Free The Final Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1 by John A. Little Page A

methods to solving crimes and my career as a consulting detective. You know better than anybody how all-consuming that has been to me. I forgot about Conan altogether and only heard about him again when Mycroft informed me years later that my childhood friend had been released from hospital, ostensibly cured, and had married and settled down with a family of his own. My brother had bumped into him at the British Museum, just around the corner from Montague Street, where I lived when I first came to London. Conan was working there as a librarian and researcher. This was in the days when Mycroft used to attend those arty Bloomsbury gatherings in Gordon Square. You know, Lady Ottoline Morrell, or Lady Utterly Immoral, as she was known in the popular press.’
    â€˜Do you think that Conan has anything to do with the murders?’
    â€˜I don’t know, Watson. He would be my age now and our man or woman must surely be much younger and more powerful to lift Mycroft or our father around. Not to mention overcome them and drug and emasculate them. But a child of his, perhaps? Who grew up listening constantly to his father’s bitter tales at the fireside of his betrayal by the Holmes family? Remember this fiend knows a lot about us, including where my hermetic father was living.’
    â€˜We could check out any people named Arthur living around London?’ I suggested helpfully.
    â€˜That was one of the first things I did, Watson. There are none registered. But family names can be changed, especially if there is a scandal involved, or a history of mental instability that needs to be camouflaged. It is difficult to find work after a spell in an asylum.’
    â€˜The British Museum may have a record of all past employees.’
    â€˜Excellent, Watson, excellent. A distinct touch of genius. Why didn’t I think of that? When we return to London I suggest that you occupy yourself with their archives, while I struggle with the latest cipher.’
    â€˜All right, Holmes,’ I sighed. ‘I will. Exactly when did Mycroft meet him?’
    â€˜Better check from 1890 through to 1910. The man you’re looking for would have been 35-55 years of age then.’
    â€˜Right. What about your parents, after you left? Did they continue to live together in the same way? Just surviving from day to day and tolerating each other’s company?’
    â€˜For many years they did, but my mother finally decided to do something about it. One day she walked down to the garden shed and drank a full bottle of weed-killer. There was no note. The family doctor called the act an ‘impulse’, as though that explained everything. It must have been an extremely painful death.’
    I sat up sharply. ‘Holmes, my dear chap. Are you telling me that your mother committed suicide? At a time when we were so busy together in our detective work? And you never told me?’
    He took a first sip of his brandy.
    â€˜I apologise, Watson. What is the point of getting emotional about it now? As you say, we were very busy in 1894, and you had recently lost your first wife. If I remember correctly, I decided not to burden you with my loss. I attended her funeral with Mycroft and barely addressed ten words to our father, who had run down the farm through his rampant alcoholism and gambling by then and did not seem, I must say, all that bothered by her departure. He sold up shortly afterwards and moved down here.’
    â€˜But you must have been grief-stricken to lose your mother like that.’
    â€˜No more so than any other way. Five minutes, and it was all over. Many people linger in constant agony for years before they die. That is worse. And it is our destiny to become nobody’s child, Watson, is it not?’
    â€˜Have you ever talked to anybody about this?’
    â€˜Yes. I’m talking to you now. But in my opinion grief is never shared. It is simply spread around. I have now lost my parents and my