The Case of the Count of Saint Germain

by Martin Rosenstock

About the Author: Martin Rosenstock studied modern literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After job hopping around the colder latitudes of the U.S., he decided to return to warmer climes and took a teaching position in Kuwait. He has contributed stories to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories. For Titan Press, he edited Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Seven (2019). When not brooding over plot twists, he spends too much time travelling.

Excerpt

My esteemed readers will surely remember the so-called Agadir Crisis of the summer of 1911. In July of that year, the Kaiser sent a gunboat to the Moroccan city after the French had made moves to add the country to their African empire. My sympathies for the French do not extend particularly far, but here they had a point. They could not well let the Germans set up shop next to Algeria. So the French put down their foot, the Germans dug in their heels, and soon the only topic of conversation at my club was the coming war. Despite having long since joined the ranks of the middle-aged, I wondered whether I would be called up. There can never be too many surgeons on a battlefield. The war did not come, of course. We backed the French and so did the Americans, and eventually the French traded the Kaiser some patches of jungle, and the whole affair blew over.

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