221b Baker Street, and the coachman opened the door to usher me out. As I stepped down to the cobbled street, I heard Lady Hornung’s voice behind me. “Goodbye, Doctor,” she said. “I hope we never see each other again.”

  The door closed, the coachman mounted the box, and I watched as the coach rumbled away.

  I found the flat deserted. I stoked the fire and settled myself into my armchair, determined to wait for Holmes’s return. Exhaustion, however, soon overtook me, and I fell into a troubled slumber.

  I slept fitfully that night, wrestling over whether to reveal Lady Hornung’s true identity to my good friend. I hoped that it might not be necessary, that he might divine the secret himself, as he had so many others in the past, but I also knew from experience that even Sherlock Holmes had his limits.

  When next I opened my eyes it was morning, the sun streaming through the sitting room window. A noise from behind informed me that I was not alone.

  Sherlock Holmes was at the breakfast table, tucking his way into some sausages. In his hand he held a telegram that he was studying with great amusement.

  “Watson!” he said “Come join me at the table. I have much to tell you.”

  I rose, feeling the pain from my war wound, and made my way over to the table.

  “The telegram,” I said. “You have news?”

  “Yes, but not the news you are hoping for. This telegram is from Mycroft. He is decidedly not amused by my decision to impersonate him at the Hornung’s ball. I fear I shall have to pay a visit to the Diogenes in order to make amends. I trust Lady Hornung is recovered?”

  This was dangerously close to a topic I did not want to discuss. “Did you catch them?” I asked. “Did you catch John Clay and the maid?

  “We did,” said Holmes. “Clay and Myra led us a merry chase across the west end of London, but, through a combination of determination and deduction, we were able to run them to ground shortly before first light. They are at Scotland Yard even now, where I think Clay’s proclamations of Royal blood will fall upon the deaf ears of the constabulary. As for the emerald...” Holmes trailed off. “Sit down, old fellow.”

  I sat, grateful to have the pressure on my leg eased. “I suppose Clay had the fake emerald when you arrested him,” I said, “but not the genuine one.”

  Holmes smiled at me. “I never get your limits, Watson. Yes, you’re exactly right. They had the fake stone in their possession, but not the genuine article.”

  I nodded. “Clay and Myra were unaccounted for most of the night,” I said. “They could have hidden the real gem anywhere.”

  “It was the maid, of course, who took the imitation stone,” said Holmes. “We both saw how dexterously she removed the necklace from her Lady’s throat. Myra stayed close to her lady so that when John Clay, or one of his associates, cut the electrical power to the ballroom she could remove the gems in an instant, hiding them within her petticoat.

  “I see.”

  “I confess, however, that her motivation remains a mystery. Anger at her mistress? Perhaps her feminine heart fell victim to John Clay’s charms. The motivations of the fairer sex are your department, Doctor. Perhaps you might offer an opinion?”

  “I honestly couldn’t say.”

  “Still, it seems clear that Clay and Myra were not responsible for the theft of the genuine emerald. It was Lord Hornung himself who took the stone.”

  I sputtered into my tea. “You must be joking!” I said.

  “It is the only logical explanation,” said Holmes. “We both saw the stone in the safe not ten minutes before its disappearance was discovered. Lord Hornung must have pocketed the stone when he put his back to us, replacing it with the ‘Raffles’ card.”

  “Perhaps someone, perhaps this Raffles, broke in during that ten minutes and made away with the necklace,” I offered.

  “With the door guarded?” said Holmes. “With the police patrolling the estate? Even assuming the thief somehow managed to overcome both of those obstacles, he still lacked sufficient time. Ten minutes is simply not enough to crack a
Barnes safe. No, this is yet another part of the game played out last night for our benefit. There is a controlling force behind this, Watson, a hand guiding the actions from behind the scenes. It could be Lord Hornung, but I cannot help but suspect that he is but a pawn. No, this entire enterprise has a decidedly feminine feel...”

