Sequel to 'The Case of the Dead Detective'.

It's 1931, Sherlock Holmes died, returned as a ghost, got involved in a case that led to his banishment to the mortal world and is now living in Watson's summerhouse. And everyone is happy with the situation… or are they?

The Haunting of Dr Watson

Chapter One

"The cost of a decent funeral has risen exponentially since my day," remarked Sherlock Holmes as we sat together in my study on a blustery afternoon in late September of 1931. "I remember a time when one could be sent off respectably for less than seven pounds. Today that sum would barely cover the cost of the coffin, let alone the expense of hearse and horses."

It was a curious turn of conversation for someone who had not five minutes ago drifted into the room complaining that his train had been delayed half an hour by an excess of fallen leaves on the line five miles out of London Bridge.

I use the word 'drifted' advisedly, for the Holmes I had known had never drifted anywhere in his life. In death, however, to say that he strode with decision and purpose did not seem apt for one who had entered through the closed French windows without ever opening them from the garden outside, bringing with him the chill of the grave and wearing an expression to match.

I did not, as anyone who has read their fair share of ghost stories might expect, throw my hands in the air in horror or pass into a dead faint. Indeed, when I saw him materialise and pass across the room, the distraction was not enough to draw my attention from my beleaguered accounts and the myriad of bills that seemed to grow every day.

Some might say it is not the done thing to feign indifference when presented with a supernatural occurrence; I hold, however, that there is something to be said for maintaining social pleasantries. After all, what else does one say to an old friend who makes an unexpected appearance but 'good afternoon'?

"Indeed it is," Holmes had replied in answer to my greeting. "And all the better for returning to familiar surroundings, no thanks to the efforts of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Add to that the not inconsiderable walk from the station to your residence, and I find that I am intolerably tardy."

One eccentricity I had noticed that Holmes had developed since his demise was that he persisted in behaving as though he was a creature of flesh and blood, still subject to the trivialities that beset our daily lives.

"I will never understand why you bother to take the train," I remarked. "I should have thought it was easier for you to materialise at your chosen destination."

With a sigh of muted frustration, he settled himself into the easy chair to the side of the grate. "Undeniably," he agreed. "However, I find it is a habit I cannot break. It costs me nothing, save time, and that I have to excess."

I did not press the point, for I understood his meaning all too well.

We had a somewhat unconventional arrangement, Holmes and I. Eighteen months ago, he had died, suddenly and at home. A year later, he had chosen to reappear to me in the form of a spectre, unable to rest easy while one of his old cases was under scrutiny and believing himself to have been murdered. In the investigation that had followed, we had met with old friends in the form of Inspector Lestrade and made new ones, namely his grandson, George, who had either been useful or had made a nuisance of himself, depending on the view one took of the affair. The case had ended with our upholding Holmes' original findings, setting right an old wrong, discovering that his death had been of natural causes and me taking a bullet to the shoulder.

It was not a pleasant business. I should not dwell on it at all, except that Holmes had intervened to save my life and in so doing had broken the first and foremost cardinal rule of his existence, namely that he was forbidden to interfere in the affairs of the living. As punishment, he had found himself earthbound, with all the inconveniences and none of the advantages of our modern world.

So it was that when he had found himself homeless and adrift, I had offered him a safe harbour in the old summerhouse that had sat neglected and ivy-clad in my garden. I had endeavoured to make it comfortable for him by placing at his disposal those items that had been around him on a daily basis, but his was a restless soul, in death as in life. Days would go by when I did not see him at all. Then, just as this afternoon, he would reappear and we would continue as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a man to be haunted by the ghost of his former friend and colleague.

Unconventional perhaps, but then Holmes had never scraped his knee before the altar of the mundane. For myself, I had accepted what could not be changed and tried not to appear too eccentric by appearing to talk to myself in the company of others. Such an arrangement would not be to everyone's taste; my conscience, however, would permit nothing less. I could no more have turned him from my door than ignore those peremptory summonses that interrupted my surgery and cost me more than patients in the financial sense when Holmes was in practice.

If it sat well with me, it was perhaps less so with Holmes. For a man who had steadfastly refuted the existence of ghosts from cradle to grave, to find himself 'reduced', as he put it, to such a state was a cause for indignation. To find then that his casual treatment of the rules would not be tolerated had been a further source of irritation. He did not speak of his condition or the terms of his punishment, except initially to state that his exile was likely to be a lengthy one.

