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    The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes
    The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes
    The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes
    Ebook41 pages26 minutes

    The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes

    By Vincent Starrett

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    About this ebook

    In this brilliant pastiche, Sherlock Holmes investigates a mystery involving one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays

    An agitated, portly gentleman waddles down Baker Street toward 221B, his pockets sagging and his eyes wide with panic. From his window Sherlock Holmes diagnoses the man as a collector of rare books, on his way to ask for help finding a missing volume. The brilliant detective is correct, of course, but even he is taken aback when the nature of the work in question—a first folio of Hamlet, inscribed in Shakespeare’s own hand—is revealed. As Holmes and his steadfast companion, Dr. Watson, investigate, they discover that rare-book collectors can be just as cunning and diabolical as any villain ever dreamed up by the Bard of Avon.
     
    A founder of the Baker Street Irregulars and the author of an indispensible biography, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Vincent Starrett combined a scholar’s authority with a fan’s enthusiasm in his appreciation of the great detective. No one was better suited to write a new adventure for Holmes and Watson, and The Unique Hamlet is both a loving homage and a thrilling mystery.
     
    This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateNov 25, 2014
    ISBN9781497691032
    The Unique Hamlet: A Hitherto Unchronicled Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes
    Author

    Vincent Starrett

    Vincent Starrett (1886–1974) was a Chicago journalist who become one of the world’s foremost experts on Sherlock Holmes. A books columnist for the Chicago Tribune, he also wrote biographies of authors such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Ambrose Bierce. A founding member of the Baker Street Irregulars, Starrett is best known for writing The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1933), an imaginative biography of the famous sleuth.

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      Book preview

      The Unique Hamlet - Vincent Starrett

      To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with admiration and apologies

      I

      HOLMES, said I, one morning as I stood in our bay window, looking idly into the street, surely here comes a madman. Someone has incautiously left the door open and the poor fellow has slipped out. What a pity!

      It was a glorious morning in the spring, with a fresh breeze and inviting sunlight, but as it was rather early few persons were astir. Birds twittered under the neighboring eaves, and from the far end of the thoroughfare came faintly the droning cry of an umbrella repair man; a lean cat slunk across the cobbles and disappeared into a courtway; but for the most part the street was deserted save for the eccentric individual who had called forth my exclamation.

      My friend rose lazily from the wicker rocker, in which he had been lounging, and came to my side, standing with long legs spread and hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. He smiled as he saw the singular personage coming along. A personage indeed he seemed to be, despite his odd actions, for he was tall and portly, with elderly whiskers of the brand known as muttonchop, and he seemed eminently respectable. He was loping curiously, like a tired hound, lifting his knees high as he ran, and a heavy double watch chain of gold bounced against and rebounded from the plump line of his figured waistcoat. With one hand he clutched despairingly at his silk, two-gallon hat, while with the other he essayed weird gestures in the air in an emotion bordering upon distraction. We could almost see the spasmodic workings of his countenance.

      What under heaven can ail him! I cried. See how he glances at the houses as he passes.

      He is looking at the numbers, responded Sherlock Holmes, with dancing eyes, and I fancy it is ours that will bring him the greatest happiness. His profession, of course, is obvious.

      A banker, I imagine, or at least a person of affluence, I hazarded, wondering what curious bit of minutiae had betrayed the man’s business to my remarkable companion,

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