A Study in Sherlock

All we could hear then was the white noise of London as amplified from inside the taxicab. And the very last we heard that day was the latest in the long line of Moran progeny humming tunelessly to himself. I couldn’t for the life of me make out what it was, but then a long, thin finger reached out across the desk and, with a double click of the mouse, the sounds from the Harman/Kardon SoundSticks, sited either side of the computer, were eclipsed.

I turned to face the extraordinary man I’d known for what seemed several lifetimes, as his eyes flashed in triumph. “Know your enemies, my dear fellow. Know them with an exactness that renders them, their habits, their subterfuges, their weaknesses, and their strengths, as clearly as if they were life-sized pieces arrayed before you on a giant chessboard.”

I nodded and reached for the sherry decanter as my closest-ever male companion and dearest friend reached for his violin case.

“A good day’s work on your part, old friend,” he said. “Well done.”

I raised my glass. “Yes, cheerio. But, as you’ve always said, the only possible place to hide a secret is in plain sight.”

He paused before raising his beloved Stradivarius to his chin. “As Professor Moriarty is ever vigilant for our return, it behooves us to promote ourselves and our likenesses in any and every way possible. We needs must give continuous form, substance, and exercise to his worst imaginings; that we, his two most implacable foes, have risen, yet again, Lazarus-like, from the dead.”

“Give a dog a bone, Holmes?”

“Indeed, my dear Watson. And not just cupboards full of skeletons, but whole battalions, entire multitudes, if need be. All to ensure that Moriarty and his wretched gang simply cannot see the wood for the trees. For as elementary as the ruse undoubtedly is, the one indisputable fact in our case is that there truly is safety in numbers.”

I raised my glass again and sat there—with not a single thought of putting pen to paper—and sipped at my sherry and listened contentedly as the notes of Mendelssohn’s “Lieder ohne Worte” once again worked their very particular magic upon me and brought the day’s work to a more than agreeable close.

Tony Broadbent is the author of a series of mystery novels about a roguish Cockney cat burglar in postwar, austerity-ridden, black-market-riddled London who gets blackmailed into working for MI5 and is then trained by Ian Fleming. His first, The Smoke, received starred reviews. The follow-up, Spectres in the Smoke, was awarded the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award in 2006 and was proclaimed by Booklist as one of the best spy novels of the year. The third, Shadows in the Smoke, is soon to be published. Broadbent was born in England, a short train ride away from Baker Street, and now lives in Mill Valley, California, with his beautiful American wife and a real cat burglar of a cat. He was introduced to the Sherlock Holmes Canon on the very Christmas Day he’d deduced for himself that Santa Claus was indeed his own father in disguise.

THE MEN WITH THE TWISTED LIPS

S. J. Rozan

“The Lascar,” said Chan Ho, cradling his delicate porcelain teacup in his hands, “is a dangerous man.”

Not a word of disagreement was uttered by any of the three guests gathered in Chan Ho’s carpeted upstairs parlor. The day being hot, the windows stood open, but even the afternoon Limehouse ruckus of creaking carts and hawkers’ shouts did not distract the men from the issue they had been brought together to consider. No more did the sweet scent of opium smoke rising faintly from below, to which all four men were inured; for Chan, and his guests also, as well as the Lascar whose transgressions were at issue, owned and managed houses for the enjoyment of that drug.

Portly Wing Lin-Wei, leaning forward to pluck a second candied plum from the silver bowl, replied, “Indeed, Chan, his flagrant contempt for the authorities only grows. He appears to have no respect for the customs of the land in which we find ourselves, nor any understanding of his position here. His attitude, his actions, they endanger us all.”

“In which he differs from you, Wing,” murmured Zhang Peng-Da, a skeletally thin and sour man who had not touched his tea. “You with your gifts of silver coin, your fawning attentions on the constabulary. Your pathetic attempts at spoken English! It is humiliating.”

A tight smile creased Wing’s full cheeks. “Perhaps, Zhang, my willingness to make efforts to adjust to our new home accounts for the difference in our clientele.”

“If there is an advantage in having the cost of an opium pipe borne by a duke rather than a dustman, I do not see it,” Zhang sneered. “In fact, if dustmen, not dukes, were our only patrons, perhaps there would be no need of this discussion.”