THE CANCELLED ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

THE COLLECTED STORIES

1. THE MYSTERY OF SKIDMORE HALL

Of all the adventures I shared with my friend Sherlock Holmes, few fill my dreams with such horror as the events at Skidmore, Shropshire, in late November 1886. My experiences of the Afghan campaign had hardened me to much that is unsavoury, but I was left both shattered and weakened by our experiences in that ungodly border-country. Only now, with the recent demise of the last actor in this dismal story, can I reveal the truth behind our sudden departure from England, in early December of that year. 

It was a gloomy evening of late autumn. Holmes – much exhausted by his recent unmasking of the Boston Butcher – lay in an apparent trance. Long acquainted with my friend’s methods, I was not surprised when my reading was peremptorily interrupted. 

‘Events suggest a Study in Brown, Watson. Make of this what you will!’

He handed over a telegram, dated that same afternoon.

Come immediately, events of the utmost delicacy, urgent assistance required. Brownsword.

‘Lord Brownsword is the scion of one of our greatest families,’ I remarked. ‘His residence at Skidmore Hall the very pride of the Marches, renovated at prodigious expense with the latest conveniences.’

‘Indeed. His Lordship is a man whose curtness of manner is matched inversely with his vastness of fortune.’ Holmes had already retrieved his much-battered copy of Bradshaw’s guide. ‘We can take a fast train at 9:10, from Euston?’ 

My few commitments being then at a low ebb, I agreed immediately. 

Next morning, an early breakfast and a rapid two-seater saw us leaving Euston and heading north, through London’s dreary suburbs. Holmes occupied his time in perusal of a monograph on the efficacy of various rapidly ingested metallic poisons. 

It soon became apparent that his research was not merely of a theoretical nature. On passing Kettering, a sour and spreading aroma indicated that Holmes had filled our compartment with arse-vapour. I fear my consciousness was soon lost and awoke to find my companion’s anxious face peering into mine. 

‘My dear Watson, I shall never forgive myself. I had no idea the cadmium I laced both our breakfasts with acted so quickly. May God have mercy on poor Mrs. Hudson’s movements!’

The rest of the journey passed in a miasma of volcanic eruptions and scribbled notes – Holmes meticulously noting the frequency and forcefulness of our embarrassments. It was only with difficulty that I dissuaded him from attempting ‘flame testing’, with a lighted taper. A disastrous experience during the siege of Peshawar, suffered by a junior subaltern after an excess of Camel Pathia, had alerted me to the terrible risk of ‘blow-back’ and buttock scorching. 

It was with some relief that our journey ended, the Shropshire hills and dripping woodlands announcing our arrival at the isolated rural station of Skidmore Halt. 

A groom awaited, and we were whisked away. The cold country air soon cleared my head and I watched with interest, as our carriage entered the splendid gates of Skidmore Hall. The house was originally Tudor but had been so thoroughly ‘Gothicised’ as to seem a more recent construction. Of particular note were the many down pipes, somewhat disfiguring its elegant façade. 

‘His Lordship takes great pride in the provision of individual water closets for all his guests,’ remarked Holmes, following my glance. 

‘Of no small relief to us both, you can be sure,’ I replied, with some asperity. Although my bottom had achieved some temporary respite, I could only imagine what my first evacuation would involve. Holmes nodded, a smirk on his hawk-like features the only indication he heard my testy words. 

To my surprise, Lord Brownsword awaited us in his entrance hall. A more unprepossessing example of the English aristocracy it would be hard to imagine. At first glance, he resembled a minor accounts clerk or draper’s assistant. An unmistakable gravy stain was visible on his tweed jacket and the faint aroma of old cabbages – or even Jerusalem artichoke – lingered around him. 

‘Gentlemen, you catch me on the hop,’ he muttered, signalling for us to follow him up the grand double staircase. His movements gathered pace into a headlong charge, as he rushed for the nearest privy door. 

We awaited his return in silence. I noted the ascending portraits of his departed ancestors, each a stepwise, atavistic return to the brutal reality of baronial squat toilets over castle walls. Holmes was clearly impatient. The Duke emerged and ushered us into an enormous upper hall, entirely papered in brown. 

‘If your Lordship would furnish us with all the details. Omit nothing, however seemingly trivial,’ my friend instructed. 

‘Mr Holmes. I have heard good report of both your discretion and your indefatigability.’

Holmes nodded his approval, encouraging the Duke to continue.

‘You see around you a monument to English scatological emancipation. I am a well-read man, despite my somewhat insignificant appearance. For generations, the Brownswords have been cursed by lavatorial misfortune. And still, in all my studies, I have yet to encounter any other great family so similarly troubled.’

‘Blockages?’ I hazarded to suggest. 

‘If that were the problem, Dr Watson, I would scarcely have inconvenienced so busy a man as Sherlock Holmes!’ he replied. ‘No, we face a more deadly and persistent terror.’

‘Pray continue,’ encouraged Holmes. 

‘I am a light sleeper, Mr Holmes. The house, as you no doubt saw, is in the traditional ‘H’ shape, with four wings and this connecting gallery. There are, all told, some two dozen chambers, each with an ensuite Armitage Shanks.’

‘Your Lordship is most gracious,’ I assented. 

Somewhat confused, Lord Brownsword continued. 

‘For the last two weeks, I have been awakened by persistent flushing noises. On entering each chamber, and proceeding to the convenience, I have found…marks.’

‘Marks?’ enquired Holmes. 

‘Mr Holmes, they were the skid marks of an enormous turd!’

My friend tilted back his head and church-steepled his narrow fingers.

‘To what degree – a one, two or three striper?’

Brownsword produced a crumpled paper, which he handed to my friend. It was clearly a tabulation, of dates, toilet locations and associated ‘skid widths’. 

‘This appears to be in some sort of code,’ Holmes muttered. ‘I will need time to study it, over a number of pipes.’

