The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes

by James Lovegrove

  “That necklace of yours, madam, was my first clue. I observed that the initials engraved upon it had been altered. Crossbars had been added in order to create the ‘E.E.’, and I could tell the original inscription had in fact been ‘F.L.’. Now, of course, you could have bought the necklace second-hand and had it altered. Equally, it occurred to me that you might have changed ‘F.L.’ to ‘E.E.’ as part of a process of transformation from one identity to another. Given that you were wearing a veil and wig, the latter option seemed the likelier.”

  “I see. Was that all?”

  “The photographs in your hall. Those were my next clue. Who else would keep such a series of images on display but the mother of the subject? There was a certain familial resemblance there, too. The lad in the pictures had your chin. And, most pertinently of all, the photograph that was last in chronological order depicted a young man dressed in the uniform of a merchant mariner – tunic, cap, lanyard. Thus I began to descry a possible link between you and Sir Hubert. The link was strengthened considerably when I interviewed Sir Hubert’s valet and learned how Sir Hubert had been verbally assailed by a Mrs Fenella Leinster. A woman with the initials ‘F.L.’, whose name was a combination of the same letters as Ellen Efralstein.”

  “Oh, you noticed that, Mr Holmes, did you?”

  “We are both good at what we do, Mrs Leinster.” Holmes smiled wryly. “All these things led me to the doors of Lloyd’s, where a helpful clerk showed me the register of lost Pole Star ships. It did not take me long to find an Eagle among them, nor to discover the name Leinster listed in the roll call of the dead. From there on, the case was more or less solved. It was simply a matter of choosing how best to bring it to a close. I hit upon the notion of using a medium and holding a special séance. I embarked upon the task of teaching myself the art of mediumship, and within a couple of days had the measure of it.”

  I thought of Mrs Hudson and her complaints about Holmes’s recent noisy behaviour at Baker Street. It was clear, now, what he had been up to in his rooms.

  “A couple of days?” said Mrs Leinster. “It took me months! I went to countless séances so as to fathom the techniques used. Then, only when I was confident I could replicate them, I set myself up as a medium and began painstakingly building a reputation in that field.”

  “Time I did not have. That is why I came up with the character of Swami Dhokha, mystic from the subcontinent. Unlike you, a medium from India would not need to build a reputation locally. He would need only the imprimatur of Alec Carstairs, private secretary to Sir Hubert Cole. That would be his entrée into the spiritualist demimonde. And as he hails from another country rather than from within the rather close-knit circles in which you London mediums move, none of you would find it suspicious that you had not heard of him. Yet I felt I could not in all conscience masquerade as an Indian. Thus I recruited Mr Bakshi, whom I have met several times at the Old Bailey through his involvement in trials based upon cases that I have investigated. Mr Bakshi has impressed me not only with his lawyerly rhetoric but with his propensity for the dramatic flourish. He, I knew, would make an excellent Swami Dhokha. I passed on to him all that I had worked out about being a medium, and he picked it up with ease. Between him and Mr Carstairs, some eerie effects were successfully generated. You had fun, did you not, gentlemen?”

  Ishaan Bakshi nodded smilingly.

  “We did,” Carstairs said. “At times I found it a struggle not to laugh as I cavorted around the room with my bits of painted card.”

  “The two of you did a good job,” Mrs Leinster allowed. “You have quite the knack for it.”

  “As do you, madam,” said Holmes. “Watson was almost wholly taken in by you at the séance he and I attended. Weren’t you, Watson?”

  I nodded, a touch shamefacedly.

  “I would even say,” Holmes went on, returning his gaze to Mrs Leinster, “that your ability to infer data about someone just from close observation of their person nearly rivals my own.”

  His tone carried a note of condescension, but Mrs Leinster chose to be flattered.

  “You are too kind, sir,” said she.