  I knew this was my opportunity to tell all to Holmes, to reveal the truth behind the duplicity of Lady Hornung, a duplicity designed to reveal my friend’s flaws to the world. Yet I thought back to that terrible time before, a time when the battle between Holmes and Moriarty had robbed me of my good friend. I could not go back to those times again. I simply could not.

  “Let it go, Holmes,” I said.

  “Watson?” said Holmes. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “The case,” I said. “The emerald. Raffles. The whole thing. You caught John Clay and Myra. Lestrade and the Yard are satisfied. Let it go at that.”

  “I cannot,” said Holmes. “It is not in my nature. Watson, if you know something...”

  “I confess that I do,” I interrupted. “But I’m asking for you to trust me. For all our years of friendship together, for any loyalty or affection you might hold for me, let the case die here and now.”

  “You ask the impossible.”

  “Yet I ask it all the same. You know I would not ask such a thing if there were any other way.”

  Holmes regarded me with such a burning intensity I felt my resolve wither, yet I held his gaze with every ounce of strength within.

  “All right, Watson,” said Holmes at last. “For you.” He rose from the table and picked up his violin.

  As Holmes began to play with tones both sonorous and melancholy, I took up my pen and began to write.

  Holmes never mentioned the Hornung affair again, but I did see Lady Hornung some years later after my days at Baker Street had come to an end. I was in attendance of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, and thoroughly enjoying the spirited performance, when I sensed someone staring at me. I looked about the crowded hall, and then up to the box seats above. There, sitting between her husband and her maid, sat Lady Constance Hornung. Unlike her companions, who were focused upon the light opera, Lady Hornung’s theater glasses were instead trained directly upon my section. She lowered the glasses, and our eyes met from across the theatre. She smiled at me then, a smile filled with both recognition and warning. I turned quickly away, and when I chanced to look back at the opera box above, somewhere during the third patter song of the night, Lady Hornung was gone.

  She had been right, of course. I am, by my very nature, an author, and as an author I feel compelled to put pen to paper and record the extraordinary experiences of my life. Of all those adventures, there are few stranger than the one I am telling you now, as by the end only I and Lady Hornung knew the complete truth.

  And so I lay down my pen, content that my good friend will never know of the devil’s bargain I struck. He lives now on the Sussex Downs, and I see him but rarely. As Lady Hornung requested, this manuscript will be stored in the vaults of Cox and Company, where the proprietors are under strict orders not to open my vault until long after my death, and so, God willing, Sherlock Holmes will never know.

  But I do, and it haunts me.

  The London Wheel

  by David Marcum

  Sherlock Holmes glanced up from the papers spread before him when Lestrade vented a disgusted sigh. From my position at the side of the inspector’s desk, unable to easily examine the documents that were the reason for our visit, I watched as our friend’s irritation grew.

  Lestrade stepped to the doorway, calling out to someone unseen for tea. Then, closing the door, he returned to the window, looking toward the Thames. He sighed again.

  Holmes, previously lost in a comparison of two yellowed sheets covered in spidery handwriting, as well as the various confiscated ledgers and letters associated with that matter later referred to in the press as “The Foster Obligation”, smiled. “Is something vexing you, Lestrade?”

  Lestrade did not turn, answering, “It’s that bloody wheel, Mr. Holmes. You’ve seen it, over on the other shore? Something like that has no business cluttering up the landscape.”

  Although I knew of what he spoke, I rose and joined him, Holmes doing the same on the other side. From that high window in the south wall of New Scotland Yard, we could see the Embankment and the pier down below us, and then the Thames, currently at high tide. A number of craft plied the waterway, and all would have seemed very normal indeed, if not for the object that had aroused Lestrade’s ire.

  On the opposite side of the river, not far from where the bank was touched by Westminster Bridge, was a cleared space teeming with people. I knew from newspaper reports that the area was currently occupied by some sort of circus, making use of a space that had been left vacant by a fire in the past year or so. After the debris was cleared, and with no new construction yet planned, the owners of the property had allowed the circus to set up there temporarily.

  There was nothing unusual in this. What was it, then, that could affect Lestrade so keenly? Could it truly be the mere presence, in the middle of the surging throng, of a Ferris Wheel?

