Holmes and Watson (23 page)

‘I owe you a thousand apologies,’ he told Watson, having brought him round and administered brandy. ‘I had no idea you would be so affected.’

One would like to think that Holmes felt a twinge of guilt as well. His remark about his ‘unnecessarily dramatic appearance’ suggests that Holmes himself realised he might have gone a little too far on this occasion.

Watson describes him as ‘even thinner and keener than of old’, the ‘dead white tinge to his aquiline face’ suggesting that his life had not been a healthy one, remarks which have led some critics to believe that Holmes’ accounts of his travels abroad were fictitious.
If he had spent three years in Tibet and the Middle East, they argue, he would have been sunburnt. They appear to have forgotten that Holmes had spent the past three months in Montpellier working on his experiments on coal-tar derivatives, no doubt shut up in the chemistry laboratory for days on end.

In his joy and relief, it never occurred to Watson to reproach Holmes over his three-year-long deception any more than it had crossed his mind to protest at his pretence of being mortally ill in the Dying Detective case. And Watson was, of course, immediately willing to fall in with any plans Holmes had for that evening.

Having listened to Holmes’ long account of his escape from death at Moriarty’s hands and of his subsequent travels, and having in turn informed him, much more briefly one suspects, of the death of his wife, Watson then joined Holmes for dinner that evening before setting off by a circuitous route for Camden House. It was, as Watson says, just like old times to find himself once more in Holmes’ company, embarking on a dangerous mission, with ‘my revolver in my pocket and the thrill of adventure in my heart’ – that same thrill which Watson had never been able to resist.

Holmes’ plan was about to be put into action although, with his usual love of secrecy and, one suspects, that same urge for the ‘unnecessarily dramatic’, he omitted to explain this plan to Watson or to divulge even the name of his adversary. Like a stage magician, Holmes liked to keep his cards well up his sleeve.

In the same way that Holmes had been enticed back to London by Moran’s name, a bait to which the Colonel had known Holmes would respond, so Holmes knew that Moran would be tricked into action by Holmes’ own lure in the shape of Monsieur Meunier’s wax bust which he had set up that afternoon on a pedestal table, draped with his own mouse-coloured dressing-gown, in one of the sitting-room windows of 221B Baker Street. Its position was such that, when the lamps were lit, its shadow was cast against the drawn blind. The lace curtains would have concealed the bust from any observer in the street during the day but it would have become visible when darkness fell and Mrs Hudson, as instructed, pulled down the blinds.

With regard to Mrs Hudson’s part in the stratagem, it should be pointed out that, like Watson, she fell in with Holmes’ plan with no apparent protest. Although no longer young, she readily agreed to crawl about on the floor on her hands and knees, turning the wax bust at intervals to make it appear that Holmes had moved in his chair. A very gallant and long-suffering woman, she had tolerated a great deal of inconvenience over the years from Holmes, whom Watson once referred to as the ‘worst tenant in London’. Quite apart from his untidiness, his irregular hours, the stench from his chemical experiments and the constant stream of clients invading her house, she had put up with his peculiar personal habits, such as his using a jack-knife to skewer his correspondence to the mantelpiece, where he also kept the old dottles from
his pipes, as well as with the actual damage done to her property. This included the bullet holes in the plaster of the sitting-room wall caused by Holmes’ patriotic revolver practice, the arson attack on the night before Holmes left for the Continent with Watson, and the demolition of a window when Jefferson Hope had flung himself through it in a vain attempt to escape arrest at the end of the Sign of Four case. A window was about to be broken for the second time.

Inspector Lestrade also had his part to play in Holmes’ plan, in readiness for which two policemen were stationed in a doorway in Baker Street while Lestrade concealed himself somewhere nearby. The trap was ready and was waiting to be sprung.

As Holmes had correctly deduced, Parker, Moran’s associate who had been keeping watch on Holmes’ lodgings, had informed the Colonel of Holmes’ return, but Holmes was wrong in assuming that Moran, once tricked into thinking the silhouette was his old adversary’s, would fire at it from the street. Like Holmes, Moran had noticed the empty property, Camden House, directly opposite 221B Baker Street, and had also decided to make use of it.

