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Other spook sleuths followed in Low’s wake. Most notably there was Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence, who first appeared in 1908, and Carnacki the Ghost Finder penned by William Hope Hodgson. Carnacki, who made his debut in 1910, is of particular interest because not all his cases turned out to be supernatural ones. On occasion human agencies were at the root of the various upheavals. Usually there is a chamber or a specific location that needs to be examined and carrying his trusty electric pentacle, Carnacki approaches the scene in very much the same way that Holmes does in many of his cases, with a close observation of the area searching for clues. You can observe how these two sleuths fare together in ‘The Grantchester Grimoire’, one of the tales in this volume.

As the twentieth century rolled on other psychic detectives followed in the footsteps of Low, Silence and Carnacki. There was Alice and Claude Askew’s Aylmer Vance, Dion Fortune’s Dr. Taverner, A. M. Burrage’s Francis Chard and Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin to name but a few. None really achieved the notoriety of Silence and Carnacki and certainly none approached the success of earth-bound Sherlock Holmes. Maybe the reason for their failure to catch the imagination of the mainstream reader is that these fellows not only believed in, but embraced the idea of the supernatural. They did not need convincing that there was a goblin in the cupboard, a vampire in the cellar or an ogre up the chimney. There was no surprise for them when they faced their demons … literally. The appeal then of these stories falls into two camps: the unusual nature of the haunting or supernatural event and the strange methods used by the psychic sleuth to alleviate the problem. These methods of course for the main part are invented by the author and have no roots in reality. This fanciful approach tends to rob the stories of suspense.

What is appealing about the prospect of Sherlock Holmes facing and battling the dark forces is that he is not a believer. The supernatural world is a fairy tale to him. No ghosts need apply because to his mind there are no such things.

When I wrote my first Holmes novel I took the brave or foolhardy step of pitting Holmes against Count Dracula, the king of all vampires. I don’t do things by half measures. However, the novel began with Holmes holding exactly the same opinions as he did in ‘The Sussex Vampire’, decrying the idea that such fantastic nocturnal creatures exist:

‘It should be clear, even to the most elementary of scientific brains, that the explanation of such beliefs lies not in the supernatural, but in the acceptance of weird folk-tales as factual occurrences. For the simple mind, the line between reality and fantasy is blurred, but the educated brain should reject any such nonsense without hesitation.’

And, indeed, Holmes continues to reject any such nonsense until he encounters one of these blood-sucking fiends himself and then is schooled by Van Helsing in vampire lore. I believe that Holmes’ gradual and reluctant acceptance of the supernatural world and his understanding that certain rationalities can still apply to it is one of the interesting aspects of this exercise in Sherlockian fiction. The fact that Holmes approaches any problem which may have supernatural connotations with scepticism and doubt adds extra interest and tension to the narrative, which is missing from those tales featuring ghost detectives. It is a subtle difference but it adds a richer and more engrossing element to the story.

Sherlock Holmes has always been a supremely gothic character with a strange costume, emerging himself like a ghost from the eerie fog and investigating bizarre crimes which take place in various ancient houses. The scenario of ‘The Speckled Band’ with bells ringing in the night, an unstable step father and a snake slithering down the bell rope are all elements that could have been plucked from one of Edgar Allan Poe’s nightmare tales. Consider also the conclusion of ‘The Creeping Man