Murder at Sorrow's Crown Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Available Now from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  One: A Taste for Ash

  Two: A Bureaucratic Wall

  Three: Rearranging the Attic

  Four: Tea with Lord Rowton

  Five: Rescued by Wiggins

  Six: Cutting to the Chase

  Seven: Recruiting Wiggins

  Eight: The East India Company

  Nine: A Visit to the Club

  Ten: A Trip to Newcastle upon Tyne

  Eleven: A Rematch with a Killer

  Twelve: Mining in Pretoria

  Thirteen: A Summons from Gregson

  Fourteen: Locating the Mine

  Interlude

  Fifteen: Murder Most Foul

  Sixteen: Declassified

  Seventeen: Bringing Justice to Light

  Eighteen: The Man in Black

  Nineteen: Peace

  About the Authors

  The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:

  THE COUNTERFEIT DETECTIVE (October 2016)

  Stuart Douglas

  THE ALBINO’S TREASURE

  Stuart Douglas

  THE DEVIL’S PROMISE

  David Stuart Davies

  THE VEILED DETECTIVE

  David Stuart Davies

  THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD

  David Stuart Davies

  THE WHITE WORM

  Sam Siciliano

  THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA

  Sam Siciliano

  THE WEB WEAVER

  Sam Siciliano

  THE GRIMSWELL CURSE

  Sam Siciliano

  THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN

  Daniel Stashower

  THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

  Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman

  THE SEVENTH BULLET

  Daniel D. Victor

  DR JEKYLL AND MR HOLMES

  Loren D. Estleman

  THE PEERLESS PEER

  Philip José Farmer

  THE TITANIC TRAGEDY

  William Seil

  THE STAR OF INDIA

  Carole Buggé

  THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA

  Richard L. Boyer

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:

  MURDER AT SORROW’S CROWN

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783295128

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783295135

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: September 2016

  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.

  © 2016 Steven Savile & Robert Greenberger

  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.

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  I would like to dedicate the Great Detective’s latest case to Miranda Jewess who made a most excellent Watson to my and Bob’s Sherlock—Sorrow’s Crown would not be half the book it is without her red pen. Scratch that, she’s more of a Mycroft, two steps ahead and looking out for us boys. Thank you, boss. We owe you.

  STEVEN SAVILE

  I would like to dedicate this adventure to Steve, who went from friend to partner. He stepped in to help shape a notion into a novel and did so with verve and patience. And a huge thank you to Miranda who saw to it we had the time and offered us the guidance to make this a worthy read. I owe you both.

  ROBERT GREENBERGER

  “A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.”

  Alfred Lord Tennyson

  Prologue

  As celebrated as Sherlock Holmes was around the cusp of the twentieth century, a number of his investigations were deemed sensitive to national security. The Official Secrets Act of 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 52) denied his companion, Dr. John H. Watson, the opportunity to publish the most fascinating and uncomplimentary details of those investigations in any of the popular magazines that would usually carry the exploits of the great detective, and resulted in a number of his diaries being confiscated by the authorities. There was one such case in the summer of 1881, that was subsequently suppressed by agents of Her Majesty’s Government, the ramifications of which were felt the length and breadth of polite society, highlighting the need for a new Act of Parliament.

  It is only in recent years that these investigations have been declassified, the secrets contained therein finally deemed safe for consumption by the general public whose appetite for such exploits remains insatiable.

  What follows is the unaltered account of one such investigation that is of interest, perhaps, because of the tarnish it adds to the government’s reputation during what was a particularly volatile period in our country’s history.

  One

  A Taste for Ash

  Being an Account of the Reminiscences of JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., late of the Army Medical Department

  Our lodgings reeked of ash. It was a distinctly acrid tang that clung to the air with all the tenacity of a flesh-eating parasite, that is to say—and with an Englishman’s natural tendency for understatement—it was quite unpleasant.

  While Sherlock Holmes and I got on well from the outset, I must admit that living with him was a series of constant adjustments. Mine, not his. Sherlock was a man very much set in his ways and I was expected to come around to his way of thinking in all matters. Shortly after agreeing to room with him at 221B Baker Street, he had settled in, taking one of the bedrooms for himself while commandeering much of the large, airy sitting room with his boxes and portmanteaus. While it took me the matter of the evening we agreed to lease the space to bring my things around, it took Holmes much of the following day. After that, he took his time setting things up, caring more for his weights and measures, his chemical and microscope slides, than his personal belongings.

