AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS
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
COMING SOON:
THE STAR OF INDIA
Carole Buggé
The
further
adventures of
SHERLOCK
HOLMES
THE PEERLESS PEER
JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.
EDITED BY
PHILIP JOSE FARMER
American Agent For The Estates of Dr. Watson, Lord Greystoke, David Copperfield, Martin Eden, And Don Quixote
WITH AFTERWORD BY WIN SCOTT ECKERT
TITAN BOOKS
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE PEERLESS PEER
ISBN: 9780857685407
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St
London
SE1 0UP
First edition: June 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.
Copyright © 2011 by the Philip J. Farmer Family Trust. All rights reserved.
Afterword copyright © 2011 by Win Scott Eckert.
Visit our website:
www.titanbooks.com
What did you think of this book? We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at: readerfeedback@titanemail.com, or write to us at the above address. To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive Titan offers online, please register as a member by clicking the ‘sign up’ button on our website: www.titanbooks.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Dedicated to Samuel Rosenberg, who has embroidered
for the world the greatest Doylie ever.
All the characters in this book are real;
any resemblance to fictional characters is
purely coincidental.
Contents
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Editor’s Comments
Afterword
Coming Soon
Foreword
As everybody knows, Dr. Watson stored in a battered tin dispatch-box his manuscripts concerning the unpublished cases of Sherlock Holmes. This box was placed in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co. at Charing Cross. Whatever hopes the world had that these papers would some day become public were destroyed when the bank was blasted into fragments during the bombings of World War II. It is said that Winston Churchill himself directed that the ruins be searched for the box but that no trace of it was found.
I am happy to report that this lack of success is no cause for regret. At a time and for reasons unknown, the box had been transferred to a little villa on the south slope of the Sussex Downs near the village of Fulworth. It was kept in a trunk in the attic of the villa. This, as everybody should know, was the residence of Holmes after he had retired. It is not known what eventually happened to the Greatest Detective. There is no record of his death. Even if there were, it would be disbelieved by the many who still think of him as a living person. This almost religious belief thrives though he would, if still alive, be one hundred and twenty years old at the date of writing this foreword.
Whatever happened to Holmes, his villa was sold in the late 1950s to the seventeenth Duke of Denver. The box, with some other objects, was removed to the ducal estate in Norfolk. His Grace had intended to wait until after his death before the papers would be allowed to be published. However, His Grace, though eighty-four years old now, feels that he may live to be a hundred. The world has waited far too long, and it is certainly ready for anything, no matter how shocking, that may be in Watson’s narratives. The duke has given his consent to the publication of all but a few papers, and even these may see print if the descendants of certain people mentioned in them give their permission. Gratitude is due His Grace for this generous decision.
On hearing the good news, your editor communicated with the British agents handling the Watson papers and was fortunate enough to acquire the American Agency for them. The adventure at hand is the first to be released; others will follow from time to time.
Watson’s holograph is obviously a first draft. A number of passages recording words actually uttered by the participants during this adventure are either crossed out or replaced with asterisks. The “peerless peer” of this tale is called “Greystoke,” but on one occasion old habit broke through and Watson inadvertently wrote “Holdernesse.” Watson left no note explaining why he had substituted one pseudotitle for another. He used “Holdernessee” in “The Adventure of the Priory School” to conceal the identity of Holmes’ noble client. Holmes himself, in his reference to the nobleman in his “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier,” used the pseudotitle of “Greyminster.”
It is your editor’s guess that Watson decided on “Greystoke” in this narrative because the pseudotitle had been made world-famous by the novels based on the African exploits of the nephew of the man Watson had called “Holdernesse.”
The adventure at hand is singular for many reasons. It reveals that Holmes was not allowed to stay in retirement after the events of “His Last Bow.” We are made aware that Holmes made a second visit to Africa, going far beyond Khartoum (though not willingly), and so saved Great Britain from the greatest danger which has ever threatened it. We are given some illumination on the careers of the two greatest American aviators and spies in the early years of World War I. We learn that Watson was married for the fourth time, and the destruction of a civilization rivaling ancient Egypt is recorded for the first time. Holmes’ contribution to apiology and how he used it to save himself and others is related herein. This narrative also describes how Holmes’ genius at deduction enabled him to clear up a certain discrepancy that has puzzled the more discerning readers of the works of Greystoke’s American biographer.