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Holmes for the Holidays
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Table of Contents
Cover
Acknowledgments
Contents
Introduction
The Watch Night Bell
The Sleuth of Christmas Past
A Scandal in Winter
The Adventure in Border Country
The Adventure of the Three Ghosts
The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist
The Adventure of the Man Who Never Laughed
The Yuletide Affair
The Adventure of the Christmas Tree
The Adventure of the Christmas Ghosts
The Thief of Twelfth Night
The Italian Sherlock Holmes
The Christmas Client
The Adventure of the Angel's Trumpet
About the Authors
Back cover
Cover
HOLMES
FOR THE
HOLIDAYS
EDITED BY
Martin H. Greenberg,
Jon L. Lellenberg, and
Carol-Lynn Waugh
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime hardcover edition / November 1996
Berkley Prime Crime trade paperback edition / November 1998
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1996 by Martin Greenberg, Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh,
and Jon L. Lellenberg.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address:
The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com
ISBN: 0-425-16754-2
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published
by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks
belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 987654321
Scanned and Proofed by eBookMan V1.0
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment to Dame Jean Conan Doyle for permission to use the Sherlock Holmes characters.
"The Watch Night Bell" copyright 1996 by Anne Perry.
"The Sleuth of Christmas Past" copyright 1996 by Barbara Paul.
"A Scandal in Winter" copyright 1996 by Gillian Linscott.
"The Adventure in Border Country" copyright 1996 by Gwen
Moffat.
"The Adventure of the Three Ghosts" copyright 1996 by Loren
D. Estleman.
"The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist" copyright 1996 by
Jon L. Breen.
"The Adventure of the Man Who Never Laughed" copyright 1996
by J. N. Williamson.
"The Yuletime Affair" copyright 1996 by John Stoessel.
"The Adventure of the Christmas Tree" copyright 1996 by
William L. DeAndrea.
"The Adventure of the Christmas Ghosts" copyright 1996 by Bill
Crider.
"The Thief of Twelfth Night" copyright 1996 by Carole Nelson
Douglas.
"The Italian Sherlock Holmes" copyright 1996 by Reginald Hill.
"The Christmas Client" copyright 1996 by Edward D. Hoch.
"The Adventure of the Angel's Trumpet" copyright 1996 by
Carolyn Wheat.
Contents
Cover
Acknowledgments
Contents
Introduction
The Watch Night Bell
The Sleuth of Christmas Past
A Scandal in Winter
The Adventure in Border Country
The Adventure of the Three Ghosts
The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist
The Adventure of the Man Who Never Laughed
The Yuletide Affair
The Adventure of the Christmas Tree
The Adventure of the Christmas Ghosts
The Thief of Twelfth Night
The Italian Sherlock Holmes
The Christmas Client
The Adventure of the Angel's Trumpet
About the Authors
Back cover
Introduction
Sherlock Holmes is an admirable man, but whatever coziness he possesses comes mostly from the Baker Street scene— the light and warmth inside holding the cold and dark outside at bay, Mrs. Hudson hurrying upstairs with food and drink at the tinkling of a bell, and of course comfortable old Dr. Watson in the armchair before the fire, reading the latest issue of The Lancet or writing up one of Holmes's cases for the Strand magazine. Perhaps Holmes is hard at work looking up some telltale data in his commonplace books, or conducting an experiment in his chemical corner that will prove a man's innocence or guilt. Or perhaps he is unoccupied at the moment, and at leisure, a condition he detested—moodily passing the time by playing the violin until a frantic knock at the door and rush of footsteps up the stairs brings him his next client and case.
It is easy for us to imagine Holmes and Watson that way. It is far less easy for those who have read the stories carefully to imagine much more jollification at Baker Street. Not even at Christmastime, for Holmes and Watson are proper, reserved English professional gentlemen of the late Victorian age. They address each other by their surnames, not their Christian names, they observe the proprieties of their era and class, they maintain a reticence about their personal lives and feelings that is scarcely understandable to the modern world of today, where public display of feeling and emotion is hard to avoid even by those who would wish to.
So it is with the Christmas adventure of Sherlock Holmes that we have from Dr. Watson's pen. "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" appeared in the Strand magazine for January 1892. And it was, as Christopher Morley, founder of the Baker Street Irregulars, Holmes's greatest admirers, wrote, "a Christmas Story without slush." It takes place not on Christmas itself, but two days after, and Watson, married at the time and living elsewhere, stops by Baker Street to call upon his friend and wish him "the compliments of the season." Just that: the compliments of the season. No caroling, no gaudily wrapped presents, "no lachrymose Yule-tide yowling," to quote Morley again. Even at Christmastime, their sense of restraint is well in place, and Watson never lets the Christmas spirit that animates this story get out of hand.
