HAPPY WOLD NEWTON DAY!!!
April 1917
THE
ADVENTURE OF THE FALLEN STONE
Dr.
Watson’s pregnant wife, Nylepthah, is staying with her cousin, Sir
George Curtis. In 1919, Holmes would visit his old friend with a
large financial payment from the English Lord of the Apes, the result
of their adventure in Africa in 1916. Holmes’ gardener, Black Mike
Croteau, has been murdered. After examining the body, Holmes and
Watson are met at the former’s cottage by Harry Dickson, who has
apprenticed with both Barker (Holmes’ Surrey rival) and Blake. He
takes them to the Diogenes Club, where Holmes accuses his brother
Mycroft of knowing there was a possibility he and Watson would be
blown off course during the previous year’s African expedition he
sent them upon. Holmes suggests Mycroft knew all along the ape lord
was actually impersonating his deceased cousin, “William Clayton,
the 7th Duke of Grey—.” Holmes points out Mycroft identified
their flier, Leftenant John Drummond, as the great-nephew of Holmes’
old acquaintance, the 6th Duke. However, if Mycroft had been unaware
of the imposture, he would have identified the Leftenant as the 6th
Duke’s grandson. Mycroft reveals William Clayton was a government
agent reporting directly to him, and William’s alleged shipwreck in
Africa was actually part of his investigation. When he died, the
Duke’s cousin, the ape lord, who had survived a prior shipwreck as
an infant, assumed his identity, wishing to avoid the publicity
attendant to the discovery of an English lord who had been reared and
suckled by apes. The mission involved tracking down the German spy
Von Bork and his bacillus. Holmes deduces Mycroft hoped he and Watson
would encounter the ape lord and asks why. Holmes speculates it has
to do with the many unlikely coincidences the ape man comes up
against. Mycroft says their scientists call it “the human magnetic
moment.” Holmes’ adversary, Dr. Shan Ming Fu, informed Holmes of
the lotus
vitae almost
ten years ago. Holmes’ encounter with the ape man brought him into
contact with the jungle man’s “human magnetic” influence,
causing him to discover the lotus in the hidden valley of Zu-Vendis,
though he asked Watson to omit that discovery from his written
account. The lotus has been stolen from Holmes’ garden. Mycroft
says if Holmes’ bees can be induced to sample the lotus’ nectar,
a particular honey may result, which would be the key ingredient in a
unique concoction. Holmes mentions the “Hellbirds” incident, in
which Von Bork escaped, though Mycroft asked Watson to distort his
account of these events so Von Bork fell to his death from the Eiffel
Tower. Von Bork is being trailed by Sexton Blake. The mastermind of
the theft is a man who has been known by many names, including Wolf
Larsen, Karl Woldheim, and Carl Woldhaus; currently, he goes by the
name of Baron Ulf Von Waldman. He is the Commandant of a seemingly
inescapable German prison camp for those who have escaped from other
camps and been recaptured. The Baron also conducts experiments on
humans. There are rumors Von Waldman is the son of Professor
Moriarty. Holmes, Watson, Dickson and Isis Vanderhoek travel to
Blakeney House. Isis’ father was Mr. Klaw, “the dreaming
detective.” Mycroft tells Sherlock that the Diogenes Club has
recently become more focused on investigating outré and
unexplainable matters that affect the Empire. The butler at Blakeney
House gives Dickson a coded message from Blake, in which he says he
has wired Peter Blakeney in Richmond (with whom he has common
relatives dating back to the mid 17th century), and Blakeney House is
at their disposal, with Blakeney Jr. off at war. Blake soon arrives
with a captive Von Bork in tow. Holmes recalls the tale of Openshaw.
Blake tells his comrades about several places of interest in the East
Riding of Yorkshire, including the village of Wold Newton, where a
meteor fell near Major Edward Topham’s property, the Wold Cottage,
in 1795. Holmes decides they must visit the Wold Cottage and the
monument Topham had placed at the site of the meteor’s fall. Holmes
unmasks “Blake” as Von Waldman. Holmes and his allies free the
true Blake, and discover some fragments of stone. Holmes concludes
the Germans believe exposing the lotus
vitae to
the meteor fragments will result in the prolongation of human life.
Isis mentions Holmes’ own cultivation of the plant. Von Waldman
escapes from his bonds, taking the plant with him; however, Holmes
still has seeds to grow more. When Watson asks Holmes if he thinks
Von Waldman is really the son of Professor Moriarty, Holmes replies
that Mycroft’s files on the Baron indicate that he was born in
1888, that he was investigating Moriarty quite thoroughly at that
time, and that there was no indication of a child born to the
Professor in that period. Dickson suggests Von Waldman may have been
someone else, much older, who once had access to a similar elixir,
but whose supply may have run out, leading him to attempt to find a
means of duplicating it.
