Sherlock Holmes & The Master Engraver (Sherlock Holmes Revival)
Read Sherlock Holmes & The Master Engraver (Sherlock Holmes Revival) Online
Authors: Ross Husband
Tags: #Detective Fiction
SHERLOCK
HOLMES
&
THE MASTER
ENGRAVER
Ross Husband
GLENROSS EDITIONS
Copyright © 2013 Ross Husband
First published 2013 in the
United Kingdom by GlenRoss Editions,
Norfolk, England IP21 4YG.
ISBN 978-1-84396-269-4
Also available in paperback
ISBN 978-1-48279-073-3
Kindle edition production
Ross Husband has asserted the
moral right to be identified as the
author of this work under the terms
of the 1988 Copyright & Patents Act.
This book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, resold,
hired out or otherwise circulated without
the copyright holder’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover than that
in which it is published and without a similar
condition, including this condition, being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser. With
stated exceptions, the characters appearing
in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, or any
descendants thereof is purely coincidental.
All rights are reserved to the author and
publisher. Reproduction in any form currently
known or yet to be invented, or the use of
any extract is only permitted with the written
approval of the author. Violation of these terms
may result in civil or criminal prosecution.
Use of the Sherlock Holmes characters created
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by permission of Conan
Doyle Estate Ltd
(Authorised for distribution
in European Union countries by
Jonathan Clowes Ltd,
The Director of Copyrights EU)
Cover illustration
Self-portrait:
Hendrik Goltzius's Right Hand, 1588
Pen and brown ink
9 x 12 5/8 in (23 x 32.2 cm)
Teylers Museum, Haarlem
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Philosopher John Gray,
on Sherlock Holmes:
“An exemplar of logic
who lives by guesswork, a man who
stands apart from other human
beings but who is moved by a sense
of human decency...”
“Holmes embodies the
modern romance of reason –
a myth we no longer believe in,
but find it hard to live without.”
(Kind permission of
English Philosopher John N Gray
BA, M.Phil, D.Phil)
“It is easy to accept that
a piece of paper that costs a few
pence to produce is worth five,
ten, twenty or fifty pounds...
“Gaining and maintaining
public confidence in the currency is
a key role of the Bank of England
and one which is essential to
the proper functioning of the economy”
The Bank of England
Museum – 2012
...is for my late father, H Robertson Husband, one of the wisest men I ever knew who, fifty years ago, first introduced me to the beautifully logical world of Sherlock Holmes. He also showed me how simple it is to make a tolerable low-powered microscope to facilitate my childhood attempts at forensic investigation. I have it still.
Contents
The Master Engraver’s Dilemma
‘Angraecum Sesquipedale’
Mr Nathan Madgwick
A Night in Bedlam
A Den of Thieves
The Game’s Afoot
The Mist Thins
The Chain is Broken
The First Proof
A New Alliance
Asa Bormanstein
The Chief Cashier’s Dilemma
The Smell of Money
Judas Silver
The Villains Are Taken
A Call to Arms
A Rat Trap in Belgravia
Justice is Served on a Plate
Preview –
The Murders On The Square
– Chapters One & Two
The Master Engraver’s Dilemma
It was an unseasonably mild, late November afternoon in 1889 when I concluded my final house-call of the day at a private patient’s house in Marylebone. The gleaming mahogany doors closed softly behind me and as I descended the imposing granite steps I reflected that having a wealthy hypochondriac patient or two was no bad thing for a retired army surgeon with a new wife to support, and setting up in a small but promising private practice.
It being only three in the afternoon, and with no other matter pressing, I chose on impulse to visit my old roommate, Sherlock Holmes in nearby Baker Street, having seen him but once or twice since my marriage.
To be candid, despite my blissfully happy new married estate, I still hankered for that dangerous frisson of excitement and cerebral stimulation that invariably ignited within me when in happy proximity to Holmes’ remarkable mind and its uncannily logical workings.
As I reached for the door-handle at 221B, I hesitated; momentarily it seemed to me for just the briefest of instants that all might be as before, just as it had been for several most lively years; that the door to my old room would yet be ajar, could still be open to me, and Holmes might hail his willing amanuensis from within a dense cloud of pungent tobacco smoke as he wrestled with whatever devilish puzzle or villainy he was in train of addressing; or was I merely indulging emotion in the absence of rationality?
Wishing to surprise my friend I ascended as silently as one may on a stair which I well know to creak loudly on five of the seventeen treads; I had long memorised their sequence and how to avoid them. Soundlessly I turned the doorknob and entered the silent parlour.
Frequently, our rooms at 221B Baker Street had been redolent of some aroma; most typically it would be strong shag tobacco, or perhaps cigar smoke; on occasion pungent chemicals might pervade the air – formaldehyde, spirits of alcohol and once even, the distinctive and heart-stopping lethal almond perfume of prussic acid. I had become accustomed to such miasmas.
Nonetheless it was with a degree of revulsion that I was assailed by the overwhelming, sweet coppery reek of decaying blood that afternoon. The source was evidently the open carboy, half-full of the stuff, upon his work-bench.
Holmes was seated at his desk in a great cloud of tobacco smoke with his back toward me, head down, pipe in hand and all but inundated by a great litter of crumpled news-sheets and journals. The room remained still and quiet – he had not detected my stealthy arrival.
I paused, and was about to say something light-hearted as, for example “A caller to see you Mr Holmes” when he abruptly set down his pipe. Without turning he murmured “Do come in Watson and please, for heaven’s sake, stop tiptoeing round like a thief in the night!”
He spun round, and my bewilderment mixed with deep vexation must have shown, for my friend burst out laughing uproariously. “Oh Watson, to see your face; what a glorious study in frustration!”
“But how on earth could you have known it was I?” Disappointment seized me; “Oh, obviously, you merely observed me arrive, from the window.”
“I have been seated at my desk since noon.” “Then you simply heard the street-door close.”
“I overheard no such thing.”
“Then assuredly you did not hear the stair, for I avoided those steps which screech an alarm.”
“That is perfectly true. I see that matrimony and your practice have been keeping you rather more exercised than you had anticipated.” I was accustomed to these abrupt changes of subject as Holmes’ mercurial mind leapt ephemerally from one thread of thought to another. “As it happens Holmes, you are perfectly correct; how does that bear upon the matter?” My friend smiled.
“It is simply that for some weeks before you abandoned me and upped-sticks for Kensington, you had repeatedly vowed to send those favourite old ox-blood leather town shoes to be re-soled on account of the abominable squeak from the right.
“It has since abated somewhat, and no doubt the autumn dampness has further quieted it; however, the all-but inaudible, peculiarly high, still near-perfect A-flat, occasioned when you lift your right heel in climbing the stair is perfectly distinctive to a student of the violin, particularly one who explores the higher registers of which the instrument is capable. And thus you betrayed your arrival most individually and musically.
“I merely surmised, therefore, that you have not yet found the time among your other busy professional and private affairs to have them sent for repair. Other than that treacherous heel, your ascent might have been quite silent.
