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

Author:David Marcum [Marcum, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: anthology, detective, historical, holiday, mystery, Sherlock Holmes
ISBN: 9781787059320
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2021
Published: 2022-02-10T07:00:00+00:00

The Adventure of the Second Sister

by Matthew White

Chapter I – A Visitor and a Problem

It was during the first Christmastime after Sherlock Holmes’s dramatic return from the long absence which followed the events I have previously recorded under the heading of “The Final Problem” – December 23rd, 1894, to be exact – and he and I were walking back to Baker Street after lunch. A light snow, crisscrossed and stained by the footprints of pedestrians, blanketed the pavement, and the streets had been rendered into a brown sludge by the busy London traffic. On the rooftops, however, the snow was white and virginal, and the diffuse light of the sun glittered gayly on the icicles which hung from every roof and lamppost.

“I fear, Watson, that I have been too successful in my chosen profession,” remarked Holmes.

“What?” said I, incredulously. “Too successful? Can there be too little crime?”

“No doubt you are right, from society’s point of view,” Holmes replied. “But consider – if your own medical skills rose to such a height that you could rid England of all but the most trivial ailments to which any housewife might know the remedy, you would quickly find yourself without work. Likewise, I have been so successful in capturing criminals, and in exposing the network of criminality that once ran through London like malignant roots of an evil tree, that soon I shall have no work left, and be forced to retire and rusticate in the country.”

“But that is ridiculous!” I laughed. “There will always be more crime, just as there will always be more sickness.”

Holmes sighed.

“Perhaps. But I fear the best days of my career are behind me. There is nothing so invigorating for me as the opportunity to apply my special skills, my singular faculty for observation and deduction, to a problem worthy of them. Therein lies my difficulty. There are no Moriartys, no Morans – not even the likes of a John Clay to set myself against. I have beaten them all, and in their place there are only petty problems which are so simple, and their solutions so predictable, I need hardly leave my chair to solve them. The days of the great challenges are over. Yes, I fear I have been too successful.”

“I think you are being a bit selfish,” said I. “These triumphs which you are so eager to lament have made England a better, safer place. The country, and indeed Europe, may now sleep easier because of you. Really, how can you regret that?”

“You are right, of course. Hullo! What could this be, I wonder?”

Ahead of us, a small shape darted and weaved down the crowded street toward us like a little monkey dashing through an overgrown jungle, forcing pedestrians to leap out of the way, glaring and shouting as it passed. Billy, Mrs. Hudson’s page boy, came to a halt before us. Red-faced and gasping after his exertion, his breath rose in great billows of steam above his head. He gripped an envelope tightly in his fist and held it out to my amused friend.

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