Sherlock Holmes and the Terrible Secret
Title Page
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE TERRIBLE SECRET
As related from the case notes of Dr. John H. Watson M.D.
Fred Thursfield
Publisher Information
First edition published in 2012 by
MX Publishing
335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com
Digital edition converted and distributed in 2012 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
© Copyright 2012 Fred Thursfield
The right of Fred Thursfield to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.
Cover design by www.staunch.com
Prologue
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City America on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in American history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 workers, all who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged sixteen to twenty-three; the oldest victim was 48, the youngest were two fourteen-year-old girls. Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits - a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks - many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped to their death from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below.
As terrible as this disaster was, with the emotional impact it had on family friends and society was devastating. In three years there would be a much larger and worse tragedy to come.
Chapter 1
London, November 1914
On 28th June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, were assassinated during a state visit to Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The fatal shots were fired by nineteen year old Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb who wanted Bosnian unification with Serbia and independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Franz Ferdinand, as a member of the ruling Habsburg family, was a symbol of that ancient, multi national empire and a repression of it minorities. Unknown to his assassin, the archduke, who was an advocate of political reform, had recently given an after dinner toast...
“To peace...what would we get out of war with Serbia? We’d lose the lives of young men and we’d spend money better used elsewhere, what would we gain for heavens sake? A few plum trees, a pasture full of goat droppings, and a bunch of rebellious killers.”
There had been many major changes since Holmes and I had solved our most recent case together; on a global scale because of a catalyst in the form of an assignation of royalty six months earlier on June 28 in Sarajevo Bosnia.
The world had now been plunged into a war on a scale that never before could have been imagined or had ever been witnessed. The resulting conflict would bring decades of simmering unrest and social reform to a boil it would arbitrarily erase old countries and create new ones.
There were also changes on a more personal level. I was starting to notice that as the year was drawing to a close there was a noticeable and perceptible lack of interest and commitment from Holmes. He showed very little interest in the few cases we were pursuing.
I would see him seated in his favorite chair and instead of scouring the news papers looking for some hint of crime he was in fact intensely perusing books with titles like Cheshire’s Bees and Bee-keeping, A.J. Cook’s, The Bee-Keepers’ Guide; or Manual of the Apiary and the 1910 Bee Keeper Review edited by W.Z. Hutchinson.
Puzzled I casually asked in passing what had prompted his change in reading material and why bee keeping in particular? Holmes looked up from his latest tome and answered “I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles. Education never ends Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”
When I thought back on some of the more memorable cases we shared and solved together recently including The Blue Carbuncle - The Cracked Mirror - The Dead Mans Switch - The Discarded Cigarette - The False Wall - The Gold Ring - The Jade Broach - The Open Door and The Stopped Clock I found myself trying to formulate a polite way to ask my friend if he was indeed contemplating a change of career.
After all Holmes was a man of habits... and I had become one of them... a comrade... upon whose nerve he could place some reliance... a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance... an alliance I very much wanted to continue.
The answer to this problem that was constantly in the back of my mind was resolved after dinner at home one evening. I was settling in my favorite chair in our parlor with my pipe, tobacco and prescription book in my lap. I was writing out medication orders for patients that I would see the next day during my rounds at the hospital when the telephone (invented in 1876) in our front entrance began to ring.
Thinking it might be the hospital calling about a particular patient I started to rise from my chair to take the call when Mary passed by saying “John I’ll answer it.” It only rang twice more when I heard the receiver lift and her voice say into the device “Hello?”
I must stop my narrative here for a moment.
Of all the people that have entered into my chronicles about Holmes cases there is one who is briefly mentioned from time to time...usually only as “Mary my wife”. This reference is only done (at best) in passing. But I think that after all of this time I may have done her an injustice. As she does play a pivotal role in this case it is time to properly introduce my wife to my readers.
Mary Watson nee Morstan was born in the Andaman Islands India in 1869, her father was a captain of a large Indian Regiment, her mother the head and matron of a large household. In 1878 her father disappeared in mysterious circumstances that would later be proved to be related to the mystery in The Sign of Four.
Her mother died soon after her birth and as she had no other relatives in England she was sent to live with and receive an education (in accordance with the received wisdom of the time about children in the colony of India.) with close friends of the family. It was an interesting turn of events that Mary and I are first introduced in The Sign of Four; she had hired Holmes at the time while she had been making a living as a governess.
