The Star of India
Authors: Carole Bugge
SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE STAR OF INDIA
CAROLE BUGGÉ
TITAN BOOKS
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE STAR OF INDIA
Print edition ISBN: 9780857681218
E-book edition ISBN: 9780857685414
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St
London
SE1 0UP
First edition: August 2011
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 1997, 2011 Carole Buggé
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THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:
THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN
Daniel Stashower
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
Manley Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman
THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD
David Stuart Davies
THE STALWART COMPANIONS
H. Paul Jeffers
THE VEILED DETECTIVE
David Stuart Davies
THE MAN FROM HELL
Barrie Roberts
SÉANCE FOR A VAMPIRE
Fred Saberhagen
THE SEVENTH BULLET
Daniel D. Victor
THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS
Edward B. Hanna
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES
Loren D. Estleman
THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA
Richard L. Boyer
THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA
Sam Siciliano
THE PEERLESS PEER
Philip José Farmer
COMING SOON:
THE BREATH OF GOD
Guy Adams
THE WEB WEAVER
Sam Siciliano
THE TITANIC TRAGEDY
William Seil
One
I
have often remarked upon the moody nature of my friend Sherlock Holmes, so it should have come as no surprise that, when I called upon him on a rainy Saturday in October of 1894, I found him in the sitting room of 221B Baker Street, lying on the couch listlessly tossing darts at the initials V.R., which had been spelled into the wall by bullet holes. Since the death of my second wife, I had taken to calling on Holmes on Saturday afternoons, but it had been several weeks since my last visit.
“Come in!” he barked in response to my knock.
“Ah, it’s you, Watson,” he said when I entered.
“I didn’t see Mrs. Hudson anywhere, so I let myself in,” I said, stepping over a pile of newspapers which nearly blocked the door from opening. The thick aroma of Turkish tobacco hung heavily in the air, and a puff of smoke escaped into the hall when I opened the door.
“Well, come in; that is, if you don’t mind being horribly bored. Nothing,” he said, punctuating the word with a toss of a dart, “nothing of interest is taking place in London—no one of note is trying their wits
against the forces of law and order.” He sighed and sat up, unfolding his long frame from the sofa. “It is an irony of my profession that when my fellow creatures are enjoying a period of relative peace and quiet, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of wishing that something interesting would happen to spoil it.”
“But surely you don’t wish—” I said, hanging up my cloak and hat.
“Oh, but I do, Watson; that’s the damnable part of it.”
He threw another dart, which landed at the base of the V and stuck in a bullet hole. Holmes sighed and lit a cigarette. He was wearing his old mouse-colored dressing gown and looked as though he hadn’t shaved—always a bad sign in someone usually so meticulous about his appearance. I was also dismayed to see the stack of newspaper clippings in the corner of the room. When unoccupied with cases, Holmes was in the habit of clipping items from the newspapers, and the size of the pile indicated that it had been some time since he had had a crime to solve. The familiar sitting room, though untidy, was by no means in a shambles the way it often was when Holmes was working. The Persian slipper containing his shag tobacco hung from a nail on the hearth; his test tubes and beakers sat unused upon his makeshift laboratory table.
“Do you mind if I open a window?” I said, coughing. My lungs felt heavy; the acrid smell of stale tobacco was so strong I could taste it on my tongue.
Holmes shrugged. “Go ahead. Frankly, Watson, with Moriarty dead and Colonel Moran behind bars, I am afraid I shall die of boredom,” he said, lying back on the couch and blowing a smoke ring into the air. It curled and hung in the lamplight for a moment before dissipating into a thin gray wisp.
I opened the window and inhaled the smells of a London afternoon: the sweat of horses mingled with the aroma of roasting chestnuts, damp clothes, and boiling cabbage. I walked over to the fire which
blazed in the grate and rubbed my hands. I had been at my surgery all morning and was cold and tired. It had been an unusually busy week and only now did I realize how exhausted I was. An early influenza epidemic—the first of the season—had forced me to keep long hours. Right now, what I wanted more than anything was a glass of brandy and a good meal.
“My dear fellow—” I began, but Holmes interrupted me.
“Yes, yes, I know!” he said impatiently, springing up from the couch and pacing up and down in front of the hearth. “The sad fact is I often don’t hear about a case until some great harm has already been done... and believe me, I do not relish the suffering of others.”