Even so—and perhaps because of that—"The Blue Carbuncle" is one of the best tales in the Holmesian Canon. There is a lost hat, from which Holmes is able to make the most striking deductions about its owner. There is a Christmas goose, lost along with the hat the night before by the unknown man, that turns up with a precious jewel in its crop. And there is the certainty, when the owner of the hat and goose shows up to claim them, that he knows nothing whatever about the blue carbuncle, which has been stolen from the Countess of Morcar at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. The goose came from the goose club at the Alpha Inn, near the British Museum. And so, through the cold and frosty streets of London that night go Holmes and Watson, on a journey of detection that takes them to the Alpha Inn, Covent Garden market, and back to Baker Street before the mystery is solved, and an innocent man, in jail accused of the theft, is set free.
The true culprit is also set free, by Sherlock Holmes. "After all, Watson, I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies," says he. "Beside
s, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward."
Sherlockian scholars love to analyze Watson's stories, and "The Blue Carbuncle" is no exception, particularly since it seems to harken back to earlier Christmases. When Holmes and Watson visit the Alpha Inn to learn where its goose club procured its birds, they depart with a remarkably hearty farewell to the pub's proprietor, from Holmes, of all people. "Here's your good health, landlord, and prosperity to your house!" One scholar has pointed out that the Alpha Inn—believed to be the Museum Tavern, at the corner of Museum and Great Russell streets—may have been Holmes's own local during his early years in London, for he had lived in that neighbourhood then, he told Watson elsewhere, in Montague Street around the corner from the British Museum. Holmes was in active practice as the world's first consulting detective for twenty-three years, and Watson was associated with him for seventeen of those, but several of them were before Watson came onto the scene—solitary years for the young Holmes, living in a rented room there in Bloomsbury, studying the various aspects of his unshaped profession at the British Museum and at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and learning on foot the geography of the world's largest city. Holmes was alone and poor then, and Christmas is the time of year, Charles Dickens tells us in "A Christmas Carol," when want is most keenly felt. Perhaps a few of his first Christmases in London were spent at the Alpha Inn nearby, where some company could be borrowed, and cheer purchased, for an hour or two at a time. It was only later, when Watson came along, and they took rooms together in Baker Street, and Mrs. Hudson saw to their wants, that Christmas was no longer as solitary as it once had been.
"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" is a Christmas story that has stood the friends of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson in good stead for over a century now. But there is no denying the fact that it is only one Christmas of the many that the two great friends and companions shared. Perhaps the stories in this volume are some of the others.
Jon Lellenberg Christmas 1995
The Watch Night Bell
Anne Perry
My friend and colleague Sherlock Holmes had not a high regard for the logical nature of women. Indeed he considered their virtues to lie in an entirely different area, one with which he personally had little to do, being a man not attracted to the domestic life. He was a creature with a most brilliant intellect which was constantly in need of stimulation, or he fell into a state bordering upon melancholy. He felt that women tended to see everything on a personal and emotional level. The abstract joys of pure reason lay beyond their grasp.
Indeed if the young woman who sat in our rooms in Baker Street that chilly morning three days before Christmas was typical of her sex, then I could offer him no argument. She was everything he found most irritating: small, almost childlike in stature, fussy of dress and manner. She fiddled constantly with her fur muff, stroking it as if it were an animal, plucking at it with her fingers. Worst of all, she seemed unable to sustain a thread of thought or finish a sentence, but was constantly interrupting herself.
I could see Holmes growing close to losing his temper. He had agreed to see her because he was bored, and her letter had indicated an extreme urgency and peril.
Our visitor had so far told us of the delights of Christmas in Northumberland, the crisp snow, the roaring fires, the magnificent countryside. She had described the excellence of the larder and the cellar, and the general festivities of Christmas. She had interrupted herself to mention the stables and the conservatory, and the pleasantness of the gardens—even at this time of year.
Finally Holmes could bear it no longer.
"Miss Bayliss!" he said levelly. "Be good enough to come to the point! So far you have described an idyllic situation. What is it you fear? If all is as you say, what brings you to London? Above all, what brings you to me?"
She looked quite startled. "Oh! Oh, dear. I am so sorry, Mr. Holmes. You have been most kind, and I have been so upset I have rambled on and wasted your time, without properly explaining myself!" She gazed at him, full of apology.
"The point, Miss Bayliss," he said with barely concealed impatience.
She began to look very distressed, her hands plucking at her muff, her bosom rising and falling rapidly. I wished to offer her some refreshment—perhaps in part to distract her mind from her anxiety and help her express herself, for she was obviously labouring with a profound emotion—but I feared with any further delay Holmes would abandon her altogether.
