The Missing Mr Moonstone Mystery

By Peter Tong

What happens after the famous private detective Sherlock Holmes dies fighting evil Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls? It takes time for the news to reach the general public, so desperate people still come to seek his help at 221b Baker Street. Holmes’ landlady, the invincible Mrs. Hudson, and her Cockney maid Fanny-Annie Grubbins, take over his work to become The Detective Ladies of Baker Street.

In their first case, an over sensitive Mrs. Moonstone calls to say her husband is missing. And later her jewellery. And finally her children’s beautiful governess. An obvious case of marital deception. However Mrs Hudson and Fanny-Annie soon discover nothing is so simple in the world of private detectives, especially female ones in a Victorian male-dominated society. But with genuine compassion for those in need and a bloody-minded dedication to duty, they crack on regardless. And encounter mystery and murder and possibly a budding romance before they eventually triumph. In the novel we are introduced to regulars in the series: starchy Miss Prim from next door at 221a Baker Street, and stern but fair Inspector Trengrove of Scotland Yard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Tong
• Release date: Aug 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370383801

Peter Tong

Born in Lancashire, England. Began writing at ten-years-old, inspired by school compositions and library-book reading. In those days I wrote Sci-fi stuff (never finished a book as I was always starting a new one), & in mid teens wrote a couple of satirical surreal shorts. But it was in my mid twenties after working in the Australian bush for a mining company and trekking back to the UK across Asia, that I began serious writing. My first published work was about my experiences in Japan for Blackwood's Magazine. Most of my career has been with scripts for radio & TV, screenplays, and stage plays, comedies and thrillers.I wrote and produced my first movie, the cocky little Gobsmacked! about an old bus broken down in the country and how the passengers got on with each other. A vertical learning curve that was fun right from the start. Followed by Mrs H of Baker Street, the stage farce about Sherlock Holmes’ landlady secretly doing her own detective work. Another joyful experience not to be missed.A few years ago I began writing novels (all out as ebooks) starting with the WWII heroic adventure series: Operation Hawkwind. Followed by the light-hearted Victorian crime series: The Detective Ladies of Baker Street, and Secret Agent 253, a WWI romantic spy story. I am currently on with an inspiring 'how to' book called: Never, Never, Never, EVER, Give Up, based on my experiences in achieving success. Next up will be an epic Sci-fi novel.My pastimes are country walking, reading, watching films and plays, enjoying jazz, rock, folk & classical concerts. I am a supporter of the David Lynch Foundation.

Book preview

Chapter 1.

The telegram read:

TERRIBLE NEWS STOP SHERLOCK HOLMES IS DEAD STOP WATSON

That formidable landlady and owner of 221b Baker Street, Mrs Martha Elizabeth Hudson, a solid rock of dependability in the turbulent waters of London life, let the message fall from her plump hands; they held traces of flour because she was in the middle of baking cakes for one of the many charities she supported.

‘Blimey, Mrs H, mum,’ said her maid-of-all-work, Fanny-Annie Grubbins, ‘you’ve gorn as white as a piece o’ dried cod. Is it really such bad news, then?’

Mrs Hudson stared back with lacklustre eyes and gravely nodded her head.

She was an amply proportioned lady of fifty-five, attired in a white pinafore over a plain dark green cotton dress and wearing a white cloth cap. For twenty-three years she had lived in her Baker Street house along with her late husband. Since his death nine years previous, she had become a landlady and let out rooms. Her latest lodgers were a medical practitioner and a private detective. The doctor, an amiable man; the detective, strange but charming.

Mrs Hudson murmured, ‘Let me get into the sitting room, Fanny-Annie. That is one shock I never expected. Although it was inevitable considering some of the villains he has dealt with over the years.’

As in a dream, Mrs Hudson allowed Fanny-Annie to lead her into the sitting room. She returned from the kitchen with a cup of tea, which her mistress barely sipped. Which was probably as well because the girl from the back streets of dockland had yet to learn how to make a decent brew civilised folk could tolerate.

It was only later, as Fanny-Annie did a bit of tidying up to pass the time as she kept Mrs Hudson company, that the good lady remembered, and picked up the cup and drank deep – and spat out forcefully with a bellow of black displeasure.

