Sherlock Holmes and the Remaining Improbable

By Susanne M. Dutton

From his rural cottage, Holmes no longer provokes Scotland Yard’s envy or his landlady’s impatience, but neither is he content with the study of bees. August 1920 finds him filling out entry papers at a nearly defunct psychiatric clinic on the Normandy coast. England has declared his cocaine use illegal and he aims to quit entirely. Confronted by a question as to his treatment goal, Holmes hesitates, aware that his real goal far exceeds the capacity of any clinic. His scribbled response, “no more solutions, but one true resolution” seems more a vow than a goal to his psychiatrist, Pierre Joubert. The doctor is right. Like a tiny explosion unaccountably shifting a far-reaching landscape, the simple words churn desperate action and interlocking mystery into the lives of Holmes’ friends and enemies both.
Through the doctor's notes, the reader follows the treatment of his famous patient. In his first session, Holmes recounts his earliest drug experiences, the coca leaf tea applied to his teething pains and the popular Godfrey’s Cordial and Mrs. Winslow’s Child Preservative, containing opium and morphine. He admits that on entering Christ Church College, Oxford, his access to cocaine widened as his reliance deepened. As he once famously asserted to Watson, the drug lifted him out of the intolerable “stagnating routines” of life. He can’t recall when the lines blurred, when life itself became the thing from which he craved lifting.
Though Joubert has long admired the famous detective, Holmes proves an irascible patient. He diagnoses his doctor’s ailments and denies his professional assumptions. He demands quieter rooms, claims that clinic meals cramp him, and rejects group therapy outright.
His doctor is satisfied, however. Signs are good. It’s all part of a normal, necessary adjustment. Holmes walks in the countryside—albeit after dark—and a fierce game of singles tennis seems to break the awful tedium that gnaws at him. Hypnosis fascinates Holmes as well, until in one trance he regresses beyond vivid boyhood memories of his father’s French art collection to an ancestor’s disturbing experience in the French Revolution. Joubert adamantly counsels that these images are not history, only unique creations of the psyche.
Five weeks into his treatment, the detective’s eyesight weakens. His weight drops. A wheeled chair and an orderly prove necessary. Sleep eludes him, replaced by ominous hallucinations. Then his personal belongings go missing and reappear, strangely altered. Two of these tricks strike Holmes as childish. The last is different, though not the usual threat of violence. This is deeply personal, darker and even more troubling. Has he such an enemy in the sanatorium? In spite of his determination to overcome his addiction, he knows he is vulnerable as never before. Must he leave? Surely not, at least not without the clarifying facts he needs to form a deduction.
Not long afterward, John Watson opens a late afternoon telegram originating in Eastbourne and directed to his London surgery: Most deeply cherished friend John. The game is afoot. Please take the Brighton Line from Victoria to Eastbourne at ten in the morning. Revolver unnecessary. Sherlock Holmes
The message gratifies Watson. Obviously, Holmes has completed his treatment in Normandy and misses their old life together as much as he. Happily, he anticipates another case and looks forward to being not just Dr Watson, but “Watson, Confederate and Chronicler.” A hurried leave of absence is not impossible, he reasons. He has already reduced his office hours and watched as his patients cooperate to an unflattering extent, transferring their loyalties to his younger partner.
So it happens that Watson, after a number of years, entrains once more for Eastbourne and finds himself caught up in the most unique and outrageous Holmes adventure no one will ever hear about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Propertius Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005400569

Susanne M. Dutton

Susanne is the one who hid during high school gym, produced an alternative newspaper and exchanged notes in Tolkien’s Elfish language with her few friends. While earning her B.A. in English, she drove a shabby Ford Falcon with a changing array of homemade bumper strips: Art for Art’s Sake, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, Free Bosie from the Scorn of History. Later, her interests in myth and depth psychology led to graduate and postgraduate degrees in counseling.Nowadays, having outlived her mortgage and her professional counseling life, she aims herself at her desk most days; where she tangles with whatever story she can’t get out of her head. Those stories tend to seat readers within pinching distance of her characters, who, like most of us, slide at times from real life to fantasy and back. A man with Alzheimer’s sets out alone for his childhood home. A girl realizes she’s happier throwing away her meals than eating them. A woman burgles her neighbors in order to stay in the neighborhood.Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Susanne grew up in the SF Bay Area, has two grown children, and lives with her husband in an old Philadelphia house, built of the stones dug from the ground where it sits.

