Bangs R. Holmes & Co.

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-387-14846-2
Verlag: Midwest Journal Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 111 Seiten

Reihe: Classic Short Story Collections: Mystery-Dete

What would happen if master detective Sherlock Holmes sired a son with the daughter of one of his archenemies? That's the supposition at the center of R. Holmes & Co., which pits criminal mastermind Raffles against Holmes and goes on to tell the story of how Holmes fell for Raffles' daughter Marjorie, with whom he later had a child, the Raffles Holmes of the book's title.

R. Holmes & Co.: Being the Remarkable Adventures of Raffles Holmes, Esq., Detective and Amateur Cracksman by Birth (1906) is a short story collections as sequel to the Raffles books by E.W. Hornung.

This is a collection of 10 short stories about the son of Sherlock Holmes and grandson of Raffles.

INTRODUCING
MR. RAFFLES HOLMES (excerpt)

It was a blistering night in August. All day long
the mercury in the thermometer had been flirting with the figures at
the top of the tube, and the promised shower at night which a
mendacious Weather Bureau had been prophesying as a slight mitigation
of our sufferings was conspicuous wholly by its absence. I had but
one comfort in the sweltering hours of the day, afternoon and
evening, and that was that my family were away in the mountains, and
there was no law against my sitting around all day clad only in my
pajamas, and otherwise concealed from possibly intruding eyes by the
wreaths of smoke that I extracted from the nineteen or twenty cigars
which, when there is no protesting eye to suggest otherwise, form my
daily allowance. I had tried every method known to the resourceful
flat-dweller of modern times to get cool and to stay so, but alas, it
was impossible. Even the radiators, which all winter long had never
once given forth a spark of heat, now hissed to the touch of my
moistened finger. Enough cooling drinks to float an ocean greyhound
had passed into my inner man, with no other result than to make me
perspire more profusely than ever, and in so far as sensations went,
to make me feel hotter than before. Finally, as a last resource,
along about midnight, its gridiron floor having had a chance to lose
some of its stored-up warmth, I climbed out upon the fire-escape at
the rear of the Richmere, hitched my hammock from one of the railings
thereof to the leader running from the roof to the area, and swung
myself therein some eighty feet above the concealed pavement of our
backyard- so called, perhaps, because of its dimensions which were
just about that square. It was a little improvement, though nothing
to brag of. What fitful zéphyrs there might be, caused no doubt by
the rapid passage to and fro on the roof above and fence-tops below
of vagrant felines on Cupid's contentious battles bent, to the
disturbance of the still air, soughed softly through the meshes of my
hammock and gave some measure of relief, grateful enough for which I
ceased the perfervid language I had been using practically since
sunrise, and dozed off. And then there entered upon the scene that
marvelous man, Raffles Holmes, of whose exploits it is the purpose of
these papers to tell...

John Kendrick Bangs (May 27, 1862 - January 21, 1922) was an American author, humorist, editor and satirist.

He was born in Yonkers, New York. His father Francis Nehemiah Bangs was a lawyer in New York City, as was his brother, Francis S. Bangs.

He went to Columbia College from 1880 to 1883 where he became editor of Columbia's literary magazine, Acta Columbia, and contributed short anonymous pieces to humor magazines. After graduation in 1883 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Political Science, Bangs entered Columbia Law School but left in 1884 to become Associate Editor of Life under Edward S. Martin. Bangs contributed many articles and poems to the magazine between 1884 and 1888. During this period, Bangs published his first books.

In 1888 Bangs left Life to work at Harper's Magazine, Harper's Bazaar and Harper's Young People, though he continued to contribute to Life. From 1889 to 1900 he held the title of Editor of the Departments of Humor for all three Harper's magazines and from 1899 to 1901 served as active editor of Harper's Weekly. Bangs also served for a short time (January-June 1889) as the first editor of Munsey's Magazine and became editor of the American edition of the Harper-owned Literature from January to November 1899. (Wikipedia)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bangs, John Kendrick

Leseproben

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL

“Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard,” said Raffles Holmes, leaning back in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, “was chiefly famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties, were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether he was there or not, little week-end parties of members of the sporting fraternity used to be got up at a moment’s notice to run down to Dorrington Castle, Devonshire; to Dorrington Lodge on the Isle of Wight; to Dorrington Hall, near Dublin, or to any other country place for over Sunday.

“Sometimes there’d be a lot of turf people: sometimes a dozen or more devotes of the prize-ring; not infrequently a gathering of the best-known cricketers of the time, among whom, of course, my grandfather, A. J. Raffles, was conspicuous. For the most part, the cricketers never partook of Dorrington’s hospitality save when his lordship was present, for your cricket-player is a bit more punctilious in such matters than your turfmen or ring-side habitués. It so happened one year, however, that his lordship was absent from England for the better part of eight months, and, when the time came for the annual cricket gathering at his Devonshire place, he cabled his London representative to see to it that everything was carried on just as if he were present, and that every one should be invited for the usual week’s play and pleasure at Dorrington Castle. His instructions were carried out to the letter, and, save for the fact that the genial host was absent, the house-part went through to perfection. My grandfather, as usual, was the life of the occasion, and all went merry as a marriage-bell. Seven months later, Lord Dorrington returned, and a week after that, the loss of the Dorrington jewels from the Devonshire strong-boxes was a matter of common knowledge. When, or by whom, they had been taken was an absolute mystery. As far as anybody could find out, they might have been taken the night before his return, or the night after his departure. The only fact in sight was that they were gone— Lady Dorrington’s diamonds, a half-dozen valuable jewelled rings belonging to his lordship, and, most irremediable of losses, the famous ruby seal which George IV had given to Dorrington’s grandfather, Sir Arthur Deering, as a token of his personal esteem during the period of the Regency. This was a flawless ruby, valued at some six or seven thousand pounds sterling, in which had been cut the Deering arms surrounded by a garter upon which were engraved the words, ‘Deering Ton,’ which the family, upon Sir Arthur’s elevation to the peerage in 1836, took as its title, or Dorrington. His lordship was almost prostrated by the loss. The diamonds and the rings, although valued at thirty thousand pounds, he could easily replace, but the personal associations of the seal were such that nothing, no amount of money, could duplicate the lost ruby.”

