Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also Available from James Lovegrove and Titan Books

  Title Page

  Leave us a review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Part Two

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  About the Author

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM

  JAMES LOVEGROVE AND TITAN BOOKS

  Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon

  The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  The Stuff of Nightmares

  Gods of War

  The Thinking Engine

  The Labyrinth of Death

  The Devil’s Dust

  The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes

  The Cthulhu Casebooks

  Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows

  Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities

  Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils

  LEAVE US A REVIEW

  We hope you enjoy this book – if you did we would really appreciate it if you can write a short review. Your ratings really make a difference for the authors, helping the books you love reach more people.

  You can rate this book, or leave a short review here:

  Amazon.com,

  Amazon.co.uk,

  Goodreads,

  Barnes & Noble,

  Waterstones,

  or your preferred retailer.

  Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons

  Hardback edition ISBN: 9781789094695

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789094701

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First hardback edition: October 2020

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © James Lovegrove 2020. All Rights Reserved.

  James Lovegrove asserts the moral right to be

  identified as the author of this work.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available

  from the British Library.

  This book is respectfully dedicated to

  HOLMESIANS AND SHERLOCKIANS EVERYWHERE

  in recognition of their passionate admiration and enduring support

  for the deeds of the Great Detective and his ally

  FOREWORD

  by John H. Watson MD

  The friends of Mr Sherlock Holmes – and these days they are many and multifarious – are liable to know well the events that took place on Dartmoor in the autumn of 1889. Such, at least, may be inferred from the reception of my account of the affair, titled The Hound of the Baskervilles, which saw print last year.

  Sales of the book were anything but modest – if it is not immodest of me to say so. This and, more importantly, the clamour of critical approbation attending its publication have compelled me now to retrieve my notes on another case, one that occurred almost exactly five years later and upon which Holmes’s earlier investigation had a direct bearing, and turn them into a narrative.

  Here, in the pages that follow, you will find the unfortunate Sir Henry Baskerville who, having narrowly avoided death in the prior instance, was again plagued by a lethal, eerie nemesis and obliged to look to Sherlock Holmes as his saviour.

  If anything, the episode is even more garish and perturbing than its predecessor, as you shall see. It is with pride and no small amount of caution that I invite you to peruse this chronicle, which I have dubbed The Beast of the Stapletons.

  J.H.W., LONDON, 1903

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  A CANINE CONTRETEMPS

  Having finished my rounds for the morning, I decided to pay a visit to my great friend Mr Sherlock Holmes. It was early autumn, with the warmth of summer still lingering in the London air, and the prospect of strolling across Hyde Park on such a clement afternoon to get from Kensington to Baker Street was a highly pleasant one. In that regard, fate had other plans.

  Having crossed the Serpentine Bridge, I was proceeding northward along West Carriage Drive, lost in thought. Principally I was musing upon the fact that since Holmes had reappeared in my life a few months earlier, subsequent to that dismal three-year hiatus when I and the rest of the world presumed him dead, my visits to his rooms were becoming ever more frequent. My own home, bereft of the dearly departed Mary and the brightness she had brought to it, seemed increasingly dreary. Every furnishing, every piece of crockery, every curtain and rug reminded me of my late wife, for it was she who had chosen these domestic items. It struck me that reinstating myself in the old accommodation of my bachelor days, sharing once again those well-appointed if rather cramped quarters with Holmes, might be the fillip I needed. I resolved to ask my friend if he would be willing to consider my moving back in.

  At that moment, a huge black dog came charging towards me along the path, snarling ferociously.

  Sight of the animal filled me with utter, all-consuming dread. I was rooted to the spot, every hair on my head standing on end. The dog was making straight for me, as an arrow flies to its target, and I could do nothing but stare, helpless, unable to move or even think.

  Such paralysing terror may perhaps seem strange to my readers unless they recall that not five years prior I had encountered a hound of gigantic proportions upon the moor of Devon, one that caused the deaths of two men and nearly proved the undoing of another. Even though Holmes had killed it stone dead with five shots to its flank, Jack Stapleton’s terrible bloodhound-mastiff cross continued to haunt my dreams. Often I would awaken in bed, soaked in sweat, my heart pounding, having been quite convinced that I was back on fog-shrouded Dartmoor and that the beast was chasing me, its phosphorus-accen
ted features glowing, its fang-filled maw agape and slavering, hell-bent on savaging me to death.