  During those first few days and weeks he spent the majority of his time at his chemistry table, though increasingly he came to spend more and more time in the sitting room, fussing with one thing or another and taking careful notes with the rigid fascination of an obsessive. Any post that arrived for him tended to be overlooked, tossed into a corner. After several days the stack of letters transformed into a careless heap, and it became increasingly obvious he intended to ignore it until it became a bother to navigate. Not that either of us received much in the way of actual correspondence. I was on the outs with my brother and my parents were long since dead. Most of my acquaintances remained in the armed forces and were busy with their duties to the country. Holmes, however, subscribed to several newspapers, which were cast aside as he lost interest in their grim tales of life outside the window of 221B, and as far as I could tell, he did not seem to engage in much in the way of perso
nal correspondence.

  Despite his foibles, as lodgers went he was relatively easy to get along with. His routines were fairly set: he rose early and rarely stayed up beyond ten at night. He did not drink and it was not for some time after we settled in together that I was even aware that he owned a fine violin, he played it so seldom. The music he made when left on his own defied description, but he could, upon request, successfully recreate established works, such as my preference for Mendelssohn. In fact, while I was out trying to build up a viable medical practice for myself, he was either fixed on some scientific study or lying prostrate on our couch, deep in thought, still as a statue for hours. It was at these times that Holmes was at his most enigmatic, barely moving and never explaining himself to me. I will admit that upon returning to our rooms that first time I had thought he was dead. The man had not moved so much as a muscle in the six hours I had been gone. Six hours! I could never begin to guess what thoughts could occupy him so completely and utterly, but invariably he concluded his contemplation and snapped up from the couch to resume his studies without comment.

  On other occasions, Holmes would leave 221B without a word or explanation of his plans and be gone for minutes or hours. His comings and goings defied any pattern and upon each return he never disclosed his whereabouts. Occasionally he would return with a package or two, something wrapped in used newspaper, but I never saw the contents, and presumed they were materials for his never-ending experiments.

  I knew he was brilliant. That much was obvious, even then. A true one of a kind, and mercifully so. I would not want to imagine a London filled with Sherlocks. When we met he was already building up a reputation with the agencies of the law as a “consulting detective”, using his obsessive method of examining the world to assist on seemingly impossible cases. As a result, by July of 1881 he was already making something of a name for himself with Scotland Yard and the good men of the Metropolitan constabulary. Even the newspapers were beginning to acknowledge his existence, although they were yet to fully credit his contributions to the successful conclusion of those cases.

  Personally, I was never less than astonished by his studied brilliance, though I must admit that I was becoming increasingly aware that as ferociously intelligent as he was with chemicals and matters of science, he was equally deficient when it came to matters of culture or politics. If the Queen’s image was not everywhere, I think he would have had difficulty coming up with her name, never mind her royal house. His memory was, dare I say, filled with more important things. He was a man without peer, using that intellect and rigorous scientific method to solve puzzles that baffled Scotland Yard’s finest. Building his skills through observation and practice, dating back to his brief two-year stay at university, had made him an extraordinary observer of the physical world around him. What he could tell from a smudge of mud or chip of paint never ceased to amaze me or impress those new to his acquaintance. Little wonder inspectors such as Lestrade and Gregson had come to call upon his services with increasing regularity. I’d noticed a pattern developing in those periods between cases when Holmes would manically begin a series of studies, throwing himself into the pursuit of knowledge with a single-mindedness that crossed well over the border of obsessiveness, hence the reek of ash currently wafting out of the sitting room.

  I assumed it was a particularly strong cigar, and made a deduction of my own: we had a visitor. I dressed hastily and opened the door to find Holmes bent over a clasp which suspended a thick, dark cigar a bare sixteenth of an inch off the table, a glass dish sat snugly in a recess beneath to catch the ash as it burned merrily away, filling the room with a robust aroma.

  We had no visitor.

  “What in the world are you doing?” I asked him by way of morning greeting.

  “I should think it’s perfectly obvious, Watson. I am watching this cigar burn.”

  “Let me rephrase: why are you watching that cigar burn?”

  “A better question,” he replied. “New cigars are imported all the time and each, quite obviously, has their own unique characteristics, including aroma and the properties of their ash.” I raised a questioning eyebrow, but didn’t say a word. Holmes continued, “As these new leaves enter circulation and increase in popularity, I need to know what sets them apart from similar cigars so as not to be fooled into drawing the wrong conclusion.”

  “Of course,” I said, as though it made perfect sense.

  “This latest shipment was just delivered to the docks this morning. I have one of my street Arabs always on the lookout for interesting and exotic imports on my behalf. He secured a handful of these, just in from Honduras, and here we are.” He gestured towards the contraption that held the smouldering cigar. “What better way to spend a damp, dreary morning than working with something new?”

  “I can think of a few,” I offered, but he ignored me. One thing that we did not share was a sense of humour.

