Erasing Sherlock (novel)

Erasing Sherlock was the sixth novel in the Faction Paradox series.

First edition
'''Seeking: Maid of all Work. Master of Arts required.''' She thought she was there to observe and document the methods of the twenty-five-year-old Sherlock Holmes before he gained notoriety-- Rooftop Robber Strikes Again! A barely noticed automaton; quiet, efficient, and unobtrusive-- The partially clad body of a young girl was found Sunday morning at the London Dock. A remarkable opportunity for research in the field-- Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera, Perola, premieres at the Savoy Theatre. Bestowed upon her by a benefactor who has sold his soul-- '''American Oil Tycoon, Henry Barstow, has begun annulment proceedings on behalf of his daughter Lady Henrietta Holbrook. Lord Merrill Holbrook's whereabouts still unknown.''' For a technology that only works if the devil he sold it to is sufficiently entertained. Dr Grimsley Roylott of Stoke Moran arrested in connection with suspicious deaths of his stepdaughters, Julia and Helen Stoner. The life of Sherlock Holmes is being written by another hand-- '''Woman held captive for forty days, rescued. White slave gang suspected.''' And maid must become master if she wants to survive-- '''Krakatoa explodes with a force of 1,300 megatons. Thousands perish.''' Because the devil loves a spectacle. The more blood, the better.

Second edition
"Seeking maid-of-all-work. Master of Arts required. Unique opportunity for research in the field. Intensive training provided. One to two year commitment necessary. Must be willing to travel in time."

A 21st century doctoral candidate takes on the guise of a maid-of-all-work in 19th century London in order to observe the great detective in his natural habitat, when he was young and callow and still fine tuning those remarkable skills. It's a unique opportunity for research in the field, no denying, but bestowed by a benefactor who has sold his soul for a technology that only works if the devil he sold it to is sufficiently entertained. The life of Sherlock Holmes is unraveling, being rewritten in both subtle and monumental ways. The maid must become the master if either of them are to survive. Because the devil loves a spectacle. The more blood, the better.

Part 1
It's Wednesday, and Rose Donnelly has her half day on Wednesday. The detective that she cleans for entertains a client in the morning before going out, prompting Rose to follow him on her day off. He travels throughout the city, hitting up pawn shops, talking to informants, and even picking some pockets - all the while she trails in the distance. Eventually, however, he realises that someone is following him and he calls out to her, suggesting whoever it is come out so they can chat. In doing so, however, he draws the attention of some nearby drunks who chase him off.

A few days later the detective, Holmes, mentions to his associate, Watson, that someone had been following him on that day - the most interesting thing about the scenario being that the culprit was wearing an old pair of Holmes' boots. Rose is moving throughout the room completing chores, and Holmes notices that she was moving as if her feet were hurting. She's asked to leave the room, but she sneaks back to the door to listen in. Holmes says that he doesn't think she was responsible, but it's given him the idea that a woman might have been following him, there was something awkward about the footprints. Rose returns to her room and hides the boots, deciding to dispose of them better as soon as she can.

Mrs. Hudson was ill the next morning, so Rose was left to make breakfast for the various boarders instead. While she was doing this, Jack Hudson asks her if she wants to go to Oxford Music Hall on Sunday, but she turns him down - she has meetings with her informant on Sundays under the guise of the Widow Tory. Rose takes up breakfast to Watson and Holmes who are discussing the details of a case when she spies the headline of the newspaper the two are reading. It mentions the death of the usual cook Mrs Hudson has on hire, and not just her death, but the subsequent violation of her body. Watson and Rose are aghast, though Holmes discusses the potential ways in which such a thing could make sense pathologically before remembering that he has other things to do that day and heading out.

That coming Wednesday Rose heads to the local post office to mail the boots off to America, as far away as she can from Holmes, but finds the postage too expensive. On her trip back she notices somebody of Holmes' general build spying on her, who she confronts. When it turns out to not be him, she leaves him be, eventually disposing of the boots in a random pile of rubbish.

