1898
A
PROFESSIONAL MATTER
In
1902, Adam Adamant tells Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson the tale of
how Inspector Ganimard recruited him to apprehend Arsène
Lupin four years ago. A Collector received a note warning Lupin would
rob him of his green paste idol of Princess Hermonthis. Adamant meets
Inspector Ledoux at the scene of a murder. The victims are members of
the Diogenes Club, in Paris on orders from Mycroft Holmes. The
Collector gives a grimoire to Griffin, an invisible English scientist
who is currently in league with a cult of Nyarlathotep worshippers.
The grimoire was written by Charles le Sorcier, an alchemist and
magician, the son of Michel Mauvais. Adamant heard about Nyarlathotep
and his follower Pharaoh Nephren-Ka from the Curator at Miskatonic
University. Adamant receives a letter from Lupin, revealing the thief
had impersonated the real Ledoux, who died in 1879 while hunting the
Phantom of the Opera.
Short
story by Sam Shook in Tales
of the Shadowmen Volume 11: Force Majeure,
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2014. Adam
Adamant is from the 1960s BBC television series Adam
Adamant Lives! Sherlock
Holmes, his brother Mycroft, Dr. Watson, and the Diogenes Club are
from Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. The Collector and the idol of
Princess Hermonthis are from Théophile
Gautier’s short story “The Mummy’s Foot.” Inspector Ledoux is
from the 1925 film version of Gaston Leroux’s novel The
Phantom of the Opera.
Griffin is from H. G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel The
Invisible Man.
After escaping Adamant and Lupin’s clutches in this story, Griffin
returns to England, where he takes up residence in a private girl’s
school, as seen in The
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume I.
Nyarlathotep, Charles le Sorcier, Michel Mauvais, and Nephren-Ka are
from the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
I take it Holmes and Adamant had this conversation soon before Adamant was put in suspended animation?
ReplyDeleteI guess Inspector Ledoux's part in the events of the Opera Ghost case when Leroux turned the events into a novel but returned when they made the movie. (I never seen the movie, but I've read the original novel.)
There aren't enough stories about Adam Adamant's career before he was frozen in ice, which is a great shame. It seems to be a bit of a hole in the CU. Never mind.
ReplyDelete