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97 pages

English

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Nothing that is secret can remain secret forever. But is it possible that some crimes are better left undiscovered? Join Holmes and Watson as they travel from London to storm-wracked Bedfordshire, where the Great Detective finds himself uncovering the grisly truth concerning a half-century old murder.

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	12 août 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781780925004
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0324€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title Page
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND A QUANTITY OF DEBT
From the Notebooks of
Dr. John H. Watson, M.D.
by
David Marcum

Publisher Information
First edition published in 2013 by MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive,
London, N11 3GX
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2013 David Marcum
The right of David Marcum to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them 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 www.staunch.com

Dedication
For Rebecca and Dan
As Always and Forever

Editor’s Introduction
It was a dark and stormy afternoon...
I recall it vividly, that afternoon when I really first encountered Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. It was in the summer of 1975, I was ten years old, and some weeks (or months - who knows at this point?) earlier, I had acquired my first Holmes volume. I hadn’t really wanted it at the time, so it had been put on a shelf for unloved books.
On that particular and wonderful afternoon, a very rainy and dark Saturday, we were sitting around the house, my mother, my sister, and myself. I’m not sure where my dad was at the time, so he wasn’t present at my epiphany. (I recently asked my sister, and she doesn’t remember the event, but I do.) The room was dark, with the only glow coming from the television. That was unusual, because we usually had the lights on. The darkness reflected the grim boredom of the whole day.
Back then, there were only three channels on the television. I stood up and walked across the room in order to try to find something better than whatever we were watching - there were no remote controls in our house in those days - and came across A Study in Terror (1965), starring John Neville as Holmes, and Donald Houston as Watson.
Of course, I didn’t know what movie it was then, or who the actors were. It would be years before I would find the film again and be able to watch it in its entirety. But somehow, even in my ignorance on that day, I knew that this was Holmes. Don’t ask me how. I had never read a Holmes story or seen a Holmes movie at that point. Maybe it was just an awareness of who Holmes was, the same amazing thing that makes him one of the most recognizable figures in the world. More likely, it was simply that fact that the speakers referred to the main character as Sherlock and Holmes.
In any case, it was the scene where Mycroft, played by Robert Morley, comes to call and squabble with our hero. The quick dialogue, and possibly even the bright colors of the 1960’s film, somehow appealed to me. During a commercial, I ran back to my room and found the then-single Holmes volume -I still have it -in my eventually massive collection and brought it back with me for further study. It didn’t take long to read the nine stories in that book.
It all tumbled after that. I sought out more tales of the Canon. I borrowed ahead on my allowance and purchased the complete Doubleday edition. At Christmas, my parents presented me with Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, and I had really found the door into Holmes’s world.
Not long after that, Nicholas Meyer, who had started the great 1970’s Holmes resurgence with his novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, published the follow-up, The West End Horror (1976). This was the first truly great non-Canon tale that I had ever read. (Strangely, it is often mistakenly referred to as a Holmes-versus-The Ripper tale. However, it is set in 1895, not 1888, and involves the murder of actors and critics in the West End, and not the poor Whitechapel victims. I highly recommend it, nearly forty years after I first read it, and I was fortunate enough to say the same thing to Mr. Meyer in late 2011, when I got to meet him at a Sherlockian gathering in Bloomington, IN.)
In Meyer’s introduction, he relates how, after the publication of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, he received a number of newly discovered Watson manuscripts from various sources. Some were obvious forgeries, but not all of them.
I had a similar experience after the publication of my recent books, The Papers of Sherlock Holmes. After many kind comments, (and a few wondering why the books weren’t about Cumberbatch and Freeman’s “Sherlock” and “John”), I received a cryptic email with a single PDF image of a handwritten page containing Watson’s handwriting.
I can’t tell you much more than that. After some back-and-forth communications, it was arranged that the following narrative from Watson’s journals could be published. I had been prepared to beg and plead, and perhaps take a second mortgage on my house, in order to obtain the manuscript, but the mysterious owner, who insists on anonymity, had wanted all along to make sure that the story was told. I have the impression that there are personal motivations and perhaps some old grudges involved, but I have no knowledge of any specifics.
I was glad to see that the manuscript seemed to confirm some of the information about Watson’s first wife, as detailed in Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, which has meant so much to me over the years. As was the case with The Papers of Sherlock Holmes, any misunderstandings of the contents of Watson’s smudged journal and rather cramped handwriting must be blamed on my editing and not on the good Doctor.
And also, as I did with the previous volumes, I wish to dedicate the effort involved in preparing this manuscript to both my wife Rebecca, with much love for her patience and support regarding my fascination with the world of Holmes and Watson, and also my son Dan, best friend and patient listener to my wound-up ramblings. Thank you both for everything!
DAVID MARCUM
August 7 th , 2013
The 161 st Anniversary of the Birth of Dr. John H. Watson

Quote
“So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract a quantity of debt.”
-Pip in Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens

Chapter 1
A Baker Street Visitor
“I should not be so inclined,” stated Mr. Sherlock Holmes, from his stool at the chemical table in the corner.
I roused myself from the brown study into which I had fallen as the morning progressed. With a sigh, I pulled my gaze from the rain-streaked windows and back to Holmes. “And to what would you be referring?” I asked.
Holmes did not speak for a moment, as he leaned closer to the elaborate glass apparatus before him, titrating some violet-colored liquid between the interconnected pieces of narrow tubing. He placed his eyes level with the thin vertical structures, clamped in place above the blue gas flame that flickered across his sharp features. I started to utter a warning, afraid the collar of his dressing gown would touch the flame, but it proved to be unnecessary. Then, satisfied with the results, Holmes leaned back, stretching like a cat, and shifted to face me.
“I would not be inclined to record the events of the last couple of days in your journals. Our recent trip to Kent [1] is hardly worth preserving for posterity. The matter was simple child’s play, and was quickly resolved by means of a single telegram to my professional contacts in Ohio. It really is not worth the effort that would be expended in adding it to your notes.”
I straightened in my chair. “I must disagree, Holmes. Your analysis of the matter was masterful, you brought peace of mind to that unhappy young man, and - incidentally - you did capture a murderer.”
Holmes turned back toward his research, leaned toward the deal table, and reached for his pen. With his left hand, he pulled a sheet of paper toward him, already half-covered with cryptic notes. “Nevertheless . . . .”
My thoughts that morning had indeed touched upon the events of the previous day in Kent, and the audacious scheme the wily American had planned there. If Holmes and I had not been summoned, doubtless the fellow would have accomplished his goals and escaped unscathed.
But I had been having other thoughts as well, more personal and grim than just the facts relating to our recent investigation. Perhaps Holmes realized that, and had chosen to direct the conversation toward my literary efforts, rather than let me brood, as had been my habit the last few months. Or possibly Holmes did not realize the true path of my thoughts at all. But knowing Holmes, that was unlikely indeed.
I shook my head, and tried to turn my thinking to other matters, but as I glanced around the sitting room, so filled with souvenirs and relics from Holmes’s past investigations, I realized that very little of my own possessions were in evidence. It had only been a little over one hundred days since I had returned to Baker Street, and I wondered if it was time for me to think about getting back into harness and finding a new practice. How different were those one hundred days from what I had planned for the rest of my life! And how different would the ne