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

words, his face animated with fear and despair.
    “And he’s a foreigner! Talking in some foreign babble. An anarchist, no doubt.”
    Oscar Wilde stepped forward and coughed politely to draw the commissioner’s attention. When all eyes had fixed upon him, he spoke in a calm voice. “I should point out the young fellow is wearing a servant’s uniform. And I happen to speak that ‘foreign babble.’ The gentleman is Italian. Although he speaks in a dialect I am not entirely fluent in, I can tell you that his name is Vicente, and that he is Lord Howell’s personal valet.”
    “Well, there you have it,” Conan Doyle said. “The poor chap likely received the bullet wound trying to defend his master. After which, he crawled into the cupboard to hide.”
    The commissioner sneered. “Italy is a hot bed of anarchy.” He threw a piercing look at his adjutant. “Dobbs, find the servant’s quarters. Search the foreigner’s room for subversive materials.”
    “Yes, commissioner, sir.” Dobbs shouldered his satchel and hurried from the room.
    All the while the Italian tore at his hair with his good hand, weeping and muttering.
    “See here, Commissioner Burke,” Conan Doyle said, “something extraordinary took place in this room. This man is likely our only witness—”
    “Yes,” Burke interrupted. “Something extraordinary did take place. Clearly this foreigner has conspired in the murder of his master.”
    “But he himself is wounded!”
    “Proof conclusive I would say that he was a party to the crime.”
    Conan Doyle could not suppress a grunt of exasperation, but Burke was just gathering steam. “It would not surprise me if the man murdered Lord Howell and then shot himself as a ruse to divert our suspicion. After all, he’s had hours to prepare this fantastical tableau.”
    Conan Doyle threw a disbelieving look at Wilde, who shook his head and discreetly touched a finger to his lips in a shush gesture. The Scottish author’s throat clenched around the words queued up there, but Wilde was right—the argument was devolving into a wrestling match of egos. Edmund Burke was an unctuous buffoon whose mind was closed to anyone’s opinion other than his own.
    The adjutant returned, clutching a fistful of broadsheets. He handed them to the commissioner, who gave them a cursory, lip-curling glance, then thrust them in Conan Doyle’s face. “As I suspected, subversive literature. The man is an agitator. An enemy of the British nation.”
    Conan Doyle took the broadsheets and examined them. Most were emblazoned with anarchist slogans and calls for revolution and uprising. He thumbed through them until he found one broadsheet in particular: a sheet of black paper with a simple graphic in white lettering.

    He flashed it at Wilde, whose eyebrows shot up in consternation—it precisely matched the symbol scribbled on the front gatepost.
    The valet looked at the broadsheet, and then at the faces around him. Clearly, he understood what was being said about him and unleashed an excited torrent of Italian.
    The commissioner watched the valet’s histrionics with a face drained of empathy and finally swiveled his jaded gaze to Wilde. “Mister Wilde, is it not? Your language skills may prove useful. Please ask our Italian assassin how many of his confederates took part in the murder.”
    Wilde touched the man’s shoulder to corral his attention and said, “Quanti assassini hanno attaccato il tuo padrone?”
    The Italian valet shook his head, emphatically, “Solo uno. Solo uno. Ma era il diavolo! Il diavolo!”
    At the reply, Wilde’s face hardened to stone.
    “What did he say, Oscar?” Conan Doyle asked.
    “He said there was only one assassin … but he was the Devil.”

 
    CHAPTER   3
    FENIANS, ANARCHISTS, AND DYNAMITARDS
    “We found the body just up here…” Detective Blenkinsop said, and added in a muttered breath, “… somewhere.”
    He was leading police commissioner Edmund Burke and his fawning