‘I am in your hands, Mr Holmes,’ replied the diminutive Duke. 

‘If your man could show us to our rooms, I can then report back to you after dinner.’

‘Excellent. I have asked Mrs Fisher to prepare us one of her mystery meat feasts. We dine at eight – dress is casual.’

With that he was gone. The gaunt figure of Jeyes, the butler, escorted us through the gallery.  

‘Holmes, what do you make of it?’ I remarked, in utter confusion. 

‘There are dark things at work here, Watson. And yet I see a glimmer, a sign that the four-ply paper is not yet finished.’

‘Gods preserve us from the Izal! But I still confess to utter bafflement.’ 

‘You noticed the Duke’s saddle-sore walk?’

‘A keen huntsman, no doubt.’

‘Arse-grapes, more likely. A hereditary curse of long-standing. The fourth Duke missed the Battle of Waterloo, thanks to them. His late father had to be carried into the House of Lords, grimacing on a raised dais of duck feathers.’ 

Holmes issued one of his mirthless laughs and was gone.

*

Dinner was a gloomy affair, partaken in the semi-darkness of the Great Hall. To my astonishment, we were served from what can only be described as a ‘hygiene wagon’, wheeled from end to end of the table by a marigold gloved Mrs Fisher. 

The food was quite inedible and, as course after course appeared, I resorted to throwing it under my chair. His Lordship ate both heartily and messily, interrupting his mastication to discourse on the Hall’s elaborate plumbing work.

‘A quite extraordinarily fascinating history, flushed away daily, but revealing man at his most basic.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed Holmes. ‘When one considers how disgusting the average Englishman is – dragged down the centuries through wild boar, goose and pig shit – the beacon light of scientific advance blasting away this messy matter is the Fiat Lux of our day.’ 

‘And yet all is now lost,’ our host wailed. 

‘Have courage, my Lord. Approached through the lens of reason and deduction, even a thousand skid-marks can never win.’

Later, over brandy and cigars, Holmes elaborated his findings. 

‘I commend our host on his rational approach to the matter. Many a lesser man would have taken fright and ignored the data on which our case will rest.’

‘Holmes!’ I ejaculated, ‘You mean the identity of the Skidmore Hall skidder is known to you?’ 

‘All in good time, Watson. I have my suspicions, but a night’s observation – in the presence of yourself and your trusty service revolver – should bring matters to a head.’

Brownsword’s features showed a momentary twitch of anxiety. 

‘Do I understand you intend to tackle this faecal fiend?’

Holmes turned his aquiline features in profile and stared into the falling embers. ‘Watson and I have many years’ experience of nocturnal reconnaissance. This is the last night on which your porcelain will be subjected to cable laying or giant otter attacks.’

He left the room.  

*

A freezing vigil in the upper gallery was punctuated by those nightly disturbances encountered in England’s grandest residences. From somewhere came the persistent scratching of mice in the wainscot. The wind shot its gusty fingers down numerous chimneys. Outside, a screech owl patrolled the vast lawns. 

His Lordship’s room was obvious from a cacophony of snoring and fevered tossing, audible even from our position, crouched behind a suit of medieval armour.  

At just past 4am, Holmes touched my shoulder.

At first all was indistinct, but in the gloom I saw a faint procession of two-dozen masked figures, ascending the grand staircase. The lead figure was holding aloft an enormous stiff-haired toilet brush, like some monstrous perversion of the holy cross. 

A dull chanting, almost a liturgical drone, steadily increased in intensity as the procession made for the first chamber. 

‘Quick Watson. Not a second to lose.’

Holmes leapt into the fray. A pandemonium of toilet duck spraying and urinal cake throwing ensued. As we fought our way through to the first chamber door, I saw a dark shape emerging. 

‘My God, Holmes, the Skidder of Skidmore Hall!’

‘We have it Watson!’ My friend grabbed the toilet brush and proceeded to smash the fleeting shadow. To my horror, pure excrement flew everywhere, pebble dashing us both and liberally coating our surroundings. 

What were we facing? A creature of some dozen feet in length, topped with piercing yellow eyes (I later discovered these to be pieces of sweetcorn). Over the centuries, this monstrous turd had inhabited the pipework, emerging only at night to leave its distinctive markings in the Hall privies and terrify the constipated occupants. 

With a final agonized sigh, alike to nothing so much as an enormous fart, the creature subsided and died.

By this time, our host was awake. 

‘Holmes! What is the meaning of this?’

‘I had rather hoped you could explain,’ drawled Holmes. 

The Duke was dressed in what appeared to be a monk’s habit, with a headdress made from Izal toilet tissue. 

Slumping onto the stairs, he revealed the sorry history behind these outrageous events. 

‘It can little profit me to hide the truth. This matter stretches back, like some grotesque faecal tape worm, to the fourth Duke’s disgrace. As Dr Watson can testify, many an Englishman has returned from our Indian possessions with a liking for curry.’

‘Indeed,’ I averred, ‘My own weakness was for a Chicken Karachi!’ 

‘The fourth Duke took his fondness to extremes, kidnapping the entire catering staff from the Maharaja of Jalfrezi. In so doing, he brought down – on himself and his unfortunate successors – the Holy Brahim’s Curse of the Curried Arse.’

‘I feared as much,’ muttered Holmes. ‘Indeed, the code you handed me was an ancient Sanskrit text, promising anal agony for any who insulted the honour of the Jalfrezi family.’  

‘On returning to England, my ancestor was plagued by a near biblical infestation of winnuts, tag nuts and dangle berries. The more furiously he wiped, the more persistently his arsehole was attacked by those monstrous blighters.’

‘Until the Duke expired, after laying this enormous coiler we see before us,’ completed Holmes. 

‘And since that day, it bided its time, alive in the growing plumbing installed by successive generations of Brownswords.’

