The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters. Michael Kurland
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from the kitchen, where I kept—”
“Lilies-of-the-valley!” I blurted out, unable to stop myself. “Even the water in which lilies-of-the-valley have set is poisonous. Oh, why didn’t I realize that before?”
Charles regarded me with a pained expression. “Indeed, Mrs Watson, if only you had, we might not have been forced to enact this charade and upset Eddie so.”
“This charade,” I sighed, “was the work of a not-so-bad dramatist”
“I beg your pardon?” Charles said, not having heard me.
“Oh, nothing.”
After the police officers had led the half-sobbing, half-defiant cook out of the house, an uncomfortable silence descended upon the place, a silence finally broken by Edward, who said: “I feel like an imbecile! All of this has been going on around me, and I’ve acted the part of the fool!”
“Eddie,” Charles began, “we knew we couldn’t involve you in this. Phillip and I knew full well that father was being poisoned, but—”
“You told me he was delusional!” Eddie shouted. “You liars!”
“Edward, none of us wanted to hurt, you,” Phillip said, “but we had to keep up the pretence of disbelief to keep you in the dark. You see, we suspected Cook, but we had no proof. Father talked about simply dismissing her, but we didn’t know what she might do in retaliation. We had little recourse but to wait, and hope the evidence of her perfidy would be discovered. Incidentally, father called inviting her into his bed the most grievous error he ever made, one borne of his weakness combined with her eagerness. Unfortunately, it was his undoing. But even after his murder we had no evidence incriminating Cook.”
“So there was nothing left to do but try and force a confession from the old girl,” Charles added. “We took Jenkins into our confidence and began to set an elaborate trap. The business of the lost will was nothing but a ruse, and the woman you know as Madame Ouida was hired to play the role of a medium.”
“Tonight was the final act of the drama, designed to shock the truth out of Cook, and as you saw, it worked quite well,” Phillip concluded.
“I still don’t see why I was excluded from this knowledge,” Edward grumbled.
“Because, dear brother, you cannot hold a secret,” Charles replied. “Had we told you of our suspicions, you would have immediately challenged Cook with the accusation, and she would have flown the coop like a bird.”
“Maybe so, but she might have fled before finishing father off, and he would still be alive,” Edward rejoined.
“Or maybe she would have killed all of you before running out the door and disappearing,” John said. “Your brothers’ reasoning was sound, my boy.”
“By the way, darling,” I chimed in, “you have some explaining of your own to do.”
“Do I, Amelia?”
“Yes. How is that a man you pronounced dead was not really dead?”
Turning to Phillip, he asked: “Shall I explain, or would you like to?”
“Be my guest, doctor,” the eldest brother answered, taking up a brandy bottle from the side table. “I am tired of talking.”
“Well, as it was explained to me,” John said, “our very arrival here posed a serious threat to the brothers’ carefully laid plans. We were uninvited actors in the drama, as it were. But since we were here, Phillip decided to advise me of the game that was really afoot. While I was in his room, ostensibly examining his dead body, he was informing me of the scheme, swearing me to secrecy, and enlisting my help. That, Edward, was why you were not allowed in to see him. As it turned out, having an actual surgeon on hand to pronounce Phillip dead proved more effective than if Charles and Jennings had sworn to it.”
“And you said nothing of this to me?” I cried.
“The fewer people who knew, the better,” John replied. “Besides, Amelia, I wanted to drive a stake through the heart of the canard perpetuated by both you and Holmes that I cannot hold a secret.” He looked positively smug as he spoke this, the brute.
“I may never speak to you again, John,” I said, indignantly.
Now “Madame Ouida” reappeared, her long black wig having been removed, allowing her natural blonde hair to brighten her looks considerably. “I hope I did well,” she said.
“You were devastating, Gemma,” Charles answered, taking her hand. “Your dashing out of the room in a fit of theatrical terror convinced the old girl that we had really summoned up a spectre! She confessed before she even realized what she was saying.”
“Introductions are in order,” Phillip said. “Dr Watson, Mrs Watson, this is Miss Gemma Macaulay, the daughter of our local constable, and a young lady with aspirations to go on the stage.”
“Who was also in on the scheme,” Edward grumbled. “Everyone but me.”
“And me, don’t forget,” I said.
After pouring a snifter of brandy for John and one for himself, Charles said, “Well, thank heaven that is over. So tell us, doctor, what kind of a blighter was dear old papa when he was young?”
“I am going to retire,” Edward said, still bruised over his exclusion from the adventure. “I don’t wish to hear any more surprise revelations regarding father tonight.”
“An excellent idea,” I said, following him to the staircase. “Good night, almost everyone.”
When John finally returned to the bedroom—after a good hour or so of regaling the twins with tales of their father from the days of the Fusiliers—I made good on my threat of silence, refusing even to say good night. I would, of course, speak to him again, though we might be on the train and halfway to Oxford before I revealed that secret to him.
THE CASE OF THE TARLETON MURDERS, by Jack Grochot
Now living back at Baker Street with my fellow lodger Sherlock Holmes, I awoke early on this particular morning in 1895 with an ache in my left shoulder, where the Jezail bullet struck and shattered the bone during my service in the Afghanistan campaign.
Holmes already had finished breakfast, evidenced by the crumbs scattered on his plate, and had gone off to the hospital chemistry laboratory to achieve a breakthrough in his latest scientific experiment—or so said the note protruding from under the lid of the half-empty coffee pot.
Still lingering, the dull pain in my shoulder brought me thoughts of Murray, my brave orderly in the war, who saved me from falling into the hands of the treacherous Ghazis. Where was Murray today, I wondered, as I flipped Holmes’s note onto the tabletop and saw, on the reverse side, an invitation to join him to witness his discovery.
Mrs Hudson, our landlady, must have heard me stirring, because she soon appeared with two soft-boiled eggs, bacon, and toast, which I ate with haste so I would not miss out on Holmes’s moment of truth.
I walked briskly part of the way to the lab, which seemed to ease my suffering. I glimpsed an empty hansom on Great Orme Street near the British Museum, so I flagged down the driver and comfortably rode for the remainder of my journey. I made my way down the labyrinth of freshly white-washed hallways of the great hospital, familiar with each intersection, until I reached the dissecting room. This I entered and cut through, because the rear exit opened into the chemistry section, where I had first met Sherlock Holmes several years earlier.
Presently, on this glorious summer day, I found Holmes hovering over a large glass globe, under which was a Bunsen lamp, a sheet of foolscap, and a vial with red liquid suspended over the flame.
“Now, Watson,” said he, as if I had been there the whole time with him, “we shall see if my theory proves correct. The iodine solution will produce a gas that should form the effect I am anticipating.”
In a matter