‘Grubbins, are you trying to send me to my doom as well, you vile backstreet assassin!’

‘Bleeding blimey!’ gasped Fanny-Annie, scurrying out of the room to hide away in the washhouse until later in the day.

Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ loyal friend and occasional assistant detective, came back from Switzerland to recount the dreadful details of the Great Detective’s demise. He had fought the vile criminal Professor Moriarty on the observation bridge of the Reichenbach Falls and both had fallen to their deaths in the terrible maelstrom far below. Those who sought respite from injustice and fear would never again count on Mr Holmes’ helping hand or receive his incisive wisdom.

It was a sad, sad time for everyone.

The unhappy doctor found himself a surgery near Paddington Station with rooms attached where he could start life afresh without the haunting memories of his past at 221b.

It had been agreed between him, Mrs Hudson, and the heads of Scotland Yard, that the demise of the irreplaceable detective should not be generally circulated to prevent giving pleasure to criminals and distress to law-abiding citizens. The newspapers had been prevailed upon to be discreet and report the tragedy, if they must, on the inside pages with small columns and minimum details. And it was in the charter of the telegraph company that the contents of all telegrams were considered absolutely confidential under law.

Therefore all appeared normal at Mrs Hudson’s house.

But in reality it became a cold dark place, the fires lit in the mornings and in the minimum of rooms and barely kept alive for the rest of the day. In order to maintain the subterfuge, the curtains at the front looking onto Baker Street were left open during daylight hours and only those at the rear facing the backs of other houses were closed in a show of respect for the dead detective.

The sitting room was used exclusively, and the lady of this domestic mausoleum spent all of her time in there seated at the piano playing tearful hymns and singing in a melancholic warbling contralto. She did no more sewing and baking for her charities and ate little of the plain food Fanny-Annie managed to put together. And only sipped her maid’s tea as a penance so as not to encourage enjoyment during her grieving period.

Fanny-Annie was also strongly affected by the death of the illustrious sleuth; although in a jolly way for she had been greatly afraid of the imperious detective and was glad he was gone.

‘He didn’t half give me the shudders.’

So time dragged by as Mrs Hudson continued to mourn the passing of her famous lodger, one she had secretly loved as the son she never had, and put off the dreadful business of having his rooms cleared out and redecorated for a potential replacement, although Holmes’ elder brother Mycroft offered to pay the rent in memory of him.

‘Oh, I cannot bear the thought of having anyone take his place, Fanny-Annie,’ she told her maid. ‘If dear Dr Watson were here on his own I could stand that. But not a total stranger. I do believe I would rather sell up and live cheap and alone in a tiny country cottage. Although this house does have so many cherished memories.’

She sniffed and so did Fanny-Annie in sympathy.

‘Memories not only of my two old lodgers but of the late Mr Hudson and our congenial years of marriage together before he crossed over the Golden Bridge to Paradise.’

‘Garn,’ muttered Fanny-Annie Grubbins, not keen on the idea of life after death. ‘Seems to me one life’s enough to put up without another waiting to jump on you as soon as your body’s gorn cold.’

While Baker Street’s most industrious occupant and now ex-landlady thus lamented her terrible loss, her much less industrious maid-of-all-work was also disturbed. Not just because of her wonderful mistress being so distraught, but by the chilling thought she might soon be back in the gutters of London fighting to survive the vagaries of the poor and uneducated who exist at the bottom of society’s heap.

‘Aow, blimey, Mrs H, mum,’ she said, ‘I do hates all this cleaning and scrubbing, and washing o’ clothes what’s not a week since been washed. But I hates a hundred, hundred times more living out in the gutters scratching to survive and sleeping in coal holes – with blooming great rats!’

Fanny-Annie Grubbins had been sent to 221b by the Concerned Ladies Society for the Underprivileged Girls of London. Mrs Hudson had been relishing the anticipated fight educating this lowly creature into the ways of civilized living; now all that was on hold for the moment.

‘But life is full of suffering, Grubbins, and suffering has to be endured,’ expounded Mrs Hudson stoically. ‘Fetch my bible, will you? I need its calming balm and guidance.’

