The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Martian Menace Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also Available from Titan Books The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Series:

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:

  THE GRIMSWELL CURSE

  Sam Siciliano

  THE DEVIL’S PROMISE

  David Stuart Davies

  THE ALBINO’S TREASURE

  Stuart Douglas

  THE WHITE WORM

  Sam Siciliano

  THE RIPPER LEGACY

  David Stuart Davies

  MURDER AT SORROW’S CROWN

  Steven Savile & Robert Greenberger

  THE COUNTERFEIT DETECTIVE

  Stuart Douglas

  THE MOONSTONE’S CURSE

  Sam Siciliano

  THE HAUNTING OF TORRE ABBEY

  Carole Buggé

  THE IMPROBABLE PRISONER

  Stuart Douglas

  THE DEVIL AND THE FOUR

  Sam Siciliano

  THE INSTRUMENT OF DEATH

  David Stuart Davies

  THE VENERABLE TIGER (April 2020)

  Sam Siciliano

  THE CRUSADER’S CURSE (August 2020)

  Stuart Douglas

  ERIC BROWN

  TITAN BOOKS

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:

  THE MARTIAN MENACE

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789092950

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789092967

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First Titan edition: February 2020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © 2020 Eric Brown. All rights reserved.

  www.titanbooks.com

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  For George Mann and Ian Whates

  Prologue

  The Tragic Affair of the Martian Ambassador

  In the spring of 1910, Sherlock Holmes was involved in a singular investigation that was to have far-reaching consequences for my friend, for myself, and for the world at large – though little did I realise this at the time.

  Shortly after the second Martian invasion, Holmes decided that the quiet life of beekeeping at his Sussex cottage was not for him. He elected to curtail his retirement, return to London, and resume his vocation as a consulting detective. Interesting developments, to say the least, were occurring in the capital, and Holmes told me that he wished to be in the thick of it.

  On the morning in question I was reading The Times and Holmes was poring over his recently acquired Encyclopaedia Martiannica. At one point I set aside the paper and glanced across at my friend, who had taken a break from his studies and was stuffing his pipe.

  “What are you reading about now?” I enquired.

  He flicked a negligent hand at the open encyclopaedia. “An entry on the biology of the Martian race,” he said. “Did you know, Watson, that Martians are not asexual, as first supposed, but hermaphroditic, and sprout their young in sacs attached to their integument?”

  “I must admit my ignorance in that area,” I said.

  “And were you aware, moreover, that they did not partake of human blood during the first invasion in ’94, as described in one or two of the more sensational newspapers at the time? They might have laid waste to vast swathes of our planet, and killed tens of thousands into the bargain, but they were not blood-drinkers. Hullo, and what’s this?” he said, interrupted by a commotion in the street.

  I glanced through the window in time to see an electrical car swerve to avoid an obstruction in the road, blaring its horn as it did so. The saloon had fetched up on the pavement and a noisy crowd had gathered and was remonstrating – not with the driver, I hasten to add, but at the cause of the vehicle’s sudden veering from the highway.

  “My word,” I said.

  Planted in the very centre of the road, solid and immovable, was a gunmetal grey girder pocked with rivets the size of saucers – the leg of a Martian tripod.

  These were the vehicles that had wrought such havoc around the world in 1894, until common terrestrial viruses had proved the invaders’ undoing. Little did we know back then, as we celebrated our unlikely salvation, that a second wave of Martian spaceships would make its way across the gulf of space six years later, this armada bearing more peaceable extraterrestrials inoculated against Earth’s microscopic defenders.

  Holmes joined me at the window as a hatch swung open in the underbelly of the tripod’s domed cabin. What emerged from within, descending on an elevator plate, was the squat, tentacled form of a Martian.

  I might mention here that I have been taxed as to how to refer to the Martians in this account. As Holmes had mentioned, they were hermaphroditic, and by rights perhaps I should call a singular Martian ‘it’; however, it seems demeaning to refer to them in this way, so I shall employ the terms ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘his’ from now on.

  As the alien descended, a knot of curious citizens watched his progress. Although the Martians occupied our planet in their hundreds of thousands, it was not every day that one of their number was seen, as it were, in the flesh. Their singular three-legged transportation devices might have ubiquitously prowled the capital from Richmond to East Ham, and from Barnet to Cro
ydon, but the creatures themselves showed a distinct inclination towards privacy.