  “It seems harmless enough to me, Lestrade,” I said. “What offends you so by its presence?”

  “It doesn’t fit,” he replied. “Within sight of Parliament, for heaven’s sake. It just isn’t right.”

  “Surely,” said Holmes, “it is far more pleasant, for instance, to see something devoted to recreation and pleasure than those buildings just to the south of it. They, too, are within view from our government buildings, including this one, and they stand as a silent accusation and a reminder of a great deal of unfortunate poverty, separated by only a waterway and a bridge from the wealth that rules them.”

  “I see your point, Mr. Holmes. Yet, I still cannot help but resent that my view is spoiled by that monstrosity.”

  I suspected that it was more than that.

  Holmes smiled. “Seeing as I’ve finished with my examination of Mr. Foster’s papers, a singularly unrewarding effort I might add, I feel that a walk in this rare sunshine could be quite refreshing. What say you, Lestrade, to joining us as we stroll over and take a better look at this wheel? I can’t recall having been able to view one up close before.”

  Lestrade clearly had no interest in seeing the thing any closer than he already could from his current vantage point, but I could tell that he understood Holmes’s friendly offer. He canceled the order for tea, and within moments we had made our way through the busy hallways of the Yard, down the steps, and out through the gate. Big Ben in the clock tower was just chiming two, but the early spring sun was already quite past its highest point in the sky.

  Along the way, Holmes entertained us with a surprising amount of knowledge regarding the object of our expedition. The original wheel, designed and constructed by Ferris, had been erected just seven years earlier for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Holmes intimated that he had some personal experience with that event, which I did not doubt, since I knew that segments of his roaming during that period when he was believed to be dead had incorporated stops in the United States, including Chicago.

  We were in the center of Westminster Bridge when Holmes gestured vaguely to the west, indicating that another similar structure to Ferris’s creation, The Great Wheel, had been in operation at Earls Court since 1895, when it first graced the Empire of India Exhibition. Both Lestrade and I had seen it in passing, but only from a distance. “Unlike this eyesore, I don’t have to look at that one in Kensington every day,” grumbled the inspector.

  Upon reaching the circus grounds, we found that the crowds were surprisingly thick for the middle of the week. For the most part, they consisted of men and women of the working class, either as couples or families with small children. The smells brought back memories of childhood from similar circuses where I
walked hand-in-hand with my father, unable to see a great deal for all of the adults around me in every direction. The noise was almost a force unto itself. There was a singular one-man band who seemed to rely most heavily upon a cymbal affixed to his bass drum. An unseen calliope was wheezing from nearby within a tattered tent. Barkers yelled to attract our attention, and as we passed each one, Holmes would scan him quickly before looking to the next, no doubt reading each man’s entire life story in a glance.

  I was loudly trying to tell Lestrade about my boyhood dream of running away with a circus that had visited near my childhood home in Scotland, after finding myself infatuated with a lady bareback rider, when Holmes came to a stop. Without my realizing it, he had led us unerringly through the throng and to the great metal wheel, turning slowly above us.

  There were shrieks of enjoyment as the passengers, particularly the women clinging to the arms of their men, would rotate down the front side of the wheel, before rising again along the back with each revolution. I was shielding my eyes to look up at the carriages affixed to thing, noting that each held several passengers, when my attention was pulled back down to ground level. Before me were two men, arguing. They stood near a third smaller fellow in the area where passengers would entrain or depart from the wheel. This man seemed to be cringing away from the other two, whose disagreement was escalating. The gentleman on the left, small and thin-shouldered, raised his stick in anger, causing the other man, taller and with a long face, to take a step back.

  “I won’t stand for it, Green!” cried the smaller man with the stick, in an unmistakable American accent. “I’ve suspected that you’ve been cheating me somehow, and the lease for this Wheel which you have foisted upon us is simply the last straw!”

  Sensing impending violence, Lestrade pushed forward and took the arm of the smaller man. “Here, now!” he cried. “We’ll have none of that.”