Mammoth Books presents The Vanishing of the Atkinsons

Book 198: Mammoth Books

by Eric Brown

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Victor Trevor, an old friend of Holmes's calls him to Trincomalee, Ceylon, to investigate the vanishing of the Atkinson brothers, whose disappearance was as sudden as it was mysterious. For sixth months the people of Trincomalee have remained baffled by their departure, particularly because the brothers did not seem to have an enemy in the world. Holmes rushes to the island to help Trevor decipher just how these two men simply vanished.

Release date: May 17, 2012

Publisher: C & R Crime

Print pages: 19

Sample

It is more than likely that 1888 was also the year of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, perhaps Holmes’s most famous case, and not a decade later as popularly recorded. Holmes was initially unable to venture to Dartmoor, and sent Watson in his stead. Holmes claimed he was involved in a blackmail case, which may be true, but it is also likely that he was being consulted over the Jack the Ripper murders. There have been many attempts to account for Holmes’s involvement in that investigation, all of them, I believe, apocryphal. It is my belief that Holmes rapidly solved those murders to his own satisfaction and left Scotland Yard to bring the investigation to a conclusion, so that he could throw himself fully into the Baskerville problem.

Also at the time was the case of “The Sign of Four” in which Watson met and fell in love with Mary Morstan. They were married soon after, at the close of 1888. Watson moved out of the Baker Street apartments and also set himself up in a practice in Paddington. For a while Holmes continued his investigations on his own and it was not until March 1889 that the two were reunited in “A Scandal in Bohemia”.

Watson only later came to learn of some of the cases that Holmes investigated on his own. Amongst them was the tragedy of the Atkinson brothers. Although Watson later wrote this up he never sought its publication. Some years ago a copy of this came to my attention and my colleague, Eric Brown, has made it suitable for publication.

I had not seen my friend Sherlock Holmes for some months, pressure of work on both our parts curtailing the niceties of social intercourse, and it was quite by chance that he happened to be in his chambers when I called upon him that evening.

“Watson!” Holmes declared as Mrs Hudson showed me into the room. “Take a seat, my friend. I trust the winter is not too inclement for you?”

I warmed my hands before the fire, and then accommoda. . .