The Case of Something Rotten in Denmark
By Bruce Briley
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About this ebook
Holmes and Watson are called upon to investigate a series of baffling murders taking place in Kronborg Castle in Elsinsor, Denmark, following the plot of Hamlet. (It is the castle that Shakespeare used as the model for the setting of Hamlet. It has moats, dungeons, torture chambers, huge spires, stately halls, the possibility of secret passages, and a bloody history of conflict.
The deaths indeed mirrored the plot of Hamlet, but to what end? The King’s brother succeeded him on the throne and married his wife, ala Hamlet. (Denmark was a Constitutional Monarchy, with succession to the throne strictly limited to males in order of birth. Next in line to the new monarch would be the deceased King’s sons, with their sister out of the picture.) Hamlet was based upon 600 year old writings based in turn upon older oral histories.
Sherlock and Watson are given the run of the castle, permitted to investigate anyone and everything, above and below stairs (which they do). Five suspects emerge.
As they begin their investigations, a Shakespeare Festival begins, a tradition that began in 1816, in respect of Shakespeare’s death 200 years before. Sherlock and John resolve to become part of the casts. (Imagine Watson playing Juliet’s mother [in Shakespeare’s plays, men often masqueraded as women in his plays].
Attempts to dispatch both men mar the performances. A mysterious, threatening letter arrives, and a huge tower clock plays a major role in saving the life of an intended victim, and provides more clues to the puzzle.
Applying inspired logic, Holmes finally concludes that he and Watson were being used, in order to distract suspicion from the schemer, plotter and murderer, whom Holmes finally exposes, to Watson’s chagrin.
Bruce Briley
Dr. Briley has a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D from the University of Illinois. He has 4 children and 10 grandchildren, has been employed for many years at Bell Labs, Lucent and Motorola, and is now with the Illinois Institute of Technology where he was awarded the first Alva C. Todd Professorship. He holds 21 US patents and has authored 2 textbooks as well as numerous technical papers (not unlike the "monographs" Sherlock Holmes often mentions).He has been a Sherlock Holmes fan since he was first able to read his Adventures. Of late, however, he became unhappy over the films and TV series of a "modern" Sherlock epitomized by the "Elementary" series which savages the concept: Holmes and Watson are transported forward more than a hundred years, Watson is transmographied into an Asian female, and Holmes, while still a brilliant detective, is portrayed as a social buffoon similar to Monk.Though he has found such series very entertaining, he longed for some new tales of the traditional Sherlock in the Elizebethan era, resonating with the original image while fresh in scope.And so he penned 5 novels (and is planning a 6th) that strive to accomplish that:The first, "The Lost Folio", chases Holmes and Watson all over England, involves Moriarty and Lastrade, etc., responding to a kidnapping and murders in pursuit of Shakespeare's Lost Work, while encumbered by an impenetrable cipher.The second, "The Sow's Ear", takes them on a dangerous sea voyage to rescue a young lady lost in the labyrinth of China, and stumble upon a plot to destroy the Silk trade, involving murderous rogues, and multiple assassination attempts upon them.The third, "The Vatican Murder", finds Watson jailed on the Vatican grounds, indicted for the murder of an old school chum and subject to the strict laws of the soverign Vatican State. Holmes is helpful, but a tangled web endangers Watson when he is mistaken for Holmes on two occasions. Watson, when separated from his boon companion exhibits his ability to improvise, but is convicted of murder.The fourth, "The Royal Leper", finds Holmes and Watson charged by royal warrant to convey a member of the Royal Family diagnosed with Leprosy to secretly convey him half-way around the world to what would effectively be banishment to a Leper Colony on Molokai island in the Pacific Ocean. An abundance of adventures ensue, taking them to places they would not have dreamed of visiting. No other Sherlock Holmes mystery/adventure has ever been so extensive.The fifth, "Something Rotten in Denmark", engages Holmes and Watson in an investigation of a series of murders that have taken place in Kronborg Castle, near Copenhagen. (Krongborg was selected by Shakespeare as the model for the setting of Hamlet, and has played a vital role in the history of Denmark.) The baffling nature of the murders is that they follow the order of events in Shakespeare's Hamlet. A tangled set of clues and witness narratives compel the pair to perform extraordinarily."The Fifteen Hundred Word Curse", involves a modern-day man who discovers that he is the victim of a huge (and genuine) curse levied upon the Reivers of the Walk (a large and dangerous group peopling the Scottish-English border whose descendents include Custer, President Nixon and Neil Armstrong) by the Archbishop of Glasgow. He enlists the aid of an ecclesiastical lawyer/priest, an aged, experienced expert on exocism, and a youthful priest fresh from a seminary. He learns that a large collection of evil influences have been subtly causing inbreeding amongst the descendents to strengthen the power of the curse upon his unborn child. Terrible events transpire as the result of attempts to apply logic to lifting the curse. A surprise awaits at the story's end.
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The Case of Something Rotten in Denmark - Bruce Briley
Special Smashwords Edition
THE CASE OF SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK
by
Dr. Bruce E. Briley
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
THE CASE OF SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK
Special Smashwords Edition
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Copyright © 2013 Bruce E. Briley. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Cover Designed by Amanda Marie McGovern in collaboration with Telemachus Press, LLC
Cover Art: Licensed to this purpose
Published by Telemachus Press, LLC at Smashwords
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Visit the author website:
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ISBN: 978-1-940745-25-1 (eBook)
Version 2013.11.22
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND THANKS
FOREWORD
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
EPILOGUE
Other Books by Briley
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND THANKS
Grateful acknowledgement to the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. for permission to use the Sherlock Holmes characters created by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Many thanks to Amanda Marie McGovern for her very able services in creating the covers for this series of books.
