Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Pigtail Twist

H Simmonds M J

Description

It is June 1884, a grey period for both the weather and Sherlock Holmes' mood. A lack of compelling cases has left him bored and close once again to the dull embrace of the needle. Less than a month earlier, however, he had astonished Inspector Lestrade and everyone around him by solving no less than six crimes in consecutive days.At the eleventh hour, Inspector Gregson arrives, with the promise of an impossible crime to solve. A murder has shattered the bucolic peace of the sleepy arable farmlands of Bedfordshire. The owner of a small stately home has been brutally killed while hosting a dinner party. But what and where is the murder weapon? What follows is an epic, sweeping tale. From England to Africa, from poverty to wealth, the story spans decades. Hardship and friendship are followed by betrayal, deception and murder.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781787053052
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of The Pigtail Twist
M J H Simmonds





First published in 2018 by
MX Publishing
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2018 Matthew Simmonds
Cover design by Brian Belanger
The right of Matthew Simmonds to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. 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. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.




For Henry and Ania
With all my love




I would like to thank the following, without whom, this book could never have existed.
H & A, Mum, Dad, James (Harrison), Chick and Waleria (Babcia). Tom Shiner (the polar opposite of his literary doppelganger, a finer chap was never made). Dominic Selwood and Robert Rankin for their great encouragement. Dom and Al at H&S. Daiva & Giuseppe. Steve Emecz and Rich Ryan at MX Publishing for having faith in me.
Finally, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his good friends, Doctor John Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.



Introduction
June 1884
The summer of 1884 was so abominable it was barely worthy of the name. A band of low pressure had settled stubbornly to the west of Ireland and spread its cold misery eastward throughout the entire month of June and beyond. The rain pelted down through the murky grey streets of London and the wind blew it into swirls that left no surface dry and many a hardy soul with a limp and a shattered umbrella.
Sherlock Holmes, lacking for a case or any other intellectual challenge, was the very mirror of this foul presence. A hawkish, dark and moody doppelganger, taken to rapid pacing followed by hours of lethargy and cadaverous stillness. Neither pipe nor newspaper gave him relief and his eyes were increasingly drawn from the silk Persian slipper beside the firedog to that small coffin shaped box that sat above the gently crackling fireplace.
At the time, I was happy and content just to be indoors catching up with my reading and indeed putting some of Holmes’ recent exploits down on paper. Any lengthy exposure to the cold and damp would certainly inflame my old war wound - the throb from the old Jezail bullet was already noticeable. My suggestions for topics of conversation were met with silence or, at best, a curt grunt of disagreement. His face was drawn, and he appeared even thinner than usual, I could not recall seeing him take any solid sustenance for several days. Holmes’ ennui had now set in to the point where I could no longer see any way of stopping him reaching for his syringe.
Although it now felt like an eternity, it was, in fact, a mere three weeks since Holmes had astounded myself, most of Scotland Yard and half of England with the most amazing and sustained display of his talent for deduction and creative reasoning I think I have ever witnessed. Over the course of six days he had solved six crimes and even hinted at the presence of a seventh, yet undetected, felony.