Book preview

Sherlock Holmes

and the

Remaining Improbable

Susanne M. Dutton

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE REMAINING IMPROBABLE

Copyright (c) 2021 by Susanne Dutton

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Cover and Interior design by Propertius Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owners. This book is a work of fiction. As in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience; however, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

ISBN Print: 978-1-6780-7531-6

ISBN eBook: 978-1-0054-0056-9

Contents

Prologue

An Unexpected Summons

The Intruder

The Chance Detective

The Man with the Bloodied Brow

The Condemned Sister

Babette

Charades

Conspiracy

Cheap Tricks of Ordinary Logic

Emilie’s Invitation

The Chief Suspect

The Trap is Sprung

The Reunion

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Prologue

3 September 2020

808 Bell Close, Hampstead

London NW

Dear Jane Ellen,

Here’s what you need to know, or at least, all that I know. The file box with this letter belonged for years to my godfather Ronald Ellison, a medical partner of John H. Watson. Inside you’ll find an unpublished, unique, and outrageous Holmes case from the autumn of 1920.

What’s unique, outrageous? A big part of it is that Watson’s first six chapters are appended by Holmes’ files from La Dieppe Clinique in Normandy, where he was treated for his cocaine addiction by psychiatrist Pierre Joubert. Like both Freud and Jung, Joubert values his patient’s exact words and images, whether spoken, dreamt, or drawn. Everyday life is flayed. Bloody fantastical things come up.

Speaking of blood, this case also returns us to the question of Holmes’ genealogy. In The Greek Interpreter Holmes claims that his grandmother was a Vernet, daughter of Carle Vernet (1758-1836) of that famed French family of artists. One unidentified Vernet painting, which I suspect was Carle Vernet’s work, plays a mysterious role in this story. After all, Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.

You needn’t be squeamish about the personal stories revealed. Joubert’s clinic closed in 1937, ten years before he died in 1947. John Watson passed in 1932. Louis Sebran, a clinic assistant who worked with Holmes, changed his name to accord with his heritage and died without issue in 1989. Holmes’ death has assuredly occurred, though the year is hard to pin down. Authorities I consulted claimed 1904, ’23, ’35, and ’57. I doubt the date of my demise will be as elastic, but I’ll rest easier tonight, and in that hour, if you’ll do as you see fit with this treasure. My guardianship’s time is done.

On the eve of my ninety-fourth, I remain your oldest admirer and advocate.

Augustine E. Wright (Grandpa Augie)

Chapter One – An Unexpected Summons

On October 4, 1920, I read the late afternoon telegram originating in Eastbourne and addressed to me at my London surgery.

Most Deeply Cherished Friend John. The game’s afoot. Please take the Brighton Line from Victoria to Eastbourne at ten in the morning. Revolver unnecessary. Sherlock Holmes

Most deeply cherished? Friend John? The greeting overwhelmed me, coming from my unsentimental colleague, but I warmed to the notion of this chummier Holmes and took it to mean that he missed our old life together as much as I did.

The last the public had heard of the detective was news of his retirement. In response, sketches appeared in every paper. Holmes’ visage jumped life-sized from the Illustrated in bucolic reverie, accoutred in countrified dress, including a brimmed, raw-edged hat more associated with Huck Finn. In the Times, Holmes’ adversaries were shown going up in the smoke emanating from one of his iconic deep-necked pipes. Accompanying reports claimed that he’d retired to immerse himself in the occupation of beekeeping, and self-proclaimed authorities declared such employment a healthful and provident one for a gentleman of Holmes’ character.

