Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil by Donald Thomas

Author:Donald Thomas [Thomas, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Mystery Fiction, Suspense, Private investigators, Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious character), Detective and mystery stories; English, Short Stories, England, Mystery, Traditional British, Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Watson; John H. (Fictitious Character), Private Investigators - England, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British
ISBN: 9781605980430
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2009-04-28T06:00:00+00:00

We need have no doubt about these two pages. They have been known as a forgery for almost eighty years.”

I looked over his shoulder at the narrow page of script, the paper yellowed and the ink rusty. I read the first words, which looked mighty like Byron’s hand that had written Don Juan. “Once More, My Dearest. . . .”

Holmes smiled.

“It poses as a letter from Byron to Lady Caroline Lamb. Unfortunately it was forged by Lady Caroline Lamb herself in 1813 as a means of stealing his portrait. The story is well known. She was insane with love of him, the man whom she called mad, bad and dangerous to know! She forged this letter in his handwriting, authorising her to go to his publisher John Murray and demand the famous Newstead miniature of the poet. She got the portrait and he got her letter back from Murray.”

Under Lady Lamb’s copy of his signature, the poet had written, “This letter was forged in my name by Lady Caroline Lamb,” and he had signed the postscript.

“The two Byron signatures are very much alike.”

“Lady Lamb might have made a competent forger in time. However, look at the letter ‘t’ again. In Byron’s hand the cross-stroke extends over the next two letters. She extends it still further. It is a fatal mistake, when forging, to exaggerate such foibles. She also varies her style twice by adding a strong up-stroke before the main down-stroke of the ’t.’ That is a grave error. A writer who makes a ‘t’ with a strong down-stroke may embellish it but will hardly precede it with a strong up-stroke. The up-strokes of normal script are light, whereas the downstrokes are strong. Where the pressure of a nib is of uniform strength throughout, as it is here, you may suspect facsimile copying or forgery. In short, however like the two scripts may appear to be, Lady Caroline Lamb’s effort raises too many questions to be acceptable.”

“I low did such a document come into Jeffery Aspern’s hands?”

“It must be from Byron. No doubt on the occasion, a few days before his death, when he bequeathed such treasures to his friends before leaving Venice for Greece.”

Despite Aspern’s reputation as the recipient of a rich horde of Byron’s correspondence, a good many documents in the leather box were questionable. There was a further forgery, if one can call printed material by that name, again the work of Lady Caroline Lamb. It had been published in 1819, purporting to be a new canto of the poet’s Don Juan. Holmes read the opening line.

“‘I’m sick of fame—I’m gorged with it—so full....’ Heaven preserve us, Watson! It does not even sound like Byron!”

Then he paused. He had put aside this pastiche and was looking at a sheaf of papers that were clipped unevenly together. His face was grave and yet his features were tense with excitement.

“And here, I believe, is the legend of Lord Byron in the United States! For a good many years before

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