Showing results by narrator "David Ian Davies" in All Categories

"This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply." So says Sherlock Holmes at the opening of The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. Holmes investigates what appears to be a case of vampirism in an upper class home.

Holmes must recover a stolen document, prevent a diplomatic crisis between England and Italy, and save the career of a young and rising diplomat.

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, first serialised in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840. Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, tracing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood.

"A Descent Into The Maelstrom" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that first appeared in the May 1841 edition of Graham's Magazine. In the tale, a man recounts how he survived a shipwreck and a whirlpool. It has been grouped with Poe's tales of ratiocination and also labeled an early form of science fiction.

The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place: Evidence of murder, ransacked ancient mummies, giving away a beloved dog, and a horse race upon which a man's life and future depend are just four of the elements of this Holmes story, making it one of the most memorable (and chilling) cases in the Sherlockian Canon.

The destruction of duplicate plaster casts of the famous head of Napoleon by the French sculptor, Devine, becomes more than a mere curiosity to Sherlock Holmes when a murder is committed during the commission of one of the crimes. The case begins at the shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and statues in the Kennington Road. The burglaries and destructions escalate until, with the brutal slaying, it becomes obvious that the value of the plaster effigies extends beyond a mere hatred of Napoleon.

The Adventure of the Creeping Man: The strange behavior of a family dog towards its master brings Holmes into a case involving the increasingly odd and disturbing behavior of the man himself, a respected professor.

James M. Dodd comes to see Holmes about a missing friend, Godfrey Emsworth. Dodd and Emsworth served together in the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa during the Second Boer War, which has only just ended. Emsworth was wounded and Dodd has not seen him since the report of his injury. He also has not received any letters from him in six months. Since Emsworth has always been such a good friend, Dodd is inclined to assume that something must be amiss.

The Adventure of The Lion's Mane opens in Sussex in the summer of 1907 as the detective is enjoying his retirement by the seaside. As Holmes and his good friend Harold Stackhurst exchange warm greetings on this July morning, a well known science master, Fitzroy McPherson, suddenly staggers up from the beach and collapses. Within minutes he is dead, his body savagely raked by livid 'lashing' marks, such as those inflicted by a wire scourge. His dying words, "the Lion's Mane" begin Holmes' search....

The fifth story from Doyle's Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes ( The Strand magazine, 1893) reveals the roots of the detective's foray into criminology and his very first case as a young college student, when the death of his school chum's father unearths a terrible, tragic series of events upon the high seas, of plotting and murder, of betrayal - and the man's long-hidden secrets of another life.

While still grieving over his great friend's death, Watson is stunned, relieved and joyful when Holmes suddenly appears and reveals that he has escaped an untimely end in that fatal struggle with his mortal enemy, Moriarty, at Reichenbach Falls. The criminal underworld suspects this, says Holmes, and Watson is drawn anew into Holmes's plot to deceive his enemies and foil a probable attempt upon his life.

The groom loses his bride 10 minutes after the wedding and Holmes must find her.

Mac's Restaurant - nobody calls it MacFarland's - is a mystery. It is off the beaten track. It is not smart. It does not advertise. It provides nothing nearer to an orchestra than a solitary piano, yet, with all these things against it, it is a success. In theatrical circles especially it holds a position which might turn the white lights of many a supper-palace green with envy.

Whose is the face at the upstairs window, "livid, deadly yellow, and with something set and rigid about it, which was shockingly unnatural?"

Sherlock Holmes is called in to investigate when the body of an Italian diplomat is discovered in the River Thames, his torso horrifically mutilated. Fearing the political repercussions - the diplomat being in London to initiate talks regarding a secret naval treaty between the two nations - the Government entrust Holmes with the delicate task of uncovering the truth behind the brutal murder. Events take a shocking turn, however, when a young solicitor is found slain in the East End, his body similarly mutilated.

A doctor hires out to a whaling vessel bound for the Arctic, where the ship becomes icebound. Strange moanings are soon heard on the Polar wind, and ghostly apparitions appear out on the ice. The ship's senior officers are convinced they have something to do with the captain's mysterious past, but who can say for sure, since he appears to be slowly going insane?

Sherlock Holmes first regards the experiences related by newly arrived visitor Violet Smith with a degree of impatience and disinterest. This solitary cyclist, however, is being shadowed by a mysterious man on a bicycle as she travels to and from her new employer's home as a music teacher. As Holmes and Watson investigate, a dark, dangerous picture begins to emerge that threatens the young lady's safety and ultimately her freedom.

As Dr. Watson commits to history in his journal, "... in reviewing my notes for the year 1890, I have come across a case that, while seeming at the outset to be one of the most mundane ever brought to him, had one of the most inexplicable endings that I have been privileged to record."

A stranger comes to town, lodging high in a dilapidated old building in New York. As he prepares for sleep, eerie sights and sounds build slowly and lead to the appearance of an enormous, sorrowful ghost.

Sherlock Holmes is at it again. Mrs. Warren, a London lodging-house keeper, comes to Holmes with a curious story of a reclusive and eccentric tenant. Mrs. Warren's husband has been abducted and then quickly released again, perhaps a case of mistaken identity. Holmes decides the case is more important than it appears.