Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #3. Arthur Conan Doyle

      After Holmes perused the second issue of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, I felt considerable relief to discover that he did not altogether dislike it. Here I must confess my rôle in these proceedings; it was I who persuaded Holmes to lend his name to this periodical. Of course I offered him an equal portion in the honorarium agreed upon with the publisher, but Holmes generously declined, only stipulating that I keep a keen eye upon the contents.

      This is an issue I have discussed carefully with Mr Kaye, who, as editor, selects what appears in each number. Leading the mix each time, of course, is one of my own accounts of Holmes’s many adventures, followed by recountings by other authors of some of our exploits that I did not get around to recording myself. In these cases, I have provided these scribes with my own notes, together with whatever verbal addenda they may require.

      So far, so good. But in the preceding issue, Mr Kaye also elected to include a tale not only associated with that fellow Stoker’s infamous vampire, but was actually narrated by a cat. I tried to talk Mr Kaye out of publishing it, but I am glad, and as stated above, relieved to learn that not only did not Holmes object to “The Adventure of the Hanoverian Vampires,” he found it mildly risible.

      “Watson, Watson,” he chided me, “the author obviously wrote it with tongue in cheek. An amusing bit of fluff it is, hardly likely to damage the reputation I owe in good part to you, my dear fellow.”

      Holmes’s charity notwithstanding, I am pleased to note that the current issue of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine restricts itself to more traditional Holmesian fare, beginning with my own work, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” and proceeding to that rare instance of Holmes himself narrating a story, the now-it-can-be-told adventure, “Watson’s Wound,” ably edited by Bruce Kilstein from Holmes’s ­difficult-to-decipher handwriting. (Perhaps I shouldn’t comment, given the abysmal reputation of physician penmanship.)

      I should explain why Mr Kaye chose to use the “Speckled Band” case in this, the third issue. He has elected to follow the dating of my stories as postulated by William S. Baring-Gould in his classic tome (or tomes, depending upon which edition one owns), The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Thus, earlier issues have featured Holmes’s first two cases, the “Gloria Scott” and “The Musgrave Ritual.” According to Baring-Gould, the next in line ought to be A Study in Scarlet, in which is recounted how Holmes and I first met, as well how Holmes solved the murder of one Enoch J Drebber of America.

      Mr Kaye and I discussed this and came to the conclusion that as A Study in Scarlet is a novel, its length, even broken into two installments, would crowd out other compositions waiting to appear in these pages. Inasmuch as it is readily available elsewhere, it was decided to skip over it and go on to the next of our adventures, that of the “Speckled Band.”

      However, in lieu of my first Holmes novel, we have, instead, Kim Newman’s “A Volume in Vermillion.” Mr Newman, a fellow Brit, somehow managed to get his hands on a till-now unpublished manuscript by no less a villain than Colo­nel Sebastian Moran, whom you may recall was referred to by Holmes as “the second most dangerous man in London.” Thanks to Mr Newman’s efforts, a nefarious plan of his formidable employer comes to light for the first time, one that had its impact on A Study in Scarlet, to the utter astonishment of both Holmes and myself!

      I began with a confession, and must end with the same. I am glad our erstwhile landlady Mrs Hudson has elected to alter the nature of her ongoing column in these pages. Holmes and I were a tad dismayed at the advice feature she wrote for the past two issues, thus we are pleased to see that she has elected to alter the nature of her column. “Frankly,” she told me, “it was becoming rather a bore. In future, I shall restrict myself to suggestions of a more practical nature…useful hints for tending a well-ordered household.” At my urging, she has consented to include more of those splendid recipes that Holmes and I enjoyed at our Baker Street digs.

      And now I yield the floor to Mr Kaye.

      —John H Watson, M D

      * * * *

      It’s a pleasure to welcome back our columnist Lenny Picker, as well as Gary Lovisi, who gave us an excellent Holmesian tale last issue; this time Gary shares his passion for collecting scarce and rare Holmes books.

      Bob Byrne contributes an article introducing Mr Nero Wolfe, as if he needs any such thing…and yet I am always dismayed to learn how many avid mystery buffs have not read Rex Stout’s novels and stories about the only American detective worthy to be named as an equal to Sherlock Holmes. When this magazine was first contemplated by its publisher John Betancourt and myself, we seriously considered titling it the Nero Wolfe Mystery Magazine, but it was ultimately determined that Holmes’s name would (hopefully) attract more readers. In future, though, I do hope to include more articles about Wolfe, as well as stories.

      I have received several e-mails requesting guide­lines for submission. I have not prepared any, nor shall I; I do not like to put restraints upon writers, and as a result I am often happily surprised. In the first issue, I outlined what we are striving to make the magazine; said information, slightly expanded, appears below. However, I am not reading new submissions at this time; our inventory is fully stocked at present.

      When I accepted the editorship of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, I had two models in mind: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, especially in its earlier years, when it and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction provided me with a liberal, detailed fund of knowledge about their respective genres. My second model was the old London Mystery Magazine, which ran from 1949 to 1982.

      I began reading EQMM during my graduate days at Penn State. My late friend Professor Ellis Grove gifted me with a huge number of issues dating back to at least the 1940s. (Alas, I lost them in a Wilkes-Barre PA flood!) Despite its name, it was, of course, a magazine containing a wide range of detective and crime stories, and that ultimately is what SHMM is all about.

      So, to quote my first editorial, “while Watsonian pastiches and spoofs will appear as often as the merit of such submissions deserve, they will be counterbalanced by new mystery stories, period pieces, tales of murder and other crimes, ­puzzle/riddle tales if anyone still writes them, and in short, mysteries set in the present, past, and possibly even the future.” I lament the dearth of classic “reader solvable” mystery stories complete with clues and red herrings; any of those submitted will be highly regarded, and I have been fortunate to have received a few, though more often submissions are crime stories sans the kind of clue-stashing so ably executed by Bill DeAndrea, Anthony Boucher, Agatha Christie, Carter Dickson, etc., etc.

      The reason London Mystery Magazine is cited as a model is because that venerable publication interpreted “mystery” to include an occasional foray