Short
story by Dr. Watson, edited by Win Scott Eckert in Sherlock
Holmes: The Crossovers Casebook,
Howard Hopkins, ed., Moonstone Books, 2012. This story serves as a
sequel to Watson’s account The
Adventure of the Peerless Peer,
as edited by Philip José Farmer. Watson’s wife Nylepthah and child
are from that novel; Nylepthah is the daughter of Sir Henry Curtis
from the Allan Quatermain stories (although Farmer says she is
Curtis’ granddaughter, Eckert’s essay “Who’s Going to Take
Over the World When I'm Gone?: A Look at the Genealogies of Wold
Newton Family Super-Villains and Their Nemeses” [Myths
for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe,
Win Scott Eckert, ed., MonkeyBrain Books, 2005] argues she is in fact
his daughter). Nylepthah’s cousin, Sir George Curtis, is from
Farmer’s translation and adaptation of J.-H. Rosny aîné’s
Ironcastle;
Farmer specifically identifies Sir George as Sir Henry’s nephew.
The ape lord is Lord Greystoke, of course. Harry Dickson is “the
American Sherlock Holmes” who appeared in French pulp stories by
Jean Ray and others. Holmes’ rival Cecil Barker first appeared in
the story “The Adventure of the Retired Colourman”; Dickson acted
as his apprentice in Eckert’s story “No Ghosts Need Apply” (The
Phantom Chronicles, Vol. 2,
Joe Gentile and Mike Bullock, eds., Moonstone Books, 2010). Sexton
Blake is one of the longest-running British penny dreadful
detectives; Dickson acted as his apprentice in Greg Gick’s story
“The Werewolf of Rutherford Grange” (originally published in two
parts in Tales
of the Shadowmen Volume 1: The Modern Babylon,
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2005, and
Tales
of the Shadowmen Volume 2: Gentlemen of the Night,
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2006;
reprinted in Harry
Dickson and the Werewolf of Rutherford Grange,
Black Coat Press, 2011). William Clayton, the 7th Duke of Greystoke,
appears in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels Tarzan
of the Apes and
The
Return of Tarzan;
in his essay “A Case of Identity,” H. W. Starr identified the 6th
Duke of Holdernesse and his son Lord Saltire from the Holmes story
“The Adventure of the Priory School” as the 6th and 7th Duke of
Greystoke, respectively, a theory adapted by Farmer for his biography
Tarzan
Alive.
Leftenant Drummond is the jungle lord’s adopted son John
Drummond-Clayton. Farmer identified the human magnetic moment in
Tarzan
Alive.
Dr. Shan Ming Fu is Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu; Dennis E. Power
revealed the Devil Doctor’s birth name in his essay “The Devil
Doctor: The Early History of Fu Manchu,” found on the Wold
Newton Universe: A Secret History website.
The lotus
vitae is
the plant from which Fu Manchu’s life-prolonging Elixir
vitae
is derived; Fu Manchu told Holmes about the elixir in George Alec
Effinger’s story “The Adventure of the Celestial Snows.” The
honey is the Royal Jelly that, according to William S. Baring-Gould
in his biography Sherlock
Holmes of Baker Street,
has extended Holmes’ natural lifespan. The Hellbirds incident
refers to Austin Mitchelson and Nicholas Utechin’s Holmes pastiche
Hellbirds.
Wolf Larsen is from Jack London’s novel The
Sea Wolf;
in his essay “The Green Eyes Have It—Or Are They Blue? or Another
Case of Identity Recased” (Myths
for the Modern Age),
Christopher Paul Carey argued Larsen and Baron von Hessel (from
Farmer’s authorized Doc Wildman novel Escape
from Loki)
were really aliases of XauXaz from Farmer’s trilogy of novels about
the evil secret society known as the Nine. In his essay “Asian
Detectives in the Wold Newton Universe” (Myths
for the Modern Age),
Dennis E. Power instead offered the alternative theory Larsen was the
son of Professor Moriarty. Isis and her father Moris Klaw are from
Sax Rohmer’s book The
Dream Detective.
The Diogenes Club’s latter-day focus on outré matters is the
subject of many stories by Kim Newman. Blakeney House is one of the
holdings of the Blakeney family, whose most famous member is Sir
Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Blakeney House previously
appeared in Eckert’s stories “Is He in Hell?” (Tales
of the Shadowmen Volume 6: Grand Guignol,
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2010;
reprinted and revised in The
Worlds of Philip José Farmer 1: Protean Dimensions,
Michael Croteau, ed., Meteor House, 2010) and “Nadine’s
Invitation” (Tales
of the Shadowmen Volume 7: Femmes Fatales,
Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2010). Peter
Blakeney Jr. is Sir Percy’s descendant from The
Pimpernel and Rosemary.
In his series of articles “The Wold Wold West” (found at the Wold
Newton Universe: A Secret History website),
Dennis E. Power argued Sexton Blake was distantly related to the
Blakeney family, a theory Eckert adopted for his essay “The
Blakeney Family Tree” (The
Worlds of Philip José Farmer 1).
Openshaw is from the Holmes story “The Five Orange Pips.”
