BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY GARY LOVISI
Battling Boxing Stories: Thrilling Tales of Pugilistic Puissance (Editor)
Driving Hell’s Highway: A Crime Novel
Gargoyle Nights: A Collection of Horror
The Great Detective: His Further Adventures (Editor)
Mars Needs Books!: A Science Fiction Novel
Murder of a Bookman: A Bentley Hollow Collectibles Mystery Novel
Violence Is the Only Solution: 3 Vic Powers Crime Tales
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2012 by Gary Lovisi
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To the writers in this book, whose stories have made it so special.
INTRODUCTION, by Gary Lovisi
Sherlock Holmes!
That magical name conjures up all that is thrilling and exciting about the classic mystery short story. The Great Detective, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is without doubt the most well-known and popular fictional character ever created—and with good reason. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories are fascinating excursions into scientific detection with interesting, well-formed characters, offering intelligent, thoughtful mysteries that all men and women can relate to—and all enjoy. Quite simply, Doyle created magic with his Sherlock Holmes stories.
Writers over the last hundred years have been desperately trying to capture and recreate that magic, and I feel that the authors in this book have done just that. These are well-crafted stories by writers whose love of the original Holmes stories by Doyle clearly shows in their work. While some of our contributors hail from as far away as Australia and New Zealand—or right back to old-time professionals like Morris Hershman who lives a stone’s throw away from me in Queens, New York—what they all have in common is that each of their stories keep to the traditional Holmes and Watson as created by Doyle.
These stories feature our heroes in a variety of cases set in various stages of their career together. In this book you will encounter stories that recreate our Sherlock Holmes in all new adventures, some of which continue or expand upon earlier cases. One story takes an endearing look at Holmes in his old age, another looks at the mystery surrounding a race horse that could match Silver Blaze for speed; murder and betrayal figure in many tales, and even good old Inspector Lestrade has a bit of say-so in one tale. In my own contribution, our heroes take an unusual interest in the game of golf!
However, any anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories worth its salt is marked just as well by what it does not contain as by what it does contain. You’ll find no distaff tales in this volume; no variants on our heroes, no unlikely personality traits, nor supernatural flummery. None of that nonsense, thank you very much, but I could not resist just one exception! This is Holmes and Watson the way they were meant to be, the way Doyle wrote them. I believe what these stories really are, are rather personal love letters by each author to Holmes and Watson, and to their creator Arthur Conan Doyle. It is good to have them all together in this one volume.
I am sure you will enjoy the stories in this book. I chose each tale especially for its unique qualities, and I know each one will not fail to entertain and thrill you as much as it did me. So now sit back in your comfortable chair and let the fog of old Victorian London swirl around you, or perhaps the smoke from Holmes’ own pipe, and take a trek with us to the front door of 221B Baker Street. Holmes and Watson are there waiting, and we can see that once again, the game is afoot!
—Gary Lovisi
September, 2012
Brooklyn, New York
THE MYSTERY OF OGHAM MANOR, by Stan Trybulski
I had been away from our lodgings for several days, setting up my new surgery on the High Street in Putney, and on my return I found a noticeably thinner and unshaven Holmes packing his small travel valise.
“Aha, my missing colleague. I was about to conclude I would not have the pleasure of your assistance.”
“You are working on a new case, I take it.” I knew that my old friend had been in need of money recently, for he had been spending inordinate sums on matters of which I disapprove so strongly that I am not disposed to discuss them here. That he had been fasting did not disturb me for I was quite used to this manifestation of his periods of intense intellectual activity, but that his cat-like fastidiousness concerning personal hygiene had apparently been abandoned placed me on my guard.
“Yes, one that will be quite lucrative and may also prove to be a professional challenge.” There was a strange glow in his eyes and I feared he had slipped back into the grip of the demons that once had so fearfully possessed him before he underwent what his brother Mycroft called “the cure.”
I sat down in my wing chair and studied him carefully as he continued packing. There had been a time in his career, and not so long ago, that only the challenge to his superb intellect would have mattered. I decided not to chide him and sensing the opportunity for another good story that I could submit to a new American magazine, I only said, “Well, are you going to tell me about it?”
“I have been retained by the Anglo-Hibernian Life Assurance Company, Ltd., of Galway, Ireland, to ascertain if the shooting accident of a businessman Ethelbert Wolkner on his Dorset estate three days ago was an accident or suicide.”
“This doesn’t seem to be your type of case; it should be a simple forensic decision by the local coroner.”
My good friend snapped his valise shut. “Ah, yes, a forensic decision to be sure. But simple? That, I am afraid, will be quite another matter. For only last month, Anglo-Hibernian insured the life of the late Mr. Wolkner for the tidy sum of £75,000. A sum they are not anxious to pay out if they can avoid it.” He stared at me, his eyes almost feverish. “You had better get packing, Watson; with your knowledge of gunshot wounds from your Army days in the Hindu Kush, I am sure you may be able to render valuable assistance to the dear country doctor. And to my clients, of course.”
“How on earth did this Irish insurance company come to retain you?” As I asked this question, my eyes drifted around the room but stopped when they fell on two empty cut glass tumblers resting on Holmes’ laboratory table. The glasses contained a small residue of brown liquid on their interiors and next to them stood a nearly full bottle of Jameson’s whiskey.
Holmes smiled. “Very observant, old chum. Yes, I have had company and not long ago. Perhaps your packing can wait a bit. Sit down and rest while I tell you a little story.” He walked over to the table and poured some of the whiskey into the glasses and handed me one. I sat in my favorite wingback chair and waited.
My colleague sat opposite me and raised his glass in salute. “You have been as good a companion as any man could ask for. Both trusted colleague and friend. So let us first drink together.” He quickly swallowed the whiskey in his glass while I sipped mine. I waited while he refilled his glass.
He took another large swallow and stared at me, his eyes still feverish. “I have been mysterious for good reasons about the years I spent in hiding after my confrontation with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, but I can tell you this much, that I spent several of those years near Galway, on the tiny island of Inis Oírr, studying the Erse language and literature. It was there that I met a Mr. Sean Carroll, President of Anglo-Hibernian.”
“Why, dear friend, even after all these years, you continue to amaze me. Erse? Why on earth Erse?”
Holmes poured some more of the whiskey into my tumbler and then filled his glass half full. I had never seen him drink like this, yet I held my tongue lest he mistake any comment as a reprimand and cease to recount what might just be the best story of our career together.
“Why on earth not? To study one of the