The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes by Paul Gilbert Page B

Holmes’s attention with stories of unusual crime and mystery. Holmes’s reaction was to snatch each and every journal from my grasp, crush them into a ball and hurl them on to the fire.
    ‘Really Holmes!’ I protested on one such occasion. ‘Your recent behaviour has become most insufferable. I understand and sympathize with your frustration at not being gainfully employed, but it simply does not excuse your mistreatment of those around you. Indeed, you almost reduced Mrs Hudson to tears the other morning, simply for her insisting you eat your breakfast! Judging by your pale, gaunt features, it was advice with which I heartily concur.’
    I was glaring angrily at my friend in anticipation of an aggressive response, but there was none. It was almost as ifthe fight, even the very life in him, was being slowly drained away. Attired in his purple robe, Holmes was seated in his favourite chair, legs crossed with his feet tucked under him, in a forlorn, meditative pose. His face, unshaven for three days, was impassive, and he merely nodded slowly without raising his eyes to look at me.
    I was unable to contemplate my friend in such condition for another instant and decided to take myself for a refreshing walk. Despite my entreaties, Holmes would not be moved so I struck out, briskly, alone.
    The climate and the time of year seemed to fit the prevailing mood perfectly. It was as dark and misty an evening as one would expect for late October, and the few remaining leaves were losing their battle to remain attached to the trees with which Baker Street was adorned. Thankfully, for the purposes of my constitutional, it was dry and relatively mild and each step that I took hardened my resolve to help Holmes in any way that I might.
    I paused briefly outside Baker Street Metropolitan station, to see if any of the late editions held anything to assist me in my purpose, and there on the headline board were four words that I was certain would rekindle Holmes’s interest and might just save him from his despair.
    MONTAGUE PHILLIMORE
    FOUND
    HANGED
     Without waiting for my change, I snatched an edition from the startled vendor, and sprinted back to 221b, only narrowly avoiding collisions with the homeward-bound travellers.
    To my consternation neither the clattering sound of my racing feet upon the stairs, nor the sight of this dramatic headline succeeded in stirring Holmes from his malaise. Crestfallen, but not defeated, I lit my pipe, sat by the fire and was determined to find something in the report that might have the desired effect.
    My regular readers may recall a passing reference to several of our less successful cases during the narrative of The Problem of Thor Bridge . By less successful I mean, of course, mysteries for which no obvious solution presented itself at the time and despite all our efforts, and the exercise of all of Holmes’s powers, seemed never likely to. However, I have safely retained the notes for all of these cases, and together with those of completed cases, which I do not consider worthy of publication, they now reside within a tin dispatch box of mine, buried within the vaults of Cox & Co’s bank. The case of James Phillimore and his bizarre disappearance had been one of our failures.
    I resolved there and then to be at the doors of Cox & Co. as they opened the following morning, and to confront Holmes with my old notes, together with any further information with which the morning papers might have provided us.
    I was somewhat delayed in the morning by Cox’s chaotic storage system and the vast number of notes in my chest that I had to sift through. I was astonished, therefore, to discover that Holmes was still to leave his bed when I arrived at Baker Street at a little after midday! At once I barged my way into his room, and pulled back his curtains. The room was flooded with bright daylight which highlighted the grey pallor of my ailing friend’s sunken face.
    ‘Holmes!’ I called, ‘I insist you