A Work of Vision E-Book

Orlando Pearson

• Herausgeber: Delos Digital
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

Giallo - short story (15 pagine) - The séance said the music was lost. The Nazis wanted it silenced. Only Sherlock Holmes could save it.

In the 1930s, an aging Sherlock Holmes is drawn into a case like no other: a séance vision reveals the existence of a lost violin concerto by Robert Schumann. Joined by Dr. Watson, he travels to a Germany under Nazi rule, navigating state propaganda and cultural theft in a desperate search for the precious manuscript. What follows is a race against time to preserve artistic truth and to keep a masterpiece from falling into the wrong hands—or disappearing forever.

London businessman, Orlando Pearson is the creator of The Redacted Sherlock Holmes series, which buries forever the idea that Sherlock Holmes might not have been a historical person.

Do you want to see Sherlock Holmes come to the rescue of Queen Victoria, arrange the borders of post-war Europe, clear Macbeth of murder, unravel King Oedipus’s complexities, or provide advice to the Almighty? Then you will find all this and more in the seven collections of short stories, two novels, and the six plays in the series.

When not communing with the spirits of 221b, Orlando enjoys sport, music, and browsing price comparison websites.

He has written Sherlock Holmes stories on all these topics.

Leseprobe

Cover

A Work of Vision

221B

45

Edited by Luigi Pachì

Orlando Pearson

A Work of Vision

short story

Delos Digital

This book

The séance said the music was lost. The Nazis wanted it silenced. Only Sherlock Holmes could save it.

In the 1930s, an aging Sherlock Holmes is drawn into a case like no other: a séance vision reveals the existence of a lost violin concerto by Robert Schumann. Joined by Dr. Watson, he travels to a Germany under Nazi rule, navigating state propaganda and cultural theft in a desperate search for the precious manuscript. What follows is a race against time to preserve artistic truth and to keep a masterpiece from falling into the wrong hands—or disappearing forever.

The Author

London businessman, Orlando Pearson is the creator of The Redacted Sherlock Holmes series, which buries forever the idea that Sherlock Holmes might not have been a historical person.

Do you want to see Sherlock Holmes come to the rescue of Queen Victoria, arrange the borders of post-war Europe, clear Macbeth of murder, unravel King Oedipus’s complexities, or provide advice to the Almighty? Then you will find all this and more in the seven collections of short stories, two novels, and the six plays in the series.

When not communing with the spirits of 221b, Orlando enjoys sport, music, and browsing price comparison websites.

He has written Sherlock Holmes stories on all these topics.

Contents

Cover

221B

Frontispiece

This book

The Author

Contents

A Work of Vision

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Note by Henry Durham, historical advisor to The Redacted Sherlock Holmes series

From the same author

In the same collection

Did you liked this book?

Copyright

Cover

Frontispiece

Copyright

Book’s beginning

A Work of Vision

Contents

A Work of Vision

 

46, Old Jewry,

Nov. 19th.

Sir,

Re: Vampires

Our client, Mr Robert Ferguson, of Ferguson and Muirhead, tea brokers, of Mincing Lane, has made some inquiry from us in a communication of even date concerning vampires. As our firm specializes entirely upon the assessment of machinery, the matter hardly comes within our purview, and we have therefore recommended Mr Ferguson to call upon you and lay the matter before you.

We are, sir, faithfully yours,

Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd

“What do we know about vampires, Watson?” asked Holmes. “Does it come within our purview? Anything is better than stagnation, but really we seem to have been switched on to a Grimms’ fairy tale. Make a long arm, Watson, and see what V has to say.”

I leaned back and took down the great index volume to which he referred. Holmes balanced it on his knee, and his eyes moved slowly and lovingly over the record of old cases, mixed with the accumulated information of a lifetime.

“Vampirism in Hungary. And again, Vampires in Transylvania,” he said, turning over the pages with eagerness. After a short intent perusal he threw down the great book with a snarl of disappointment.

“Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in the grave by stakes driven through the heart? It is pure lunacy.”

“But surely,” said I, “the vampire was not necessarily a dead man? A living person might have the habit. I have read, for example, of the old sucking the blood of the young in order to retain their youth.”

“You are right, Watson. It mentions the legend in one of these references. But are we to give serious attention to such things? This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.”

The Sussex Vampire, events undated but published in 1924

By the 1930s I would describe my relationship with my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, as friendly but distant. I had no reason to visit him at his downland retirement cottage but he involved me in occasional cases, as far as I was able to tell, when he wanted to use my combined home and practice in Queen Anne Street as a base.

It was thus a surprise but not a complete surprise when he appeared in my consulting room on the 25th of February 1937.

“I have a remarkable letter to read out to you,” said he without preamble.

Dear Mr Holmes,

I wish to discuss with you a vision I had at a recent séance.

You may be of the view that something that arose as part of a séance is not something that falls within your purview, but the vision I had concerned a world-famous composer and a lost work of his for violin. As a violinist who owns a Stradivarius and as a historian of music who has written a well-known monograph on the polyphonic motets of Orlando de Lassus, I hope that what I have written piques your interest.

For your information I am a concert violinist for whom both Béla Bartók and Maurice Ravel have written pieces.

Yours sincerely

Jelly d’Arányi

“What make you of this?” he asked. “Does this matter fall within my purview, as Miss d’Arányi puts it?”

“Are you aware of a well-known composer,” I asked, for I knew Holmes’s knowledge of music was much better than mine, “who is known to have written a work for violin which is now lost?”

“Composers of the 18th century wrote works by the dozen for aristocratic patrons or for institutions,” replied my friend thoughtfully. “The works were kept in manuscript as that was the best way of preserving the piece’s intellectual property. If the manuscript got lost, then so was the work. It is believed that what we now know as the keyboard concerti by Johann Sebastian Bach started life as violin concerti as the solo writing would suit the fingers of a fiddler better than those of a keyboard player. But in all but three cases, we only have the keyboard versions at present. Violin versions, if those were really the originals, may come to light through someone searching through an archive or finding them in some church where no one has thought to look. It is thus entirely possible that there are lost pieces for violin by major composers of the 18th century lying undiscovered.”

“And with later composers?”

“Since Beethoven the great composers have tended to work independently and to have a connection with a publisher such as Peters or Artaria who defends the intellectual property in the work. Once a work is in the hands of a publisher, it is much less likely to be lost unless the composer chooses to destroy it. The Bohemian, Antonin Dvořák, claimed to have kept himself warm in the harsh winters of Central Europe by burning the pieces he had written in his youth.”

“And you are prepared to be commissioned based on something that came out of a séance?”

“I have taken the step of asking the lady to present herself here,” said Holmes suddenly sounding very uncertain.

I decided to let pass Holmes’s presumption at organizing a meeting at my house without asking me.

Holmes continued. “We will need to form an opinion when she is before us on whether she falls into my purview.”

”We will need to form an opinion whether she falls into your purview?” queried I, wondering what role I might play in this.

“Or, good Watson, whether she instead falls into the purview of a medical practitioner such as yourself,” Holmes explained.

“Do you know anything about her?”

“Madame d’Arányi is a notable violinist of Hungarian origin. If she were completely deluded, I would be surprised if composers of the eminence she describes would have written music for her. But there is a ring on your bell and we will soon be able to decide for ourselves.”