When solicitor Phineas Larcombe telegrams Baker Street with two words - murder suspected - Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are drawn into a web of death that begins in a Clerkenwell clockmaker's workshop and reaches far darker places than either man could have imagined.
Ezekiel Brand, master horologist, is dead at his workbench. The police call it natural causes. His solicitor isn't so sure. Brand has left behind a singular clock - a masterwork of brass and oak with no numerals on its face - and a will that sets three former apprentices against one another to claim it.
Then a second man turns up dead. The clock, it seems, is not merely a timepiece. Brand hid something inside it. Something he could not say aloud in life.
Holmes and Watson must race to decode the dead man's final message before a third murder is committed - and before the truth Brand buried destroys more than just his legacy.
The Clockmaker's Bequest is a richly atmospheric Holmes adventure set in the fog and gaslight of 1889 London, where the most dangerous secrets tick quietly in plain sight.
When solicitor Phineas Larcombe telegrams Baker Street with two words - murder suspected - Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are drawn into a web of death that begins in a Clerkenwell clockmaker's workshop and reaches far darker places than either man could have imagined.
Ezekiel Brand, master horologist, is dead at his workbench. The police call it natural causes. His solicitor isn't so sure. Brand has left behind a singular clock - a masterwork of brass and oak with no numerals on its face - and a will that sets three former apprentices against one another to claim it.
Then a second man turns up dead. The clock, it seems, is not merely a timepiece. Brand hid something inside it. Something he could not say aloud in life.
Holmes and Watson must race to decode the dead man's final message before a third murder is committed - and before the truth Brand buried destroys more than just his legacy.
The Clockmaker's Bequest is a richly atmospheric Holmes adventure set in the fog and gaslight of 1889 London, where the most dangerous secrets tick quietly in plain sight.
It was Saturday, the 23rd of March 1889. A bitter East wind howled along Baker Street, rattling the windowpanes of our sitting-room when Sherlock Holmes received the curious telegram. Thus began the affair of the clockmaker’s bequest.
The winter had been long and dreary. My friend had spent the last fortnight in a state of restless melancholy, which I recognised as the inevitable consequence of idleness.
Without the stimulus of a challenging case, Holmes was like a finely tuned instrument left to gather dust—all potential and no purpose. He had taken to sprawling in his armchair for hours at a stretch. His long fingers steepled beneath his chin. His keen grey eyes stared into the middle distance as though searching the very air for an enigma worthy of his attention.
My own medical practice had been mercifully light that week—the influenza season having finally exhausted itself.
My wife, Mary, had departed a fortnight earlier to visit her aunt in Boston, a journey she had planned for some months, and would not return until May.
With our household in the capable hands of our housekeeper, Mrs. Turner, I had accepted Holmes’s invitation to return to our old lodgings at Baker Street for what I hoped might be a few quiet days of companionship.
I settled into the wicker armchair with a volume of Carlyle’s essays—a treatise on the French Revolution.
Mrs. Hudson’s familiar tread upon the stairs announced her arrival. Our good landlady entered, bearing the morning’s letters upon a silver salver. Atop the small pile of correspondence was a yellow envelope of the sort used by the telegraph office.
Holmes stood with his back to the fire in that characteristic pose of his. Hands clasped behind him and his attention seemingly elsewhere. Holmes turned at once. “The telegraph, Mrs. Hudson?” he said, though he had not looked in her direction.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” our landlady replied with the long-suffering patience of one accustomed to such demonstrations. “Arrived not five minutes past.”
Holmes crossed the room in three swift strides and plucked the envelope from the tray with the eagerness of a man presented with unexpected sustenance.
Mrs. Hudson withdrew.
I marked the sudden animation in my friend’s movements as he tore open the envelope with his letter opener.
“Watson,” he said, unfolding the flimsy yellow paper, “we may have an occupation for the day. Listen to this.”
He read aloud in that crisp, precise manner of his: “MURDER SUSPECTED STOP REQUEST IMMEDIATE AID STOP INSTRUCTIONS FOLLOW STOP PHINEAS LARCOMBE SOLICITOR LUDGATE HILL STOP.”
“Instructions follow?” I repeated, setting aside my book. “Rather cryptic, is it not?”
Holmes tossed the telegram onto the mantelpiece with a gesture of satisfaction. “Just so,” Holmes replied, resuming his position before the fire. “A solicitor who telegraphs for assistance in a matter of suspected murder, yet withholds particulars until a later communication, must be a man who finds himself entangled in some haste. Either that, or he fears his initial message may be intercepted, or he is a man accustomed to managing sensitive affairs with care.”
“You anticipate foul play already?” I asked, rising from my chair to join him.
Holmes’ thin lips curved into a smile. “A man does not invoke the word murder unless that word has been circling his thoughts with persistence, Watson. The telegram is terse, yet he chose that specific term. Not death, not tragedy, but murder. The distinction suggests urgency and conviction.”
