"The Adventure of Exham Priory" is a short story about Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

 written by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

Fergus Gwynplaine MacIntyre was a journalist, novelist, poet and illustrator, who lived in New York City and said he had lived in Scotland and Wales. MacIntyre's writings include the science-fiction novel The Woman Between the Worlds and his anthology of verse and humor pieces MacIntyre's...

. It was originally published in Shadows Over Baker Street

Shadows Over Baker Street

Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror! is an anthology of stories, each by a different author and each concerning an exploit of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes set against the backdrop of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos...

, a 2003 anthology edited by Michael Reaves

Michael Reaves

James Michael Reaves is an American writer, known for his contributions as producer and story editor to a number of 1990s animated television series, including Disney's Gargoyles and Batman: The Animated Series. He has also written media tie-in novels, children's books, and original fiction...

 and John Pelan

John Pelan

John C. Pelan is an American author, editor and publisher in the small press science-fiction, weird and horror fiction genres.He first founded Axolotl Press in 1986 and published several volumes by authors such as Tim Powers, Charles de Lint, Michael Shea and James P. Blaylock. Following this, he...

 for Del Rey Books

Del Rey Books

Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...

 (ISBN 0 345 45528 2 and ISBN 978 0 345 45528 4). It was reprinted in the May 2010 issue of the Japanese publication SFMagajin.

The story is set in April 1901, shortly after the death of Queen Victoria, and ten years after Holmes's seeming death at Reichenbach Falls

Reichenbach Falls

The Reichenbach Falls are a series of waterfalls on the River Aar near Meiringen in Bern canton in central Switzerland. They have a total drop of 250 m . At 90 m , the Upper Reichenbach Falls is one of the highest cataracts in the Alps...

. Doctor Watson maintains a medical practice in Harley Street

Harley Street

Harley Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.- Overview :...

 while continuing to share rooms with Holmes at 221B Baker Street

221B Baker Street

221B Baker Street is the London address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the United Kingdom, postal addresses with a number followed by a letter may indicate a separate address within a larger, often residential building...

.

Holmes has received, from a mysterious correspondent, a curved fragment of black basalt incised with weird runic symbols and stained with coagulated blood. Holmes and Watson have barely examined this before the correspondent himself arrives: he is Jephson Norrys, landholder of Exham Priory at Anchester in the Welsh Marches

Welsh Marches

The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods...

. Norrys has contracted a bizarre medical condition which appears to be transforming him into a fish-like creature

Deep One

The Deep Ones are creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. The beings first appeared in Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"...

.

The mystery deepens when Holmes reveals to Watson and Norrys another piece of black basalt: hexagonal, but incised with the same runic symbols and likewise stained with coagulated blood. Although Watson has never seen this object before, Holmes explains that it has been in his possession for the past ten years ... ever since the occasion of his alleged death. "Perhaps it is time that I told you, Watson," he remarks, "of my encounter with the Reichenbach Horror."

"The Adventure of Exham Priory" is filled with historic detail on topics including British railways of the time, and firearms and ammunition. (Watson arms himself with a Webley British Bulldog revolver

British Bulldog revolver

The British Bull Dog was a popular type of solid-frame pocket revolver introduced by Philip Webley & Son of Birmingham, England in 1872 and subsequently copied by gunmakers in Continental Europe and the United States. It featured a barrel and was chambered for five .44 Short Rimfire, .442 Webley,...

 and some 6.25-grain Cordite

Cordite

Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. Like gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance...

 cartridges, only recently invented as of 1901.) Also mentioned are scientists of this period who postulated a fourth dimension of space, including Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

 and Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was a Russian mathematician and geometer, renowned primarily for his pioneering works on hyperbolic geometry, otherwise known as Lobachevskian geometry...

. Holmes reveals his knowledge of the ancient Chaldea

Chaldea

Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...

n tongue, as well as pre-dynastic Chinese. There are subtle references to Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is the only complete novel written by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaling ship called the Grampus...

and to several H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

 stories, including At the Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness

At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in February/March 1931 and rejected that year by Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright on the grounds of its length. It was originally serialized in the February, March and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories...

, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. Written in November-December 1931, the story was first published in April 1936; this was the only fiction of Lovecraft's published during his lifetime that did not appear in a periodical....

", "The Rats in the Walls

The Rats in the Walls

"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924.-Plot summary:...

" and "The Shadow Out of Time

The Shadow Out of Time

The Shadow Out of Time is a novella by Americanhorror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between November 1934 and February 1935, it was first published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories.-Plot summary:...

". Even Professor Moriarty

Professor Moriarty

Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...

 and Watson's deceased first wife Mary Morstan make appearances at the story's climax.