The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part III

by David Marcum

  Since we were in the near neighborhood, we thought that dinner at Simpson’s might be pleasant. It was only after we had finished an unusually palatable and filling meal that Holmes seemed in the mood to discuss the Edward Stratton matter. Even though I had satisfied myself that I understood the basic workings of the money printing machine, I enjoyed listening to Holmes’s explanation of the details, which he began just as we lit our after dinner pipes.

  “You see, Watson,” he began, “the rollers between which Lustig placed the blank piece of paper weren’t actually rollers, in the usual sense. The cylinders concealed a conveyor belt made of some pliable cloth material. Before presenting any demonstration of the machine, Lustig loaded onto the belt some number of real bank notes. These were, then, rolled up out of sight, inside the belt. Now, when the machine was demonstrated to a potential customer, Lustig placed a blank rectangle of paper, with the same dimensions as the bank note, such that when the rollers were rotated, the paper was drawn into and concealed within the cloth belt while, at the same time, one of the actual bank notes previously loaded into the belt was dispensed on the other side of the rollers. When effected as expertly as Lustig could do it, it gave the perfect illusion that the blank piece of paper was being printed with the likeness of the bank note. For the gullible and greedy, this machine gave the promise of endless riches. What would a few thousand pounds be in exchange for a lifetime with a machine offering an endless source of perfect banknotes? A very enticing prospect, I’d say.”

  “What was the first thing that led you to think that something nefarious was afoot?” I asked.

  Holmes puffed his pipe thoughtfully, “Well, old fellow, in the beginning, I honestly thought that the matter was nothing more than another errant husband off on a tryst. The first matter that caused me to wrinkle my brow was the report of Stratton’s apparently having exchanged his one hundred pound for two fifty pound notes. I had surmised, at the time, that Stratton’s hundred pound note was the fruit of some ill-got gain. One can see why he might want to exchange the hundred pound note for notes of smaller denomination. One could not expect to walk into the local tobacconist’s shop, order an ounce of shag, and present a one hundred pound note in payment without raising a few eyebrows. But, if that had been his motivation, he would have wanted to acquire notes, perhaps even coins, of denominations commonly exchanged in every day commerce. Why two fifty pound notes? This was, indeed, puzzling for me. Of course, as you eventually found out, all he wanted to do was to see if the bank would accept, as genuine, a note printed by The Provider. The bank did accept it, for it was genuine.” Holmes puffed again, then continued, “Then it was curious that a man in possession of a hundred pounds, not an inconsiderable amount, would be seeking the services of a loan officer at a bank. He might have been repaying a loan, but he would probably have just done that at a teller’s window, rather than seeking audience with a loan official. He needed more money. My thought was immediately, for what? Hence, our pursuit of him to the mysterious building near the river.”

  “But, something must have alerted you to some criminal activity going on in that building, else you would not have arranged for the police to arrive in such a timely manner.” It was both a surmise on my part and a request for information.

  “Actually, Watson, you gave me the first clue,” Holmes said.

  “I?” I was astounded. I had done nothing.

  “It was the password.” Holmes said.

  “The password? What was it? Oh, yes, ‘hostina,’” I recalled.

  “You know, we did puzzle ourselves over that word and, you might recall, you asked if it were an English word. That set my brain awhirl. I couldn’t bring to mind any such English word, so I began to sort through my knowledge of foreign words that might sound like ‘hostina.’ Lustig was born in Hostinne, Austria. ‘Hostina,’ spoken by an Englishman, can certainly pass for the German ‘Hostinne.’ Lustig had used the name of the town of his birth as the password. Then, you may recall, I telephoned my housekeeper at my cottage and asked her to look in my scrapbook for information on Viktor Lustig. A few years ago, I had recorded something of his history of deceit and deception and committed those notes to the pages of my scrap-book.”

  “Holmes, how could you possibly know that Viktor Lustig was born in Hostinne, Austria?” I asked with a scarcely concealed note of incredulity in my tone.

  “I was in Paris in 1925.”

  “So?”

  “In Paris in 1925, Viktor Lustig was known as ‘the man who sold the Eiffel Tower’.”

  “What?”

  “I thought that you might have heard of that escapade,” Holmes said. “There was some notoriety associated with it. It seems that some officials in Paris had been bemoaning the cost of upkeep of the Tower, you know, maintenance, removing rust, painting, and so forth. That concern was noted in the press. Well, Lustig, ever the one to seize opportunity, through the use of counterfeit and forged documents, was able to pass himself off as an official of the city government in charge of demolishing the Tower. He held what appeared to have been an official meeting with various scrap dealers in the city. He told them that the Tower was to be demolished, and that the resulting huge residue of metal would be sold to the highest bidder. The whole issue was, of course, an absolute fraud, but he received bids on the scrap and absconded with the money before the scrap dealer found out that the Tower wasn’t going to be demolished at all. Someplace in my reading of the records of this event, I just encountered the fact that Lustig was born in Hostinne, Austria, and that just stuck in my mind, as such things sometimes do. We had, here, a series of fortunate vicissitudes which led to saving Edward Stratton and his friends from disaster and,” Holmes added with a chuckle, “actually, he is the better for all of it, for he will get to keep the hundred pounds which Lustig gave him as bait for his nefarious swindle.”

  Holmes stopped to recharge his pipe. He looked at me and said, “Watson, old friend, I think I shall return to Sussex tomorrow. I grow concerned about the well-being of my bees. I don’t like to leave them for so long. You and I have had a marvelous visit with something of an exciting end to it.”

  “I will regret seeing you go, Holmes,” I said, “but I certainly understand.”

  We took a taxicab back to Baker Street. Agnes had retired by the time Holmes and I returned, but I left a note, briefly explaining how all had been favorably resolved, and telling her that we would be vacating the flat next morning.

  I had not asked for anything special, but the very grateful Agnes had outdone herself for our goodbye breakfast. We had our usual rashers and eggs, coffee and tea, but on this date she added kippers, and some excellent fresh-baked scones, along with ample servings of butter and marmalade. We enjoyed the meal, mostly in silence, save for a few comments about the excellence of the food. I noticed Holmes’s eyes wandering around the room and hesitating here and there as, I suppose, he reflected, as I did, on the memories of all the interesting people who had crossed our threshold over the years, and all the fascinating adventures they had brought to us. We were both absorbed in our private reveries when Holmes finally rose from the table and said, “It is time to go now, Watson. I have a train to catch.”

  I arose, reluctantly, fetched his hat and coat. He had already packed his few belongings in a valise, so as soon as he donned his coat, and I mine, we were through the door and down the stairs. I stopped by Agnes’s flat to deliver the key and to tell her that Holmes and I would be going now, and that I would send for my things later. Her eyes glistened with tears, as I admit, did my own, as we said goodbye.

  By the time I joined Holmes at the curbside, his taxicab had already arrived. We shook hands with both of us prolonging our grasps longer than necessary.

  “Holmes, I hope you won’t mind if I don’t accompany you to the station. To tell you the truth, I am a bit washed out and not really feeling quite as chipper as I’d like. I
guess that with all the excitement...”

  “Certainly, old friend,” he said, “neither of us is as young as we once were. Go home and take a good rest. I can certainly find my way to the station after all these years. I have to admit that goodbyes are not my forte. I never know quite what to say. I think, though, that ‘farewell’ might be just the right thing.”

  “Yes, knowing just what to say is never easy for me, either, but I’ve heard the Yanks use an expression that I think most suitable, ‘I’ll be seeing you.’” I said.

  He smiled and nodded agreement.

  “Perhaps next year?” I offered.

  “Perhaps,” he agreed. One final handshake and he was away in his taxi.

  I hailed my own taxi. Holmes’s voice and the word “perhaps” continued to linger in my mind all the way home.

  About the Contributors

  Mark Alberstat, BSI, has been a Sherlockian based in Nova Scotia since his early teens, when he began reading the stories from his father’s two-volume Doubleday edition. When he discovered the wider world of Sherlock Holmes, he was fortunate enough to become a regular correspondent with American John Bennett Shaw, who encouraged Mark to start a local club, which he did while still in high school. That club, The Spence Munros, continues to meet and is the Sherlockian achievement of which Mark is most proud. In addition, Mark, and his wife, JoAnn, edit Canadian Holmes, the quarterly journal published by The Bootmakers of Toronto. At the January 2014 Baker Street Irregulars dinner, Mark was given the investiture name of Halifax.

