Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes: Volume Iii

By David B. Beckwith

James Innes Watson, the great-great-grandson of Dr. John H. Watson, has inherited all the manuscripts of his forebear. These include stories that, for whatever reason, Watson never came to publish. In this collection, The Case of Ailsa Craig, Holmes is summoned by an old university friend to a bleak island off the coast of Scotland. A lighthouse keeper has disappeared in apparent supernatural circumstances. The Amateur Cracksman, Scotland Yard approaches Holmes regarding a high society cracksman. It is only when Mycroft Holmes enters the investigation with a robbery of radio inventor Marconi that the case is solved. Sherlock Holmes in Cumbria, Holmes and Watson travel to the English Lake District to solve a murder case on the mountains. A second murder on the peak of one of Englands highest mountains, and then a theft from a family from Holmess past make up this north-country case.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Dec 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543405170

David B. Beckwith

David B. Beckwith was born in what is now Cumbria in the U.K. His family emigrated to Western Australia in 1969. David lives on a 2.1 hectare block of native bush land in a rural region bordering the city of Perth, the capital of Western Australia where in his retirement from the computer industry, he and his wife enjoy an envious lifestyle with their chickens and the resident fauna: wild rabbits, spiders (venomous), snakes (venomous), lizards, quenda (bandicoots), and brightly coloured parrots and vivid blue wrens. This is his fifth book of Holmes’s tales. Visit: david.beckwith.net.au & holmes-chronicles.com

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Copyright © 2017 by David B. Beckwith.

ISBN:                     Softcover                        978-1-5434-0518-7

                               eBook                              978-1-5434-0517-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Artwork by the author.

Backcover painting Ullswater from Gowbarrow towards Helvellyn by the author.

Rev. date: 11/30/2017

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

1.   Sherlock Holmes in Cumbria

2.   Sherlock Holmes And The Cracksman

3.   The Case Of Ailsa Craig

Author Notes

For:

Antoinette

Christopher

David

Dominic

In memory of

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

Apologies to

Ernest William Hornung

PREFACE

As with Volume I and II of these books, this third volume contains stories that Doctor John Hamish Watson never published, there are numerous reasons why this happened: unsuitability, political sensitivity, censorship by Conan Doyle, or even suppression by Watson himself. But now that many years have passed these tales can be told.

In Volume II, I published as an Appendix the chronology of Holmes and Watson from the birth of their parents up to 1990 when James Innes Watson’s son Alexander Sherlock was born. It is due to James Watson, the great-great-grandson of Dr. Watson, that this third volume is now available. However, the time-chart is not rigid, and as new facts become known, or when James submits more manuscripts of his forebear to me for publication, the details may be updated. The latest version of the chronology can be found at this web-site:

www.david.beckwith.net.au

I thank my wife Antoinette, and friends Christopher and Dominic for their constructive help and assistance, and for proofreading the texts; thanks also to David in England for his encouragement.

INTRODUCTION

James Innes Watson

The Discovery Of The Lost Manuscripts

Many have asked me how it was that I came to inherit the manuscripts of my great-great-grandfather Doctor John Hamish Watson (1854 – 1939).

In February 1922 Watson published Thor Bridge, a case that had occurred some 22 years earlier in October 1900. The story starts with these sentences:

Deep in the vaults of the bank of Cox & Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M.D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid. It is crammed with papers, nearly all of these are records of cases which illustrate the curious problems that Mr. Sherlock Holmes investigated during his long and distinguished career.

This is not accurate. One dispatch-box could not contain all the material that my forebear had amassed: notes about cases that were never solved (or were simply without any special interest), and cases that were solved but were never published. Accompanying the dispatch box were several other metal boxes.

The named dispatch-box itself contained the details of the cases occurring before the Reichenbach Falls incident in 1891, as published by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The other boxes contain the accounts or notes of the cases that occurred after that fateful day in 1891. Both sets of documents contain cases that were never published, and it is from this collection that I have extracted the stories that I have made available in the Chronicles.

At what date any of the boxes were committed to Cox & Co. is not clear, it seems clear that it was after 1922 when the case of Thor Bridge was published, but the date of their subsequent retrieval from the vaults is known.

