Sherlock Holmes and The Nine-Dragon Sigil

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Sigil. Pronounced sijil. An inscribed or painted symbol or occult sign considered to have magical power

Like all my plots, Sherlock Holmes And The Nine-Dragon Sigil takes place in the halcyon days when Edward VII of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was on the throne of England, the king-emperor for whom the Era was named, a time when yellow fogs drifted eerily along London’s half-lit streets, agile Hansom cabs with Holmes and Watson bumping around inside rattled away to heaven-knows-where, a ‘leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun never set on the British flag’.

Edwardian summers were reputed to be unusually warm though the Meteorological Office tells me this was not true.

By the time Edward came to the throne in 1901, Holmes and Watson had spent the best part of two decades together, solving knotty cases which baffled the best of Scotland Yard’s detectives. The great Consulting Detective’s use of observation, deductive reasoning and scientific knowledge fascinated young and old, rich and poor, New York illuminatus or London East Ender alike. It was a period when Holmes and Watson reached their height in experience and maturity, men of the world in step with the immense British Empire. Even Watson’s confidence was burgeoning despite Holmes’s occasional biting put-downs.

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