A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes (17 page)

“We lay flat, face down, our arms over each other, and the train sped up. It carried us unobserved between the policemen on the barge and those loading men into wagons on the street.

“There were fixed protuberances above the car taller than we were lying down, so there was no danger of us hitting a bridge or tunnel entrance. The dangers rather lay in the fact that the train was carrying us west out of London, away from home and recovery, and in the fact that if we waited until the train stopped in a yard there would be railway police, every bit as threatening as the Metropolitan Police we had just escaped.

“The train slowed at red signal lights that then turned green while it was still in motion, and it would resume again. We waited until one stopped it completely.

“We climbed down and scrambled through the bushes to find ourselves on the streets of Chelsea. I could not move another step, even with Eric’s help. After some while a late hansom came by and Eric hailed it. He smiled innocently to the driver and excused our appearance and my stumbling by saying I had drunk too much. He gave the address of my room.

“The ride home was long, dreary, and painful. Yet I glowed within at the thought of the constant loyalty Eric had shown me, and the words we had exchanged on the warehouse roof. I touched his hand and felt it press mine in return. I was too drained to pursue the subject with him at that moment, but I now had hope for the future.”

4. The Logic

I exchanged glances with Holmes, then answered, “All right. I will prepare a sleeping draught. In fifteen minutes you shall have finished your story and drunk it.”

“I agree.”

“Good. Speak rapidly.”

“We slept into the afternoon. Then Eric went to find a doctor for my foot, which was badly sprained but not broken. Eric also bought groceries and made dinner.

“That night, he gave me this ring from his finger. It has his initials, ‘E.S.,’ engraved inside. I still wear it even though he left me. Somehow I must hope.”

Tanny held up his hand to show a tasteful, expensive ring with a single sapphire.

“I was upset that I had no ring to give him, and no way to leave the room and even buy him one.

“He soothed me: ‘No need to be so literal, Tanny. This one ring – my ring on your finger – will have to symbolize both my faith to you and yours to me.’

“And so we were happy.

“For the first weeks, I was confined to bed or my chair, and it fell to him to keep up the room.

“We made plans together. We knew that in a few years we would be too old for our work. I had more money than he, and mine was invested while his was just hidden away. I began to teach him about stocks and bonds. I had my room that was so nice, and I asked him to live there with me. Because of my ankle, I couldn’t help him move his things, but I accompanied him on the trip. When I saw the slum he’d been living in and paying outrageous rent for, I wanted to cry. Living together was economical for us, and we calculated that if we worked steadily for the next few years we could retire, at least from that life, with good security. Perhaps we could find some other way to earn our living then.

“I’ve felt it ironic that our happiness lasted almost exactly one year. It began on the night of the party, and he went away on Monday, September 18th of last year.

“His leaving was presaged, about three weeks earlier, by an event that has no logical connection but nonetheless seems sinister. We were dining in a restaurant, just ourselves. Behind Eric, I noticed an army officer. He was one of those whose uniform includes the ribbons at the back of the neck that make them seem silly – as if they imagine it is two centuries ago when they fought for the Duke of Marlborough and had oiled, powdered, cloth-covered pigtails to protect their necks from sword cuts. When Eric got up after dinner, he saw the officer too, and he turned white. He rushed us out, refusing to explain. After that, he became secretive and suspicious of everyone except me. He would only leave our room to find clients. I worried about him and begged him to tell me. But he would not.”

He continued, “Finally, on that fatal afternoon, I went out shopping. As I returned I saw a fancy carriage in front of our building. I was astonished to see Eric come out the door with his arm held by a handsome, imposingly tall, strong gentleman. The man was a civilian and not the same as the army officer who’d frightened Eric. At first I thought he was a client. But there was no reason for any client to be in our room. I became uneasy, and I rushed up to the carriage just as the door closed on them. I rapped on the window, and the man gave me a triumphant sneer. I ran alongside. Eric looked into my eyes with the most stricken expression. Then the carriage sped up and left me behind.”

Tanny sighed. “I have many acquaintances. But, since that day, despite my appeals, no one has given me any news of Eric. It is as if he no longer exists.”

Holmes smiled to him. “You’ve done well in your telling, Tanny, and been most gratifyingly exact about details and especially about dates. Thank you. But there is one piece of information you might supply me with. What colour were the ribbons at the back of the officer’s collar?”

I was upset by Tanny’s account. I said to Holmes. “I fear you have your work cut out for you. It may be that the kind of love Tanny seeks cannot be found among inverts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, it is the popular wisdom. Nobody ever supposes that such an attraction can be more than physical. I have never heard the word ‘love’ applied to a pair of men. And look at the stories Tanny’s told us. He’s described by now many varieties of relationships between men, but none were the kind he hopes for.”

“If two men achieved such love, Watson, would they allow anyone, even close friends, to guess?”

“I suppose not. They break the law every time they express it, even with a kiss.”

“There is the example of Tanny himself. He still wears that ring – in devotion to a man he believes, but cannot accept, deserted him ten months ago.”

“The hypothesis you’ve proposed – that there’s no spiritual love among inverts – is useless to us, just on technical grounds. It’s too unwieldy to prove and too delicate. You would be disproved by any one counter example. We face only the restricted question whether a particular Eric loves a particular Arthur. Even more practically, we only need find the aforementioned Eric and then let him and Arthur work it out themselves.”