  Peter K. Andersson is a Swedish historian specialising in urban culture in the late nineteenth century. He has previously published a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, The Cotswolds Werewolf and Other Stories of Sherlock Holmes.

  Claire Bartlett is a writer and journalist who has worked extensively in comics and magazines. With her regular writing partner, Iain McLaughlin, she has worked on several radio and audio series, including Doctor Who and UNIT for Big Finish Productions and Imagination Theater’s horror anthology series, and Kerides the Thinker, which she co-created and co-writes with McLaughlin. They have also written novels for Big Finish Productions, Telos Publishing, and Thebes Publishing. She is currently working on a non-fiction book for publication in 2015. Claire lives in Dundee, Scotland.

  Bob Byrne was a columnist for Sherlock Magazine and has contributed to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and the Sherlock Holmes short story collection Curious Incidents. He publishes two free online newsletters: Baker Street Essays and The Solar Pons Gazette, both of which can be found at www.SolarPons.com, the only website dedicated to August Derleth’s successor to the great detective. Bob’s column, The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes, appears every Monday morning at www.BlackGate.com and explores Holmes, hard boiled, and other mystery matters, and whatever other topics come to mind by the deadline. His mystery-themed blog is Almost Holmes.

  Leslie F.E. Coombs is a true polymath whose interests include the writings and work of Conan Doyle, and he is a Holmes devotee. He has a keen interest in the social and technical history of Victorian Britain, and has extensive knowledge of military weaponry and ergonomics, and of naval, military, aviation and transport technologies. In addition to his writing of books and articles for magazines, he has written extensively on aviation and steam locomotion, and he is an editor and publisher’s reader. Leslie Coombs’s fictional writing has already produced two collections of Holmes short stories, and “The Royal Arsenal Affair” is one of a number of short stories which will appear in his third collection, to be published shortly.

  David Stuart Davies BSI is a long time Sherlockian. He is a member of Sherlock Holmes Society of London and an invested Baker Street Irregular. He is a writer and editor and author of six Sherlock Holmes novels - the latest being Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Promise (Titan), and two books on the films of the Great Detective. He has also penned two plays about Holmes and Bending the Willow, a volume about Jeremy Brett playing Sherlock. David is a member of the national committee of the Crime Writer’s Association and edits their monthly magazine, Red Herrings. He has edited various collections of mystery & supernatural fiction and is the author of two crime series: one set in the Second World War featuring the detective Johnny One Eye, and another based in Yorkshire in the 1980’s with DI Paul Snow. The latest novel in this series is Innocent Blood (Mystery Press).

  C. Edward “Chuck” Davis was born and raised in New Jersey, and has lived in Colorado since 1993. He worked for over forty years as a draftsman and technical illustrator for AT&T, Sikorsky Aircraft, Exxon Engineering and Research, and Lockheed-Martin/Federal Aviation Administration. Additionally, he provided research, editing, illustrations, and technical advisory services for a number of publications, and is currently working on several projects, including The Lunarnauts: The Rescue of Professor Cavor (A sequel to the 1901 H. G. Wells novel The First Men in the Moon), The Years of Infamy: The Japanese Invasion of Hawaii, and The Lion of the Sea (Il Leone di Mare), a historical fictional novel based upon the experiences of his late father-in-law who served in the Italian Navy during World War II.