I would also like to thank the Telemachus Press Team assigned to my project for their Professional handling of these books (and their author). I would recommend them to any serious author.
FOREWORD
Those who have perused the earlier volumes of this series will be aware of the background: the discovery of these unpublished accounts of the adventures of Holmes and Watson, penned by the latter, were made special by a Royal decree that they go unpublished until fifty years after Watson’s demise because they could embarrass, and perhaps bring down, important people. Most of the accounts were written not immediately after the activities to be described, but when Watson had the time and the inclination. Alas, he was by then entering his dotage, such that his writing had become shaky and sometimes difficult to decipher. The flowing penmanship of his younger days had given way to time, and his memory had begun to fail him at times. The writer, Watson’s grand nephew, took over the task of extracting the essence of the tales as a labor of love. He makes no apologies, but asks the indulgence of the reader relative to any inaccuracies in the extraction process. (Note in particular that in this work, Watson rolls out the narrative with a somewhat unique interplay between first and third person.) Please read and enjoy.
JKW
THE CASE OF SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK
CHAPTER 1
Watson, how well do you know your Shakespeare?
Not all that well I would say, haven’t given him or his plays or sonnets much thought since school. Why do you ask?
Well, it seems that once again there is ‘Something rotten in the state of Denmark’.
"How’s that? Have they found Shakespeare posthumously guilty of plagiarizing Hamlet from something?"
Holmes ignored the question.
It seems that a member of the Danish Royal Family has got himself into a pickle there and is asking for our help.
"Our help?"
Yes, he included you, as does almost everyone since you started these confounded publications of our activities.
Startled by the remark, Watson responded: Why Sherlock (he seldom addressed Holmes by his given name), I thought that you were pleased with them. I could stop writing them if they trouble you.
"No, no, Watson, I enjoy the tales you write, they inform the public of how modern detective work is carried on, it’s just that there is always a downside to such activities, in this case the modicum of celebrity that comes with them. It makes it more difficult to conduct certain necessary tasks in secret. By all means continue with your literary efforts.
But back to my question: It seems there has been a series of murders around and about the castle in Denmark that was the model for Hamlet’s abode in Shakespeare’s play. But you have to keep sight of the fact that Hamlet is a fictional character, while the castle and these murders are quite real.
Which castle is that then?
"Kronborg Castle in Elsinore. It stands at the narrows between Sweden and Denmark, and was there to enforce a monetary charge upon all maritime traffic through those narrows … it was called the ‘Sound Dues’. Ships had to pay or be pursued and boarded or sunk by batteries of cannon on the ramparts and battlements of the castle. When they were apprehended, the ship and its cargo were confiscated, and the crew could be dealt with as though they were pirates. Anything from flogging to hanging to being sold as slaves. It acted in unison with the Karmen, Helsingborg castle on Oresund just across the roughly three miles separating them.
"The captains of ships seeking to ply these waters were compelled to provide an estimate of the worth of their cargo, and dues were charged. Of course, the captains might lie about their cargo’s worth, so the King reserved the right to purchase the cargo at the price the captain had stated was its worth. Actually, an ingenious scheme.
"Of course many attempts were made to attack and take the castle and put an end to these practices, but all were repulsed. The castle had formidable defenses: besides the cannons, it had (and has) formidable moats, high and thick walls, and a well-manned military presence.
"Eventually, however, after several unsuccessful attempts, the Swedes captured it via heavy bombardment … technology over stone.
Shortly thereafter, the Danes won it back, but there has never been a satisfactory explanation of how that was so quickly accomplished. I have some thoughts on the matter, but little reason to pursue them except out of curiosity.
The King lived and held court there I presume?
"Actually not, he didn’t like soldiers underfoot, and he complained about the weather there, so he lived elsewhere. Some suspected that he did not like the ladies of the court being distracted by the presence of so many young men.
It’s actually a little surprising for a Norseman to be troubled by the cold and even more so not to wish to be at the wellspring of income. That is to say the tribute or tolls extracted from shipping there.
Is it still a monarchy?
No, it became a Constitutional Monarchy a few decades ago … there is, of course, a story about that. The King is little more than a figurehead today.
So, has Kronborg Castle descended into rack and ruin then, from lack of use?
"Actually, it has managed to thrive as a governmental edifice, and the royal family can also be housed there quite comfortably. It is of a quite significant size, and is, perhaps, beautiful in some eyes. It was an appropriate model for Hamlet’s fate to play out in.
"Shakespeare patterned him after an actual tragic figure, one Amleth, a Prince of Denmark spoken of in a story dated from 1185 attributable to Saxo Grammaticus, which was based in-turn on a yet more ancient oral history.
"In a sense, Shakespeare could be charged with a form of plagiarism, but plagiarism upon another plagiarism ad infinitum.
"In any event, what makes this case peculiar is the fact that the murders that have taken place appear to be in synchrony with those that took place in the play, Hamlet, with some adjustments in the roles, and in the castle that patterned Shakespeare’s play."
But who and why would someone do such a thing?
Watson mused. He must be a madman.
"Or madwoman. Murders were performed by women as well as men in Shakespeare’s works. Or possibly someone who is too sane for his or her own good.
"If they were violent crimes, however, they would more likely be the work of a man; if non-violent, poison for example, a woman would be more likely. In actuality, however, you cannot be certain: consider Lizzie Borden for