The three of us looked in horror, at the ruin of a once mighty estate.  The Duke explained how this foul creature had demanded nightly penance, with his loyal staff deputed to clean the terrific skid marks left on its nocturnal visits. 

Holmes and I had removed the curse, but at what cost to this great house? We departed the next morning, amidst futile attempts to employ the latest steam cleaning and sand blasting techniques. A sickly brown cloud seemed to hang over Skidmore Hall as we took our leave.

On our return to London, we received news that the Duke had set his ancestral home alight and moved into a council flat, in nearby Telford New Town. The ensuing scandal – with questions in the House and virulent press attacks on Holmes – led us to our current retreat, amidst the unchanging splendours of the Upper Nile. 

2. THE SCANDAL OF THE BROWN PARCELS

Sherlock Holmes’ relations with the fairer sex have been the subject of much comment and speculation. Some declared him at once both a misogynist and a man of the highest chivalry. Certainly I witnessed him handle a duchess and a lady’s maid with the same mixture of polite detachment and marked disinterest. In truth, aside from occasional groaning noises emanating from his bedroom, I assumed he was entirely uninterested in such matters.

It therefore came as a surprise when I returned to Baker Street one evening, to find my friend engaged in vigorous intercourse with a young lady. 

‘Watson, may I introduce Lady Davinia Greenslaw, recently married to the Honourable Humphrey St John Hartley?’

Lady Davinia shyly advanced a gloved hand. 

‘Pray continue, Lady Greenslaw – Watson is entrusted with any secrets and…delicacies which come my way.’

In a hesitant and sobbing voice, our visitor resumed her account. 

‘From the first, my husband’s interests in the feather trade caused frequent absences from our home in Rickmansworth. As I am a daughter of our colonial possessions, long hours of separation seemed none too remarkable. Indeed, my late mother so infrequently saw my father that he became almost a…physical stranger to her…’

I offered my monogrammed handkerchief, and Lady Davinia (after a quick check) dabbed her almond eyes. 

‘What has caused me most distress is Humphrey’s extraordinary behaviour when we are reunited.’

Holmes showed an immediate intensity of focus. 

‘However painful this is, your Ladyship, please omit no detail – however seemingly trivial.’

How many times had I heard Holmes utter this commanding yet reassuring phrase? 

‘Mr. Holmes, are you familiar with…materials which arrive wrapped in…brown paper?’

As an old India hand, I felt a shudder of apprehension. My mind went back to lonely hours spent in the heat of a Lahore evening, the rhythmic exertions of my punkah wallah matching the hellish tattoo of my own wrist movements. 

‘At what frequency, and with what postal details?’ probed Holmes.

‘Always monthly, and with exotic stamps from Cairo. Each parcel is marked “Strictly Private, for attention of addressee only.” I know Humphrey awaits these with trembling hands, for he can scarcely contain his urgency to quit the breakfast table and barricade himself in his study.’

‘Has anyone in your household read any of this fascinating correspondence, so eagerly awaited by your husband?’

Was I wrong, or did Holmes’ aquiline features show an almost school-boy smirk? 

‘Humphrey is the most secretive of men. His study is remarkable for its double doors, the inner of which is of steel construction and has a combination lock. However, last week I happened to pass and, to my surprise, found both open. No…it is too monstrous, Mr. Holmes!’

‘Watson! Quick man – the brandy!’

After downing a generous tumbler, our visitor continued. 

‘On his desk, I found a letter in code. Alongside was Hartley’s deciphering of the message: “Pay up, Hartley, you tragic wanker, or Lady Cold Cunt hears all the details!”’

A terrible silence, punctuated only by the heartbreaking sound of female sobbing, descended on 221b. 

‘How was this disgraceful missive signed?’

‘Mr. Holmes, with the simple phrase “The Professor”. I can only imagine it to be a prank from one of Hartley’s old Cambridge chums.’

Holmes brooded in silence.

‘I fear it is not that simple. It seems our old friend Moriarty is back – and has descended in the criminal world. Blackmail, your ladyship.’

‘How can we prevent a scandal? The feather trade – despite its ludicrous connotations – requires the utmost propriety.’

‘Leave the matter with myself and Watson. I trust you have now quit the marital home, and are residing here in Town?’

‘I have taken rooms at the Regent Palace Hotel. Humphrey keeps a set there, on a permanent reservation. Naturally, I have ceased all contact with him, until the matter is resolved.’

Once more, Holmes seemed on the verge of smirking. The dubious reputation of that hotel did indeed make it an incongruous location for our demure visitor. 

‘I hope to have news for you by tomorrow evening. We shall call there at six.’

* 

Holmes requested that I spent the following afternoon in reconnaissance of the hotel, whilst he pursued his enquiries at the Mount Pleasant Sorting Office. 

Those sordid streets of London's most cosmopolitan district amply repay description: street Arabs; ragamuffins from the four corners of the empire; loitering men in ankle length gabardines – all wandered its dripping thoroughfares and alleys. A khaki fog, almost a miasma of Windsor soup and cabbage greens, enveloped its flickering denizens.

I was no stranger to such observation. As an old Lahore hand, I steadied myself to watch for patterns of furtive but repeated movement. I was soon rewarded. 

A hobbling figure, almost blind behind bottle-green spectacles, ambled into every ‘private shop’. From each he emerged with a yellowy grin, clutching yet more parcels...all wrapped in brown paper. With mounting excitement at my discovery, I made detailed notes for Holmes. 

Our suspect was a figure of indistinct height and girth, wrapped in an ankle-length overcoat. It scarcely needed my years of medical experience to offer an immediate diagnosis: persistent and disastrous self-abuse. This wretched cripple could hardly walk, so bow-legged was he from a lifetime of onanism. 