Mary and I become attracted to each other, and it was a case of love at first sight. However, it was only after the case was resolved that was I able to propose to her.
So that you have a better image when she is referred to in this narrative I shall now describe my wife the first time we were introduced by Ho
lmes.
Mary Morstan (at the time) was foremost confident, assured yet a warm and personable woman. She was a bit shorter than me, of slight build, fine features, long curly dark chestnut brown hair, deep emerald green eyes and an infectious smile.
Her soft lilting voice captured my heart with our first meeting. I can still recall how I felt when she said “Hello Dr. Watson, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
Now I shall bring the reader back to the present moment. Although I could only hear one side of the long distance exchange of words I could tell by the rising level of concern in my wife’s voice that she was not receiving good news. The conversation ended with a some what distraught “I will tell him Mrs. Hudson...good bye.”
When she hung up the receiver she returned to the parlor. Mary nervously stood before me for a moment not quite sure how to repeat the contents of the telephone conversation she had just had. When she saw me look up from my prescription book she announced “that was Mrs. Hudson John ; Sherlock (I will explain later in the narrative as to how my wife comes to call my friend by his first name) has informed her that he wishes to meet with both of you tomorrow afternoon in his rooms. Sensing my obvious question she continued “Mrs. Hudson wasn’t told about the nature and purpose of the meeting, only that it was imperative for you and her to be in attendance.”
Chapter 2
Some of the opening encounters of the war were not unlike those seen in previous European conflicts. The initial rapid advances covered hundreds of miles and were made by cavalry armed with lances and dressed in bright uniforms more suitable for parade days. The world of 1914 was a mixture of old and new. Horse drawn carts were gradually replaced with automobiles, electricity was spreading beyond the cities; telephones were making an appearance in better off homes.
Military technology had also undergone a substantial leap in recent years. Powerful new artillery, poison gas, airplanes and later on tanks made their first appearance in this war. Yet at its start even the most seasoned military men could not predict which of this new weaponry would play an important role in the conflict, nor could imagine the destructive power of mass produced weapons that were now available.
I wasn’t quite sure if I could find the time from my now very busy hospital duties to fulfill my friend’s request. Even during the short time we had been in a state of war the number of wounded (including soldiers, pilots, sailors and civilians) being received at St Bartholomew’s never seemed to end.
The wounds both physical and psychological I witnessed on the soldiers who were returning from the front were deeper and far more ghastly than any I had witnessed in all my time serving as an army doctor in Afghanistan.
I felt helpless while I witnessed daily an emotionally and spiritually demoralizing grey winters scene unfold in the hospital court yard of wounded, bandaged and field dressed young boys being off loaded on canvas cots from the back of army ambulances then taken by stretcher bearers into the hospital to be mended as best we could.
No amount of medical training or experience could ever prepare you to deal with the new, vast and inhuman weapons that were now being used in combat and their surgical like effects on the men these new eradicating tools were being used upon.
In addition to nursing visible wounds we were now treating what for the most part was an invisible poorly understood injury. What the soldiers coming back from the battle called “shell shock” Many senior figures military, political and civil, simply refused to admit it existed, preferring to believe suffers were cowards or, in a phrase commonly used, “lacking moral fiber.”
We saw shell shock become manifest in many ways, from comparatively mild regular panic attacks to the severest forms in which men were reduced to twitching wrecks or ended up in a catatonic state.
I was trying to keep busy so as to not think about the subject or matter that was no doubt going to be brought up with me and Mrs. Hudson. Before I knew it my morning hospital rounds were completed and it was now mid day. I now found myself warmly dressed in my hat; coat and foot wear bravely standing outside at the very cold West Smithfield entrance of the hospital hailing a motor taxi to take me to 221B Baker Street.
After settling in, and giving the driver directions after a short ride I was again facing a familiar door that I had known for many years both as a lodger and as a guest. Not sure as to what to expect I knocked and waited for Mrs. Hudson to open it. When the door opened I tried to get a sounding of Mrs. Hudson’s expression or mood to prepare myself for what was coming.
After entering and removing my seasonal outer wear in unusual silence I noticed there was a troubling absence of the friendly casual back and forth banter that would have normally passed between us as I was being lead through the house.
