Night Watch : A Long-Lost Adventure in Which Sherlock Holmes Meets Father Brown

by Kendrick, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780425191675
• ISBN10: 0425191672
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-02
• Publisher: Berkley Trade

Summary

It's Christmas Day, 1902. A priest has been murdered in a London church during a secret meeting-to discuss the possibility of a Parliament of World Religions. Now Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson-with some assistance from Father Brown-must discern if the killer is indeed one of the leaders of the world's greatest faiths...

Author Biography

Stephen Kendrick is the minister of First and Second Church, Boston, and has previously served churches in Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, as well as Unitarian chapels in the West Midlands of England. He has written for The Christian Century, The Hartford Courant, and the New York Times. He is the author of Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes.

Table of Contents

Prologue: How I Came to Possess This Document, Including the Last Will and Testament, Codicil, of John H. Watson, M.D.	1	(12)
One NONE
Oxford to Baker Street, 3 P.M.	13	(22)
Two VESPERS
Baker Street to Pall Mall, 5 P.M.	35	(30)
Three COMPLINE
Sloane Square, St. Thomas's, 8 P.M.	65	(52)
Four VIGILS
St. Thomas's Church, the Great Silence	117	(48)
Five LAUDS
St. Thomas's Church, 4 A.M.	165	(62)
Six PRIME
St. Thomas's Church, 7 A.M.	227	(16)
Seven SEXT
Baker Street	243

Excerpts

1 NONE Oxford to Baker Street, 3 p.m. Snow descended on London, swirling in on brisk winds, catching the pale yellow glare of the streetlights as it laid its ghostly white upon our familiar haunts. I stood at our window overlooking deserted Baker Street, marveling on the rare London snow and savoring the strange quiet. Christmas morning had come and gone, and Holmes was clearly relieved the dreaded festival was almost over. We had just this afternoon returned from Oxford, where Holmes had tried, and singularly failed, to hide away in the Bodleian Library, studying the ancient, musty musical manuscripts he so loved. Instead, we had been dragged into the tinseled maw of a perplexing domestic drama in the home of Holmes's old tutor, now master of St. Mark's. Hailing a hansom cab at Euston Station upon our return to London from Oxford, we hastened straight back to our rooms, thoroughly exhausted. After a brief rest, a shave, and a light repast of strong coffee, eggs, and kippers, provided by Mrs. Hudson, we were now sharing a convivial silence on this winter's approaching night. In the inner reflection upon the window glass, I could see Holmes as he placidly sat pasting newspaper crime articles into his vast alphabetized volumes, his lean face partially obscured with pipe smoke. Against the storm, the warmth and light of our apartment seemed a stay against the chaos of city life, whose dirty, coal-smudged tracks, mud, and grime were being sheeted by the innocence of white. From the distance, I heard the faint tinkling of horses' bells as hansoms traversed the oddly muffled streets. "Yes, Watson, indeed the rose is the most beautiful of the flowers." "Good God, Holmes, you have been playing this trick upon me for a good many years, and still leave me dumbfounded." I turned to face my old companion. "How in heaven's name could you read this in my manner, for I surely betrayed no sign of such a thought?" He leaned back and sucked in upon his brier-wood pipe, eyeing me merrily. "I have indeed been reading the Book of Watson for some time, the purity of my observations augmented by close familiarity. I saw you set down that book by your chair, page faceup, as you rose, and it opened naturally to a poem most precious to you." "Yes, Lodge's 'When I Admire the Rose,' but surely--" "Ah, follow the mind under suggestion. You passed our mantel, where you set our few Christmas postcards, two of which are adorned with roses blooming in winter, one of the glories of our clime. Then, as you stood at the window you absently placed your hands in your pockets, and as you did I could see, reflected in the glass, a look of melancholy cross your face. You were, I believe, touching the rosary that you carry in your pocket, given to you by your late wife, Mary." He paused. "I believe that was the trail of your thoughts. It seemed natural to bring these mental fragments together, the term 'rosary' coming from the rose garden," said Holmes, setting aside his glue pot and heavy book. He went to the mantel to poke at his pipe, adding a little shag tobacco. I sat down in my chair across from him. "Yes, Holmes, that was precisely the gathering of my emotions. You know I am not a religious man; I carry her rosary not out of any feeling of faith but because she held it once." "A twelfth-century Persian poet said, 'Mystery glows in the rose bed, the secret is hidden in the rose.' " He leaned back in his old velvet chair dreamily, his eyes half closed, as if he were listening to a piece of favorite music at the Royal Hall. "Think of how much of our lives, Watson, we have pursued such secrets, sub rosa." I had a little secret of my own from him. I wondered if this was to be the last Christmas season we would share in our old comfortable digs. My proposal of marriage to a remarkable young woman, a lovely nurse in training I met on rounds at St. Bart's, had been re