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  The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

  THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF

  NEW

  SHERLOCK

  HOLMES

  ADVENTURES

  EDITED BY MIKE ASHLEY

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson Publishing, 1997

  This revised and updated edition published by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2009

  Collection and editorial material © Mike Ashley 1997, 2009

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library

  UK ISBN 978-1-84529-926-2

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in the United States in 2009 by Running Press Book Publishers

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

  International Copyright Conventions

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  US Library of Congress number: 2008942199

  US ISBN 978 0 76243 626 2

  Running Press Book Publishers

  2300 Chestnut Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

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  Printed and bound in the EU

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  Mike Ashley is a full-time writer, editor and researcher with almost a hundred books to his credit. He has compiled over fifty Mammoth Books including The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy and The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries. He has also written the biography of Algernon Blackwood, Starlight Man, and a comprehensive study The Mammoth Book of King Arthur. He lives in Kent with his wife and three cats and when he gets the time he likes to go for long walks.

  Contents

  The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

  Foreword by Richard Lancelyn Green

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: The Life and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  Part I: The Early Years

  The Bothersome Business of the Dutch Nativity - Derek Wilson

  The Affray at the Kildare Street Club - Peter Tremayne

  Part II: The 1880s

  The Case of the Incumbent Invalid - Claire Griffen

  The Adventure of Vittoria, the Circus Belle - Edward D. Hoch

  The Darlington Substitution Scandal - David Stuart Davies

  The Adventure of the Suspect Servant - Barbara Roden

  The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society - John Gregory Betancourt

  The Adventure of the Silver Buckle - Denis 0. Smith

  The Case of the Sporting Squire - Guy N. Smith

  The Vanishing of the Atkinsons - Eric Brown

  The Adventure of the Fallen Star - Simon Clark

  Part III: The 1890s

  The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger - Michael Moorcock

  The Mystery of the Addleton Curse - Barrie Roberts

  The Adventure of the Parisian Gentleman - Robert Weinberg & Lois H. Gresh

  The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor - Stephen Baxter

  The Adventure of the Touch of God - Peter Crowther

  The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter - Basil Copper

  The Adventure of the Suffering Ruler - H. R. F. Keating

  The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech - David Langford

  The Adventure of the Grace Chalice - Roger Johnson

  The Case of the Faithful Retainer - Amy Myers

  Part IV: The Final Years

  The Case of the Suicidal Lawyer - Martin Edwards

  The Legacy of Rachel Howells - Michael Doyle

  The Adventure of the Bulgarian Diplomat - Zakaria Erzinçlioglu

  The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex - F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

  The Case of the Last Battle - L. B. Greenwood

  Appendix I: A Complete Chronology of Sherlock Holmes Cases

  Appendix II: The Tales of Sherlock Holmes

  Part 1: The Original Canon

  Part 2: The Apocryphal Tales

  The Contributors

  The End

  Foreword by Richard Lancelyn Green

  One of the most famous opening paragraphs in a Sherlock Holmes story is that found in "Thor Bridge" (which was first published in the 1920s). Dr Watson says: "Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox & Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M.D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid. It is crammed with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious problems which Mr Sherlock Holmes had at various times to examine." Readers had already been offered tantalizing details of many unrecorded cases in preceding stories, but this confirmed that he had a "long row of year-books which fill a shelf, and there are the dispatch cases filled with documents". He rightly called it "a perfect quarry for the student, not only of crime, but of the social and official scandals of the late Victorian era". It is into these that the authors represented in the present volume have dipped.

  The influence of Sherlock Holmes made itself felt within months of the publication of the first short stories in the Strand Magazine. There was plagiarism which achieved its apogee with Sexton Blake who had rooms in Baker Street, and there were rivals who knew they could succeed only by being different. The "Golden Age" of detective fiction was littered with a strange array of private inquiry agents who were fat, blind, Belgian or of the opposite sex. Yet for all their attempts at being different, they never entirely escaped the shadow of Sherlock Holmes. As Scotland Yard had discovered, his longest shots invariably hit their mark, and even when he was outwitted, as he was by Irene Adler, his reputation was enhanced.

  It is the art of a great writer to leave the reader anxious for more, and Dr Watson was such a writer. He often erred on the side of discretion, and he intrigued the reader because of his less than perfect grasp of detail. Where his knowledge failed he resorted to imagination and was not unduly concerned when this led to contradictions and inconsistencies within the text. He introduced colour and variety and irrelevance, which added to the myth and gave the reader a picture which was sharp in its essentials, but blurred at the edges.

