The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XI by David Marcum

Author:David Marcum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sherlock holmes, mystery, crime, british crime, sherlock holmes fiction, sherlock holmes novel, untold cases, sherlock and watson, detective, murder mystery
ISBN: 9781787053755
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2018-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

The Singular Tragedy of the Atkinson Brothers at Trincomalee

by Craig Stephen Copland

What though the spicy breezes

Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle;

Though every prospect pleases,

And only man is vile?

The words of the missionary hymn I had sung as a schoolboy in chapel came to my mind as I stood on the deck of a Royal Navy sloop, anchored just off the Port of Colombo. They were to prove singularly prescient.

Under more usual circumstances, the experience of feeling the warm, moist tropical breezes caress one’s face is a sensuous joy. Yet on that night, more than twenty years ago now, I had a profound sense of foreboding.

“Are those the lights of Colombo Port?” I said to my friend, Sherlock Holmes, as he stood beside me.

“Yes,” he replied, “the tugs will pull us into the wharf at first light. We will meet with the governor and the inspector-general of police tomorrow afternoon.”

Here I must digress for a moment. In one of my first stories of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, I deliberately allowed my readers to conclude that I had not been present alongside Sherlock Holmes when he cleared up the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee. In truth, I did accompany him on that adventure but refrained from having an account of it published.

Our world today is different from that of 1887. With the passing of our beloved Queen, we have also witnessed the fading of a world in which civility and gentility reigned supreme. So, with some regrets, I have accepted that the unseemly subject matter of the account you are about to read has become commonplace. Those of you who have so faithfully followed the exploits of Sherlock Holmes are entitled to know the previously undisclosed events that took place in the fall of 1887 in the far-off colony of Ceylon.

Sherlock Holmes had been sent to Ceylon by the Foreign Office and directed to investigate the tragic death of a Mr. George Atkinson at the hands of barbaric local thieves - or so it was reported.

There was some urgency to the assignment. We were immediately dispatched on the Condor Class Sloop, Mutine. It was a gleaming new ship-of-the-line that had been assigned to the China station and would drop us off in Ceylon on its maiden voyage. We had made our way around Gibraltar, past Port Said, through the Canal, and on across the Arabian Sea in remarkable time. Now, we were about to enter the capital of Ceylon, the gracious city of Colombo.

The following morning, we descended to the quay and were ushered immediately to a carriage that bore the crest of the Galle Face Hotel. We enjoyed our short ride through the Fort district and down along the Galle Road, with the wide vista of the Indian Ocean on our right. The hotel, a magnificent whitewashed colonial edifice, sprawled for nearly a block along the seaside. No sooner had we arrived but three fine-looking native men, all wearing uniforms fit for a maharajah, appeared to assist with our baggage.

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