The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes (36 page)

“And Sir Charles, Sir Maurice and Miss Hobbes? What happened next?”

“They all became very dear friends. We had many adventures together over the years. I’ve never known a finer group of people. A family, really. Although... it’s been a while...”

“When was the last time you saw any of them?” asked Rutherford.

“Too long. Years,” replied Angelchrist, his voice cracking. “You know how it is, Mr Rutherford. Time has a habit of running away with you. Before you know it, years have passed. You’ve been so absorbed in your own small corner of the universe that you’ve drifted apart from your friends, and you barely noticed that they’d stopped calling. We were all so busy, trying to save the world...” He trailed off, unwilling or unable to continue.

The two men remained silent for a time, drifting on through the deserted streets of the capital. The snowstorm had gathered momentum now, and the view through the car windscreen was a chaotic haze of fluttering white. They turned a corner, and then—swerving to avoid another, oncoming car—Rutherford slowed and gradually drew the vehicle to a stop outside a large Victorian terraced house.

“We’re here,” said Rutherford, quietly.

Angelchrist frowned and leaned over, peering out through the driver’s side window. He narrowed his eyes, as if straining to see through the blizzard. “But... I recognise this house. This is... it’s Charles Bainbridge’s house!” He glanced quizzically at Rutherford. “Why have you brought me here? After all this time?” He sounded confused, as if he’d been caught off guard. “I don’t understand.”

Rutherford smiled. “You said yourself it had been too long, Professor. Now’s your chance to put that right. Your friends are waiting for you inside.”

“Friends? You mean...?”

“Sir Charles, Sir Maurice and Miss Hobbes, yes,” said Rutherford. “All of them. You’re expected.”

Angelchrist issued a long, contented sigh. He searched Rutherford’s face, unable to suppress his joy. Slowly, the corners of his mouth twitched until a wide grin was playing across his face. “But why?”

“Merry Christmas, Professor,” said Rutherford. He reached for the handle and popped open the door, shivering as flecks of snow swirled in on an eddy, spotting his face and arm. He climbed out, his feet crunching on the newly settled snow. Angelchrist was clambering out of the vehicle on the passenger side. Rutherford glanced up at the house; saw the shadowy forms of three people standing in the bay window, watching. He raised a hand in salute.

“Are you joining us, Mr Rutherford?” asked Angelchrist, coming to stand beside him, looking up fondly at the figures hovering in the window. “I’m sure you’d be more than welcome.”

“Oh, no,” replied Rutherford, taking a step back towards his car. “I wouldn’t be able to keep up.”

Angelchrist laughed. He put a hand on Rutherford’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so very much.”

Rutherford nodded, and then turned and slid back into the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut behind him. He watched for a moment as Angelchrist trudged carefully towards the house, leaning on his cane. The door was open now, warm light spilling out across the street.

Grinning, Rutherford turned the key in the ignition, gunned the engine, and quietly steered the car away into the snowy afternoon.

(The following story notes assume readers have already read the stories included in this volume, and include spoilers.)

I’ve wanted to explore the story of Newbury’s previous assistant, Templeton Black, for some time. Templeton’s death at Fairview House is one of Newbury’s biggest regrets, one of the things that defines him, and every mention of Templeton so far has been focused on the way he died.

When it came to deciding on the contents for this collection, I knew I wanted to open with something new, and that seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring Templeton properly to life, to give him an opportunity to shine. “The Dark Path” is his story, really. Newbury serves as a catalyst, but Templeton’s the one who saves the day. His relationship with Newbury is very different to Veronica’s, almost a role reversal, with Templeton being the louche, boozy, seat-of-the-pants sort of guy, and Newbury being the more staid, professional one.

The story itself is a mirror of Newbury’s own fascination with the occult, and foreshadows the path he eventually takes himself. There’ll be more to come from Templeton in the future.

This is the first Newbury & Hobbes short story I ever wrote, and it’s an early indicator of the different directions I’ve always planned to take with the stories.

I started writing this within half an hour of finishing
The Affinity Bridge.
I think I was so fired up from finishing my first full-length novel that I didn’t want to stop. The case is referenced in the closing pages of the novel, and I essentially just picked up the conversation between Newbury and Bainbridge from that point and ran with it. I suppose it’s a bit of a twisted love story, really, recited by Newbury long after the event. At the time it felt like quite a different type of tale for Newbury,
sans
Bainbridge and Veronica, and I guess I was testing the format a bit. It appeared in the UK limited edition hardback of
The Affinity Bridge
as a bonus story.

This was the first of a number of Christmas stories I’ve written for Newbury and the gang.

What I consider to be a “traditional Christmas” is essentially Victorian—plum puddings, mistletoe, presents under the tree—the fault, I think, of Charles Dickens, who popularised many of these notions with his Christmas stories. It’s become a bit of tradition for me, too, to write a Newbury & Hobbes story at Christmas time.

This one was originally written to go inside a Christmas card, which was sent to my friends and family. There’s a gag hidden in the story, too—an ongoing friendly rivalry with my brother, Scott, over who can outdo the other by referencing a story from our youth—about a shattered mug. Go and watch his movie,
The Tournament,
if you want to see how he got me back.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop experimenting with ways to tell different Newbury & Hobbes stories, and this was one of the first. It’s told in an epistolary format, but the twist (and I’m assuming you’re reading these notes
after
you’ve read the stories) is that the letters are all being written to the corpse of their author’s murdered wife. I’ve always been intrigued by epistolary stories, and there’s another, of sorts, later in the books.

I think this was the first Newbury & Hobbes story not to feature any steampunk or fantastical elements—it’s a simple horror story about a man’s jealousy and dangerous obsession with his wife.

In some ways this is the newest story in the collection, but in others it’s one of the oldest, too. The mysterious spy, “Lady Arkwell”—or Clarissa Karswell, as Newbury comes to know her—was born out of a desire to have a recurring sparring partner for Newbury, someone who could turn up in a number of stories and mix things up a little bit between Newbury and Veronica.

This, really, is Clarissa’s origin story, and I wrote the first half of it a couple of years ago, before shelving it to get on with what I was really supposed to be doing—writing the new novel. It sat there for some time, although references to Lady Arkwell started to show up in other stories, almost as if I was unconsciously seeding her into the saga.

Again, when it came time to decide which stories to include in this book, this one seemed like a natural choice, so I went right back to the start of Clarissa’s tale and started over. This story is the result. It won’t be the last we see of Clarissa Karswell.

If you hadn’t realised by now, I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes. I can’t recall the genesis of this story, other than the fact I’d always wanted to dabble with a Holmes story, and couldn’t resist making it a crossover—something I’d later go on to explore in more depth in my Sherlock Holmes novel,
The Will of the Dead,
which features Bainbridge as a main character.

The story was originally written for a convention chapbook for Teslacon, and revised for inclusion in my
Encounters of Sherlock Holmes
anthology.

It was a great deal of fun to have Watson team up with Newbury and Veronica instead of Holmes, but to make sure Holmes was there in the background, pulling the strings, circling Newbury as a bit of a rival. Watson ends the story thinking he’s finally got one over on Holmes, but Holmes, of course, knew what was going on all along, and just wanted to make sure he was free to attend a violin concerto.

This story serves as a prologue, of sorts, to the fourth novel in the series,
The Executioner’s Heart.
In that book, Newbury has managed to obtain a rare and dangerous book of ritual magic,
The Cosmology of the Spirit,
which he’s using to “heal” Veronica’s clairvoyant sister, Amelia.

It’s also a reference to one of my earliest pieces of published fiction, a novella I wrote for Telos Books for their Time Hunter series,
The Severed Man.
That book features a secretive devil-worshipping cult known as “The Cabal of the Horned Beast”, and they reappear here for the first time since 2004. What I found interesting about writing this one was the fact the cult, although clearly the “bad guys”, are the ones who are hard done by. It’s Newbury who steals from them, provoking them into seeking revenge. We see that revenge played out in full in
The Revenant Express.

Another Christmas tale. This one has its roots even more firmly in Dickens—it’s essentially a riff on
A Christmas Carol,
with Newbury, befuddled by opium on Christmas Eve, hallucinating the spectres of Templeton Black, Bainbridge and Veronica: past, present and future. There’s some foreshadowing of what’s to come in
The Revenant Express,
and it was the first time I’d properly written about Templeton Black, albeit as a ghostly spirit.

Another recent tale, this, written for the charity anthology
Storyteller,
a tribute to the fantastic writer Matt Kimpton.

I wrote this straight after “The Dark Path” and wanted to do something else with Templeton Black, something that picked up on the themes of that other story and showed Newbury later, already lost to his obsession with the occult.

The genesis of the story was lovely, too—a friend called Nick Campbell found a page in an old children’s book listing loads of wonderful old titles, most of them forgotten and long out of print. A group of us began riffing on the titles, imagining what stories might have belonged to them. It was Stuart Douglas of Obverse Books who jumped in and suggested he pull together an anthology as a tribute to Matt, with each author taking a title from that list and writing a new story. This one is mine.

Yet another Christmas tale! This one’s set later in the series, though, after the events of the sixth novel. Things have changed for Newbury, Veronica and Bainbridge, and Newbury’s fallen into another of his black moods. Bainbridge pays him a visit on Christmas Eve, however, with the only Christmas present he knows will rouse Newbury from his depression—a new case.

This one was written for the
Newbury & Hobbes Annual 2013,
which was a ridiculous amount of fun to put together. It was written long before I ever got round to finishing “Lady Arkwell’s Deceit”, but echoes the already-planned ending of that story, with the enigmatic Clarissa Karswell sending Newbury a note to reignite their little game.