‘I ain’t sure I knows what you’re on about, mum, but I’ll go and get it all the same. If I don’t cripple meself lifting it, that is. Them blooming holy words ain’t half heavy.’

Fanny-Annie returned with the King James and stood there panting and exhausted. It was a large ruby-coloured Moroccan leather-bound tome, not one for the cramped church pew but ideal for home consumption wherever a sturdy table was available. With a brighter eye, Mrs Hudson told her to bring a cup of tea for herself so they could keep each other company and sing psalms and pray for the departed soul of Mr Holmes.

‘Shall I bring a little bottle of consolation to go with it, mum?’

‘You will certainly not, Grubbins! You are not suggesting there is liquor on these premises?’

‘Aow, no, no, mum. No, I’d, er, just slip out to the Frog and Thistle and get…’

Mrs Hudson’s scornful glare stopped her short.

‘ Those who imbibe drinks of intoxication, will suffer the thirst of eternal damnation, Grubbins,’ she said piously.

‘Yers, Mrs H, if you say so.’

At that moment there was an intrusion into the bereaved household with the insistent clacking of the knocker on the front door.

Fanny-Annie walked carefully across the tiled mosaic floor of the hallway that gleamed in the faint light from the transom window above the door and the stained glass window at the side of it. Behind her was a broad staircase with its virgin-clean dark blue carpeting and shiny brown-varnished newel post and banister she had vigorously polished not long before. On the cream walls hung framed lithographs of country scenes and photographic portraits of those people belonging to the householder’s acquaintance, plus numerous crocheted biblical quotes. A grandfather clock ticked and tocked against a wall next to the steps leading down to the basement kitchen.

However, it was a large portrait of Queen Victoria in a heavy gilded frame that dominated the room, her authoritative yet benign gaze blessing the household and welcoming visitors both grand and lowly. It was a great consolation to the owner of the house to look up at her, tempted almost to offer a prayer, as if she were an icon to be worshipped.

Fanny-Annie opened it to a greatly agitated gentleman.

‘I must see Mr Holmes immediately,’ he demanded, pushing his way past the startled maid.

‘But he ain’t here, mister. Don’t you know Mr Holmes is…’

‘I can wait as long as it takes, but I must see him. I am desperate and have no one else in the world to turn to. Even the police cannot help me.’

‘And neither can Mr Holmes, sir. You see he’s gorn and…’

‘What is all this fuss and bother?’ exclaimed Mrs Hudson, entering after abandoning her meditations on the ephemeral nature of Life and the everlasting threat of Death.

The other two began talking at once.

‘I have to see Mr Holmes about…’

‘I keeps trying to tell him…’

‘…a most strange and terrifying case…’

‘…but I can’t gets a word in…’

Mrs Hudson hushed them both to silence before allowing the man to introduce himself as Mr Hubert Farrington from the Barnes district south of the Thames.

‘What is it that is troubling you, sir?’ asked Mrs Hudson, always ready to offer a helping hand, even now despite her own overwhelming melancholy.

‘Someone is going to murder my dear wife!’ the distressed gentleman howled.

‘Aow, lor,’ muttered Fanny-Annie and sniffed.

Chapter 2.

With straight-backed dignity, the owner of the house led the disturbed fellow into the sitting room. In addition to the candles (the central gas fitting was not lighted), daylight filtering through a chink in the mourning curtains gave the room an atmosphere of deep reverence and one could be forgiven for sitting in silence as if waiting for a minister of the church to appear and begin a funeral service.

Mrs Hudson indicated that they should both sit on a pair of the upholstered upright chairs previously used by Dr Watson’s patients and Mr Holmes’ clients, so as to be comfortably business-like. She had met hundreds of poor souls of both sexes from all stations in life, seeking help from the late detective. They arrived in torment with their particular problem, which sooner or later was resolved by the astute investigator, allowing them to live with unburdened hearts until some further trouble assailed them.

This visitor was in his mid-forties and dressed in a broad checked mustard coloured Harris Tweed suit and brown bowler and bow tie, in total contrast to Mrs Hudson’s black taffeta with its modest black silk mourning cap decked with black felt flower heads and ribbons. She wore a heavy veil, which muffled her voice already subdued with respect for her deceased lodger, so that she had to almost shout whenever she spoke.

