The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes Read Online Free Page B

violin.
    â€œWait, Holmes!” said I. “There is something in this you have not told me.”
    â€œNo, no, my dear Watson,” said he, drawing his bow briskly across the strings. “It is simply a feeling I have, that we are about to embark upon deep waters.”

THE ADVENTURE OF THE DYING SHIP
EDWARD D. HOCH
    E dward D. Hoch holds a unique distinction that I doubt will ever be equaled: a short story of his appeared in every issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine for thirty-five years. Six years after his passing in 2008, “The Adventure of the Dying Ship,” his last Holmes pastiche, appeared in the February 2014 issue, which traditionally celebrates Sherlock Holmes in complimentary copies handed out at the annual Baker Street Irregulars banquet in January (popularly considered the month of Holmes’s birth). Holmes, Watson, and the Titanic : Who could ask for more? Reprinted by permission of Patricia Hoch.

    I write of this late in life, because I feel some record must be left of the astounding events of April 1912. I am aware that prior attempts to record my adventures personally have suffered when compared to those of my old and good friend Watson, but following my retirement from active practice as a consulting detective late in 1904 I saw very little of him. There were occasional weekend visits when he was in the area of my little Sussex home overlooking the Channel, but for the most part we had retired to our separate lives. It was not until 1914, at the outbreak of the Great War, that we would come together for a final adventure.
    But that was more than two years away when I decided, quite irrationally, to accept an invitation from the president of the White Star Line to be a guest on the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic across the Atlantic to New York. He was a man for whom I had performed a slight service some years back, not even worthy of mention in Watson’s notes, and he hardly owed me compensation on such a grand scale. There were several reasons why I agreed to it, but perhaps the truth was that I had simply grown bored with retirement. Still in my mid-fifties and enjoying good health, I had quickly learned that even at the height of season, the physical demands of beekeeping were slight indeed. The winter months were spent in correspondence with fellow enthusiasts, and a review and classification of my past cases. What few needs I had were seen to by an elderly housekeeper.
    My initial reaction upon receiving the invitation was to ignore it. I had never been much of a world traveler, except for my years in Tibet and the Middle East, but the offer to revisit America intrigued me for two reasons. It would enable me to visit places like the Great Alkali Plain of Utah and the coal-mining region of Pennsylvania, which had figured in some of my investigations. And I could meet with one or two American beekeepers with whom I’d struck up a correspondence. I agreed to the invitation on one condition—that I travel under an assumed name. For the voyage I became simply Mr. Smith, a name I shared with five other passengers and the ship’s captain.
    Early April had been a time of chilly temperatures and high winds. I was more than a little apprehensive as I departed from London on the first-class boat train to Southampton, arriving there at 11:30 A.M . on Wednesday the 10th. Happily, my seat companion on the boat train proved to be a young American writer and journalist named Jacques Futrelle. He was a stocky man with a round, boyish face and dark hair that dipped down over his forehead on the right side. He wore pince-nez glasses and flowing bow tie, with white gloves that seemed formal for the occasion. Because of his name I took him to be French at first, but he quickly corrected my misapprehension. “I am a Georgian, sir, by way of Boston,” he told me, “which might explain my strange accent.”
    â€œBut surely your name—”
    â€œMy family is