The Future Door

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Separating the Facts...................................................................XiPrologue...............................................................................11: The Missing Spyglass................................................................52: Boston..............................................................................133: The Moriartys.......................................................................234: Upside Down.........................................................................275: The Lady Returns....................................................................356: The Journal.........................................................................397: Homecoming..........................................................................458: Brother and Sister..................................................................499: Questions...........................................................................5310: Back at the Boston Docks...........................................................5911: Baker Street.......................................................................6112: The Spider's Web...................................................................6913: Tea For Three......................................................................7314: A Bump in the Night................................................................7715: The Return.........................................................................8516: The Beekeeper......................................................................9117: The Funeral........................................................................10118: The Old Clock......................................................................10519: Changes............................................................................11320: Stonehenge.........................................................................11921: The Tunnels Below..................................................................12322: A Dash of Pepper...................................................................12923: Time-Traveling Teapot..............................................................14124: Miss Fitch.........................................................................14925: New London.........................................................................15526: So Close...........................................................................16527: A New Plan.........................................................................16928: The Future Door....................................................................17529: A Long Time........................................................................18130: The Spider And The Bee.............................................................18531: No Place Like Holmes...............................................................189Epilogue...............................................................................195How Sharpe Are You?....................................................................197The Case of the Big Game Hunter: A Griffin Sharpe Mini-Mystery.........................200The Case of the Missing Masterpiece: A Griffin Sharpe Mini-Mystery.....................204How to Brew The Perfect Pot of British Tea.............................................207Answers to Griffin Sharpe Mini-Mysteries...............................................209

Chapter One

Griffin Sharpe clutched his ebony walking stick, fighting to keep his balance as the steamship rocked back and forth on the churning waves. The storm had forced most of the passengers below, but not him.

His leg was still sore from where it had been permanently injured in a battle with one of the most evil men in London. But he didn't complain about the discomfort. Instead, he gritted his teeth and leaned more heavily on his stick, forcing himself to limp along the slippery rail to the bow of the heaving ship.

Twenty life preservers, three lanterns, one shuffleboard stick ... Griffin silently counted the things he saw as he hobbled forward, a longtime habit that helped him cope with anxiety or discomfort. He fought down his feeling of seasickness and forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

Griffin Sharpe's mind was a constant fireworks display of thoughts and ideas, and there were very few people like him. His unique reasoning and deductive abilities were gifts from heaven, and Griffin intended to use them in the service of others. Right now, he was helping the captain of the ship find his favorite spyglass, which had mysteriously disappeared. The captain had always kept it in his private chambers, and earlier that afternoon, when he'd gone to retrieve it, he discovered that the small telescope had vanished.

His leg was really throbbing, and the doctor had warned him that he needed to treat it gently, but Griffin couldn't help himself. Trifling things like unpleasant weather and rollicking waves wouldn't stop him when he was feeling excited to solve a mystery.

And as the twelve-year-old detective hobbled forward, his usually sad, blue eyes were alight with excitement, for Griffin knew he was getting close to cracking the case, and nothing thrilled him more than that.

He ignored the cold spray that had thoroughly soaked through his tweed jacket and cap as he searched everything near the front of the ship. After several long minutes, he finally spotted what he was looking for. A few feet to the left of a life preserver, right at the top of the bow, was a tiny, glittering object wedged between the deck plates.

He wiped his magnifying glass on his damp shirt and bent closer so that he could see the object better.

It was a tiny brass ring.

But Griffin could tell right away that it wasn't the kind of ring that was to be worn on a finger as a piece of jewelry. He studied it closely, noticing the small threads that wound around inside the circular band and the small bit of glass in its center.

The boy knew the ring was a piece of a brass telescope, the eyepiece that was supposed to be attached to the observing end.

He wedged the small ring out of the plates with his penknife and placed it carefully in his pocket. Then he smiled and wiped the salty mist from his forehead with his sleeve.

Now that he'd found this clue, Griffin had a pretty good idea of who had taken the captain's favorite brass telescope and what had happened to it. All that was left for him to do was to gather one more piece of evidence to prove that his hunch was correct. He swayed with the rolling ship as he limped to the door that led back inside the ship's main cabin.

Tap-tap-tap went his stick as it hit the weathered planks. Griffin studied the deck in front of him as he walked. The marks he followed were a nearly invisible series of small, gray half-moons that led from the bow back to the inside of the ship.

Nobody else would have observed what the marks were, but Griffin could tell that they were made by the heel of someone's shoe, someone who had stepped briefly into a puddle of grease.

He knew it to be grease because the rain and the waves weren't washing the marks away. Instead, droplets of water gathered in each half-moon and glittered in the ship's lamplight. Oil and water didn't mix. And...