Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(17)
Word of the . . . well, the hour, confederates.
“We’ll make sure.”
“Harry needs a safe school. He and his sisters. Fairfield Park is ideal. You’ll see to their fees and transport. Uniforms, supplies, everything. Lunch.”
“Of course.”
She searches his face for sincerity or signs of duplicity. Extends her hand. They shake.
A cop strolls over, a Detective Inspector. He nods to her. “I hear you helped close this case. We should be thanking you.”
“No call for that. It’s done.” Done, dusted, gone. Like Holly Kendrick.
“Nevertheless, well spotted, Miss . . .”
“Call me Shaz. It’s Sharon, actually. Sharon Hill.” She glances at Croft. “But from here on I’ll be trading as Shar. Shar Locke.”
“That’s . . . unexpected,” Croft says.
“I think you mean irregular.”
Word of the year.
WHERE THERE IS HONEY
by Dana Cameron
Writing settles my mind. Getting the thoughts out of my head and onto the page, with the accompanying smell of ink and the scratch of the pen across fresh paper, has become a daily habit, especially when we are working on a case. Once committed to paper, my whirlwind ideas cease to plague me so terribly. I hate the persistence of memory, questioning the actions I took or did not take on a case, what I observed or did not observe—and always, what might have been. These “might have beens” stretch to eternity, a litany of failure. I have observed a marked lowness of spirits when I do not keep to this ritual, and so try to be constant in it. On some occasions, since my discharge from the army, I have found myself unnerved by new worries, and the ordering of my rampaging thoughts, corralling and quieting them, helps.
Indeed, I was busily writing when my friend Sherlock Holmes stalked into the room and hurled himself into a chair that late March evening just a few months after we took up residence together. I had hoped that he would presently close his eyes and doze, as he sometimes did after reviewing the successful completion of the day’s work, but it was not to be. He immediately leaped up again and began to pace, ignoring the brandy and gasogene, snapping his long fingers as if counting time in music or attempting to summon up a stray memory.
Many would have seen this as rude, juvenile behavior. But for me, alarm bells began to ring. His tenseness often infected me, even as I worked diligently to keep to a quiet life to stave off those terrible spells that come over me, paralyzing and robbing me of all sense. But only this morning he had been bemoaning the swirling yellow fog and the prosaic dun-colored houses across the street.
“You’re writing, Watson.”
I remarked that his powers of observation had never been more acute.
Ignoring me, he continued, giving a description of my day up to this point: an empty surgery office, a walk in Regent’s Park to settle my thoughts, luncheon at home on veal pie, and how my writing was proceeding well, after some pacing, based on the scuffing of the carpet by the desk. I might as well have been the skull he kept on the mantel for all the attention he paid me. I was merely an audience—no, less than that. I was merely the rocks upon which a great cataract crashes, for a flood must rush freely, or else tear up all the earth and everything in its path.
“—and now you are writing up ‘The Clue in Amber’—no, ‘The Adventure of the Unquiet Grave.’”
“Yes.” This recounting of observations was a habit of his, a plaything for a restless mind.
“I recall seeing the note with your new publisher’s address in the hallway this morning. There was a sudden re-stocking of our larder. And Mrs. Hudson was humming; she always hums when she’s received the rent. Therefore, you’ve been paid. May I say, this is a far more satisfactory situation than your previous arrangement.”
I grunted in agreement, torn between finishing the words I’d worked so hard to find and my relief at Holmes providing himself any kind of distraction. My first attempts at selling my work—for my medical practice was still in its infancy and Holmes’s income from his detective work was, to be generous, erratic—had terminated in a most unsatisfying manner, with my publisher retiring for health reasons. In point of fact, the blackguard had cheated me and, when I demanded he make things right, he laughed, telling me I ought to know when I was well off.
A seething red rage had come over me, followed by a calm I knew all too well. As I methodically went about breaking his jaw, I observed aloud that he could expect more of the same, and worse, if he thought about going to the constabulary. As soon as the publisher could write again (his hand having been broken in three, especially painful, places), he laboriously scribbled a note to his secretary, releasing me from my contract and paying me the sum I was owed. His editorial successor, perhaps acquainted with his colleague’s experiences, cannily suggested that if I made some trifling adjustments to tone and content, my work would sell well to the higher-stepping readers of the more prestigious Strand Magazine. No one likes his work altered, but for a few more bob, I can state with no irony whatsoever that I do in fact know when I am well off.
So, no more penny dreadfuls; with some bowdlerization of our real adventures, I now produce thrilling tales that are brimful of derring-do. Some slight recasting of the details is necessary. I wouldn’t want to shock my readers, and often the truth is a good deal more unsavory than they would like. But if I smooth over the rough parts of a case, pretty it up—well, it’s good for the general populace to have moral tales and model heroes. Perhaps it’s good for me and my friend, too, giving us an ideal to strive for. We so often fall badly short, no matter how hard we try.