My understanding of Holmes’ recent activities differed. I knew that he was not amidst the bees’ skeps at the rural Bolt Cottage, on Beachy Head in East Sussex. Though he’d spoken in vague terms, he did confide his decision to take treatment for his cocaine addiction at a clinic on the continent. He’d said, somewhere in Normandy and possibly as long as four or five months. Although visitors and correspondence were perfectly allowable, Holmes asked me to defer both. Of course, I gave my wholehearted support to this endeavour.

Needless to say, the pressing telegram left me intrigued and hopeful, but full of questions. Had Holmes completed the treatment already, defeating the cursed habit that had dogged him for so long? I felt my mood lighten, however, as I fell into that long-standing mode of being not just Doctor Watson, but Watson, Confederate and Chronicler. I was only sorry the instruction did not insist that I arrive that same night, for I was eager to proceed. A hurried leave of absence was not impossible. I had reduced my office hours in the past two years and watched as my patients cooperated to an unflattering extent, transferring their loyalties to my young partner and nephew, Ronald Ellison.

On telephoning Ronald at home, I found him happy to accommodate the few appointments on my books. In any case, he could reach me at The Sturdy Beggar Inn at Eastbourne, where I planned to stay. A middle son of my sister Rachel, Ronald grew up reading my accounts of Holmes’ adventures. By the time he turned thirteen, he was adamant that he would become a consulting detective himself. However, the war and his experience of war as a medical corpsman convinced him otherwise. He determined that his talents were better suited to another kind of detection and solution, wherein the human form itself serves up myriad quandaries. To this day, nevertheless, Ronald acts as an occasional medical consultant to the Yard, and his response reflected his enthusiasm and curiosity.

It’s Holmes, isn’t it? he said. Don’t be evasive, Uncle John. I know it is. High time. Holmes is in wondrously vigorous health for a man of his age and disastrous habits, but this odd retirement of his is going to put him six feet under. What in heaven’s name would an intelligent man be doing cooped up in... What’s that ridiculous name? Leaky Head?

Beachy Head. Beachy.

I’m joking, good man. Everyone knows of Beachy Head. But a fellow’s got to spring a leak in his brain to sequester himself in a place like that. After London! Imagine the winters! It’s nonsense. What about his reputation? I’d swear it’s not too much to say you’ve let him down by not talking him out of it.

I sighed.

But now this! Wait until I tell Mother. You and Holmes have a new case!

Ronald, I’m going to plead that you be cautious in talking about this. I don’t know what Holmes has in mind. It may be nothing, but as you know, it may mean travel and perhaps a necessary secrecy—for a time, anyway. May I ask that?

Damn! I wish I were going. If you need me for any... well, just anything at all, you send for me. I’ll motor down in a jiffy. Promise me that. Patrickson can see to the patients.

Certainly. Certainly not!

In a foggy drizzle, I strode from my office to 221B Baker Street, where I’d lived alone since Holmes’ decampment to East Sussex. Inside the street door, I noted that Miss Lucinda Hudson, niece of our original landlady, the venerable Mrs Martha Hudson—and my new assistant, part typist and part housekeeper/cook—had stepped out. Her outlandish garlanded green umbrella wasn’t in the umbrella stand. Years ago, a servant wouldn’t have left a personal umbrella in an employer’s foyer, but those times were obviously gone. I saw, too, that Miss Hudson’s room door, left of the ground floor stairway, was shut, the transom dark. She’d warned me repeatedly about her upcoming Linden’s Secretarial School night classes. Was this one of those evenings? I gave up any hope of a decent supper and ascended, resolved to serve myself the sideboard’s leftovers. Then I’d pack a small trunk for the morrow’s sojourn. I’d end the day with a glass of port, a cigar, and a few chapters of the new novel Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, an American.