My thoughts returned to those terrifying lectures at prep-school and nightly vigils by ‘thrasher Perkins’, patrolling the dorms for any suggestion of squeaking bedsprings. Yet we boys still shared our illicit daguerreotypes of alluring ankles and knees. I shuddered to think how I escaped with only minor physical and moral damage – clearly, others had been less fortunate. 

Brushing past me, I detected the unmistakable odour of crotch-rot. I followed this veteran fist-pumper into the garish interior of the hotel lobby where, to my astonishment, he crudely gestured towards a scarlet-curtained side room, and announced:

‘Watson! How good of you to be so punctual.’

I reeled. Before I could demand some explanation, an avalanche of one-handed reading material fell from under Holmes’ coat: Secrets of the workhouse kitchen; What's in the scullery maid's draw?; Innocent Annie meets the Stevedore. 

Then to my horror, a saurian figure scuttled into the room, sniffing out this stash. 

‘Quick Watson, your shooting stick!’

Holmes pinned the creature down. 

‘Good afternoon, Humphrey St John Hartley!’

I was immediately transported back to Stoke Moran and the speckled band. But this was no snake. It was the pitiful wreck of a once-proud feather trader, now reduced to the status of a serpent, slithering its days away in Soho’s mean courts. 

In a tremulous voice, our prisoner read us an account of Innocent Annie’s ordeal:

‘Massive as a tea-clipper’s mast, the Stevedore’s proud member plunged netherward, probing Annie’s sacred sanctuary. She gasped as he entered the inner sanctum. The brute spared her none of his salty roughness and she bridled like a filly in the St Leger Stakes. The gallop was on.’

Holmes’ face was a study in aloof fascination.

‘Enthralling, but altogether of a rather native flavour. Perhaps you could quote some of your more…exotic material – or do we need to request a sample from Professor Moriarty?’

However melodramatic are those pulpit-warnings on masturbation, the effects of this solitary vice on Hartley were remarkable. 

We both stepped back in horror, as a monstrous apparition from the depths of Bazelgette’s subterranean world reared itself up in full. 

He was dressed in a shocking combination of purple and yellow, such that his skin merged imperceptibly with his clothing. His drooping jowls and coal-shadowed eyes belonged more to the opium fiend than to the fevered imbiber of hand-shandies. 

‘Gentlemen, you have the advantage on me. Of whom do I have the pleasure?’

‘We represent the wronged interests of British womanhood. Your wife is my client, and I, Sherlock Holmes, act in her interests. My colleague, Dr Watson, will endeavour to provide much needed relief from your disastrous obsessions.’

What was Holmes suggesting? Had he deduced my shameful Raj habits, having examined the depths of my shipping trunk, currently secreted in our box-room at 221b? 

‘Holmes, the meddler, the Scotland Yard monkey!’ snarled Hartley. ‘Who are you to come between a gentleman and occasional hand relief?’

‘Hah! An unfortunate collocation of infinitive verb form and rhythmical movements, I suggest.’

I judged this quip well below my friend’s normal standard of repartee. 

‘You may not realise it, Hartley, but this shady establishment is owned and managed by none other than Professor James Moriarty. You have fallen into his piteous grasp – from which no man emerges unscathed.’

The scarlet curtains opened, revealing Holmes’ nemesis. 

Holmes’ premise was correct. Moriarty had indeed descended in the criminal world. 

There he stood before us, like some disgraced minor solicitor, caught in flagrante with his housekeeper in a sordid Southsea guesthouse. 

‘My interests now encompass the wonders of moving image reels and photographs of a most revealing nature. Charges are entirely reasonable, and certainly less onerous than the costs of inevitable public disgrace.’

‘Moriarty, you disappoint me,’ drawled Holmes. ‘Even Charles Augustus Milverton never stooped so low as to procure incriminating evidence with his own hands.’

Moriarty ignored the rebuke. 

‘May I interest you gentlemen in a discreet private showing? I guarantee you will find my material engrossing, and of considerable personal interest.’

He beckoned us into another side room. 

A creeping sense of anxiety became one of horror when I recognised my own image, in a Lahore ‘rest house’, firmly in the saddle of a Punjabi princess. To my amazement, Holmes could scarcely contain his amusement as the figures started moving. 

Furthering my disgrace, the Professor’s associates had added sub-titles:

‘The doctor fills his boots, with a ride and a sip from the stirrup cup.’

‘Young love triumphs amidst the splendours of the East – but comes at a price.’

‘The treatments are painful, and expensive.’

This last had me crossing my legs and wincing, in agonised memory of the ‘penile umbrella’, plunging into my manhood. 

Even the Professor was doubled up in mirth. 

And then it was Holmes’ turn. 

*

My readers often debate which of our ancient universities Sherlock Holmes attended. Viewers of Moriarty’s film are left in no doubt. 

A sunny Oxford scene, youths in blazers, whites and sporting caps. 

A familiar figure walks jauntily towards the camera. 

The caption beneath reads: 

‘By night, the Butcher awaits his students in the sordid alleys behind Oxford’s Covered Market.’

A large man of military appearance, mutton-chop bewhiskered, ushers Holmes into his premises. Wasting no time, he bends our hero over the counter and deftly removes his plus fours. 

A vigorous rodgering occurs, with close-ups of Holmes’ grimacing, yelling features:

‘The master of deduction is certainly not the dog that fails to bark in the night!’ 

‘Years before Silver Blaze, Sherlock Holmes appreciates the finer points of a stud’s anatomy.’

Much to my shame, I confess to epileptic fits of laughter. I have seldom seen my distinguished friend look more discomforted. Moriarty joined in heartily, pounding my knee in delight, at his great foe’s utter humiliation. 

But the most shocking of all revelations still awaited us. 

The images changed to a delightful rural scene, captioned: 

‘Within twenty miles of its great city, rural England still enchants both men and women.’