Having set out on the first part of their journey by hansom, Holmes, with his ‘extraordinary knowledge’ of London, then led Watson on foot from Cavendish Square through side streets and alleys into a back yard and from there into a house, using the key he had obtained from the agent. It was only when they were in the front room
that Watson realised the house was in Baker Street. With obvious relish, Holmes drew his attention to the silhouette of himself on the blind of their old lodgings.

‘We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you,’ Holmes remarks. He was never able to resist the opportunity to tease Watson and was no doubt well satisfied with his companion’s cry of astonishment.

Watson, with his gift for words, has given a vivid description of the two-hour long vigil he and Holmes made in the empty front room of Camden House as they waited for Colonel Moran to show his hand, the light from the street lamps filtering dimly through the dusty glass of the window, through which could be seen the figures of passers-by hurrying along the street on that ‘bleak and boisterous night’. He has caught, too, Holmes’ tension and impatience, which the years spent travelling abroad had not lessened. All the old nervous habits are still there, the tapping of fingers, the restless movements of the feet, the quick, excited intake of breath. And he was still inclined to show his exasperation when Watson was slow to understand how the silhouette had moved.

‘Three years had certainly not smoothed the asperities of his temper, or his impatience with a less active intelligence than his own,’ Watson reports a little ruefully. It was, indeed, just like old times.

The long vigil ended with the unexpected arrival of Colonel Moran at Camden House and, once more,
Watson has conveyed the tense atmosphere in the darkened room as the sinister figure of Moriarty’s Chief of Staff appeared in the doorway, ‘a shade blacker than the blackness of the open door’. Unaware of Holmes’ and Watson’s presence, Moran crept across to push open the sash window, the light from the street lamps falling on his features so that Watson was able to discern his ‘gaunt and swarthy face, scored with deep, savage lines’. But it is the sounds which Watson has captured with particular vividness: the metallic noises as Moran assembled the gun, the sharp snap as he closed the breechblock and the man’s ‘little sigh of satisfaction’ as, with the silhouette in his sights, he cuddled the butt of the rifle against his shoulder. It was followed by the ‘strange, loud whizz’ as the bullet was fired and then the ‘long, silvery tinkle of broken glass’.

But if the old game hunter, whose bag of tigers remained unrivalled, thought he had picked off his prey, it was Holmes, the quarry, who sprang ‘like a tiger’ on Moran’s back, a nice ironic reversal of roles on Watson’s part as author. And in the ensuing struggle, it was Watson who dealt the final blow. As Holmes and Moran fought together on the floor, Watson with great presence of mind struck Moran over the head with the butt of his revolver.

A blast on Holmes’ whistle brought Lestrade and the two policemen running to the scene and Moran was arrested. One trusts that Holmes had the grace to thank Watson for the part he played in the man’s capture, and that the
comment – ‘I think you want a little unofficial help’ – he made to Lestrade regarding three unsolved murders was tempered with a touch of his old mischievous humour, otherwise it could sound unpleasantly patronising. Certainly he changed his criticism of Lestrade’s handling of the Molesey Mystery into what passed as a compliment, although his remark, ‘You handled it fairly well,’ could be said to damn with faint praise.

In comparison, Lestrade’s unreserved statement, ‘It’s good to see you back in London, sir’, has a welcome ring of genuine pleasure at Holmes’ return. Indeed, his manner towards Holmes is remarkably deferential. He had clearly missed having the advantage of Holmes’ detective skills during his absence.

On the question of charges against Colonel Moran, Holmes chose not ‘to appear in the matter at all’, by which he apparently meant that he would refuse to act as a prosecution witness should Moran be charged, as Lestrade suggested, with attempted murder against himself. In the face of this refusal, the Inspector’s hands were tied. Neither he nor the two policemen hiding in the doorway had seen Moran fire at the wax bust. All they knew was that someone had fired a bullet and, even though Moran was found with the airgun in his possession, there was no proof, the study of ballistics being then not even in its infancy,
*
that this was the weapon used, only a strong
suspicion. The attack could have been made by any one of the enemies Holmes had made during his many years as a private consulting detective.