  Stuart Douglas runs Obverse Books www.obversebooks.co.uk, a small genre publisher. He has written short stories for many imprints, and his debut novel, Sherlock Holmes: The Albino’s Treasure has just been released by Titan Books.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) Holmes Chronicler Emeritus. If not for him, this anthology would not exist. Author, physician, patriot, sportsman, spiritualist, husband and father, and advocate for the oppressed. He is remembered and honored for the purposes of this collection by being the man who introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world. Through fifty-six Holmes short stories, four novels, and additional Apocryphal entries, Doyle revolutionized mystery stories and also greatly influenced and improved police forensic methods and techniques for the betterment of all. Steel True Blade Straight

  Séamas Duffy lives and works in Glasgow. His areas of interest are crime fiction, historical fiction, social history, and London writing. He has contributed articles to the London Fictions website and to the Baker Street Journal, and wrote the Foreword for The Aggravations of Minnie Ashe by Cyril Kersh, published by Valancourt Books in January 2014. His first collection Sherlock Holmes In Paris was published Black Coat Press in February 2013, and in May 2015 Sherlock Holmes and The Four Corners of Hell was published by Robert Hale of London. A third novel The Tenants of Cinnamon Street will be published in autumn 2015. This is historical crime fiction set in 1811, centred on Aaron Graham - a real Bow Street Magistrate - who investigated the Ratcliff Highway Murders. Séamas Duffy is also a musician and composer with an interest in Irish Language and History, and has produced Tairngreacht Na nDraoideann (“A Druid’s Prophecy”) in Irish and Ó Ghartan Go Ghlaschú: Odaisé Colm Cille (“From Gartan to Glasgow: Odyssey of Colm Cille”) in Irish and Scottish Gaelic - both suites of Celtic music and song celebrating aspects of early Celtic culture, the latter emphasising the shared cultural heritage of Scottish and Irish Gaels.

  Matthew J. Elliott is the author of Lost in Time and Space: An Unofficial Guide to the Uncharted Journeys of Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes on the Air (2012), Sherlock Holmes in Pursuit (2013), The Immortals: An Unauthorized Guide to Sherlock and Elementary (2013), and The Throne Eternal (2014). His articles, fiction and reviews have appeared in the magazines Scarlet Street, Total DVD, SHERLOCK, and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and the collections The Game’s Afoot, Curious Incidents 2, Gaslight Grimoire, and The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8. He has scripted over 260 radio plays, including episodes of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, The Twilight Zone, The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories, and award-winning adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles and The War of the Worlds. Matthew is a writer and performer on RiffTrax.com, the online comedy experience from the creators of cult sci-fi TV
series Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K to the initiated). He’s also written a few comic books.

  Steve Emecz’s main field is technology, in which he has been working for about twenty years. Following multiple senior roles at Xerox, where he grew their European eCommerce from $6m to $200m, Steve joined platform provider Venda, and moved across to Powa Technologies in 2010. Steve is a regular trade show speaker on the subject of mobile commerce, and his time at Powa has taken him to more than forty countries - so he’s no stranger to planes and airports. He wrote two novels (one bestseller) in the 1990’s and a screenplay in 2001. Shortly after he set up MX Publishing, specialising in NLP books. In 2008, MX published its first Sherlock Holmes book, and MX has gone on to become the largest specialist Holmes publisher in the world, with around one hundred authors and over two hundred books. Profits from MX go towards his second passion - a children’s rescue project in Nairobi, Kenya, where he and his wife, Sharon, spend every Christmas at the rescue centre in Kasarani. In 2014, they wrote a short book about the project, The Happy Life Story.

  James R. “Jim” French became a morning DJ on KIRO (AM) in Seattle in 1959. He later founded Imagination Theatre, a syndicated program that is now broadcast on over 120 stations in the U.S. and Canada, and also heard on the XM Satellite Radio system all over North America. Actors in French’s dramas have included John Patrick Lowrie, Larry Albert, Patty Duke, Russell Johnson, Tom Smothers, Keenan Wynn, Roddy MacDowall, Ruta Lee, John Astin, Cynthia Lauren Tewes, and Richard Sanders. Mr. French states, “To me, the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson always seemed to be figures Doyle created as a challenge to lesser writers. He gave us two interesting characters - different from each other in their histories, talents and experience but complimentary as a team - who have been applied to a variety of situations and plots far beyond the times and places in the Canon. In the hands of different writers, Holmes and Watson have lent their identities to different times, ages, and even genders. But I wanted to break no new ground. I feel Sir Arthur provided us with enough references to locations, landmarks, and the social conditions of his time, to give a pretty large canvas on which to paint our own images and actions to animate Holmes and Watson.”