A delightful young lady is seen entering a stable. All three of us gasped in amazement, on realising it was the youthful Lady Davinia Greenslaw. 

‘A keen animal lover, blossoming into adulthood – what could be more natural than her affections taking a more physical turn?’

The ensuing scenes still haunt my memory, tainting forever my faith in the gentler sex. A succession of farmyard animals was led in, each to copulate enthusiastically with the future Lady Davinia St John Hartley. 

Most extraordinary of all was a baleful looking donkey, its dear tail swishing innocently, as this Babylonic harridan expertly manipulated its private parts. 

‘That’s my girl. Now I know why I married her!’ chortled her delighted husband. 

‘And now perhaps we can discuss my terms?’ the Professor icily remarked, as the lights went up. 

The brutish Hartley resolutely refused to offer a penny – indeed, he welcomed the opportunity of sharing in any profits, should Moriarty release the evidence of his wife’s rampant bestiality. 

‘The Duke of Clarence would pay a good thousand to own it!’ he exclaimed. 

Holmes and I had little choice but to meet the Professor’s demands. He settled for a portion of our respective professional profits – with Holmes generously agreeing to underwrite my share. 

To this day, my friend and I have yet to discuss these events, which I present here solely as a warning to the curious. Moriarty maintains his stranglehold over our reputations, but I know Holmes will eventually release us from his hellish bondage. 

Holmes and I left England shortly afterwards, for a much-needed recuperative break. 

I refused his suggested destination of Cairo.

There are indeed deep waters flowing through all human lives. Sometimes it is better to remain above, a mere skimmer over the deceptively attractive surface, rather than plunge into their murky depths – where monsters truly dwell.

3. THE SQUATTING THOMAS AFFAIR

I returned to Baker Street for several weeks, during the bleak winter of 1895. My beloved wife's Aunt Agatha was breathing her last, after an interminable struggle with dropsy, phlegmatic fever and vaporising delusions. As an experienced medical practitioner, I had long despaired of any improvement, but Mary felt obliged to decamp for the wilds of Bridport, where the nonagenarian glowered in grim isolation on the Dorsetshire coast. 

Holmes was himself then at a low ebb, much frequenting the meanest opium dens of Limehouse and Shad Thames. As I stared gloomily out at the London miasma of traffic, yellow smoke and huddling humanity, my friend moved for the first time in several hours, passing me a stained and tattered manuscript. 

'Brother Mycroft has sent me this account of disturbing events in Weymouth, written by a semi-literate graduate of Durham University – one Cornelius Griswald – now reduced to tutoring pallid adenoidal youths.'

I immediately devoured this extraordinary document, punctuated as it was with curry sauce blotches and tiny fragments of fried fish batter:

The Legend of Squatting Thomas, as recorded by Cornelius Griswald, GRADUATE, MA Hons (Geography) Durham.

Be himself so good, the Lord Mycroft, as a fellow varsity man to read and note my warnings – herein disclosed forthwith – in hopes that my deplorable unluckiness be relieved by more than a fish supper and litre of cooking lager. 

My student days having finished, and employment inexplicably being unavailable at any remotely respectable establishment, I had no choice but to return to my childhood home. Indignities multiplied, and your honourable geographical servant soon found himself sleeping in bathing huts and subsiding on Pease Pudding detritus. 

Fortune smiled on me, at last, when Ma Gypsum's Academy for Wretched Youths advertised an opening for a downtrodden sod to school imbeciles and near cretins, prior to their departure for some arse-end of the empire, therein to give the natives a damn good leathering.

'Holmes!' I ejaculated. 'Is there any point to this rambling and offensive document?'

'Pray have patience, my dear Watson. Events will soon gather pace.'

Somewhat reassured, I recommenced my perusal. 

My only comfort, from a lonely garret room overlooking the broad sweeping bay, was to watch the crimson moon kissing those constant waters. Many is the night I have beheld its cheeks – sometimes damson, sometimes ivory – sink into aquatic slumber, only for your tireless writer to join it in welcome oblivion.

Of late, however, my dreams have been disturbed by unaccountable horrors. Nightly it is that I am awakened by trumpet blasts, then the sight of those once delicate cheeks hovering over my gasping face, as I struggle for breath. It is as if the very moon itself has returned from Neptune's deeps, to scream and breathe foulness into the depths of my soul. 

So shaken am I by these events, I have had no choice but to quit the Gypsum household and seek temporary sanctuary, at a newly built Premier Inn, in Weymouth's disreputable outskirts. 

Alas, my lunar nemesis has now followed me even here! Amused locals have jeeringly informed that I am being hunted down by none other than Squatting Thomas, the much-feared progenitor of Spring-heeled Jack. This fiend preys on alumni of lesser universities, particularly those who dabble in execrable late-Romantic outpourings having reached the dizzying eminence of a degree in Geography.

I beg you to forward this epistolary plea to your distinguished relative, a Mr Sherlock Holmes.

I am forever in your debt and write as a gentleman.

CORNELIUS GRISWALD MA (GEOGRAPHY, DURHAM).

'The outpourings of a confirmed – probably syphilitic – lunatic?' I drily observed.

'Possibly, but I am minded to take the unfortunate Griswald's case – if for no other reason than to swap our London confinement for anywhere that can better distract my stagnant mind, however briefly.'

Holmes' much punctured inner left arm provided me with the only justification needed, for sending a swift telegram to the Premier Inn, informing our Durham man that his pleas had been heard. 

The following morning found us gazing out at the wild but beautiful English Channel, its waves crashing over Weymouth's delicate Esplanade. 

England's watering holes hold a certain grim majesty during the winter months, but it saddened me to see how far this Georgian beauty had declined into a late Victorian maelstrom of slapdash boarding houses, encrusted fried fish outlets and teetering scholastic establishments 'providing individual tuition by university men of known repute.'

