A Study in Sherlock

Holmes and Dr. Mann were among the dignitaries who attended the very small funeral held at the penitentiary for the murderer. The casket had been nailed shut because the face of the killer Czolgosz had been disfigured by sulfuric acid poured on the corpse by persons unknown. Presiding over the funeral was a young clergyman who gave an extremely impressive elegy, inspiring all listeners with the notion that even the worst sinner can be forgiven and admitted to the kingdom of heaven. Afterward we took him to the nearest railway station and bought him a ticket, not to heaven, but only to New York, where he was in time to begin rehearsals for a Broadway play called Life, which opened the following March to appreciative notices.

After the state funeral of the president in Washington, it was popularly supposed that Mrs. Ida McKinley returned to Ohio where she was to live with her sister. I often thought of her during the next seven years, knowing that she was living happily by turns as the wife of Selim Bey or of the Reverend Dr. McEachern—a veiled Moslem to the Christians, and a Christian to the Moslems, a person who pretended never to speak the language of those around her, and never had to explain herself. When she died after seven years, her body was secretly shipped back to Ohio and then buried by her sister, as though she had lived as a reclusive widow all along.

On the fourteenth of September, 1901, when it was first announced that President McKinley was dying, a number of notables rushed to Buffalo. One of them was his old friend Senator Mark Hanna, and another was the young vice president, Theodore Roosevelt. He stayed at the Ansley Wilcox mansion at 641 Delaware Avenue, where he was sworn in late that night as the twenty-sixth president of the United States. Whether in later years Roosevelt lived up to his predecessor’s hopes, I cannot say. As Selim Bey or Dr. McEachern, the former president declared himself to be happy in retirement and never gave another political opinion. But the Great War he had feared did not begin until 1914, did not involve America until 1917, and ended a year later as he had hoped it would, with his country victorious and growing stronger.

Curator’s Note: Although Dr. Watson’s claims cannot be verified, the circumstances of the manuscript’s discovery in a locked metal box hidden in his great-grandson’s home in London with several other, equally startling manuscripts might add credibility for some readers. Many personalities in Dr. Watson’s story were real people, e.g. Mark Hanna, Ida and William McKinley, Dr. Roswell Park, Mr. John Milburn, George Cortelyou, Chief William Bull, “Dr. Mann,” Leon Czolgosz, Theodore Roosevelt, Ansley Wilcox, and Sherlock Holmes. Watson’s description of the assassination appears to agree with descriptions by eyewitnesses, even in the particular of the distraction of the guards by the unidentified Italian. Czolgosz’s body actually was rendered unrecognizable because of sulfuric acid poured on it by persons unknown after his execution. The actor Sydney Barton Booth really was a descendant of Edwin Booth, a pro-Lincoln member of the acting family, and he had a fine career that lasted long enough for him to appear in several successful motion pictures. As for timing, we do know that the whereabouts of Holmes and Watson are unknown between Thursday, May 16, 1901, when the “Priory School” events took place, and Tuesday, November 19, 1901, when they were seen during the “Sussex Vampire” case.

Thomas Perry is the author of nineteen novels, including the Edgar-winning The Butcher’s Boy, the New York Times bestseller Nightlife, and the ongoing Jane Whitefield series. Metzger’s Dog, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, was recently selected by National Public Radio listeners as one of the one hundred best thrillers ever. His novel Strip was a New York Times Notable Crime Book for 2010. His next book, The Informant, will be published in spring 2011. Perry lives in Southern California. He has always loved the Sherlock Holmes stories and saw this anthology as a chance to add one more story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have written if he’d gotten around to it.

THE CASE OF DEATH AND HONEY

Neil Gaiman

It was a mystery in those parts for years what had happened to the old white ghost man, the barbarian with his huge shoulder bag. There were some who supposed him to have been murdered, and, later, they dug up the floor of Old Gao’s little shack high on the hillside, looking for treasure, but they found nothing but ash and fire-blackened tin trays.

This was after Old Gao himself had vanished, you understand, and before his son came back from Lijiang to take over the beehives on the hill.