The Reporting Team's Christmas Mystery Play 2003


The Adventure Of The Devil's Fart

A Sherlock Holmes Story in Cornwall

(With apologies to Sir Arthur Conan The Barbarian)

 

Volume I

In recording from time to time some of the curious experiences and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate [they're just good pals, Holly] friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity. It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a telegram from Holmes in the following terms:

Why not tell them of the Cornish Horror - strangest case I ever handled.

It was in the spring of 1897 that my memory started to go and Holmes' iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constantly living in London. His doctor recommended complete rest. "Go to Cornwall," he advised, "There's no work down there."

Thus it was that in the early autumn of 1892 that we found ourselves in a small cottage in deepest, darkest Cornwall. From the windows of our little whitewashed house, which stood high upon a grassy headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister semicircle of Mount's Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end.

"The wise man stays far out from that evil place," said our taxi driver pointing to Penzance. Mounting tension in Mount's Bay, Cornwall

Holmes spent much of his time researching the Cornish language and getting lost on the moors. Later, in the evenings, he would write up notes on his walks which he hoped to publish after he retired and when the internet and digital cameras had been invented. However, our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently interrupted when we found ourselves plunged into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing, and infinitely more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London.

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