“So that his first act,” I broke in, breathlessly, “was to send for— ”

“Sherlock Holmes, my father,” said Raffles Holmes. “Yes, Mr. Jenkins, the first thing Lord Dorrington did was to telegraph to London for Sherlock Holmes, requesting him to come immediately to Dorrington Castle and assume charge of the case. Needless to say, Mr. Holmes dropped everything else and came. He inspected the gardens, measured the road from the railway station to the castle, questioned all the servants; was particularly insistent upon knowing where the parlor-maid was on the 13th of January; secured accurate information as to the personal habits of his lordship’s dachshund Nicholas; subjected the chef to a cross-examination that covered every point of his life, from his remote ancestry to his receipt for baking apples; gathered up three suit-cases of sweeping from his lordship’s private apartment, and two boxes containing three each of every variety of cigars that Lord Dorrington had laid down in his cellar. As you are aware, Sherlock Holmes, in his prime, was a great master of detail. He then departed for London, taking with him an impression in wax of the missing seal, which Lord Dorrington happened to have preserved in his escritoire.

“On his return to London, Holmes inspected the seal carefully under a magnifying-glass, and was instantly impressed with the fact that it was not unfamiliar to him. He had seen it somewhere before, but where? That was now the question upper-most in his mind. Prior to this, he had never had any communication with Lord Dorrington, so that, if it was in his correspondence that the seal had formerly come to him, most assuredly the person who had used it had come by it dishonestly. Fortunately, at that time, it was a habit of my father’s never to destroy papers of any sort. Every letter that he ever received was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes, and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under ‘Applications for Autograph’ he found a daintily-scented little missive from a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, the daughter, she said, of a retired missionary— the Reverend James Tattersby— asking him if he would not kindly write his autograph upon the enclosed slip for her collection. It was the regular stock application that truly distinguished men receive in every mail. The only thing to distinguish it from other applications was the beauty of the seal on the fly of the envelope, which attracted his passing notice and was then filed away with the other letters of similar import.

“‘Ho! ho!’ quoth Holmes, as he compared the two impressions and discovered that they were identical. ’An innocent little maiden who collects autographs, and a retired missionary in possession of the Dorrington seal, eh? Well, that is interesting. I think I shall run down to Goring-Streatley over Sunday and meets Miss Marjorie Tattersby and her reverend father. I’d like to see to what style of people I have intrusted my autograph.’

“To decide was to act with Sherlock Holmes, and the following Saturday, hiring a canoe at Windsor, he made his way up the river until he came to the pretty little hamlet, snuggling in the Thames Valley, if such it may be called, where the young lady and her good father were dwelling. Fortune favored him in that his prey was still there— both much respected by the whole community; the father a fine looking, really splendid specimen of a man whose presence alone carried a conviction of integrity and a lofty man; the daughter— well, to see her was to love her, and the moment the eyes of Sherlock fell upon her face that great heart of his, that had ever been adamant to beauty, a very Gibraltar against the wiles of the other sex, went down in the chaos of a first and overwhelming passion. So hard hit was he by Miss Tattersby’s beauty that his chief thought now was to avert rather than to direct suspicion towards her. After all, she might have come into possession of the jewel honestly, though how the daughter of a retired missionary, considering its intrinsic value, could manage such a thing, was pretty hard to understand, and he fled back to London to think it over. Arrived there, he found an invitation to visit Dorrington Castle again incog. Lord Dorrington was to have a mixed week-end party over the following Sunday, and this, he thought, would give Holmes an opportunity to observe the characteristics of Dorrington’s visitors and possibly gain therefore some clew as to the light-fingered person from whose depredations his lordship had suffered. The idea commended itself to Holmes, and in the disguise of a young American clergyman, whom Dorrington had met in the States, the following Friday found him at Dorrington Castle.

“Well, to make a long story short,” said Raffles Holmes, “the young clergyman was introduced to many of the leading sportsmen of the hour, and, for the most part, they passed muster, but one of them did not, and that was the well-known cricketer A. J. Raffles, for the moment Raffles entered the room, jovially greeting everybody about him, and was presented to Lord Dorrington’s new guest, Sherlock Holmes recognized in him no less a person that the Reverend James Tattersby, retired missionary of Goring-Streatley-on-Thames, and the father of the woman who had filled his soul with love and yearning of the truest sort. The problem was solved. Raffles was, to all intents and purposes, caught with the goods on. Holmes could have exposed him then and there had he chosen to do so, but every time it came to the point the lovely face of Marjorie Tattersby came between him and his purpose. How could he inflict the pain and shame which the exposure of her father’s misconduct would certainly entail upon that fair woman, whose beauty and fresh innocence had taken so strong a hold upon his heart? No—  that was out of the question. The thing to do, clearly was to visit Miss Tattersby during her father’s absence, and, if possible, ascertain from just how she had come into possession of the seal, before taking further steps in the matter. This he did. Making sure, to begin with, that Raffles was to remain at Dorrington Hall for the coming ten days, Holmes had himself telegraphed for and returned to London. There he wrote himself a letter of introduction to the Reverend James Tattersby, on the paper of the Anglo-American Missionary Society, a sheet of which he secured in the public...