"Are you in personal danger, Miss Bayliss?" I asked gently.
She turned to me from the large armchair where she was sitting, her face filled with gratitude.
"Oh, no, Dr. Watson, not I! It is my father."
"And what is it you fear may happen to your father?" Holmes asked.
"That he may be murdered, sir," she replied succinctly.
Holmes's interest was not quite caught. He regarded her as a hysterical and over imaginative woman whose fancies were likely to be irrational.
"What makes you fear such an attack, Miss Bayliss? Has he received some threat, or has an attempt been made already?"
"Oh, no!" She almost laughed, as if the idea were absurd, if only we could understand it. "You do not know my sister, Mr. Holmes, or you would not even ask!"
"Your sister?" His eyebrows rose in slight surprise. I knew him well enough to realize he did not believe her that there was in fact any danger. "Do you mean that your sister poses some threat to your father's life?"
"Indeed yes." She bowed her head. "It is a terrible thing to have to say, and it shames me more than you can know." Her voice was very soft, but quite distinct. "That is one of the reasons why I can hardly approach the local police. They would never believe me, for which I cannot blame them. Alyson seems on the outside to be everything sweet, obedient and dutiful. Only I know her well enough to see what she is really intending...."
The last hope of interest died from Holmes's eyes.
"I am sorry, madam, but I am not qualified to intervene in a family disagreement."
She perceived instantly that she had lost him. Her face crumpled in despair. She gazed downwards, and I thought she was hiding tears.
"If you knew what a noble man my father is, Mr. Holmes, you would not dismiss it so. He is one of the finest and bravest soldiers our country has known. He fought in the Zulu war... at Rorke's Drift. He seldom talks about it, but even I, who have never been to Africa, can be moved to tears of wonder and respect for the man who fought in those campaigns. I expect you know the history of it, Dr. Watson, and will not be surprised to hear that he carries the scars, and the pain of the Zulu spear to this day."
"Indeed not!" I said heartily. Naturally, like any other soldier in Her Majesty's forces, I was familiar with the story of the small military hospital at a mission station on a crossing point of the Buffalo River, where 104 men had withstood attack after attack from some four thousand Zulu warriors. It was one of the most heroic and disastrous events in our colonial history. No encounter has ever won so many of the highest awards for valour. Every man who was there must surely deserve not only our respect, but any assistance we could possibly offer, should he need it.
I looked at Holmes, expecting to see reflected in his lean face some of the emotions I felt, and to do him justice, I was not disappointed. He was as sceptical of Miss Bayliss as ever, but his attitude had altered significantly. He no longer brushed her aside.
"No man who survived such a battle should fall at the hands of his family, Miss Bayliss," he said more gently. "Please tell me why it is you believe your sister would wish him harm."
I too listened intently. She must surely have some desperate reason, and there must be proof of it, or how could anyone believe such a monstrous thing?
She began speaking very quietly, and for once she did not ramble, but was completely coherent.
"My sister Alyson is older than I, Mr. Holmes. We live a fairly lonely life. My fat
her owns the largest house for some considerable distance. We have friends, of course, but the circle of our acquaintances is small, and there are not many gentlemen from among whom either Alyson or I could choose a suitable companion for our lives."
"I see," Holmes said quickly. "And has Alyson fallen prey to someone your father does not care for?"
She looked up at him, her eyes bright. "I see you understand very well. I am afraid that is precisely what has happened. Except that in a sense it is already too late. Alyson married him a year ago." Her small face fell into an expression of great anger and sadness. She seemed to be speaking as much to herself as to either of us. "He is very handsome, and his manner is charming. I could not fault him, when he is with Alyson, or my father. But he takes me for a fool, and has not bothered to hide his true self from me. He is reckless, and greedy, Mr. Holmes. He has squandered his own small means, and now looks to Alyson's inheritance to repair his fortunes. My father's name carries great weight..."
"It would do," I agreed hastily. "A man with such a history must be held in honour by all who know him. Is this man also a soldier?" I asked because I wished to form a picture of him in my mind.
"Oh, no, Dr. Watson." She shook her head fiercely. "He has never risked anything in the service of others, nor has a concept of duty. He loves the comforts of life and deplores hardship of any kind."
"With such a father, what can your sister find in him to attract her?" I asked incredulously.
"A smooth tongue," she replied. "An attentive manner. He can talk well of art and ideas. He is widely read. Alyson has learned too much of the army and foreign travels and the abilities of leadership. She would sooner have a husband who will remain at her side and keep her constantly entertained."