Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street by David Marcum (books to read to be successful TXT) 📗

“I thought you said Mr. Withers had replaced Mr. Laramie,” said Lestrade.

“That is true as far as it goes, but I suspect Mr. Withers replaced one Mr. Laramie with another.”

“Oh,” Lestrade’s shoulders slumped. “You are mad. At least there is a living person buried in a coffin, that’s something. Wait!” Lestrade unbuckled his manacles from his belt. “Please surrender quietly, Mr. Holmes. I’ll see to it they treat you decent enough.”

“Save the manacles. You’ll need them in a moment. What I mean is that Mr. Withers is a pseudonym for Mr. Laramie.”

“Then who is the other body?”

“Bryan Laramie.”

“But you just said Bryan Laramie is Mr. Withers, and Mr. Withers is buried right here.”

“I said Mr. Withers is also Mr. Laramie. But not Bryan Laramie. Bertrand maybe, or Bartholomew. People always think it is cute to give twins similar names.”

“Twins?”

“It’s true! I’ll swear to it! Just let me out!” said Withers from the tube.

“The man in the coffin looks just like the body you found?”

“I rather hope not. The body I found was seriously decomposed and ravaged. Besides, I have yet to see Mr. Withers’ face.”

“Then how can you know they are twins?”

“The fatal mistake Madame Withers made was to give me overly precise directions to a supposedly lost husband. Clearly she knew where the body was, and was distressed that it had not been found quickly enough. Why? Because she wanted it to be recognizable when it was found. She wanted the organization hounding her to see her dead husband for themselves. The body was identical to Mr. Withers – a twin. In the meantime, Mr. Withers found the perfect place to hide, in the grave of his recently deceased brother. They expected the whole scheme to take but a few days. Bryan Laramie could wake up in his grave, and Mr. Withers could rest in peace.”

“Remarkable, Mr. Holmes!”

“All too pedestrian, Lestrade, now that I understand it. Perhaps this crime solving business isn’t for me after all.”

Lestrade ran to fetch a police wagon while Holmes woke the gravedigger. The stooped man didn’t thank Holmes for it, but seemed to get into the spirit of the thing as Mr. Withers screamed and pounded under the ground beneath his shovel. Holmes imagined the man had few good stories to tell, since all the drama was generally resolved by the time the digger played his part. As Holmes had hoped, the tobacconist Wilshire became quite liberal with the quantity of shag he dispensed. He also followed through on his threat to substitute his Turkish blend, doing so over the Christmas holiday when his store was closed, leaving Holmes with no choice but to smoke the strange stuff. He found he’d lost his taste for English shag by the time the tobacconist reopened. All seemed right again on Montague Street, yet Holmes could not shake the feeling of being watched, as if some malevolent spider eye had fallen upon him.

The Devil of the Deverills

by S. F. Bennett

“Context is everything,” remarked Sherlock Holmes one afternoon in the late November of 1889. “For example, to what would you imagine I was referring if I were to speak of zeal in Devon?”

“Some excitement on the part of the locals, no doubt,” I replied.

“And there you would be mistaken, my dear fellow, because I had in mind the village of Zeal Monachorum to the north of Dartmoor. The name is an unusual one, certainly. I seem to remember that the manor was gifted by one of the old Danish kings to an abbey. The present name is a corruption of ‘the cell of the monks’.”

“That’s a little unfair, Holmes,” I protested. “How was I supposed to know that?”

“Precisely, Watson. Thus my comment to you about the importance of context. Were you a Devonshire man, you would have understood the allusion straight away.”

It was one of those drear Sundays when a relentless drizzle had settled over the land. My wife was entertaining a gathering of ladies from the church at our home, and it was decided by universal agreement that I would be better employed finding a diversion elsewhere. So it was that I called upon my old friend, to find him in the midst of one of those sporadic episodes where he attempted to bring order to the chaos of his affairs.

I was soon to learn this rare fit had not come upon him by chance. As the clutter, papers, journals, and bundled manuscripts had begun to spill out onto the landing and down the stairs, Mrs. Hudson had issued him with an ultimatum: Whatever remained beyond the confines of his domain by the time she returned from Evensong would be leaving Baker Street that very night without further discussion. Thus, in an effort to preserve what he could, I was pressed into helping with sorting and filing.

Holmes was seated on the floor, with a mass of yellowing papers and letters scattered around him like autumn leaves. As was his way, he would pause occasionally to read aloud from a fading document, using it to draw my attention to an old case. My memory had not failed me in most instances, but at present, I was at a loss to say what had provoked this strange remark.

“The business was before your time, Watson,” Holmes elaborated with a little encouragement. “I am minded of it now, because of this letter from Marcus, Lord Zeal. I had quite forgotten I had kept it.”

He passed the aged page across to me. I read it with some surprise.

“‘My dear fellow, rest assured you shall always be welcome at Norton Deverill’,” I read aloud. “‘Should you ever require a flitch of bacon, I shall be happy to accommodate you’. Holmes, whatever does it mean?”

“There is no great mystery,” said he