Try as he might to behave as though that prospect was not of the slightest importance to him, I was only too aware when he turned to brooding on his future. His presence became sour and the atmosphere heavy, as though his miseries were leeching out of him, like dampness from a wall, and similarly leaving behind the unmistakeable traces of a former presence.

I have read about the effect in many a ghost tale, about rooms oppressive with spectral activity, where impressionable ladies have been overcome with a feeling of dread and loathing, and have thought it wildly improbable. To experience it for oneself, however, is quite another matter. The effect of his darker moods was to produce in me a profound sense of depression and the physical discomfort of a headache, such as the sort that began to throb at the base of my skull when he came into my study that afternoon.

That his conversation had now turned from the inadequacies of the railway companies to a financial consideration of the disposal of one's mortal remains confirmed my suspicions as to the turn of his thoughts.

"At least you don't have to purchase a ticket," said I. "I'm not sure I can afford to travel, let alone die at the moment." I gestured to the growing pile of bills. "I fear my creditors will not let me escape their clutches so easily."

Holmes did not react to my poor attempt at humour. I tried a different tack.

"Why this sudden interest in funerals?" I asked.

"Because I have had cause to attend several in the past week," said he idly, brushing a trace of imaginary lint from the immaculate line of his trousers. "I must say, funerals have become decidedly dull affairs since my youth. I recall a particularly trying occasion when a scuffle broke out at the graveside over the vicar's fee, during which great uncle Afton was pitched headlong into the open grave. Then there was the time when cousin Esmerelda attended the funeral of her late husband dressed in pink and pronounced at the service that she was a believer in life after death – which by her interpretation meant that now that her husband was dead, she had a life. She went through seven husbands, and at least three of them were her own."

From the day that Holmes had sprung upon me the revelation that he had brother, I had long since ceased to be either surprised or dismayed by these snippets from his family history, which seemed populated by all manner of curiously-named and eccentric individuals. Instead, I endeavoured to draw him back to the matter in hand.

"Do I take it then that these funerals you have been attending of late were relations of yours?"

"No, they were strangers to me."

"Then why?" I asked, perplexed.

"I was looking for someone."

"At a funeral? Who on earth—"

"That statement is more perceptive than you realise," said he. "The individual I was seeking was not on earth, but in that transitive state between this world and the next." He hesitated for a fraction of second. "I need to communicate with my brother. Since I cannot speak to Mycroft directly in the spiritual realm, an intermediary was required to convey my message to him. I had to attend sixteen funerals before I found what I was looking for, and even then I am not entirely confident that my missive will be delivered."

I gave him a questioning look. Holmes delighted in filtering pieces of information about the afterlife to me as and when he saw fit, so that I was often taken aback by his description of what appeared to be as bureaucratic an organisation as any government department.

"It is considered the height of poor taste to attend one's funeral," he explained. "Nevertheless, some do. The person I was seeking, therefore, was a gentleman inured to considerations of vulgarity and the finer feelings of his relatives. Such a fellow I found in the unhappy shade of Mr Josiah Makepeace Jones. Avowedly parsimonious, he put in an appearance at the graveyard to see that the frugality he preached in life was being practised at his burial. I am sorry to say that he was disappointed."

Holmes chuckled at my expression.

"He was much offended by what he judged to be excessive expenditure. He begrudged the vicar his fee, berated his widow for wearing black silk and declared that, had he known his family would throw away good money after bad on floral tributes, he would have left his fortune to the cats' home."

"And this is the fellow you have entrusted to get word to your brother?"

"I had no other choice, Watson. Contrary to what you may have heard, the majority of ghosts have better things to do with their time than haunt the place of their burial. I could not have remained there much longer. I was making the gravedigger nervous."

"He could see you?"

"I cannot say for certain, except that every time he passed me, he kept whistling that infernal music hall ballad, 'I am the Ghost of Sherlock Holmes'." He made what sounded like a grunt of annoyance. "Messrs Morton and Barry have much to answer for."

"Apt though, considering your circumstances."

"Ah, yes. My circumstances." There was an undercurrent in his voice, though whether bitterness or irony I could not tell. "That is not something I am likely to forget, with a vigilant friend to remind me."

