Case of the Swan in the Fog , livre ebook

Andrews UK - S Croyle A

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77 pages

English

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Dr. Poppy Stamford, sister of the man who would introduce John Watson to Sherlock Holmes, teams up once again with Sherlock in a new adventure. One of Sherlock's Baker Street Irregulars, Wiggins, uncovers a dismembered body in a shallow grave. Poppy and Sherlock set out to solve the murder and suddenly discover that it may be linked to the mysterious mutilation of Her Majesty's swans. Working under the eerie cloak of one of the most devastating fogs in London's history, the case takes Poppy and Sherlock from the most sordid neighborhoods of dirty, old Victorian London to the lofty halls of the Privy Council.

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	07 novembre 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781787052253
Langue	English

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

Extrait

The Case of the Swan in the Fog
Book Three in the ‘Before Watson’ Series
By
A. S. Croyle

Published in the UK by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor
Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.co.uk
Digital edition converted and distributed by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2017 A.S.Croyle
The right of A.S.Croyle 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 or used fictitiously. Except for certain historical personages, 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.
Cover design by Brian Belanger

Big Barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay
-Oscar Wilde, Symphony in Yellow

Prologue
June 8, 1944
The fog of war is lifting and hope, a feather perched in my soul, rises from its darkened chamber.
I thought of Sherlock Holmes, who would have rejoiced at the news, and it brought tears to my eyes. I wish he were here with me, listening to the good tidings on the BBC.
We have just learned that in early June, the United States and Great Britain assembled the largest number of soldiers and the greatest amount of equipment ever to launch and sustain an amphibious attack. Hour by hour, we hear accounts of the acts of heroism on the beaches of Normandy where the Allied forces invaded occupied Western Europe.
I had to smile when my dear brother, Dr. Michael Stamford - the man who introduced Sherlock Holmes to Dr. John Watson - rushed into my room, nearly losing his footing. Leaning on his cane, his voice quivering, he said, “Poppy, look at this!” as he handed me the financial edition with its front-page headline: Tone Commendably Calm on War News. Was a more British headline ever written?
I scanned the article quickly. The article began by stating, “The Stock Exchange took the news of the long-expected invasion of the Continent with commendable calmness.” I could not help but be amused by the use of such phrases as “fairly busy,” “inclined to dry up” and “understandably quiet” in front page reporting. The stories in other papers were a bit more dramatic. One article stated that “June 7 th dawns with the allies securely in control of all five beach heads.” Another report in The Evening Standard said that Churchill “announced the successful massed air landings behind enemy lines.” That story went on to describe the landing of four thousand ships and eleven thousand aircraft - “flying fortresses” bombing the beach.
Soon my grandson will be coming home. We received word that he was wounded, and we do not know the extent of his injuries, but I am hopeful, that, like Sherlock Holmes’ faithful companion John Watson, the damage, both physical and emotional, will not be too great for him to resume the practice of medicine.
As I look out my bedroom window, however, I see another fog rolling in... and it is a reminder of days gone by, of the fogs that covered my beloved London in the past, smothering it and granting camouflage for criminals. Even my dear friend Oscar Wilde wrote about the awful, moving beast that shut out the sun in our fair city.
The fog never stopped Sherlock Holmes. He could unearth any clue and bring light to darkness. He entered the world to purge evil from London, to pounce on the beasts of the city’s underbelly with his fresh ideas, his unorthodox methods, and a gentle, wordless expectation that his opinions would be taken as gospel. He moved through the world alone, trying to snuff out the grim and imaginative cruelties that man visits upon man. But he did let me in for just a little while. For a short time, we entered an unwritten sacrosanct contract, with Sherlock as Don Quixote and me as his Sancho. Then again, Sherlock tilted no windmills. He was born to slay dragons.
Sherlock Holmes kept secrets, even from Dr. Watson, his friend and biographer. Secrets about his friendship with my brother Michael who introduced Watson to Sherlock, secrets about himself, and definitely secrets about me and my involvement in many of his early cases. I am quite certain Dr. Watson never knew about the time Sherlock and I spent together in the Broads or that we designed a little sailing vessel, a replica of which Sherlock left me under the terms of his Last Will and Testament. I am sure Dr. Watson never knew about our affection for one another or about my long struggle to shed the heavy weight of my love for him. These were secrets Sherlock took to his grave.
I finally summoned the courage to part ways with Sherlock, to go on without him in my life, only because I had no choice. Ultimately, the relationship was unsustainable. I walked away from him over sixty years ago because I discovered it was easier to bury my feelings than to carry them around like a stone on my back. I struggled for years to carve out a new life far away from him, and the burden diminished; its consistency gradually went from a mantle of marble to a warm blanket to a gauzy veil.
But I kept up with his adventures. I read Dr. Watson’s accounts of how Sherlock continued to try to transform London into a magic city of permanent peace.
But, oh, had he succeeded, how very bored he would have been.
For the first time since I learned of the bombing of Pearl Harbour, I am optimistic enough to set pen to paper as I turn my thoughts again to Sherlock. I shall set aside my fears and once again pause to reflect upon the happier - albeit frustrating and confusing - times of my youth when Sherlock and I meandered the streets of his beloved London, long before the bombs and shelters, before the breaking glass and shattered lives. I shall let my mind move through itself, looping back to those burnished memories, to those reflections and dreams that I had tried to tuck away. I shall re-create that short-lived, long-ago idyll that we shared when I tossed away reason and gave way to emotions.
I remain to this day somewhat overwhelmed with the pain of loss, for I never quite recognized myself after we parted, and I could never quite reconcile ‘Before Sherlock’ with ‘After Sherlock.’ The pendulum would swing back and forth. Even after all these years, even as I approach the age of ninety and the end of my life, I am as perplexed as ever about the rejection - his of me and mine of him.
But everything between still sparkles

