‘The Torso At Highgate Cemetery.’ 'I watched as the policeman took out a notebook and read from an open page. Inspector Lestrade’s face turned ashen.'
‘The Mystery Of the Missing Artefacts,’ August 1916. 'A telegram is brought to my fetid prison cell under the magnificent State rooms of Sultan Mehmed V Palace. It’s from Sherlock Holmes...'
‘The Case of the Seventeenth Monk.’ “Now, Holmes,” I interrupted, checking the dragoman was out of hearing range, “at least I’ve discovered you’re alive.'
‘The Strange Death of an Art Dealer.’ “Oh my God!” the King exclaimed despairingly. “ I beseech you, Holmes, sort this whole thing out.'
‘The Case of the Impressionist Painting.’ Holmes stared into the fire. “Watson, I don't say this lightly: a shiver went through me at the look in O’Clery’s eye when I revealed our identity. I have never before felt so deeply we were in the presence of some vast potency, a power of evil…”
‘The Ambassador’s Skating Competition.’ “Holmes,” Watson retorted, “I must warn you, no one should confront such rich, powerful, and ruthless men head on. We learned that lesson a few years ago. We are not of their ilk. They’ll ride rough-shod over us again.”
‘The Torso At Highgate Cemetery.’ 'I watched as the policeman took out a notebook and read from an open page. Inspector Lestrade’s face turned ashen.'
‘The Mystery Of the Missing Artefacts,’ August 1916. 'A telegram is brought to my fetid prison cell under the magnificent State rooms of Sultan Mehmed V Palace. It’s from Sherlock Holmes...'
‘The Case of the Seventeenth Monk.’ “Now, Holmes,” I interrupted, checking the dragoman was out of hearing range, “at least I’ve discovered you’re alive.'
‘The Strange Death of an Art Dealer.’ “Oh my God!” the King exclaimed despairingly. “ I beseech you, Holmes, sort this whole thing out.'
‘The Case of the Impressionist Painting.’ Holmes stared into the fire. “Watson, I don't say this lightly: a shiver went through me at the look in O’Clery’s eye when I revealed our identity. I have never before felt so deeply we were in the presence of some vast potency, a power of evil…”
‘The Ambassador’s Skating Competition.’ “Holmes,” Watson retorted, “I must warn you, no one should confront such rich, powerful, and ruthless men head on. We learned that lesson a few years ago. We are not of their ilk. They’ll ride rough-shod over us again.”
Inspector Lestrade Comes Hurrying to 221B, Baker Street
My notes date back to April 1895. The nation would soon be wilting under a heat wave. It wasn’t the blistering heat or the fetid smells on the streets outside the lodgings I shared with Sherlock Holmes I remember most. It was the utter horror I was shortly to experience in a London cemetery.
The clink of horses’ hoofs closing in on the pavement came through the open window, followed by the sound of carriage wheels grating heavily against the kerb. I went to the window to catch sight of Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade leaping from a brougham and striding to our front door. His familiar voice was raised to a high pitch, shouting ahead to our housekeeper.
I raised the window and called down. “Inspector, if it’s Holmes you want, I’m sorry to disappoint you – either he’s still asleep or he didn’t return last night from a visit to the Docks.”
“No matter, Dr. Watson,” Lestrade called up, “it’s you I’ve come for! I must ask you to come down at once and accompany me. A body has been found at Highgate Cemetery.”
“A body?” I repeated, smiling quizzically. “Is it so surprising, given it’s a cemetery?”
“Apparently, it’s legless. The first thing we’ll want is your estimate of how long he’s been dead,” Lestrade explained.
The moment I was settled at his side, Lestrade shouted out, “Constable! Highgate Cemetery, if you will! Right. Now, Doctor,” he continued, “I can only tell you what I know. A man walking his dog through the graveyard only an hour ago says he came across the torso of a man seated upright on a grave, I say seated, balanced more like because the legs have been chopped off. A ghastly sight."
Lestrade had no other information to provide – simply that my presence had been requested.
Thirty minutes later the driver called down, “Inspector, the entrance is a hundred yards ahead, on your right, sir. You’ll be met by Constable Choat. He’ll tell you where to go.”
Constable Choat was blocking off the path to visitors. He saluted, giving me a nod of recognition. “You’re wanted in the northwestern area, Doctor,” Choat advised, “the heavily overgrown part. A roundabout route via the Circle of Lebanon is the easiest way to get there.”
Another policeman emerged from the shadow cast by the Circle. This time, other than a hasty salute the man paid me no attention. He pointed towards a patchwork of toppled gravestones and decaying mausolea.
“Over there, Inspector,” he instructed. “Best is if you…”
His words came to an abrupt halt. He turned to look at me and then back at Lestrade.
“Inspector,” he began in a low voice, “you say this is Dr. Watson. Do you mean Dr. John H. Watson, the biog – ?”
“The biographer of Sherlock Holmes,” I interrupted, smiling. “I am, yes.”
The smile was not reciprocated. A look of concern passed across the constable’s face. He continued to address Lestrade, saying, “Can we speak over here, sir?”
I watched as the policeman took out a notebook and read from an open page. Lestrade’s face turned ashen. He turned towards me, looking grim.
“Dr. Watson,” he began, “there’s something the constable has just told me. It’s about the legless corpse we’ve come to inspect.”
“What about it?” I asked.
“I wonder if the constable gives you a description, you might recognise the dead soul.”
The constable looked down at the notebook. “Age about forty, with an angular face – ” he commenced.
The Torso at Highgate Cemetery and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories by Tim Symonds has all the expected tropes, such as foggy London streets and fast hansom cab rides. From Highgate Cemetery to Holmes' retirement bee farm in Sussex Holmes and Watson are “crammed into an agile hansom rattling off to Charing Cross Station [Watson’s] revolver tucked into a pocket.” One of the stories even has Watson in a prison in Istanbul! He even had a visitation from Mycroft Holmes and was sent to Crete to search for Holmes.
Things and times are more modern in some ways, too. Holmes has a telephone in the house at his farm. Modernity abounds as Holmes and Watson take a ride in a motorized hackney (i.e., an initial form of a car).
Overall, I liked these stories. Crisp writing enlivens them and causes tension. For example, in “The Torso at Highgate Cemetery,” Holmes and Watson indirectly cause the death of a Chinese scribe. Some oddities exist, too. In “The Mystery of the Missing Artefacts,” Watson had offered his services during World War I. While imprisoned, Watson received a telegram from Holmes to come assist him, as if Watson were casually sitting in his house in Marylebone. Upon Watson’s return after being freed, Holmes just picked up relations with him as if Watson had been away on vacation. Really?!
Readers who enjoy works about the ever-popular Holmes and Watson, detectives extraordinaire, will be happy with this selection of short stories. From dealing with the ever-dangerous Colonel Sebastian Moran to scaring Dr. Watson with galloping knights and ghostly monks, things happen within these stories. Although some stories had sluggish spots, overall these six were enjoyable.
While not my favorite stories in the Holmes-Watson canon of pastiches, I would read other Holmes-Watson adventures written by this author.