A Study in Amber Read online

  A STUDY IN AMBER

  (Book 1 of Holmes and Holmes)

  by

  P. J. Humphrey

  Copyright 8 2015 by Phyllis A. Humphrey

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval systems now known or henceforth invented, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, website or broadcast.

  Special Smashwords edition

  This ebook is part of a series called Holmes and Holmes. This first book is provided free and you are welcome to share it with others. Additional books in the series, although reasonably priced, are not free and restrictions on their dissemination will apply, as described in the front matter.

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt thanks to Fern Field Brooks, Emmy-winning TV producer and dear friend who, a few years ago, suggested a Sherlock Holmes series. I hope she likes what I did with her idea.

  Also, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate my grandson Rob Humphrey for creating the covers I wanted for the books in this series. But I can give you his contact information in case you are an author in need of a cover – or just anyone in need of a great graphic design. Contact him at [email protected] and see more of his work at http://www.coroflot.com/rhrobartdesign.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Other Titles by this Author

  Dear Reader

  Chapter 1

  My name is Sheridan Holmes and I’m the great-granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes.

  You needn’t laugh. I can prove it. Sort of. I mean, I’m not illiterate. I graduated from college. Stanford, no less. So I know people think Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the nineteenth century. However, it’s no secret that he based Holmes on a real person, a doctor he knew from medical school. According to Conan Doyle’s stories, Holmes never married or had any children, but in reality he did admire a certain woman, and he was even engaged briefly. Although he claimed he didn’t understand women and often felt he couldn’t trust them, nevertheless, he remained always courteous and sympathetic.

  He could have had an affair with someone, but, if he had, they might have had to hush it up for some reason. Besides, in those days, having a baby out of wedlock was always—as they used to say in England—a “sticky wicket.” But I digress.

  Back to my being related. Clue number one. My name is almost the same. But whether his name was really Sherlock Holmes or not isn’t that important. However, it points to his being my great-grandfather. I was adopted, and the name was given to me by my adoptive mother, Fenella Bowen. Yes, the Hollywood actress. She says she was in the throes of a divorce at the time and starring in yet-another television remake of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES when the adoption came through. She said it amused her to give me that name.

  Of course, my adoptive grandmother, Tessa Reynolds, who, by the way, lives downstairs in this same restored San Francisco Victorian house where I’m writing this, insists that isn’t true. She says the adoption was a private one, and the name suggested by the doctor who delivered me. He said the birth mother insisted he couldn’t reveal how she happened to get pregnant and by whom. The doctor would know, but he’s dead. How convenient.

  Tessa says at one time she did know all the details about Holmes’s son and grandson, and, hence, how I came to be, but—due to her advancing age—she can no longer remember.

  Hogwash! Okay, she’s eighty-six and sometimes needs help carrying in groceries or reaching high shelves, but she keeps up a schedule that makes beavers look lazy. Her mind is still as sharp as ever, or else why would she write two romance novels every year that actually get published and whose royalty checks paid for this house as well as the trip to England she gave me for my graduation present a few years ago?

  Clue number two. Holmes lived at 221-B Baker Street in London and this house is on Baker Street in San Francisco. Tessa chose the house, over the dozen or so others she could have picked, because of the address. I’m convinced she wanted me to learn my true heritage, and bought the house as another way of drawing it to my attention.

  Clue Number three: Starting at age five, I voluntarily began to read every Sherlock Holmes story, and by age twelve I could even solve puzzles that stumped many grownups. However, school took up most of my time until recently; and then, while on vacation in London, I visited the museum, formerly Holmes’s digs at 221-B Baker Street. I made notes of absolutely everything in the sitting room—that’s what they call living rooms there—so I could duplicate it in my apartment here.

  In fact, on a September afternoon, I was doing that very thing when Mark Watson, the building maintenance man, knocked on my door. Tessa told me they call him “Doc” Watson, because he can do or fix anything, from helping her move her computer desk closer to the window, to making the quirky electricity in this old building work. I’d never met him before, but that day, as I struggled with boxes of stuff I’d bought for my apartment, he offered to help me unload.

  At Tessa’s description, I’d visualized him as fiftyish or even older, but this man could certainly pass for mid-thirties. He was tall and muscular, with thick, wavy dark hair and brown eyes. He wore a beige sweater over a plaid shirt and jeans, and his shoes were heavy work boots. We didn’t shake hands because both his arms were in use surrounding a large cardboard box.

  “I’m Watson,” he announced in a pleasant, deep voice. He entered, set the box down on the Victorian sofa in the room and pulled out one of the objects inside. “Where do you want Napoleon’s bust?”

  “On the fireplace mantle.” I pointed and he put it there.

  His right hand now free, I stretched mine forward to take it. “Thank you for coming. I’m Sherry Holmes.”

  He smiled, and I noticed he had a great smile, even white teeth, and a firm jaw.

