Before Baker Street,
there was Montague.
Before partnership
with a former army doctor recently returned from Afghanistan, Sherlock Holmes
had but the quiet company of his own great intellect. Solitary he might be but,
living as he did for the thrill of the chase, it was enough.
For a little while,
at the least, it was enough.
That is, until a
client arrives at his door with a desperate plea and an invitation into a world
of societal scandal and stage door dandies. Thrust deep in an all-consuming
role and charged with the safe-keeping of another, Holmes must own to his
limits or risk danger to others besides himself in this the case of the
aluminium crutch.
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Excerpt
Having undertaken Miss Eudora Frances Clarke’s missing man case, Sherlock Holmes begins to pull together the threads of his research and formulate his theory on the mysterious Mr. Tobias-Henry Price.
Chapter 2:
Let me first say, most emphatically, that curiosity does not
a case make. In my experience, however, it may function much the same as hard
evidence or fact. The human mind is particularly attuned to pattern, to its
recognition and, thus, discernment of when said pattern is broken.
The source of Miss Clarke’s troubling disparity as to the
true identity of Mr. Price was likely not a large crime. It was, quite
possibly, not a crime at all. But it was not nothing, and thus the very idea of
the thing had awakened in my imagination a series of questions, and it was
wholly within my power to discover the answers. And though no particular threat
had been levelled at Miss Clarke, the menace of harm hung over her, and I
should very much like to put that consideration to rest.
My first task following the interview with my new client was
to confirm what I could of her story. And so I set about determining the
contours of truth and fact. In hunting about my over-crammed desk, I quickly
discovered that my ticket for the Reading Room of the British Museum had lapsed
into expiration and jotted off a quick note of application. So much for that
avenue of research. Then again, what was my index for if not to provide me with
easy reference at a moment’s notice?
I glanced to the clock, debated pipe or coffee, and then
chose neither.
My records on things military were so thin as to be
essentially nil. It was to Edgar Price of Norfolk that I must look. I had lived
at 59 Montague for long enough that various parts of my index had begun to
spill out of their modest shelving to invade various parts of my living space.
Crime could come from any quarter, and my common‐ place books acted as a
clearing house so that my mind could remain efficient, freed from jumbled,
irrelevant facts. My collection of biographies currently resided by the foot of
my bed, and I hurried to retrieve “P” from amongst my collection.
Sir Edgar Price. Born 1824 and the eldest of three children.
The youngest, a sister, had died in infancy. The middle child had gone on to
have an indifferent military career and one child—the now-missing Tobias-Henry.
Sir Edgar’s father had invested heavily in the railway game back in the ’40s,
thus securing his family’s future fortunes. But Sir Edgar, bachelor and
semi-permanent convales‐ cent, had never married. His only heir was Mr.
Tobias-Henry Price, consequence of his brother’s predeceasing him and leaving
the young man for Sir Edgar to rear.
Serendipitous speculation within the production and trade of
aluminium at a time when the metal was precious and rare had furthered Sir
Edgar’s fortunes and earned him a fearsome reputation. Luckily the public at
large was spared from his presence, as he had thrust his nephew into the social
circles that he himself might have otherwise occupied.
Mr. Tobias-Henry Price would one day be a very wealthy man.
“However, from his address, I would gather that he is living
under considerably more modest condi‐ tions at present. At least when he writes
to Miss Clarke.” Frowning, I eyed the paper upon which I had jotted Toby’s town
address. A good deal of my success as the world’s only unofficial consulting
detective came from my having made it my business to know every street,
alleyway, and footpath in London. I had a precise working knowledge of the city
and her surroundings, kept current via regular surveillance and study—itself a
useful exercise, for an area’s changing history had bearing on so many things.
Simply put: a gentleman of the Oaks Club did not strike me as
the type to live at the far end of Noel Street.
Author Bio
– M. K. Wiseman has degrees in Interarts & Technology and
Library & Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her
office, therefore, is a curious mix of storyboards and reference materials.
Both help immensely in the writing of historical novels. She currently resides
in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
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