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The Devil’s Due
Bonnie Macbird
After Art in the Blood and Unquiet Spirits, Holmes and Watson are back in the third of Bonnie MacBird’s critically acclaimed Sherlock Holmes Adventures, written in the tradition of Conan Doyle himself. It’s 1890 and the newly famous Sherlock Holmes faces his worst adversary to date – a diabolical villain bent on destroying some of London’s most admired public figures in particularly gruesome ways. A further puzzle is that suicide closely attends each of the murders. As he tracks the killer through vast and seething London, Holmes finds himself battling both an envious Scotland Yard and a critical press as he follows a complex trail from performers to princes, anarchists to aesthetes. But when his brother Mycroft disappears, apparently the victim of murder, even those loyal to Holmes begin to wonder how close to the flames he has travelled. Has Sherlock Holmes himself made a deal with the devil?
THE DEVIL’S DUE
A SHERLOCK HOLMES ADVENTURE
Bonnie MacBird
Copyright (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
This book is a new and original work of fiction featuring Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, and other fictional characters that were first introduced to the world in 1887 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of which are now in the public domain. The characters are used by the author solely for the purpose of story-telling and not as trademarks. This book is independently authored and published, and is not sponsored or endorsed by, or associated in any way with, Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. or any other party claiming trademark rights in any of the characters in the Sherlock Holmes canon.
COLLINS CRIME CLUB
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Bonnie MacBird 2019
All rights reserved
Bonnie MacBird asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover images © Bonnie MacBird (figures); Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com) (all other images)
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008195076
Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008195090
Version: 2019-08-22
Dedication (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
For my cousin, Chris Simpson
Contents
Cover (#u18879425-b670-5400-ab9d-7f6f9968f731)
Title Page (#u005cb3ec-f7d8-519f-9a23-5fcf65b78184)
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
PART ONE – LONDON
1 Fog
2 221B
3 Attack!
4 Devil and Hyde
5 Brotherly Love
PART TWO – GATHERING THE TROOPS
6 The Greater Goodwins
7 The Spice of Life
8 The Lady
9 A Question of Taste
10 The Snake and Drum
PART THREE – ALLIES AND OTHERS
11 Heffie
12 The Dogged Detective
13 The Baguette Brigade
14 Death at the Opera
15 A Voice Stilled
16 Italian Air
PART FOUR – SETBACK
17 Snap
18 Helping Hands
19 Pack of Foxes
20 Might Makes Right
PART FIVE – BACKWATER
21 Cat and Mouse
22 One Flask Closer
23 Zebras
24 Fabric of Doubt
25 Deep Waters
26 Into the Mud
PART SIX – OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
27 Aesthetes and Anarchists
28 Conflagration
29 Embers
30 The Baker Street Bazaar
31 The Bizarre
32 221B
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading … (#u82515d59-7d6d-55a6-8367-3d822feadd18)
Also by Bonnie MacBird
About the Publisher
Prologue (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
On a recent late September afternoon in London, as torrential downpours skittered down the bow window of my flat on Chiltern Street, I stood looking at the grey wall of water battering the vista below. Off to the right, across Marylebone Road, umbrellas crowded the Baker Street Station tube entrance, collapsing like evening blossoms as their owners, clad in puffy jackets, windbreakers and trainers, dashed into the building.
Those doors first opened more than a hundred and fifty years ago.
I blinked and imagined it was 1890, that same station, but beneath the jumble of umbrellas was a sea of top hats, bowlers and a few flowered bonnets, well-cut suits and the occasional long dress trailing across the muddy pavement.
Deep below street level, noisy black engines belched steam and thundered through the darkness at terrifying speeds. Some superstitious Londoners would not venture into the depths. Who knew what devilish vapours might be swirling around down there?
In 1890, London was the reigning centre of culture and commerce. But even as we romanticize those late Victorian times, we must also acknowledge that this magnificent city had her woes. What astonished me about the tale I discovered that day – inscribed in neat penmanship on a faded schoolboy notebook – was how little things had actually changed. Crime, yellow journalism, mob thinking, homelessness, murder, police brutality, fear of immigrants, dark politics – all in full flower then – and now.
But who better to slice cleanly through the shifting morass of murder, chaos and moral ambiguity than the remarkable Sherlock Holmes? It was time for a dose of his clarity, courage, and intellectual rigour.
So, once again, I sat down with the battered tin box which had been given to me by a mysterious woman from the British Library. What might be revealed today? I opened the box and immediately my eyes were drawn to a glint of gold. A bright coin had been glued to a thick envelope sticking out from the others. I pulled it out to have a look.
The coin was old, two hundred years or more. What could it mean? Its date was long before Watson and Holmes walked the London streets. A small voice inside me said that the time was right to open the package to which this coin had adhered.
As I removed the string tied round the musty envelope, a playing card fell out. On the back was a faded design in blue. I flipped it over. It was no ordinary playing card, but a Tarot card – bearing the image of a monster with a remarkably frightening visage – horns, forked tongue and a lean, muscular body. The Devil.
And then a strange thing happened.
As I stared at it, the power suddenly went off in my flat, silencing a Vivaldi violin concerto mid-arpeggio, and plunging me into near darkness. Outside, the rainy dusk was a dim glow.
I am not the superstitious type. I got up, lit a few candles, and sat back down. I gently eased the dog-eared notebook from the envelope. On the cover, The Devil’s Due, was inscribed in Dr Watson’s distinctive, neat handwriting.
Consuming this by candlelight seemed entirely appropriate. Here is what I read.
—Bonnie MacBird
London, April 2019
PART ONE (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
LONDON (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
‘Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together that the wonderful immensity of London consists.’
—Samuel Johnson
CHAPTER 1 (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
Fog (#ue6c06a5a-9a96-541d-b28f-564f08d3d4c9)
London could be heaven; London could be hell. I thought I knew the city well following more than eight years of adventures with my friend Sherlock Holmes, but the extremes of my adopted home had never revealed themselves to me so clearly as they did during the adventure I am about to relate.
It was in November of 1890 that Holmes faced one of the worst villains of his career, a monster responsible for a series of high profile, grotesque murders that both terrified and titillated the city. These violent deaths were strung, like so many blood-soaked pearls on a devil’s necklace.
Only Sherlock Holmes could have traced the gossamer thread that tied together anarchists and artists, politicians and prostitutes, grocers, grafters, and even royalty. But in the process, he was nearly consumed himself by the fires of hell. Or in this case, St James’s.
My name is Dr John Watson. At the time of this tale, I had been happily married to our former client Mary Morstan for close to two years, and had resumed my medical practice, now in Paddington. One icy Tuesday morning in November, Mary and I lingered in our quiet dining-room over coffee and the newspapers.
