Hudson James and the Baker Street Legacy: Hudson James Mysteries, #1

By The Davies Brothers

Sherlock Holmes's greatest secret... The world's only hope.

 

Meet Hudson James... Lonely, awkward, bullied at school. Until now, his biggest worry has been getting through his lunch break unscathed.

But when Hudson discovers he's the only living descendant of the world's greatest ever detective, he finds himself in mortal danger. Pursued by an evil secret society who will stop at nothing until his family is wiped out, Hudson and the new girl in school, Ellie, are plunged into a deadly adventure - and a race to save the world.

 

The prime minister kidnapped, governments infiltrated, nations on the brink of war... Hudson is the world's only hope - and he's going to need all the deductive powers of his illustrious ancestor, Sherlock Holmes.

 

From the Davies Brothers, award-winning authors of Sherlock Holmes: The Centurion Papers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GNP Press
• Release date: May 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201509958

The Davies Brothers

The Davies Brothers are Nicholas and Brett Davies, twin brothers who share a love of books, films, history and the Wales football team. Nicholas is a freelance writer and PhD researcher based in Cardiff. He previously worked for the Arts Council of Wales focusing on theatre and drama. He now writes screenplays, stories, and theatre reviews and articles for The Stage newspaper. He speaks English, Welsh and basic Spanish. Brett lived in four different countries before settling in Japan, where he teaches English and Film Studies at a university in Tokyo. He also writes screenplays, as well as articles for a variety of publications on cinema, sports, and travel. He speaks English, Japanese and Welsh. They are the authors of the novel Hudson James and the Baker Street Legacy and the series of mystery adventures, Sherlock Holmes: The Centurion Papers.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

: London, 1894...

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The long, raw scar on the flower seller’s face cracked open. A line of blood trickled down her cheek, yet she barely noticed. She knew he was somewhere behind her. She had to keep running. Running for her life.

No-one noticed her as she bustled through the swarm of people. This was one of London’s busiest streets and no time of day was busier than the evening rush hour. City gents in top hats and bonneted well-to-do ladies were hurriedly making their way home or vying for passing carriages while the beggars and street hawkers jostled for their trade. Why would anyone pay any attention to her? To them, she was just another poor flower woman rushing home to get the last of her sad-looking posies into some water.

The autumn darkness had already descended and with it came the thick, dank fog that each evening rolled in off the Thames, consuming the warehouses, tenements and slums in its sombre greyness before taking hold of the city’s heart.

While others on the crowded pavement cursed the fog and lamented the day they let steamers come all the way up London’s great river, the flower woman welcomed it. Albeit briefly, it cloaked her from her pursuer. She took her chance to run out onto the road and overtake the blur of people. She knew he must be close behind now, watching her, waiting to make his next move. She knew she had little time; every moment counted.

‘Watch it, love!’ She stood stunned for a second as the driver of a hansom cab yanked on his horse’s reins, hooves scrambling to a stop just inches from her feet.

‘Get off the flamin’ road!’ bellowed the driver angrily. ‘Can’t you see it’s a bloomin’ pea-souper? You could’ve been killed.’

She froze, her pulse racing but her legs failing her. She checked her flower basket. The bunch of posies was still there, draped across the top. She nodded apologetically to the driver, unable to speak, before hurrying off.

The fog cleared momentarily so she jumped back onto the pavement and re-joined the scrum of pedestrians to stay out of view. The trudging slowness of the crowd was infuriating.

Adrenalin pumped through her veins, urging her to her destination as quickly as possible, yet the people around her wouldn’t comply, shuffling along, listening to the evening headlines yelled by a young newspaper boy.

She clutched harder to the basket. She barely tasted the warm blood as it reached her lips. Nothing mattered but getting to the correct address before she was caught by her pursuer – the man who had tormented her to the point of giving up all that she held most dear, the man she had narrowly escaped once before and who had inflicted the lined cut on her face. The man who had reduced her to this, a poor flower seller running for her life.

She was nearly there. She could see the number 200 embossed on a front door to her right. Then 202, 204...

The other side! she thought. The house – an odd number - was on the other side of the street! The fog was not as thick there, and the pavement quiet. She would have to leave the safety of the crowd, her presence exposed to any onlooker.

She edged to the gutter, still moving with everyone else but ready to run. She could see the house she wanted now, and her delivery needed to be made at any cost.

With a gulp of breath, the frightened woman hitched up the bottom of her skirts, gripped the basket tight and darted out into the road between two carriages. A yowl of drivers’ complaints and horses’ whinnies echoed round the street. She weaved between wheels and horses’ legs before leaping onto the opposite pavement in front of the townhouse she had travelled so many miles to find.

