“No,” Miss Hargrove corrected him, “the cruellest thing you’ve ever heard is that I once had a beau, when I was young. I turned down six separate offers of marriage while waiting for him to start a life for us in Philadelphia. Years passed. Hundreds of letters. Eventually, his sister wired me to say she had found all my heartfelt missives, and she thought I deserved to know that his young wife was pregnant with their second child. Goodnight, gentlemen. I trust you can find your own way out.”
Supposing I live long enough, maybe I can manage to forget the look in her eyes when she said those words. Or the stricken expression on Dr. Watson’s face when he heard them.
One thing, in all this mess, is for certain.
This is the sort of case that could only ever have involved Sherlock bloody Holmes.
Entry in the diary of Inspector Geoffrey Lestrade
Sunday, 13 January 1889
Passed my day of rest with Jonas and Mum and Dad. Lamb stew with carrots and turnips and a good bottle of burgundy. Jonas seems happier the longer it gets from 6 January, and I imagine I’ll soon feel the same way about this wretched case. Miss Wilhemina Sparks has been recovered, I hear; she made her way to the local station after having been stood up and boarded a train for the metropolis, hopes and dreams once again shattered. Mr. Holmes wired me to say that a tearful reunion with her sister was unfolding and that he’d “arrange everything”, whatever that might mean. As for Miss Hargrove herself, she had a point: I don’t know what in hell I’d arrest her for.
Through with writing. For the moment. Just rest, and quiet. There will be more cases tomorrow.
Entry in the diary of Inspector Geoffrey Lestrade
Monday, 14 January 1889
My life as I’ve counted on it for these long years is through.
I thought I knew when determination was what was needed of me. Persistence, some courage, enough sheer grit to stick it out.
I also thought I knew when things were hopeless. Could be laid in the ground at last, left to decompose and then slowly heal over.
I thought I knew the limits of what Sherlock bloody Holmes is capable of.
One thing about Sherlock Holmes, though: you’ll never get his limit.
I suppose I’m just going to have to learn to love that about him.
This morning, I was bone-weary enough not to expect anyone to barge into my office. Foolish, in retrospect. Altogether amateurish. I didn’t bother tidying up the last orange peel from the holiday basket my parents gave me, loosened my shirt collar when I sat down to work, opened a case file I wanted another look at and didn’t bother to put it away when I was done. Or to rewrite it all out clean because I’d splashed coffee on the corner.
“Good morning, Lestrade!” Sherlock Holmes exclaimed when he invaded my sanctum. “Ah, I see you’ve been savouring the last remaining bounties of Christmas cheer – you’ll have to tell me sometime where your mother locates such fine specimens of Citrus sinensis, as Dr. Watson is likewise partial. One can atone for nearly any sin with that fellow provided one makes a friend of the greengrocer. Dear me! Please don’t tell me we need to bother over the Lake Mayne matter again. Athelney Jones is very seldom right about anything, but when it involves moneyed aristocracy attempting to tip the scales of justice at the Assizes, particularly in the Chester Circuit, I cannot help but chime in my hearty agreement. Shall I ring for more coffee? You appear rather in need of it.”
“Get out.” My face was buried in my palms.
Sitting down, Mr. Holmes fussed with a cufflink. “My dear Lestrade, you appear to be somewhat under the weather.”
Opening my hands, I spread them. “I am begging you. No oranges. No reading paperwork upside down. No deductions. This is me, pleading, humbling myself before the superior detective. I’ll say anything you like. I’ll do anything you like. Please, for God’s sake, just—”
“I thought you might like to know that Verle Crowley, your late sister’s husband, is currently in police custody and will shortly be awaiting trial.”
I stared at him.
And stared.
“Lestrade, do please take a breath, there’s a good fellow.” Mr. Holmes looked almost sheepish.
He poured me a large brandy, then thought better of it and threw open the window, slapping me twice on the back for good measure.
“All right, all right!” I choked. “What have you… how…” I stared up at the gangly chap, dumbfounded.
Shoving his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them, Mr. Holmes returned to his side of the desk. “Are you sure you’re well? I’ve shocked you, and following a difficult case to boot, and if you need another moment—”
“Mr. Holmes!”
