The Case of the Three Species

By A S Croyle

In the fourth and final book in the Before Watson series, Sherlock Holmes and his companion and assistant, Dr. Poppy Stamford, embark on their greatest adventure yet. They are charged with solving not one case but three. One involves bogus charges against Poppy's former stable boy. The second is their attempt to stop a wave of crime perpetrated by the Elephant Gang, the famous and ruthless girls' gang that terrorized London in the nineteenth century. The third is an investigation into who burglarized the brothel owned by Maggie May, a mysterious woman with a keen mind and a treasure trove of secrets. During this time, Poppy also faces great losses and the promise of a new life - if she can bring herself to give up her quest to capture Sherlock's intransigent heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MX Publishing
• Release date: Jan 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781787054011

Book preview

The Case

of the

Three Species

(The Mare, the Elephant, and the Pink Flamingo)

A ‘Before Watson’ Novel (Book Four)

Further Reminiscences of P. S. T.

(Based upon notes newspaper clippings, and correspondence received from Sherlock Holmes)

By A. S. Croyle

2019 digital version converted and published by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Copyright © 2019 A.S. Croyle

The right of A.S. Croyle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious or used fictitiously. Except for certain historical personages, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of MX Publishing.

MX Publishing

www.mxpublishing.co.uk

Cover by Brian Belanger

To Heather Edwards - A friend and first reader whose insights and suggestions were invaluable. Thank you for your patience and persistence!!

And to Rae Griffin - BFF and constructively critical when I need it the most.

Prologue

3 September, 1945

The war has officially ended!

I did not think I would live to see this day, a day that did not come easily. I think even Sherlock Holmes would have broken in character to express joy and relief.

Four months ago, the Western Allies invaded Germany and Soviet troops captured Berlin. Adolph Hitler, we were told, committed suicide and the Germans surrendered. On 8 May, thousands listened intently as King George’s speech about this was relayed by loudspeaker to those who had gathered in Trafalgar Square and Parliament Square. Earlier, Mr. Churchill broadcast a message to the nation from the Cabinet room at Number 10, telling us that the war with Germany was over and that the ceasefire had been signed on 7 May at the American advance headquarters in Rheims. In his message, he paid tribute to the men and women who had laid down their lives for victory, as well as to all those who had ‘fought valiantly on land, sea and in the air.’ Huge crowds, many dressed in red, white and blue, gathered outside Buckingham Palace and cheered when the King, Queen and two princesses came out onto the balcony.

My daughter Hope was there with her husband Keith. They were told by their employers that the war was likely to end and, if so, to take 8 May off. So Keith and Hope walked across the bridge to Trafalgar Square. I live with them but at the age of almost ninety, I am no longer mobile enough to participate in such gatherings. When they came home, I clasped her hands and said, Tell me everything!

Her eyes lit up. She has my dark eyes and hair - though now that she is in her mid-fifties, her hair is turning gray. Her brilliant smile and zest for life - those attributes she inherited from her late father.

Mum, there were bonfires on some of the bomb sites and lights in some of the shops. Nelson was lit up by a searchlight.

‘The Nelson’ to whom she referred was Nelson’s Column, a monument in Trafalgar Square in central London built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Long after dark, people were still flooding the streets, Hope told me. Many gathered around the different monuments, floodlit tonight specially for the occasion. There were fireworks, too, and burning effigies of Hitler. We pushed our way into the square, but a car was in our way. As we went around it, a girl in uniform tripped and literally fell into Keith’s arms. With a big smile she planted a kiss full on his mouth! she laughed. Everybody spent the evening dancing and celebrating and Mr. Churchill was greeted by cheering crowds as he made his way to Whitehall and appeared on the balcony of the Ministry of Health.

I had heard his speech on the BBC. Mr. Churchill said, ‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan with all her treachery and greed remains unsubdued."

We were still at war with Japan. She refused to surrender.

Just a few months later, on 6 August and 9 August respectively, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On 15 August, streets around the world were flooded once again with giddy, boisterous crowds. Paper littered the Strand; civilians and service personnel carried and waved the stars and stripes and the Union Jack, as they surged through Piccadilly Circus. On hearing of the surrender, ladies poured out on to the sidewalk and did the Lambeth walk, a jaunty dance that supposedly mimicked the way a cockney struts and which was made popular in a musical called Me and My Girl. Hope saw a New Zealand sailor and three GIs express their glee by chairing a London policeman in Piccadilly Circus. Russian, American and British soldiers cheered together. The King and Queen drove from Buckingham Palace to the House of Lords for the opening of Parliament and thousands lined the route and assembled in Parliament Square, giving their Majesties a tumultuous welcome rarely seen in London.

