The Missing Mariner: A Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery (The Sherlock and Lucy Mystery Book 25) Read online

  THE MISSING MARINER

  A SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES SHORT STORY

  Among the missing: a long-lost brother, a priceless painting, and Flynn, who's in very deep trouble …

  THE SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES MYSTERIES

  The Last Moriarty

  The Wilhelm Conspiracy

  Remember, Remember

  The Crown Jewel Mystery

  The Jubilee Problem

  Death at the Diogenes Club

  The Return of the Ripper

  Die Again, Mr. Holmes

  Watson on the Orient Express

  THE SHERLOCK AND LUCY SHORT STORIES

  Flynn’s Christmas

  The Clown on the High Wire

  The Cobra in the Monkey Cage

  A Fancy-Dress Death

  The Sons of Helios

  The Vanishing Medium

  Christmas at Baskerville Hall

  Kidnapped at the Tower

  Five Pink Ladies

  The Solitary Witness

  The Body in the Bookseller’s

  The Curse of Cleopatra’s Needle

  The Coded Blue Envelope

  Christmas on the Nile

  The Missing Mariner

  The series page at Amazon:

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  Sign up at http://sherlockandlucy.com to stay up-to-date on Lucy and Sherlock adventures.

  THE MISSING MARINER

  A SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES SHORT STORY

  BY ANNA ELLIOTT AND CHARLES VELEY

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Charles Veley and Anna Elliott. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Sherlock and Lucy series website: http://sherlockandlucy.com

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  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1: WATSON

  CHAPTER 2: FLYNN

  CHAPTER 3: LUCY

  CHAPTER 4: FLYNN

  CHAPTER 5: WATSON

  CHAPTER 6: LUCY

  CHAPTER 7: WATSON

  CHAPTER 8: LUCY

  CHAPTER 9: LUCY

  CHAPTER 10: FLYNN

  CHAPTER 11: WATSON

  CHAPTER 12: LUCY

  CHAPTER 13: WATSON

  CHAPTER 14: FLYNN

  CHAPTER 15: WATSON

  CHAPTER 16: FLYNN

  CHAPTER 17: LUCY

  CHAPTER 18: WATSON

  CHAPTER 19: WATSON

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  A NOTE TO READERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CHAPTER 1: WATSON

  “Double Murder in Mayfair?” I asked, reading from the headline in the Times.

  Holmes waved the suggestion away.

  It was just before nine o’clock on the morning of Wednesday, January 18. Snow had fallen the day before, accompanied by a harsh wind that had now given way to fog. Barely a week had elapsed since our return from Egypt and, still softened by our previous month in that more temperate clime, I was grateful for the radiant warmth of fresh coals from our fireplace at 221B Baker Street. Holmes sat in his usual chair on one side of the blaze, and I on the other side, both of us well sheltered from the dank cold that pervaded the streets of London. I had been further warmed by a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs from Mrs. Hudson, followed by hot coffee. The plate, cup and silverware that Holmes might have used for his own breakfast remained clean and untouched on our table.

  Regrettably, Holmes was not in the mood to appreciate our creature comforts. Indeed, he was not in a mood to appreciate much of anything at all. Since we had come home to London, Holmes had resisted all my attempts to promote the only safe remedy that I knew of for his currently despondent state: namely, a new investigation.

  Nothing I had suggested thus far could rise to a level of complexity or novelty high enough to interest him.

  “Not outré enough for you?” I asked, hoping to at least prompt a reply.

  “The facts of the Mayfair case clearly indicate the guilt of the second footman. I have already communicated as much to Lestrade.”

  I studied the paper in search of another headline.

  “Robbery of rare masterpiece from Hampton Court Palace,” I read aloud.

  Silence ensued.

  I scanned the first paragraph of the article. I must confess that I had an interest of my own in the case, since I had always wanted to visit the palace and see the wonderful paintings it contained, not to mention the spectacular public state rooms and the stupendous kitchen built for the massive scale of entertainment demanded by King Henry VIII. I gathered my thoughts for a moment. If I could persuade Holmes to take the case, I thought, a visit would be required.

  I looked up. “This might be promising, Holmes. According to the newspaper report, the painting disappeared yesterday in broad daylight at the height of visiting hours and under full view of the warders. The Lord Chamberlain’s spokesman refuses to comment on the identity of the painting except to say that it is rare and irreplaceable and that every effort is being made to find the responsible parties.”

  Holmes, though, remained slouched in his chair. “If the warders at Hampton Court are foolish enough to allow themselves to be duped or distracted, I fail to see that it is any business of mine—unless, as will probably happen, the police throw up their hands and come to me begging for assistance. Until then, however, I have little interest in a stolen painting, irreplaceable or otherwise.”

  I studied my old friend’s lean, hawk-like countenance. In truth, I thought I knew what had produced this troubling descent into ennui. Once upon a time, I would have been consumed with the further worry that boredom would lead Holmes to resort to the stimulus of the cocaine bottle. That was not my fear in the present instance—although my habit of worry was nearly as difficult to break as any addiction to drink or drug.

