Holmes and Watson End Peace: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes (5 page)

Interlude

“Nurse Pollett... Nurse Pollett!”

“You're in trouble, Lucy.”

“I'm always in trouble. God knows what I have done this time, left a thermometer in too long?”

“Ah, there you are. Nurse Harrison, there is no need for you to stay, I'm sure you can find something to do if you really try.”

“Yes, Matron.”

“I have just looked in on Dr Watson and once more I found his chair moved. Did I not have cause to reprimand you about that just a short while ago? Well?”

“Yes, but honestly Matron, I haven't touched it.”

“I would mind it less, Nurse Pollett, if you could only bring yourself to be honest with me. Who are you blaming now; Mrs Drew on another nocturnal visit? The polished floors? An earthquake in the tropics?”

“Honest, I have not touched the bloody chair!”

“We will have no swearing in this hospital, Nurse. Please get on with your duties for the remainder of the night and while you do so perhaps you would like to consider your position here. That's all, Nurse.”

***

“Lucy, I didn't really think you would go through with it. You must have the devil in you tonight.”

“But, that's just it, Polly, I didn't.”

“Didn't? But you must have done.”

“I swear...”

“Yes I heard!”

“No, listen to me Pol, when I went in there Dr Watson was still chatting away to himself and I just looked at him and left. I did not touch the chair.
”

“Where was it?”

“I didn't notice, but it must have been by the wall because that's where the old witch put it. It's a bit spooky, what with his condition and all.”

“Glad he's on your round not mine!”

“Thanks, Polly, you're all heart.”

Chapter 6

“Baker Street!”

“I beg your pardon, Watson?”

“Oh... sorry, Holmes I must have been dreaming. What did I say?”

“Baker Street.”

“Yes that was it, I was back home. It's odd you know how I think of it as home when I actually spent so little time living there.”

“Perhaps you were at your happiest there?”

“Sorry, old man, I don't believe I can claim that, given the wonderfully happy times when I was master of my own household, but obviously your presence here tonight has taken my sub-conscious back to those times when the game could be afoot at any moment and when clients danced merrily across the threshold with their vexatious problems and conundrums.”

“All human life was there, I think we can rightly say and some which appeared to be rather more or possibly you could say, less than human.”

“Who'd have thought that London could contain so much in the way of mystery and intrigue and that it would find its way to our door?”

“I, for one, Watson. In such a metropolis one should expect exactly what we saw, and remember that we barely scratched the surface of the peculiar or downright criminal enterprises that such a great city can provide for those who have a love of all that falls outside of the commonplace.”

“It was the ideal location and time for you.”

“Fortunately for me, but rather less fortunately for those who entered the sphere of my investigations.”

“I never did know whether your appearance in London was the result of a gradual process; working towards a base where you could operate profitably and be educated in your field at the same time or whether it was a deliberate move on your part.”

“Quite deliberate, Watson. I long had it in my mind, even before I went up to Oxford, that I would carve a niche for myself in living by my wits. It was so pronounced in me that my time at Oxford, in spite of the education it offered to me, I felt to be a waste of my time. The long walk home from the college to my digs in Kidlington was spent, not in assimilating what I may have gleaned that day from my tutors, but in theorising on my own experiments. I was very single minded, but that my dear Watson, will come as no surprise to you at all.”

“Not in the slightest, Holmes!”

“I was not a sociable fellow back then-“

“That does not surprise me either.”

“
Thank
you, Watson. I might occasionally join the other fellows at The Lamb and Flag for a restorative ale after a long day, but mostly they knew to leave me to my own devices. I did have friends after a fashion such as young Trevor, but I was not one of the ‘gang' so to speak and I have no doubt they were all most relieved at that.”

“What on earth made you think that you would have the wherewithal to set up as a consulting detective? Would it not have been better to set up in Oxford where at least you were familiar with the city and its environs?”

“I did have a small success or two in that fair city long before my biographer came to glorify me. The Tarleton murders date from that period as does the peculiar and initially baffling case of Vamberry the Headington wine merchant, but these minor triumphs needled the official force there and I realised my future would lie elsewhere.”

“Montague Street in fact. Even then, Bloomsbury was a quite fashionable place to live. Your rooms would not have come cheap.”

