The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes (2 page)

“Travel expenses. Some people are looking for me, and some others don’t want me found. So I’m taking a vacation. Every cent I got is tied up in the — in my business.” He got up and stood looking down at me. The lamplight glinted off the opaque lenses of his glasses. “Do a good job with it. You’ll be hearing from me again soon.”

He turned upon his heel and left, but not before one of the young men, slipping his hand inside his jacket, leaned out through the doorway, glanced to right and left, then straightened and nodded to his chief. The three went out together. A moment later I heard the engine of the limousine purr into life, then a crunch of gravel as it swept into the road and was gone. By that time I had already snatched up a pencil and set to work.

The prospect of editing this manuscript presented much the same difficulties as I had experienced with the first. I have established that Watson’s handwriting was abominable; worse, the existence of a surprising number of redundancies and mixed metaphors made it abundantly clear that this was a first draft and that much revising was necessary before it could be allowed to go to the typesetters — revising which, possibly because of the war and the subsequent misplacing of the manuscript, Watson was unable to accomplish. I have, therefore, taken it upon myself to provide those corrections which I am certain the good doctor would have supplied had not time and circumstances been working against him. I am prepared to take the consequences for this literary blasphemy, with the understanding that wherever possible I have left Watson’s prose untouched, and that where this was not possible I have endeavored to keep to his distinctive style. The book, then, is ninety per cent original.

The narrative provides two significant revelations which may or may not clear up a number of outstanding arguments among Sherlockians, depending upon how they are received. First, the appearance of Sherlock Holmes’s brother Mycroft in 1885 would indicate that Watson, writing of his first meeting with the elder Holmes in “The Greek Interpreter,” was guilty of literary license. Since this initial encounter would of necessity predate the events contained herein, it was impossible for Mycroft to have said, upon being introduced, “I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler.” As every student knows, the first of these chronicles,
A Study in Scarlet
, did not appear until December of 1887, more than two years after the events described in the present account. If Mycroft did indeed make that statement, he would have had to have done so on some later occasion. This is not so difficult to accept, as Watson was sometimes known to telescope conversations made on different occasions into one in order to make his account more complete. A case in point: Watson asserts, in “The Final Problem,” that he has “never” heard of the evil Professor Moriarty when in fact, as we are shown in
The Valley of Fear
, which predates that account, he is already fairly well informed upon the subject. Since “Problem” appeared first, the good doctor obviously chose to include Holmes’s introductory description of the wicked scholar from some earlier occasion in order not to confuse his readers, who were unaware of the professor’s existence. This same reasoning may account for Mycroft’s opening lines in “The Greek Interpreter,” a case which we now see had to have taken place prior to January of 1885.

Second, we are at last made aware of Watson’s
alma mater
, the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine before taking his degree at the University of London in 1878. The subject has long been a controversial one among erudite Sherlockians, who, knowing that the London facility of Watson’s day was not a teaching institution but merely a clearinghouse of diplomas, have spent many hours arguing over where Holmes’s Boswell attended classes. Perhaps it is there that he met Conan Doyle prior to the latter’s graduation from the same university in 1881 and sowed the seeds for the working relationship which was to make the name of Sherlock Holmes synonymous with the art of detection.

The following, with some slight interference of my own, is a chronicle in Watson’s own words of the period between October 1883 and March 1885 — hitherto a Sherlockian mystery — and of those events connected with the bizarre relationship of Henry Jekyll to Edward Hyde as viewed from a fresh angle. Whether or not, as in the case of their brush with Count Dracula in 1890, the part played by Holmes and Watson had any effect upon its outcome will likely remain a point of debate among scholars for some time to come. In my opinion it was the Baker Street sleuth’s bloodhound tenacity which forced Mr. Hyde to live up to his name.

As for Georgie Collins, I was to hear of him again sooner than either of us expected. Two days after our parting I read in the newspaper of the death of a reputed underworld chief who had been gunned down that morning along with his two bodyguards at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. He had been sought by a grand jury investigating the mysterious disappearance of a famed labor leader, and it was believed that he had been silenced by his gangland cronies. Found upon his person was a one-way ticket to Mexico and a substantial amount of cash worn in a money belt. A photograph identified as one taken of the victim two years before, during his trial for income tax evasion, showed my visitor of the other night handcuffed between two gray-looking federal agents. Although the name beneath the picture was different, there was no mistaking the hard white smile he was flashing. Only the sunglasses were missing.

Whatever his sins, and however base his motives, Georgie Collins is responsible for the present volume’s existence; because of this, his place among the great literary patrons of history is assured. I will therefore take the risk of official disapproval by dedicating this Foreword to his memory.