Part One
It had all begun on a fine, if still rather chilly, May morning with a visit from Inspector Lestrade. He arrived at our Baker Street rooms looking particularly agitated. His face was flustered, and he twitched and flinched even more than usual. His clothes were ruffled and unkempt as if from a sleepless night and the dark shadows that had formed below his eyes seemed to confirm this. Despite the early hour, I immediately poured him a large brandy and motioned him to take a seat by the fire to which Holmes added fuel and prodded to encourage into greater activity.
“I see that you are quite overcome by your recent case volume,” announced Holmes with his back still turned.
“Why, yes I am. But how...?” stuttered Lestrade
“Your atypical appearance married to the veritable crime wave being reported over the last few days,” he gestured languidly at a disordered pile of recent local and national newspapers, “points towards friend Lestrade’s present state of duress.”
He turned slowly, and I imagined for a second that I could see the faintest hint of a smile appear and then vanish as he sat himself down in his musty old armchair.
I offered Lestrade a cigar, which he gratefully accepted, as Holmes gently emptied his favourite caliginous clay pipe into the fire before refilling, tamping and lighting it in his well-worn morning ritual. The smoke produced from this first pipe of the day was, as always, dark, acrid and pungent. It swirled around, quite overwhelming the lighter, finer smoke from our cigars. It was almost as if even his tobacco was asserting its total superiority over us mere intellectual mortals.
Although Lestrade was, at that time, still deeply suspicious of Holmes’ abilities he had, by now, witnessed the efficaciousness of his methods at first hand and a grudging respect was forming beneath his surface layers of scepticism.
“It is not the cases themselves, you understand,” began Lestrade, his composure restored by the warming golden liquid. “It is the sheer number of them. Mounting up more quickly than anyone on God’s earth could possibly solve them. Truly, I feel like Sisyphus himself”.
“Well I am rather busy myself,” lied Holmes, quite brazenly, gesturing towards his copious files, “but I will see what I can do to lighten your load,” he added, noncommittally.
I knew he had recently solved a rather unpleasant poisoning case involving a wine merchant, a chemist and a dissolving cork and was looking forward to a new challenge.
“Well, so far, I have a murdered flower girl in the Old Nichol, a rogue cabby at large, a jewel theft, a violent conflict of wills, a spate of suspicious deaths in Hampstead and a bookmaker beaten to death outside his own front door,” Lestrade disclosed, flicking through his leather-bound pocket notebook.
“I am aware of a number of these cases already and the remainder hardly appear to offer much more of a challenge either,” Holmes responded, casually. “But please let us start with the first, the poor flower seller.”
Case 1: The Flower Girl
Monday 12 th of May 1884
“As you know the Old Nichol is the very worst of the East End, both in terms of poverty and crime, a place to be avoided even at the best of times, if you get my drift,” began Lestrade, leaning forwards to emphasise the seriousness of his statement.
“We were called to St Leonard’s Church at around eight o’clock last Friday evening, after someone reported seeing a man attacking a young lady who was selling flowers outside the church. When we arrived, her stall was wrecked, and she lay dead among the detritus. A sad sight it was, her lying amongst all those broken stems and colourful petals, considering that’s probably more flowers than she will see even at her own funeral.”
Lestrade paused for a moment. I often forgot that he was from, and empathised with, a far lower social stratum than Holmes or I, and had worked his way up through the force by sheer ability and persistence alone. This only rarely manifested itself, and almost always when dealing with the suffering of one London’s poorest creatures.
“She had been strangled and it appears her takings stolen, as she had not a coin on her.”
“We have arrested three suspects. Two are local ne’er-do-wells, the other is the son of the local verger. All were seen hanging around the church before the poor girl was attacked. All three fit the descriptions of the witnesses, but as it was already getting dark when they were seen, the actual descriptions were pretty vague to say the least.”
“Was this her usual spot? Or did she move around to ply her wares?” asked Holmes.
“I believe she was regularly outside the church, according to the witnesses anyway,” replied the Inspector.
“The verger’s son?” I questioned. “Is he really a likely suspect when you are also holding two miscreants who are already well known to the police?”
“Evidence, Watson. Discount no one until you have data. But I believe I have a fairly good idea of how to obtain it,” was Holmes’ curt reply.
“We shall see you at the Yard this afternoon then, say, midday? I wish to see the suspects.”
Holmes rose suddenly and gestured towards the door. Lestrade put down his now empty glass, bade farewell and uncertainly shuffled his way out and down the stairs.
“You already know who did it, don’t you?” I asked, slowly shaking my head in disbelief.
“I have a hypothesis that needs testing, but I am confident the matter will be resolved either way in time for a late luncheon in town”.
At half past eleven, we took a Hansom from Baker Street and made for Scotland Yard. The journey was fairly short and uneventful, taking us down Oxford and Regent Streets then across Piccadilly Circus. Holmes seemed to be in a good mood for once and began a short discourse on the relevance of pipe shapes to character and crime.
“A man who smokes a Bulldog or Rhodesian can always be trusted. But beware the man who smokes an overlarge bent Billiard. A voluminous sagging bowl indicates a lethargic personality. A man lazy enough to wish to fill his pipe as few times as possible is not one who should be tasked with any great responsibility. Whereas, t