My great-grandfather James Arthur (also a doctor) was born in December 1903, his son Allan Sherlock was born in March 1929, and it is he who retrieved the boxes in 1953 after his completion of National Service, a year before his son John Benjamin was born. I remember that my grandfather (Allan Watson) was enthralled that his father (James Watson) had entrusted such a wealth of unpublished manuscripts to him, but as a cautious man he withheld the material and kept it within the family.

My father (John Benjamin Watson) inherited the boxes from his father (Allan Sherlock Watson) in 2000, but he had scant interest in them and passed them on to me James Innes Watson (My second name being that of the maiden name of Dr. John Hamish Watson’s mother.) in 2009: thinking that I might do something with these manuscripts.

Since receiving this inheritance I have spent the years examining the texts, attempting to put them into chronological order, and deciding which were suitable for publication. There are many marked in red by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: the essence being that they were unsuitable at the time, or needed considerable obfuscation. There are also those penned by my ancestor, the great chronicler of Sherlock Holmes’s activities, and for which it is now difficult to discern why these were never published.

Finally, a note about Holmes’s methods: whilst he used primarily deduction, he was wont to use abduction (a little used word in this sense).

ABDUCTION: in logic, a syllogism (a form of reasoning), with the major premise certain, the minor ones only probable.

Sherlock Holmes in Cumbria

being the two cases of:

The Fell Murders

The Luck of Eden

Foreword

My ancestor punned with the first part of the title of this case: using fell as an adjective and also as a noun, dreadful or cruel from the Middle English, and moor / hill / mountain from the Norse word introduced to English by the Vikings. Conan Doyle however rejected the tale stating in an attached note:

Too grim, the murders and the setting – bleak moors are not London, and it is closer to the metropolis that your reader’s expect when they think of Holmes, splendid as this setting is. Also, there is too much language detail – your audience like some translations of uncommon words, and the ambience of local vernacular is fascinating, but I feel that your readers would prefer to read what is now commonly acceptable English. I realise that you recount what occurred, but why repeat a family reference: one incidence per family is surely enough, and one case per story is the same. Obfuscation of the characters and the whereabouts will be very difficult, if not impossible, I cannot see a way of relocation of the events, nor disguising the royalty involved. I do like the recounting of Holmes solving these conundrums in the North, but as to publishing… put this case in your archive!

Watson had emended the text in pencil in the margins, to take heed of Conan Doyle’s advice with regard to regional English speech, however much still remains as he had originally written the text. I can find no other reference that either Holmes or Watson visited the Lake District, but I can agree with his difference of opinion with Conan Doyle regarding the description of the countryside: it is a beautiful but hard district, pleasant in summer, harsh and deadly in winter. What follows, for the most part, is the emended text that ignores Conan Doyle’s other concerns. As to the accuracy of the historical facts herein, I am a novice, and thus I have left unchanged what my forebear wrote as being recounted to him.

*

The man ran.

The stone circle that was to his left could scarcely be called a circle: now so little of it remained that what did remain appeared as boulders, and it had no name. The old Roman road ran to the south-west, it too could hardly now be called a road, it had once been a double road with paved edges, but now almost all the paving cobbles had long since been purloined and reused for walls and buildings; a long time ago it had been a major main road, now it was just a mere path on a bleak open moor.

The man had left the village of Pooley Bridge at the end of the lake and then headed towards Roehead along a poor road, then up a track for a half of a mile towards Heughscar Hill. The weather was warm – maybe 72 degrees: it was August and a beautiful day for a walk. He was glad of his stout walking stick and sturdy boots, the terrain was not for genteel shoes. After a rise of about 500 feet, and at a height of a little more than a 1000 feet he had come to High Street, the old Roman road where he turned south-west along it, disturbing half a dozen moor ponies: these being wild and more accustomed to sheep than human visitors, they were skittish. He reached what was almost a plateau, the flat ridge was scant of any vegetation to note: grass browning in the summer sun, gorse bushes, tussocks of heather already in bloom, tufts of ferns – some of them very extensive, and the occasional stunted tree, wind-bent almost to the horizontal, for the exposed land was subject to the ravages of the winds from the west across the highland. It was a bleak moorland aspect, the very vegetation reflecting the harsh climate.