“As I say, I did have some money which came to me after the deaths of my parents, although Mycroft as the elder son had the lion's share. The sale of the family house realised very little by way of hard cash for my father had run up huge debts through his gambling and philandering ways. When those debts had been cleared, the pot was very nearly empty. So I found myself in my rooms in Montague Street, twiddling my thumbs, frittering away what little money I still possessed on the necessities of living; funds were running extraordinarily low, to some extent Oxford had seen to that.”

“You came into this small inheritance before you went to Oxford?”

“Yes. My parents were both dead some time before that. Mycroft was in charge of my portion until I came of age, in effect my guardian. But, as I was saying, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the British Museum, not so much for what I could learn within its hallowed portals, but for the fact it was much warmer there than in my rooms.”

“Hence, your need for new digs plus someone to share the cost of such digs with you.”

“Indeed, Watson. There were the odd cases that came my way, that of Reginald Musgrave and the age old ritual of Hurlstone for instance. As bright as I may have shone in that case, as in a few others, there was to be no great financial reward forthcoming. I spent a great deal of my time in perambulations of London, getting to know its nooks and crannies intimately. The city became a friend to me and I reckoned I knew every inch of it. I believe as a cabbie I would have risen to the top of that profession such was my knowledge of the city's byways, lanes, squares and alleyways.”

“I was always in awe of your encyclopaedic knowledge of London.”

“It was a hard earned knowledge, blisters and worn out shoe-leather testified to that.”

“Was your early work as a consulting detective your only source of income at that time?”

“I supplemented it occasionally with the odd bout as a prize fighter; my lanky frame somewhat belied my strength and skill, meaning I was able to pick up the odd few shillings in prize money as a result. Occasionally there were greater financial rewards that came my way from grateful clients; my recovery of the opal tiara when acting for Mrs Farintosh brought with it a few pounds to add to my dwindling coffers, but it was transient because for the most part, that money was owed elsewhere and disappeared as fast as it came into my possession. Mortimer Maberley, one of my early clients, was kind enough to offer up as his reward for my assistance, tokens which could be exchanged for square meals at Willoughby's in Great Russell Street.”

“They were hard times for you, Holmes. Could you not have appealed to your brother for help?”

“My pride would not allow it and besides our relationship was still strained, markedly more so than when you first met Mycroft. He had his own life and was making his way in government circles where they recognised his genius and omniscience. We were so far apart in those days that he never once came to Montague Street and I never set foot in his Pall Mall lodgings.”

“You were truly alone then?”

“Yes, Watson. My only contact with my fellow human beings was through prize fighting, where the contact was of course extremely physical or through my researches at the British Museum where the contact was slight and of course entirely cerebral. Other than that I was quite a solitary animal given to huge bouts of introspection and, you may be surprised to hear it, long periods of self-doubt.”

“I am not as surprised as you may imagine. I was always fully aware of your contradictory nature. Your precision and concentration of thought was often balanced with a restlessness and impatience. Your emotionless state that often bordered on cold-bloodedness was at odds with the nervousness and excitability I saw sometimes manifested in you.”

“I am hardly alone in displaying such a contradictory nature, Watson.”

“True, but it was very marked to my eyes because of whom and what you are. The failures, as you saw it in others, were often mirrored in you; sometimes I doubt that you were even aware of it. You decried haughtiness in others yet you were often contemptuous of those you perceived as mental inferiors. In fact I always thought your most obvious weakness was your impatience with less alert intelligences than your own, although having said that, you did have a remarkable ability to put clients at their ease, particularly the more humble clients.”

“The exalted clients we encountered were too puffed up with their own pride; they had no need to have their egos massaged further. The humbler clients as you describe them, were more in need of reassurance and very often their stories had to be coaxed from them, little by little.”

“I suppose you could say that in essence you were all things to all people.”

“I endeavoured to be so. I am glad that you see me as having succeeded.”

“In essence, Holmes, in essence!”

“I had noted the word, Watson, and allow me to use it also. In essence, my professional life was not exactly going how I had envisioned it. The income situation was grim to put it mildly and my daily life was solitary and fast becoming tiresome and commonplace, which I abhorred. My only other pursuits were visits to local theatres, they being the only ones I could afford to visit. The stagecraft of the actors fascinated me, the way they could submerge their own personalities under the makeup they applied, the tricks they used to gain or lose height. I inveigled myself into various dressing rooms to watch these processes at close quarters.”