"Holmes, I did not mean—"

"No, Watson, you never do. You have a way of saying things that does not necessarily work to your advantage. However," said he, releasing a long sigh, "I concede that I am not in the best of humours. My pigeon has flown home, and now I must await a response. Knowing how little Mycroft stirs himself these days, I could be waiting a very long time."

"Is it important?"

He glanced almost dismissively in my direction. "Do you imagine I would have endured the discomforts of a suburban graveyard for any other reason? Then you have your answer. I, however, do not have mine. I find myself pressed and can find no logical reason for it."

Even if I did not understand the nature of his problem, I could appreciate the reluctant appeal for help. I knew from oblique references Holmes had made to obscure tomes on psychic phenomena that he had been pursuing the problem of his exile. My natural instinct was to assume that he had met with an obstacle, one that needed his brother's greater insight. In that respect, I had little to offer but my support. I hoped Holmes knew by now he had that unconditionally, although it never hurt to remind him.

"May I be of assistance?"

He favoured me with a rueful smile. "Were that possible, old fellow. You cannot help, for I fear you are part and parcel of the problem. The solution lies here," said he with determination tap of his forefinger on the desk. "I know what must be done and yet I shy away from the inevitable." He paused. "I am, as a certain of Shakespeare's dames put it, 'infirm of purpose'."

"That does not sound at all like you," I remarked.

"Which is why I need my brother's counsel, loath that I am to admit it. Well, I shall hear when he is good and ready. Whether I can afford to wait that long is another matter."

"Have you considered…" I hesitated, knowing Holmes's likely reaction to what I was about to suggest. "Consulting a medium?"

He gave me a look that seemed to have been pulled from the depths of a Stygian winter.

"If it is a matter of urgency, as you say, and you need to consult your brother—"

"Watson, you know my thoughts on the subject. Let us suppose, for one moment, that we find a genuine medium – and we know how rare such people are – how then would I begin to explain my situation? Is such a person to be trusted? There would not be a single newspaper that would not carry the story. I should be ridiculed."

"Very well then. I could go in your place."

He studied me with interest. "I thought you did not approve."

"I do not. This current fashion for table-turning as an after-dinner parlour game seems to me to invite trouble. If the dead wish to make contact, then they will find some means of doing so without banging on the furniture."

"As I did," Holmes said evenly.

"Precisely. Those are my objections. However if my attending a séance would be of assistance to you…"

"Then you would be ready to sacrifice your scruples. Admirable, Watson, but unnecessary. Besides which, Mycroft would never attend such a gathering. He has never been one for crowds and those who are able to 'lift the veil' between this world and the next invariably attract a following."

"Do you mean to say there is a sort of spiritual waiting list?" I asked incredulously.

Holmes nodded. "It works on the same principle as the queue in the Post Office and moves just as slowly. Some people have been waiting years for their opportunity. No, I fear I shall have to wait. Not that that prospect is entirely disagreeable." His gaze had passed over the torn mass of brown wrapping paper spilling from the waste bin. "The gramophone record I requested has arrived, I see. We shall have Wagner this afternoon."

"I'm afraid not. Mr Simmons says he doesn't get much demand for Wagner."

"Then what?"

"Elgar."

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "Elgar again? Simmons seems unable to supply anything else. Not the Enigma Variations, is it? We have already heard three different versions."

"No, Elgar's Violin Concerto. I thought it would be rather more to your taste."

"My taste this afternoon is for Wagner, and here we have Elgar. Still, it makes a pleasant change from Vaughn Williams and his interminable fantasias of 'Olde England'." He sighed and closed his eyes. "Your study compares unfavourably with the Albert Hall, but I dare say it will do the piece justice. And there are worse ways to pass the time."

"Actually, Holmes, now is not a good time."

He deigned to open his eyes. "It cannot be tonight. You have another of those tiresome Regimental Dinners to attend."

I had not told him of the engagement and was interested to learn how he had deduced that fact. "How did you know that?"

"You have been polishing your medals. The traces on the cloth you have disposed of are quite distinctive as is the smell of metal polish in this room. Had the maid been polishing the silver, she would have taken the cloth away with her. You, however, naturally drop it into the waste paper basket as it is readily to hand. Since you only ever wear your medals at Regimental Dinners, I was led to the obvious conclusion."