Foremost in terms of decay was the fearsome sounding Gypsum Academy, to which Holmes – with his nose for direction and dereliction – led us in haste. 

It would be difficult to imagine a more disgraceful establishment: the truly desperate would surely hesitate, before entrusting any offspring there. The redoubtable sounding 'Ma' was clearly combining pedagogic services with a thriving kebab outlet. Even at that early hour, a crowd of disreputable types could be seen, besmirching the morning air with fearsome eructations, littering the once proud pavements with their foetid detritus. 

As an old India hand, I am horribly familiar with the street food eaten by our lower orders, yet even my constitution could not have stomached Ma's offerings. As if in some grotesque parody of higher education, the various comestibles were named after the constituent colleges of Griswald's ridiculous alma mater. 

My attention was soon drawn to a jauntily dressed young man. His boater and blazer could not have provided a more incongruous sight, set amidst the drab greys and browns of that loutish assembly.

'I believe we have found Mr Cornelius Griswald, MA (Durham),' chortled Holmes. 

Griswald bounded towards us, proffering his 'Castle College' kebab, eager as a young puppy with a rubber ball.  

'Any news on your nocturnal hauntings, Griswald?' queried Holmes. 

'Alas, this very night I was visited by Squatting Thomas!' wailed the unfortunate wretch. 

'Let us dispose of that disgusting kebab, then you can provide all the details. Omit nothing, however seemingly trivial,' commanded my friend, reciting his time-honoured mantra.

We then found refuge in a lugubrious seaside cafe, catering to sundry mutton-chop whiskered revenants from the night-time economy. To my surprise, Holmes ordered full English breakfasts for the three of us, having thrown Griswald's vile snack seawards. 

'Mr Holmes, I intend to speak frankly. Having reached the very pinnacle of scholastic achievement, my current predicament is proving intolerable!'

'Indeed?' drawled Holmes.

'My sole respite is the poetry of Algernon Charles Swinburne, consumed in prodigious quantities, whilst gazing over the boundless ocean lapping this small fragment of an all too sordid terra firma.'

To my amazement, Holmes suddenly delivered a ferocious steam hammering, pummelling Griswald's puny frame. Signalling me to join him, we drop-kicked the shit from this insufferable arse, with all his grotesque affectations and half-digested poesy. 

In joyous scenes, which I now find difficult to recount without slipping into maudlin emotionalism, I saw my friend cast off his deplorable addiction, to revel in the innocent pleasure – the stout yeomanry – of pure English yobbery. 

The entire establishment, realising things had 'kicked off', enthusiastically joined us in beating this snivelling pseud into oblivion. 

In a coup de grace worthy of the London stage, two aging homosexualists hoisted Griswald onto the Formica counter, then spit roasted our gibbering geographer; an outrage fit to shock even Mr. Oscar Wilde and his entourage of Piccadilly decadents. 

The doors finally swung open, revealing Griswald's nemesis. 

Buttocks parted, Squatting Thomas – fresh from consuming several donners with chilli sauce at Ma Gypsum's – performed his unspeakable rites, over the semi-conscious Durham graduate. 

I now understood the lunar references, as those shining moon cheeks opened and a sound – akin to a sail ripping on a four-mast tea clipper – rent the reeking air. 

TripAdvisor provides a succinct yet reliable review of the Weymouth Premier Inn, where we later escorted the unfortunate Griswald. A power shower and several mugs of hotel hot chocolate all that were required, for his return to the rudest of health. 

He now teaches Geography at a secondary school in Sutton-on-Sea, Lincolnshire – cured forever of his disastrous poetic habits. 

4. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE TRANSGENDER PUPIL

I. THE ORDEAL OF MISS SPINDELLA DAVENTRY

Habituated as I was to Holmes waking me in the early hours, I nevertheless voiced my displeasure as he peered into my bleary eyes. 

'Surely not again, Holmes?'

'The game's afoot, Watson. Dress quickly - I have need of a medical man.'

Slumped in our fireside armchair, a lady of dubious appearance slurped brandy and enthusiastically inhaled on a cigar. 

'Watson, may I introduce Miss Spindella Daventry, late of the Northamptonshire Skinhead Dancing Troupe?'

I nodded at this outlandish figure, who rose uncertainly to her feet and made an exaggerated curtsy. 

'Delighted, Dr Watson. Mr Holmes feels you may need your medical bag for some surgical intervention.'

My mind spun back to the case of The Engineer's Thumb. Had our visitor similarly suffered horrific mutilation, now desperately in need of urgent treatment after staggering through a miasma of pain and blood loss?

'Perhaps you might fetch it,' Holmes drawled, gently pushing Miss Daventry back into her seat.

'Now tell all, neglecting not even the smallest of details.'

'Mr Holmes, I am a child of Northamptonshire, that county of spires and squires,' sighed Miss Daventry. 'My people have owned a hardware store in Brackley for generations past.'

'A fine town - solid - yet not without its understated attractions,' I noted, discretely placing my bag by the table. 

'You would not say so if you had suffered the indignities visited on me,' 

'Just recount the facts, Miss Daventry. Watson is versed in the horrors of warfare; nothing can shock him,' 

'Ever since childhood, I have questioned my identity...now this quest has brought me here. My parents are Brackley Brethren, a stricter offshoot of the Plymouth variety. Yet I yearned always for the bright lights, away from the Brethren's nightly prayers, cold-water bottles and non-existent Christmas presents.'

'As any young lady would,' I reassured her.

'I managed to persuade my aging parents to send me for schooling in the neighbouring town of Bicester, a place feared and loathed by honest Brackley folk.' 

'It is indeed a town of ill-repute, beset by perverts and drug dealers, avoided by the sturdy Shiremen of Oxon,' I remarked.

'Watson, pray stick to facts and refrain from such splenetic prejudice!' 