  “Nice to meet you. Your grandmother, Mrs. Reynolds, said you were moving in. Glad to help.”

  He peered into the box again. “You’ve got a lot of old-fashioned junk in here, if you ask me.”

  “It’s supposed to be old. I intend to decorate this room to look like the one I saw in London, Sherlock Holmes’s sitting room.”

  “Mrs. Reynolds says you think you’re his great-granddaughter.”

  So Tessa had been gossiping about me already. Writers often talk too much. She even writes book-length letters to newspaper editors.

  “I know you and Tessa—excuse me, I mean Mrs. Reynolds—are good friends because you help her all the time, and you can believe her. How do you think I got my name? She knows I’m a descendant.”

  “But your mother, who comes to visit Mrs. Reynolds sometimes, said you were an orphan and she adopted you.”

  “Of course she did, but she knew who my real great grandparents were, so she named me Sheridan Holmes.”

  “She told me she simply obeyed a last-minute whim.”

  “You mustn’t believe everything she says. She changes her mind depending on what film she’s involved in. I love my mother, but I sometimes think she’s a Dr. Phil program waiting to happen.”

  “So giving you the name makes you a descendant of Holmes?”

  “There’s more. I have a mind just like his, and I’m going to be the next great detective.”

  He gave a short laugh and
winked. “I’ve read those stories too, you know. Just because I work with my hands doesn’t mean I haven’t read a book or two. When those stories were published everyone considered Sherlock Holmes the greatest detective of all time. No one, not that Hercule Poirot or—since you’re a woman—Miss Marple, could touch him.”

  “I agree with you, but, since I have his genes, it’s possible I have some of his ability for detecting as well. And, when I’m older, study forensics, and learn more about specialized things like poisons and tobacco ash, I might be as good.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah, learning about tobacco ash will come in handy.”

  “I was just making a point. You know what I mean.”

  Watson grinned but didn’t go back to unpacking the box. Instead he gave me a quizzical look and crossed his arms over his chest. “So, you’re a good detective, are you? Good at observing and analyzing?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “Okay, tell me about me. Like Holmes always did with strangers who came to him.”

  “Fine.” I crossed my arms too and slowly walked around Doc where he stood between the fireplace and the sofa. I couldn’t help noticing his taut muscles and broad shoulders, but I stuck with a more professional assessment.

  “First of all, before you saw me and helped with my box, you were doing some gardening in that small plot of weeds they call a backyard behind the house.”

  He glanced down at his shoes. “I scraped the dirt off before I came inside.”

  “Not quite all.” I pointed to a bit of mud on the edge of his right shoe. “Furthermore, you’ve been trimming the azalea bushes because there are bits of leaves stuck to your sweater.” I picked off a tiny green one and showed it to him. “Up here on your shoulder where apparently you couldn’t quite see to brush it off.”

  “What else?”

  “The bulges in your sweater, there at your waist, indicate you have some tools—plumbing tools perhaps—in a leather belt.”

  He nodded. “Very good. What else do you know about me, something your granny didn’t tell you, I mean.”

  “Well, you’re an educated man. Your speech and the fact that you’ve read a lot, means you haven’t been a laborer forever.”

  He laughed. “Well, I already told you that much, didn’t I?”

  “True, but I’ll go even further. You asked where I wanted you to place the bust. Not many ordinary Americans would recognize it as Napoleon. I think you were once a schoolteacher. In fact, your manner suggests you were a high school or even a junior college teacher. Why did you give it up?”

  He chuckled. “You win. I was a teacher.”

  I’m afraid I gloated a bit.

  “The answer to your question might not be what you expect. Teachers still don’t get paid what they’re worth, but money isn’t important to me. I could afford to wine and dine pretty ladies with the salary they paid me.” He gave me a look that said I might be next on his “pretty-lady” list.

  “However, I wanted to be my own boss, so I gave it up and started work as a janitor.”

  “Yet, you’re not a janitor now. Tessa says you do lots more than that. She says you do all kinds of work for her and the other owners of the old Victorians in this neighborhood.”

  He looked surprised. “Did she tell you that?”

  “Yes, but you wanted me to tell you what I’ve deduced about you, and I’ve decided you’re an entrepreneur. You started your own business and signed up many landlords in the area.”

  “You think I’m an entrepreneur, do you?”

  “Yes, because the breast pocket of your shirt contains a small supply of what are probably business cards.”

  He patted his pocket. “Okay, you are observant, but good enough to call yourself a consulting detective?”

  “No, not that.” I moved to the large desk in the corner, pulled out my sign and handed it to him. White, with black letters in a nineteenth century font, it was ten inches by two inches. “Here’s my sign. I want you to install it in the vestibule downstairs, next to my name.”

