Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street

It is the Victorian Era. One woman rules the British Empire; virtually all other women rule domains no larger than their kitchens. The widow of Constable Tobias Hudson is determined not to be one of those other women. She uses the lodgings she has leased at 221B Street to recruit the male figurehead she needs for the consulting detective agency that will make use of her investigative skills and observational abilities. It is a definite plus that the most attractive applicant for that role, Sherlock Holmes, brings with him the level-headed Dr. John Watson. This, then, is the first in the Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street series designed to expose and celebrate the genius and achievements of the true sage of Baker Street. The services of the consulting detective agency are requested by Lady Parkerton, whose husband, Sir Stanley, appears to have been poisoned after a family dinner in which he had the same food and drink as all other guests. When the family's coachman, who drinks too much and knows too much, is murdered as well, the game is truly afoot. Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues must not only sort through the motives and movements of the Parkerton family and staff, they must contend, as well, with the threat posed by the unexpected return to England of the White Rajah of Sarawak and the sudden intrusion of headhunters into the English countryside.

Moira Keegan is certain that someone is trying to kill her father. She tries to recruit Sherlock Holmes to save his life, but all at 221B Street are certain that there is no basis for Moira's fears. When, a short time later, they read of the man's death in a sleazy waterfront inn, the members of London's premier consulting detective agency have a new client and a singular purpose. Their investigation will place them at odds with Scotland Yard's Special Branch, Irish revolutionaries, religious zealots, and even staff of the London Times. Only Lestrade remains an ally, and he dare only participate covertly with his frequent colleagues. Before all can be brought right, the Baker Street trio will have to call on the assistance of Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and his mistress Katharine O'Shea.

Sherlock Holmes is goaded into a boxing match, in which his opponent, Sailor Mackenzie, loses both the bout and his life. All but Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues, Holmes and Watson, are convinced the fighter's death was an accident. The Baker Street trio travels to McLellan Manor in Yorkshire to sort through the numerous people who have reason to celebrate Mackenzie's death and the opportunity to cause it. Complicating their investigation, Holmes and Watson are asked to become protectors for Lily Langtry, and Mrs. Hudson to become her lady's maid, when the famous beauty is threatened by her latest paramour, the volatile George Baird. Before all can be resolved, Holmes will need to lead a séance in which he will call on a ghost to solve a 35-year old murder, and Mrs. Hudson will find herself in surprising alliance with the Jersey Lily.

It is 1896. Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues are traveling to Athens to attend the first Olympiad in more than 2000 years. Indeed, Holmes is to participate in the foils competition as a member of Great Britain's Olympic team. But the trip is more than just fun and games. The three members of London's first and foremost consulting detective agency are, in fact, engaged in a delicate bit of undercover work on behalf of Queen and country. They are to secure a letter being sent by courier to Queen Victoria from her daughter, the Dowager Empress of Germany. Peace between the two nations may well depend on the contents of that letter. They arrive to find both the courier and the wife of the British Ambassador shot dead in the Ambassador's residence. The letter and the Ambassador are nowhere to be found. They discover, too, that Inspector Lestrade is already in Athens investigating the sale of fake antiquities to the wife of the Ambassador. The Baker Street trio has the ten days of the Olympiad to recover the critical letter, capture a double murderer, and uncover the secret behind the scheme to pass off copies of Greek antiquities as genuine-all while Holmes seeks to dispatch his fencing competition and win an Olympic medal.

September, 1901. Fresh from a run of more than 260 performances in New York, the play, Sherlock Holmes, opens at London's Lyceum Theater. In attendance are Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Watson and Holmes, the renowned detective attending in disguise, concerned that he is somewhat too renowned and thereby likely to be pestered for his opinion about a play he is determined to detest. As it turns out, his fears are unfounded. There is no opportunity to criticize, or even witness the play. Before the curtain goes up, Holmes will be called backstage to investigate the murder of the play's wardrobe mistress. As always, the figurehead of the Baker Street trio is mistaken for its true leader. Not to fear, Mrs. Hudson is on the case. She and her colleagues will have to sort through a range of suspects, including actors seeking more than cleaned and pressed costumes from the young woman, a landlord upset about the woman minding his questionable business, and members of the anarchist movement suspicious about her professed allegiance to their cause. In the course of the investigation, Mrs. Hudson will receive assistance from the author of the play's first draft, Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, and will provide assistance to the juvenile actor playing the role of pageboy, Master Charles Chaplin.

When Buffalo Bill Cody's horse is stolen, the star of the world's foremost wild west show travels to Baker Street to consult the star of the world's foremost consulting detective agency. Like the many before him, Colonel Cody takes Sherlock Holmes to be that star. The true sage of 221B Baker Street, who also serves as its landlady, takes control of the situation, and finds both the purloined animal and the two children who had taken the horse for a joy ride 1903 style. When their father is murdered weeks later, the children fear they will be blamed because of their quarrel with him. They run away to join the wild west show leading Colonel Cody to make a return visit to Baker Street-this time with the two children in tow, and to enlist Holmes in the search for a murderer. Mrs. Hudson, will, of course, once again take charge, once again without acknowledgement of her contribution, once again maintaining the fiction of Sherlock Holmes's leadership, an essential pretense in the male dominated world of Victorian England. As Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues work to discover the murderer, they will find themselves having to counter an anti-Indian bigotry that places at risk the marriage of friends of Mrs. Hudson's from the wild west show, and Mrs. Hudson's very life. With the help of her two young horse thieves, now happily rehabilitated, Mrs. Hudson may yet find the way to a just and rewarding outcome.

"You're needed, Mr. Holmes. I'm to bring you to Inspector Lestrade. Dr. Watson has been accused of murder." The words from Thomas Wiggins, now a junior printer, formerly the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars, rouses Holmes from the company of bees outside his cottage in Sussex Downs to return to London and save his friend and colleague from the gallows. To his surprise, he will have the recently retired Detective Inspector Lestrade as an important ally. Unsurprisingly, he will be joined by his former landlady and mentor, Mrs. Hudson, the sage of Baker Street. She will, however, first have to be released from custody as she has been jailed for her part in demonstrating on behalf of votes for women. Indeed, not only has Watson been wrongfully accused, so have two prominent suffragettes Mrs. Hudson encountered in the course of her own arrest, and it will be up to Mrs. Hudson to guide the exoneration of all the innocent parties. In the process she and Holmes will find it necessary to outmaneuver both Scotland Yard and London's own fledgling version of the Mafia.