With the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, the invasion of the Japanese archipelago imminent, and the possibility of additional atomic bombings, Japan finally surrendered yesterday, 2 September. The signing of the unconditional surrender document occurred in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship USS Missouri, officially ending World War II.

Jubilation has replaced much of the devastation and despair. London is ready to rebuild from the rubble.

As I drifted off to sleep last night, I was filled with memories of the happy and confusing times of my youth, of cheering crowds that gathered each November for the Lord Mayor’s Show in London. I remembered the last time Sherlock Holmes and I attended the parade together.

It was November 1880, just a few months before my brother, Dr. Michael Stamford, introduced Sherlock Holmes to Dr. John Watson. By that time, Sherlock wanted very much to move into a home owned by Mrs. Hudson on Baker Street. 221B Baker Street, to be exact. He said it was likely too much for his purse. He had considered looking for someone to share the flat. But he was still pondering who on earth, aside from me, would ever want to live with him. He had not met Dr. John Watson yet.

Not quite yet.

1

My last adventure with Sherlock Holmes began on 9 November 1880.

Shivering and standing near Mansion House, the Georgian town palace that is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London, I was surrounded by an assortment of little children, some well-dressed like my nephew Alexander and little Billy, my aunt and uncle’s ward - and some less affluent toddlers and youth, dressed in tattered clothing, worn boots and threadbare coats. The latter group was comprised of Sherlock Holmes’ homeless helpers... Rattle, Ollie, Ivy and others, all of them led by their self-proclaimed leader, one Archibald William Wiggins, known to most simply as Wiggins.

Ivy, an adorable little girl whom I longed to dress in petticoats and velvet dresses, fancy hats and fur muffs, tugged at my sleeve. She asked, ’ow did all this ’appen, Miss? ’ow did it all start?

The parade, you mean, Ivy?

She nodded. So I explained to the little girl, as best I could, the origin of the Lord Mayor’s Show.

Well, Ivy, it all began in the sixteen hundreds.

Is that a long time ago, Miss?

Smiling, I said, Yes, a very, very long time ago.

I told her that the King had made life very difficult for the people of London with taxes, and that the people felt like baronial hostages for a very, very long time. (My explanation to Ivy became a bit more simplified when she asked what a baronial dispute was.) So, I said, King John tried to win the love of his people by allowing them to choose their own Mayor. But he insisted that immediately after the election, the Mayor had to leave the safety of the City of London, travel upriver to distant Westminster, a very inconvenient journey, and swear loyalty to the Crown.

I explained that over the centuries, this event became one of London’s favorite rituals. The parade moved from river barges to horseback to the magnificent State Coach, and around it grew the rowdy and joyful medieval festival and parade that is known as the Lord Mayor’s Show. It has marched... and floated and trotted, and occasionally fought through hundreds of years, despite two bouts of the plague, the Great Fire of London, and countless wars.

There are fewer sword fights these days but the floats are grander than ever, I said.

Sword fights? Rattle asked. Like with real swords, Miss?

Indeed, I laughed. It’s a great day out, isn’t it Wiggins?

Wiggins shrugged but his wide smile betrayed his appreciation for the festivities.

Sherlock Holmes suddenly appeared at my side. It took me by surprise because he so rarely indulged in such frivolous events.

He sighed and said, You do not plan the parade before you win the championship.

What on earth are you talking about?

Things are still unsettled in the East. When our troops were emulsified at the Battle of Maiwand in Afghanistan a few months ago, it severely dampened morale and I fear more battles will erupt there.

Sherlock, Uncle Ormond said that the Battle of Kandahar at the beginning of September was the end of the conflict. Your brother Mycroft told him that total evacuation is scheduled to begin after the first of the year. Besides, if we wait to partake in gaiety until all wars have ended, we shall wait forever.

Yes, and I believe we shall. There will be other wars. Humanity is in an ineluctable decline.

I shivered. All the gold of summer was gone. Now the wind was blowing across the city and everything was bleak and gray. Sherlock made it sound like the world might forever be darkened by the graying dust of war.

Does it not seem that when one ends, another begins? he continued. It is not epic betrayals that destroy nations, Poppy, nor men with ideals and great plans who seek to stop the suffering throughout the world only to see their great plans fail. It is not mass depression. It is destructive tribal spirit. It is the little things that clutter our daily lives, Poppy. The tedious monotony. The greed, the lust, the envy.

Nevertheless, Sherlock, a war’s end should be celebrated and there is also much to celebrate in daily life.

Daily life is tedious, he grumbled.

