Sherlock Holmes in The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler

News, information and links related to my Sherlock Holmes story Sherlock Holmes in The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler which is now available on Amazon. The story is based on the text adventure of the same name, that I created and released in the late 1980s.

Amazon Paperback book version – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G6XRN7M3

Amazon Kindle version – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G7348P2R

Introduction

The first Sherlock Holmes story I read was The Hound of the Baskervilles, a truly amazing mixture of ancient legends, family curses, mysterious deaths, the Devon moors and, of course, a glowing, terrifying hound. Over the years, I added to my reading of the Sherlock Holmes stories, including all the short stories and novels, plus some pastiche stories by other authors.

In the mid-1980s, text adventures were quite a big part of the gaming world, which was still finding its feet, with mainly platform games being the big sellers and the ZX Spectrum leading the way in home computing and gaming. I started experimenting with some software called The Professional Adventure Writing System (PAWS) to see how it worked and was glad to find I could get the hang of it quite quickly. My first full try out of PAWS was a game called Yuppie, featuring the aspiring yuppie Nigel Ffoulkes-Smythe and a day in his life. With Yuppie created, I then wanted to move onto something more complete and a Sherlock Holmes adventure seemed the logical fit – and The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler began to take shape.

As well as the story, this required a pathway through the game which the intrepid adventurer takes, somewhat guided by the story and the general way text adventures worked in those days. Many sheets of paper were required to map out locations, story points, characters, objects, interactions and so on, with this all then being fed into PAWS. Looking back now, I can see how this lead me into a career in software development, it was certainly a big project to get started on.
Once completed, I first released the game through my own channel, calling the outfit Mental Images. A decent review followed, from Your Sinclair magazine, giving it an overall score of 8/10. Back in the late 1980s, in those days of no internet, let alone no social media, promoting a product was a difficult proposition and I eventually did a deal with the legendary adventurer John Wilson, of Zenobi Software, where it would be included in their range of titles.

Over the years I had kept the idea of creating a proper short story telling The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler, but other things came up and the idea got put on the back burner.

Fast forward some 35 years or so, and here it is. Having some downtime in early 2025 (being a freelancer, a bit too free of projects!) I decided to actually write it and used the excellent Scrivener software to help with the process. Having enjoyed the writing so much, I have another Sherlock Holmes short story in development – the working title is The Tower Bridge Mystery – and hopefully this one will take less than 35 years to publish!

I’m delighted to say that, in these days of AI and large language models etc, no AI was used to create the book or its text content, but I did do some research with Perplexity AI on information regarding things such as swords, clothes, cigarette brands, opium dens and train journeys in the era of the story.

At that point in the book, I then pass you over to Dr Watson, who recounts his tale of The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler. To read that, you’ll need to buy the paperback book or Kindle version on Amazon.

News

18 January 2026 – I have added a page for my second Sherlock Holmes story – Sherlock Holmes in The Tower Bridge Mystery – which is under development.

8 January 2026 – Have now added a Bluesky profile, for those that prefer to avoid X/Twitter and the handle is also @PatWalshWrites and the link is patwalshwrites.bsky.social

1 January 2026 – Have now created an X/Twitter profile that you can follow for news and info, the handle is @PatWalshWrites and the link is https://x.com/PatWalshWrites

24 December 2025 – Managed to find a ZX Spectrum emulator in the browser, that you can use to load up and play the original text adventure game – full details below!

15 December 2025 – The Kindle version is now available on Amazon.

14 December 2025 – The Paperback version is now available on Amazon.

I finally managed to jump through all the hoops of publishing to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, in December 2025.

Have to say that compiling output from Scrivener was a bit of trial-and-error chore and had to settle for a fairly standard book cover via Amazon’s own tools, as my attempts at producing my own and then trying to use them were nothing short of nightmaresque!

Information

Screenshots from the original text adventure

Review of the original text adventure from Your Sinclair magazine

The 8/10 review – from the legendary Mike Gerrard of Your Sinclair magazine – was greatly received – and he managed to uncover a bug or two!

