The Undiscovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries 1) by Ted Riccardi

Author:Ted Riccardi [Riccardi, Ted]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books - crime, thrillers & mysteries
Published: 2024-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

The Diary of Clement Moorcroft

In this my eighty-fifth year, I, Getong Tsarong, Regent of Tibet, set down here, for those who may be interested, a short account of my life. I entrust this document to one person, my friend Hallvard Sigerson, whose property it is and who will be free to publish it after my death in any form he chooses, provided that through its publication he deems that no harm will come to Tibet or its people.

My life has been a long one, and though it did not begin in this ancient land, I have spent most of it here. I find it difficult to write in English after so many years, during which I have not spoken nor heard my own tongue for but a few moments, and so my hand shakes as I write, not only because I am old physically, but because my mind works slowly, trying as best it can to wrest words from the dim storehouse of a wandering remembrance.

I was born in 1810, the only child of William Moorcroft, a seaman of Cornwall, and Jane, his wife. My father and mother were first cousins, but did not resemble each other. I never knew my mother, for she died shortly after my birth. My father, who was only twenty-one years of age at the time of my birth and having no other children, placed me with his cousin, my mother’s older sister, who lived with her husband and family in a modest house in London. I was well cared for and came to love my aunt and uncle as my parents.

It was through my aunt that I learned the little that I know of my mother. She was said to be a tall, dark English beauty, with olive skin and long black hair which she often wore in a long braid down her back, other times looped tightly around her head. I was said to resemble her in many ways. My aunt remembered that I was born with a full head of black hair, like my mother’s. In explanation of our appearance, my aunt told me that my great-grandfather was a man by the name of Ogachgook Bradford, an American Indian of mixed origin, who had come to England with William Bradford, one of the governors of the Plymouth Colony of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Ogachgook had taken Bradford’s name and remained in England. It was from Ogachgook that my mother’s and my dark appearance was said to derive. I know little else of Ogachgook except that he was the son of an Indian chief called King Philip by the colonists, but known among his own people as Metacomet, son of Massasoit. There was some family speculation that the name “Moorcroft” is derived in some way from “Metacomet”.

I saw little of my father for the first five years of my life for he was almost always at sea. His grief at my mother’s death seemed never to subside, and he later confided to me that it caused in him an almost constant wandering.

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