  No, what troubled me now was that I feared there was little remedy for what ailed Holmes. A few short weeks ago, a villain whose pursuit had consumed the whole of Holmes’s energy for nearly an entire year had at long last been defeated. It was only natural, perhaps, that coming on the heels of that victory there should follow a certain feeling of emptiness. Not unlike a soldier who returns home after his time at war, Holmes now faced a gaping hole where once had been the desperate, defining purpose of our lives.

  Even more than that, though—and here, I thought, lay the incurable aspect of Holmes’s malady, if malady it could be termed—Zoe Rosario had returned to her career as violinist at La Scala Opera House in Milan. Roughly eight hundred miles away from London, Baker Street, and Sherlock Holmes.

  I opened my mouth, feeling as if I had to say something to prod my friend into action. What I would have said I am not sure, since Holmes avoided all talk of personal matters in general and Zoe in particular as he would the proverbial plague. However, I was perhaps fortunately prevented from making any clumsy attempts at commiseration, for at that moment there came from below the sound of a ring at the front door.

  “Well, Holmes,” I said instead. “Perhaps this indicates the arrival of a new client with a problem knotty enough for yo
ur liking.”

  Our visitor was indeed a would-be client. However, I very much feared that Holmes would consider her problem as drab as any that had appeared in the paper.

  Mrs. Athena Spenlow, as she introduced herself, was a very pretty woman, although no longer in her first youth, being somewhere about thirty or thirty-five years old. She had a touch of the Spanish beauty about her: black hair that curled around a heart-shaped, vivid face, with high cheekbones, a pert, pointed chin, and flashing dark eyes.

  Those eyes were fixed imploringly on Holmes’s face as she laid out the background to her case.

  “It’s my brother, you see, Mr. Holmes. Ronald. I haven’t seen him in … it must be twenty years, now. He quarrelled with my father when we were young and ran away to sea to become a merchant sailor. We had no word from him in all the years that followed, and our mother feared—indeed, we all feared—that he had died in some accident at sea.” Her eyes fell to her gloved hands, which lay clasped in her lap. “Our parents are deceased now, and I am quite alone in the world, my husband having died several years ago.”

  “My condolences, madam,” Holmes said.

  “Thank you.” She bowed her head. “But I did not come here to speak of my own bereavements. Ordinarily, I reside in East Molesey, and lead a very quiet life. However, three days ago, I came up to London to do some shopping. I was in a carriage, driving along Cotton Street, when I saw him. My brother, Ronald, in a dark blue seaman’s coat and cap. He was just boarding an omnibus that was travelling in the opposite direction from mine, and by the time I could make my driver understand that I wished to halt and turn around, the omnibus was long gone. But it was my brother.”

  Holmes said nothing, but Mrs. Spenlow hurried on as though he had spoken. “I know what you will say—how could I possibly have recognised him, after so many years? You will point out that I may have been fooled by a mere passing resemblance. I can only say, Mr. Holmes, that I know—know absolutely—that the man I saw was Ronald Stiles, my brother. He had in fact changed very little since last I saw him and … it was he. Of that I am perfectly certain.”

  She spoke with complete assurance, her hands clasped and her voice quivering with emotion.

  Holmes studied her a moment, then said, “I will not argue with your conviction. I would merely ask why you have come to me?”

  Mrs. Spenlow’s eyes opened a trifle wider. “Why, because I am hoping—praying—that you may be able to help me find Ronald again, of course. I am not without resources—I will be happy to pay any fee that you name, if you will only help me find my brother.”

  Holmes seemed to watch her a moment more from under half-lowered lids, then said, “I have no wish to cause you pain, but has it occurred to you that your brother may have no desire to be found? If the man you saw was indeed he, then he is clearly back in England. And yet he has made no attempt to contact you.”

  “Yes, but … but matters are not quite so simple. Ronald swore when he left our house after his quarrel with our father that he would never darken the family doorstep again. He would not know of our parents’ deaths. And I—Ronald is several years older than I am, I was just a young girl when he left. He would not know my married name, or where I had settled after my marriage. Mr. Holmes”—she clasped her hands more tightly—“I implore you, please, will you help me find the only family I have left in all the world?”

  Holmes was silent a moment. Even a man who prided himself on being unmoved by emotion would have found it difficult to remain immune to Mrs. Spenlow’s appeal. However, I truly had no idea whether he would accede to the lady’s plea for help or no. It was not at all the sort of case he usually accepted—and very far from the innovative or unique crime he had been demanding a mere twenty minutes earlier.

  However, after a moment’s silence, Holmes stood up with one of those sudden bursts of activity which characterised his movements, crossed to the hearth and tapped the ashes from his pipe into the grate.

  “If I am to assist you, Mrs. Spenlow, I will need some particulars about your brother. You say that his name is Ronald Stiles?”

  Mrs. Spenlow bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. But … that is, there may be a difficulty. My father disinherited Ronald. At the time of their quarrel, he swore that Ronald was entitled to nothing from him. And Ronald replied that he would accept nothing from our father, not even his name. So it may be possible that he is going by another name, other than Stiles.”

