Baker Street Beat: An Eclectic Collection of Sherlockian Scribblings by Dan Andriacco Page A

Bohemia,” “His Last Bow,” “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” etc.) have adventure-less titles, so I thought I was on solid ground. As for the plot itself, I have no idea where it came from but I tried to write a good mystery that seemed Holmes-like.
    I won the $100 gift certificate and used it to buy Sherlock Holmes books. “The Peculiar Persecution of John Vincent Harden” story was first printed, with the permission of the Conan Doyle estate, in The Sherlock Holmes Review in 1990, Volume 2, Numbers 3 and 4. Around the same time I also adapted it into a radio play, which has been performed by Sherlockian groups as readers’ theater.
    When I met Steven Doyle for the first time, at the Gillette to Brett III conference in October 2011, he said, “You may not remember, but I published your pastiche.” How could I ever forget? It was my first published fiction!
    When “The Peculiar Persecution of John Vincent Harden” was reprinted in Baker Street Beat , many reviewers singled it out as one of the highlights of the book. Ross K. Foad, in his “No Place Like Holmes” video review, called it “one of the best short Sherlock Holmes pastiches I’ve read.” It is in response to such comments that MX Publishing and I have decided to make this tale available as a stand-alone e-book.

The Peculiar Persecution of John Vincent Harden
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    In reviewing my notes of the many singular adventures shared with my friend Sherlock Holmes, I have often been struck by the remarkable number that concerned themselves with the doings of Americans.
    Many such cases I have already presented to a long-suffering public. The Lauriston Gardens mystery and the tragedy of Birlstone, to name but two, were present-day crimes whose seeds were sown long ago in the fertile soil of the American continent.
    Other incidents are doubtless too familiar to my readers to require further chronicling here. No one acquainted with the curious case of the bareback rider or with the horrifying immolation of the straw doll, which defeated the official police of three continents, could soon forget the chilling details.
    There remain, however, some few examples of what might be called my friend’s “American connexions” which deserve a wider audience. (Let those responsible for the distasteful episode of the cajun cook be forewarned.) Surely any one of these hitherto uncelebrated problems would be of sufficient interest to engage the reader, else they would not have engaged Mr. Sherlock Holmes. None, however, was more fantastic than the peculiar persecution of John Vincent Harden.
    It was mid-April of 1895. The fresh breezes of early spring blew through Baker Street, seeming to sweep away the crime and disease of the great city and make everything new again. After a frenzied round of professional calls in the morning and early afternoon, brought on by so sudden a change in the weather, I sat exhausted beside the unlit fireplace nodding over a medical journal. Sherlock Holmes, newly returned to our quarters in the guise of a simple fisherman, was absorbed in a microscopic examination of a peculiar red clay tracked in on his boots. We spoke but seldom, and such were the relations between us in those days that little talk was necessary.
    Accustomed as we were to callers at all hours, the intrusion of our landlady into this comfortable scene was not entirely surprising.
    â€œA gentleman to see you,” Mrs. Hudson told Holmes.
    Sherlock Holmes took the card proffered on a silver tray. He held it up for me to read: “John Vincent Harden, Esq.”
    â€œA gentleman, indeed,” said Holmes, fingering the nondescript white card as Mrs. Hudson withdrew. “A wealthy American, Watson. Proud, but not haughty, I should judge.”
    â€œThis is too much, Holmes!” I protested. “Surely even you could scarcely draw such profound inferences from a mere piece of