Chapter 1
25 December 1879
Christmas Day 1879 was attended with nocturnal darkness in London. My parents would later tell me that even in the Broads of Norfolk from which I hail, the fog was remarkably thick throughout the day there as well.
I should have liked to share the festivities with my parents at our home, Burleigh Manor. My Aunt Susan, her ward, little Billy - the baby brother of one of Sherlock’s homeless messengers - and my nephew, Alistair Alexander were there. I longed to be there to watch Alexander open gifts and to gaze at his joyful countenance; he so resembled his mother, my brother’s late wife, my best friend Effie.
As doctors, we were needed in London. My brother Michael and my uncle, Dr. Ormond Sacker, both physicians at St. Bart’s, had decided to forego the holiday celebration in the Broads, as had I. A great fog had sneaked into London, covering her with a thick and ominous blanket, the blackest fog I ever saw. It was causing hundreds of people to become deathly ill. That very Christmas morning, Uncle had been summoned to treat the seventy-eight-year-old mother of the First Earl of Kimberly, John Wodehouse. Though she bore her illness with great fortitude, Uncle feared the worst. Disease and injuries caused by the fog had fairly devastated the city.
Sherlock had sent one of his homeless boys, whom he used as messengers and who helped him gather information, with a note in which he requested that I meet him “immediately at Bart’s.” Certain that my medical office was empty as it usually was, and worried that Sherlock might be ill, I made my way from Regent’s Park, where I resided with Uncle Ormond and Aunt Susan, to St. Paul’s. The entire time my face was masked in a thick wool scarf.
I stopped for a few moments to pray, and then continued on my way, crossing Newgate into Giltspur Street until I reached St. Bart’s Hospital.
I stopped to chat with Michael in the hallway but just for a moment. “Is he ill?” I asked.
“No, he’s in the lab. Must be off, darling,” Michael said.
“He” was Sherlock Holmes.
A bit miffed at the summons, I made my way to the lab. Sherlock was looking out the window. He did not turn around when I entered. As I removed my hat, scarf, cape and gloves, he said, “It’s like a brown mass, isn’t it, Stamford? Rising and hanging like a still, thick curtain between the world and the sky. It blots out the sun and the moon. I suppose this is rather propitious to amatory encounters. I’m told that the nymphs of the pave do unusually good business in this weather. Even I could be bold, perforce leave off my work and for a shilling or two accost a petticoat. If I were so inclined,” he adde