Adventure of the Flying Blue Pidgeon , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Marcia Wilson

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127 pages

English

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Lestrade panted, getting to his feet as the gang of Cheathams fell back. "Right now I can think of worse things than rescue by an amateur detective.""My dear Lestrade, we're simply ensuring the fight is fair." Sherlock Holmes somehow dissuaded the truth of that by the way his lips were coiling up at the edges (without letting go of the pipe in his teeth). Perhaps it was because he was clearly in disguise as a seedy deckhand in Dutchman's sailing clothes. From behind him the little professional could see Dr. Watson, tarred like a sailor and armed with a wicked-looking blackthorn. "Well, then!" Lestrade crowed with his fist up and parallel to the looming swarm over the tavern. "Who is next?" "Marcia Wilson has discovered Scotland Yard's Tin Dispatch Box."David Marcum, Pasticheur, Editor, and Creator of The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	01 décembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781787050303
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Test of the Professionals, Part I
The Adventure of the Flying Blue Pidgeons
Sherlock Holmes’ London Through the Eyes of Scotland Yard
Marcia Wilson

Publisher Information
First edition published in 2016 by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive
London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited 2016
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2016 Marcia Wilson
The right of Marcia Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her 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 unauthorised 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 belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MX Publishing or Andrews UK Limited.
SPIRIT LEVEL is the artistic signature of the author Marcia Wilson. Her work is copyrighted and under copyright law.

About the Author
Marcia Wilson lives in Washington with a pack of support cats, a growing collection of native perennials, and a few patient humans. Her love of ACD’s works is very boring, so she sticks to writing as opposed to talking about it. She can be reached at m.a.wilson .resource@gmail.com or at gravelgirty.deviantart.com
Cover design and page marker by Stella Danelius
Stella Danelius is a graphic designer and illustrator who loves Sherlock Holmes and to design book covers. Sometimes the two co-incide. See more of Stella’s work at hereafter.se

Image Credits
Title Page: The Four Professionals, © 2016 Spirit Level/Marcia Wilson
Prelude I: Plymouth Pear and Lighthouse , Ibid
Prelude II: Sealing the Paperwork
Chapter One: Loose Tile , Ibid
Chapter Two: TheVegetable Lamb , Copyright Free Image
Chapter Three: The Kelpie, © 2016 Spirit Level/Marcia Wilson
Chapter Four: Tiddy Mun Tavern Sign, Ibid
Chapter Five: Sparrow , Ibid
Chapter Six: Osage Orange , Ibid
Chapter Seven: Bag of Barley Sugar , Ibid
Chapter Eight: Cigar Box and Cigar , Ibid
Chapter Nine: Imperial Stiff Collar , Ibid
Chapter Ten: Phial , Ibid
Chapter Eleven: The Elegant Barley Sign , Ibid
Chapter Twelve: Sandbag , Ibid
Chapter Thirteen: Walking-Stick , Ibid
Chapter Fourteen: Goldfish , Ibid.
Chapter Fifteen: T’ang Pottery, Ibid.
End: Whistle and Club , Stella Danelius

