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

Author:David Marcum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Stepping Stones School, Undershaw, authentic adventures, Canonical, short story collection, traditional stories, Sherlockian, historical, pastiche, Victorian London, Holmesian, murder, Hyde Park, Hurlers Stones, Highgate Cemetery, omen, worm, Diogenes Club, Wineskin, Australis Borealis, flowers, Black Museum, Scotland Yard, Chinese, Morse code, Arianna Fox
ISBN: 9781804240113
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2022-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Addleton Tragedy

by Terry Golledge

The months following Sherlock Holmes’s miraculous reappearance after his supposed death at the hands of Professor Moriarty were busy enough to keep even his questing mind at full stretch. I have seldom seen him in better spirits than in that summer of 1894. I had lately disposed of my Kensington practice for a gratifying sum, once more taking up my old familiar quarters at 221b Baker Street. With an unusually healthy balance to my name with Cox and Company. I was free to fall in with whatever whims of fancy took my friend’s attention, and I accompanied him on the majority of his cases where my presence was requested.

It was early June and we had lingered over the morning papers until Mrs. Hudson drove us from the breakfast table with clucks of disapproval at the sheets of newsprint scattered on the floor by Holmes’s chair. I was as yet unshaven, but Holmes, unpredictable as ever, was fully dressed, having already been abroad on some errand of his own which he hadn’t seen fit to confide to me. In fact, he hadn’t uttered a word since his return, and I knew better than to intrude on his silence until I received the necessary encouragement. About to retire to my room, I was stayed by him addressing me sharply.

“What do you know of Wiltshire, Watson?”

The apparent irrelevance of the query took me unawares and I paused to arrange my thoughts.

“Come, my dear fellow,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “You must have heard of that pleasant county.”

“Of course I have,” I retorted impatiently. “All it means to me is Stonehenge, the Great Western Railway, and the great cathedral of Salisbury. Otherwise, it is somewhere to pass through on the way to the West Country. Is there a reason for your inquiry?”

He thrust a newspaper at me, jabbing a tobacco-stained finger at a column headed: “Gruesome Find in Ancient Burial Chamber”.

“What do you make of that?”

I ran my eyes down the page to read that a party of archaeologists engaged in excavating a historical site near Devizes had come upon five skeletons, only four of which belonged to the period of the chamber. The fifth was of more recent origin, and among the bones was a rotting sack containing a quantity of gold plate, identified as the proceeds of a robbery which had occurred four years earlier at nearby Addleton Hall.

The report continued:

Inspector Blane of the Wiltshire Constabulary is satisfied that the remains are those of Edgar Barton, who vanished at the time of the robbery and was suspected of being responsible for the crime. He was the nephew of Mr. Willis Barton, the owner of the Hall.

I looked at my companion with eyebrows raised. “It seems plain enough,” I said. “I see nothing here to excite your interest.”

“Do you not? Come, my dear fellow, you have seen sufficient criminal activity to know when a matter feels right. Why should this man commit a burglary, then

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