William Seil - The Furt The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Titanic Tragedy

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THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:

THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN

Daniel Stashower

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

Manley Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman

THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD

David Stuart Davies

THE STALWART COMPANIONS

H. Paul Jeffers

THE VEILED DETECTIVE

David Stuart Davies

THE MAN FROM HELL

Barrie Roberts

SÉANCE FOR A VAMPIRE

Fred Saberhagen

THE SEVENTH BULLET

Daniel D. Victor

THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS

Edward B. Hanna

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES

Loren D. Estleman

THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA

Richard L. Boyer

THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA

Sam Siciliano

THE PEERLESS PEER

Philip José Farmer

THE STAR OF INDIA

Carole Buggé

THE WEB WEAVER

Sam Siciliano

the

further

adventures of

SHERLOCK

HOLMES

THE TITANIC TRAGEDY

WILLIAM SEIL

TITAN BOOKS

This book is dedicated to my mother

Marguerite Seil

and the memory of my father

Emery Seil

Chapter One

THE EVENING OF TUESDAY 9 APRIL 1912

In the spring of 1912, at the age of sixty, I was leading a solitary life in rooms in Piccadilly. While continuing to see a few regular patients, I had, for the most part, ended my medical practice. My working time was now devoted almost entirely to writing historical novels. This turn in my writing career had come as quite a surprise — and I must say, disappointment — to my publisher, who would have preferred that I did nothing but record past adventures of my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes. As a favour to him, and many loyal readers, I occasionally sifted through old notes on Holmes’s cases and produced a new manuscript. But I also was respectful of Holmes’s desire for solitude and anonymity.

Holmes had long since retired from his illustrious career as a detective and was now living on a smallholding on the South Downs. He rarely came to the city, but several times a year I would travel to his country retreat and inform him of whatever news I had heard about recent criminal investigations. I often called at Scotland Yard to see young Inspector Wiggins, who provided me with detailed accounts of current cases. There were times too when Wiggins, baffled by a particularly complex case, would travel to Sussex to consult his old mentor.

My visits to Holmes seldom involved talking over old times. He had little patience with nostalgia. Whenever my conversation wandered to decades-old memories of past cases, he would rise from his chair and draw me over to one of the many scientific projects that were in progress in and around his home. I was always reluctant to visit the beehives he kept in his orchard, even when I was fully covered by protective clothing. But I was fascinated by his promising work in the scientific analysis of crime evidence. I recall one day in particular when we travelled to a local inn to purchase drinking mugs — that is, unwashed drinking mugs, taken right off the bar. After giving the landlord a generous payment, Holmes gathered up the mugs with a gloved hand and packed them into a box. At home, he applied various dry chemical mixtures to the glass, hoping to develop a method of bringing out detail in smudged fingerprints.

I thought about Holmes as I sat at my dining room table late one night, researching the early battles of the Boer War. Outside, the wind howled and heavy rains rattled against the windows. I had just put another log on the fire, and it was engulfed in crackling flames. I welcomed these sounds. My rooms had been much too quiet since the death of my wife six months earlier. I thought back to other stormy nights at Baker Street, when there would be a knock on the door, and a rain-soaked stranger, speaking to us in frightened, confused or demanding tones, would ask our help in solving a problem. But those days were gone, like all the history that lined my bookshelves.

As my mind wandered, I decided that it was time to abandon my research for the evening. Leaving my books on the table, I walked to the window and looked at the street below. In the glow of the street lamps, I watched as the rain poured on to the cobbled street and rushed along the gutters. Except for the fury of Mother Nature, the streets were quiet. The only sign of life was a small pack of neighbourhood dogs conducting their nightly prowl of the area. I was about to leave the window and retire to my bedroom when I noticed the flash of headlamps approaching up the street. A large, black motorcar came to a stop directly in front of my rooms. The headlamps blinked off and, for several minutes, it appeared that no one was going to leave the car. But then a man stepped out of the driver’s seat and rushed to the back to open the door for a passenger. The man in the back seat, wearing a dark hat and raincoat, climbed out of the car and immediately looked up to the window where I was standing. We watched each other for a few moments, before he lowered his head and walked in the direction of my door.

I heard his knock, just as I reached the foot of the stairs. I tightened the collar of my dressing gown round my neck, slid back the bolt and opened the door. The gust of cold, wet wind penetrated my body, and I began to shiver. But the stranger stood calmly, as though this were a casual visit on a sunny afternoon.

‘Doctor Watson?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Sidney Reilly. May I come in?’

‘It’s very late. Unless this is a medical emergency, I must ask you to come back in the morning.’

‘Doctor,’ he said with a half-smile. ‘I have an important message for you from Mr Sherlock Holmes. And by tomorrow morning, I suspect you’ll be on a ship bound for America.’

I froze for a moment, not knowing whether I should believe this extraordinary statement. But then, the appearance of this stranger at night was worthy of Holmes’s sense of drama. Ten years earlier in Baker Street, I would not have been so fearful of admitting a mysterious late-night caller. But then, ten years ago I would probably have remembered to slip my service revolver into my dressing gown before opening the door.

I pulled the door back and asked Reilly to follow me upstairs. As we entered the drawing room, I took his rain-soaked hat and coat. Reilly was a dark, trim man in his late thirties. When he spoke he had a trace of an accent, or mixture of accents. He had calm, piercing eyes that seemed to gaze over every feature of the room as he walked towards the fire.

‘Doctor, I have been told that you are aware of the high position Mr Holmes’s brother, Mycroft, holds in our intelligence service. I too work for the government, and when Mycroft Holmes picks you up in the morning to take you to the railway station, he will verify that. He would have accompanied me this evening, only he had to make some last-minute arrangements for his brother.’

‘Forgive me if I am sceptical, Mr Reilly. But let us assume for the moment that what you are saying is true. Why would you expect me to be boarding a ship for America in the morning? Is this something Holmes wishes me to do?’

Reilly reached into his pocket and handed me a small envelope. It was addressed to me in Holmes’s handwriting. ‘I haven’t read it, but I believe that note will answer at least some of your questions,’ he said.

I tore open the envelope and read the note, which had been dated that same day: