These
three anthologies contain stories of Sherlock Holmes encountering the
supernatural or other remarkable cases. The first anthology, Gaslight
Grimoire, included many crossovers, most of
which Win included in the original volumes. The only one not
included, which will be in the new volumes, is "Red Sunset"
by Bob Madison. A private investigator asks an elderly, decrepit
British consulting detective to assist him in a case involving a
missing man, who upon being discovered by the American detective
attacked him, forcing the detective to fire three bullets into him,
which had no effect. The British sleuth deduces the younger detective
works for either the Chandler or Continental agencies. The person
responsible for the man’s strange condition is a Romanian Count,
who mentions the Dutch doctor. The elderly British detective is
Holmes. The Continental Detective Agency is from Dashiell Hammett’s
Continental Op stories, and the American detective is the Op himself.
The Romanian Count is Dracula, while his Dutch foe is Doctor Abraham
Van Helsing. This story takes place during World War II, and the P.I.
claims Holmes was smuggled out of London when the Blitz began, his
continued existence being considered vital to British morale. This
conflicts with the events of Anthony Boucher’s story "The
Adventure of the Illustrious Impostor" and Manly Wade Wellman’s
"But Our Hero Was Not Dead," both of which portray Holmes
as still residing in London in 1941. References to Marshal
Antonescu’s overthrow in Rumania would seem to place this story in
1944. However, Holmes says he is over a hundred-years-old. Since
Holmes was born in 1854, he would be only 90 in 1944. The feebleness
and brittle bones displayed by Holmes in this story are inconsistent
with references in several pastiches set in the CU to his discovery
of a Royal Jelly elixir that arrests the aging process. Given all
these factors, this story cannot take place in the CU.
The
second anthology is Gaslight Grotesque.
In William Patrick Maynard's "The Tragic Case of the Child
Prodigy," Holmes and Dr. Watson attempt to rescue young violin
virtuoso Arthur
Tremayne’s mother from the influence of occultist William Frawley.
Back in Baker Street, Holmes tells Watson he will fetch Billy the
page and see if young Mr. Pons is interested in learning the proper
way to play the violin. Watson is married to Mary Morstan, which
places this story before the Great Hiatus. August Derleth’s sleuth
Solar Pons studied the art of detection under Holmes, who must have
taught the ten-year-old Pons how to play the violin as well. In Neil
Jackson's "Celeste," Holmes and Watson investigate the
salvaged ship Mary Celeste
alongside Dr. Joseph Jephson, whose father Habakuk was
one of those who disappeared from the ship in 1872. Jephson says a
diary allegedly written by his father is a hoax. The diary is a
reference to Arthur Conan Doyle’s story "J. Habakuk Jephson’s
Statement." Both Doyle’s and Jackson’s stories offer
different solutions to the mystery of the historical Mary
Celeste than Philip José Farmer’s The
Other Log of Phileas Fogg, and therefore
neither can take place in the CU. Doyle’s story also takes many
liberties with the known true facts of the case. In Stephen Volk's
"Hounded," Dr. Watson attends a séance where the Hound of
the Baskervilles is conjured up. The late Sherlock Holmes forced
Watson to write a mostly fabricated account of their encounter with
Hound, including the false claim the beast was not in fact
supernatural in origin. The spiritualist’s house contains a
painting of a unicorn by Harvey Deacon and books by, among others,
occultist Paul Le Duc; both individuals are from Arthur Conan Doyle’s
short story "Playing with Fire." Professor George
Challenger is mentioned as a believer in spiritualism. A reference to
Rudolph Valentino places this story sometime between the 1914 events
of "His Last Bow" (1914 also being the year Valentino began
acting) and the star’s death in 1926. This story must be an AU.
The
third anthology is Gaslight Arcanum.
I covered Kim Newman's "The Adventure of the Six Maledictions"
in a previous post. The other crossover stories are all AUs. In "The
Comfort of the Seine" by the aforementioned Stephen Volk, Holmes
recounts his time in Paris, where he learned the art of detection
from the supposedly deceased Edgar Allan Poe, then living under the
name Dupin. Among the cases they investigated were the affair of the
so-called "phantom" of the Paris Opera and the case of the
horla and its
tragically afflicted seer. These are references to Gaston Leroux’s
The Phantom of the Opera and
Guy de Maupassant’s "The Horla." Dupin is portrayed as a
completely fictional character created by Poe. In Lawrence Connolly's
"The Executioner," Frankenstein’s Monster revives
Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty after their fatal battle at
Reichenbach Falls. In Kevin Cockle's "Sherlock Holmes and the
Great Game," Holmes, discussing his
fictionalized exploits with Watson, refers to "Challenger’s
nonsense." This story portrays Holmes as having been granted
insights by a mystic Zulu dagger given to Watson in Afghanistan
rather than being a natural deductive genius.
