The Dead Assassin: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Read Online Free PDF Page A

fog, revealing a four-wheeler drawn up to the curb ahead.
    “I recognize that growler,” Detective Blenkinsop said. “It’s the commissioner’s.”
    Upon entering the parlor, they were met by a tall, thin, ectomorphic man with bushy salt-and-pepper sideburns and a straggle of gray hair scraped carefully over a balding pate: the Commissioner of Police, Edmund Burke.
    “Why have you removed the body?” Conan Doyle demanded.
    Burke flayed Conan Doyle with an excoriating stare, then looked down at a small, spaniel-faced man who lurked at his shoulder, scribbling notes in a journal. “Who is this civilian, Dobbs?” he boomed in a headache-inducing voice. “Remove him at once!”
    Blenkinsop moved forward and tugged off his hat, eager to explain. “Beggin’ pardon, Commissioner Burke. This here is Doctor Conan Doyle, the chap what writes the Sherlock Holmes stories. I, er, I called him in, sir.”
    The commissioner frosted Detective Blenkinsop with a look of icy fury but swallowed his rage with obvious difficulty and plastered on an unconvincing smile. “Doctor Doyle, I am an enthusiast of your Sherlock Holmes stories. I confess I had hoped to meet you some day, but not at the scene of an actual police investigation.”
    Conan Doyle shook the commissioner’s hand and launched into a breathless explanation.
    “We have found the body of the murderer. Although shot multiple times he managed to stagger several streets away before succumbing to his wounds.”
    “You have found but one of the murderers,” Burke corrected. “This crime was obviously the work of more than one man.”
    “Really? How can you say that? We found no—”
    “Doctor Doyle,” the commissioner interrupted. “I have been investigating murders for thirty years and I can safely say there is far too much blood for one assailant.” Burke looked about the room, nodding at the blood trails sprayed across the walls. “Too much blood by far, and…” He eyed the drinks cabinet and stepped toward it. “… if you care to take notice, this cupboard appears to be bleeding.”
    All eyes fixed upon the only intact piece of furniture remaining in the room: a very handsome drinks cabinet where, indeed, drops of blood were weeping from the bottom of the double doors. Commissioner Burke fumbled the latch and snatched them open like a conjurer performing a trick. Inside the cupboard, a man crouched in a contortionist’s pose, head tucked between his knees, legs drawn up tight to his chest. His right hand clutched his left forearm, trying to staunch the copious flow of blood from a bullet wound.
    “Aha!” the commissioner exulted. “Here is your murderer. Hiding like the craven coward he is.” He nodded to the young detective. “Blenkinsop, drag him out of there.”
    It took Detective Blenkinsop and another constable to pry the man, who clearly did not want to be removed, loose of his confined hiding space. It soon became evident the man had not been idle during his sequester, as a half-drunk whiskey bottle tumbled out with him and glugged itself empty on the Persian rug. Despite his injury, the man was strong and grappled with the officers, but was finally wrestled to his knees before the commissioner. He was a tall, muscular youth with swarthy good looks and a thick head of curly black hair. The young man dissolved into hysterics, gesturing with exaggerated emotion at the shattered parlor door, the toppled divan, the grotesque imprint on the wall, all the while cradling his wounded forearm and wailing with pain.
    Conan Doyle stepped forward and gently loosened the man’s grip on his injured arm to examine it. “Shot clean through the forearm. Shattered the bone most likely. He must be in considerable discomfort.”
    “The man is a murderer,” Commissioner Burke snarled. “He has assassinated a patriot and hero of the empire. Let him howl all he wants; he warrants no sympathy from us.”
    The man at once unleashed a torrent of indecipherable