“Of course you don’t, Holmes—”
“But I must have stimulation!” he cried suddenly, tossing his cigarette into the grate and throwing himself down on his favorite chair in front of the fire. I caught Holmes glancing toward the desk where I knew he kept his cocaine. I felt a chill go through me which even the roaring fire could not warm. I could not bear to see Holmes under the influence of this evil habit, see it destroy his nerves and his health, and yet I knew that he did not take kindly to interference on my part. I decided not to bring up the subject, and tried diversion instead.
“You know, I have some tickets to the concert at the Royal Albert Hall tonight; would you like to come along with me?”
His face brightened slightly. “Sarasate is playing the Saint-Saëns third violin concerto tonight,” he said languidly.
“Shall we go?” I said, trying not to sound anxious.
“Well...” he said, looking out at the bleak, bleary day. “Oh, why not?” he cried suddenly, springing up from his chair. “After all, there’s no point in moping around here.”
With that, he disappeared into his bedroom, and I heard the sound of drawers opening and closing, and the clatter of hangers being flung
about. Holmes was a study in contrasts: his moods seemed to range from utterly listless to intensely energetic, with very little in between.
I helped myself to some brandy and sat in my usual chair before the fire while Holmes dressed, listening to the hiss of rain on the street outside. The flames from the fireplace cast a yellow glow about the room, and the brandy was warm on my throat. My eyes fell on the picture of Reichenbach Falls which hung above the mantel, and, once again, a shiver wormed its way up my spine. It was three and a half years since that fateful day in Switzerland when I thought I had lost my friend forever, and yet every detail of that horrid scene remained fresh in my mind: his abandoned walking stick leaning up against the rock, the farewell note so carefully written in Holmes’ firm, clear hand. Indeed, the note did such a good job of deceiving me that I never questioned that my friend had fallen to his death over that awful precipice, along with Professor Moriarty. It was a long three years before I found out that I was mistaken, and the months since had an unreal quality about them. I sometimes felt I was dreaming, and that I would awaken to find Holmes was dead after all.
“Do you need to eat first?” he called out from the bedroom.
I was touched by my friend’s concern, knowing that for him food was often nothing more than a necessary evil. Though he was known to enjoy a feast at Simpson’s, his lean figure attested to his general impatience with the demands of the body. I sometimes thought that one of my functions in our friendship was to keep him from collapsing outright from the extreme demands he often placed upon his constitution.
“Maybe Mrs. Hudson can put a sandwich together for me before we leave,” I said.
“Oh, she’s visiting her sister in the West Country,” he said, appearing from the other room in a starched white shirt and tails.
“That’s better, don’t you think?” he said with a wink. I knew that Holmes was aware of my concerns, and that he did his best not to alarm me unduly.
Trying not to show how pleased I was, I got my coat and hat.
“What about food for you?” said Holmes as we left, pulling the door of the sitting room closed behind us.
“I’m all right,” I answered. “I had a glass of brandy. We can have something afterwards.”
And so, within minutes, we were seated in a hansom cab rattling off toward the Royal Albert Hall. The rain had settled into a steady drizzle, and I sat watching the droplets bounce off the cobblestones, looking out at the parade of humanity which trudged through the streets of London.
“Look at that, Watson. All the world’s a stage, but London... you know, each and every one of those people out there has a story, and most of them will go untold. It’s only the ones who commit acts of greatness—of goodness or villainy—that we will ever hear of, or that posterity will remember. For instance, take that man there,” he said, indicating a thin, stringy-limbed fish vendor hawking his wares at the open-air market. “He had a career in the military, met with some success, was disappointed in love, and now he is a fish vendor.”
I was about to ask Holmes to explain, but not wanting to interrupt his train of thought, I said nothing. Holmes continued. “Does it haunt him, I wonder, that no one is really very curious about his life, and that a hundred years from now no one will even remember that he lived at all? He will be just one of the millions of untold human stories which walk these streets every day.”
“Perhaps his family will remember him,” I said.
“Perhaps, but after a while even their curiosity will wane, and traces of his existence will gradually vanish from the face of the earth. No, Watson,” he said, leaning back in the cab so that his long,
lean face was in the shadows, “immortality does not come to those who live commonplace lives; it is the sole province of the doer of extraordinary deeds.”