explain, or would you like to?”
“Be my guest, doctor,” the eldest brother answered, taking up a brandy bottle from the side table. “I am tired of talking.”
“Well, as it was explained to me,” John said, “our very arrival here posed a serious threat to the brothers’ carefully laid plans. We were uninvited actors in the drama, as it were. But since we were here, Phillip decided to advise me of the game that was really afoot. While I was in his room, ostensibly examining his dead body, he was informing me of the scheme, swearing me to secrecy, and enlisting my help. That, Edward, was why you were not allowed in to see him. As it turned out, having an actual surgeon on hand to pronounce Phillip dead proved more effective than if Charles and Jennings had sworn to it.”
“And you said nothing of this to me?” I cried.
“The fewer people who knew, the better,” John replied. “Besides, Amelia, I wanted to drive a stake through the heart of the canard perpetuated by both you and Holmes that I cannot hold a secret.” He looked positively smug as he spoke this, the brute.
“I may never speak to you again, John,” I said, indignantly.
Now “Madame Ouida” reappeared, her long black wig having been removed, allowing her natural blonde hair to brighten her looks considerably. “I hope I did well,” she said.
“You were devastating, Gemma,” Charles answered, taking her hand. “Your dashing out of the room in a fit of theatrical terror convinced the old girl that we had really summoned up a spectre! She confessed before she even realized what she was saying.”
“Introductions are in order,” Phillip said. “Dr Watson, Mrs Watson, this is Miss Gemma Macaulay, the daughter of our local constable, and a young lady with aspirations to go on the stage.”
“Who was also in on the scheme,” Edward grumbled. “Everyone but me.”
“And me, don’t forget,” I said.
After pouring a snifter of brandy for John and one for himself, Charles said, “Well, thank heaven that is over. So tell us, doctor, what kind of a blighter was dear old papa when he was young?”
“I am going to retire,” Edward said, still bruised over his exclusion from the adventure. “I don’t wish to hear any more surprise revelations regarding father tonight.”
“An excellent idea,” I said, following him to the staircase. “Good night, almost everyone.”
When John finally returned to the bedroom—after a good hour or so of regaling the twins with tales of their father from the days of the Fusiliers—I made good on my threat of silence, refusing even to say good night. I would, of course, speak to him again, though we might be on the train and halfway to Oxford before I revealed that secret to him.
THE CASE OF THE TARLETON MURDERS, by Jack Grochot
Now living back at Baker Street with my fellow lodger Sherlock Holmes, I awoke early on this particular morning in 1895 with an ache in my left shoulder, where the Jezail bullet struck and shattered the bone during my service in the Afghanistan campaign.
Holmes already had finished breakfast, evidenced by the crumbs scattered on his plate, and had gone off to the hospital chemistry laboratory to achieve a breakthrough in his latest scientific experiment—or so said the note protruding from under the lid of the half-empty coffee pot.
Still lingering, the dull pain in my shoulder brought me thoughts of Murray, my brave orderly in the war, who saved me from falling into the hands of the treacherous Ghazis. Where was Murray today, I wondered, as I flipped Holmes’s note onto the tabletop and saw, on the reverse side, an invitation to join him to witness his discovery.
Mrs Hudson, our landlady, must have heard me stirring, because she soon appeared with two soft-boiled eggs, bacon, and toast, which I ate with haste so I would not miss out on Holmes’s moment of truth.
I walked briskly part of the way to the lab, which seemed to ease my suffering. I glimpsed an empty hansom on Great Orme Street near the British Museum, so I flagged down the driver and comfortably rode for the remainder of my journey. I made my way down the labyrinth of freshly white-washed hallways of the great hospital, familiar with each intersection, until I reached the dissecting room. This I entered and cut through, because the rear exit opened into the chemistry section, where I had first met Sherlock Holmes several years earlier.
Presently, on this glorious summer day, I found Holmes hovering over a large glass globe, under which was a Bunsen lamp, a sheet of foolscap, and a vial with red liquid suspended over the flame.
“Now, Watson,” said he, as if I had been there the whole time with him, “we shall see if my theory proves correct. The iodine solution will produce a gas that should form the effect I am anticipating.”
In a matter of a few moments, the paper began to change colour to a pinkish purple. Then, coming into view, as if by magic, was a latent palm print, with the ridges and furrows, loops and whorls distinctly detectable now.
“Voila tout!” Holmes exclaimed as he wrung his bony, acid-stained hands. “This surely will inspire the tongues to wag at the nascent fingerprint bureau of Scotland Yard! Imagine what this development could have accomplished in the Yard’s failed prosecutions of the scoundrel Jeremy Conway or the international swindler Benito Zito. I should think my finding will receive prominent mention in your chronicles, Watson.”
Holmes could hardly contain his excitement, so he persuaded me to help carry the glass globe, the burner, and the vial of iodine solution to Scotland Yard, where, with his flare for the dramatic, he recreated the scene in the hospital laboratory and demonstrated the technique for the incredulous fingerprint bureau personnel and a handful of sceptical inspectors. They were astonished, to say the least, at the result.
“I shall hazard a guess that one or two of you might find this somewhat useful in the future,” Holmes predicted, an understatement he intended for emphasis.
* * * *
Little did we know then that Holmes’s new method would play a key role in the adventure that awaited us upon our return to the flat at Baker Street, a ghastly case that took us to the sleepy farming village of Tarleton in the marshy Lancashire District, three hundred kilometers to the northwest of London.
When we arrived home, Mrs Hudson greeted us at the door to inform Holmes that a young special constable from the distant country town was in our sitting-room with a problem he chose not to discuss with her.
“I can’t tell you what it’s about because he wouldn’t confide in me,” she sniffed. “His name is Hubert Roddy.”
We went up the stairs and into our apartment, Holmes extending his hand and introducing himself. He told Roddy who I was and said I was helpful in many of the investigations Holmes had undertaken. Roddy, standing erect and alert, told Holmes no introduction was necessary because he had read my accounts of the exploits and admired how Holmes had solved the crimes.
“I hope my visit here will cause the same successful consequences in Tarleton,” he began. “I implore you, Mr Holmes, to lend your assistance in an urgent matter.” Roddy explained that what appeared to be a routine missing person enquiry had evolved into a grisly murder mystery over the last several weeks.
“Tell me more, Constable Roddy, I am all ears,” Holmes commented. “I am unoccupied for the time