  “See here. What do you notice?”

  “That it might take some time before the odour leaves our rooms because the windows need to remain shut,” I replied, admittedly with some annoyance in my voice. I did not smoke cigars and this was a particularly strong example. The summer’s unusual heat should have meant the windows remained open for ventilation but Holmes’s experiment would have been diluted from whatever aromas wafted in from the still air outside 221B.

  It wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Indeed, Holmes seemed bothered by the flippant remark as if I was not taking his studies as seriously as he did, which admittedly, I wasn’t. “Other than that, Watson.”

  To appease him, and to give me something to do now that I was awake and dressed, I peered at the burning cigar, trying to understand how the leaves were wrapped and if the burn rate appeared unusual in some way. I did not know much about the murky world of cigars beyond the most elementary: that the cigar itself consisted of three distinct parts, the wrapper, the binder and the filler, and that if the filler was packed too tightly it blocked the airways through the leaves and if it were packed too loosely the smoke would burn too quickly. As I said, not a lot. Truth be told, dear reader, I doubted I would ever look at the world the way Holmes did and felt I would always be a bit of a disappointment to him. Still, I did my level best to distinguish some sort of anomaly in the ash.

  “The ash appears longer than I am accustomed to,” I replied, hoping I had made a correct observation. Despite my best efforts and own scientific and medical training, I was always missing some detail that made me a constant inferior to my companion.

  “Quite right,” he agreed, validating my conclusion for a change. “These are expensive compared with the penny cigars the common man might smoke. The higher quality is found in the leaves for both the wrapper and the contents. As a result it produces a much denser ash, which takes longer to drop.”

  I could only stare at him, unsure of how this added to his store of knowledge.

  “Why is it important? Because ash length changes the flavour of the cigar. A longer column of ash cools and ‘softens’ the smoke, making for a more pleasant experience, but is also indicative of a purer cigar. Additionally, a longer ash means more mass when it drops. This particular brand appears to drop its ash at the five sixty-fourths of an inch mark, measuring a fifth of an ounce. If that number remains consistent as I burn the remainder, then I can store this reliable information. Couple this with other information, such as whether the leaves were sun grown or shade grown, which can be deduced from the colouration of the wrapper, how the leaves themselves have been cured and fermented, then there is the country of origin, of course. I am sure you are aware, Watson, that tobacco leaves are grown in more than one part of the world?”

  “Of course,” I lied.

  “Significant quantities of the leaf are cultivated in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, which as I say is where this particular cigar was imported from, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Puerto Rico…” The exotic-sounding names all began to blu
r into one as he reeled them off without taking a breath. “The Canary Islands, even, surprisingly, Italy, and of course the plantations of the Eastern United States. The soil in each of these countries contains different nutrients and a scientific mind could therefore deduce the country of origin if it knew what to look for.”

  Holmes paused his lecture and watched the greying ash finally tumble from cigar to dish. He scribbled a note in a leather-bound book using an elegant pen. He took one more look at the new heap of ash and continued writing.

  “Truly, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gleaned from this humble pile of ash,” I said. Holmes appeared to miss the sarcasm in my tone.

  He had the remarkable ability to force his mind to empty itself of useless information when he was done with it. That, perhaps, was every bit as impressive as his ability to cram it full of facts. Although there was no science to support his position, he remained convinced that the human brain could only retain so much knowledge, so he regularly created room by “forgetting” facts he considered unimportant. It certainly explained why he knew nothing about particular subjects and cared little for information that did not have a bearing on his detective work. In many ways, he was a simple soul: he just needed to know whether it was raining—which it was on that day—not understand how the clouds absorbed moisture and emitted it under the right and proper circumstances.

  I would have preferred a warm summer day, allowing us to air out our rooms, but instead I would have to endure the experiment until it met its desired conclusion. I could only hope that the cigars were the only things that burned down to ash, not the four walls around us.

  The ring of the bell at the street door broke the silence. Unsurprisingly, Holmes ignored it, still watching the glowing ember at one end of the cigar with interest. In contrast, I sprang to my feet, knowing who the caller was. Holmes had had few paying clients during the preceding weeks, while our bills remained alarmingly constant. He did not seek out custom, and it was not my place to find individuals with the type of intriguing problems that might interest my companion and help pay for our lodgings in the process. My own practice was frighteningly small and I would not be able to support us both for more than a week or two. It was ever a juggling act. Holmes had an unerring ability to be dismissive of problems I imagined he’d find fascinating, and became utterly absorbed by the minutiae I predicted he’d dismiss as pointless. He could be quite contrary. However, a chance encounter the previous day, while at my bank depositing what little my practice had produced in financial gain, had offered a chance of Holmes paying his way.