  “It strikes me as curious, however, that you continued to practise mediumship after Sir Hubert’s death. I would have thought that, having achieved your sole purpose in becoming a medium, you would immediately have retired and gone back to being Fenella Leinster once more. Yet instead Watson and I were able to engage Ellen Efralstein’s services.”

  “Would it not have been too obvious a sign of culpability if I had abandoned the role so suddenly? It was better that I kept at it, so that no suspicion might attach to me. Besides, the extra money my séances have brought in has not gone amiss. I must ask, though, Mr Holmes, what do you intend to do about me now? Am I to be arrested?”

  “When all is said and done, what killed Sir Hubert Cole was Sir Hubert Cole. His guilt, tiny creature though it was, had been destroying him by degrees for a while, like woodworm in a ship’s timbers. All you did was help it finish the job. However, even if I may not wholly disapprove of your goal, I can hardly support the method by which you went about achieving it, nor the fact that Sir Hubert was not the only person whom you defrauded. I would beg you, madam, to abandon the role of medium from here on and find yourself some other form of gainful employment.”

  “To that end, Mrs Leinster,” Carstairs interjected before the lady could reply, “I would like to offer you a consideration, if I may. Compensation for the loss of your son. Once I have come into my inheritance, I shall set up a trust fund for you that will allow you to live out the rest of your days in comfort.”

  “Oh, heavens,” Mrs Leinster said, overcome with emotion. “I cannot… Sir, it is too much.”

  Turning to Holmes, Carstairs said, “I can, of course, rely on you to keep your end of our bargain, sir, can I not?”

  My friend nodded. “I will, as promised, sign an affidavit declaring you to have had no direct connection with Sir Hubert’s death. There will always be those ready to condemn you, come what may – Deakins, for instance – and such a document can do nothing about that. If required, however, I will take the witness stand in a court of law to bear testimony to your good character and demonstrate you innocent in all respects. You will not find a stauncher advocate than me.”

  “I thank you.”

  “Payment of my fee in full will be gratitude enough.”

  “I can well afford it,” Carstairs said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I can also well afford to help others whom the Pole Star Line has wronged, in addition to Mrs Leinster here. Reparations will be made out of my own pocket to anyone to whom Sir Hubert’s negligence has brought misery. Furthermore, I shall see to it that the buyer I choose for the line will be honourable and will undertake to render the ships properly seaworthy before any of them sail again. This I swear.”

  As he made the vow, Alec Carstairs seemed, in that moment, to stand a little taller and straighter than before. I realised that in front of me was a young man who had come into his own and knew at last what life demanded of him. I envisaged that from this day forth, he would no longer be troubled by eczema or any other nervous complaint, and that he would use his newfound wealth wisely. His encounter with Sherlock Holmes had been the making of him, as it had been and would be for many another of Holmes’s clients.

  * * *

  Later, Holmes and I left the basement flat. Both Carstairs and Ishaan Bakshi had gone before us. Holmes had insisted upon handing the latter ten pounds, even though Bakshi insisted he would have done the work pro bono.

  “It was as satisfying as any prosecution I have brought,” he said. “Nothing pleases me more, Mr Holmes, than seeing criminals getting their just deserts – especially criminals whom the law cannot touch.”

  Holmes looked thinner now. He had removed the padding that had bulked out his figure to obese proportions and he had changed into his normal clothes.

  The fog looked thinner too. I dared to hope that its dismal reign was over an
d it was finally lifting.

  “Do you reckon,” I said to my companion as we strolled towards Baker Street, “that those three mediums – Mrs Potts, Ventnor Brown, and Lapham – will learn from the lesson you taught them?”

  Holmes gave an ironical chuckle. “I would like to think so, Watson,” he said, “but I doubt it. Their sort are incorrigible. Once a cheat, always a cheat. Unlike Mrs Leinster, they will be back to their bilking ways tomorrow, I am quite certain. There will be no recanting, no repudiation of spiritualism. Far from it. They enjoy the money too much, not to mention the cold, calculating satisfaction that comes from fleecing human sheep. All I can hope is that, as with Sir Hubert, in the depths of their wretched souls they feel guilty. If I have instilled even a modicum of self-reproach in them, then I have done a good deed this evening.”