Clearly, Sherlock Holmes was bored.

You are in need of a case, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You are always most disagreeable when you are between adventures.

Little did I know that that very afternoon, my brother Michael would furnish Sherlock with some new cases to solve, precisely what he needed to lift his spirits.

When the parade ended, Sherlock and I went home to have lunch with Michael and received some startling news. This time, the parade did not end with an investigation into mutilated swans and corpses as it had the year before. Instead, we were about to embark on a case involving pink flamingos...

2

As expected, my brother was waiting for us at my residence in Regent’s Park, where I lived with my Uncle Ormond and my Aunt Susan, my mother’s sister. But I was surprised to find him seated on the loveseat that faced the fireplace next to Kate Dew, our new cook. This was odd for Kate rarely came into this part of the house.

Sherlock and I had rescued Kate from her life as a prostitute after she had helped us solve our last murder case. Now she and her young daughter Mary lived here. I was not only thrilled to have had a hand in giving her an opportunity to right her ship but also to have the pleasure of eating the fabulous meals she prepared. I adored her and thought of her as a friend.

And my Aunt Susan doted on little Mary.

Aunt Susan and Uncle Ormond had never had children. They thought of me as a daughter because I had lived there since I was a young girl. My parents had asked them to watch over me in London while I attended a girls’ school and then nursing school at St. Thomas. I continued to reside with them during medical school when one finally was opened which admitted women, and afterward, when I set up my small practice near the British Museum.

Now the house was filled with the joy and laughter of small children again. Not only did they have Mary underfoot, but Billy, the younger brother of Wiggins, the leader of Sherlock’s homeless band of beggars, stayed with us off and on and my nephew Alexander was a frequent guest as well.

My nephew Alexander dropped my hand and ran to his father. Michael hugged him fiercely but then told him and little Billy to run along to the morning room to see Aunt Susan and Mary.

Puzzled, I asked, Why did you shoo your son away? We just got home.

Because we need to talk. Is Sherlock with you?

He’ll be along momentarily. He ran into his brother Mycroft at the corner and they are chatting.

I am glad that Sherlock is detained, he said softly. I need to speak with him, but first I have some things to talk to you about privately.

I realized now that Michael’s face was ashen and Kate was digging her nails into her palms. Something was clearly amiss. Michael, what’s wrong? I asked as I removed my cape, hat and gloves and sat down across from him.

One of several very troublesome things on my mind, Poppy. I told you John Watson joined the British forces in India, with the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. Then he became attached to the 66th Berkshire Regiment as one of their medical officers.

Yes, I remember.

He held up a letter. This letter is from a man named Will Murray. He was John’s orderly in Afghanistan.

And?

Murray writes that John was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand last July. He was struck in the left shoulder by a Jezail bullet which grazed the subclavian artery, and then on top of that he contracted enteric fever.

Typhoid.

I had never treated the fever but had read about it during medical school. Left untreated, the patient’s fever would become very high and he could dehydrate and die.

Michael, is he... has your friend?-

"No, no, Poppy, John Watson is alive. In fact, for some reason, Murray went back to India and his letter was much delayed. John was sent back to England on the troopship HMS Orontes, invalided to the port of Portsmouth, and I received a letter from him just days after Murray’s arrived."

He held up another letter. John writes that he will eventually make his way back to London when he recovers fully. He will have a small pension, I assume, but I shall write back to him so that he knows that I shall help him when he gets here.

I had been so busy trying to make a go of the practice of medicine, and was often so embroiled in my own emotional war, trying to put aside my feelings for Sherlock, that I had paid little attention to a war that was so far away. But I knew that the British had entered Afghanistan in 1878 to install a British-friendly regime across the border from India. When we defeated the Afghans, a treaty was signed and all seemed well until September 1879 when a mob of Afghans attacked the envoy’s house and he and his small military escort were massacred.

After that, our army marched on Kabul, occupied it and hanged the ringleaders of the massacre. Kabul and Kandahar were garrisoned.

Murray, Michael said, "writes that their regiment arrived in Kandahar at the beginning of 1880. But in May, an army of eight thousand fierce Afghans and Ghazis, led by Ayub Khan, marched eastward. Khan vowed to expel the British.

Michael heaved a long sigh. "It sounds like this Battle of Maiwand where John was injured was brutal. According to Murray, Brigadier-General George Burrows had never commanded in battle before. He writes, We were fighting on a dusty plain at the height of the Afghan summer. We were not used to the heat which reached almost 50 degrees Centigrade. And we were almost out of food.

Most of us had not eaten all day and our supply of water ran out early on. Our rifle barrels became so hot we had to wrap cartridge paper around our fingers to stop blistering.