The man had jumped the small river of Eider Beck, it was less than 2 feet wide, and he could see Barton Park Wood to the west, and the long lake shining bright to the north west with Soulby Fell rising beyond. Here was a saddle point of the moor, dropping north west to the lake, but a flat region to the east, before dropping down towards the village of Helton. A lonely place, no people, only the distinctive cry of the circling curlews – pee-wit – broke the silence.

The man looked about, examining the landscape as if he owned this place, and he was surveying his estate. Then he noticed another man back on the road some 200 yards away. The man had not previously observed this other person, but then he had not been looking behind, and it was only in a moment of contemplation that had made him look in all directions. He waved a salutary hand to the other man, but he got no response. So the man turned and walked on.

He did not look again to see his distant companion, who was now not so distant, the other person having decreased the distance between them. But when the man did turn out of curiosity, he could more clearly see the other person, however at the distance of perhaps 100 yards or more he did not recognise the other person: he was just a man clad much as himself for a vigorous walk on the moor – the fells – as the locals called any land above the valley bottoms. The man’s features were not discernable at that distance. As he looked, the other man stopped walking, and stood still, not even looking around, but seeming to be intent on peering toward him. The man took a dozen steps forwards, before turning again. The other man had closed the distance between them – so he must have run. Now the other man stopped again. The man became aware of an irrational fear. Was he being followed? Another 10 steps, and again the other man had closed the distance between them. He waved again, but to no response. Now his fear became alarm and then turned to panic.

The man ran. He realised that he was being pursued. He was frightened. His hat had blown off, but he did not stop to retrieve it. He flung his stick aside. Moments later, there was a slight pause as he doffed his rucksack and discarded that too. Speed, that was what he needed.

*

Holmes and I were having a leisurely morning that Tuesday the 4th of August in 1896, my erratic time of appearance for breakfast was now a thing long since past: many years with Holmes, then my marriage, then being single once more, and now back again in 221B and years residing with Holmes – all had made my daily activities more scheduled – or maybe it was just my age, I was now 42 years old. Mrs. Hudson had outdone herself yet again with a magnificent breakfast of sausages, mushrooms and bacon, served with a new piquant brown sauce named Houses of Parliament – when I had commented upon this she informed me that it was newly available since the previous year – it reminded me a little of certain Indian sauces that I had experienced in my time in Afghanistan and on the sub-continent. Where did the dear lady find these delicacies? More to point, where did she have her source of mushrooms in August in the heart of the metropolis of London? Holmes was having his second pipe of tobacco, but I had given up the nicotine habit years previously at the instigation of my late wife Mary, she had disliked the smell and thought it was a bad habit for a Doctor to exhibit. I was considering a walk into Regent’s Park, and thus passing and remembering where my dog Marcus was buried under a rose bush. The weather was glorious and windows were wide open to Baker Street to let in the summer air.

Hark! said Holmes, I perceive you inhaling the fresh air, but not hearing the sounds: I believe that we have a visitor. I heard a Hansom cab draw up outside. The ‘clip clop’ of hooves on cobbles distinctly came to an end below our windows. Let us wait and see!

I had been about to rise and peer out of the bay windows, but then I was reconciled to the fact that my powers of observation were not those of my colleague, I also realised that I had not heard a cab either arrive or depart, and that it was unlikely that the cabby would wait – unless paid to do so – as time is money to a London cabby; thus I deduced that any consultation would be a brief visitation. I felt pleased with this deduction.

There were footsteps on the staircase, I did notice that there were two sets, a lighter one, a woman I thought, and a more pronounced set of steps – those of a man, and he favoured one leg over the other. From some knowledge of Holmes’s ways that I had acquired, I was certain I knew who the pair would be. A knock came on our sitting room door! Come! called Holmes, and Mrs. Hudson entered.

I have taken a liberty Mr. Holmes, you have a visitor, and since he is well known to both you and Dr. Watson, I have brought him upstairs. He is outside on the landing, Inspector Lestrade.

I felt pleased that my conclusion was correct, but Holmes would doubtless have also reached the same one, and in addition some probably correct supposition about their attire.

Then you had better usher him in! exclaimed Holmes.

Inspector Gerald Lestrade was shown in and after shaking his hand Holmes offered him a seat. Holmes was often forgetful of courtesy, I had no chance to shake the policeman’s hand. We had not seen the man since November the previous year. However, he did seem to have aged, his hair more grey, his moustache showing hints of silver. I do not now recall how I knew it, but I knew that he was 16 years older than Holmes and me, so he was nearing 60 years old. I practised Holmes’s methods and observed the old brown overcoat to be getting to look as if a replacement was in order, his shoes also were old and scuffed, the Trilby in his hand showed a distinct band where the sweat of his brow had stained it. Lestrade did not appear as though life was treating him kindly.