I was awakened earlier than necessary at six the next morning by a sure sign that Miss Hudson had indeed returned. A squeal like nothing so much as a pig in distress rose through the plaster, floor boards, and carpets, the sound continuing for a good ten minutes. I pulled my quilt to my chin and pictured the scene. In the kitchen, Miss Hudson would have put a kettle on for my Twining’s and sliced bread for the toaster. In readiness, she’d have set out a tray with a tea pot, milk, sugar, and jam, and then made her way to her rooms where she was presently making efficient use of a few extra minutes. Like my nephew Ronald, Miss Lucinda Hudson evinced an avid interest in Holmes, and all things Holmes, a predilection only further encouraged when I began to ask her to type up old case material. In fact, she’d raised her fascination with the detective another notch entirely and seized with gusto upon the idea of becoming, like Holmes, a violinist. Her assiduous musical practice filled any unoccupied moment. Unlike Holmes, however, Miss Hudson skipped the classics and went straight for the popular music of the day. No Mozart or Chopin follower, she aimed her bow this dawn hour at Rambling Rose and her own peppery version of It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’. I admit I had been able to deduce Miss Hudson’s repertoire only after repeated exposure, as her efforts in no way approximated these well-known jaunty works.

By the time I dressed, shaved, fussed to no avail with my remaining hair, and made my final preparations for the two-hour journey to Eastbourne, she had readied a place for me on the sitting room window’s deal table. As I entered, traveling trunk in tow, she gave up a half-hearted show of dusting. In her usual sensible grey dress and white apron, Miss Hudson was a pert, durable-looking nineteen-year-old, with a pink, freckle-flecked complexion, dark eyes and hair. Her manner, while not childish, was simple and forthright.

Good morning, Doctor, she said. She nodded toward the trunk and moved to pour tea. You’ve agreed to Mr. Holmes’ proposal. I’m so pleased. As always, I was startled by her voice, too deeply resonant for her petite size, as if a hidden mezzo-soprano used ventriloquism to speak for her.

I sat down, surrendering. I’m glad you approve. I take it that between the time Mr. Holmes’ telegram arrived and whatever devil’s hour you managed to get in, you somehow heard of its contents.

She smiled broadly and nodded, bouncing the old-fashioned curls at either side of her head. Devil’s hour, was it? I hope not, as I was only over to see my sister Mae, in the Stiles Road. I meant to support her in the last hours of her confinement, though I was too late for that.

I set my teacup down. Too late?

And who do you think I happened to find there, sitting in the front parlour with Mum and Dad, Dobby, Prentice, and the rest—the whole farmyard of us? Who was just waiting for Mrs. Ward, the midwife, to help Mae make herself presentable? Just waitin’ with the whole circus of us, like there was no place he’d rather be—even though he wasn’t much needed in particular—but wanted to be there with everyone else, just to see us all so pleased with little Albert Edward?

Albert Edward?

Whatever do you mean, Doctor? I’m speaking of Dr. Ellison, of course. Ronald Ellison. He was at Mae’s and told me you were on a new case with Mr. Holmes. Don’t you remember? I asked him to give a talk last month at the Marylebone Circle Ladies Reading Club. I’m the president—I told you, didn’t I? Of course, he consented and now they can’t wait to have him back. He spoke about healthful sports for women, but of course we came ’round to the question of full female suffrage towards the end, as always. He’s all for it. Women the same as men. Right on up from age twenty-one—same as men. He says he’d be glad to see us take over completely for a thousand years. It’s our turn, after all. Right? That’s what he says. Then afterward, we went for ice creams. Well, not we, the whole reading club, but we, me and Dr. Ellison. So smart and yet funny, funny, funny! And he told me about his one hundred percent complete collection of your Mr. Holmes’ cases. I talked about working here, typing case material and, of course, about my violin lessons. He said my repertoire sounds impressive and maybe one day I will compose music like Mr. Holmes—why shouldn’t I? Then he walked me home and said he’d like to hear me play anytime, but especially very soon. I told you. Funny.

And Albert? I take it you refer to Mae’s infant.

"Oh yes! Him. Albert Edward Wright. Sounds nice, as a name, I suppose, but there was no end of a twist over it. Mae and Charlie were for it, and as they’re the parents, it’s their say. Course it is! Dad kept his gob shut, but Mum dug her heels in. She claimed to know a hundred other Christian names a child could put on and hold his head high and commenced showing what she meant from a pamphlet she’d found, starting with ‘a.’ Agrippa, Alfred, Archibald, Arran, Augustine—ever so many! Finally, she promised to have