Free The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Martin Edwards

insist on accompanying me back home. How glad I am that he did. As I was about to take out the key to the door at the side of the building which leads to my private accommodation, I became aware that the lock was broken. At once I knew that the message had not been a hoax. This was the predicted crime. Yet something caused me to throw caution to the winds and although Kilner tried to hold me back, I shook him off and hurried into the house.’
    The old man was breathing hard. Although he spoke of hurrying, he could not have been fit enough to move at more than a snail’s pace and he had already admitted the dread that he had felt following receipt of the anonymous note. Yet the instinct to protect his home and business had prevailed and, not knowing whether the miscreant was still inside, he had been brave enough to investigate. My heart went out to him, but upon Holmes’ features I could discern merely an intense concentration upon the unfolding facts.
    ‘What did you find?’
    ‘Nothing untoward,’ came the melancholy reply. ‘The shop was deserted and so too were my private rooms at the back and upstairs. I could find no sign, at first, that anything had been taken. I have never made a habit of acquiring elaborate possessions. Some of my stock is valuable, as I have mentioned. You will remember that I keep cigar cutters imported from America. They are ingenious mechanical contraptions which cost a pretty penny. Equally valuable are the silver vesta holders and porcelain match-holders. But Mr Holmes, not one of them had been taken.’
    ‘Perhaps the burglar was disturbed,’ I suggested.
    ‘I thought the same. Even when I discovered that something had, indeed, been stolen from me. Yet nothing of value to anyone but myself.’
    ‘What was it?’ Holmes demanded.
    Mr Buckle dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief that had seen better days. ‘A handful of family letters that I kept in a box in the parlour. A couple were written by my dear Charlotte, prior to our marriage. But the majority – perhaps a dozen – came from my late son, George.’
    ‘I recall that you once mentioned him to me,’ Holmes said. ‘He was a sailor, wasn’t he?’
    ‘What a memory you have!’ our visitor exclaimed. ‘He was our pride and joy. A fine, upstanding lad.’
    ‘He was lost at sea, was he not?’ In Holmes’ voice was a note of sympathy that startled me. I had never heard him speak with such tenderness before.
    ‘That is correct.’ At this point, emotion overwhelmed Mr Buckle and he blew his nose with some violence. ‘He was only twenty years old. There was a terrible gale in the Tasman Sea. Many hands were lost, including George. That was in 1855, and I have thought about him on every day that has passed since then.’
    ‘He wrote to you from ports of call, did he not? I recall that you showed me one or two of his letters.’
    ‘You must forgive an old man his pride,’ Mr Buckle said in a muffled voice. ‘I’m a sentimental old fool, I suppose, keeping those letters. But apart from my memories, they are all that I have left of him and I like to show them to people who might be interested. He was such a lively correspondent, Mr Holmes. His last voyage took him to the other side of the world and he delighted in telling us what he got up to and all about the sights he saw.’
    ‘Were all his letters were stolen by this burglar?’
    ‘Not all of them, thank the Lord. He left a couple, together with several from Charlotte, which I kept in a drawer in my bedroom. But the theft mortified me. How I wished that the rogue had stolen something else – anything but those letters! Kilner did his best to console me, but I would have none of it. Suddenly I had the worst of all worlds. A determined burglar had for some reason made me his target, yet failed to take anything but the items I held most dear. It was a pound to a penny that he would return to steal whatever he wanted in the first place. He left no clues for the police