  No reader has ever put down the stories believing that Watson had said the last word on the subject. For some there was an irresistible urge to parody the style and to play with the name of Sherlock Holmes (which lends itself well to mutations such as Shylock Bones, Sherluck Gnomes, Picklock Holes, or Sheerlecoq Omes).The parodies made fun of the contrasting characteristics of Holmes and Watson, between the infallible brain which could distinguish 144 types of cigarette ash or recognize clay and earth from the counties of England (something still denied to the most sophisticated computers of the late twentieth century) and the obtuseness of the all-admiring friend.

  The greatest scope for other writers lay in the unrecorded, unfathomed and unfinished cases. When Watson made it known that Holmes had survived the struggle at the Reichenbach Falls, there were demands that he should furnish the public with details of the cases which he had already mentioned, and he proceeded to do so with "The Second Stain" (to which he had referred on two occasions). Even then there was an alternative literature provided by others, including major writers such as Bret Harte, and Mark Twain (who introduced Holmes into his late novel, A Double-Barrelled Detective Story).

  The early apocryphal works did not
profess to be part of the original "canon", for the concept only developed after Ronald Knox had elevated the study of Sherlock Holmes to new and rarefied heights in 1911 with his famous satirical essay, "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes". This gave impetus to the serious study of the stories and raised the possibility that there was not one but two authors (as had been suggested in the writing of the Odyssey) or that Watson had described the early cases as they happened, but had invented the later ones to satisfy public demand. The new scholarship opened the

  way for others to take up their pens to continue the saga, while remaining faithful to their subject as had the story-tellers of old who created heroic deeds for Alexander the Great of which historians were previously unaware.

  The apocryphal Sherlock Holmes story need not be a great detective story, but it has to be a convincing story of the great detective. The character is more important than the case. It is his method which appeals to the reader. It is the special relationship with Dr Watson, who holds up a mirror to nature and occasionally distorts the image to add glamour to the reflection. The additional stories should conform to the formula and yet should add variety. The purist might prefer the seemingly insignificant trifle that turns out to be important, and the humble and eccentric client often makes a better entrance at Baker Street than the representatives of the reigning houses of Europe or the emissaries of the Pope. The introduction of historical figures such as Oscar Wilde or Jack the Ripper is not always advisable as it could be said that they add an element of fiction to the self-contained world of Sherlock Holmes, and characters whose exploits have been documented by others sometimes have difficulty crossing the threshold at Baker Street. Watson could describe a case in which Sherlock Holmes outwitted Raffles, but it would not be the Raffles who is known to us through the writings of his friend, Bunny Manders. There again, there is no reason why Holmes's grandson should not ape his grandfather and form a working partnership with Dr Watson's granddaughter, but it is Dr Watson, and his work, who will always be most in demand. Whatever other cases remain in the battered dispatch box, readers are most anxious to have details of the cases which are known to them by name and which were solved by Sherlock Holmes.

  This volume is exactly what is required. It contains an impressive array of cases which Watson mentioned and it has a scholarly status as it is arranged in chronological order with a connecting narrative which provides a biographical background. It is entertaining and informative, and is remarkable for the many distinguished writers who are among the contributors. It is a book which can be recommended and is in every sense a magnum opus.

  Acknowledgments

  Grateful acknowledgment is given to Dame Jean Conan Doyle for permission to use the Sherlock Holmes characters created by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. My thanks also to Roger Johnson, Jon Lellenberg, Christopher Roden and R. Dixon Smith for their help and guidance during the preparation of this book, and to Richard Lancelyn Green for kindly providing the foreword. All of the stories in this volume are in copyright. The following acknowledgments are granted to the authors and their agents for permission to use their work.

  "The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor" © 1997 by Stephen Baxter. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society" © 1996 by John Gregory Betancourt. This story has been revised. An earlier version appeared in Resurrected Holmes, edited by Marvin Kaye (New York: St Martin's Press, 1996). Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Vanishing of the Atkinsons" © 1997 by Eric Brown. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Fallen Star" © 1997 by Simon Clark First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent International Scripts Ltd.

