alt.sherlock.holmes

by Gini Koch

  alt.sherlock.holmes

  This book is a collection of three novellas reimagining Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in different settings in modern America, from the Dust Bowl of the early ’thirties to the glitzy–and trashy–world of reality TV. You’ll encounter the Great Detective as a carnival owner and fortune teller, as a drugged-up bohemian and as a smart-mouthed New Yorker.

  The short stories in which these characters first appeared—“A Scandal in Hobohemia,” “All the Single Ladies” and “Half There/All There”—are taken from Abaddon Books’ acclaimed anthology Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets (2014), and are included here as bonus content.

  An Abaddon Books™ Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  abaddon@rebellion.co.uk

  First published 2016 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Publishing Ltd, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editor-in Chief: Jonathan Oliver

  Commissioning Editor: David Moore

  Cover Art: Sam Gretton

  Design: Sam Gretton & Oz Osborne

  Marketing and PR: Rob Power

  Head of Books and Comics Publishing: Ben Smith

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  “A Scandal in Hobohemia,” “All the Single Ladies” and “Half There/All There” ©2014 Rebellion.

  The Case of the Tattooed Bride and A Study in Starlets ©2015 Rebellion.

  The Power of Media ©2016 Rebellion. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved.

  Abaddon Books and the Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Publishing Ltd. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-78618-023-0

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  alt.sherlock.holmes

  JAMIE WYMAN • GINI KOCH • GLEN MEHN

  contents

  a scandal in hobohemia

  the case of the tattooed bride

  JAMIE WYMAN

  all the single ladies

  a study in starlets

  GINI KOCH

  half there/all there

  the power of media

  GLEN MEHN

  about the authors

  also by abaddon books

  a scandal in hobohemia

  THE CANVAS TENT held in heat like an Alabama kitchen, though it didn’t smell nearly so pleasant. The odors of dust and grease paint mingled with the smells of pungent herbs: patchouli, sandalwood perhaps. But there was no mistaking the funk of a blue drag somewhere beneath it all. That scent—the reefer—brought back all sorts of memories. Some good, others best left in the trenches.

  She’d sent me in here alone, and though Agent Trenet didn’t say it, I knew she meant to test me. No genius needed to figure that out, this being my first case. I turned in a circle in the tent, focusing on all the tiny details: the way the stitches on the psychic’s garish red scarves were fraying; the coffee stains on the rickety table peeking through the moth-eaten silk cloth. Fingerprints smudged the glass orb in the center of the table. How anyone could read the future through all that oil and muck was beyond me.

  But then, I wasn’t Madame Yvonde, Seer of All and Mistress of Fate.

  According to the painted banners and smooth talkers at Soggiorno Brothers’ Traveling Wonder Show, the Seer was a direct descendant of Cassandra herself. “She can lead you to fame,” the barker had said, “guide you to money. Help you seek that which you most desire.”

  I didn’t want fame, and I didn’t need money. What I needed, strictly speaking, was a man. Or at least his name. Trenet seemed to think Madame Yvonde would lead us there, and with her being my superior in a multitude of ways, I didn’t bother to make a fuss. I stood in that sweatbox of a tent and waited.

  Madame Yvonde paid me little mind. Probably on account of all the spirits and such vying for her attention. She shuffled about, a rotund bundle of bright scarves, grimy homespun and arthritic old bones. With her came an eye-searing stench of rotgut. Padding from one corner of the tent to another, the hunched old hag murmured gibberish and lit a number of ivory candles. The bracelets on her wrists and the tiny coins at her wide hips jingled with every ponderous step.

  “Now,” she said as she slithered behind the crystal ball. “You don’t believe, do you, sonny?”

  I put on my best, most innocuous smile. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  “Don’t ma’am me, boy.” Yvonde’s voice was deep as a well and just as dark. She withdrew a cob pipe from the folds of her dress and brought it to her lips. She spoke through gritted teeth as she lit it. “You come in here wearing a suit like that, it says you’re educated. Educated man don’t listen to spirits or stars unless he’s desperate. And you are not desperate. Not yet.”

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said neutrally.

  She brightened and let out a puff of tobacco smoke. “Oh! Well, then I might be able to help you after all. Come.” She wrapped on the table twice. The chair across from her slid away from the table, and a brown work boot withdrew beneath the cloth. “Have a seat and we’ll see what we find.”

  With the stiffness creeping into my left thigh, I didn’t so much walk as hobble over to join Yvonde. Trying to keep my discomfort to myself, I bit down on my lip as I slipped uneasily down into the chair. Scooting closer was a whole other bargain that I wasn’t prepared to make without a shot of whatever liquor the Seer had beneath those rags of hers.

  In the flickering candlelight, Yvonde’s face wavered in and out of focus. Layers of pancake smeared over fishbelly-white skin. The makeup flaked at the edges of every deep wrinkle, particularly around her lips where she’d stolen the pink off a peony to color her flabby mouth and bony cheeks. Those pale eyes of hers—all done up with black paint like a kewpie doll—drooped and fluttered. One of her false lashes threatened to fall off at any moment. I could see the fibers of her wig coiling out from beneath the scarf on her head.