  “I see. And have you any idea of what other name he might have chosen?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible … he might have decided to call himself Ronald Benson. Benson was my—our mother’s—maiden name.”

  “Ronald Benson,” Holmes repeated. “I see. Watson, would you kindly make a note?”

  I belatedly drew out a notebook and pencil and complied.

  “Cotton Street is near the docks,” I said. “That makes it sound likely that your brother is still pursuing his career as a sailor. Perhaps he may have recently come in on a ship and be on shore-leave?”

  “Perhaps,” Mrs. Spenlow agreed. “So far as I know, he has no other trade, but of course there is much of my brother’s life these past twenty years of which I must be unaware.”

  “Just so. However, inquiries among the dock workers and sailors are at least a place to begin our search,” Holmes said. “I suppose it is too much to hope for that you might have a photograph or some other likeness of your brother?”

  “I do, actually.” Mrs. Spenlow opened her reticule and drew out a faded daguerreotype. “This was taken just a few months before my brother left home.”

  She passed the sheet across to Holmes, who studied it, then handed it to me.

  The image showed a handsome young man, clean-shaven but for a well-trimmed moustache, of somewhere around twenty years of age, dressed formally in frock coat and pinstriped trousers. I had unconsciously expected that Ronald would resemble his sister, but in fact so far as I could tell from the black-and-white image, his colouring was fair: light hair, combed straight back from his forehead and eyes that I would wager were blue.

  His head was thrown a little back, and he was smiling out from the photograph with all the unthinking arrogance of youth. Not, perhaps, a face with great strength of character, I thought, but he looked both engaging and good-humoured. An adventurer, seeing the world as a stage on which to enact his own daring adventures and schemes.

  I turned the photograph over, noting as I did that one side of the sheet was a little ragged, and that the image was narrower than the usual portraits I was used to seeing.

  Mrs. Spenlow saw my glance fall on the tattered edge and smiled sadly. “It was originally a portrait of our whole family. My father tried to rip Ronald’s picture out of the group and throw it away. But my mother salvaged the piece and saved it without my father’s being aware. I am glad that she did, for what you hold now is the only likeness of my brother I have.”

  Holmes took the daguerreotype back from me, studied it a moment, then laid it down on the mantle.

  “I will accept your commission, Mrs. Spenlow. Where may I contact you to report any progress?”

  Mrs. Spenlow released a breath of relief, sinking back in her chair. “Mr. Holmes, I cannot thank you enough. I have decided to stay here in town for a few days—at Fenton’s Hotel in St. James’s Street. Once more, I thank you again and again for your willingness to help.”

  Holmes accepted her thanks in what I felt was, even for him, a more than usually abstracted manner, and Mrs. Spenlow departed. I waited until I had heard the front door close down below before saying, “Hardly the sort of case I should have expected you to choose, Holmes. Do you think it possible that Ronald Stiles—or whatever name he is calling himself now—is involved in some sort of criminal activity?”

  It had occurred to me that the suspicion might have been at the root of Holmes’s warning comment about Mrs. Spenlow’s brother possibly having an aversion to being found.

  Holmes’s gaze had returned on
ce again to the photograph of Ronald which Mrs. Spenlow had left, and at my question he seemed to pull back from whatever complicated train of thought his mind was following.

  “I believe there are several points of unexpected interest about Mrs. Spenlow’s trouble,” he said. “At a bare minimum, I think it well worth dispatching Flynn to make inquiries at the docks about any seaman answering to the name of either Ronald Stiles or Ronald Benson.”

  CHAPTER 2: FLYNN

  Someone was following him.

  Or at the very least, someone was watching him. Flynn wasn’t used to that feeling of prickling awareness at the back of his neck. Usually no one on the London Streets gave him a second glance, especially in a neighbourhood like this one. Down here near the docks, the streets were full of shabby, slatternly tenements, gaudy public-houses and beer-shops—and every place packed with half-naked children, miserable-looking women, and drunken men either quarrelling or slumped in doorways to sleep if off.

  Mixed in amongst that lot, Flynn was usually about as noticeable as one extra flea on a dog.

  Not today, though.

  He risked a quick look over his shoulder, but he couldn’t tell who it was that was giving him the uncomfortable feeling of being stared at.

  It was still early morning. Carts carrying vegetables, milk, fish, eggs, and bones for family dogs rumbled towards the market. An old, white-bearded man in a checked coat and incredibly ancient top hat was rapping his bamboo pole on the windows of each house along the street—because of course no one would have money to buy an alarm clock in a neighbourhood like this one—to let people know it was time for them to get up and dress for work.

  Flynn turned up the collar of his coat, quickening his steps as he approached the corner of a narrow alley-way.

  This didn’t make any sense. Today’s job for Mr. Holmes had started out just like any other. Actually, compared to a lot of jobs he’d done for Mr. Holmes, this one was simple.

  Go down to the docks and ask around about a man who might be called either Ronald Stiles or Ronald Benson. Either a walk in Hyde Park or dead boring, depending on which way you looked at it.