Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective by Donald Thomas Page B
Authors: Donald Thomas
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, England, Short Stories, Fiction - Mystery, Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious Character), Detective and Mystery Stories; English, Watson; John H. (Fictitious Character), Traditional British, Private Investigators - England, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, Mystery & Detective - Short Stories
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change his mind, I had consulted Bradshaw’s railway guide, wired to a comfortable hotel reserving our rooms and also to the Great Western Railway, securing a first-class carriage from Paddington to Barnstaple, via Exeter.
II
The Case of the King’s evil
1
O f the letters addressed to our detective agency at 221 B Baker Street, almost all bore the name of Sherlock Holmes and very few came directly to me. I had remained in medical practice for some time after our first meeting and my patients necessarily had first call upon my services. When I encountered men and women in the critical moments of their lives, it was more often in my own consulting rooms. I was therefore all the more surprised, on an autumn morning in October 1884, when my services as a criminal investigator were requested by telegram.
Whatever distress had overtaken Miss Alice Chastelnau, mistress of the Openshaw Academy for Young Ladies at Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast, was plainly a matter of urgency. At the time, Holmes and I were not otherwise occupied. I replied to Miss Chastelnau at once by wire. Noting the distance she must travel to reach us, I proposed a consultation at Baker Street on the following day at 4pm.
Within the hour I received a confirmation of this. Her second message added that her two brothers had been missing since Sunday evening, two days previously, in very disturbing circumstances. If that were so, I thought it a little curious that she had not consulted Sherlock Holmes in the first place.
As I explained all this to my friend, pipe smoke continued to rise from behind the copy of the Morning Post which he was reading. At length he chuckled, though without lowering the newspaper.
“The disappearance of her brothers, indeed! That at least adds a little piquancy to an otherwise unpromising case. Have no fear, Watson, I shall vacate our sitting-room tomorrow afternoon upon your client’s arrival.”
“She might prefer you to remain,” I said hastily, “Unless, of course, the lady’s own medical condition is at issue. If that were so, I should be obliged to see her privately.”
He chuckled again but offered no further reply. As the hours passed, I felt increasingly that I would have preferred Miss Chastelnau to ask the advice of Holmes in the first place, thereby allowing me to play a supporting role in any inquiry. I could scarcely introduce him as my subordinate. In that case, I feared I could not introduce him at all. Holmes knew this as well as I did. Indeed, he was enjoying my predicament of being “senior man,” as he called it, relishing this far more obviously than was decent.
Miss Chastelnau was in good time to take afternoon tea with us on the following afternoon. Her manner was earnest, as befitted the occasion. In appearance, she was neat and dainty without being self-consciously elegant. There was a spinsterly attractiveness in the demure oval of her face, and in the old-fashioned style in which her light brown hair was pulled back tightly to frame it. She put me in mind of those portraits of Charlotte Bronte and the “bonnets” of the 1840s. I judged her to be more than forty years old but not yet forty-five.
Sherlock Holmes was at once courteous and courtly, bowing her to an armchair by the fireplace. As I had foreseen, he had no intention of vacating the sitting-room beyond saying,
“If you would prefer to speak to Dr Watson alone, you need only say so.”
Miss Chastelnau did not say anything of the kind. She produced an envelope from her bag and came at once to the point of her visit.
“I have brought a letter, addressed to an unnamed doctor by my half-brother, Abraham Chastelnau. I doubt if he knew any doctor well enough to put a name to it. I hope you will overlook my custom of referring to both my half-brothers as ‘brothers,’ for it stops speculation and gossip which might be painful to me.”
I thought that this certainly indicated a delicate and fastidious nature, such as
II
The Case of the King’s evil
1
O f the letters addressed to our detective agency at 221 B Baker Street, almost all bore the name of Sherlock Holmes and very few came directly to me. I had remained in medical practice for some time after our first meeting and my patients necessarily had first call upon my services. When I encountered men and women in the critical moments of their lives, it was more often in my own consulting rooms. I was therefore all the more surprised, on an autumn morning in October 1884, when my services as a criminal investigator were requested by telegram.
Whatever distress had overtaken Miss Alice Chastelnau, mistress of the Openshaw Academy for Young Ladies at Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast, was plainly a matter of urgency. At the time, Holmes and I were not otherwise occupied. I replied to Miss Chastelnau at once by wire. Noting the distance she must travel to reach us, I proposed a consultation at Baker Street on the following day at 4pm.
Within the hour I received a confirmation of this. Her second message added that her two brothers had been missing since Sunday evening, two days previously, in very disturbing circumstances. If that were so, I thought it a little curious that she had not consulted Sherlock Holmes in the first place.
As I explained all this to my friend, pipe smoke continued to rise from behind the copy of the Morning Post which he was reading. At length he chuckled, though without lowering the newspaper.
“The disappearance of her brothers, indeed! That at least adds a little piquancy to an otherwise unpromising case. Have no fear, Watson, I shall vacate our sitting-room tomorrow afternoon upon your client’s arrival.”
“She might prefer you to remain,” I said hastily, “Unless, of course, the lady’s own medical condition is at issue. If that were so, I should be obliged to see her privately.”
He chuckled again but offered no further reply. As the hours passed, I felt increasingly that I would have preferred Miss Chastelnau to ask the advice of Holmes in the first place, thereby allowing me to play a supporting role in any inquiry. I could scarcely introduce him as my subordinate. In that case, I feared I could not introduce him at all. Holmes knew this as well as I did. Indeed, he was enjoying my predicament of being “senior man,” as he called it, relishing this far more obviously than was decent.
Miss Chastelnau was in good time to take afternoon tea with us on the following afternoon. Her manner was earnest, as befitted the occasion. In appearance, she was neat and dainty without being self-consciously elegant. There was a spinsterly attractiveness in the demure oval of her face, and in the old-fashioned style in which her light brown hair was pulled back tightly to frame it. She put me in mind of those portraits of Charlotte Bronte and the “bonnets” of the 1840s. I judged her to be more than forty years old but not yet forty-five.
Sherlock Holmes was at once courteous and courtly, bowing her to an armchair by the fireplace. As I had foreseen, he had no intention of vacating the sitting-room beyond saying,
“If you would prefer to speak to Dr Watson alone, you need only say so.”
Miss Chastelnau did not say anything of the kind. She produced an envelope from her bag and came at once to the point of her visit.
“I have brought a letter, addressed to an unnamed doctor by my half-brother, Abraham Chastelnau. I doubt if he knew any doctor well enough to put a name to it. I hope you will overlook my custom of referring to both my half-brothers as ‘brothers,’ for it stops speculation and gossip which might be painful to me.”
I thought that this certainly indicated a delicate and fastidious nature, such as
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