Sherlock Holmes--The Devil's Dust Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Chapter One: A Fraudulent Client and a Familiar One

  Chapter Two: Inigo Niemand’s Last Supper

  Chapter Three: The Shadower

  Chapter Four: A Distaff Bluebeard?

  Chapter Five: Macumazahn

  Chapter Six: Hunting Hunter Quatermain

  Chapter Seven: Daring Dan

  Chapter Eight: The Peregrinations of Black Jack Corcoran

  Chapter Nine: Encounters in the East End

  Chapter Ten: Into the Hive

  Chapter Eleven: The King of Shoreditch

  Chapter Twelve: The Man in the Chair

  Chapter Thirteen: The Choice of Target

  Chapter Fourteen: V.R

  Chapter Fifteen: Gone to Ground

  Chapter Sixteen: The Siren Call of Excitement and Derring-Do

  Chapter Seventeen: Silasville

  Chapter Eighteen: The Skeleton Key that Unlocks Many a Door

  Chapter Nineteen: Bat Amongst the Pigeons

  Chapter Twenty: Another Kind of Jungle, Another Kind of Wildlife

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Devil’s Dust

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Under Fire

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Romulus Minus Remus

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Angler’s Tale

  Chapter Twenty-Five: A Vision of Highwaymen

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Journey to Epping Forest

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Eyes

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Shepherded by Wolves

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Thing-That-Should-Never-Have-Been-Born

  Chapter Thirty: Impasse No. 1

  Chapter Thirty-One: Impasse No. 2

  Chapter Thirty-Two: The Magic of Science and the Science of Magic

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

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  Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Dust

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785653612

  Electronic edition ISBN: 9781785653629

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: July 2018

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 James Lovegrove. All Rights Reserved.

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  FOREWORD

  The early portion of my friend Mr Sherlock Holmes’s career is to a large extent terra incognita as far as these humble memoirs of mine are concerned. In my defence, I am hardly spoiled for choice when it comes to selecting material suitable to present to my readers. The commissions Holmes received were sporadic during the years when he was establishing himself in his unique vocation, for he had yet to garner the reputation – a reputation I have gone some small way towards fostering – that would lead to more extraordinary and compelling cases being brought to his attention.

  One episode from this period of his life nevertheless clamours to be recounted. It tells how Holmes crossed paths – and swords – with a certain adventurer whose prowess as a big game hunter was second to none, and whose escapades on the African continent were becoming the stuff of legend, even as the man himself was entering the twilight of old age.

  Here, then, is a narrative detailing how Sherlock Holmes, a man of mind, met Allan Quatermain, a man of action, and the dramas that ensued.

  John H. Watson, MD, 1904

  CHAPTER ONE

  A FRAUDULENT CLIENT AND A FAMILIAR ONE

  “I assure you, sir,” said Sherlock Holmes, “I shall not be taking your case.”

  The man seated opposite him was agog. I myself was not a little surprised.

  “But… But…” Mr Farley Danvers spluttered. “For heaven’s sake, why?”

  “For these reasons.” Holmes ticked them off on his fingers one by one. “First, you are not, as you claim, a concert pianist. Second, you do not have a twin brother, identical or otherwise. Third, you are in the habit of not paying bills promptly. You are, to put it bluntly, a cheat, and I want no truck with you.”

  Danvers brandished a chequebook. “You would refuse money?”

  “You do not deny my accusations?”

  “I deny them most vehemently. I have set out the facts of my predicament with all honesty. I am willing to employ you, at the going rate, to conduct an investigation into the theft of my property. Surely you cannot turn me down.”

  “I can and I shall,” said Holmes. “Your game, as I see it, Mr Danvers, is to make me complicit in an insurance swindle. You wish me to prove that certain valuables were stolen from you and pawned, whereas in truth they have not been stolen at all. You would have me write a letter to your insurers, confirming the loss, whereupon they would recompense you. You would then use some of the money to get said precious items out of hock, and keep the remainder as profit. In short, your intention is to use my good name in order to further your immoral ends. Is that not so?”

  “Not a bit of it!” the other declared.

  “To make matters worse, I foresee that you will dun me at the first opportunity. I would wager that any cheque you write will not be honoured by your bank.”

  “My credit is as good as any man’s.”

  “I doubt it,” said Holmes. “And now, I would be grateful if you would see your way to leaving, this instant. Or will I have to remove you forcibly?”

  With many further expostulations of indignation, Farley Danvers storm
ed out of our rooms.