'I apologise, Holmes...my cherished niece attended school there and is now living on benefits in Ambrosden, besieged by Afghan asylum seekers.' 

'Dr Watson merely confirms the horrific reality,' affirmed Miss Daventry. 

'Mr Holmes, I was a pupil at Bicester Neighbourhood College!'

Silence descended. Even in Baker Street, that terrifying establishment was a byword for loutish behaviour and threadbare teaching staff. 

'Yet the problems actualised in my hometown. Mr Holmes, are you familiar with gay bars?'

Holmes's aquiline features registered a flicker of uncertainty before he confidently asserted:

'Whilst at the University, I heard vague rumour of an establishment known as "The Jolly Farmers". From what I understood, the activities there were far from joyful and had little to do with agriculture, even in its basest forms.'

I stared with incredulity at my friend.

'Fisting, golden showers, gloryholes?' I murmured in horror, without realising that Miss Daventry had anticipated my every word. 

'Oh God, save me from such memories,' she wailed. ‘"Ma Transom's" was Brackley's only rainbow-flagged public house. A fearsome place, wherein were practised certain unspeakable midnight rites.’

To what heart of darkness was this leading? I looked closely at our visitor. Something about her jawline, Adam's apple and thick wrists gave me pause.

'Certain unspeakable midnight rites?' pressed Holmes. 

'In Bicester, we were taught how gender identity is fluid and a matter of personal choice, dependent on whether one enjoys showtunes and the music of Jimmy Sommerville.'

'Poppycock!' I exploded. 

'Maybe that as well,' she replied.

'Are we to assume you have undergone radical gender realignment?' asked Holmes. 

'My mutton and two sprouts were torn off during a rowdy lock-in at Ma Transom's, then rushed to Hassim's kebab van.' 

'Watson! A quick examination of her nether regions - on with the marigolds!'

It was a sight worthy of a Lahore butcher's shop, staffed by myopic lunatics. I whistled at the savagery inflicted on this epicene Northamptonshire youth. Nothing in my medicine bag - short of a magic wand -  could reverse such emasculation. 

'Was there no offer of conversion therapy?' I demanded. 

'Our head of PSHE said that would be transphobic.'

Something remained unexplained. 

'What is this "Northamptonshire Skinhead Dancing Troupe"?'

Holmes interjected.

'I think that requires a trip to somewhere you both fear, followed by a more pleasant visit to nearby Brackley. The train journey at least will provide Watson some peace, after his rude awakening.'

The terrified look on Miss Daventry's face subsided into one of fixed determination. 

'I am in your hands, Mr Holmes. A train from Marylebone to Bicester at 07:50 serves us well.'

'There's little else we can do but seek out your educators, to teach them the meaning of that word I once saw scrawled in red on a Brixton wall.'

Holmes's reference to A Study in Scarlet gave me hope of just retribution, yet a sense of ominous foreboding troubled my thoughts. 

* 

As Holmes had promised, our journey from London brought some relief from the horrors I'd seen. Confusingly, the train carried signs in two Chinese languages and numbers of jabbering Orientals, clutching empty bags.

Miss Daventry explained.

'Bicester Village is their goal. A vast retail outlet meeting their insatiable need for remaindered designer goods.'  

We arrived at Miss Daventry's former school during its first lesson. Holmes wasted no time in finding a classroom where PSHE was being taught, employing his indefatigable nose for the egregious and inexplicable. As ever, his confident manner and commanding presence deterred any questions, though his deer-stalker and Ulster cape attracted many startled glances. 

Those were as nothing when set against our incredulous stares, as Holmes emerged from a toilet cubicle in the N-block corridor. He was now dressed as a fully-fledged 'council-estate-gangster' ladette, loudly masticating on gum and flicking hair from a convincing blonde wig. 

'I am, as self-defined, a troubled young lady: one Melissa Bartlett - Tik-Tok superstar and the scourge of Year Nine. No one can gainsay me that identity, however ridiculous it certainly is.'

With those parting words, he opened the door to N10 and strode in.    

II. THE SCANDAL OF HAZEL NUTS AND OLIVER FIST

The door to N10 flew open and a class trooped out, Holmes lurking in the throng, flicking his blonde locks.

‘Hazel Nuts, Northampton's Foremost Drag Queen’ was due to perform a fully-inclusive Dickensian interpretation Oliver Fist, for the whole-school assembly. All apparently were welcome: Lesbian; Bi; Gay; Trans; Queer; Intersex; Asexual; Plus. 

Plus what? Trepanned, presumably. 

I'd noticed posters for this event, on our arrival in Bicester Neighbourhood College. One glance at the cast list had me shaking with righteous fury: 

Oliver Fist: Hazel Nuts

Nancy Boy: Hazel Nuts

Fagin the Fag: Hazel Nuts

The Artful Dogger: Hazel Nuts

Bill 'Bull-Dyke' Sykes: Hazel Nuts

Mr Brownlove: Hazel Nuts

Spunks: Hazel Nuts

As we trooped across to the dilapidated Lower School Hall, a diminutive figure of disreputable appearance sped over to join us. 

'Good Morning, Dr Watson! We are indeed honoured to entertain such an illustrious figure, from England's foremost comedy act.'

It was none other than Professor Moriarty, resurfaced in another of his deadly incarnations as the school’s Headteacher. Dressed in a cheap crumpled suit, speckled with dandruff from his loathsome, greasy locks. 

'Might I ask if we shall also be seeing the organ grinder; or is it just the monkey who's made his way out to Bicester, doubtless attracted by Hazel's missing nuts?'

My last sighting of this disgraced figure was in London's dingy Regent Palace Hotel, engaged in the sordid act of blackmailing myself and Holmes over some photographs of youthful indiscretions, recounted in The Scandal of the Brown Parcels. At the time, Moriarty was a pornographer; his alarming change in occupation was unsurprising, given Ms Daventry's shocking educational experiences. 