  By dawn the next morning, the fog was gone altogether, leaving not a wisp behind. The sun shone and, it being a Sunday, I took the opportunity to go to All Saints’ Cemetery in Nunhead to visit my brother’s grave. There, in that sprawling necropolis, I bent my head in silent contemplation of a life not well lived. I prayed that, wherever Harry was now, he had found contentment.

  The soughing of a breeze through the autumn branches sounded, just for a moment, like the whisper of a voice. A voice that said, “Yes.”

  James Lovegrove is the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Odin. He was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1998 and for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2004, and also reviews fiction for the Financial Times. He is the author of Firefly: The Magnificent Nine and of Firefly: Big Damn Hero with Nancy Holder and several Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books.

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  THE THINKING ENGINE

  James Lovegrove

  It is 1895, and Sherlock Holmes is settling back into life as a consulting detective at 221B Baker Street, when he and Watson learn of strange goings-on amidst the dreaming spires of Oxford.

  A Professor Quantock has built a wondrous computational device, which he claims is capable of analytical thought to rival the cleverest men alive. Naturally Sherlock Holmes cannot ignore this challenge. He and Watson travel to Oxford, where a battle of wits ensues between the great detective and his mechanical counterpart as they compete to see which of them can be first to solve a series of crimes, from a bloody murder to a missing athlete. But as man and machine vie for supremacy, it becomes clear that the Thinking Engine has its own agenda…

  “The plot, like the device, is ingenious, with a chilling twist… an entertaining, intelligent and pacy read.”

  The Sherlock Holmes Journal

  “Lovegrove knows his Holmes trivia and delivers a great mystery that will fans will enjoy, with plenty of winks and nods to the canon.”

  Geek Dad

  “Brilliance itself.” The Book Bag

  TITANBOOKS.COM

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  THE PATCHWORK DEVIL

  Cavan Scott

  It is 1919, and while the world celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Holmes and Watson are called to a grisly discovery.

  A severed hand has been found on the bank of the Thames, a hand belonging to a soldier who supposedly died in the trenches two years ago. But the hand is fresh, and shows signs that it was recently amputated. So how has it ended up back in London two years after its owner was killed in France? Warned by Sherlock’s brother Mycroft to cease their investigation, and only barely surviving an attack by a superhuman creature, Holmes and Watson begin to suspect a conspiracy at the very heart of the British government…

  “Scott poses an intriguing puzzle for an older Holmes and Watson to tackle.” Publishers Weekly

  “Interesting and exciting in ways that few Holmes stories are these days.” San Francisco Book Review

  “A thrilling tale for Scott’s debut in the Sherlock Holmes world.” Sci-Fi Bulletin

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  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  LABYRINTH OF DEATH

  James Lovegrove

  It is 1895, and Sherlock Holmes’s new client is a high court judge, whose free-spirited daughter has disappeared without a trace.

  Holmes and Watson discover that the missing woman – Hannah Woolfson – was herself on the trail of a missing person, her close friend Sophia. Sophia was recruited to a group known as the Elysians, a quasi-religious sect obsessed with Ancient Greek myths and rituals, run by the charismatic Sir Philip Buchanan. Hannah has joined the Elysians under an assumed name, convinced that her friend has been murdered. Holmes agrees that she should continue as his agent within the secretive yet seemingly harmless cult, yet Watson is convinced Hannah is in terrible danger. For Sir Philip has dreams of improving humanity through classical ideals, and at any cost…

  “A writer of real authority and one worthy of taking the reader back to the dangerous streets of Victorian London in the company of the Great Detective.” Crime Time

  “Lovegrove does a convincing job of capturing Watson’s voice.” Publishers Weekly

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