Loren D. Estleman

Dexter, Michigan

December 15, 1978

O
ne might think, now that the world is falling down about our ears, that interest in a man whose entire career was with few exceptions dedicated to the eradication of domestic evils would naturally diminish in the face of danger from without. That, however, is not the case. My publishers have for some time been badgering me to dip once again into that battered tin dispatch-box in which I long ago packed away the last of my notes dealing with those singular problems which engaged the gifts of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and to lay yet another of them before an eager public. For a long time I demurred — not because of any unwillingness upon my part but rather in deference to the wishes of my friend, who has since his retirement repeatedly enjoined me from taking any action to enhance fame which has of late proved cumbersome to him. The reader may imagine my reaction then, when, one day last week, I answered the telephone in my Kensington home and recognised Sherlock Holmes’s voice upon the line.

‘Good morning, Watson. I trust that you are well.’

‘Holmes!’

‘Whose call were you anticipating so anxiously, or does that fall under the heading of “most secret”?’

My surprise at being made contact with in this fashion by one for whom the telegraph remained the chief form of communication was heightened by this unexpected and accurate observation.

‘How did you know that I was expecting a telephone call?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Simplicity itself. You answered the infernal device before the first ring was completed.’

‘Wonderful! But what brings you to London? I thought that you had retired to the South Downs, this time for good.’

‘I am seeing a specialist about my rheumatism. I am afraid that the two years I spent trailing Von Bork did me no service. Have you still in your possession your notes regarding the affair in Soho in ‘84?’

I was caught off-guard by this seeming irrelevancy. ‘Indeed I do,’ I responded.

‘Excellent. I think that your readers may find some interest in the complete account. Mind you, be kind to Stevenson.’

‘The legal question —’

‘— is moot, I think, after all these years. Whitehall has far more important things to deal with at present than a thirty-year-old shooting, particularly one committed in self-defence.’

From there he steered the conversation into a discussion of the progress of the war, agreed with me that America’s entry into the conflict would spell doom for the Huns, and rang off after a talk of less than three minutes.

Since I have never pretended to any talents in detection, I shall not attempt to fathom his reason for dragging forth this long-buried memory, which would seem to hold little in common with the holocaust in which Europe finds itself at present. I had asked for and been denied permission to publish the facts of that case too many times to question this unexpected boon. To borrow a phrase from the Yanks, I am not inclined towards looking gift horses in the mouth; I shall, therefore, make haste to consult my notebook for the years 1883-85, set down the events as they occurred at the time, and concern myself with my friend’s state of mind upon some other occasion.

Holmes’s admonition to ‘be kind to Stevenson’ was unnecessary. Although it is true that Robert Louis Stevenson’s account of the singular circumstances surrounding the murder of Sir Danvers Carew contains numerous omissions, it is just as true that discretion, and not slovenliness, obliged him to withhold certain facts and to publish
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
under the guise of fiction. Victorian society simply would not have accepted it in any other form.

Now, after thirty-two years, the full story can at last be told. The pages which follow this preface represent variations upon the theme set forth in Stevenson’s largely accurate but incomplete account. As with any two differing points of view, some details, particularly those dealing with time, vary, although not significantly. This is due, no doubt, to the fact that my notes were made upon first-hand observation at the time the events were unfolding, whilst Stevenson’s were made upon hearsay at best, months and in some cases years after the fact. I leave the decision concerning whose version is correct to the reader.

As I write these words, it occurs to me that the story is in fact a timely one, in that it demonstrates the evils which a science left to itself may inflict upon an unsuspecting mankind. A culture which allows zeppelins to rain death and destruction upon the cities of men and heavy guns to pound civilisation back into the dust whence it came is a culture which has yet to learn from its mistakes. It is therefore hoped that the chronicle which follows will serve as a lesson to the world that the laws of nature are inviolate, and that the penalty for any attempt to circumvent them is swift and merciless. Assuming, that is, that there will still be a world when the present cataclysm has run its course

John H. Watson, M.D.

London, England

August 6th, 1917.

T
HE
M
YSTERIOUS
B
ENEFICIARY

‘
H
olmes,’ said I, ‘I have a cab waiting.’

I was standing in the doorway of our lodgings at 221B Baker Street, hands in the pockets of my ulster and glad of its warmth now that the chill of late October had begun to invade the sitting-room in the absence of a fire in the grate. My fellow-lodger, however, appeared oblivious to the cold as he busied himself at the acid-stained deal table in the corner, his long, thin back concealing from me his specific operations. Nearby, studying the proceedings in baffled fascination, stood a broad-shouldered commissionaire in the trim uniform of his occupation.

‘One moment, Watson,’ said Sherlock Holmes, and executed a quarter-turn round upon his stool so that I might see what he was doing. With the aid of a glass pipette he drew a quantity of bluish liquid from a beaker boiling atop the flame of his Bunsen burner and expelled it into a test tube which he held in his left hand. Then he laid aside the pipette and took up a slip of paper upon which was heaped a small mound of white powder, curling it part way round his thumb so as not to spill any of its contents. His metallic grey eyes were bright with anticipation.