The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [94]
The Vanishing of the Atkinsons
Eric Brown
It is more than likely that 1888 was also the year of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, perhaps Holmes’s most famous case, and not a decade later as popularly recorded. Holmes was initially unable to venture to Dartmoor, and sent Watson in his stead. Holmes claimed he was involved in a blackmail case, which may be true, but it is also likely that he was being consulted over the Jack the Ripper murders. There have been many attempts to account for Holmes’s involvement in that investigation, all of them, I believe, apocryphal. It is my belief that Holmes rapidly solved those murders to his own satisfaction and left Scotland Yard to bring the investigation to a conclusion, so that he could throw himself fully into the Baskerville problem.
Also at the time was the case of “The Sign of Four” in which Watson met and fell in love with Mary Morstan. They were married soon after, at the close of 1888. Watson moved out of the Baker Street apartments and also set himself up in a practice in Paddington. For a while Holmes continued his investigations on his own and it was not until March 1889 that the two were reunited in “A Scandal in Bohemia”.
Watson only later came to learn of some of the cases that Holmes investigated on his own. Amongst them was the tragedy of the Atkinson brothers. Although Watson later wrote this up he never sought its publication. Some years ago a copy of this came to my attention and my colleague, Eric Brown, has made it suitable for publication.
I had not seen my friend Sherlock Holmes for some months, pressure of work on both our parts curtailing the niceties of social intercourse, and it was quite by chance that he happened to be in his chambers when I called upon him that evening.
“Watson!” Holmes declared as Mrs Hudson showed me into the room. “Take a seat, my friend. I trust the winter is not too inclement for you?”
I warmed my hands before the fire, and then accommodated myself in the proffered armchair. I made some comment or other to the effect that the winters were becoming even colder of late, which set my friend on the course of a lengthy speculation upon the subject of world meteorology, climatology, and allied topics.
I helped myself to a brandy and settled in for the evening.
By and by my friend recounted examples of severe weather he had encountered upon his many and diverse travels. My interest quickened; it is the one regret of our friendship that Holmes rarely sees fit to avail me of the incidents that befell him during his sojourn to points east during the period I have termed, in my accounts of my friend’s illustrious career, the Great Hiatus.
That night he was vague in the details of his travels, but at one point he did say: “Of course I had experience of the monsoon when I travelled from Tibet, south to Ceylon to revisit an old friend – ”
I leaned forward, pouncing upon his use of the word “revisit”. “Why, Holmes, do you mean to say that you visited the island before ‘94?”
My friend realized his mistake at once, and gestured with feigned unconcern. “A trifling affair at Trincomalee in ‘88 – ”
“You actually worked on a case out there?” I expostulated. “But why haven’t you mentioned this before?”
“An affair of little account and even less interest, Watson. And anyway, I was sworn to utmost secrecy by the Royal Ceylonese Tea Company. As I was saying, concerning the nature of the monsoon rains …”
Whereupon the affair at Trincomalee was dismissed by my friend in his desire to expound upon the subject of the Asiatic rains.
Towards midnight I took my leave and,