"....whose pupils now loomed huge and crazy in his drug filled eyes..."
More great stuff from The Bureau, covering some excellent points , and if not in a new style, certainly new to me.
Stranger and stranger
by John Blacksmith
“And so,” said Holmes, “of the nine members of the group, four told the authorities that they were checking the well-being and safety of their children every fifteen minutes, two, the parents of the abducted child, said every half an hour, and two more had availed themselves of a telegraphic device, newly invented, which enabled them to listen to their children from afar.”
Outside daylight was beginning to fade. Baker Street resounded to the reassuring bustle of tradesmen, the clop and rattle of hansom cabs and the fierce cry of a passing fishwife. The pole of a lamplighter could be seen, turning on the bright yellow flare of gas. It was a homely scene, Dr Watson reflected, in deep contrast to the unsavoury mystery that Holmes was outlining.
“That’s eight,” said Watson, with unwonted sharpness, did you not say there were nine?”
“One of them apparently suffers from dementia praecox,” said Holmes, reclining in what he called his “thinking chair””. He reached out to the small table at his side and took a large pinch of cocaine from a Willow Pattern saucer. “I regret to say that she has some difficulty in remembering her own name. At least in matters concerning this affair.”
“Holmes, old man, do you remember writing once about impossibility? Hang on, I think you said, whatever is left after one excludes –”.....more