  So it was that this dog in Hyde Park seemed like a nightmare come to life, my greatest fear made real. It was hurtling towards me with the clear intent of mauling me. In mere seconds I was going to meet a hideous end.

  The dog was less than a couple of yards away, easy leaping distance for so sizeable a creature travelling at so great a speed, when all at once a sharp, shrill whistle resounded from the trees nearby. The dog came skidding to a halt, so close to me now that I could have reached down and petted it, in the unlikely event I should have wished to do so. It stood with its ears erect, its fangs bared, gazing up with dark, acquisitive eyes, regarding me much as it might have a juicy hambone or a cornered rabbit.

  “Lucy!” came a gruff voice. “Lucy! Come back here. Lucy! This instant!”

  The dog, hearing its name, twitched its head but seemed loath to obey the command.

  “Lucy…” said the voice, this time with an unmistakable note of menace.

  Now the dog turned about, albeit with a show of great reluctance, as though it could not bear to be drawn away from the human into whose flesh it was so apparently keen to sink its teeth.

  A man came into view, brandishing a dog lead. Lucy slouched over to him, aiming the occasional avaricious look back at me. The man grabbed the animal by the scruff of the neck and reattached the lead. Then he strode towards me at a brisk pace, with Lucy trotting at his side.

  “Sorry about that,” said this fellow. “Hope she didn’t give you a fright. She’s as meek as a lamb, normally. Just gets a bit excited sometimes.”

  My mouth was dry, but I managed to frame words. “A bit excited? The wretched thing was coming to attack me. If you hadn’t called her off, who knows what would have happened!”

  “There’s no need to get so hot under the collar about it. You’re all right, aren’t you? She didn’t bite you, did she?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, no. Yes, I am all right. No, she didn’t bite me.”

  “Then what is the problem?”

  Lucy’s owner looked, to all appearances, like a reasonable, respectable gentleman. He was in early middle age and spoke well, and I adjudged him to be some kind of urban professional, a solicitor perhaps or a chartered accountant. He seemed genuinely surprised that I should take offence at his dog’s behaviour.

  “The problem,” I said, “is that if your Lucy really is ‘as meek as a lamb’, as you put it, I could not have known that. Certainly not from the way she came at me.”

  “You must have acted aggressively towards her. Dogs are known to put on angry displays when somebody threatens or intimidates them.”

  “I assure you I did nothing to spark an adverse reaction in her. I was merely minding my own business.”

  “You don’t need to do anything,” the man said. “Some people simply give off an aura of hostility towards dogs. That’s all it takes.”

  “An aura of…?” I spluttered. My fear was, as if through some process of emotional alchemy, subliming into indignation. “How dare you, sir! It comes to something when a man can’t walk through the park without being assaulted for no good reason by a vicious, undisciplined mongrel.”

  “And how dare you!” the other retorted, his voice rising just as mine had. “I’ll have you know that Lucy is a purebred German Shepherd and, what’s more, is as well trained a hound as you could hope to find. You saw how she answered when I called. Like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “Hardly. It wasn’t until the third or fourth time you used her name that she responded. I’ve a good mind to report you to the authorities. What if you had not been around to curb Lucy? And what if I had been not a grown man but a woman, or a child?”

  “But I was, and you aren’t,” came the reply, accompanied by an insolent sneer. “So your hypothetical proposition is meaningless.”

  “I have friends at Scotland Yard, you know. One word from me and you’d be clapped in irons so fast your head would spin.”

  This was an empty threat and we both knew it. Indeed, I felt instantly ashamed to have brought up my police connections, such as they were. Yet Lucy’s owner irked me so greatly that I could not help myself.

  “Hah!” he snorted. “Hiding behind the skirts of the law, just because you were scared by a dog. You pathetic, lily-livered weakling.”

  “What did you call me? Scoundrel! I’ve seen and done things more hair-raising than an office-bound milksop like you could ever imagine.”

  “Milksop, eh? You’ll regret that. I have a boxing blue from Camford.” My antagonist looped the end of Lucy’s lead around the arm of an adjacent bench and began removing his jacket. “It may have been a while ago, but there’s not much about the noble art that I’ve forgotten.”

  Tempted as I was to roll up my sleeves and dish out a drubbing to the fellow, or at least give as good as I got, our altercation was drawing a small crowd. To indulge in a public bout of fisticuffs would be unseemly and, worse, liable to result in arrest by a passing constable and charges of affray, which would do little for my standing as a general practitioner. With a deep, self-steadying breath, I elected to be the bigger man.