Back amongst the crowd, a man in a top hat planted the sharp point of his black cane in the dirt and observed her crossing the street. He allowed himself a grim smile, his lips wrinkled from smoking too many expensive cigars, his complexion a sallow grey. And he watched her with his strange, piercing yellow eyes.

He had suspected this would be her destination. It satisfied him to know he was right.

Instinctively, the man made a fist with his left hand. He wore a chunky gold sovereign ring, jagged round its edges to cause optimum damage to any adversary. He had slashed his quarry with it when she had narrowly eluded him before. He would not be so careless this time.

He scraped the serrated gold against the handle of the cane, readying himself to attack.

The flower seller gently placed her basket on the front step and pulled the chain that sounded the bell.

The man with yellow eyes hurried into the busy road following the same precarious route as his prey. She was still there with her basket; the basket that contained the greatest prize he could ever claim. Greater than any of the millions he had stolen from banks, greater than the masterpieces he had acquired from the world’s grandest galleries.

Just a few more yards...

His yellow eyes were so focused on the basket, he never even saw the four horses that smashed into his body and hurtled over him, or the enormous cart weighed down by beer barrels. The bones in his frame were crushed under the animals’ heavy legs, then twisted and mangled within the wheels.

The traffic stopped and pedestrians screamed. The young newspaper seller went quiet as the man’s bloodied top hat, punctured by a horseshoe, rolled towards him, landing at his feet.

The flower seller was only half aware of the commotion behind her as she waited at the black front door. Above the screams and the neighing of startled horses, she focused only on the subdued sound of footsteps from inside the house. She waited for the bolt to be pulled back and for the latch to click before taking one last look at the basket by her feet. A salty tear mingled with the blood on her cheek, causing her scar to sting. Quickly, she fled in the direction of Regent’s Park and disappeared into the fog. Forever.

Mrs Hudson opened the door of 221B Baker Street. Nobody was on the pavement outside but there was a buzz of activity around the neighbourhood. Before she could find out what had caused the chaos a little further down the road, she noticed the basket on the front step. She picked it up and peered inside.

The landlady could barely hide her shock at what she saw. She felt the urge to pull the basket closer to her in case she might drop what was inside. Mrs Hudson had seen many strange things in the past few years so little surprised her, but this was something different. Something very different indeed.

She pulled out a pristine, white envelope that tucked neatly by the side of the basket’s precious contents. On it was written the name of her tenant:

MISTER SHERLOCK HOLMES.

CHAPTER ONE

: 128 Years Later

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‘Do you like chemistry?’ Mrs Cadwalader asked in her cheerful sing-song voice.

‘Hate it,’ Ellie Oshinaike replied.

‘Well... At least you’ll get it out of the way quickly.’ She laughed, and Ellie couldn’t help joining in.

Mrs Cadwalader was taking Ellie to her very first class at Rymore Academy. Lessons had started so the corridors were empty. Ellie was used to changing schools, but she still felt a stab of tension in her stomach every time she made this walk to a new classroom. It was nice to have someone like Mrs Cadwalader with her: chatty, friendly and quite possibly a bit mad. The white-haired teacher was probably close to retirement yet seemed to find it very easy to connect with a teenager like Ellie. There was a youthful twinkle in her eye which made Ellie think she had probably lived an adventurous life. In the three minutes since they met, the teacher had already quizzed her on her least favourite crisp flavours and where Ellie had bought the pink dye that was streaked through her hair. Ellie had hoped the pink would have grown out before starting Rymore but it was clear from Mrs Cadwalader’s friendly questioning that it wasn’t a problem.

‘Ooh, sensible faces on, Ellie.’ Mrs Cadwalader indicated a group of four very serious-looking people walking towards them in sombre suits. ‘The school inspectors are in today.’

Having attended so many schools during her life, Ellie had come to learn how different schools and teachers reacted to certain events. She knew a school inspection always made teachers either ultra-officious, skittishly nervous or ill with stress. Mrs Cadwalader, though, was different. The teacher faked an earnest expression. ‘Good morning, all,’ she greeted them confidently without stopping. ‘I do hope you’re enjoying your visit.’

‘Er... good morning,’ muttered the grim-faced man at the front, clearly surprised by this teacher’s easy-going manner. He waved an umbrella or a walking stick as he marched by. Ellie tried not to laugh at the inspector’s red beard which was a shade too bright for his greying hair. She had even less need to worry about her pink hair dye if even the lead inspector was at it.

The distraction almost made Ellie forget that she was about to meet yet another bunch of new people and face all the same old questions about her past.

‘Good luck, Ellie.’