That Sunday, Rose, in her disguise as the Widow Tory, met with her information broker, Shinwell Johnson in the Holy Cross Church. Johnson passed on details of Holmes' childhood that he found to her, and also relayed that Holmes had been inquiring into the past of a certain Rose Donnelly. Back at Baker Street, Holmes mentions that the cook's father has been arrested in relation to her death - a scapegoat to make the police seem competent.

On her next half day Rose decides to play guitar in the park, and while she's out, Holmes searches her room. She's alerted to this by small incongruencies when she returns. When she comes out of her room, she encounters Watson, and she weaves him a tale of how Rose Donnelly was taken in by a married man, had a child out of wedlock that died, and how her family just can't take the shame of it happening again, how it's hurting her family to have Holmes ask about her. Watson agrees to speak with him. Holmes comes home that night, and Rose confronts him, asking if he went through her room. Holmes is evasive, and asks if she's spying on him. Indeed, he's convinced that she's spying on him. Watson interrupts the two of them, and Holmes promises to behave himself. Rose becomes a little worried, but assures herself that Holmes won't find anything - there really was a Rose Donnelly from Yorkshire who came to work for Mrs Hudson, but upon arriving in London she had been diverted. Found dead a week later near Hanover Street. In nine months Rose Donnelly will be officially dead once again, with only minor changes to her timeline. Reflecting on this, she finally relents to Jack's attention and decides to go to the music hall in order to taunt Holmes.

On their way back from the music hall and dinner, Jack insists on walking rather than taking a cab. Rose is rather drunk and clumsy, and he attempts to rape her. Holmes interrupts, and tells Jack that he must leave for Australia immediately or Holmes will report him to the police. Holmes calls Rose a cab and the two depart.

In the coach Rose tries to once again assume her role as a frightened maid, but Holmes is having none of it, he's been watching the entire night, including how during dinner she had ordered in Italian. No, he refuses to believe that she's a servant by anything but choice. She admits in a roundabout way to being there to spy on him, but assures him she just wants information, no harm is meant. They arrive back at Baker Street, agreeing to keep up appearances for the sake of the game, as it were.

Holmes invites Rose to play music with him that following Sunday in front of an audience of Watson, who can sense a spread of tension over the entire affair. Later that night Rose and Holmes meet in a torrid blaze of passion, before resolving amongst themselves that it must only happen the once. Of course, it continues to happen for the next two weeks. Rose tries to justify her lack of objectivity to herself, saying that she's getting good data, even though she can't publish for other historians until 2018, but she realises that she's compromised.

As Holmes leaves one night, Thomas Corkle, another boarder, sees him leaving. Corkle enters Rose's room, politely insisting that the two of them should talk, and explains to Gillian that he's a friend of Jimmy Moriarty's, sent back to keep things moving smoothly for her research. He insists that she hand over her research notes for safekeeping, since she's now so close to the subject, and suggests that they use more advanced technology to spy on Holmes' interactions, bugging his sitting room. Gillian ushers him out, giving him the research and agreeing to copy what notes she has left in code, before bugging the sitting room the next day.

Part 2
Christmastime passes, and with it a morose pall over the house. Holmes is moody, upset over Gillian tossing him out, Mrs Hudson upset by her son having left so abruptly. Watson tries to keep everyone's spirits up, but it comes to naught. Meanwhile, Gillian and Corkle spend their time eavesdropping on the duo, seeing what information they can get. In doing so, Gillian overhears a conversation with Lestrade about a burglar and who the police have arrested. Holmes insists they have the wrong culprit, instead they should be looking for a lesbian posing as a maid somewhere. Lestrade refuses to listen, and leaves.

In February an old woman, the Lady Holbrook comes to call, asking for Holmes' help. Her grandson, Lord Merrill Holbrook, has vanished. There's scandal afoot, as his recent wife, Henrietta Barstow has been entirely untouched by him in their nine months of marriage, and as a result her father has begun annulment proceedings, which will finish in three months time. Holmes is deeply intrigued by the situation, especially as the doctor who discovered that Henrietta was still a virgin, Jacob Armitroy, has vanished. He agrees to take the case.