Mr Farrington himself was so overwhelmed with the weight of his own misfortunes that it was only when seated did he belatedly realise he was in a grieving household. Mrs Hudson handed him a cup of coffee delivered by Fanny-Annie in preference to tea, because she had mastered that drink. The nosy maid-of-all-work was slow to leave, and hovered by the door, listening, until her mistress glared at her to exit and get on with her never ending cleaning.

‘May I offer my sympathies, ma’am, for your loss?’ said Mr Farrington. ‘I presume it was someone very dear to you?’

Mrs Hudson bit her lip to prevent a tear from forming, and taking a deep breath she peered at him through the mesh of the veil, clasped her hands on her lap, and delivered a rehearsed little speech.

‘Mr Farrington, I am afraid I have sad news.’ Mr Farrington open his eyes wide, closed his lips tight, and held the cup and saucer in mid air. ‘The dear person this house is in mourning for is none other than…’

Mr Farrington gave a gasp of anxious expectation. ‘No, not, not Mr Holmes? Surely not Mr Sherlock Holmes?’

Mrs Hudson nodded to the fellow whose fingers now trembled close to his lips as if grasping for the dreadful words to rip them to shreds in denial of the obvious truth he had spoken. The poor man let fall his cup and saucer as he jumped to his feet. She also rose and extended her hands to offer succour to the devastated visitor.

But she was she unable to prevent Mr Farrington from rushing unrestrained from the room.

‘My poor, poor wife is doomed! We are all of us doomed!’

Mr Farrington was prevented from escaping into Baker Street because of colliding with Fanny-Annie unexpectedly found outside the sitting room door and inexplicably dusting it. Her undignified response was drowned out by the equally undignified outburst from Mr Farrington.

Mrs Hudson followed him from the sitting room, speaking urgent words of concern to the unhappy visitor and reproach to her luckless servant.

‘Leave me to my fate, madam,’ he retorted, ‘and that of others who will be tainted by this impending disaster to my life’s partner!’

And the would-be client of the late great Detective Holmes was rushing into the street to lose himself in its clatter of passing horse-drawn vehicles and the babble of pedestrians in the ever-present London fog, and heeded not one word Mrs Hudson called after him.

‘Oh, bugs and beetles!’ Mrs Hudson said, followed by a heart-breaking groan. ‘Whatever will become us?’

Then stoically drawing herself up she closed the door and proclaimed to the hallway and her maid-of-all-work standing awkwardly in the middle of it: 

‘ When desolation stalks the land, the Good Lord will be at hand. Never forget that, young lady.’

‘Yers, mum,’ said Fanny-Annie. ‘But in my experience when things get bad you can always bet they’ll get even badder.’

Her mistress reflected on this and had to admit there was unfortunately some element of wisdom in the poor gutter girl’s observation, inarticulately expressed as it was.

‘It is the feeling of impotence that distresses me the most,’ said Mrs Hudson. ‘The inability to help one’s fellow creatures. Oh, why did he have to die and leave us at the mercy of the evildoers that remain to plague honest, decent folk! We can but pray the Good Lord has greater need of him.’

She had a brief irreverent vision of Mr Holmes with a magnifying glass peering for clues among the celestial clouds.

‘But what about that unfortunate Mr Farrington and his wife? Are they really beyond help?’

‘Looks that way, don’t it, Mrs H, mum?’ speculated Fanny-Annie with a long sad face. ‘It’s a cruel hard world, mum, is what I’ve found out in me own poor life of misery and want.’

Unable to think of a suitable reply, Mrs Hudson returned to the sitting room, Fanny-Annie following with a pan and brush to clear up the broken crockery. After a while, Mrs Hudson reached out for her cup, cold as it now was, and sipped from it in a sombre manner.

Then from out of that soul-destroying gloom materialized her maid’s plaintive Cockney voice as she knelt on the floor.

‘Here, Mrs H,’ it said. ‘Ain’t you ever done it?’

Mrs Hudson coughed and rattled her cup and