It appears that most of the 66th was destroyed, Michael said. Murray says the escaping British and Indian troops streamed up the road towards Kandahar, pursued by the Afghan cavalry, but they were unaware that what was left of the infantry was fighting to the death behind them.

Michael read more of Murray’s letter.

"We were quite literally hacked to pieces and the wounded were in a terrible condition. We were cut to ribbons. It was an impossible fight against thousands of bloodthirsty tribesman. Wave upon wave of fanatical, screaming white-robed Ghazis rushed at us. Many were mown down but others made it to the British lines. They grabbed British and Indian soldiers and hacked them to pieces with their long knives. We were outnumbered ten to one and outgunned. The Afghan artillery pounded our lines relentlessly and Afghan cavalry thundered towards us in charge after charge.

"Burrows finally realized the battle was lost and finally gave the order to fall back. But a ravine lay between us and safety. Some managed to negotiate the ravine - only to face the most desperate fighting of the day. Others stumbled down its steep sides and fell on their swords.

"Dr. Watson was deserted by the stretcher-bearers and left lying on the ground in the dust and the heat. But I put him on a horse and then loaded him into the first available gun carriage with other wounded. We were forced to halt in one village as the exhausted horses could go no further. Dr. Watson lay helpless on the wagon for a couple of hours while the villagers fired at us continuously. There weren’t enough transports for all the wounded, so many were left to their fate. They knew what it would be. The Afghans are infamous for mutilating the wounded and the retreat was even more terrible than the battle. Men could hardly speak. When the wounded opened their mouths, their tongues were dried and parched. We later learned that a young officer went in search of water and was taken prisoner. His captors cut his throat.

In the end, only a handful of us were left. In fact, we few are all that is left of the 66th Berkshire, us and our faithful dog Bobby. His furious barks were soon lost in the deafening din of battle.

I heard my bull terrier, Little Elihu, barking outside behind the house and was reminded that he had often interceded when Sherlock or I were threatened. I could imagine Bobby’s fierce attempts to stave off the Afghans and protect his masters.

Then Michael handed me the letter from John Watson. I felt my hand shake as I took it. After the death of his wife Effie - my best friend - my poor brother had so grieved that he thought about enlisting. It could have been him lying in a hospital in the back of beyond.

I forced my hands to stop trembling as I read some of John Watson’s letter. He wrote:

I am told by Murray that the retreat through the whole night was fearful. We had no water for 32 miles. Some men died of thirst. I have no memory of it but even as late as August 6, according to Murray, the ordeal was still not over. Ayub Khan’s army besieged Kandahar. It was not until General Roberts marched from Kabul with an army of 10,000 to relieve the garrison that we could withdraw to India in some safety.

Murray tells me that we finally prevailed in September. I am glad of it. I was treated at the base hospital in Peshawar but then contracted enteric fever. I was sent to Portsmouth to further recover. I hope to be back in London before the end of the year.

I handed the letter back to Michael. I shall pray for his rapid recovery, Michael. Hopefully, he will be home soon.

I stood up, intending to nudge Kate to help me see about lunch, although I thought it unlikely that I could manage to eat anything after reading about the horrors of the war.

Michael looked at Kate and then down at his shoes.

Michael, what is it? What else is troubling you?

He cleared his throat but could not seem to find his voice. Kate drew in a deep breath and tucked a strand of wavy blonde hair into her bun. Her deep blue eyes misted as she focused on me. Then she looked at Michael, waiting.

Michael, for heaven’s sake, what is going on? Tell me.

Well, for one thing, there is a little crisis at home.

Home? As in Burleigh Manor?

That was our ancestral home in the Broads, where our parents still lived.

What kind of crisis?

Loke has been arrested.

Loke! Arrested on what charge?

Well, you know that he left our parents’ employ to tend the stables at Victor Trevor’s estate.

Yes, I know. He and Marie have lived there since they married.

Well, it seems that one of the horses maimed someone and Loke has been implicated somehow.

Loke would never do such a thing - accidentally or intentionally. There must be a mistake.

I don’t have enough facts. I was rather hoping Sherlock might look into it.

I will certainly ask him.

I looked at Michael closely. He was clearly very agitated. What else do you wish to tell me?

He cleared his throat, glanced at Kate again and tapped his fingers on his knees. Yes, well, Kate and I- He paused.

Yes?

Kate and I have a mutual friend who is in trouble. She’s... well, she runs a brothel. It’s called The Pink Flamingo.

A brothel, I repeated.

"She’s in trouble and we were rather hoping Sherlock would look