Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) Read Free

thirty years, I was a professor of linguistics and comparative mythology at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, in which city I was born and have lived all my life.
    I first met Sherlock Holmes in Boston, his initial stop on what was to be a sightseeing and speaking tour of the entire Eastern Seaboard before journeying to the western states and former territories of this country. Upon reading in the Arkham Advertiser   that the famed detective was temporarily residing in the Commonwealth, I determined that I would seek him out and implore him for his help in a situation that had driven me beyond the brink of frustration.
    Abhorring that raucous, intrusive and increasingly invasive beast of modern technology, the telephone, and fearing that simply posting a letter would either miss him, or, worse, be ignored, I decided a personal meeting was the only answer. The truth, however, was that I doubted my ability to express in mere written words the dread and apprehension I felt. If nothing else, I decided, Sherlock Holmes could look me in my eyes as I told my story and decide for himself whether of not I was a lunatic.
    Lord knew, I needed to know as well.
    I journeyed to Boston by the next available train. The trek from Arkham to Boston seemed interminable, and during the long cab ride from the station I was quite apprehensive and anxious. It was all I could do to still the trembling of my hands. The cabbie must have thought me quite mad, always looking around, suddenly shifting from one window to the other, but he kept his comments to himself, though his glances spoke volumes.
    My extreme nervousness stemmed not from my fear of a refusal from Holmes. When I left my home I suspected I was being followed, and was certain after stopping by an office I maintained at Miskatonic on the way to the station. Though I saw no one in particular, I could not escape the feeling that I had acquired one or more unseen watchers, a sensation I could not shake no matter how many times I looked over my shoulder to see either empty streets or milling crowds.
    Holmes was staying at the Copley Plaza Hotel. After sending up a visiting card bearing only my name, the desk clerk called me from the lobby where I waited anxiously and told me to go up. At the elevator, I nearly gave in to my trepidation and turned around, but eventually overcame my fears, entered the cage, and told the operator my floor number.
    The man who answered my knock was tall and thin, almost skeletal. His hair was white, but his skin surprisingly smooth and relatively unmarked by the passage of time. For all his years, Sherlock Holmes appeared quite hale. Both his handshake and his greeting were unexpectedly firm for a man of seventy-three years. I thought he carried his age much better than did I my own, though I was at least a sesquidecade younger.
    “A pleasure to meet you, Professor Philips,” Holmes said. “What brings you from Arkham and how long have you been retired from teaching at Miskatonic University?”
    I was astounded. I should have been prepared for a statement of that nature, having often read and being very familiar with the accounts written by Holmes’ friend Dr. John H. Watson, but I still found myself at a disadvantage. I finally discovered my voice.
    “Mr. Holmes, I don’t understand how…”
    Holmes held up a thin, pale hand. “Please. That you are a bookish man of some intellect is obvious; yet you are comfortable in the presence of strangers, which suggests you are accustomed to being the center of attention, perhaps in the context of a lecture hall since you are obviously no extrovert. Your clothes are years out of date – do not take offense – typical of the academically cloistered. Your card bears only your name, hence you now find yourself retired from teaching and freed of the pressure of identifying yourself with your profession. That you are from Arkham and thus formerly a member of the Miskatonic University faculty is painfully