A few days later Holmes and Gillian reunite, and in that intimacy Gillian tells him her name. Holmes attempts to contextualise what he knows about her, talking about how much he enjoys a mystery. Gillian ultimately professes her love for him, which he rejects, saying that he can't love something he knows is a lie. As a result, she begins to tell him some of the truth, that she's researching him for her doctoral thesis. She tells him no more than that though, and embarrassed, asks him to leave.

A few days later, Gillian and Corkle are listening in whilst Holmes and Watson are discussing Holmes' inquiry into the disappearance of Merrill Holbrook. Some of his gentlemen friends are feeling quite snubbed by his absence, so Holmes concludes that he must have left the country. It's also mentioned that a photographer, a Shamus Tiramory wishes to make Holmes' acquaintance. After the conversation ends, Corkle makes suggestive comments about Gillian and Holmes, which leads her to conclude that he's bugged her room as well as Holmes' sitting room. In addition, she puts together from the two anagrams that somehow Jimmy Moriarty is interfering in the Holbrook case.

On Gillian's next half day, Holmes takes her out on the town, though at first to a rather more shady side of it, including a club for a certain kind of gentleman. While there, Holmes reconnects with an old school acquaintance, Harry Hughes, and probes him for information about a disappearance, one Stewart Ronaldson, the acquaintance seems spooked by the question and is able to provide no real answers. As the pair leave the club, Gillian seems to see a vaguely familiar shadow stalking them.

The couple continue their day out on the town, Holmes taking Gillian to a photographer who specializes in illicit pictures. He masquerades as a gentleman looking set up an appointment for his lady so he has a memento when he travels abroad, but first acts to see some samples of the photographer's work. Holmes ends up pocketing one of the samples and the pair leave. Later on, Gillian recognizes the man who is stalking him, it's the man she confronted prior for spying on her. Holmes confronts the man as he tries to abduct Gillian, and Gillian escapes in the scuffle.

The next day Holmes receives a telegram, his father has died. He sends for his brother, Mycroft Holmes, and the two have an argument that Gillian overhears concerning the funeral and the plans for their mentally challenged sister, Genevieve Holmes. The following Sunday Gillian heads to Church to meet with Johnson, who informs her that this is the last time they can chat - she's being investigated by Scotland Yard, for some reason. During this last meeting though, he tells her that the man who's been stalking her is China Crow, and he works for the gangs in town - he must have been payed by somebody. She asks him to look into Moriarty's various aliases and to send the information to Holmes, and then the two cut ties.

That Monday, Gillian decides to search Corkle's room, and finds a camcorder. Turning it on and watching the playback she sees Corkle filming himself involved in sexual rituals. Horrified, she turns the camcorder off and hides it away before running out of the room. As she did, constables rush in and arrest her. There were valuables planted in her room, the burglar Holmes and Lestrade had previously discussed is now suspected to be her. She breaks down crying, since the only person who knows the true identity of the culprit is Holmes, and he's out of town. Corkle comes to see her in jail the next day, admitting that he set her up. He says that she has two options before her, cutting off ties with Holmes and she'll be taken care of until the time when they leave for the 21st century, or hoping that he can rescue her and being left with no resources. With that, he leaves.

Holmes comes in some time later and tells Gillian that he's sure she won't be going to prison, in the worst case scenario he'd be willing to offer himself as an alibi, even at risk of scandal. While they talk, he pulls out a broken CD that Watson had stepped on in Corkle's room and asks her if she knows what it is. She insists that he mustn't talk about it with others, especially not in his sitting room. She's realised that somehow Corkle is playing a game with Holmes, first with the incidents on the camcorder, and when he wouldn't bite on those, now with her arrest. She's worried for him, even if she can't say this in the jail with everyone listening.