“Did the opportunity present itself to actually put some of the skills you learned to legitimate use? By that, I mean, did you take to the boards yourself?”

“The Hampstead players recognised my talent and gave me ample opportunities to employ it. I graduated from small roles such as ‘third guard' or ‘constable' to roles more suited to my wonderfully dynamic range-“

“Was it beyond them I wonder to assign parts to you which reflected your
modesty
!?”

“I must admit I have always failed to see why any importance is attached to modesty.”

“Perhaps because it goes some way to making a fellow just a dash more likeable.”

“An intriguing and yet debatable point. I have never ranked modesty as one of the virtues and I see little point in devaluing any gifts I possess in order to appear likeable. I am a logician, Watson and logic dictates that everything be seen as it is. Equally so, I never seek to exaggerate my gifts either.”

“I beg your pardon, Holmes?”

“I had no need to; I had my Boswell to do that for me. You can hardly blame me that if at times you were too effusive in your praise.”

“Tell me, what were these roles that you graduated to, that made such good use of your acting skills?”

“Chief amongst them was the role of Malvolio.”

“Ah, Twelfth Night, I should have guessed.”

“I received a very favourable review in the ‘Gazette'.”

“I have no doubt at all that you remember it word for word.”

“As it happens, I do. ‘
The performance of Mr William Escott as Malvolio was a delight; this young performer captured every nuance of the character and lit up the stage with his energy and brilliance. Mark my words; this man will go a long way.
' One of my earliest uses for that particular pseudonym.”

“Reserved for the stage and courtships?”

“Reserved for when necessity dictated its usage, Watson. That wasn't my only success on the stage although I say so myself and I quickly realised how much acting and the art of disguise would play a part in my professional life. I had occasion to resort to such skills in my career as you know and by far the best way to successfully act a part is to be it.”

“And without exception, you fooled me every time.”

“This was always enormously gratifying for me, because if my closest friend could not penetrate my disguise than I could be confident no one else would.”

”It may be that I was just easily fooled. There were many times I felt very slow on the uptake.”

“Once again, Watson, you do yourself an injustice. You are more astute than you give yourself credit for.”

“Thank you, Holmes. Were you at your lowest ebb when you met me?”

“Professionally, no, but in many other ways, yes. I had cases to work on, hence the test you saw me so enthusiastically involved in at Barts and my reaction to having my theory proved, but as I have said, my finances were by then in a perilous condition and were likely to remain so unless I took action to reduce my expenditure. Our meeting when we did was fortuitous in the extreme and the subsequent move to Baker Street brought with it a surge in clients and cases. I am no great believer in fate, yet even I could be persuaded to think that events were moving in response to some grand celestial plan.”

“In spite of our differences of character or perhaps because of them, our friendship blossomed too.”

“Most assuredly, Watson. And almost before I was even aware of it, your accounts of my cases began to appear to a long suffering public.”

“But, none without your specific approval.”

“Approval of their publication yes, not their singularly unscientific content depending somewhat on a meretricious effect.”

“Despite your disdain, Holmes, my writing brought you considerable fame and ever more clients.”

“Including some that are best forgotten along with their trivial problems that they were under the illusion I would be glad to look into. If I possessed and were to be using at that time, the most powerful microscope on earth, I would not have been able to locate my interest in some of their puzzles. All the same, my workload was never without those cases that promised and delivered so much by way of escape from the dreary commonplace of existence.”

“In the early days of your career how did Scotland Yard view you?”

“Oh, as an upstart and a meddler which was an understandable reaction. The first investigation I offered my assistance on was the strange, but ultimately simple case, known to the world at large as the Andriacco affair, that took place in Deptford in '79. Lestrade was the official in charge of the case and when an idea as to its solution came to me whilst reading the reports in the newspapers, I went to Deptford immediately to delineate my theory to the inspector.”

“I imagine you were greeted with a good deal of derision.”

“Initially, yes, but once I had proved that my version of the events had to be the correct one, I was taken a little more seriously. I was never to be welcomed with open arms, but a working relationship with some of their ablest officers grew slowly, but surely. Lestrade of course, gained the credit for bringing the miscreant to heel and from that point on he became a regular visitor when he was out of his depth, which was a fairly regular occurrence of course.”