Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Winged Ghost

Evan Muller

Description

In one of Sherlock Holmes' most harrowing cases, the crown jewels are stolen from the Tower of London just days before Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. In the race against the clock to retrieve the precious gems to save from national embarrassment, Holmes finds that the case to be more complex and infinitely more dangerous than it first appeared.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781780925905
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
THE ADVENTURE OF THE WINGED GHOST

Written by Evan Muller
Edited by Alice Smales




Publisher Information
First edition published in 2014
© Copyright 2014
Evan Muller
Digital conversion by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of Even Muller to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.
Published in the UK by MX Publishing
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Chapter 1
It was a dark dreary Sunday in the middle of June, 1897. The fog filled the streets, and distorted vision, and all one could hear was the click-clack of horses’ hooves mixed with the melancholy song of the heavy rain upon the cobblestones. I had just recently come in from the rain, and my clothes were soaked from the unexpected downpour. Sherlock Holmes was playing a melancholy tune on his violin while I dried off near the fireplace.
His hawk-like face was fixated on the yellowed sheets of paper on his old wooden music stand. He abruptly stopped playing, and picked up the crisp new copy of The Sunday Times from the sitting room table. His eyes darted back and forth across the pages. “Watson!” he said. I turned around to face him.
“I see that you have been to Hyde Park today,” Holmes remarked with a knowing look on his face.
“How the blazes did you know that, Holmes?” I askedas I hung up my damp overcoat.
“My methods are the art of deduction. This instance was especially simplistic. The mud and grass stains on the bottom of your trousers shows that you were in a large grassy area. Your jacket is slightly torn, and a gentleman such as yourself would never purposefully allow fine garments like these to be in such a state, which must mean that you were in a bit of a scuffle. Finally, the pamphlets in your overcoat pocket indicate youattended at a rally or speech of some sort. These three clues show you recently attendeda particularly fiery speech at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park that almost became a small riot.” Holmes eased back into his large cushioned chair with a contented look on his face; and, once again, there was a look of amazement on mine.
There was a knock on the door, and I let our landlady, Mrs Hudson, into our sitting room. As she finished setting a plate of hot scones on our dining table, she said, “Inspector Lestrade is waiting downstairs in a very agitated state. Shall I show him up?”
“That man says that every case he needs solved to help him advance in the police force is of the utmost urgency. Nevertheless, show the inspector in,” said Holmes, trying to mask his excitement behind a withdrawn demeanour.
Within a matter of seconds, we heard the inspector’s footsteps on the stairs. He rushed into our roomand threw himself down in one of the chairs.
“What seems to be the problem now, Lestrade? Is it a perplexing mystery of a dog escaping its owner, or is it the more sinister enigma of how you haven’t been promoted in the past five years?” Holmes asked the inspector with an impish grin on his countenance.
“The crown jewels have been stolen!” Lestrade moaned.
Holmes’ smile immediately disappeared. His bony fingers struggled to light a match for his oily clay pipe. I was horrified that one of my nation’s most precious artefacts had been usurped and was now most likely in the hands of ruffians. Lestrade shifted in his seat and produced a small leather casebook out of his coat pocket. His voice rose to a higher octave as he recounted his notes.
“The crown jewels were stolen at about two in the morning from the Tower of London. There are no windows in the room, and the door can only be accessed by one of the Yeoman Warders. As you know, the large stone walls surrounding the White Tower are impossible to breach, especially with the number of trained Yeoman Warders guarding the walls. One guard, Phillip Smith, was found dead on the roof of the White Tower, but he had no visible wounds on him. He had a look of terror on his face, the like of which I’ll never forget. Some of the more superstitious staff at the Tower are starting to believe that the robbery was the work of a ghost, since the only way anyone could get over the walls is if they could fly.”
After Lestrade had related his story, Holmes thought for a while before saying, “I suspect more devious elements are afoot than ghosts. We must go to the scene of the crime immediately.”
I was very puzzled by the case and asked, “Holmes, do you think that it could be foreign agents trying to undermine our nation’s morale?” Holmes didn’t respond because he was already running for the coat rack near the door. He grabbed his overcoat and walking stick, and ran out of our rooms. Lestrade and I followed suit.
We quickly hailed a four-wheeler that took the three of us across London and through the old stone doorway that leads into the Tower of London. We were met at the gates by an elderly Yeoman Warder who introduced himself as James Perkins. He had the bearing of a hardened war veteran; his features had been weathered with old age, but his eyes remained keen and astute.
Perkins hastily showed us through the armour-adorned hallways to the scene of the crime in the top floor of the White Tower. The head warder took out several small keys and systematically opened a series of locks that guarded the entrance to the jewel room. “Were Smith’s keys found on his body?” Holmes asked.
As our guide pushed open the heavy metal door, he said, “They were, in fact, found right next to his body.”
The four of us entered the jewel room where four glass and steel display cases stood smashed and empty. “The glass was shattered by what we suspect was a sledgehammer,” said Lestrade.
Holmes nodded as if to say that the conclusion was correct. He then withdrew a magnifying glass from his overcoat pocket and inspected every angle of the case, muttering to himself and jotting down a few notes in his leather notebook. About one-third of the jewels in the room were missing, and shards of glass littered the floor.
We then went to the roof of the White Tower where we were presented with the horrific sight of the dead Yeoman Warder, Phillip Smith. Smith’s mouth was open, as if he had been killed mid-scream, and his skin was ashen white. He was in his early fifties, fairly young to be a Yeoman Warder, as most of the Tower guards were old veterans. He had a short brown beard, and his blue eyes, though lifeless, still communicated a feeling of dread to whomever looked into them. Holmes stooped down and examined around the body with a magnifying glass. He slid a small twig-like object from near the guard’s body into a small glassine bag and put a few drops of a liquid that he found on the roofinto a small container. Holmes walked over to the edge of the roof. He pulled a piece white fabric off the edge and deposited it into another small bag.
He then asked about the dead man’s history. “He was a dedicated soldier, a highly decorated officer who fought bravely in many Indian campaigns and the Second Anglo-Afghan war,” said the head warder. “He was popular among the rest of the guards for his fierce loyalty to his friends. He was only here for a couple of months, which made the rest of the guards take him under their wings, so to speak.