“He is waiting for us Dr. Watson” was all Mrs. Hudson said solemnly as she made her way to the carpeted stairs that led up to Holmes rooms.
Quietly following her up the 17 stairs any one would have mistaken the unfolding scene more as a funeral procession than merely as a guest politely following a land lady. We crossed the threshold and saw that Holmes was already comfortably seated in his parlor with his back to us.
As we came around into his view...he silently gestured towards the other unoccupied chair on his right and the love seat on his left as our places to be seated.
When Mrs. Hudson and I sat down Holmes dramatically rose (like an actor given an off stage cue) from where he had been seated and walked with his hands behind his back over to the winter frost edged windows that looked down onto the late afternoon.
Snow was softly settling on Baker Street and he took a moment to observe the parade of humanity and commerce that regularly happens by at this time each day.
The scene he had witnessed so many times from this second story vantage point had been slowly and almost imperceptibly changing during the years of his residency at 221B Baker Street. What he now witnessed was only one of many reasons for the decision he was about to reveal. It was as if the events of past July had put a very different and unsettling perspective on familiar sights.
Where there had been only a mix of pedestrians, shoppers and wheeled street traffic. Now there was the occasional presence of men wearing dark khaki serge winter military uniforms walking in highly polished black military boots.
Before the war there had been unobstructed views of places of business, commerce and government affairs. This had been replaced with walls of sand bags the height of the ground floor. Tan colored sand filled burlap bags piled and staggered on top of each other in front of important buildings offering some protection against explosive attacks.
When Holmes thought that he could come to accept these changes then he sighted the occasional brightly colored recruiting poster of Lord Kitchener pointing at passers by extolling Britons to join the countries army. These were prominently displayed in a shop or public house at street level reminding Holmes how much the world had changed.
In 1914, at the start of the First World War, Lord Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. One of the few men to foresee a long war, one in which Britain’s victory was far from secure, he organized the largest volunteer army that Britain, and indeed the Empire, had seen. He also commissioned a significant expansion of materials production to fight Germany on the Western Front. His commanding image, appearing on recruiting posters demanding “Your country needs you!”
Defence of the Realm Act of 1914
The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) of 1914 governed all lives in Britain during World War One. The Defence of the Realm Act was added to as the war progressed and it listed everything that people were not allowed to do in time of war. As World War one evolved, so DORA evolved. The first version of the Defence of the Realm Act was introduced on August 8th 1914. This stated that:
No-one was allowed to talk about naval or military matters in public places
No-o
ne was allowed to spread rumours about military matters
No-one was allowed to buy binoculars
No-one was allowed to trespass on railway lines or bridges
No-one was allowed to melt down gold or silver
No-one was allowed to light bonfires or fireworks
No-one was allowed to give bread to horses, horses or chickens
No-one was allowed to use invisible ink when writing abroad
No-one was allowed to buy brandy or whisky in a railway refreshment room
No-one was allowed to ring church bells
The government could take over any factory or workshop
The government could try any civilian breaking these laws
The government could take over any land it wanted to
The government could censor newspapers
As the war continued and evolved, the government introduced more acts to DORA. The government introduced British Summer Time to give more daylight for extra work. Opening hours in pubs were cut beer was watered down customers in pubs were not allowed to buy a round of drinks
The Home Front during World War One refers to life in Britain during the war itself. The Home Front saw a massive change in the role of women, rationing, the bombing of parts of Britain by the Germans (the first time civilians were targeted in war) conscientious objectors and strikes by discontented workers. The whole nation was under the jurisdiction of DORA (Defence of the Realm Act).
BY THE KING
A PROCLAMATION FOR CALLING OUT THE ARMY RESERVE AND EMBODYING THE TERRITORIAL FORCE
GEORGE R.I.
WHEREAS by the Reserve Forces Act, 1882, it is amongst Other things enacted that in case of imminent national danger or of great emergency it shall be lawful for Us by Proclamation, the occasion having first been communicated to Parliament, to order that the Army Reserve shall be called out on permanent service; and by any such Proclamation to order a Secretary of State from time to time to give and when given to revoke or vary such directions as may seem necessary or proper for calling out the forces or force mentioned in the Proclamation or all or any of the men belonging thereto :