He nodded and levered himself back into the chair.
“Well, you see, there was never anything remarkable about it. I quite trust your judgement in professional matters, as you know, and your word was enough to convince me that Mr. Crowley was a blight on the face of London. You told me that he worked in tea import speculation, so there was my starting point. Obviously, if a man of your passion and commitment to seeing the arson case through couldn’t find sufficient evidence to lead to a conviction, then some ten years later, what could I possibly unearth? However, when one is dealing with a brute ‘polluted with his lusts, stain’d with the guiltless blood of innocents, corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices—’”
“Enough of Henry the Sixth, please!” I cried.
“Quite.” Mr. Holmes’s cheeks dusted with actual colour. It was the most impossible thing I’ve ever seen him do. “Yes, what I meant to say was that most men who abuse women in such fashion are unrepentant blackguards. I’ve friends in high places, key government positions, and I did a little digging. Verle Crowley, in addition to murder and arson, is guilty of gross embezzlement and securities fraud. Surely this is the least surprising thing about the wretch. So you see, it was all absurdly simple. I weighed the balance of probability, deduced that he had continued his life of crime, and exposed him. I imagine you should have preferred to witness his murder trial—”
There was never any choice apart from diving out from behind my desk and pumping his hand so hard I think I must have bruised the absurd creature. His eyes flew open in shock.
“I don’t know what to say to this. I never expected, I never… Bless you! God bless you, Sherlock bloody Holmes. Thank you. I can never repay you for such a gift.”
“Dear God in heaven!” He was backing away, extricating himself from my frenzied grip. “It was nothing, it was—”
“It was the maddest, kindest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
The detective practically threw his handkerchief at me. “Lestrade, please calm yourself!”
“I’ll do no such thing!”
“Sit down this instant. It was only a matter of—”
“You are incredible.” Laughing hysterically, I wiped the tears streaming down my cheeks. “A wonder, you are. The eighth wonder of the bloody—”
“Look at the time!” Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, genuinely panicked. “You are most heartily welcome, and – no, no, please keep the handkerchief, and – I’ve some business with Bradstreet that won’t keep, and the Sparks sisters are quite well and sharing new rooms, and Miss Hope Hargrove is presently the subject of a very large cautionary advertisement I took out in the Ladies’ Society Journal, so I will bid you good morning, and I assure you that we need never discuss the, ah, the other matter ever again, as between friends.”
With that, he fled the premises. My friend, Mr. Sherlock bloody Holmes of Baker Street, to whom I now owe a debt of honour that can never be repaid.
Now that I’ve finished recording this miracle in my journal, I’ll pay a call on my parents and Jonas. I’ve picked up champagne. And more oranges. And I’ve already stopped by Hannah’s grave.
It isn’t enough. It can never be what she truly deserved. But it’s a bit of justice done. And I can live my life for that – the work. The work has to be eno
ugh. Even if it’s never truly finished.
And now, at the very least, I know exactly how to send Sherlock Holmes flying hell for leather out of my office.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Martin Rosenstock studied modern literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After job hopping around the colder latitudes of the U.S., he decided to return to warmer climes and took a teaching position in Kuwait. He has contributed stories to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. When not brooding over plot twists, he spends too much time travelling.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Stuart Douglas is an author, editor and publisher, who has written three Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books, and contributed stories to the anthologies Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes, and The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. He runs Obverse Books and lives in Edinburgh.
James Lovegrove is the author of nearly 60 books, including The Hope, Days, Untied Kingdom, Provender Gleed, and the New York Times bestselling Pantheon series. He has produced five Sherlock Holmes novels and a Holmes/Lovecraft mashup trilogy, Cthulhu Casebooks: The Shadwell Shadows, The Miskatonic Monstrosities, and The Sussex Sea-Devils.
James has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His work has been translated into fifteen languages. He reviews fiction regularly for the Financial Times and lives with his wife, two sons and tiny dog in Eastbourne, not far from the site of the “small farm upon the South Downs” to which Sherlock Holmes retired.