I studied the telegram where it lay upon the cluttered mantelpiece. Wedged between a jackknife pinning down unanswered correspondence and the Persian slipper that served as Holmes’ tobacco pouch. “What do you make of the name?” I inquired. “Phineas Larcombe. Do you know him?”
“I do not,” Holmes admitted, “though Ludgate Hill is a respectable enough address for a solicitor’s practice. The location suggests a man of established reputation rather than some back-alley practitioner scraping for clients in the East End.”
“And the instructions he promised?”
“Will arrive within the hour, I should think,” Holmes said, consulting his watch. “The telegram was dispatched at eight-forty this morning. If Larcombe is as pressed as his message suggests, he will have sent a fuller communication by messenger shortly thereafter. The question is not whether we shall learn more, but whether what we learn will prove worth hearing.”
Holmes returned to his chair and drew his pipe from his dressing-gown pocket, tamping it with tobacco from the Persian slipper.
I knew that gesture well. His mind was already at work, sifting through possibilities, constructing theories from the barest threads of information. “You seem eager for this case,” I observed.
“I am eager for any case,” Holmes replied, touching a match to the bowl of his pipe. “The alternative is unendurable tedium, and I find my mind grows sluggish without proper exercise. A murder, Watson, or even the suspicion of one, is precisely the tonic I require.”
The morning dragged on with agonizing slowness. Holmes smoked three pipes in succession, his gaze never straying far from the window that overlooked Baker Street.
I attempted to return to my essay but found my attention wandering. There is something infectious about Holmes’ anticipation; when he scents a mystery, his energy fills the room like an electric charge.
At last, shortly before eleven o’clock, a sharp rap came at our door.
Mrs. Hudson announced a messenger boy, and Holmes leaped from his chair to receive the envelope the lad carried.
A coin changed hands—generous enough to elicit a grin from the urchin—and Holmes tore open the seal before the boy had even departed. “Excellent,” he murmured, scanning the contents. “Our instructions have arrived.”
He passed the letter to me.
The stationery was heavy, expensive vellum, bearing the embossed crest of a reputable legal firm. The handwriting was cramped, precise copperplate, though the ink trailed off in places as if the writer had been in a state of high agitation.
It read:
Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
I thank you for your swift attention to my telegram. Four nights ago, my client, Mr. Ezekiel Brand, horologist of Clerkenwell, was found dead at his workbench. The police surgeon has ruled the cause of death natural. I am convinced otherwise. The matter is of the utmost gravity and requires your immediate presence. I dare not commit the full particulars to paper, as matters of such sensitivity are best discussed in person.
There is more—much more—but I beg you will attend me at my offices so that I may lay the facts before you directly. The affair involves not one death but two, and I fear a third may follow if we do not act with haste.
I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
Phineas Larcombe - Larcombe & Pell, Solicitors, 23 Ludgate Hill
I looked up from the letter to find Holmes already reaching for his heavy tweed Ulster, which hung upon the coat stand beside the door.
“Ezekiel Brand,” I said thoughtfully. “The name stirs a memory, Holmes. Was he not the artisan rumoured to have made clocks that could keep time to the tenth of a second?”
“You have it precisely, Watson,” Holmes replied, shrugging into his coat with brisk efficiency. “A perfectionist of the highest order, by all accounts. Such men make enemies as readily as admirers, particularly among those who profit from compromise. Their standards brook no compromise, and the world does not forgive those who demand perfection.”
“You think his death is connected to his work?”
“I think nothing yet,” Holmes said, wrapping his scarf about his throat, “save that a solicitor believes murder has been done and fears more deaths may follow. That is sufficient to merit our attention. Come, Watson, our client awaits, and if Larcombe’s letter is any indication, time is not a luxury we possess.”
I retrieved my coat and hat, and together we descended the seventeen steps to the street.
The morning had not improved; if anything, the wind had grown sharper, carrying with it the acrid smell of coal smoke and the damp promise of rain.
Holmes hailed a hansom with a sharp whistle, and we clambered aboard. “Twenty-three Ludgate Hill,” Holmes instructed the driver, “and there’s an extra half-crown if you make good time.”
The cab lurched forward, throwing us back against the worn leather seats as the horse broke into a brisk trot.
London flowed past us in its familiar chaos—vendors crying their wares, omnibuses rumbling along the cobblestones, and everywhere the great throng of humanity that gives the city its ceaseless energy.
“What do you know of Clerkenwell?” I asked, raising my voice above the clatter of hooves and wheels.
“It is the heart of London’s watchmaking trade,” Holmes replied, his eyes fixed on the passing streets. “Craftsmen of extraordinary skill have worked there for generations. Brand would have been one of the masters. A man whose reputation extended beyond our shores. If he has indeed been murdered, Watson, it is no common crime. A man of his stature does not die unnoticed.”