Gillian is taken before the judge and the police force the next day, where Holmes endeavors to convince them that Gillian could not have been the culprit. He explains his knowledge of who the actual burglar is, someone who had died a few weeks back, but as the final bit of proof, has Gillian try to climb through a particular gap the size of one of the windows used in the robberies. Gillian finds herself stuck, and is henceforth released. Gillian and Holmes return to Baker Street, but Mrs Hudson refuses to let her inside due to the scandal. Gillian instead tries to go to her lodgings as the Widow Tory, but all of those belongings had been removed earlier that day, leaving her destitute.

Gillian is put up with Harry Hughes, and the next morning Holmes comes 'round with most of her stuff, though her notebooks have been pilfered. More than that, on his way over the fragments of the disc were stolen out of his pocket. When she looks relieved he becomes enraged and assaults her, causing Hughes to intervene and order him out of the house. Gillian receives a message the next day from Holmes, saying that he fears a trap is closing around him, he doesn't understand it, but he can't take the bait, and that the two of them should cut off contact. Frustrated and hurt, Gillian resolves to tell him everything.

Part 3
After two weeks of trying to pin Holmes down, Hughes and Gillian finally track him to a club. Gillian listens in on Holmes tricking an actor into talking about how he had once portrayed a Doctor in a private performance. As she listens in, he realises that someone is spying on him, and bolts after her. They confront each other, and he agrees to meet with her the next day to discuss things. As she leaves the club, Watson notices her and finally comes to believe Holmes that Gillian has been deceptive with them based on her different state of dress and mannerisms. However, as this is a bad part of town, and he considers himself a gentleman, he insists on escorting her home.

As Gillian and Watson make their way back to Hughes's, they're set upon by the same gang of people who attempted to kidnap Gillian before. The pair are captured, and Watson is shot in the chaos. The pair wake up in a cold, dark cell.

Some time passes before Corkle comes in to see them. He expresses regret, but says that Gillian has forced his hand, he needs the implant in her arm intact if he's to return home. Gillian insists that it's a birth control implant, but he denies this. The pair will be taken care of, Watson will be given bandages for his leg, but they'll be kept here. The two spend their time in their mutual isolation talking to each other about the small things, food, family, childhood. One night the pair almost give in to temptation and have sex, but Watson insists that it would not be right, as Holmes loves her.

At this revelation, Gillian and Watson discuss the night where Holmes left her and wrote the note telling her that he wished to cut ties - how distraught he seemed to Watson. Specifically, he said in the sitting room that the two of them were done. Gillian realises that this was theatre - Holmes knew someone was listening in, and so he must have been using this entire affair to lure out the person spying on him. Indeed, Gillian thinks that Holmes may have seen the two of them being abducted. China Crow comes and grabs Watson, taking him away from Gillian, leaving her alone. Weeks and torrents of abuse pass before Holmes shows up to pull her out.

As Holmes and Gillian crawl through the tunnels she was held in, trying to find any hint of Watson or what else is going on, they come upon Corkle's operating theatre from his movies, complete with a video camera. Holmes asks Gillian if this is the demesne of Moriarty, but she says that it's Corkle's. Finally, the terror of the scene and her exhaustion overcomes her and she collapses.

Gillian wakes up in a hospital, recovering from her ordeal. Holmes comes to comfort her, and while the two are talking, Lestrade enters the room. He tells Holmes that while they've found Gillian's captors in the tunnels, dead, the operating theatre has been cleaned out. Holmes insists on leaving with him to survey the scene. Upon being checked out from the hospital, Gillian travels to Baker Street to see Holmes. In the sitting room she meets the lawyer of Lady Holbrook, who insists that legal action will be filed against Holmes for his failure to work on the case. Holmes says that he's found her grandson, that his head was in the operating theatre. While there's no proof, Holmes is willing to sign an affidavit, making his wife a widow and stopping any annulment. The lawyer refuses to accept this result and leaves. Holmes mentions that Corkle has left the country to the East Indies, causing Gillian to panic, that he would leave without her, causing her to faint. When she comes to, she retrieves the microphones she placed in his sitting room and destroys them, before explaining her entire story to him.