  He read what I’d printed on the sign out loud. “‘S. Holmes, Private Investigations.’ How can you do that? Don’t you have to get a license or something? You’ll need some credentials.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get them. I plan to go to the police academy and work my way up to detective. Maybe even get a job with a private eye. I have to work some place anyway. Clerking in the bakery doesn’t pay very well, and, besides, I’d get a couple of years’ practice first.”

  Watson gave me another skeptical look, so I went on. “I’ll do whatever I have to, but becoming a cop or assistant private eye takes so long. I thought I’d try to establish myself first, maybe get a head start with the sign. Advertising is so important, and, since I need a sign anyway, it doesn’t cost anything.”

  “So long? Why are you in such a hurry? What are you anyway, twenty-two? Didn’t you just graduate from college?”

  “That was three years ago and I’m twenty-five now. I don’t want to wait until I’m as old as Sherlock Holmes.”

  “So, you’re one of those modern girls who want everything fast, faster or ten minutes ago.”

  “I have a motto, ‘The things that come to those who wait are the leftover junk from those who got there first.’”

  He chuckled. “How are you going to get any business? I’ve been working in this area for four years, and I’ve never seen anyone who looked like he might want to hire a detective.”

  “Of course I don’t expect to get any walk-in traffic.”

  “Advertise then? Yellow pages?”

  “Nobody does that anymore. I’ll use the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, my own website.”

  He nodded. “Figures.”

  I took small pictures out of the box. “Can you hang these for me?”

  Proving my earlier deduction had been correct, he pushed aside his sweater and produced a small hammer. He dug into his pocket for nails.

  He grinned at me again. “See, I did a bit of deduction myself. I figured you’d want some of these pictures hung.”

  After I told him where they should go, Doc hung four small pictures and one medium-sized one within a few minutes. He peered into the cardboard box again.

  “There’s lots of small stuff in here, but I think you’re going to run out of space. The room looks cluttered to me, but I guess folks liked that a hundred years ago.” He planted his hands on his hips. “Did Sherlock Holmes like a cluttered room, do you think?”

  “Probably he never noticed his surroundings because he focused on his thoughts. However, in his stories, Arthur Conan Doyle depicted him as a somewhat messy man so far as his personal belongings were concerned.”

  Doc wandered around the room. “I see you have a violin.”

  “Yes, I found it in a second-hand music store, and I plan to take lessons one of these days.”

  “And this little box has the word ‘poison’ on it.”

  I rushed over to it. “I bought that in the Holmes museum. Obviously, it’s not the original, but I wanted to have something like that, along with the chemistry set and all those bottles that might have held mysterious concoctions.”

  “Where’d you get all this furniture?” He pointed to the horsehair sofa, two velvet-covered chairs, a round table in the center, and a roll-top desk.

  “From the thrift shop run by the Faith and Love Homeless Shelter. I volunteer in their store two mornings a week.”

  “I’ve seen the place. It’s awfully big.”

  “It has to be. People donate all sorts of stuff. Not just unwanted clothes, which I help sort out when I’m there, but tools, baking pans, glassware, china, appliances, and, yes, furniture as well.” I hadn’t even mentioned my three large wooden bookcases crammed with old volumes I’d rescued from other thrift shops, garage sales, and bookstores going out of business.

  I tugged his arm gently. “Be a dear and go downstairs now, hang my sign and bring up another box or two. I don’t want this job to last all
night.”

  Watson shrugged and went off, while I pulled out dozens of tiny bottles and placed them on the tall narrow shelves in the corner. He brought up the last box and left, and I found places for candle holders, letter openers, and several pens.

  I had just tucked two small ink wells into a pigeon-hole on the roll-top desk when I heard a voice behind me.

  “What in the world do you think you are doing?”

  I turned and swallowed a scream.

  There, not three feet away from me, stood a tall, slender man wearing a patterned coat with a shoulder cape and a soft deer-stalker cap.

  I managed to squeak out, “You’re....”

  “Sherlock Holmes, of course.”

  Actually, he looked a little like Michael Caine.

  Chapter 2

  Normally a garrulous person, I couldn’t speak.

  “Young lady, did you hear what I said? What are you doing here?”

  “I live here,” I managed to blurt out.

  “Don’t be absurd. It is I who live here. This is my flat, and I want to know why you are in it.”

  Suddenly forced to explain, I had to think for a moment. I didn’t believe he was British actor Michael Caine, who was, as far as I knew, still alive. But Sherlock Holmes? The man wore the very clothes I’d expect Holmes to wear, and his words conjured up nineteenth century speech. Had I inadvertently made the great detective materialize? I decided to await further developments.

  “Well, unless the world has gone crazy within the last few seconds, this is my flat on Baker Street in San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco? Impossible. I live in London.”

  “Not impossible at all. You see, I visited your flat in London last year, and I decided to decorate mine the same.”

  “In San Francisco? What on earth for?”

  I debated explaining all over again—as I seemed to be doing regularly these days to any number of people—how I came to want to reproduce Holmes’s famous digs, but he interrupted me.