The Case of the Mukkinese Idol

Professor Moriarty

Whilst Professor Moriarty sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. Currently there was a minor quiver in the strand that led to Snapcase’s Emporium of Wonders located in a tumble-down warehouse at the the back of an abandoned farm. The farm on the outskirts of Zeal Monachorum was known locally as Splatt’s Pond Farm, although Farmer Splatt was long gone and the pond was now no more than a puddle.

One of Moriarty’s myriad criminal enterprises was the sale of real or fake (he wasn’t fussy which) artefacts for the use of cults and secret societies across the country. If you wanted an altar to sacrifice a virgin on or the skull of a serial-killer to swear your secret societies’oaths of allegiance on, then Snapcase’s Emporium of Wonders was the place to purchase said items. The proprietor, one Athelstan Snapcase (younger brother to the Earl of Snapcase and the black-sheep of the Snapcase dynasty), known to his friends as Stan was about to pull off a right royal swindle.

Benjamin Plugsocket, Zeal Monachorum’s jobbing carpenter had carved an exact likeness of the fabled Mukkinese Idol. This idol was said to bestow immortality on it’s possessor and had been lost in the mists of time. Moriarty’s henchmen had put the word about ‘up in the smoke’ that the Idol had been rediscovered and was up for grabs if you had a Guinea or two about your person. Well, eight thousand Guineas to be precise!

An unknown gentleman of foreign extraction, Count Vladislav Dracule had expressed an interest to Moriarty and was on his way down to view and perhaps purchase this legendary artefact. Stan was already calculating how to spend his share on Dolly Mops and gin.

Unbeknownst to Moriarty, Stan or the Count, a telegram had just arrived at 221b Baker Street and had been brought upstairs by Mrs. Hudson.

COME AT ONCE. DEVIL OF A BUSINESS. DIRTY DEALINGS AFOOT. SPLATT’S POND FARM. ZEAL MONACHORUM.

LESTRADE.

Our tale begins…………………………………….