SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: A SCANDAL IN MONTREAL

"A Scandal in Montreal" by Edward D. Hoch  (first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, February 2008; reprinted in The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by John Joseph Adams, 2009)

Once again, the game is afoot, this time in the capable hands of Edward D. Hoch.  It's 1911 and Holmes has been contently retired in his Sussux villa with his bees for several years when he received an unexpected visit from Watson, also now retired.  A letter to Holmes from Canada had been delivered to Baker Street and Mrs. Hudson, unsure of Holmes's current address, entrusted it to Watson,  The letter was from Irene Adler, always the woman to Holmes.  Irene had been reported to have died some twenty years before, but Holmes had never given those reports credence.  Instead, she had married lawyer Godfrey Norton and had left England --perhaps as a result of her involvement in the Bohemian scandal.  They eventually relocated to Montreal where Godfrey established a successful law practice and had a son, Ralph.  When Godfrey passed away three years before, it affected Ralph greatly, although he eventually steadied himself, attending McGill University.  Ralph has now gone mjissing and police suspect him of murder.  Irene's letter pleaded for Holmes's help.

Holmes and Watson arranged boat passage and within a week were in Montreal, meeting with Irene.  An older student from Germany, Franz Faber, had been stabbed to death outside a bar.  A few days previously, Faber and Ralph had got into a fight over a fellow student, Monica Starr.  Faber had dated the girl briefly, but she soon  preferred Ralph.  The fight was over quickly and Ralph soon forgot about it.  When police arrived at the scene of the stabbing, however, the dying Faber was asked who had stabbed him.  Faber replied, "Norton."  When police arrived at Irene's house to question the boy, he had vanished.  Perhaps not coincidently, Monica Starr was also missing.

During his first year at McGill, Ralph had become close to one of his professors, the economist and humorist Stephen Leacock.  (Watson, ever loyal to Holmes, to an immediate dislike to Leacock after reading Leacock's satire on Holmes, "The Defective Detective;"  Watson felt that Leacock's portrayal of the great detective proved the humorist to be a "scoundrel and a slanderer.")  Anyway, Leacock said that Ralph needed some time away and the Leacock suggested his family cottage in western Canada.  Leacock, Holmes, and Watson travelled to the cottage, where they found Ralph.  And with Ralph was Monica, who was clearly pregnant in her third trimester.

A murdered student, a dying declaration, and the young suspect and his pregnant girlfriend fleeing to an isolated part of the country.  Will Holmes be able to save Irene Adler's son?

Edward D. Hoch was one of a few -- perhaps the only -- mystery writer to make his living writing short stories, publishing over 950 of them over his long career, about half of his total output appearing in EQMM, where Hoch had published a story in every issue from May 2007 until after his death in 2008.  ("A Scandal in Montreal"  was in the issue of EQMM on the stands the month that Hoch died.)  A master of inventiveness and of the "impopssible crime," Hoch created many notable detective characters over the years, including Nick Velvet ( a thief who would only steal worthless things), Jeffrey Rand (a spy master and cryptologist), Captain Jules Leopold (a homicide detective in fictional Connecticut city), Simon Ark (a coptic priest who claimed to be over two thousand years old), Ben Snow (a western character many thought greatly resembled Billy the Kid) Dr. Sam Hawthorne (a small town doctor who solved impossible crimes), Michael Vlado (a Romany king in present day Europe), Alexander Swift (one of George Washington's spies), and many others.  Hoch also published nine stories featuring Sherlock Holmes from 1973 to 2008.  To date, some two dozen collections of his short stories have been published, as well as five novels.  Hoch also edited the Best Detective Stories of the Year annual anthologies from 1976 to 1981 and The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories anthologies from 1982 through 1995, in addition to four well-respected anthjologies.  He also won one Edger and two Anthony Awards, as well as an Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award.  He was named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master and was awarded Life Achievement Awards from both the Private Eye Writers of America and from Bouchercon.