Mrs Cadwalader smiled and left her at the entrance to the chemistry lab. Ellie’s stomach lurched the way it once had on the log flume at Alton Towers. She suddenly felt very alone.

One of the teachers in her previous school had labelled Ellie nonchalant, even pronouncing it the French way. It hadn’t been intended as a compliment but Ellie liked it.

‘Be nonchalant, Ellie. Nonchalant,’ she said to herself. She breathed hard and turned the door handle.

Class 9C were nearing the end of the lesson and well into the practical section. Mr Inglewood liked to let his students really feel science by trying out experiments for themselves. Unfortunately, the members of 9C were not the kind of people anyone should trust with thirty Bunsen burners and a cabinet full of hazardous materials. Flames flew, hairs singed and screams yelped out as the class attempted to test the effects of heat on a reaction between sodium thiosulfate and hydrochloric acid.

‘Quieten down a little, please,’ Mr Inglewood whimpered. ‘No, no. Don’t point it at his eyes. Not his mouth either. Okay, that’s enough. I said...’

All of Mr Inglewood’s attempts to control the group came to nothing, but when the small wooden door at the back of the room creaked open, everything stopped. Every single pupil went quiet, put down their makeshift weapons and turned to see who would enter.

Slowly, coolly, the new kid in town ambled into the room. She faced everyone’s stares without blinking. As Ellie expected in a rural comprehensive school, she was one of the few students there who wasn’t white, but that had never phased her. She moved schools so often, she had come to enjoy being different. Her hands stayed in her pockets as she raised her eyebrows.

‘Alright?’ Ellie said.

Silence.

‘Is this 9C?’

More silence.

Mr Inglewood remembered that he was the person in charge. ‘Oh. Yes. Yes, this is 9C. Do come in, Miss...’

‘Ellie.’

‘Oh. Okay. Ellie. Umm, please take a seat.’

‘Where?’

‘Hmm, that’s a good question.’ He looked around the room quickly. ‘Ah, yes. Hudson doesn’t have a partner.’

‘Who’s Hudson?’ More silence followed but Ellie sensed a lot of the class were holding back smirks.

The quiet was broken by an unexpected outburst from somewhere in the corner.

‘I’ve found it! I’ve found it!’

The other students finally broke into laughter and Ellie scanned that area of the room until she could see who was making the noise.

‘That’s him,’ Mr Inglewood called, but the cackling of thirty students drowned him out. He needn’t have worried as Ellie no longer needed any help finding Hudson. He was the boy wearing only one shoe, the other raised above his head in triumph.

‘I’ve found it! Someone hid it under the sink.’

Ellie thought many things as she approached this weedy-looking kid with outsized legs and permanent bed-hair: she wondered how someone could let himself be pushed around so easily; she rued her luck at being partnered with the class geek; she tried to size up whether she’d be better off siding with him (and risk alienating the rest of the class) or against him (and go against her whole personal code of ethics). What she never thought, not in a million years, was that Hudson James was about to lead her on the adventure of a lifetime.

CHAPTER TWO

: 2 Hours, 56 Minutes Earlier

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Hudson shifted the shoulder strap on the fluorescent yellow canvas bag. By changing the position every ninety seconds he could ensure that his entire shoulder would be only partially bruised, the pain a lot more bearable than the laceration he’d received the time he dared himself to keep it in one place. His left shoulder still bore the scar of that particular experiment, the cut taking exactly twenty-one days to heal after turning a fascinating shade of purple. Of course, he could have saved himself from most of this agony by delivering the newspapers on the way, then enjoying an easy jog home. But Hudson often set himself these tasks – picking open the old padlock from his dad’s shop with a paper clip, completing entire books of sudoku puzzles, going whole weeks without a single Kit Kat – in order to... actually, Hudson wasn’t really sure why he did these things. He just needed to keep busy.

He had trained himself to wake up at six o’clock without the aid of an alarm clock, just before the supplier’s van arrived with the shipment of newspapers. This left him plenty of time to enjoy his private morning world. He was sure that there must have been people awake somewhere in the village but, apart from the occasional cat, Hudson always felt like the only living being among the rows of sleepy houses and parked cars. For a few minutes every day it all belonged to Hudson. He could search under rocks for interesting fungal specimens, conduct imaginary orchestras, recite his favourite mathematical equations, and practise his sword-fighting technique without any fear of the braying laughter he was used to hearing at school.

It wasn’t that he wanted to be geeky, or tried to be, never mind what the population of Rymore Academy believed. It was just that most of the things he thought were cool didn’t seem to match what everyone else thought. But at this time of day, every day, he could do whatever he liked without checking himself for weirdness. It was nice.