Play the original text adventure in your browser

This amazing site – https://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/ – emulates the ZX Spectrum in the browser and you can quickly find the original text adventure and play it! See the screenshot below, to see it in action.

Instructions: Load the site url https://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/ and click File, then Find Games, then input case, then click Search, then click Sherlock Holmes – the Case of the Beheaded Smuggler (Part 1 of 2) – and away you go, you are Sherlock Holmes in The Case of the Beheaded Smuggler…

Note: Seems to work best with desktop browsers, as requires a keyboard to function properly, though I did manage to get it working on my iPad using a Bluetooth keyboard.

Various URLs for the original text adventure

At The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Case_of_the_Beheaded_Smuggler

At World of Spectrum

https://worldofspectrum.net/item/0006962/

At Spectrum Computing

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/6962/ZX-Spectrum/The_Case_of_the_Beheaded_Smuggler

At CPCRulez.fr

https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/the_case_of_the_beheaded_smuggler.htm

At The Internet Archive

https://archive.org/details/zx_Sherlock_Holmes_The_Case_of_the_Beheaded_Smuggler_1990_Zenobi_Software_Part_1_of

At Every Game Going

https://www.everygamegoing.com/larticle/The-Case-Of-The-Beheaded-Smuggler-000/33658

Spoiler Alert! This is the solution to the original text adventure game

https://solutionarchive.com/file/id%2C1756/

YouTube play through of the original text adventure game

https://youtu.be/5G2x4ylr5Ks?si=dompzqKocHd0ALRk

Pat Walsh provided Kingston Valdes with a professional and personable service that was excellent value. The site was built and tested quickly, we are delighted with the results, and we have already had positive feedback from some of our clients. If you’re thinking of building a new site or adapting an existing one, I’d certainly recommend speaking with Pat about it.

Kathy Valdes, Kingston Valdes

We hired Pat to help with QA of a music streaming app. We needed someone with that magic “6th sense” of where the bugs are lurking; the ones which developers tend to miss. Pat more than fulfilled this need, with highly methodical approach and a great eye for detail.

Subsequently Pat has provided QA services for a personal app project of mine, finding a significant issue which had been lurking for some time.

Pat is a real asset to any team – highly competent technically but also easy going and a great guy to work with. Highly recommended!

Andrew Ebling, Head of App Development, Composed

We’ve worked with Pat Walsh on a number of very different projects, from interactive video projects to mobile apps. His work is very thorough and has quickly become an essential and important phase of all the production work we do at Storythings. He’s thorough, diligent, and a pleasure to work with.

Matt Locke, Director, Storythings

Pat is an excellent one-stop-shop for testing Apps and Websites. He is a self-starter who just knows what needs to be done and gets on with it, and is responsive to requests for any specific testing requirements. He provides test plans and reports as a matter of course and was a pleasure to work with. I will definitely be working with Pat again if the opportunity arises.

Andrew Birley, PM, Storythings

Pat came to Composed to respond to our (increasingly urgent) need of QA on mobile and web and I can testify he more than fulfilled the task. On the Android side, his very structured approach (first exploratory testing, then focus on defining test plans for a variety of scopes) and his clear knowledge of the latest mobile technologies have quickly paid off. He was involved directly with the developers (including myself) and this very dynamic relationship enabled us to annihilate bugs swiftly and efficiently.

David Ferrand, Android Developer, Composed

Pat Walsh fixed my site within hours of my contacting him – his WordPress website fix service clearly works!

Douglas Green, Douglas Software

Couldn’t recommend Pat highly enough. He goes beyond what you’d expect of a QA tester, commenting more broadly on user experience and even design. He’s quick, efficient and thorough – couldn’t ask for any more.

Rob Calvert, Director, Click

Pat performs comprehensive website testing for us, across all the main browsers and platforms, including mobile devices. His flexible approach to testing and clear feedback enable us to have confidence that the business end of our website is still working smoothly after system updates and changes.

Steve Liu, Manager, Wicked Lasers

Pat has been absolutely incredible at testing each of our projects he works on. He’s very professional, organised and diligent. I look forward to using him again in the future.

Oliver Thurtle, Director of Technology, Drum