1 The Warning

The Valley of Fear.

Chapter 1 The Warning It was the morning of January 7, 1888, and Sherlock Holmes and I were having breakfast in our Baker Street home. Holmes, however, wasn't eating. He was studying a slip of paper as his ham and eggs cooled on his plate. "This is Porlock's handwriting," he said. "I can tell from the way he's written the letter e." "Who's Porlock?" I asked. "Porlock, Watson, is a pilot fish who swims with the great white shark we know as Moriarty." "You mean Moriarty the mathematics professor, who you claim is also a criminal?"

"He's more than a criminal, Watson. He's the Napoleon of Crime, the brain behind an enormous underworld empire, and Porlock is one of his underlings—one who happens to send me valuable information from time to time about his master's plans. This message, however, is rather baffling. What to you make of it?" I looked over his shoulder at the strange note, which ran as follows: 534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41 26 DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 9 BIRLSTONE 47 "It looks like some sort of code," I said.

"I agree," nodded Holmes. "I suspect these numbers refer to words and pages in a book." "What book?" I asked. "If he told us that, it wouldn't be much of a code, would it?" Holmes said. "First rule of codes, Watson: never include the code's key with the message. He'll have supplied the book's name in this other letter." Holmes ripped open a second envelope, then frowned. He showed it to me. The letter read: Dear Mr. Holmes, I must stop these communications. It's too dangerous—he suspects me. Sorry. Fred Porlock. "Poor Porlock," I said. "I suppose the coded message is useless to us now." "Maybe not," said Holmes, examining it carefully. "Perhaps we can deduce the book from these numbers. If 534 is a page number, then we know it's a big book. And C2 must, I think, mean column 2. What's a big book laid out in columns that everyone has on their shelves? Any ideas, Watson?"

"The Bible?" I suggested. Holmes shook his head. "These are criminals, remember?" "An almanac?" "Exactly what I was thinking." Holmes plucked this year's Whitaker's Almanac from his bookshelf and turned to page 534, column 2. As I read out the numbers in Porlock's message, he wrote out the corresponding words, and a message began to appear...

There is danger. May come very soon to one Douglas, a rich country gentleman at Birlstone House. "We've cracked it!" declared Holmes in triumph. "And only just in time it seems, for it sounds like this Douglas fellow may be in trouble." Just then, the door opened and in came Inspector Alec MacDonald of London's Metropolitan Police. MacDonald was a stern- looking man who Holmes had assisted in the past.