“Larcombe mentioned a second death,” I noted. “Do you suppose they are connected?”
“I suppose nothing,” Holmes said, though I detected a glimmer of interest in his narrowed eyes. “But two deaths in proximity to one another, both involving a solicitor’s concern, suggest a pattern. And patterns, my dear fellow, are where truth reveals itself.”
The cab rattled through the narrow streets, past the magnificent dome of St. Paul’s and down into the commercial heart of the city.
Ludgate Hill rose before us, lined with the sober facades of banks, insurance offices, and legal chambers.
We alighted before number twenty-three. A narrow building of blackened brick with a brass plate beside the door that read: LARCOMBE & PELL, SOLICITORS.
Holmes paid the driver, adding the promised half-crown, and we mounted the worn stone steps.
The door opened onto a dim vestibule that smelled of old paper and furniture polish.
A young, harried-looking clerk glanced up from a desk piled high with documents.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,” my friend announced. “We are expected.”
“Oh yes, sir,” the clerk stammered, leaping to his feet. “Mr. Larcombe said you were to be shown up at once. This way, if you please.”
We followed him up a narrow staircase, its walls lined with framed legal documents and portraits of stern-faced gentlemen in judicial wigs.
The building creaked with age, and I could hear the muffled sounds of industry from the surrounding offices, the scratch of pens, the rustle of paper, the indistinct murmur of voices.
I noted that the office bore the marks of a successful but overworked practice.
The clerk knocked at a door on the first floor, and a voice from within called, “Enter.”
We stepped into a book-lined office that was both spacious and cluttered.
Shelves sagged beneath the weight of leather-bound volumes, and every horizontal surface bore stacks of papers tied with red ribbon.
The shelves that lined three walls groaned beneath legal tomes—Blackstone’s Commentaries, volumes of Chancery Reports, annotated editions of the Companies Act—their spines worn smooth by frequent consultation.
A coal fire burned in the grate, casting a fitful light that vied with the grey illumination filtering through windows that overlooked Ludgate Hill.
The room smelled of old parchment, sealing wax, and the faint mustiness that clings to places where documents accumulate faster than they can be properly filed
Behind a broad mahogany desk sat a round, anxious-looking gentleman with spectacles that clung precariously to the end of his nose. He rose at our entrance, wringing his hands. “Mr. Holmes. Dr. Watson.” he exclaimed, hurrying around the desk to greet us. “Thank heavens you’ve come. I am Phineas Larcombe, and I fear I am caught between a dreadful tragedy and an inheritance that threatens to provoke more.”
Holmes removed his gloves with deliberate care and fixed our client with that penetrating gaze of his. “Then, Mr. Larcombe,” he said, “you had best tell us everything.”
The Clockmaker's Bequest - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery by MX Publishing is a traditional, full-length Sherlock Holmes novel. Its cast is the usual one, too—Holmes, Watson, Inspector Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, the Baker Street Irregulars, etc.
What distinguishes this mystery from other Holmes stories is the intricately coded message that a threatened clockmaker concealed inside an advanced clock he made before being murdered. Of course, “advanced” goes by the time of its manufacture—around 1888. The message names those responsible for his murder.
The height of the spectacular brass clock mentioned above (shown on the book’s cover) is about eighteen inches. There are no numerals on the dial. Instead, there are twelve small, glass-covered apertures arranged in a circle on it, each corresponding to an hour of the day. You could see through them, and if you did, you would see the remarkably complex mechanism inside. Each aperture concealed a reed of a different length, allowing the clock to produce unique musical sequences that could ultimately form the basis of an encoded message.
The book has an attractive, fitting cover that is well-suited to its contents. Although the plot lacks high-wire or mind-boggling events like angels collaborating with Holmes to solve murder cases the police abandoned, or a clue hidden at the top of the Eiffel Tower for him to retrieve using a pigeon, the story certainly treats you to a fascinating glimpse into nineteenth-century British horology. Clerkenwell, a place known for clockmaking, watchmaking, and chronometer production in the Victorian era, also features prominently in this story. The victim is portrayed as a brilliant horologist, thinker, designer, and technology wizard. His encoded clock incorporates some of the most advanced optical and aneroid technologies available around 1888.
The book is clear and easy to read thanks to effective styling and formatting. The author has constructed a convoluted, mentally stimulating, and gripping plot, as is typical of Holmes's stories. However, the mental challenge this one presents exceeds the average and may delight a scientific/mathematical mind. The only reason for complaint is that the book has minor language errors.
Balancing the positive and negative points of the book, I finally assign it 4 stars.
I warmly recommend this book to English-speaking Sherlock Holmes fans all over the globe. Since Sherlock Holmes naturally appeals to those who love crime/detective fiction, I also recommend it to anyone who loves the genre.