Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Duke’s Study

By Victor Carstairs

Giallo - novelette (39 pagine) - Doctor Watson begins to feel that his dearest companion might be in some trouble and resolves to undertake an investigation in the style of Sherlock Holmes

Dr. Watson pays a visit to Sherlock Holmes at 221B, but when the caring landlady Mrs. Hudson tells him that she has neither seen nor heard from her lodger for a whole week, Watson begins to feel that his dearest companion might be in some trouble and resolves to undertake an investigation in the style of Sherlock Holmes which will disclose disturbing crimes halfway between past and present and prove that the former army surgeon is not at all the stupid friend of the gifted detective.

Victor Carstairs is the pen name of an Italian author born in Turin and brought up in the neighbourhood of Urbino, a small Renaissance town in Central Italy. He worked and lived in Northen Italy for many a year and every now and then sojourned in London. He holds a degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures specializing in Anglo-American studies, and devotes himself to writing and translation. He has a penchant for Victorian and Edwardian authors, among whom Arthur Conan Doyle stands out as one of his favourites. He is also a keen connoisseur of the Golden Age of detective fiction and loves nineteenth century poetry and painting as well. He has had five Sherlock Holmes pastiches published by Delos Books so far: L’ultimo preraffaellita, Il cane e l’anatra, Il labirinto della solitudine, L’avventura dei candelabri provenzali, Lo studiolo del duca; in 2016, he published an exhaustive academic study on the Holmesian apocryphal writings entitled Oltre il Sacro Canone: variazioni apocrife sul tema di Sherlock Holmes (Aras Edizioni). He is the co-author of the only Italian biography of Lord Alfred Douglas published back in 1999. He has also written and published a brief Sherlock Holmes pastiche for the American John H. Watson Society, The Adventure of the Duke’s Study, which was the first issue of the Fiction Series in 2015. As a translator, his work includes a number of novelettes published by Delos Books, a novel published by Mondadori and several non-fiction works that appeared in various magazines. The Last Pre-Raphaelite is his first Sherlock Holmes pastiche out of five.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delos Digital
• Release date: Nov 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9788825413717

Book preview

9788825401516

1

I find it recorded in my notebook that I had not heard from my friend and companion, Mr Sherlock Holmes, for an entire week before I began to worry about him. It was a cold, windy afternoon in early March of 1895. I had devoted the morning hours doing my best to relieve my patients’ sufferings at my surgery a few steps from Paddington station.

I must confess that since my beloved wife Mary had prematurely died of an incurable lung disease, I had sunk into a kind of obscure melancholy which affected my attitude more than I had dared to imagine. By then I was quite familiar with Holmes’ theories about the questionable virtues of cocaine and its use in a seven-per-cent solution, yet I had sworn, first as a conscientious physician, and then as a former army surgeon, that I would never inject a single drop of that whitish and vile liquid into my veins. I had to cope with sadness by myself, relying upon my own moral strength to endure what my dear old companion would have called ‘a necessary passage through the murky swamps of taedium vitae’. I also knew from experience that the best way to ignore the call of the mermaids that tempted me to go gently adrift in the sea of depression was to focus on all those things that might kindle zest for life and other keen interests, such as the exciting and perilous adventures upon which Sherlock Holmes and I had unwaveringly embarked during the course of our long-term fellowship. I would not commit perjury if I claimed that my friend’s criminal cases have always been the true drug to me as well as an effective antidote to boredom. Therefore, having neither received a telegram nor a note from him in seven days, I decided to pay a visit to him at our old lodgings in Baker Street.

Mrs Hudson, our attentive and discreet landlady, gave me a heartfelt welcome. Nevertheless, a feeling of unease clouded the usual radiance of her genuine smile and seemed to be reflected in her pale blue, opal eyes.

Oh, Doctor Watson! she exclaimed, ushering me in. I haven’t seen you for a week, and the same goes for Mr Sherlock Holmes. I take it he’s terribly busy with a most complicated investigation, yet it seems to me that he should at least have come home to have a decent meal and sleep in a decent bed. I’m afraid he might be in an unpleasant situation which prevents him from putting in an appearance.

I think you’re a bit too anxious, Mrs Hudson, said I, trying to reassure her. This is not the first time Sherlock Holmes vanishes without leaving any hint or trace, although I must admit that seven days without a message from him are quite a rarity.

Mr Holmes is a charming fellow, continued Mrs Hudson, but sometimes he lacks a sense of danger.

Oh, the best consulting detective in London must act daringly, at times. By the way, he’s always sure of what he’s doing.

Mrs. Hudson appeared to be calmed down by my statement and went downstairs in the kitchen to brew some tea for me. I stepped into the cosy drawing-room on the first floor and took a seat by the empty fireplace. I stared at the cold grate for some moments, recalling the witty talks Holmes and I had had by a huge coal fire burning in that grate. Our buen retiro, hung with fine scarlet tapestries and comfortably furnished, looked like a small chapel without its priest. The silence sounded quite unnatural for a place that had been an inanimate witness to thousands of words.

Five minutes later Mrs Hudson was pouring some hot Earl Grey tea in a cup of exquisite Provençal pottery. I had the feeling, however, that she was still concerned about the prolonged absence of Sherlock Holmes, and I was right. No sooner had I took a sip of the fragrant