A Scarlet Trail of Murder

At ten o'clock on Sunday morning, the twenty-second of October, 1882, in an abandoned house in the West Bottom of Kansas City, just a stone's throw from the stockyards, a fellow named Jasper Harrison did not wake up. His inability to do was the result of his having had his throat cut sometime during the previous night. At the same time, in the same location, in the very same house, another fellow, by the name of Eddie Kepler did wake up. Now, it is trying enough to wake up on a Sunday morning after getting drunk on Saturday night in a saloon on the other side of the state line. However, it is downright disconcerting to wake up beside a dead man, who is staring at you with hollow eyes and a very ugly scarlet gash across his throat. Therefore, Eddie staggered out into the blinding daylight and started hollering very loudly for the police. I know these things because by noon on that same day, I was kneeling down on the floor beside my new partner, the Reverend Mister Ezekiel Amos Black, and together we were examining the body of Mr. Jasper Harrison. Three weeks and nearly three thousand miles later, the Rev, as I have become accustomed to calling the Reverend Mister Black, had not only brought the murderer to justice but had helped solve several other murders and some very nasty deeds that stretched back over fifteen years. This story of mine, which is appropriate reading for all members of your family, about the brainiest and downright strangest preacher and part-time Deputy US Marshal, is going to tell you how that all came about. And I am not going to be at all surprised if, after reading it, you will agree with me that Reverend Ezekiel Black was certainly one very smart man but, my goodness, was he a strange bird. James Watson, MD.

Craig Stephen Copland is a native of Toronto and, a long time ago, was an English major who studied under both Northrup Frye and Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto. In May of 2014, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Canada - better known as The Bootmakers (www.torontobootmakers.com) - announced a contest for a new Sherlock Holmes story. Although he had no experience writing fiction, the author submitted a short Sherlock Holmes mystery and was blessed to be declared one of the winners. Thus inspired, he has continued to write new Sherlock Holmes mysteries since. He created the legendary detective of the American West, The Reverend Mister Ezekiel Black, so that the science of deduction could be transferred to the days of the frontier. He is on a mission to write a tribute Sherlock Holmes story and a Reverend Ezekiel Black story for every one in the Sherlockian Canon. He currently writes from Toronto, Tokyo, and Manhattan and can be reached at CraigStephenCopland@gmail.com.