“That’s true.”

“Watson, in your stories you complain that I stay silent until I’m sure of my results. You go so far as to attribute this to my desire for a little showmanship and surprise. These aspersions are true, but only partly. Since you’ve become personally concerned with this case of Tanny’s, we might follow the contrary procedure and perhaps we’ll see why I dislike it.”

“For any criminal case, Scotland Yard – excepting Stanley Hopkins – believes a single hypothesis is all they need. They prefer to have only one, because definiteness should show that you’re more right. They’re not discouraged when their hypothesis doesn’t fit the facts; it is theirs and they manfully defend it. I have tried to convince them that the cause of their failures is not the weakness of their hypotheses, but the policy of entertaining only one. If you have more, you can look closely at otherwise small facts that prove one and refute another. Conflict among hypotheses leads into new lines of investigation.

“In our present case, the obvious hypothesis is the one Tanny fears – that Eric found a handsome, wealthy gentleman to keep him permanently and he’s gone to ground. This is certainly a reasonable guess, and I can’t contradict it. If it’s true then the consequences are easy. Eric is still with that gentleman or else he has moved on, and in either case he is unworthy of Tanny’s dreams. Under all the variations of this idea, the one constant is that I have no clues and would have difficulty locating Eric in such banal circumstances.

“So, let’s set that thought aside for the moment – not for lack of merit, but in hope that some other hypothesis may suggest a more ready approach.

“The opposite possibility is that Eric indeed loves as he claimed he did. In that case, the tall, strong man who led Eric away by holding his arm is not his employer but his kidnapper. The stricken look Eric gave Tanny is not that of a guilty betrayer but that given by one who sees before his eyes everything he dreamed of and can no longer have. Indeed, it is the look of one who cares about Tanny and escaped with him before and who knows how badly Tanny will now be hurt.”

I interrupted: “Holmes, how can you think that? What evidence can you have?”

“Watson, your outburst is the reason I do what you accuse me of – maintaining my own counsel and hiding my reasoning even from you. Because you insist on ‘thinking.’ I do not ‘believe’ what I just said. I do not ‘think’ it. I do not even ‘guess’ it. I merely wonder about it and try to ascertain its possible consequences and thereby evaluate its truth. That is what distinguishes me from Scotland Yard. I am entitled to wonder, without a shred of evidence, about anything at all – because I do not commit to it until I can say I ‘know.’ Imagination is the thing – and then logic to discover what it means.”

“You have often said as much.”

“Indeed… We now have two hypotheses – that Eric deserted Tanny, or that Eric loves Tanny but was abducted. We cannot prove either, but we can develop further hypotheses that may link with them.”

“I don’t see that we’ve made progress, but please continue.”

“Consider next this sinister officer who caused Eric to show such fear. He is not the same man with whom Eric left, so it is hard to see why Eric feared him. The officer might be someone Eric knew to be a confederate of the man who abducted him. Or alternatively, he might be a man Eric knew intended him some other harm that was in the event forestalled by Eric’s departure. Eric may even have departed in order to escape that officer. All these are possible. But they are complicated, in the sense that we have nothing yet with which to connect them. So, without disdaining them, I store them away and search for riper fruit.

“Let us start afresh. Tanny has provided us with a hypothesis that’s so natural as to seem not even hypothetical: namely that Eric feared this officer. But there are other possibilities. Suppose Eric did not fear the man. Then what else might he have feared?”

“Exactly, Watson. If we assemble our pieces, a more detailed idea appears. Eric knew that someone in that regiment would try to harm or kidnap him, but he had expected them to be stationed abroad for a longer time. The kidnapper appeared civilian to Tanny, though, because he prudently preferred mufti to his uniform… We do not yet by any means ‘believe’ this, but it begins to assume a definite shape.”

“Marvellous!”

Holmes asked, “Can we clarify a step further?”

“How?… You mean identify the regiment? …Yes, of course. Tanny said the officer had ‘ribbons’ behind his collar, meaning what military men call ‘flash.’ There remain today but two units in the British Army allowed by historical accident and royal decree to wear flash. The Royal Welch Fusiliers wear theirs black, and The Queen’s Own Wessex Guards wear azure. So, from what Tanny said, the man was a Wessex Guard.”

“Excellent! Now, Watson, having floated and bumped about so disconcertingly in the empty, windy air of conjecture, we may land ourselves, with great relief, upon the solidity of fact. Please take up your Military Gazette and research the recent movements of The Queen’s Wessex.”

I went to the shelves and consulted the Gazette. The answer was marvellous. I told Holmes, “The Wessex Guards were indeed away – in Africa – and returned on August 21, 1893, a week or so before Tanny and Eric saw that officer and under a month before Eric disappeared.”

“You see, Watson?”

“Holmes, your egotism is insufferable. But, wait! You can have much more. The Wessex Guards had gone out to Africa on February 6, 1892, some two weeks before Eric first appeared among Tanny’s friends. It is not explained why they came back after only eighteen months… Congratulations, indeed!”

“No celebrations yet – because we do not yet ‘know’ – but we do have grounds to increase our enquiries. Eric guessed long in advance that someone planned to hurt or kidnap him. It must have been someone he knew well.

“Eric’s knowledge of Latin and Greek suggests a good education, as does the athletic training shown during the escape from the party. They say the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. The Warehouse Roofs may have been won in some similar place.”