Holmes Sherlock - Mammoth Books Presents The Adventure of the Faithful Retainer

Amy Myers is best known for her books featuring the master-chef with the remarkable deductive powers, Auguste Didier who first appeared in Murder in Pugs Parlour in 1987 and has built up a dedicated following. The stories are contemporary with Sherlock Holmes and there is little doubt that the two would have been acquainted.

Constable & Robinson Ltd
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First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

The Adventure of the Faithful Retainer Amy Myers, 1997 First published in The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, edited by Mike Ashley (Robinson, 1997). Reprinted by permission of the author and the authors agent, DorianLiterary Agency.

The right of Amy Myers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-47210-079-5 (ebook)

Printed and bound in the UK

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Watson secured publication of several cases that happened in 1897, including The Abbey Grange, The Red Circle, The Devils Foot the case that nearly saw the end of Sherlock Holmes The Dancing Men and The Missing Three-Quarter. There were certainly other cases during the year, but the only one that we have been able to date conclusively is The Case of the Faithful Retainer. We have been fortunate that this case survived amongst the papers of the family of M. Auguste Didier, the master-chef whose investigations Amy Myers has been reconstructing. I am indebted to her for allowing me access to these papers.

You are correct, my dear Watson. The hour may indeed have come when it is in the interests of our great nation that your readers should be permitted to know the full truth behind my indisposition of ninety-seven.

As so often in the past, my old friend had correctly broken into my thoughts. How could you know I began. But why should I be amazed that his powers of observation and deduction remained undimmed, infrequently though circumstances had permitted me to visit Mr Sherlock Holmes, during his years of retirement on the Sussex downs? We were taking our ease in his pleasant farm garden, on a summer day in 1911, and I had been studying the grave news reported in my newspaper.

Holmes shrugged. You are absorbed in The Times report of this Agadir crisis. I noted your frown, and the fact that you read the report several times; hence my conclusion that you consider that the sending of the gunboat to Morocco demonstrates that a certain great European nation is once more flexing its muscles, and casting its shadow over the peace not only of Europe but of the British Empire itself, was simplicity itself. It was then but a small step to deduce from your unconscious glance towards me that in your opinion the unfortunate case of the faithful retainer should now be made known to the world. I agree, but masked, I must insist, in suitable anonymity.

Of course, Holmes, I replied stiffly, somewhat offended that my old friend could imply I had so little delicacy as to reveal the identities of those involved in the services to the nation that had led to Holmes being offered a knighthood in June 1902, the coronation month (had not illness postponed the celebration) of our late and gracious monarch, Edward the Peacemaker. For reasons that must perforce remain undisclosed, these services had been rendered some years earlier, in the spring and early summer of 97, at a time when the world supposed Holmes to have been ill, a fiction at which I have hitherto been obliged, from the highest of motives, to connive. His iron constitution, I wrote truthfully showed some symptoms of giving way. It did not in fact do so.

On a chilly day late in February 1897 Holmes and I were lunching in the Baker Street rooms, when a telegram arrived. This was hardly an unusual occurrence, but my engagement with Mrs Hudsons mutton chop ceased immediately when Holmess face was suddenly transformed, flushed and with a glitter in his eyes, followed by an expression of extreme thoughtfulness. He handed the telegram to me, his brows drawn into two dark lines. It read: Come at once. My club Mycroft.

When Brother Mycroft commands, and during the hour of luncheon at that, we may be sure that weighty matters are afoot, Watson.

Shall I accompany you, Holmes?

Why, certainly. We leave immediately. Mrs Hudson will no doubt forgive our abandonment of her excellent treacle pudding. I smell danger in its place, though of a form which I trust should have no need of your pistol.

Within the half hour we were being ushered into a private room of the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall, one of the few places where speaking was permitted in this club of most unclubable gentlemen. There we found not only Mycroft awaiting us, but three other most distinguished visitors. The remains of a hasty luncheon suggested they had been foregathered some time. One of the visitors we recognized instantly and indeed Holmes had undertaken cases for him on former occasions. If anything were needed to convince us of the seriousness of the circumstances that called us here, it was the presence of the elderly Lord Bellinger, once more Premier of Britain. The second was Sir George Lewis, solicitor in delicate matters to the highest in the land. He too was no stranger to Holmes, though my presence brought a swift frown to his face which was only removed by a nod from Lord Bellinger. The third, a keen-eyed tall man of about thirty-five, was introduced to us as Mr Robert Mannering, a name familiar to us as Lord Bellingers Adviser on European Affairs. He had inherited the mantle, though not yet the high office, of the late Trelawney Hope, Lord Bellingers Secretary for European Affairs at the time of the Adventure of the Second Stain. Holmes brother Mycroft sat in the midst of the group, a huge and ungainly spider in the centre of the web of Government diplomacy and intrigue.

I had not thought we should yet again have need of your services, Mr Holmes, the Premier began. Your brother informs us you are exceptionally busy at the moment.

That is so.

We have to ask you to lay all else aside, save that which we are about to ask you to undertake.

That is scarcely feasible, Lord Bellinger. Holmes was taken aback at this request. There is the interesting case of the Vanishing Pedlar, and the affair of the Ten Black Pillowcases.

Insignificant trifles, Sherlock, Mycroft rumbled.

From no one but his brother would Sherlock Holmes have accepted this without considerable demur.