Hudson considered it a perk of his job to be able to compare the headlines of eight different newspapers each day. It used to be more, but fewer and fewer people were buying newspapers these days, let alone paying the extra to have them delivered. He squatted on the pavement and sifted through his bag. The damp of the canvas had transferred onto the papers and he had to peel the pages apart carefully.

Sadly, on this morning all of them reported on the prime minister’s speech the previous day, in which he had explained his reasons for wanting to cancel Third World debt. A referendum would be held the following week – a vote for or against his plan. Hudson admired the prime minister’s stance but the story had dragged on for weeks and even he was beginning to find it a bit dull. With no new developments in the worlds of science, technology or chess to read about (actually, there were never stories about chess but each day he lived in hope), he stood up, stamped the dew from his walking boots and-

What’s that?

Something caught his eye, a blur of movement behind the front wall of the village chapel. He stepped closer and peered over the crumbling grey stone.

No-one was there.

‘Just your imagination,’ Hudson whispered to himself as he backed away, still looking at the wall. He tripped over his own feet and landed on top of his newspaper bag. He no longer felt frightened; just annoyed. His legs were always doing stupid things like that. They just seemed to grow so quickly, and every time he got used to the length of them, they would grow some more. The more he concentrated on his feet, the less likely they were to follow his brain’s instructions. He wondered if TJ Jefferies or Jaffa Banks or any of the other school sports stars felt the same as they strutted around the corridors, chatting up girls and terrorising year sevens. Hudson’s limbs only fitted him properly when he was running. The bandiness of his legs became an advantage once he stretched them. But any running was out of the question for the time being, and Hudson breathed heavily as he prepared himself for the punishing slope up Culvert Lane. This road led to the farthest stop on his route, Smithland Hall, an old people’s home half a mile outside the village. At least he’d be able to offload seven papers, or thirteen percent of his cargo, there. Until then, he just had to grit his teeth as he trudged silently under the weight of the day’s news.

Suddenly, Hudson heard a terrible screech. His legs froze.

He turned to see a crow clattering out of a hedge. It was followed by an entire flock of birds, squawking and flapping their wings urgently, as if frightened by something.

Hudson realised that he was shivering slightly. It was cold enough this autumn morning for Hudson to see his breath in the air, and for a moment it reminded him of the smoke from the bonfires on the night that everything had changed.

He concentrated on the ache in his shoulder. He decided not to adjust the strap for a further ten minutes, by which time he was walking up the drive to the Hall. As always, Jack Saunders was waiting to greet him.

Jack had lived at the Hall for as long as Hudson could remember and his proud soldier’s build and outgoing personality were well-known throughout the village. Jack had been in the Royal Horse Guards and, as the path curved up to the Hall, Hudson always noticed the small brass statuette of a soldier on horseback standing resolutely in the old man’s bedroom window on the first floor. It was as if the statue were guarding the residents of the Hall.

‘Morning, Hudson!’

‘Oh, hello, Mr Saunders.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you? Just Jack. Mister makes me sound so old,’ Jack smiled. Hudson knew the old man was at least ninety, but he was as spry as a man half his age.

Hudson knew the order for Smithland Hall off by heart: ‘Two Guardians, two Mirrors, a Telegraph, a Sun and an Express. Here you are... Jack.’

‘Cheers, boy. Our daily dose of scandal and lies, eh! Looks like Liverpool might do something this year.’

‘What? Pardon?’

‘Liverpool. They beat Chelsea yesterday.’

‘Oh, right. Yes. Up the Red Devils.’

Jack chuckled, for reasons Hudson didn’t understand, then handed him a pound coin. ‘For your troubles, Hudson.’

‘Thanks, Mr Saun-... Jack.’

‘Take care, now.’

Hudson walked away, pocketing the cash – precisely one pound more than his father was paying him. He put his bag on the other shoulder and let the weight pull him back down across the lawn then onto the long driveway towards the main road. Jack smiled and waved after Hudson, then looked more serious as he scanned the surrounding fields, searching for something, or someone.

It was almost seven o’clock and kitchen lights were flickering on as Hudson reached the High Street.

Other people’s houses always looked that bit cosier, he thought as he caught glimpses of breakfasts cooking, coffees brewing and TVs turning on. Rooms were bathed in an orange glow that he never saw in his own home. Everyone was wearing a dressing gown and they all looked so... comfortable. He’d ask his dad for one next birthday, he decided.

Hudson worked steadily through his route and the bag became lighter until it hung limply at his side. He was almost home but decided to run anyway as the alley leading to his street always spooked him up. He was sure the legends about witchcraft and sacrifices were just horror stories spread by the likes of Bonger Wallace in year eleven, but he was still a bit nervous whenever he went down that lonely path. It was easy to picture ghostly figures and prying eyes among the trees on either side.