Can we offer you a drink Inspector? Otherwise, prepare to tell your tale! said Holmes.

"No Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, your hospitality is generous, but I will come straight to the point. A royal person from ‘up-north’ ’as requested that you investigate a case – a bludgeoning to death in Westmoreland¹."

Sometimes Lestrade’s Cockney background was very prominent in his accented English.

Royal, you say. And why me? responded Holmes.

"Yes, a royal, the Earl² of Lonsdale, it appears ’e is partial to Dr. Watson’s accounts of your cases. ’E knows of your boxing and martial art skills, ’e ’imself is a keen sportsman. ‘However ’e ’as a great abhorrence of violent crime on ’is domain, and ’tis a guest of ’is wot ’as been done in. ’E also reckons that the local country police are not capable of solving this case, and the murder being less than three miles from his castle. I might add that ’e’s a bit of an adventurer ‘himself, ’e’s been to Canada and the Arctic!"

Who are the local police? queried Holmes with a grimace in expectation of the answer.

The Penrith locals: two constables, and if I might speculate, I’d say they are a pair of country yokels. They report to the Station at Carlisle near the Scotch border, ’bout twenty miles away.

Under my breath I hissed: Scotch is a drink, Scots and Scottish are adjectives. I do hate the laxity of modern English, Holmes himself had to be reminded of the use of Scots versus Scotch, I often said: The word is a noun or a verb, Holmes, not an adjective!

What other details do you have? Holmes queried Lestrade, as usual Holmes came straight to the point, and he showed no subtlety.

Very few Mr. Holmes. The body of Sir ‘Ector Chelmsford – ’e’s a Baronet, well ’e was one, ’is body was found on Monday, the local doctor believes the man was murdered on the Saturday. ’E woz identified by ’is card found on him, ’e was not robbed, but the back of his skull ’ad been bashed in – an’ he ’ad another serious wound to wot I’ve no information to tell. I thought that a bit curious – them not giving forth the information. However, an unsolved murder so near to ’is castle ’as got the Earl greatly concerned, why only last year the German Kaiser was there to shoot grouse, and wot wi’ Sir ‘Ector being ’is guest, I’ll say no more. The Earl will pay all expenses – ’e doubtless don’t like ’is reputation being marred. I don’t like it that Royals can pull strings like this, asking favours somehow of them high up, but I’ve been ordered to ask you Mr. Holmes if you will take on this case. I must also say that I agree wi’ the Earl’s concern that these northern blokes aren’t up to the class of the constabulary here in London.

Holmes and I exchanged glances: it was clearly unknown to Lestrade that both Holmes and I were ourselves ‘up-north blokes’, Holmes from Yorkshire, and I from Northumberland; though I will admit that we were both well educated and were much travelled, and that now our speech did not reflect our origins. Considering this last thought, I wondered if Holmes could be persuaded to write a monograph about the English dialects and accents. I did remember that on occasions I had called my late wife ‘pet’ – a very ‘up-north’ endearment, as used by my mother.

Will you take the case Mr. Holmes? asked Lestrade.

Holmes made a show of relighting his pipe that had gone out; he looked inquisitively to me: a short pause, then I nodded.

We shall, was Holmes’s reply, and he then continued How did Earl Lonsdale convey this request?

Lowther Castle has a telephone device, I doubt many other places in those wild parts have such. The Earl personally made a call to ’igh places – but Mr. Holmes, Hi’m only the message boy!

Man! Lestrade, hardly ‘boy’! I teased.

Lestrade produced an envelope from his coat,

"This is an introduction from the Chief Constable³."

Lestrade had nothing more to offer, so we showed the Inspector to the door, and we bade him a farewell. Then to business as it were – Holmes requested the Bradshaw’s for a train route to the north. After he had consulted the book, Holmes was eager to depart. I felt that to Holmes’s mind, the ‘Game’ was now afoot.