Holmes reacted to the tale as stoically as could be expected, but is curious - if the idea is to change his future, why not just kill Watson? Gillian's not entirely sure, but suspects that someone else might write about Holmes, the goal isn't to change destiny, but to just determine if it exists. Holmes speculates that Gillian is important to this exercise because she and she alone will determine if his life is changed when she returns, having significant knowledge of his life. He pulls out a note that mentions that Watson is being held in Anjer, in Java. The pair arrive in Java ten days before the eruption of Krakatoa, when Gillian will be sent back.

The pair tried to discreetly suss out any hints of information on Watson or the ship that brought him in, eventually finding a lead as to one of the workers on the ship. Holmes insists on Gillian returning to the hotel and goes off to investigate alone. A day passes without him returning, causing Gillian to become slightly concerned. She hears movement outside her room, and when she opens her door she finds some of the group that kidnapped her holding guns at her. They take her to Corkle's manse to see Corkle. The pair of time travelers chat, with Corkle mentioning to her that Watson is alive, but if Holmes is told this Watson will be killed. He gives Gillian food to feed Holmes with, since Holmes hasn't been eating, and she goes off to try and force him to eat.

Corkle and Gillian ride into town the next day, him telling her that she can no longer see Holmes. She asks him why the torture of children - she can't imagine that Moriarty asked for it. Corkle said that Moriarty wasn't the one who invented the ability to travel through time. Moriarty's patron, The Host Celestial, likes those sort of visceral rituals, it brings them slightly more in contact with reality. And Corkle's been using Moriarty's name so as to not damage his own. They return to the house to find that Holmes has escaped. Corkle orders his men to search for Holmes in the nearby jungle. Two days before the volcano erupts, when Gillian and Corkle are once again alone, Holmes stalks in, holding a gun. He then leaves with Gillian.

The two flee through the forest all night, but the following morning Corkle manages to catch up with them. He attempts to kill Holmes but Gillian manages to prevent his death. Holmes interrogates him about Watson and whether he's alive, which Corkle admits to. Holmes is about to kill him as the volcano nears eruption, but Corkle mentions that he has a friend keeping an eye on Holmes' sister. Holmes shoots Corkle, killing him, Gillian insists that he must try to send a telegraph to Mycroft and save his sister, and she must leave.

They trek to a small shelter set up by Corkle, a ritual site with mirrors and mummery and a monkey corpse. Gillian enters the ring and forces him out of the shelter. The volcano erupts. She vanishes.

Epilogue
''As the volcano erupts Holmes is knocked down. He quickly rights himself and walks inside the shelter to find the entire scene has disappeared. As stones rained down he tried to hold on to hope for the future.''

Characters

 * Sherlock Holmes
 * John Watson
 * Rose Donnelly
 * Mrs Hudson
 * Mycroft Holmes
 * Inspector Lestrade
 * Jimmy Moriarty
 * Shinwell Johnson
 * Jack Hudson
 * Thomas Corkle / Mr Gra
 * Lady Holbrook
 * Harry Hughes
 * China Crow
 * Nigel Davies
 * Iris (Erasing Sherlock)

Worldbuilding

 * Moriarty's technology was given to him by the "Host Celstial".
 * Genevieve Holmes is Sherlock's sister.
 * This novel establishes that Sherlock Holmes was a real person, at least in the context of the Faction Paradox series. This is reasserted in PROSE: The Book of the Enemy.

Continuity

 * In the short story, Holmes would come across the influence of War-time powers much later in life when he found The Book of the Enemy, transforming himself into fiction. Speculatively, this may explain the fact he was variously portrayed as real (such as in ) and imagined (such as in PROSE: Evolution, The Gallifrey Chronicles, TV: The Snowmen)