At the time he made his decision not to appear as a prosecution witness on the lesser charge of attempted murder, Holmes was confident that Moran would be found guilty of Adair’s murder and would be sentenced to death. As subsequent events were to prove, it was a confidence which was to be badly shaken and Holmes must have bitterly regretted he had not agreed to give evidence against Moran.

It is difficult to understand the reasoning behind Holmes’ refusal to co-operate with the police. It cannotFriesland have been out of reasons of security. With Moriarty dead and Moran under arrest, most of the Professor’s old criminal organisation had been broken up, although one member may still have been at large and was possibly behind the ‘shocking affair’ a few months later on board the Dutch steamship
Friesland
which so nearly cost Holmes and Watson their lives, an unrecorded case to which Watson refers in ‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’. In the absence of any explanation on Holmes’ part one can only assume that during the three years spent abroad he had learnt to appreciate the advantages of living incognito and now preferred to avoid publicity, an attitude which he was soon to show towards Watson’s publication of accounts of their exploits together.

After Colonel Moran’s arrest, Holmes and Watson
retired to the sitting-room in 221B Baker Street, despite the draught from the broken window, to enjoy a cigar while Holmes gave Watson an account of Adair’s murder and the motive behind it.

It would appear that Watson had not set foot in his old lodgings during the whole time Holmes was thought to be dead, for he comments on the ‘unwonted tidiness’ of the room as if he had not seen it in this unaccustomed state before. But as Watson was a considerate man, it is difficult to believe that he never called on Mrs Hudson during those three years. He may well have visited her but preferred to remain in her downstairs parlour rather than mount the seventeen steps to the familiar
sitting-room
above, knowing that Holmes’ possessions, his books, his chemistry table, his violin case, ‘even the Persian slipper which contained the tobacco’ were still in place, painful reminders of the many pleasant hours he had spent there over the years in Holmes’ company. Or he may have invited her to visit him in Kensington, a kindness which Watson with his usual modesty omits to mention.

Holmes’ account of the Adair murder seems straightforward enough on first reading. Several weeks before his death, Adair had won a lot of money playing whist at the Bagatelle Card club with Colonel Moran as his partner. Later, Adair suspected that Moran had cheated. On the day of his murder, or so Holmes believed, Adair had spoken privately to Moran and threatened to expose him unless he resigned from the club and promised never
to play cards again. As this would have meant financial ruin for someone who earned his living as a cardsharper, Moran murdered Adair by shooting him through the open window of the young man’s sitting-room in the Park Lane house.

According to this theory, the list of names, the money left lying on the table as well as the locked door could easily be explained. Adair had been calculating how much money he would have to return to those who had been cheated by Moran. Before beginning this task, he had locked the door so that no one could enter the room and ask what he was doing.

But on closer examination, there is one important omission in Holmes’ account. Where was Colonel Moran when he fired the fatal shot? As Mr Percival White, among others, has pointed out, Park Lane faces Hyde Park and there are no houses opposite where Moran might have concealed himself. It is also highly unlikely that he fired from the street. Adair’s window was on the second floor and was at least twenty feet from the ground. He also ran the risk of being seen. As Watson himself says, Park Lane was a ‘frequented thoroughfare’ with a cab rank only a hundred yards from the house.

Moran might, as Edgar W. Smith has suggested, have climbed a tree in the park, using this as a firing position, and this seems the most likely explanation, despite objections that he still ran the risk of being seen. However, the murder was committed between 10 p.m., the time Adair returned home from his club, and 11.20
p.m., when his body was discovered. It was then dark and the number of passers-by in the street would have been considerably reduced, while Hyde Park itself would have been virtually deserted, apart from prostitutes and their clients, as well as poorly lit by gas lamps. In addition, Moran was, as Holmes himself states, ‘the best shot in India’ and an experienced ‘shikari’, Hindi for ‘hunter’. He was used to stalking game and, as Holmes also points out, it was a usual practice for a big-game hunter to tether a young kid under a tree as live bait and then to hide among the branches for the quarry to arrive. Although elderly, Moran was still active enough to climb trees. Watson refers to his ‘convulsive strength’ as he fought with Holmes just before his arrest.