Read The Revenant of Thraxton Hall: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for Free Online Page B

persons of unimpeachable character will also be in attendance. As a man of independent thought, keen intelligence, and with a doctor’s training, we should be honored to have you as a member.
    Yours respectfully,
    Henry Sidgwick.
    Conan Doyle flushed with excitement. He had envisioned just such an organization himself: a body of sober, yet open-minded individuals dedicated to a rational, scientific study of the supernatural. Now it had happened. He raised the letter to read it one more time, but found that the neatly written sentences had transformed to meaningless gibberish. He blinked his tired eyes. For a moment, he went dizzy as electric ants scurried across the surface of his brain. He smelled smoke, cigarette smoke—he could even name the particular brand of tobacco—and looked up in alarm.
    The study remained empty, but then he noticed a wraith of silver smoke curling in the air. Strangely, it seemed to come from the portrait of Sherlock Holmes leaning against the bookshelves. Had it somehow caught fire? The fire in the fireplace was not lit. How then?
    More smoke jetted into the air as the surface of the portrait began to bulge. It stretched farther and farther, and then ripped open as the head and shoulders of a man emerged. Conan Doyle watched, slack-jawed, as Sherlock Holmes squeezed himself up from two into three dimensions and stepped from the canvas into the room.
    “Wu-what? What the devil!” Conan Doyle stammered.
    The Baker Street detective puffed at his cigarette, his steely eyes gazing back at his creator. “To answer the question you have not asked,” Holmes said in his dry, ironic voice, “yes, I am real.”
    “This is impossible!” Conan Doyle hissed.
    Holmes crossed to a leather armchair and sat down, never taking his eyes from Conan Doyle. “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable , must be the truth.”
    “ I wrote that,” Conan Doyle said, indignation beginning to replace his fear. In fact, he was surprised at how unsurprised he was. “Just as I wrote you. You are nothing more than a phantasm of my brain. That is the truth!”
    Sherlock Holmes seemed to reflect upon that for a moment. “Yes, you created me. And now I exist in the minds of thousands of readers. Tell me, Arthur, how many minds do you exist in?” He crossed his legs and brushed a fleck of ash from his trouser leg. “That summons you answered this morning, the one that bore a distinctive watermark.”
    “The phoenix?”
    Holmes nodded. “Of course, you know that the phoenix is the heraldic symbol of a famous English family?”
    Conan Doyle did not know that. He nervously combed his fingers through his short brown hair.
    “The Thraxton family,” Holmes said. “The meeting of the Society for Psychical Research will take place at Thraxton Hall in two weeks’ time. At which time the current Lady Thraxton will be murdered. Shot twice in the chest at close range.”
    “At a séance,” Conan Doyle breathed, finishing the thought. He looked up. “Then Hope Thraxton is the medium of some renown I have read of in the papers?”
    “The game is afoot my boy,” Holmes said. “The question is—are you ready? Will you take up this challenge? Or will you turn away, as a lesser man might?”
    Conan Doyle shook his head. “No. This isn’t real. None of it.” He looked back at his writing desk for the letter. It had vanished. He gasped and threw a quick look back at Holmes. The leather armchair was empty, but retained a human-shaped dent.
    Conan Doyle started awake. He was slumped over in his chair, the fountain pen in his limp hand trailing a blue smear across the page. He blinked. Rubbed his numb face. He had fallen asleep at his writing desk. Then he dimly remembered the soporific he had taken.
    “Damnation!” he cried. The dream had seemed so real and he had slid into it imperceptibly. He scanned the desk and his eyes eagerly pounced upon the page of fresh writing in his notebook.