Encounters of Sherlock Holmes by George Mann

Author:George Mann
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Anthologies
ISBN: 9781781160107
Publisher: Titan Books
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stuart Douglas has worked in a toy shop, a zoo, a chocolate factory and on a farm, and now runs Obverse Books. Should he ever manage to appear in Doctor Who he will, therefore, have fulfilled all of his childhood ambitions.

THE TRAGIC AFFAIR OF THE MARTIAN AMBASSADOR

BY ERIC BROWN

There commenced in the spring of 1915 one of the most fascinating cases that my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, has had the fortune to investigate since the arrival on our planet of the Martians ten years ago.

We were relaxing in our rooms that morning, having recently solved the enigma that came to be known as “The Mysterious Affair of the Rosebury Diamonds”. I was scanning The Times and my friend, as was his wont of late, was poring over one of a dozen tomes he had purchased from a bookseller on Charing Cross Road.

In 1906, shortly after the establishment of the Martian presence in London and other capitals around the world, my friend took it upon himself to learn the predominant language of the Red Planet. Almost a decade later, thanks to his diligence and exceptional powers of memory, he was practically fluent in that notoriously complex tongue. As a reward he had bought himself a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Martiannica.

Now I set aside my paper and glanced across at Holmes. He had taken a break from his studies and was filling his pipe.

“What are you reading about now, Holmes?” I enquired.

He flicked a hand at the open page. “A volume on the biological history of the Martian race,” said he. “Fascinating. Did you know, Watson, that the gestation cycle of a pregnant Martian female is a little over three Terran years?”

“I must admit my ignorance in that area,” said I.

“And were you aware, moreover... Hullo, and what’s this?” he said, glancing across at the window.

The spring sunlight had been occluded suddenly, as if by a storm cloud, and as we strode across the room and stared out we beheld the reason. A Martian tripod, fully a hundred feet high, stood in the street outside.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Holmes commented, for a platform was descending from the underbelly of the cowled vehicle and riding upon it was a Martian.

Now, for all that the Martians occupy our planet in their hundreds of thousands, it is not an everyday occurrence that one of their number is seen, as it were, in the flesh. Their singular three-legged transportation devices might ubiquitously prowl the capital from Richmond to East Ham, and from Barnet to Croydon, but the creatures themselves show a distinct inclination towards privacy.

Not, however, this individual—for it stepped from the platform and trundled on its many puckered tentacles across the road and on to the pavement.

Holmes rubbed his hands together in delight. “Why, I do believe, Watson, that the Martian is making a beeline towards 221b!”

Indeed, the alien was hauling itself up the steps towards our front door. We repaired to our respective chairs and made ourselves ready for the audience. I

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