  I shot my friend a searching glance. “Really, Holmes, are you sure he was a crook? He seemed perfectly upright to me.”

  “Quite sure, Watson. Everything he said was sheer, unadulterated twaddle. Concert pianist? Bah! Did you observe his fingers? Those were not the fingers of a man proficient in that art. The nails were too long, for one thing. A professional pianist trims his short. The tips were not flattened, either, as the fingertips are of somebody who regularly practises at the keyboard for hours. Nor did his hands have the musculature which develops from such activity, particularly in the palms and the wrists.”

  “I see. So why pretend to be one at all?”

  “For effect. Concert pianist, after all, is altogether a more impressive occupation than, say, wine merchant, Danvers’s actual livelihood. And in anticipation of your next question, his tie sported the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Vintners.”

  “But how did you know he was not a twin?”

  “Danvers referred to his brother by name three times. Twice it was Edward; the third time, Edwin. Who would misremember their own brother’s name?”

  “It may have been a slip of the tongue.”

  “Hardly likely, Watson! Have you ever got your late brother’s name wrong? Besides, he was wearing a gold signet ring bearing a family crest. The ring had the patina of age, denoting that it must be an heirloom passed down through the generations. Such an item of jewellery traditionally goes to the first-born son, yet Danvers averred that his brother was his senior by some five minutes. Why, then, would Danvers have the ring rather than Edward – or, as it may be, Edwin – unless Edward or Edwin was a fabrication?”

  “And his failure to pay bills promptly?”

  “As to that, did you not notice how badly the hair at the back of his head was cut, while the rest was comparatively neat?” said Holmes. “It is clear his barber chose to get away with the minimum amount of effort, doing a shoddy job with the parts of hair that Danvers would not himself see. That suggests disgruntlement.”

  “Or else a slapdash barber.”

  “I grant you the possibility. However, Danvers’s shoes had recently been re-soled, and again, as with the barber, the cobbler was less attentive to his task than he ought to have been. The cutting, gluing and nailing were all of poor quality. One negligent tradesman might be regarded as misfortune. Two begins to look like a pattern. A customer who consistently pays late is a customer who receives poor service.”

  “So when Danvers said that he suspected his brother of being behind the disappearance of various treasures from his household…?”

  “It was the purest hogwash,” said Holmes. “I believe he would have had me hunting high and low for the non-existent sibling.”

  “But why invent a brother at all?”

  “What a tragic yarn Danvers spun. All that stuff about this identical twin who had fallen on hard times and whom he had invited under his roof and taken under his wing – this layabout who had then rewarded his kindness by pilfering from him. It is the ‘identical’ part of the story that counts, for if I had managed to trace the pawnbroker now in possession of the articles and asked for a description of the man who sold them to him…”

  I finished the sentence. “The description would have matched that of Danvers himself.”

  “In short, Farley Danvers was, in a rather clumsy way, covering himself against such a contingency,” said Holmes. “He would have signed the pawnbroker’s statutory declaration form as ‘Edward Danvers’ and would swear blind, when pressed, that it was not he who brought the items to the premises but his twin.”

  “Well,” I said, “all in all it’s a good thing you saw through him. You might otherwise have wasted a lot of time. Ought we not report him to the authorities?”

  “Oh, even the dullest-witted insurance clerk will see through his tissue of lies. No, Watson, we need not detain ourselves over Mr Farley Danvers a moment longer. The impertinent fool will get what he deserves, with or without our involvement.”

  “What a shame, though, that he was not a genuine paying client. You could do with the money, Holmes, if you don’t mind my saying so. Work has been thin on the ground for you lately.”

  In truth, at that time – the autumn of 1884 – Sherlock Holmes was anything but overburdened with employment. His career as a consulting detective was, if not in its infancy, then certainly experiencing the pangs of adolescence. It had its peaks and its troughs, but signally more of the latter than the former. Clients were not falling over one another to get to his door. Indeed, the previous year had yielded but one case that I have since considered fit to chronicle – the business with the swamp adder at Stoke Moran – while the few others proved tawdry, uninteresting affairs. The same was true of 1884, save for the events I am setting down in these pages. Holmes had sufficient occupation to generate a modest income, but worldwide renown and financial security still lay some years in the future.

  “Something will turn up, Watson,” my friend said, reaching for his pipe. “Something always does.”

  “I do hope so,” I said, with feeling.

  Moments later, Mrs Hudson entered. “You have another client, Mr Holmes,” said she.

