Chapter, the First.
"Cancel your plans, my dear Dimsdale, we have a case at last!"
So spoke my friend and fellow lodger, Mr Montague Ambrosius Cockshot; scientist, scholar, gentleman and amateur detective, as he greeted me at the door. It must be said that for some weeks now he had languished in one of his "dark squalls". Sometimes sitting cross legged, puffing away on the huge, oriental and ornate hookah in the corner of our study, at other times sitting, twiddling the fountain pen that was presented to him by the Tsarina of Russia herself. An occasion that I may record on paper one day. He always fiddled with this pen when in a "dark squall", struggling to write a scientific paper on this subject or that, but never quite managing to make progress. Now his manner had altered to such a degree that it almost seemed like it was an entirely different man standing in front of me, excitedly grabbing his hat, putting on his coat and bundling me out through the door with the exclamation,
“Ever been taken up the Stiperstones?”
“Well…”, I mumbled, painful memories from my years as a Cadet bubbling to the surface of a mind that had successfully quelled such remembrances for a number of years.
"Come, no time to lose. We are for Shropshire!", he continued, unabated, “perhaps, I will have time to show you some of the most beautiful landscape in England, once the case is solved, of course!”
"So, what is all this about, Monty, old chap?", I enquired, once we were settled in a private first class carriage on the 11.27 from Euston.
"Lord Sidney has been found murdered in his bedchamber at his Shropshire home", came the reply, "and by all accounts in very suspicious, not to say a bizarre way. I have no doubt", Cockshot paused for a moment, "that the Reverend McAbre is behind this affair, I can sense his evil hand in all this."
Now I should commit to paper at this early point in these little records of my friend and our exploits that I had only known Montague Cockshot for some six months, since the time I was forced to retire from my position as a medical officer in the army, and that I had shared lodgings with him for a little over four months. This was the first case on which I had accompanied him, though he had often regaled me with tales of previous adventures on the long winter evenings, and many of those evenings were very, very long. During this time I had noticed, and may I say that I have no small knowledge of psychiatric theory, that there were two subjects on which my friend Montague seemed to dwell, almost to an unhealthy and obsessive level. One being that he harboured some resentment to "that other detective" as he referred to the London based sleuth who was the toast of Scotland Yard and who received all the attention of the press, having his exploits serialised in The Strand magazine, written by a previous military colleague of mine. Secondly, he was preoccupied with the Reverend James McAbre, the shadowy mastermind of the criminal underworld, who had outfoxed Montague on a number of occasions. A man that Montague referred to, simply, as "The Master."
"Do you, seriously, believe that McAbre could be involved?", I asked.
"No doubt upon the matter", Cockshot replied.
"But at this early stage", I protested, "how can you be so sure?"
"You know my methods, Dimsdale."
In fact, I had no idea of Cockshot's methods. He had spoken of them a great deal without, actually, explaining them as such. As if the mere mention of the words "my methods" was sufficient enough to illuminate the subject. He assumed I had a grasp of the methods and I did not care to disappoint him by exposing myself.
"Is he a real Reverend?", I asked, deflecting the issue.
"One can never know", Cockshot chuckled, "the name is a false one, of course, he uses many, but I can sense his hand behind these events."