  Yvonde held out a bony hand and snapped her fingers. “Cross my palm, sonny.”

  “I paid out front,” I said.

  “You paid for the circus. Now you pay for the pleasure of my company.”

  I pretended to wrestle with the notion of parting ways with my hard-earned dollar before reaching into my coat and plucking a bill. I handed it to her, and she crumpled it in those skinny fingers. Yvonde grinned around her pipe as the money disappeared. That smile held a sinister edge, but her teeth were straight and white as a Connecticut Sunday social.

  “Now, you were looking for someone, were you?”

  An arc of cards appeared on the table. The drawings were intricate, and had probably once been lovely. Now they were just as faded as the rest of this damn circus. Yvonde tapped a card.

  “The World,” she breathed hoarsely. “You are a traveler. No roots, just boots. Stomp, stomp, stomping on the ground.”

  I bristled, my blood running cold. She came close to making me think of old times.

  “I’m not here about me.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re looking for a man, but you haven’t stopped to consider that you’re searching for yourself. Aimlessly going from South Carolina to Alabama. Over an ocean and back again. Boy, you’ve just been rooting along the Southern states like a dog hunting for a mas
ter that’s left him behind.”

  “A master?” I snarled, balling my fist on my lap. “That supposed to mean something?”

  She waved me off with a jingle of her bracelets. “I don’t give a flop about negroes, boy. Your money spends just as well as the next man’s. But you’ve chosen the hardest fields to plow, haven’t you, soldier?”

  Her cold eyes fixed me with a challenge. Tell me I’m wrong, she seemed to say. We both knew that I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. We stared at one another, sharing only that meaningful look.

  “What else?” I asked.

  With a flourish of scarves and skeletal hands, the arc of cards vanished. Only three remained on the table. The World still stared up at me.

  “The Empress,” Yvonde sang as she slid the card toward me. “Lovely thing that you can never touch. Wouldn’t want to get her pretty blonde hair dirty with those dark hands of yours, would we? Not that she’s noticed you. She’s too busy with her eyes on some other prize.”

  The old gypsy slammed her knuckles on the next card, a sound like a gunshot. I didn’t jump, but my hand flew to a sidearm that was no longer there.

  “The Devil! You seek him out, but beware, little soldier. Hellfire awaits you down this path.”

  “Hellfire,” I whispered, “is behind me.”

  Her lip hitched up in an ugly sneer, smoke curling up from the pipe. “Sure it is, soldier.”

  The curtain behind Madame Yvonde twitched with a breeze, and I coughed at the smells stirred around. The pipe, the reefer. Shalimar perfume. Maybe the black powder was my imagination, but that tent filled with the odor of sulfur. Shots fired more than a decade before rang out in my ears. Shells and screams, and a woman singing along with Duke Ellington.

  I stared at the Empress and let my fingers trace the inked lines of her face. I wasn’t thinking of the blonde slinking into the tent, but I growled just the same. “Damned old gypsy.”

  “Still want to smile and tell me you don’t believe? Or are you going to pass me another of those crisp new bills so I can give you real wisdom?”

  Agent Trenet had come in silent as night, but when she spoke her voice was loud like the crack of dawn. “Or you could drop the bullshit.”

  My partner stood behind the Seer. A straight razor gleamed in the candlelight, poised against Yvonde’s throat.

  The Seer’s eyes rolled back in her head and fluttered dreamily as she drew in a long breath through her nose. With an obscene purr, Yvonde clutched at my partner’s hand. When she spoke, her voice was a low, throaty rumble. “Oh, Adele, it is wonderful to see you again.”

  “You haven’t seen me, Sanford, your eyes are closed.”

  Agent Adele Trenet pocketed her razor and stepped away from Yvonde, leaving me more than a little befuddled.

  “Sanford?” I asked.

  Yvonde opened her eyes. Agent Trenet tugged at the scarf on the gypsy’s head, removing both scarf and wig in one gesture. Russet curls sprouted from beneath a shoddy bald cap. And now, without the cover of all the rags about her head, I noticed Yvonde’s very prominent Adam’s apple.

  “Sanford?” I repeated.

  “Crash,” the gypsy said. Now that I listened, the voice couldn’t be anything other than a man’s.

  “His name,” Trenet said sharply, “is Sanford Haus.”

  Yvonde/Sanford took the agent’s hand in both of his. “Now, now, Pinky,” he said, dropping his lips to the backs of Trenet’s fingers. “You know how I loathe that name.”

  “And you know I hate it when you call me Pinky.”

  Trenet tried to pull her hand away, but Sanford held fast

  “Let us have a look, shall we?” The gypsy turned Trenet’s hand over in his and peered into her palm. Though he only traced the lines there with a single finger, the act was potent with meaning and lust. It made me uncomfortable to watch.

  “Oh, what’s this I see?” Sanford sang cheerfully. “You’re hunting again, Adele. Looking for something to make you whole and fill you up.”

  My partner rolled her eyes.

