Sherlock Holmes: The American Years by Michael Kurland Read Free Book Online

beauty of London stage.
    The prince shook Sherlock’s hand heartily, then reached and embraced me in his great arms. I was bereft of words.
    “How can I thank you both,” His Highness said. “My equerry, whom you know as Mr. Jenkins, was kind enough to tell me who you both are. Your courage and resourcefulness are quite amazing.”
    Not one to hold his tongue at a moment like this, Sherlock asked, “Who was that drunken fool, Your Highness?”
    The prince uttered half a laugh, then became more serious. “Apparently he is a Plantagenet pretender.”
    “A criminal!” Sherlock expostulated.
    “Perhaps,” said the prince. “Or more likely a madman. It is not for me to say. Everything will be sorted out in due course, I am certain.” He issued a sigh. “I wish I could reward you both suitably but at the moment I am traveling incognito and any ceremony would be unsuitable. But when we return to England, rest assured, you shall hear from me.”
    Sherlock scrabbled in his tweed jacket for pencil and paper. “Here, Your Highness, I’ll give you the address.”
    The prince waved his hand. “No need. No need, young man. I well know your older brother.”

Why did Sherlock Holmes first go to America? Why else, Mr. Lupoff tells us, but to attend a wedding? But complications ensued . . .
----
MY SILK UMBRELLA
A Mark Twain Story
    by
    DARRYL BROCK
    London
18 May 1897
    M y home country’s so thick with sleuth-hounds nowadays that a body can scarcely open a door without some would-be Pinkerton chucklehead—the breed
must
be chuckleheaded to keep spawning like it does—tumbling out from a rigged-up hideaway.
This
budding sleuth was cut from his own design, though, and since I first encountered him, on this very day, twenty-two years ago, he’s become notorious, puffed everywhere like a dime-show marvel, a walking, snorting, detecting legend if you judge from what all the puffers claim, especially Dr. John H. Watson, that tireless puffing engine.
    This balloon of a detective specimen—Holmes—was still an unknown article then, and as a result of our bumping together, an encounter I equate to a plague of aching molars, I somehow became one of his first paying customers. Not that I volunteered for this unlikely distinction, or paid him directly, or even
knew
about it till nearly the end of the dismal episode.
     
    18 May 1875. . . .
    My recollections of that day are nigh perfect. It was on a spring Tuesday with nature all tailored out in her new clothes that fortune threw us together at a base ball match in Hartford, where I’d moved my family the previous year. Dawn had delivered a coating of frost, and the morning papers prophesied rain showers—not that it was easy locating weather tables amongst the columns bristling with tawdry revelations from Grant’s latest corruptions—but my darling Livy managed the task, and she insisted I pack along my prize umbrella.
    I had no worthy excuse for dodging work, except that the promise of today’s match was too potent. Our hometown nine, the Dark Blues, had shaken off last year’s bottom finish and somehow catapulted themselves to a 12-0 start in the National Association. Coming to face them were Boston’s champ Red Stockings, themselves with a gaudy record of 16-0. The matchup was a sockdologer—and I was burning to see it.
    I set out along lanes canopied by cherry and peach blossoms. Golden shafts pierced the cloud-swollen sky, and I felt the air heating up. The day was built for pleasure, aburst with vital juices, redolent of sweet lost loves. Though my umbrella was superfluous, I twirled it to add dash to the figure I cut in my linen duster andnew green spectacles. I nodded to passersby who greeted me, most invoking my nom de plume, calling, “Top of the morning, Mark.”
    Downtown was tarted up like a parlor-house madam, festooned with bunting and overhung with whip pennants and banners proclaiming the Dark Blues’ invincibility. I joined the crowds on Willys