The Book of Extraordinary New Sherlock Holmes Stories by Maxim Jakubowski

Author:Maxim Jakubowski [Jakubowski, Maxim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642504330
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2020-10-28T06:40:27+00:00

He Who Howls

O’Neil De Noux

I am He who howls in the night;

I am He who moans in the snow;

I am He who hath never seen light;

I am He who mounts from below.

Psychopompos

H.P. Lovecraft (1918)

The young man wrapped in the blanket leaned back in the cushioned chair and closed his eyes. He wheezed as he breathed, and I stepped over and checked his pulse. His heartbeat was rapid. My friend Sherlock Holmes stoked the fire. I took a step back and studied the young man as did Holmes, moving next to me with pipe in hand. Behind us, incessant rain peppered the windowpanes. Tat. Tat. Tat. It had rained all day.

The young man appeared to be in his twenties, his dark brown hair matted on his head, a streak of mud on his chiseled jawline dotted with three day’s growth of beard, his fine Burberry jacket also dotted with mud, a scrape on its left elbow nearly ripped the cloth. The knees of his navy-blue trousers, of the finest wool, were soiled, his Roxbury high-laced boots scuffed and covered with a film of mud.

A noise turned me as Mrs. Hudson carried in a tray with a coffee pot and three cups, sugar, cream, and spoons. She placed the tray on the nearest table, and I thanked her. Holmes continued studying the young man who had come to our rooms in such a state, the man collapsing in my arms but a half hour earlier. Mrs. Hudson quickly mixed cream and sugar into three cups of coffee before leaving us.

“We have coffee,” I said to the man whose eyes blinked open.

“We find it more stimulating than tea,” said Holmes. “A taste we acquired in our recent sojourn to America.”

The young man looked from me to Holmes and back again.

His voice rasped. “Sherlock Holmes?”

I stepped back as my friend said, “I am Holmes.”

The young man nodded, his eyes filling, and he took in a deep breath and said, “Fiend.” His voice rasped again. “A…fiend…a fiend has stolen my bride.”

The man coughed and reached two shaking hands to me and I presented him a cup of coffee, assisted him in his first sips, and he nodded slowly, sat up straighter, took another sip on his own.

“I am Dr. John Watson,” I said, checking his pulse again. His heartbeat steadying, less rapid.

“Thank you, Dr. Watson.” He turned to Holmes, the young man’s voice stronger. “I am Reginald Portendon, second son of Albert, Lord Cleeth, and I come to you because you are my last chance to save my darling Violet.”

Holmes and I sat as Reginald relayed his extraordinary story. My friend’s eyes sharped with the telling of the tale and the malaise gripping Holmes these last three weeks seemed to fade. My friend’s craving for mental exhalation sharpened his features as he watched Reginald speak.

“A dark stranger came into our lives shortly after we married and moved into lodgings four months ago on Swinton Street, King’s Cross. We met him in Highgate Cemetery when we visited the grave of my darling Violet’s father, Sir Thomas Harrow.

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