Derrick Belanger is an author, publisher, and educator most noted for his books and lectures on Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A number of his books have been #1 bestsellers in their categories on Amazon.com. Derrick is co-owner of the publishing company Belanger Books, which published the first ebook editions of the original Solar Pons books by August Derleth. Derrick is a board member of Dr. Watson’s Neglected Patients, the Denver-based Scion Society, and in 2019 was inducted into the Praed Street Irregulars. He currently resides in Broomfield, Colorado. Find him at www.belangerbooks.com.
Andrew Lane is the author of, amongst many other things, the eight Young Sherlock Holmes novels, which ask the questions: what was Sherlock Holmes like as a teenager? What had to happen to him to turn him into the complex character we know and love? He has contributed short stories to the Titan anthologies The Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes, The Associates of Sherlock Holmes, and The Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes, and Titan has also published his adult SF novel Netherspace (written with Nigel Foster).
David Stuart Davies is the author of eight Sherlock Holmes novels and Starring Sherlock Holmes, which details the detective’s film career. David’s two successful one-man plays, Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act and Sherlock Holmes: The Life & Death, have been recorded on audio CD by The Big Finish. His new play, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Reckoning, premiered in Edinburgh in February 2018.
David is the author of other works of crime fiction; his latest novels are Blood Rites and Oliver Twist & The Mystery of Throate Manor. He is a Baker Street Irregular, a member of The Detection Club and edits Red Herrings, the monthly magazine of the Crime Writers’ Association.
Amy Thomas is the author of The Detective and The Woman novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, as well as pastiches featured in the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. Her essays have been published in the Sherlockian anthologies About Sixty, Femme Friday, and Sherlock Holmes Is Like. In addition, she podcasts and reviews Holmesian media for the Baker Street Babes Podcast. She edits and ghostwrites from her home in Fort Myers, Florida.
Lyndsay Faye is the internationally bestselling, multiple Edgar Award-nominated author of the Sherlock Holmes pastiche Dust and Shadow, the Timothy Wilde trilogy, Jane Steele, and The Paragon Hotel. Her pastiches have appeared in the Strand Magazine, many anthologies, Best American Mystery Stories 2010, and are collected in the volume The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. She guest writes for the Eisner Award-nominated Watson and Holmes comic from New Paradigm, and her works have been translated into 14 languages. She lives in Queens with her husband and cats.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
ENCOUNTERS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
EDITED BY GEORGE MANN
The spirit of Sherlock Holmes lives on in this collection of fourteen brand-new adventures. Marvel as the master of deduction aids a dying Sir Richard Francis Burton; matches wits with gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles; crosses paths with H.G. Wells in the most curious circumstances; unravels a macabre mystery on the Necropolis Express; unpicks a murder in a locked railway carriage; explains the origins of his famous Persian slipper and more!
FEATURING ORIGINAL STORIES FROM
MARK HODDER • MAGS L. HALLIDAY
CAVAN SCOTT • NICK KYME • PAUL MAGRS
GEORGE MANN • STUART DOUGLAS
ERIC BROWN • RICHARD DINNICK
KELLY HALE • STEVE LOCKLEY
MARK WRIGHT • DAVID BARNETT
JAMES LOVEGROVE
TITANBOOKS.COM
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
ASSOCIATES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
EDITED BY GEORGE MANN
For the very first time, famous associates of the Great Detective – clients, colleagues, and of course, villains – tell their own stories in this collection of brand-new adventures. Follow Inspector Lestrade as he and Sherlock Holmes pursue a killer to rival Jack the Ripper; sit with Mycroft Holmes as he solves a case from the comfort of the Diogenes Club; take a drink with Irene Adler and Dr Watson in a Parisian café; and join Colonel Sebastian Moran on the hunt for a supposedly mythical creature…
FEATURING ORIGINAL STORIES FROM
JONATHAN BARNES • KARA DENNISON
LINDSAY FAYE • SIMON BUCHER-JONES
NICK KYME • ANDY LANE • TIM PRATT
JAMES LOVEGROVE • WILLIAM MIEKLE
CAVAN SCOTT • JEFFREY THOMAS
IAN EDGINTON • JAINE FENN
TITANBOOKS.COM
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