  "The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter" © 1997 by Basil Copper. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Touch of God" © 1997 by Peter Crowther. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Darlington Substitution Scandal" © 1997 by David Stuart Davies. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Legacy of Rachel Howells" 1994 by Michael Doyle. Originally distributed privately in a limited edition for The Stormy

  Petrels of British Columbia, January 1994, and reprinted in Canadian Holmes, Autumn 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  "The Case of the Suicidal Lawyer" © 1997 by Martin Edwards. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Bulgarian Diplomat" © 1997 by Zakaria Erzinçlioglu. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "Foreword" © 1997 by Richard Lancelyn Green. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Case of the Last Battle" 1997 by L.B. Greenwood. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Case of the Incumbent Invalid" © 1997 by Claire Griffen. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of Vittoria the Circus Belle" © 1997 by Edward D. Hoch. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Grace Chalice" 1987 by Roger Johnson. Originally published in The Sherlock Holmes Journal, Winter 1987. Revised for publication in this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Suffering Ruler" 1983 by H.R.F Keating. First published in John Creasey's Crime Collection 1983

  edited by Herbert Harris (London: Victor Gollancz, 1983). Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agent Peters, Fraser & Dunlop.

  "The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech" 1997 by David Langford. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex", 1997 by F Gwynplaine MacIntyre. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger" © 1997 by Michael Moorcock. First commercial publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent Curtis Brown Ltd.

  "The Adventure of the Faithful Retainer" © 1997 by Amy Myers. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, Dorian Literary Agency.

  "The Mystery of the Addleton Curse" © 1997 by Barrie Roberts. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent Laurence Pollinger Ltd.

  "The Adventure of the Suspect Servant" © 1997 by Barbara Roden. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Adventure of the Silver Buckle" © 1997 by Denis 0. Smith. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Case of the Sporting Squire" © 1997 by Guy N. Smith. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  "The Affray at the Kildare Street Club" © 1997 by Peter Tremayne. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent A.M. Heath & Co.

  "The Adventure of the Parisian Gentleman" © 1997 by Robert Weinberg and Lois H. Gresh. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the authors.

  "The Bothersome Business of the Dutch Nativity" © 1997 by Derek Wilson. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  Introduction: The Life and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  For more years than I care to remember I have been researching the life of the first and best known of all private consulting detectives, Mr Sherlock Holmes. It has not been easy. Dev
otees of the Sherlock Holmes cases will know that his friend and colleague Dr John Watson kept an assiduous record of many of the cases after they first met in January 1881, but he was not involved in them all.

  When Holmes was reflecting over his cases in the hours before his cataclysmic struggle with Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem", he remarked to Watson that he had investigated over a thousand cases. That was in April 1891. In "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist" Watson comments that between 1894 and 1901 Holmes had been involved in every public case of any difficulty plus many hundreds of private cases. Watson goes on to say that "I have preserved very full notes of all these cases."Yet when you look at the standard omnibus volume of Sherlock Holmes you will find only fifty-six short stories and four novels, sixty cases in all. In writing up these cases Watson makes tantalizing passing references to others, such as the repulsive story of the red leech, or the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons on the island of Uffa, but though he kept notes of these stories he did not complete all of them as finished cases. Even then he refers to just short of a hundred cases, so that in total we know of only about 160 cases, which is likely to be less than a tenth of all of the cases Holmes investigated. How wonderful it would be to know about the others. That has been my life's work.

  The obvious starting point was Watson's papers. He told us in "The Problem of Thor Bridge" that they were filed away in a despatch box stored in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross. Imagine my horror when, many years ago, in attempting to gain access to these records I discovered two things. Firstly that Watson was clever and had stored only some of his records in that bank vault, and that others were hidden elsewhere. But more frustrating was that I had been pipped at the post. The Cox Bank papers had already been collected by someone else and though he provided a name and identity for the purposes of the bank, I have never been able to trace him, and suspect that the identity he gave was false. Watson was fearful that his papers might be stolen. When he published the case of "The Veiled Lodger" in January 1927 he alerted the public to the fact that attempts had already been made to gain access to his papers and he gave a warning to one individual, whom he doesn't name, that facts would be revealed about him if he didn't desist. Occasionally stories purporting to be from these files have surfaced in books and magazines. Some may well be genuine, or at least give that appearance, but most are almost certainly false, written by those seeking to gain some reflected glory from the fame of Sherlock Holmes.