  A police constable was soon on the scene, and this worthy met the Martian at ground level and escorted him through the rapidly parting crowd.

  Holmes rubbed his hands together in delight. “Why, I do believe, Watson, that the Martian is making a beeline towards 221B.”

  Indeed, the alien was hauling his bulk up the steps towards our front door.

  Presently Mrs Hudson, appearing unaccustomedly agitated, burst into the room. “Mr Holmes!” she cried. “Would you credit it, but there’s one of those horrible Martian creatures downstairs, and it says it wants to see you promptly!”

  My friend smiled. “Then if you would kindly show the fellow up, Mrs Hudson.”

  “And have it leave its dreadful slime all over my new carpets?”

  “I will personally pay for their cleaning,” he said.

  With an indrawn breath, Mrs Hudson withdrew.

  Evidently our extraterrestrial visitor, for all its many tentacles – or perhaps because of them – found the ascent of the staircase something of a trial, for it was a good five minutes before Mrs Hudson flung open the door and stood aside as the Martian shuffled into the room.

  We are all aware, from the many illustrations provided by our national dailies, of the appearance of the beings from the red planet. However prepared I might have been, the sight of the creature in such close proximity provoked in me the contradictory emotions of fascination and revulsion, for the Martian was truly a hideous specimen.

  He stood just under five feet tall, his bulk consisting of a head and body combined in a way that bore no relation to any terrestrial creature, and this perhaps accounted for my revulsion. Set into the oily brown skin of his torso were two huge eyes, like jet-black jellyfish, and a quivering, V-shaped beak. Beneath this were two groups of eight tentacles, which the creature used as both arms and legs.

  Holmes gestured the alien to a chaise longue, the only piece of furniture in the room able to contain his bulk.

  The Martian sat down, arranging his limbs across the brocade in a manner at once businesslike yet prim. As we watched, the peculiar V-shaped mouth opened and closed. “Mr Holmes,” he said in croaking English, “I am Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran, deputy ambassador to Great Britain, and I have come today to request your investigational services.”

  For a number of years, Holmes had been teaching himself the fundamentals of the notoriously complex Martian tongue – and now it was a temptation beyond his powers of resistance to reply to the deputy ambassador in his own language. My friend gave vent to a horrible series of eructations, which surely taxed the elasticity of his larynx.

  The Martian flung several of his tentacles into the air and replied excitedly, “But you have mastered our language as no other Earthling yet!”

  “I take that as a compliment,” Holmes said. “Now, as to the nature of the investigation in question?”

  “I am afraid that must remain undisclosed,” the creature said, “until you have agreed to accompany me to the ambassador’s residence, where I will furnish you with the relevant details.”

  Holmes frowned, not enamoured of such a stipulation. His curiosity, however, was piqued. In an aside, he said to me, “This can be no little matter, Watson, if the ambassador himself requires our presence.” To the Martian, he said, “Very well, Mr Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran. Shall we hasten to the embassy?”

  “We will avail ourselves of my tripod,” said the Martian.

  * * *

  To stride the boroughs of London as if on the shoulders of a giant!

  We sat ensconced on a padded couch in the cockpit of the tripod and goggled in amazement at the city far below. Tiny cars beetled like trilobites along the busy streets, and in the skies air-cars buzzed about like insects. Pedestrians went about their everyday business as if oblivious of the tripod striding in their midst.

  The journey was over all too soon. In due course we were deposited outside the Martian Embassy in Grosvenor Square and entered the building. The deputy ambassador ushered us into a lift and we ascended to the first floor, and thence into the sitting room of the ambassador’s suite, where we paused beside a polished timber door.

  Without further ado, Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran said, “I made the discovery this morning, Mr Holmes. Beyond the door is the ambassador’s bedroom, and it is my habit to enter at eight, once he has risen, to apprise him of the day’s agenda.”

  Holmes fixed the deputy with an eagle eye. “And this morning?”

  “This morning I found the ambassador stabbed to death in his bed. I immediately locked the door and posted a guard.”

  Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran opened the door and stood aside, and Holmes and I entered.

  We were in a bedchamber dominated by a large double bed, upon which reposed the bulk of the Martian ambassador. I did not require a doctorate in Martian medicine to ascertain that the ambassador was quite dead.

  “Stabbed,” Holmes opined, “by a sharp implement just below the mouthpiece – the area in the Martian body where the major pulmonary organ is located.”

