Tony Richards - The Astonishing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-First Century

He oughtn’t have given the chap anything, and Holmes knew that. There had been beggars aplenty in his day, although none that followed you along the street in such a brazen fashion. It had been inward guilt that had made him do it. The suspicion that the fellow might actually be hungry. And it was – almost certainly – a false impression. But, since he was on his way to a hearty breakfast himself, Holmes had let his more kind-hearted impulses get the better of him.

There was a diner nearby he had eaten at before. The food he ordered turned up quickly, and the great detective tucked in. There were bacon and eggs, which he was used to. But a waffle too, and French toast sprinkled with cinnamon. American breakfasts really were quite marvellous. He washed it down with coffee and a glass of orange juice, then paid the bill and headed out again, wandering down to Market Street. There were more panhandlers along the route, but he did his level best to just ignore their gazes.

And there were more of them still on Market Street itself. The place was already filling up with shoppers, and a trolleycar was rumbling by. But, off in the direction of Tenth, Holmes could see a number of these homeless, ragged men.

The older, more experienced ones were clustered in small groups for their protection. And were trying to harass the passers-by, or else were simply chattering amongst themselves. The majority of them had to have had homes and jobs and families at some stage in their lives. So was it plain misfortune that had led them to this sorry state?

Holmes knew better. It was addictions of various kinds that had been the agent of their downfall. And he could even sympathise, since he had some bad habits of his own.

But then his gaze wandered over to those homeless people who were not experienced and not in groups. Much younger ones, teenagers in some cases. They were mostly clad in jeans, sweat-tops, and sneakers, and were huddled on the edges of doorways. These had to be runaways, youngsters who had fled their homes for a variety of reasons. He had come across this phenomenon before, earlier in his travels, and felt genuinely sorry for them. If he could, he’d help them out.

But there were far too many of them. For just one man, the problem was insurmountable. As it had been back in Victorian times, then so it was in this strange age.

Holmes let out a saddened breath, turned away and started heading off in the other direction. And the details of his surroundings … they gradually became lost to him, his mind filling up, all over again, with the particulars of the baffling case that he’d been introduced to.

It still barely deserved that description. A pair of corpses had been found, and then mysteriously vanished. There was no tiniest indication where they had come from whilst alive, what they had been doing, or where they had gone. And that was the sum of everything he knew about the matter. It was worse than knowing nothing.

A shout from nearby broke across his train of thought, making his head rise smartly up. It had come from another of these derelicts, a fairly rotund fellow with grime-smeared features and a dark and bushy beard. Unlike the others, he was on his own. And he was pushing his way past the shoppers with a look of open dismay on his face.

His bloodshot eyes were going everywhere, so he was obviously on the hunt for something.

As Sherlock watched, the man yelled out again.

“Harry?”

So it was someone he was looking for, not something.

“Harry, where are ya?”

A few people shied away, but that apart, nothing much happened.

The panhandler reached a junction. Holmes assumed he’d cross it and continue on. But the man did not. He teetered on the spot for short while instead, then turned back and came the other way, still searching.

And if Harry was another derelict – and how could he possibly not be? – then Holmes understood what this strange scene was all about. Chaps like this, in the absence of any kind of roof over their heads, would claim part of a city’s streets as home. It was their ‘patch’ – they rarely strayed far from it.

Except that, apparently, this ‘Harry’ was gone from his.

It had to happen often. Such unfortunates fell ill, or simply got confused and wandered off. Holmes watched the bearded man a few more seconds, then his mobile phone started ringing in his pocket.

It was Alden Greaves. Who told him, “Mr Holmes, you’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me,” the detective nodded.

They were back at the mansion on Nob Hill in another half an hour. And had gone past its walls, this time. They were staring into Joel McMartin’s study, which had been recently gutted by a fire. And the man was missing. He had vanished out of nowhere. His security people were flabbergasted, and his wife distraught.

A nanny was currently attending to their one young daughter. Mrs McMartin – Katherine – was in the den, being comforted by a friend. She was something of a trophy wife, in her late-twenties and a one-time model, tall and leggy and naturally blonde. But when she dried her eyes and – under his encouragement – attempted to think everything through rationally, Holmes could see that she was not without intelligence or common sense. In fact, it looked as though she had those qualities in great abundance.

“The first thing I knew about it was when the smoke alarms went off.”

Holmes had sat himself down across from her on, of all things, a psychedelically patterned leather beanbag. But he managed to ignore his peculiar perch, and leaned over to the woman sympathetically.

“He was working?”

“He was always working. Joel didn’t get all of this …” and Kathy gestured at the house around her, “… by just goofing off.”

Ah, the American work ethic. It was very admirable in its way, but gone at in a manner, sometimes, that appeared to verge on the fanatical. Holmes was sufficiently polite, however, to keep that opinion to himself.

“There was no hint of intruders?”

“None,” the woman sniffed.

“And what exactly was he working on?”

Which turned out to be precisely the right question. Kathy’s discomfort lessened slightly, and her lovely pale green eyes took on a thoughtful glaze. She stared at the shag carpet before looking back at him.

“He wouldn’t tell me. But he’s been pretty damn excited the past few days. Kept muttering stuff along the lines of, ‘God, this shit is real’.”

Which was not the kind of answer Holmes had been expecting. And he didn’t care the least bit for that type of vulgar language. But his mood remained calm, and he leaned across a little further.

“And he didn’t explain what he meant by that?”

“He told me that he would do, Mr Holmes. He told me that he’d have an explanation in the next few days. Joel was …” she corrected herself, “… is a very passionate man, obsessed with the work he does. He always thought it would amount to something one day.”

Holmes could not understand why, but he kept that to himself as well. How could the nonsense that was published in that worthless rag ever amount to anything of consequence?

Further enquiry revealed that Joel McMartin had never been turned, by his success, into any kind of aloof and distant businessman. He remained what he’d always been, the hands-on editor of his newspaper, reading and vetting every single article that was printed in it, holding a staff meeting every morning and then handing out the day’s assignments.

“It was his whole life,” Kathy murmured.

At which point she began to cry again, unable to stop herself.

Holmes decided to excuse himself. He found the woman’s pain unbearable, particularly since he’d not come up with any explanation that might soothe her.