The fluorescent bag trailed behind Hudson and everything else turned into a blur as his feet bounded over the fallen leaves in great leaping strides. Even as he ran, however, he couldn’t shake his sense of unease, the sense that he was being watched.

Hudson muttered to himself as he sprinted towards the light at the other end of the alley: ‘It’s just your imagination, just your imagination...’

Usually he would have been right.

But on this particular morning, hiding behind a great oak tree about halfway through the alley, stood a thin middle-aged man in a strangely old-fashioned tweed cloak. He was carrying a sleek black walking stick and wearing a large sovereign ring that glinted on his finger.

His grey face and sharp yellow eyes followed Hudson, and his lips curled into a cruel smile.

CHAPTER THREE

: Hudson and Ellie

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Hudson didn’t like talking very much, especially with strangers. He never meant to be rude, of course, but he had a habit of saying the wrong thing. Still, it was this girl’s first day and he knew he should make an effort.

‘How was Argentina?’ 

‘Eh?’ Ellie was immediately on her guard. Why did this kid know about her trip to South America? Had her life history been announced at assembly? Had he been stalking her on the internet?

Hudson sensed that he’d said something wrong. ‘Your bag,’ he explained lamely.

‘What about it? It’s just a... bag.’

‘Well, the straps all droop in the same direction, as if they’ve been tied together by someone. The security people at airports often do that.’

‘So I’ve travelled a bit.’ Ellie shrugged. ‘Who hasn’t?’

Not me, thought Hudson, but continued with his analysis. ‘That weave... South American, I believe. The indigenous peoples of the Andes traditionally used hemp rather than cotton, of course, but their style of stitching lives on in bags like that one. Unmistakeable!’

‘You said Argentina. Why not Peru, Bolivia...?’

‘To be honest, that was a bit of conjecture at first – a lot of tourists to South America fly through Argentina at some point – but...’ Hudson took the pencil that he’d been sucking on and carefully lifted one of the straps. Ellie grimaced at the sight of his spit dripping off the pencil but she decided not to say anything. Hudson was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Ah yes.’

‘What?’

‘The sticker.’

‘What sticker?’

Hudson lifted the entire bag on the end of his pencil, an easy enough task as it had yet to be weighed down with textbooks.

‘Look. Here.’ He dangled it in front of Ellie’s face.

Ellie could see a tiny scrap of green paper attached to the cotton with some kind of adhesive gum, the remnants of an old sticker she hadn’t quite been able to remove.

‘See the letters. A.E.P.’

‘What...?’

‘On the edge of the green sticker. A.E.P. I suppose it’s from the airport security sticker when they checked your bag and wrapped up the straps. A.E.P.’

‘What’s A.E.P. when it’s at home?’

‘It’s the international airport code for...’ Hudson tried to remember the list he’d seen in an in-flight magazine that Aunt Delyth had brought home from one of her holidays. He could picture the world map showing the routes flown by the airline and its partners. To the right was the key showing the three-letter codes to the destination airports. LHR: London Heathrow. JFK: John F. Kennedy, New York. AEP, AEP...

‘Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, if I’m not mistaken – Buenos Aires’ main domestic airport! I knew it! You have been to Argentina!’

Ellie looked at him with a mix of irritation and awe. He was weird, she decided, but there was something interesting about this boy punching the air in delight.

‘You’re a freak,’ she told him with a hint of a smile. ‘But that’s alright.’

‘Thank you,’ Hudson replied. It was the nearest thing to a compliment he’d heard in ages.

‘Is that why they stole your shoes?’

‘It’s no big deal. I got them back.’

‘Well, yeah. But...’ Ellie didn’t really know what to say. She’d almost clobbered Hudson for touching her bag with a chewed pencil, while he seemed to think getting his footwear stolen was just part of the daily routine. She found it easier to change the subject. She examined Hudson’s face, his clothes, the neatly arranged contents of his tin pencil case. ‘Looking at you, I’d say that you live north of here, not in Rymore itself but one of the villages nearby.’

Hudson was impressed. ‘How did you-’

‘Don’t interrupt. Your dad is in the newspaper business – sales.’

‘Well, he’s a newsagent.’

‘And you like chess.’

Hudson was gobsmacked and a little put out. He didn’t have many talents but a keen sense of observation was the major one. Now here was someone outshining him. Still, he just had to know how she’d done it. Before he could form a question, she gave him her answer: ‘Your exercise book.’

A wave of relief came over Hudson as he looked down at the