Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone by G.S. Denning

Author:G.S. Denning
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

THE CASE OF THE CARDBOARD… CASE

TO THE BRILLIANT MIND, THE TRUE ENEMY IS inactivity. At least, that’s what I tell myself, because I like to pretend I’m an intellectual. And because I know how badly I cope with idleness. I still cringe when I recall how much I hated the pause that came between Holmes’s and my first two adventures and our third.

Our Study in Brimstone took place over two days in early November. Just one week after that, we handled the Adventure of the Resident Sacrifice. I prided myself on how well my medical knowledge had prepared me to solve crimes and I was eager to prove my mettle on our next adventure. Yet the remainder of November passed without any call to action. December followed. Each telegram, each piece of post, each visitor to our door would—I prayed—reveal our next challenge, but each of them failed me. I hardly knew what to do with myself. I formed the habit of taking long walks about the city, if only to fill the time.

Returning from one such walkabout at around ten on New Year’s morning, I found Holmes slouched in his armchair before the fire, honking away with his accordion and singing “Auld Lang Syne” at the top of his lungs. I waved a greeting and he nodded back, but any verbal exchange would have been lost in his cacophonous song.

Upon finishing the final verse, he paused. Tilting his head to one side, he listened intently for a few moments, then complained, “Nothing. Nothing! When will you answer, oh being from another world?”

“What being is that, Holmes?”

“Oddlingsygn. Last night and this morning, it seemed every reveler and passerby I saw was calling upon the same entity. All London is bent on summoning him, yet he will not appear! So strange…”

“Not strange, Holmes,” I said. “That is not a name, it is a Scottish phrase.”

“Oh, I think I know a demon’s name when I hear one, Watson.”

“‘Auld Lang Syne’ means ‘for the sake of old times.’”

“Oh! A nostalgia demon—he must be potent indeed…”

“No, not a demon at all, I am telling you… Wait! What is this?”

My eye had fallen across a white envelope that lay upon the side table beside Holmes’s armchair.

“Oh, a letter,” said he.

“From whom?”

“Well, I don’t know! Honestly, Watson, would you put aside the chase for a reluctant demon just to read an everyday letter?”

“Yes.”

“Well, do so then. I have other matters to attend.”

He launched back into the first verse of his supposed summoning ritual. I stepped to the table, unfolded the letter and read. I must have made quite a face, for when he observed my expression, Holmes at last lay aside his accordion and asked, “What does it say, Watson?”

The message was short. It read:

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