The Seventh Bullet Read Online Free
Author: Daniel D. Victor
borders of Lebanon. (The Tripoli in question is not to be confused with the Libyan city of the same name.)
Two
A VISIT TO SUSSEX
“It isn’t easy for an intelligent human being to say as much as three sentences without betraying his intelligence.”
—David Graham Phillips, George Helm
T he day after my encounter with Mrs. Frevert, I exchanged telegrams with Holmes establishing our welcome at his cottage. That Sunday morning, therefore, I bade an early farewell to my wife, who, knowing as much as she did about her husband’s exploits with Sherlock Holmes, was not completely surprised by my impulsive trips to see him. Following a brief hansom ride to Victoria, I found Mrs. Frevert, attired in travelling garb of black and looking much like a bereft widow, settled in one of the handsome Pullman carriages ready for the ninety-minute, uninterrupted journey. At Eastbourne, we would catch a local omnibus for the nearby village of Fulworth, where a wagon and driver might easily be appropriated to traverse the distance between the town and what Holmes enjoyed calling his “villa.”
Our departure from London passed uneventfully. Gently rocking and swaying its way over the points in the station, the train lumbered through a flickering display of sunlight and shadow conjured by the blackened brick arches of diverse railway bridges. Minutes later, having put behind us the waves of gabled red roofs and columns of grimy chimney pots that mark the confines of London, we began to gain speed.
Once beyond the outskirts of the city, we easily contented ourselves by watching the countryside of southeastern England fly past. Indeed, there was much satisfaction to be gained from our vista. Although I had made this same journey to the South Downs on not a few occasions myself, I never tired of the halcyon beauty of the Sussex landscape in which Holmes had chosen to retire.
It was an early spring that year, and a potpourri of wild-flowers greeted us with a riot of colour. Yellow primroses, blue wood anemone, purple violets, and pied wind-flowers framed rolling green fields occupied by grazing white sheep and mottled Herefords. Within minutes these pastures gave way to intermittent woods of oak, antique remnants of the mighty forests that once covered the area. Slicing through little hills and wealden valleys, the rails carried us farther south until near Lewes the earth became that more familiar greyish white that marks the chalky cliffs overlooking the English Channel.
It is near just such a cliff that Holmes’s small house sits. He occupies a whitewashed cottage near Beachy Head that we reached with no difficulty after making the proper connections in both Eastbourne and Fulworth. Motor cars being scarce in that part of the country, we relied on a dog cart to take us the final few miles of our journey. By the end of the bouncy jaunt, I wasquite pleased to see the spiralling smoke from Holmes’s red-brick chimney and the winding path of noisy grey gravel that leads to his front door. Of his precious beehives we could see very little, for they were situated a good hundred yards beyond the house.
“Oh, Dr. Watson,” Mrs. Hudson greeted me even before the door was fully open. “It’s always a pleasure to see you again.” Beneath her grey hair pulled back into a chignon, wrinkles creased that familiar face, but the twinkle in her eyes whenever I appeared always made me think she was recalling those exciting, earlier days in Baker Street—those days in which Holmes and I so often entertained colourful personages whom she never failed to scrutinise when bringing up the tea. Indeed, as she awaited the introduction of Mrs. Frevert, I saw those eager eyes taking in the handsome figure of the American woman before her. It was more than mere feminine approval, I thought, that was responsible for Mrs. Hudson’s fulgent smile. It was the sense, so long lying dormant, that a case might yet be at hand, a case that—in addition to whatever
Two
A VISIT TO SUSSEX
“It isn’t easy for an intelligent human being to say as much as three sentences without betraying his intelligence.”
—David Graham Phillips, George Helm
T he day after my encounter with Mrs. Frevert, I exchanged telegrams with Holmes establishing our welcome at his cottage. That Sunday morning, therefore, I bade an early farewell to my wife, who, knowing as much as she did about her husband’s exploits with Sherlock Holmes, was not completely surprised by my impulsive trips to see him. Following a brief hansom ride to Victoria, I found Mrs. Frevert, attired in travelling garb of black and looking much like a bereft widow, settled in one of the handsome Pullman carriages ready for the ninety-minute, uninterrupted journey. At Eastbourne, we would catch a local omnibus for the nearby village of Fulworth, where a wagon and driver might easily be appropriated to traverse the distance between the town and what Holmes enjoyed calling his “villa.”
Our departure from London passed uneventfully. Gently rocking and swaying its way over the points in the station, the train lumbered through a flickering display of sunlight and shadow conjured by the blackened brick arches of diverse railway bridges. Minutes later, having put behind us the waves of gabled red roofs and columns of grimy chimney pots that mark the confines of London, we began to gain speed.
Once beyond the outskirts of the city, we easily contented ourselves by watching the countryside of southeastern England fly past. Indeed, there was much satisfaction to be gained from our vista. Although I had made this same journey to the South Downs on not a few occasions myself, I never tired of the halcyon beauty of the Sussex landscape in which Holmes had chosen to retire.
It was an early spring that year, and a potpourri of wild-flowers greeted us with a riot of colour. Yellow primroses, blue wood anemone, purple violets, and pied wind-flowers framed rolling green fields occupied by grazing white sheep and mottled Herefords. Within minutes these pastures gave way to intermittent woods of oak, antique remnants of the mighty forests that once covered the area. Slicing through little hills and wealden valleys, the rails carried us farther south until near Lewes the earth became that more familiar greyish white that marks the chalky cliffs overlooking the English Channel.
It is near just such a cliff that Holmes’s small house sits. He occupies a whitewashed cottage near Beachy Head that we reached with no difficulty after making the proper connections in both Eastbourne and Fulworth. Motor cars being scarce in that part of the country, we relied on a dog cart to take us the final few miles of our journey. By the end of the bouncy jaunt, I wasquite pleased to see the spiralling smoke from Holmes’s red-brick chimney and the winding path of noisy grey gravel that leads to his front door. Of his precious beehives we could see very little, for they were situated a good hundred yards beyond the house.
“Oh, Dr. Watson,” Mrs. Hudson greeted me even before the door was fully open. “It’s always a pleasure to see you again.” Beneath her grey hair pulled back into a chignon, wrinkles creased that familiar face, but the twinkle in her eyes whenever I appeared always made me think she was recalling those exciting, earlier days in Baker Street—those days in which Holmes and I so often entertained colourful personages whom she never failed to scrutinise when bringing up the tea. Indeed, as she awaited the introduction of Mrs. Frevert, I saw those eager eyes taking in the handsome figure of the American woman before her. It was more than mere feminine approval, I thought, that was responsible for Mrs. Hudson’s fulgent smile. It was the sense, so long lying dormant, that a case might yet be at hand, a case that—in addition to whatever
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