  After a brief search of the room, Holmes muttered, “But of the murder weapon there is no sign.”

  Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran shuffled back and forth at the foot of the bed, clearly in a state of agitation or grief. “Immediately after making the discovery,” he said, “I contacted my superiors on Mars via our sub-space communicator and summoned an investigational team, though it will be a week before they arrive on Earth. The ambassador’s life-mate will also be aboard the vessel, come to retrieve her partner’s corpse for burial in the sands of our home planet.”

  I stood over the bed and gazed down at the dead Martian, gagging at the obnoxious stench of escaped bodily fluids. I withdrew a handkerchief and covered my mouth and nose.

  Ichor, sulphurous yellow and viscid, had leaked from the wound in its torso and pooled on the sheets around its bulk. Its vast eyes were open, and stared blindly at the ceiling. Its V-shaped mouth likewise gaped, as if emitting a final painful cry.

  Beside the bed was a small table upon which lay several envelopes, each one slit neatly open. Holmes examined their postmarks one by one and informed me that they had been delivered the day before.

  He turned to Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran. “And you say the door was locked?”

  “From the inside, by the ambassador,” the Martian replied.

  “Was he in the habit of locking his bedroom door?”

  “The ambassador valued his privacy.”

  “I take it you had a spare key?” Holmes asked.

  “That is so. And I fetched it when the ambassador failed to respond to my summons at eight.”

  “And the key, deputy ambassador – is it kept in a place from where others might easily take it?”

  “It is kept in an unlocked drawer in the bureau,” he replied, gesturing to the adjacent outer room with a quivering tentacle.

  “How many members of staff would have access to the other room?”

  “Just four: two of my own kind, and two of the humans who work at the embassy.”

  “If you would kindly summon them forthwith for questioning, I would be most grateful.”

  The Martian shuffled from the room, closing the door behind him.

  Holmes crossed to the open window. “Hullo, what’s this?”

  He lifted the window further open and peered out. The drop to the gravelled forecourt below was in excess of thirty feet, with no convenient drainpipe, wisteria or the like to provide suitable access.

  Holmes stood back and contemplated the wall below the windowsill.

  I saw then what had attracted his attention – a gouge in the wallpaper four inches beneath the sill, and an abrasion on the paint of the woodwork itself.

  “If the ambassador was in the habit of keeping his window open at night,” Holmes said, “and an intruder armed with a grapple and rope… You catch my line of reasoning, Watson? Then again, there might be an entirely innocent explanation for the marks.�
�

  I examined the wall more closely, and when I turned from the window I saw Holmes cross to the bedside table, sort through the envelopes, then tuck something into his breast pocket, an expression of supreme satisfaction on his aquiline visage.

  Before I could question him, however, the deputy ambassador returned.

  “The staff are gathered and await you, Mr Holmes.”

  * * *

  “And you have been in the employ of the embassy for how long?” Holmes asked.

  We were seated at a table in a small room in the ambassador’s suite, which Holmes had requisitioned for the purpose of conducting the interviews.

  “Three years this May,” replied the gentleman by the name of Herbert Wells, a sad-faced man of perhaps forty with expressive, melancholy eyes and a straggling moustache. In a singular recapitulation of the physical nature of his employers, Wells had short legs and a stocky, barrel-like torso.

  “And your position at the embassy?”

  “I work as a scientific liaison officer to the ambassador and his staff,” he said in an odd, high-pitched voice. “I liaise between the Martian scientists and engineers who visit our world, and their opposite numbers on Earth.”

  “And you trained at…?”

  “The Royal College of Science, under none other than the great Professor T.H. Huxley himself.”

  Holmes cleared his throat. “In your time working here, have you had reason to notice any hostility towards the ambassador?”

  Wells hesitated. “The ambassador is… was… well liked, by both Martians and humans. I cannot imagine who might have done this.”

  “Are you aware of the political factions that exist among the Martians? We well know that there was political strife, not to say animosity, between certain nations before their arrival here.”

  “I know of certain political differences between the Martians, yes, but I was not aware that such differences existed between the ambassador and his staff, or any other Martians who had dealings with him on Earth.”

  “Very well. Now… we come to the business of what happened last night. Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran saw the ambassador at ten o’clock, at which time the ambassador repaired to his bedchamber and locked the door. Therefore he died at some time between ten o’clock last night and eight this morning. Where were you between these hours?”