Frank Thomas
And the Sacred Sword
Preface
That Sherlock Holmes was sans peer as regards the fine art of deduction is uncontested. That his exploits sparked the halcyon days of the late-Victorian period with wonder and excitement is universally accepted. But where, pray tell, would readers be were it not for that staunch and loyal man of medicine John H. Watson, M.D.? It was his eye for detail and his facile pen that gave us the adventures of that most unusual individual, Sherlock Holmes. Without Watson, Holmes would be but a dim legend, if indeed that.
The Doctor's passing severed that final living link with those fascinating years during which his friend reigned supreme and criminals cringed at the mention of his name. But Watson left his words, thank heaven.
Here's a toast to that gentle and patient man who so enriched his generation of readers and all those that followed: To Watson, noble benefactor of both the science of criminology throughout the world, and fascinated readers everywhere.
And one last note: I am grateful to have been on the spot that harrowing night during the London Blitz when Cox & Company, banking firm of Charing Cross, was bombed out of existence. For it was then that the famous dispatch box containing the priceless unpublished cases came into my hands.
Now . . . back to the days of derring-do and deduction too.
Back to the mists and moonlight where it is always 1895.
—Frank Thomas Los Angeles, 1980
Acknowledgments
In transferring Doctor Watson's word to the printed page, the author benefited from the assistance and encouragement of that foremost Holmes scholar and lecturer, John Bennett Shaw of Santa Fe, New Mexico. And Professor L. L. Aaronson, Institute of Romance Languages, checked the language of the period.
Elsie Probasco provided superior research, and Mona and Frank proofed copy and made workable suggestions. Thank you Mother and Dad.
Chapter One
The Dying Man
It was the evening of one of those rare days when there was an aura of peace at 221B Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes, with no case of importance at the moment, was seated at the desk, pipe in mouth, affixing clippings in one of his great file volumes. The precipitation that had manifested itself with pugnacious persistence during the afternoon showed no signs of abating. Globules of moisture were marching earthward in endless, serried ranks to be whisked from their vertical descent by gusts of north wind and fired against our windows like tiny pellets from a massed battery of celestial air guns.
Holmes, like all true artists, was highly susceptible to moods and influenced by his surroundings. I anticipated that the inclemency would foster one of his dark periods, but his manner had been singularly cheerful during dinner. True, he had remarked somewhat peevishly that the criminal classes had displayed a deplorable lack of invention of late, but this was a familiar complaint uttered more from habit than conviction. To believe him would be to consider that crime was on the wane, an obviously false contention when one considered the two casebooks already filled with Holmes's exploits of the past twelve months.
I was occupied with the recording of certain of Holmes's doings—before, as he once said, 'they become churned by the undertow of time.' I had just realized that some notes I required were in my bed stand upstairs when I heard the sound that my subconscious had been waiting for. The paste-pot was shoved aside, the file volume was closed, and Holmes was on his feet. Restless, of course. His footsteps crossed the room and there was the tap of his pipe against the mantel dislodging dottle from its bowl.
As I rose and crossed to the back stairs, I made a silent wager that within two minutes he would begin his nervous pacing of our quarters, his brain yearning for facts as other men hungered for food. He would become testy, resentful of the fact that the finest mind in England was without a puzzle in which to insert the probe of specialized knowledge. But then, I thought as I entered my bedchamber, we have been through this before. The wheels due to spin for genius seldom remain dormant for long. Events proved me right.
There was the ring of the ground-floor door and when I descended to our sitting room, Holmes was on the landing gazing down the seventeen steps leading to our first-floor chambers.
'Come up, man, by all means,' he called down the stairwell. 'Billy,' he continued in a softer voice, 'not a word of this to Mrs. Hudson.'
I found this remark puzzling until a huge form appeared at our door. That in itself was not surprising since visitors to Baker Street came in all sizes, but this one was carrying another man in his arms. As he crossed to deposit his burden on our couch, I instinctively headed for my medical bag beside the cane rack. Billy, the pageboy, was on the landing and he gave Holmes a look of understanding as he closed the door.
When the large man retreated from the couch to allow me to inspect the body on it, Holmes muttered, 'Watson, this is Burlington Bertie, an acquaintance of mine.'
I nodded in acknowledgment—and then my breath was dragged into my lungs, an involuntary reaction to a grimy shirt soaked with blood. Wound around the middle of the body was a white silk scarf, which I cut loose. There were three vicious knife wounds in the man's abdomen and chest. My stethoscope revealed that his heartbeat was so faint I had trouble finding it. I looked up at a grim-faced Holmes and the huge man beside him with that, alas, frequent complaint of my profession.
'The man is dying, and there is nothing I can do.'
'Aye,' mouthed Burlington Bertie. ''Twas me thought 'e'd about had it.'
As though to disprove my diagnosis, the body on the couch twitched slightly and from slack lips came a sound like an exhalation.
'Holmes . . .'
My friend was beside the body in a trice.
'Yes,' he said, his steely eyes intent on the prostrate figure.
'They . . . they found it.'