  “There, Watson,” said Holmes with an arch look. “What did I tell you? Show him up, my good woman. Let us see the cut of his jib.”

  “The client,” said Mrs Hudson, “is already here.”

  “Downstairs, you mean?” Holmes gave vent to a mildly exasperated sigh. “Well then, I repeat, show the gentleman up.”

  “The client is no gentleman.”

  “Gentleman, commoner, crossing-sweeper – I don’t care a fig about his social standing. As long as his coin is good, I will see him.”

  “Mr Holmes,” said our landlady, folding her arms beneath her bosom, “perhaps I am failing to make myself understood.”

  “There is no ‘perhaps’ about it, Mrs Hudson. You are being positively obtuse.”

  At this point I intervened. “Holmes, can you not tell? Unless I miss my guess entirely, the client to whom Mrs Hudson is referring is none other than herself.”

  The lady nodded, declaring, “Thank heavens one of you is not quite so slow on the uptake.”

  “You, madam,” said Holmes, “are presenting yourself before me as a client?”

  “Is that a problem, sir?”

  He appeared to give the matter some thought, then shrugged his shoulders. “Not in the least. It comes as a surprise, that is all.”

  “You can make time for me?”

  “I believe I can squeeze you into my hectic schedule.”

  “I shall pay the going rate,” Mrs Hudson said as she seated herself in the armchair to which Holmes directed her.

  “You will do no such thing,” my friend countered sharply. “You are an excellent landlady. You are a cook of no mean ability. And you tolerate my less desirable habits with a forbearance a stoic would envy. I consider those qualities more than adequate recompense for whatever professional services I may now render you.”

  “I realise that you sometimes have trouble meeting the monthly rent and that on those occasions Dr Watson takes it upon himself to pay the lion’s share.”

  “Tut!” Holmes flapped a dismissive hand. “Let us hear no more of this. Either I work for you pro bono or I do not work for you at all. That is the end of the matter.”

  “Very well.” From the pocket of her apron Mrs Hudson drew a folded letter. “It is this that has prompted me to seek your assistance. It came just now by the third post.”

  She passed the letter to Holmes, who unfolded it with a peremptory shake of the hand and commenced perusal of its contents.

  “I see,” he said ruminatively. “I see. Hum! And who is this Ada Biddulph? A friend of yours, obviously.”

  “My oldest friend who, like me, lets rooms in her house in order to make ends meet.”

  “Yes, I gather as much from her missive. The mention of a lodger is something of a giveaway. What a bind s
he is in, and no mistake. Neighbours and police all convinced of her culpability! Little wonder her tone is so agitated, not to mention her handwriting. She strives to maintain a neat copperplate throughout, yet her efforts repeatedly degenerate into scrawl and her lines are anything but straight. She is a woman, one may infer, for whom a good appearance is everything, and now her world is crumbling.”

  “Quite so.”

  “Holmes,” I said. I had discerned – as he had not – a distinct impatience beneath the composure of Mrs Hudson’s features. “Perhaps you would see fit to share with me the nature of the predicament in which this Mrs Biddulph finds herself.”

  “Is this so that you might make notes, Watson, as I have seen you doing of late?”

  “I simply would rather not feel excluded from the conversation.”

  “But you are in the habit of making notes about my cases, are you not? I have observed you scribbling away in various journals and loose-leaf pads, during and immediately after the conducting of my investigations. Do not think that I have not. You seem to be treating me much as though I am one of your patients, in need of study and diagnosis. What plans do you have for these ‘case histories’ you compile? Do you perchance intend to publish them one day?”

  “It is a possibility, I suppose. I have not given it a great deal of thought. I just find your methods intriguing and have begun enshrining them on paper for my own satisfaction.”

  “But maybe also for posterity.”

  “That remains to be seen. In the meantime, the letter?”

  “Yes. Here.”

  Holmes handed it to me with a wry smile. He was not wrong, in so far as I was indeed considering working up my notes on his cases into narratives. I had long harboured ambitions of pursuing a literary career, as a sideline to my medical practice. Holmes, who by then had been my companion and cohabitee for the best part of four years, fascinated me. His character and his talents were so unusual, so idiosyncratic, that I felt them worthy of analysis. In time, I would indeed settle down to publishing the accounts of his exploits that have since brought me a modicum of acclaim. It would be another three years, however, before the first of these, A Study in Scarlet, saw print.

  I cast an eye over Mrs Biddulph’s letter. Following a brief salutation to Mrs Hudson, addressing her by her Christian name, the text ran thus: