The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes

AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS:

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES

THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN

Daniel Stashower

THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD

David Stuart Davies

THE STALWART COMPANIONS

H. Paul Jeffers

THE VEILED DETECTIVE

David Stuart Davies

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

Manley Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman

THE MAN FROM HELL

Barrie Roberts

THE SEVENTH BULLET

Daniel D. Victor

THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS

Edward B. Hanna

COMING SOON FROM TITAN BOOKS:

THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA

Richard L. Boyer

THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA

Sam Siciliano

The further adventures of

SHERLOCK HOLMES

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES

LOREN D. ESTLEMAN

TITAN BOOKS

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES

ePub ISBN: 9781848569201

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark St

London

SE1 0UP

First edition: October 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© 1979, 2010 Loren D. Estleman

Visit our website:

www.titanbooks.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the USA.

To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson

– one thrill in return for many

“When a doctor goes wrong, he is the first of criminals.”

– Sherlock Holmes, as quoted in

“The Adventure of the Speckled Band”

Foreword

Preface

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Acknowledgements

Dr. Jekyll’s “Case Of Identity”: A Word After By Loren D. Estleman

Also Available

“
Y
ou the guy that did the book about Sherlock Holmes?”

Ordinarily I make it a point to answer that kind of query with an appropriate wisecrack, but there was something about this particular visitor that warned me to keep a leash on my devastating wit. He had emerged from the back seat of a black limousine nearly as long as my driveway, flanked by a pair of healthy-looking young men with jaws like pigs’ knuckles and odd bulges beneath the armpits of their tailor-made suits. The fellow in the middle was short and built like a bouncer and had thick black hair in which the marks of his comb glistened beneath the illumination of my porch light. His face was evenly tanned, cleanshaven, and dominated by a pair of solid black wraparound sunglasses, although the sun had long since descended. He looked forty but turned out later to be closer to sixty. When he spoke, he had a Brooklyn accent that dared me to sneer at it. I didn’t.

“I edited
The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count
, if that’s what you mean,” said I. I was determined in spite of his formidable appearance to remain master of the situation. His visit had interrupted my writing and I was anxious to get back to it.

Without turning his head he held out a hand to the young man at his right, who immediately placed in it a package wrapped in brown paper, which he then thrust into my hands.

“Read it,” he ordered.

I opened my mouth to protest, but the eyes of his companions grew cold suddenly, and instead I stepped aside from the door to admit the trio. Once inside, the man in the middle took possession of my favorite easy chair while the others took up standing positions on either side of it, quiet and solid as andirons. I glanced longingly toward the telephone, but my chances of reaching it and dialing for help before one of them showed me what the lumps were in their jackets and pumped me full of lead were less than encouraging, and in any case if this was a robbery or a kidnapping, it was being handled in such a bizarre manner that as a writer I thought it might be worth my while to see it through. All three watched as I sat down on the sofa opposite them and opened the package.

I had all I could do to refrain from groaning when I read the title. Since the publication of
Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: Or the Adventure of the Sanguinary Count
, of which I was the editor, I had become the recipient of no fewer than three “genuine” Watsonian manuscripts sent to me from scattered corners of the world. I had not required an expert to tell me that none of them was worth the paper it had been forged upon. Nor had I use for another. Faced, however, with a most persuasive argument in the persons of the three strapping fellows in my living room, I read on.

A fresh glance at the handwriting caused my pulse to quicken. I had spent too much time decoding Watson’s earlier manuscript not to recognize his careless scrawl when I encountered it again. It was written on ancient vellum, with many corrections in the margins — signs of the Victorian perfectionist which were usually lost when A. Conan Doyle, hisfriend and literary agent, copied out his works for publication. I was immediately convinced of its authenticity. Quite forgetting my “guests,” I continued reading and finished the manuscript in that one sitting. When I set it aside some three hours later I was burning with curiosity, but I managed to appear casual as I asked the fellow in the dark glasses how the artifact had come into his possession. The story he told bears repeating.

In 1943, while serving a five-year penitentiary sentence for armed robbery, my visitor, who gave his name as Georgie Collins (a pseudonym; I was better off, he said, not knowing his real identity), was approached by the U.S. Army and offered the chance to shorten his term if he joined the service. He accepted, and a year later found himself in France during the post-D-Day Allied offensive.

One day he and a small patrol stormed a bombed-out chateau near Toulouse, “blew away” a nest of Germans hidden inside, and set to work searching the rubble for much-needed supplies. In a space between two walls Collins spotted a tattered sheaf of papers, covered with dust and bound with a faded black ribbon. After reading only a few lines he saw the discovery for what it was and, making sure that none of his colleagues was observing him, tucked the manuscript away inside his rucksack.

Surreptitiously questioning the locals, Collins learned that the chateau had been used for medical research by Doctor, later Sir, John H. Watson when he served as a civilian attached to the British Army during the First World War. The area had been heavily shelled even then; it seemed likely that during one of these bombardments the manuscript had been dislodged from the top of a table or bureau and had fallen through a hole in the wall and been left behind in the confusion of the final days of the war.

History repeated itself. Shortly after his return to the States, Georgie Collins married his childhood sweetheart and tossed the rucksack containing the manuscript into a utility closet in his home, where it lay forgotten among his other war mementos for more than three decades. If not for the popularity of the other lost work which I had edited, he said, it might still be there.

When I asked him why he had come to me, Collins smiled for the first time. He had very white teeth, very even — the work, no doubt, of an expensive cosmetic dentist.

“I got a sudden need for cash,” he said. “When I heard about this here Sherlock Holmes book you did, I remembered that thing I found in France and figured you might be willing to do whatever it is you do with these things and split the take with me. I don’t know nothing about editing. The only editor I ever knew got blew up in his car when he tried to publish a piece about an acquaintance of mine.”

I explained to him that profits are a long time coming in the publishing business and asked if he was prepared to wait several months for his share. The smile fled from his features.

“I ain’t got that kind of time. How much can you give me right now, tonight?”

“How much do you want?”

The figure he quoted had too many zeros. I countered with one of my own. His frown grew dangerous. Sensing his displeasure, the men beside his chair perked up like dogs anticipating the signal to attack.

“Chicken feed,” he snarled.

I summoned up my courage and shrugged. “It’s most of what I own. I need something to live on. You can consider it a down payment.”

He scratched his chin noisily. “All right, I’ll take it. In cash.”

“I don’t have that much on hand. Will you take a check?” I reached for my checkbook.

“I only deal in cash.”

“I’ll have to go to the bank, and it won’t be open again until Monday.”

He fidgeted in his chair, made faces. Finally: “Okay, I’ll take the check. Make it out to cash.”

I did so, and handed it to him. “It’s good,” I said as he studied it closely.

“I believe you.” He folded the check and put it away inside his coat. “You don’t look that dumb.”

My writer’s curiosity got the better of me and I asked him why he needed the money in such a hurry. To my surprise, he seemed unruffled by the question.