  “And I see just what you need,” Sanford said. He looked up at her like a wicked puppy. “A man, strapping and brilliant. One you’d travel to the ends of the earth to find. And it seems you have found him.”

  As the fortune teller brought his lips to her hand again, Trenet wrenched loose. “Never, Sanford.”

  “Crash,” he whined, bounding up from his chair. He tossed a cloak of scarves and rags to the floor, and stood at his proper height. His capped head brushed the ceiling of the tent. I boggled at how only moments ago, he’d folded most of that lanky frame into the image of a hunchbacked hag.

  “Agent Trenet, who is this?” I asked.

  Before she could answer, the gypsy spun to face me and thrust his hand across the table. “Vagabond. Performer. Owner and proprietor of Soggiorno Brothers Traveling Wonder Show. I am Crash.”

  “He’s a thief and a liar,” Trenet spat. She tossed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes and put some distance between her and Sanford Haus.

  Rather than bristle at the accusations, Haus smiled. He lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug and regarded me with interest. “And you, soldier boy? Have you a name?”

  I winced as I got to my feet. Shook his hand as I replied, “Jim Walker.”

  “Jim? Well, isn’t that just dandy?”

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “Know?”

  “That I am a—was”—I corrected myself quickly—“a soldier? All that stuff about South Carolina? Alabama? Did she tell you?”

  Trenet plopped into the chair I’d just vacated and crossed her arms over her chest. “Here we go.”

  “You walk with a stiff leg,” said Haus as he began to divest himself of Madame Yvonde’s ample hips. “The footprint of your right is significantly deeper than that of your left. You’ve had an injury of some sort that has led to amputation. While that might be more common for a farmer, you dress too well for someone working the fields. You’re of an age to have served in the Great War, so I can presume soldier.”

  Haus shimmied out of the costume while he explained. Beneath all those rags and scarves was a stained undershirt, brown trousers and suspenders. Sanford’s arms were ropy sinew and milk-white marble. He threw off the bald cap and tousled his red curls.

  “Now, there are very few regiments that are accepting of negroes. It’s clear by your accent that you are a northerner. There was one regiment from the North that saw enough fire that might account for your leg, and that was the 369th out of New York. They mustered in South Carolina. I made a very educated guess that you had been part of Harlem’s Hellfighters. You confirmed this suspicion when I needled you about Hellfire.”

  My jaw hung open. “You... that’s...”

  But he went on, enjoying the sound of his own voice. “After you returned from the war, you spent some time at Tuskegee in Alabama. I can tell that by the ring on your right hand, with the school’s seal.”

  “Incredible,” I gasped.

  “Now we get to the fun part. When you fished out your money, you made the mistake of flashing your badge. I am more than familiar with Pinkerton Agents,” he said with a nod to Trenet. “Considering our previous associations, I could only assume that Adele was with you. I stacked the cards and played to that knowledge by giving you The Empress.”

  “And the Devil?”

  Sanford Haus bowed. “I am what I am.”

  Agent Trenet let out a whoop of laughter. “You only wish, Haus.”

  “My wish has already been granted,” he smirked, sliding his thumbs up and down his suspenders. “You’re here, Adele. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “Well, for starters, your brother sends his regards.”

  Haus flopped into his chair and rested a boot on the old table. Taking another drag from his pipe, he muttered something dark that should never be said in front of a lady. “How is dear Leland?”

  “Leland Haus?” I blurted out. “The head of the Secret Service? If t
hat’s your family, Mr. Haus, that would make you a very rich man.”

  Sanford’s smug grin and flippant wave of his hand was all the confirmation I needed.

  Agent Trenet nodded. “Sometimes Director Haus prefers to keep an eye on his wayward sibling, make sure he’s keeping his nose clean while playing dress-up in the gutter.”

  “I’m happy here,” Sanford snapped. “Leland needn’t worry his tender sensibilities about little old me.”

  “He hopes you’ll come home and—”

  “Yes, I’m sure he does. Now, Adele, why are you really here? I hardly think Leland’s mommy complex would be just cause to send a couple of Pinks all this way. What do you have?”

  Trenet smiled despite herself. Reaching into her shoulder bag, she produced a photograph and held it to her forehead. Mimicking a spiritualist, she called out, “I see the Hermit.” She slapped the picture onto the table.

  Sanford gave the picture the most meager of glances. “A dead hobo. What of it?”

  “Ah-ha!” Agent Trenet fished out another photo and laid it beside the first. “He was murdered with this.”

  When his gaze took in the knife in the picture, Sanford Haus went still and silent. He steepled his hands beneath his chin and pondered, his eyes gone hard. He stared and stared at the photographs, unflinching and barely breathing. For long minutes, the only sounds came from the midway outside, muffled by the tent. When the carousel started up a new waltz, my partner turned her own leer onto the gypsy.

  “Problem, Sanford?”

  This shook him from his reverie.

  “Crash,” he chided.

  Then he was up, gathering all the pieces of Madame Yvonde from the floor. “This is a conversation for the back yard. Dear Adele. Mr. Dandy”—he thrust the bundle of rags into my chest—“follow me, if you please.”