Before the assembly started, the whole school was led by Moriarty in two minutes' silence for the recently deceased victims of a submarine accident when diving to explore the Titanic’s wreck. Hazel Nuts then performed a version of the Karoake classic My Heart Will Go On, gustily accompanied by the entire hall.

Holmes threw himself into this nightmare with abandon, his screeching soprano falsetto attracting the Professor's amused glances. 

'As I suspected, the Baker Street bungler has made an appearance!' he chortled into my ear. 

If anything, the ensuing performance of Oliver Fist was even more revolting. To what depths have we sunk?

Ms Nuts sang a series of torch anthems and then dry-humped a delighted Professor Moriarty, to the roars of the entire school. Fagin's Faggots was an especially inappropriate number, during which Ms Nuts enrolled volunteers for 'urgent gender realignment'. 

Half the school rushed towards the stage, including Holmes. Moriarty produced a sheaf of forms to be completed, which was done without a single pupil reading what they were signing. No doubt their most delicate of regions were being promised to Hassam's Kebab van, or some other purveyor of egregious street comestibles. 

As Holmes reached the front, he tore off his wig and leapt on Moriarty.

'Watson, I have need of your trusty service revolver! Quick man, I can't hold the bastard much longer.'

I rushed forward, Webley revolver at the ready. Holmes grabbed it and turned to address the hall. 

'I will now teach you a proper history lesson. Edward the Second suffered an earlier version of this.'

He shoved the weapon up Moriarty's arse and pulled the trigger. Before any of us could react, he withdrew it then levelled the barrel at Hazel Nuts.

'Lead us away from this scene, on pain of your life.'

A stunned silence descended. Myself, Holmes and Ms Daventry left the building, proceeded by a shaken Hazel Nuts… 

III. THE BEASTS OF OTMOOR

Between Oxford and the degraded market town of Bicester stretches a lonely countryside of sodden fields and sporadic villages, populated by thatched Shiremen and their dangerous offspring. A chilling miasma cloaks the desultory waterways and occasional spires. 

It was to here that we fled. Holmes's indefatigable sense of direction led us into its watery depths, away from our pursuers and the distant sirens. 

'This is Otmoor, Watson. A place famed for its bestiality, inbreeding and feral beasts - some of them animals.'

'Surviving the worst of Dartmoor, we can have little to fear in rural Oxfordshire?' I queried, my mind racing back to the phosphorescent Hound.  

The look on Miss Daventry's face suggested otherwise. 

'Mr Holmes is surely right to warn us, doctor. Entire villages here have undergone gender realignment. Others still maintain their skinhead dancing troupes, in a tradition dating back to Edward the Confessor - born in nearby Islip.'

'Gentlemen, I require immediate transportation back to Northampton!' screeched Hazel Nuts. A mere mention of those shaven-haired ruffians had terrified the drag queen.   

We had by now stumbled into the village of Charlton-on-Otmoor and its single deserted street, empty save for a drunk staggering towards us. To my astonishment, a collection of lanyards swung lazily from his sweaty neck. On each could be seen a gurning mugshot image of this wretch, alongside meaningless job descriptions from his days in the education sector: 

Geoff Lanyard, Senior Facilitating Director (Equity and Diversity), Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Director for End-User Platform Development, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Lead Practitioner for Best Practice Benchmarking of Teaching and Learning, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Net Zero Business Development Director, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Lecturer in Applied Methodological Pupil Attainment Analysis, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Director for Curriculum Planning and Outreach Coordination, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Safeguarding Lead Coordinator for Multidisciplinary Teams, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Director for Implementation of End-User Facing Learning Technology, Acumen Educational Trust.   

Geoff Lanyard, Strategic Coordinator for Pupil-Oriented Outcomes, Acumen Educational Trust.

Geoff Lanyard, Director for Gender Realignment Counselling/Genital Mutilation, Acumen Educational Trust.

The lanyards dangled from rainbow-coloured necklaces, all jostling for position on Geoff's soiled and striped shirt. 

'One of the truly legendary Otmoor beasts!' Holmes pronounced, not attempting to lower his voice. 

'Ms Daventry, may I suggest you finish this sod off?' he added peremptorily, handing her my pistol. 

She needed no prompting. Before I could intervene, we saw a repeat of the summary execution suffered by Moriarty. The door to an adjacent public house swung open, just as my trusty service revolver was fired up Lanyard's rectum.   

'One less managerial shithead!' chortled a purple-faced Shireman, head heavily thatched. 

Holmes slapped him on the back and led us into The Crown. A more cheering sight - after our flight across Oxfordshire's desolate moorland - could hardly be imagined. I wasted no time in filling my boots with several pints of the local ale, served brown and foaming in traditional porcelain mugs, bedecked with images of Charlton's delightful dancing skinheads. 

I was excited to overhear a conversation between two leathery old puffins, informing me that the boot-boys were appearing at The Crown, that very evening! I wondered whether we could combine this fortuitous event with permanent disposal of the egregious Hazel Nuts? Her company was fast becoming intolerable. One look at Holmes's aquiline face showed me his thoughts ran in the same direction… 

An hour later, the pub’s doors were flung open and the steaming skinheads arrived. I spare my readers the more gruesome details. Even today, many a lonely traveller claims to hear - tossed on a wild wind - the agonised and plaintive cries of some Jimmy Somerville showtune number, coming from deep beneath the forgetful waters of Otmoor's RSPB Reserve.

As Holmes had promised, we obtained revenge for Miss Daventry: ‘Rache’ was indelibly and bloodily carved into the fearsome local folklore. We safely returned the wronged lady to Brackley, where her family sheltered us from ongoing police enquiries.

Alas, it was beyond the limits of my own battlefield surgical experiences - let alone those of the foremost experts in the kingdom - to remedy the carnage inflicted on her nether regions by the trans-movement.