"The Drowned Geologist"

by Caitlin R. Kiernan

originally published Shadows Over Baker Street, 2002

A letter to Dr. Watson, dated May 1898 but never mailed, is found in the files of the late Dr. Tobias Logan of NYC, after his suicide.

While on a visit to acquire geological specimens and stratigraphic data from the east English coast, Logan has a strange experience.

Planning on meeting Sir Elijah Purdy from Geological Society of London in a few days, Logan took some time to check out the local museum collections and the shale on the beaches.   

While poking around and finding some interesting specimens, he meets a mysterious fellow, who, though obviously highly knowledgeable and almost frighteningly observant, claims to have found a tablet with heiroglyphics among the pre-human prehistoric shale.  Logan finds this preposterous, but the fellow seems rational.  What's more, Logan believes him to be Sherlock Holmes - currently thought to have died in Switzerland in his final battle with Moriarty.

The next day the body of Elihah Purdy shows up dead on the beach.  In his pockets are several fossilized pieces of rock, and in his hand is an ammonite known as Dactylioceras, a creature extinct since prehistoric times.  But this is not a fossil.

Soon after he receives a letter urging him not to delve further into Purdy's death, or the things he was investigating.  The letter is signed "S.H."

Not a bad story at all - quite literary and evocative.  Not much more than a sketch - but an effective one.