Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #19. Arthur Conan Doyle
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #19 (Vol. 6, No. 4) is copyright © 2016 by Wildside Press LLC. All rights reserved. Visit us at wildsidepress.com. The Sherlock Holmes characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are used
by permission of Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., www.conandoyleestate.co.uk.
STAFF
Publisher: John Betancourt
Editor: Marvin Kaye
Non-fiction Editor: Carla Coupe
Assistant Editor: Steve Coupe
CARTOON, by Mark Bilgrey
FROM WATSON’S NOTEBOOK
For once, the only Sherlock Holmes adventure in this issue is my own recounting of that business in Boscombe Valley. Partly this is due to the increasing difficulty we are having in finding writers willing to work with my difficult-to-read notes of those cases yet to be told. (Please see Mr Kaye’s comments below).
The second reason is that our next issue of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine will be devoted entirely to my companion’s exploits as what we both believe him to be, the world’s first professional consulting detective.
Mr Holmes, as ever, is quite pleased at the prospect of an entire issue devoted to him. The tales to be offered in our next number include my own tale of the Stockbroker’s Clerk, another case that I actually solved for Mrs Hudson and a third which, being a surprise, I’ll not discuss. Other cases include one concening a British political candidate’s election problems, the tale of a “wrong doctor,” a strange story of a burnt song, a case involving Holmes’s brother Mycroft and the story of what happened when a circus came to town with a distaff sharpshooter.
And now here is my colleague Mr Kaye….
–John H. Watson, M. D.
* * * *
As the good doctor stated above, this magazine is in need of more Holmesian pastiches, and while they do not have to be any of the tales yet to be told, that would be welcome, of course. In that wise, you will see below Dr W.’s cases that he never wrote up; to be precise, the only ones listed are ones that have not appeared in this magazine or in any of my three Sherlock Holmes anthologies.
Canonically Yours,
Marvin Kaye
* * * *
SHERLOCK HOLMES’S CASES STILL TO BE TOLD
• ADVENTURE OF THE TIRED CAPTAIN
• THE BISHOPSGATE JEWEL CASE (Inspector Jones will never forget how Holmes lectured the police force on it.)
• THE CAMBERWELL POISONING CASE (By winding up the dead man’s watch, Holmes proved it had been wound up 2 hours ago, and that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time—a deed of the greatest importance in clearing up the case.)
• THE CASE OF THE DUKE OF HOLDERNESSE (Holmes claimed a reward.)
• THE CASE OF MME. MONTPENSIER
• THE CASE OF MR. FAIRDALE HOBBS
• THE CASE OF THE PAPERS OF EX-PRESIDENT MURILLO
• THE CONK-SINGLETON FORGERY CASE
• THE CUTTER ALICIA (Which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew… an unsolved case.)
• THE DRAMATIC ADVENTURE OF DR MOORE AGAR
• THE DREADFUL BUSINESS OF THE ABERNETTY FAMILY OF BALTIMORE
• THE DUNDAS SEPARATION CASE (One of the most revered names in England is besmirched by blackmail. “Only I can stop a desperate scandal.”)
• THE FAMOUS SMITH-MORTIMER SUCCESSION CASE (1894)
• THE INTRICATE MATTER IN MARSEILLES
• THE NETHERLANDS SUMATRA CO. AND THE COLOSSAL SCHEMES OF BARON MAUPERTUIS (A case intimately connected with politics and finance and which led to Sherlock Holmes’s near breakdown.) (Boer War?)
• THE PECULIAR PERSECUTION OF JOHN VINCENT HARDEN
• THE SHOCKING AFFAIR OF THE DUTCH STEAMSHIP FRIESLAND (Which so nearly cost us both our lives.)
• THE SINGULAR TRAGEDY OF THE ATKINSON BROTHERS AT TRINCOMALEE
• THE ST. PANCRAS CASE
• THE TANKERVILLE CLUB SCANDAL
• THE TRAGEDY OF WOODMAN’S LEE
• THE VENOMOUS LIZARD OR GILA (“Remarkable case, that!”)
• VIGOR, THE HAMMERSMITH WONDER
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ASK MRS HUDSON
by (Mrs) Martha Hudson
Dear Mrs Hudson,
I wonder which cases of Mr Holmes interested you the most?
Armand Cassenweiler
* * * *
Dear Mr Cassenweiler,
There is only one and that is because I was involved. “His Last Bow” is one of the few stories not written by Dr Watson, for he was living elsewhere when it happened. Mr Holmes invited him to write it, but the good doctor declined, suggesting, instead, his literary agent, Arthur Conan Doyle (later knighted). The case concerned a spy, German, I think, though my memory is not quite as keen as it used to be. I am certain that it also involved Mr Holmes’s brother Mycroft, but at a distance. Well, I am not acquainted with all of the details and Mr Holmes says that Mycroft prefers it that way.
There was one other similar case that called upon myself and Mr Holmes, but I can say little about it, for it was recorded by an American by the name of Manly Wade Wellman. Its title, I believe, is “The Man Who Was Not Dead,” or something like that.
Sincerely,
Mrs (Martha) Hudson
* * * *
Dear Mrs Hudson,
May I inquire how well you know Dr Watson’s agent Conan Doyle?
Lady Braxton
* * * *
Dear Lady Braxton,
I am honoured to reply to your question regarding Dr Doyle! (Yes, he shares Dr Watson’s profession—actually, both of them, for he is also an author, and a cracking good one, if I may say so.)
There are two aspects to my answer: the personal one, and the literary reply.
Personally, I have frequently gone out of my way to make resplendent dinners for Dr Doyle—more than I can remember!—and on these festive occasions, I have seen Mr Holmes eat ever so much more than he usually does, which is ever so seldom. Both doctors are accomplished story-tellers and they vie to better the other, but it always comes down to a draw each time. Dr Watson always regales us with Holmes tales he has not yet written up (sometimes Mr Holmes glowers at him, but he never tries to prevent him from continuing). Dr Doyle has told us many tales about a French military officer named Gérard, which pleases Mr Holmes, for Brigadier G, as he calls him, was one of his relatives. For that reason, Dr Doyle does not speak about Dr Edward Challenger, also related to Mr Holmes. It seems the professor’s most famous adventure, in which he actually brought to London a living pterodactyl (!!!), intimately involved Mr Holmes, who adopted the disguise of Lord John Roxton (for details, consult our editor Mr Kaye’s collection The Game is Afoot).
Concerning