As the pitches for the forthcoming Belanger Books anthology ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives’ roll in, we offer a warped coming together of two masters of their craft, and some dreadful cheap humour, as usual. We point out that the strangest collaborations are chronologically feasible, and we mention a brand new Holmes book due out soon, plus an open call for Holmes tales…
EGYPT, 1893: WHEN TITANS MEET
Holmes stepped off the almost empty felucca, and drew the warm, heavy Luxor air into his flaring nostrils. Despite the bustle at other jetties, here there was only a single figure besides himself – a small, slightly rotund young man, who had clearly been waiting for him.
“M’sieur Holmes?”
The Great Detective inclined his head slightly, and the young man smiled with relief.
“M’sieur, I am sent by the Sûreté de l’État, on behalf of the Belgian ambassador in Cairo. I have certain papers for you, of the gravest–”
Holmes would have placed the man’s accent as that of peasant stock, probably from French-speaking Wallonia in the south, but the clothes were immaculate, despite the heat and dust – a touch affected, even.
“No doubt, no doubt. What is your name, sir?”
“Agatha, sir. My parents were too poor to afford a boy’s name at the time. Agatha van Wimsey, of the Antwerp van Wimseys.”
Holmes felt an icy touch upon his neck. It seemed that despite all sense and logic, Watson’s premonition of an appalling pastiche was indeed coming to pass. Taking a Reichenbach fall had not saved him; neither the hastily arranged operation on Holmes’ hiatus, nor his disguise as an elderly Persian brush-salesman, had averted the Hand of Fate…
He would face this horror, though, and trust to his keen mind, as ever. He rounded on the little Belgian official.
“You are currently charged by the Sûreté with an investigation into the death of a Bohemian at a builder’s house not far from Bruges, but were posted to Egypt by mistake, and had the most dreadful sea journey. You own a cat called Marple, you plan to grow a small, neatly-waxed moustache, and quite fancy a career as a refugee. When not about your police work, you divide your time between assessing the relative size of soft-boiled eggs, knitting cardigans, and reading travel brochures for Hastings.”
The Belgian looked shocked. “But yes, M’sieur! You are correct in all particulars”
Holmes sighed, knowing that one last act had to be played out. He glanced towards the towering stone pillars of the nearest temple, and considered a more recent addition in their shadow – a row of what might be mean, windowless dwellings, constructed of dull river mud dried hard in the sun.
“Tell me, then, if this must be. What is the purpose of those small buildings?”
The Belgian raised both eyebrows. “Why, M’sieur, did you not know? They are the famous little grey cells…”
Somewhere in the distance, atop a magnificent sand dune, a camel was sick into a fellahin’s hat.
For those who like to explore this sort of thing, Sherlock Holmes would have been in his late thirties in 1893, at the time of his absence from Britain and the Great Hiatus; Hercule Poirot would have been in his late twenties by the most common reckonings.
The date of Poirot’s birth is speculation, though, and does vary between 1864 and 1884 – that latter end would, of course, make it unlikely that Poirot would have had a chance to meet the Great Detective professionally until the early Edwardian period, when Holmes was contemplating retirement. But if there were only ten years between them, what curious events might have occurred?
Crime writer Julian Symons considered this topic, and wrote a short story ‘Did Sherlock Holmes meet Hercule’, published as a limited edition in 1987.
A brief, far more serious discussion of Holmes and Poirot can be found here at Dennis Simanaitis’ site:
https://simanaitissays.com/2015/08/29/did-poirot-ever-meet-holmes/
Adventures in the Realms of Steampunk
And live today is the Kickstarter campaign for Belanger’s latest two volume anthology Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of Steampunk – a phantasmagorical range of steampunk-flavoured tales, which includes my ONLY even vaguely steampunk story ever, concerning murder in the Anglo-Egyptian Empire, almost 12,000 words…
“Inspector St John Ahmed Faroukh was not greatly popular with his superior officers in the Hammersmith Division. He had been called many things in London – a mere nuss-Arab, neither one thing nor another; a Gypti mongrel, and a Cairo dog. He didn’t mind that one – the lean, tenacious creatures of his birthplace were better adapted to survival than some of the pampered beasts of England…”
Table of Contents
The Silver Swan by Cara Fox (The Strange Case of Doctor Magorian )
The Adventure of the Pneumatic Box by Robert Perret (For King and Country)
The Adventure of the Portable Exo-Lung by GC Rosenquist (Sherlock Holmes: The Pearl of Death and Other Early Stories)
The Body at the Ritz by Stephen Herczeg (Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.G. Wells Volume 1)
The Hounds of Anuket by John Linwood Grant (Occult Detective Quarterly)
Treasure of the Dragon by Thomas Fortenberry (An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Sherlock Holmes and the Clockwork Count by Benjamin Langley (Dead Branches)
The Adventure of the Purloined Piston Valve by L.S. Reinholt & Minerva Cerridwen (The Dragon of Ynys )
The Deductive Man by Paul Hiscock (Under the Weather)
The Adventure of the Tiger’s Topaz by Derrick Belanger (Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Primal Man)
Sherlock Holmes and the Moongate Sabotage by Derek Nason (Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.G. Wells Vol. 2 )
The Adventure of the Brompton Mausoleum by Paula Hammond (Alternative Truths)
A Second Case of Identity by S. Subramanian (Airship 27: Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective)
Doctor Bear, I Presume! by Harry DeMaio (The Casebooks of Octavius Bear)
You can back the modest campaign here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1306925656/sherlock-holmes-adventures-in-the-realms-of-steamp
Get Writing: Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives
This anthology, edited by John Linwood Grant, is accepting story pitches up to 15th March 2019, so plenty of time to get your ideas in. Full guidelines, details of pay and length etc, can be found here:
https://greydogtales.com/blog/sherlock-holmes-and-the-occult-detectives-pt-2/