A crushed skull is of little to my concern, but an undisclosed wound marks concealment of information. Not a particularly interesting case, but it does have its points of intrigue, yes, I would speculate a case with possibility, and a good source of financial consideration – an Earl no less, besides, I have never been to Lake District before: very beautiful I am informed. There is no choice of route, unless we want to waste time, and time is money! He added, I’m certain that our royal contractor has plenty of that!

Pack Watson! And no doubt we will need strong boots for the mountainous regions of this country.

I hastened upstairs to my room and crammed my carpet bag, I decided that one pair of boots would suffice in anticipation of a short sojourn away, so I changed my shoes into the strongest pair of boots that I had. Even though it was summer I thought of the renowned inclement weather of the north, and decided to take my cape. I thought of Holmes’s decision to take the case, it did not seem to quite have the essence to provide sufficient interest or a conundrum to set his mind to work. I thought: Holmes just fancies an all expenses paid holiday, with a minor problem to solve. By the time that I was done with my packing and had returned downstairs to the sitting room, Holmes was already ready to depart.

Come Watson, to Euston, to the train, the game is afoot!

So we exited 221B Baker Street, hailed a cab, and proceeded to Euston Train Station, the North Western Railway Company platform, and obtained a carriage for ourselves. I will not mention all the many stops that were made on that long journey north, but there was Saint Albans, Rugby, then Birmingham. At Liverpool, we had to change trains, since that was the limit of the North Western Railway; we were fortunate also for the break in our journey at that station permitted us to purchase sandwiches for luncheon. The Caledonian Line then took us further north: Wigan, Preston, Carnforth, Kendal, the steep incline to the pass at Shap: the lowest point between the Cumbrian mountains and the Pennine Way – the spine of England, and finally descending into the Eden Valley to our destination of Penrith. It was a boring journey, too many station stops, and not a lot of conversation from Holmes.

Although Penrith is in Cumberland, and Lowther Castle is in the adjoining county of Westmoreland, Penrith was still the closest town to the events that we were to investigate. Penrith is twice the size of Appleby, the county town of Westmoreland 15 ½ miles to the east, but even Penrith is still small, a mere few thousand inhabitants, and is just a market town in the Eden valley, but it does lie on the main road and rail line from Manchester to Scotland. The train was on its way to Glasgow, the English border with Scotland being a mere 20 miles to the north, after passing through the Cumberland county capital of Carlisle.

It was now late in the day. Opposite the Penrith train station to the east were the ruins of a castle: part of a tower facing west, and some remaining walls: the north and east parts were more intact, but only a small part of the south, the remaining internal walls only marked by sandstone outlines a mere 6 inches high. Part of the old moat had been obsorbed into the road passing the train station and now the remainder was overgrown with grass and bereft of any water. The town was mostly in the valley below, but almost directly to the north east on a small hill was a curious tower: a red sandstone rectangular structure with a pyramid top.

Where will we stay? I queried Holmes.

Bradshaw’s suggested the George, there are several other options, but I will trust the book. For such a small town there are many establishments: a dozen or more hotels, but an even larger number of establishments dispensing alcohol: and five breweries!

Holmes caught the attention of the single railway porter:

Which way to the George Hotel?, sometimes Holmes could be very terse. However, the instructions received were clear.

Past the castle and downhill through Castlegate – Holmes commented You will remember your origins Watson ‘Gate’, is often used for a street in the north of England. ‘Gate’ being from an old Germanic word meaning both a ‘way’ or a ‘street’, or an ‘opening’ in both senses of entrance and an area or a square. There are many Nordic names in this region, just as in Yorkshire and Northumberland.

Castlegate was a steep descent, the road nestled between buildings of dark red sandstone. The road opened to a wider area, but Holmes pressed forth Look for the clock, he said, the hotel is to the left. So it was, a large open place, with a curious clock tower at the southern end, an alley beyond revealing glimpses of an old church tower, but clearly we were in the right place, for a few yards north there were two adjacent buildings both with large signs proclaiming George Hotel. The southern building, clearly the older of the two, had an entrance at its centre leading to what I presumed to be stables and a yard beyond, the northern building had bay windows on the ground and first floors, and an elaborate entrance.

I hope they have rooms! I proclaimed, It is summer, and I have heard that many people come north to the lakes: Penrith and Keswick are popular; although Windermere and Ambleside are more popular, but I believe as yet there is no train service to those towns.

We had luck on