Part 3 (1/2)
Isabel Burton looked at uish in her expression, and she possessed such obvious devotion to her spouse, that, for a moment, I was tempted to throw my lot in with her, but then I remembered what Burton had said: If he can't recover the ht!
”You acted with noble intentions,” I said ”But I ree with my friend Sir Richard is infirm, but his mind is as sound as a bell, and if he-who has achieved so much-believes the chapter should be translated and published, then it probably should”
Holmes said, ”Where is the manuscript, Lady Burton?”
She slumped in her seat Her mouth worked silently for a moment She whispered, ”I wrapped it in a pillowcase and threw it into a coalbunker by the mews behind the hotel”
”Watson!” Holmes barked ”Leave immediately Find it!”
I stood, put my hand on Lady Burton's arreat man,” and departed
A fast hansom delivered me to the St Jae waited, I'd located the coalbunker and discovered the package inside it I returned to Baker Street Hol in a haze of tobacco smoke
”A truly remarkable woman, Watson!” he declared ”Such loyalty is commendable, don't you think?”
I left chapter twenty-one on the table, crossed to the sideboard, and drank the brandy I'd poured the night before ”Even if it leads to ed actions, Holmes?”
”Ha! She allowed her faith in her husband's intellect to be adversely influenced by emotion”
”Her love for him?”
”No Her fear that she'd outlive hiood naly difficult to live in the shadow of such a giant”
My friend gave me a peculiar look ”Those who do, and who provide support and stability, are the very best of us all”
For the next few hours, I read and dozed while Holmes stared into space and filled the room with noxious tobacco fumes Neither of us touched chapter twenty-one
At three o'clock, Algernon Swinburne arrived and Holmes handed the manuscript to him
The little poet leaped into the air and emitted a triumphant squeal ”How, Holmes? Who? Why? Avery?”
”No, Mr Swinburne, the bookseller was not involved I can say nothing more Take the chapter and return it to Sir Richard Inform him that it was my pleasure to assist him, and there is no fee”
”Thank you, Holmes! Thank you!”
With that, Swinburne left us and, I would like to say, the affair of theconclusion Except, it didn't
One evening, nearly three years later, in July of 1891, I was dining alone in the Athenaeued with Professor Moriarty into the Reichenbach Falls, and I was still in the throes of a deep depression
I had just finished my meal when a man, uninvited, pulled out a chair and sat at my table
”My condolences, Dr Watson,” he said
”Mr Swinburne! It is good to see you!” I gripped the little poet's hand, and, re that Sir Richard Francis Burton had passed away in Trieste nine months previously, added, ”We have both suffered a terrible loss”
He nodded, sed, then bunched his fingers into a fist and sla the cutlery and crockery to rattle ”Did you hear what she did?”
”Yes”
It had been in all the newspapers Burton had completed his translation, which he'd retitled The Scented Garden, but a heart attack had taken him before it could be published, and, in the wake of his death, Lady Burton had gathered together all his papers, correspondence, and journals, and num opus
”It was his masterpiece,” Swinburne said ”And she destroyed it I will never forgive her I will never speak to her again”
We ordered coffee, and for , and
Swinburne suddenly stated, ”He was not an easy man to be with”
”Nor Sherlock Holumentative and occasionally brutal in his choice of words But here is the strange thing, Dr Watson: whenever I was in his co a coed with the business of living”
I nodded ”Yes, Mr Swinburne I know exactly what you mean”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Hodder is the author of the Philip K dick Ainning series of Burton and Swinburne adventures, beginning with The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, in which the famous explorer and poet play Holhtly twisted versions of true history Hodder has also written A Red Sun Also Rises, an hoe to the nineteenth-century novel and the planetary rohs
Born in Southa a five-year stint at the BBC, but now lives in Valencia, Spain, where he writes on a full-time basis He collects and preserves sexton Blake stories, and is a fan of the old ITC TV shows, such as The Persuaders, The Champions, Department S, and The Prisoner
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE INDELICATE WIDOW
BY MAGS L HALLIDAY
It was the winter of 1894, and a pearlescent light was floodingroom The clouds that had cast their shadows over me for the three years Holmes had been presu myself, whenever an idle hour presented itself, sat in , the rare clear air I had breathed walking froloo quite jovial
Naturally, the case that then presented itself was one that would cast the shadow of ly dull article about theand Mrs Hudson informed us there was a , a Mrs Stephen Perkins, to see us The wo of a dark grey dress trimmed black, a jet bead necklace-adorned with a jet rose rather than a crucifix or cross-and a grey hat She was doughtily set, with a more weather-browned face than I would have expected of so veil but recently
”Ah, Mrs Perkins,” Hol towards a chair, ”and hoas your journey fro? You must have been on the 0823”