Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Seventh Safeguard

Chapter 1 - The Strange Case of Amelia Bones

  Disclaimer: This non-commercial, derivative work is an independent production by Charlotte Ann Kent and is not associated with The Doyle Estate, the BBC, Warner Bros, or J.K. Rowling. 

~*~

I had never known my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, to be as totally preoccupied with anything so deeply and for such a long time since the death of the late Professor Moriarty as he was over the course of the year preceding this narrative. And never, in all the years I had known him, had he been as recalcitrant in answering questions.

For some months, I had thought it was just the strange case of Ms. Bones which had absorbed him so thoroughly. Ms. Amelia Bones, a quiet middle aged lady living alone in London, had been found dead in her home. All the doors and windows had been locked from the inside and there was no evidence of a break-in, yet there were clear marks of a desperate struggle. Sherlock had originally scoffed at the sensational nature of the reports, and lost no time getting on the case himself. He told the police that the people they were looking for were four in number, dressed in long cloaks, three men and a woman, that the woman was unusually tall, with long dark hair, long nails, and a somewhat hysterical personality, and that the actual murder had been done by one of the men – who had small feet with long toes, was thin, even taller than the woman, and who had stood in the middle of the room talking for some time after the initial struggle, before he actually killed his victim. When asked by the police how these persons got into the locked room, and then back out again without unlocking the doors, breaking the windows, or leaving their tracks anywhere except the room of the murder, Mr. Holmes fixed the officer with a strange look and replied simply: "They teleported."

After this he was always busy. I was not surprised, for I knew he could not be satisfied until he had gotten to the bottom of the mystery. I did not for one second believe that he really meant that they had teleported, supposing this to be merely sarcasm. He several times took great interest in cases which seemed simple enough to everyone else. He would be absent from London for days at a time, and neglect to volunteer information about where he had been. When asked he would be, as it seemed to me at the time, deliberately evasive. He also, and this to me seemed the strangest thing of all, took up studies of a new and most unusual kind. I could not find the common point in his research; everything from highly technical works on the most up-to-date and abstract micro-physics, to paranormal theories I would have expected him to give a mile's berth. When I asked if I could help, he assured me that he would be certain to call on me if there was anything I could do ... but he still didn't say what he was up to.

All through this of course, he kept on with his normal work, handling at least as many, perhaps more, cases that year than usual.

It was on the first of August that I finally heard something of the theory which had preoccupied my friend so entirely for so many months. We had just returned from Cornwall, upon an investigation into the disappearance of a young lady by the name of Charity Burbage. She had not, it appeared, been seen for several weeks by the time Sherlock Holmes was called to the case, and there had been little that even he could ascertain from her house by that time. There was no sign of a break in; she might have just left it for the afternoon. She was reported by the neighbours to be a friendly and outgoing woman who spent most of the year up north, where she apparently worked as a teacher. But no one could provide any concrete details on her work or her colleagues. We went back to London that night, as I thought, little the wiser about the young lady's fate. Sherlock was quiet on the train; I guessed that this time even he was stumped. Rather than returning straight to our homes, he to Baker Street and I to St. Anne Street, we stopped in a small café for a late supper.

The room was empty and rather dingy, and my companion was still wrapped in a taciturn reverie, so I busied myself with the evening paper whilst we ate (or rather I, for he ordered only a coffee). There was a television playing in the corner. My companion's back was to it, and he showed no signs of being aware of it, or of anything in the café. It took me by surprise, therefore, when the introspective thinker suddenly awoke; his face had become intent and he swung quickly around to look over his shoulder. A news report was playing and it was clearly this which had caught his ear.