"And you are correct. As for this afternoon, I am expecting someone. A journalist."

Holmes sat up in his chair. "A member of the Fourth Estate? What does he want?"

"An interview. The usual questions, I assume."

"Why now?"

"Why not?"

"Newspapers are not in the business of pandering to the egos of ageing authors. An item must be worthy of the space it occupies in the pages of the publication. I would be wary, my dear fellow. This journalist undoubtedly has an ulterior motive. To which newspaper is he attached?"

I sought and finally consulted his letter. "The Daily Blast."

"One of the newer titles," said he distastefully. "It claims to be the paper that 'rips the lid off', whatever that means. The question that should concern us is why they would want to rip your lid off, Watson."

There was a knock at the door and the maid entered to inform me that a Mr Joseph Johnson from The Daily Blast had arrived for our appointment.

"I believe we are about to find out," I said to Holmes, tidying away my papers. "Are you going to stay?"

"You may need a witness in case you incriminate yourself."

"You will be the first person I call in my defence," I said in good humour.

I rose to welcome Mr Johnson, a thin, fresh-faced young man with the spatulate fingertips of one who habitually uses a typewriter and a grey smudge on the finger and thumb of his right-hand from the lead of a pencil. I fancied there was a crafty aspect to his eyes, which seemed entirely undeserved and attributable to Holmes having filled my head with allegations of underhand motives. He appeared open and interested, and asked the usual questions about my writing, my association with Sherlock Holmes and my present occupation. It was as pleasant an interview as any I had ever had. Then the conversation turned to questions of law and order.

"Of course, Mr Holmes had a rather more relaxed attitude to the law," said Johnson. When I hesitated, he glanced up at me and his eyes had lost their former affability. "You have documented as much in your writings, Doctor, how he would take the law into his own hands."

"Careful, Watson," Holmes warned.

"Mr Holmes had a great deal of respect for the law."

"As you say. But he let that Ryder fellow go free despite his involvement in the theft of the Blue Carbuncle."

"Well…"

"He conspired with the Duke of Holderness to conceal the crimes of his illegitimate son and then took a considerable sum from the Duke, seemingly for his silence."

"It wasn't like that at all," I protested.

"And allowed the murderers of both Sir Eustace Brackenstall and Charles Augustus Milverton to evade justice! Whatever their crimes, sir, any just man would argue that surely does not excuse their deaths." He paused for breath, triumphant. "Is that what you call a respect for the law, Dr Watson?"

"Mr Johnson," I retaliated, "if you have come here with the express purpose of blackening the name and reputation of Mr Sherlock Holmes, then you have had a wasted journey."

He appeared unconcerned by this charge. "Others take a different view."

"Others?"

"Specifically, Professor Lionel Warwick and his client, Mrs Lillian Lyle. You appear taken aback, Dr Watson. Then let me enlighten you. Professor Warwick is a psychic investigator of some renown with several celebrated successes to his name. Have you heard of the poltergeist of Much Deeping? It made headlines around the world. Professor Warwick was instrumental in discovering the source of the disturbances in that case. Recently the Professor was consulted by Mrs Lyle over certain distressing incidents that had taken place at the Abbey Grange. You do remember that address, don't you, Doctor? Yes, I thought you might. It seems the investigation has turned up a rather interesting result. The Professor claims to have found the cause of the haunting, namely the spirit of Sir Eustace."

"Poppycock," I said.

"Not at all. He claims to have contacted the late Sir Eustace. According to what the spirit told him, it would appear he has a legitimate grievance. His death was not self-defence, as Captain Croker led you to believe, but cold-blooded murder in a scheme cooked up between the wife and her lover in order to secure the Brackenstall fortune for themselves. You and Mr Holmes were deceived, Doctor, and in so doing you allowed a vicious killer and his accomplice to escape the gallows. I understand the police are looking into the matter. Furthermore," he continued gleefully before I could speak in my defence, "Mrs Lyle, as the current owner of the Abbey Grange, intends to sue you for infesting her home with spirits. Now, Dr Watson, do you have any comment?"

Well, Holmes did warn him. Looks like its going to be a difficult case!

Onwards to Chapter Two!