Prelude I: Plymouth 1873

Even overlooking the salmon-waters of the Tamar, the air was hot; hotter than the smoking ashes of the Alexandria Palace back in London. Hotter still than the mid-May rioters trying to free those Ascott women. [1] Tripoli reeled still from the dockworker’s uprising, and Khiva - Khiva! - had fallen to Konstantin Von Kaufman. Through it all the old man watched down from his third-storey study, musing upon the world as this small, insignificant portion of it, carried on. These hustling, bustling little people, rendered literally as small as they were metaphorically in the scheme of things, ran back and forth with their ant-like lives. Their river belle was dying against the debutante trains but still they scuttled, caught up in ferrying the newest cargo of stone fruit, mineral and metal. Ferries made way for bridges; good stone and metal beasts. Water gave way to the gleaming serpents of the rails, slithering on ribs of timber and concrete. Behind them was the rolling green coast speckled with lighthouses and scraps of rock.
Watching these miniscules soothed the old academic the way a bird-watcher toyed with ornitholmancy upon the migrant flocks. Their mindless action, harmless in its smallness, an absently waiting resource to be plucked up and stoked into flame with the proper alchemy.
The small lives of London knew nothing about the greater game of chess in the world. Those who could, fled the thick air of the city for the outerlying countryside and Plymouth had the advantage of the Channel. Rain freshened the world and sun-browned traders from Roscoff, St. Malo, and Spain plied their hand amongst the ship-men.
The visitor high in his host’s window frowned, for he had calculated a stronger presence from Santander. Clearly the Carlist War still throbbed amongst Gallica.
His arithmetic was wanting, and this would never do.
In the thick-walled rooms cooled by sea-air he turned from the window and settled again at his desk. So many students needing his attention. He enjoyed the questions from the young and eager, but if it was to be confessed, the only foolishness he could tolerate was from those who confessed to him outright their ignorance. Those who lied about their skills were a divergence; a faulty equation assembled from flawed components.
It was those who knew they were wrong and sought help that he found useful. And they could be so, so useful...
The gentleman settled against the wall with his horsehair chair and plucked up a few more papers, scanning and prodding and nodding at the occasional flash of brilliance in a thesis or summary or abstract. Oh, the pity of an earnest brain with the most exquisite penmanship and the weakest grasp of calculus!
Above him his generous and obligated host was stamping up and down in the hall, roaring at the latest bearer of bad news but honestly, who would have imagined the States’ Modoc War would have ended this way? Make a frivolous bet in haste and accept the outcome like a man. Ivo was a man crafted of thin lava, as far as his personality and social graces were concerned. His sonwould bedifferent. Ivo had planted bitter grapes and the taste was doomed to sour upon his heirs.
What treasures from the past await the present?
The gentleman smiled at the frivolous thought, knowing the rumination was inspired by the latest news of Priam’s Treasure. He gave up the unbearably dull verse of his correspondent. Tea was better.
Surrounded by books and papers and two chalk-boards on either side, he mentally composed the response to Mr. Fisher’s interruption of his evening. It had annoyed him. Mathematics was a language of clean joy and music. It oughtn’t be defiled by the ignorant. It was true that all information could be useful, but would it?
Fisher was not a terribly useful informant. Once in a great while he would drop off a communiqué and then vanish back to wherever he happened to be at the time. He was a coward and lacked the spine necessary for really useful work but in possession of rare flashes of useful prescience. Now that he had risen to some importance in the lands of cotton it was a surprise to hear from him at all.
His letter was coloured with bitterness; he hated children and there was a sting of satisfaction in reporting this child had a gift for numbers and he was struggling to keep her away from his personal account-books.
A gifted young woman was always worth noting...
The Professor had a tendency to never forget anything he could use later. There was a reason why his brain was whispered to be “as full of memory as forty elephants!”
He did not dispute this. Numbers made him smile. Forty was an even number and an even number was defined by its even split. All even numbers could be broken by two.
Professor Moriarty had two separate meanings in his head for forty elephants.
He thought of this Numerical Child, and smiled.

1 The Ascott Martyrs

Prelude II: London 1882

The Professor folded over the interesting side of The Examiner and tucked it out of sight. Across the room an excitable young clerk exclaimed, which promptly brought over every other man and woman his age to look over the lip of the window to the Thames below.
Inefficient.
One really must pay for the experts.
He briefly considered ignoring the view of the Thames-facing leaded-glass windows and gave up. This was the heart of the Continental Exchange Office; everyone not on pressing duty was moving to watch the divers at work and he knew the arithmetic of standing apart.
Amateurs ...!
Below them the great riverswirled, filthy from drift and rains at the headwaters.
He shook his head as the brokers murmured and flowed about him. The set of his shoulders and the glimmer in his eyes discouraged coming too close.
The water rippled over a rising black form; the river-police shouted. They swarmedabout the pumping-station and the body emerged in sodden sections, like the raising of a boat.
“He that dieth this year is scused for the next.”
Someone said this in a tone so lordly and imperious, indeed, so present , the elderly scholar had to look. It was that old book-seller, here to ply his trade among the merchants’ elite. A barely-read copy of Cromwell’s Economics hovered in one spidery spotted claw; the other bore up a leatherbound Sermon at Paul’s Cross -hence the sudden quotation. The books were cleaner than their struggling seller and in distaste the Professor turned away, his normal instinct to calculate and analyse forestalled by a stronger fastidiousness.
“That it is.” His beefy customer agreed. “Vamberry was a good sort. The best wine-merchant you’d ever think to see.”
A fool , the Professor thought. And he