  “I have no wish to get into a brawl over this,” I relented. “Just keep your dog on the lead in future, that’s all I ask.”

  So saying, I set off past the man. My blood was still up, and it wasn’t until I emerged from Cumberland Gate into the hurly-burly of Marble Arch that I began to calm down. At that point, I found myself wondering whether the dog really was called Lucy. It seemed altogether too decorous a name for such a brute. Unless, of course, it was short for Lucifer.

  I was still chuckling over this little witticism of mine as I crossed the threshold to 221B Baker Street where, it transpired, the beginning of another adventure awaited, one considerably more remarkable and perilous than my canine contretemps in the park.

  Chapter Two

  BUFFALO SOLDIER

  “Ah, Watson!” declared Sherlock Holmes as I entered his rooms. “Your timing could not be more fortuitous.”

  “You have a guest,” I said, motioning at the person who occupied the chair opposite Holmes. “Or is it by any chance a client?” I added, hopeful that this was so, for I could think of nothing more appealing than to join my friend on another of his remarkable investigations.

  “The latter,” Holmes confirmed.

  The stranger rose and offered me a formal bow, which I reciprocated.

  “Corporal Benjamin Grier, at your service,” said he, extending a hand. He was a Negro gentleman, large and imposing-looking. Yet, for all that he stood a head taller than me and his shoulders were half as broad again as mine – not to mention that he possessed a voice whose low, rumbling timbre resembled a peal of thunder – there was a marked gentleness and gentility about him. As for his smile, it carried a warmth that could only put one at ease.

  All the same, I could not help but notice a certain agitation in Grier’s bearing. This, as far as I was concerned, cemented his status as a client of Holmes’s, for few called upon my friend who were not in need of his services as a consulting detective and thus, for one reason or another, in a state of some anxiety.

  “Dr John Watson,” I replied, taking the offered hand. Grier’s grip was powerful, but I sensed restraint in it. He was withholding his full strength and could, so I thought, have crushed every bone in my hand had he wanted.

  “It is an honour to meet you, sir. I am a great admirer of your works. I read avidly, Hawthorne and Poe being my favourite authors. You, sir, run them a close third.”

  “You are too kind. It is an honour to be numbered in such company, especially since my literary career is still in its infancy. An American?”

  “You have me there,” Grier said, letting slip a small laugh. “What gave it away?”

  “Watson’s perspicacity is second to none,” Holmes said with an ironical lift of an eyebrow. “Nothing escapes him, least of all a pronounced Yankee accent. Wat
son, Corporal Grier arrived scarcely two minutes before you. So far I have gleaned a little about him, albeit nothing whatsoever about his reasons for visiting me. He is a soldier, of course. He introduced himself to me by his rank, as he did to you. He is an American, too. That much we have both established. Aside from those two rather obvious inferences, I can hazard a few further.”

  “Pray do,” I said, taking a seat.

  “If it’s all the same to you, I would prefer that we got down to business, Mr Holmes,” Grier said. “I am here on an errand of some urgency and I feel that every second is crucial.”

  “Naturally, Corporal Grier.” Holmes gave an obliging wave of the hand. “Let us delay no further. What, I wonder, has compelled you – a Freemason, who has seen service with the 25th Infantry Regiment during these so-called Indian Wars – to journey to London from the West Country by train, in a forward-facing seat beside the window, and seek me out with some haste?”

  Grier’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. It was a shift in expression familiar to me from the countless other occasions when Holmes would deduce intimate details of someone’s life and habits based upon that person’s appearance alone.

  “Very well, Mr Holmes,” said he. “I cannot resist. You have earned yourself a minute of my time to explain how you came by those facts, every one of which is as true as I’m sitting here.”

  “A minute will more than suffice. Really all I have done is play the odds, tendering the most likely conjecture in each instance. So often the commonest interpretation of evidence is the correct one. Firstly, an American soldier of your race must perforce belong to one of only four regiments, namely the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry. No regiment in the US army will accept black enlisted men save those four. Collectively, the troops in your regiments are known as Buffalo Soldiers.”

  “Yes. The name was given to us by the Apaches. Our skin tone and curly hair remind them, it seems, of a buffalo’s hide and topknot. Even if it is perhaps not meant as a compliment, I choose to take it as one. The buffalo is a mighty, noble beast, docile unless provoked, dangerous when it is. But how can you be so sure I am infantry, not cavalry?”