An Evening in Baker Street

And the very good news is that 'Sherlock Holmes and the Lyme Regis Horror'  is currently the Number One Bestseller in the Sherlock Holmes Mysteries category on Amazon UK!! 

Coming soon, well not all that soon, but definitely coming is An Evening in Baker Street. Three shortish pieces with the longest of them taking the form of a conversation between Holmes and Watson on the eve of Holmes's retirement. Although a few familiar faces drift in and out of the evening...

Oh go on then, have an excerpt:

‘Good evening, Watson.’

‘Evening, Holmes.’

‘I trust your rounds were not too onerous and your patients not too demanding.’

‘No more so than is usual, Holmes. Your note was a little short on information and your prose as always, rather terse. You need my assistance with a knotty problem?’

‘If I had a knotty problem as you term it, then I would only be too glad to share it with you, but I have an announcement to make.’

‘That sounds rather portentous.’

‘You may certainly see it as such. I am retiring, Watson.’

‘I have never seen you as retiring, a little diffident maybe!’

‘Good old Watson! A dose of your pawky humour is nearly always welcome even if at times I fail to understand it fully. As you may have gathered and chose to ignore, I have decided to retire from this profession of mine.’

‘To do what? I cannot imagine the sight of you in carpet slippers, sitting beside the fire in a state of torpor.’

‘No more than I can, my friend. I have a worthwhile goal in mind to fill my days; I shall keep bees.’

‘Bees?’

‘Indeed, Watson. Bees.’

‘But you know nothing about bees or the keeping of them.’

‘Is that so? Pray, have a look at the volumes on the dining-table; there you see Langstroth on the Honey Bee, Root’s essential The ABC of Bee Culture and Playfair’s Of the care and knowledge of bees, their management and natural history, containing an account of the singular mode of generation by which they are produced. What do you think?’

‘I think that Playfair should have been advised by his publisher to come up with a rather more enticing title for his tome.’

‘Perhaps he did not share your love of penny-dreadfuls! My hives are ordered; Langstroth hives in fact with tried and tested Quinby frames. My colony will soon follow’

‘Is Mrs Hudson aware of the changes to her yard?’

‘There will be no changes to her yard for I am decamping to Sussex. I have taken a villa at Fulworth on the edge of the southern downs. It fulfils my requisites to the letter; enough land to indulge my new hobby, peace, quiet and seclusion and the glorious country and sea views that you have been known to wax most lyrically about.’

‘I remember well your own comments on the countryside, remarking on the impunity with which crimes may be committed there. If I waxed lyrically it was to countermand your own somewhat jaundiced view of the delights of country living. Yet, you were brought up in the country so I never quite understood your antipathy towards it.’

‘As to that I cannot profess to have any great antipathy towards it, not in reality. My own childhood, spent in the moors of North Yorkshire, was reasonably happy notwithstanding certain tensions within the family circle. I was much like any other child, you will be surprised to learn. I climbed my fair share of trees, slid down hayricks a plenty, and rambled the fields with a toy bow and arrow imagining myself to be a big game hunter.’

‘With Mycroft as companion in these adventures?’

‘Nay, Mycroft was neither built for such pursuits or indeed had the inclination. And remember, he is seven years older which would have tended to exclude sibling adventuring. I was a solitary child, which will not be any great surprise to you even if the nature of my pastimes does. My chosen profession coloured the countryside for me, the pastoral scenes I remembered from my childhood were now replaced and tainted by murders, beatings, blackmail, robberies and the like in leafy Surrey, the gardens of Kent or the downs of Sussex. But now as I free myself from the shackles of detecting, I can rediscover the love of the countryside I once had.’

‘You speak as though it will a matter of little or no consequence to throw off the mantle of the world’s greatest consulting detective.’

‘Really, Watson, I do not believe anyone thinks of me in those terms, they are your words, your prose.’

‘Methinks you protest too much, Holmes. You are more than aware of your special gifts in your chosen field.’

‘And I am aware that you chose to exaggerate those gifts to embellish your stories. I am convinced that your readers saw me as a superhuman magician who could do no wrong and was never wrong.’