Free The Perils of Sherlock Holmes by Loren D. Estleman

developed from the honey. It may make amends for supper. My housekeeper is deceased, I have not yet replaced her, and my cooking skills are not on a level with my ratiocination. I say, old fellow, would you mind terribly if we have a third at table?”
    “A client?” I smiled.
    “A man in need of a favour, which in an unprotected moment I agreed to provide. You may find him entertaining company. He’s in the way of being a colleague of yours.”
    “A physician? I’ve not practised in years. We shall not be able to converse in the same language.”
    “A writer; or have you retired from letters as well as medicine? Sax Rohmer is the rather outlandish name.” Turning in his armchair, he rummaged among a jumble of books in a case which looked disturbingly like a child’s coffin, and tossed a volume across to where I sat facing him upon a sagging divan.
    I inspected the book. It was bound cheaply, with a paper slipcover bearing the sensational title
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu
. Holmes smoked his pipe in silence whilst I read the opening pages.
    I closed the book and laid it in my lap. “I read this same story in serial form in a London magazine. I considered bringing suit against the author, but I couldn’t decide whether to base it on grounds of invasion of privacy or base plagiarism.”
    “Indeed. I noticed the resemblance myself: a clipped-sounding adventurer with a pipe and a nervous manner and his storytelling companion, an energetic young physician. The late lamented Professor Moriarty might also have brought a case as regards this devil doctor. But the story itself is rather ingenious and, apart from borrowing your unfortunate practice of leaving out the most important bit of information until the last, his debt to your published memoirs seems negligible—altogether too fanciful to be taken as genuine. He sent me this inscribed advance copy along with his letter requesting my assistance.”
    I opened the book to the flyleaf and read: “To Sherlock Holmes, Esq., with admiration. Sax Rohmer.” The
S
in “Sax” bore two vertical lines straight through it, in imitation of the American dollar sign. Perhaps it was this boastful reference to the author’s success upon both sides of the Atlantic that raised my ire. My own writings had required years of seasoning to attain critical and commercial acclaim.
    “I never knew your head to be turned by flattery and a disingenuous gift,” I said churlishly.
    “Good Watson, it was the problem which turned my head. This old frame is far too brittle to support any further laurels. But here, I believe, is the gentleman himself. You nearly arrived upon the same train, and might have fought your duel on board.”
    Holmes opened the front door just as another automobile from town pulled away, greeted his visitor, and performed introductions. I was taken aback by the appearance of this straight, trim young fellow, whom I judged to be about thirty years of age; his aquiline features, keen gaze, and general air of self-possession reminded me uncannily of the eager young student of unidentified sciences who first shook my hand in the chemical laboratory of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, three decades and so many adventures ago. So close was the resemblance that I was startled into accepting his handshake. I had intended to be polite but cold and aloof.
    “Dr. Watson,” he said, “I’m quite as excited to make your acquaintance as I am that of Mr. Holmes. You cannot know what an inspiration you have been to me; though you would, in the unlikely event you were ever to read my work. I am a shameless imitator.”
    This confession—the very last thing I had expected from him—left me with neither speech nor ammunition. I had been prepared to accuse him of that same transgression, and for him to deny having committed it. In one brief, pretty declaration he had managed to turn a contemptible deed into an act of veneration.
    I was not, however, disposed to respond to guile. I said,