The Veiled Detective (11 page)

“Come now,” Holmes was saying. “As medical men you should be able to see the potential of this reagent.”

“Well,” I said awkwardly, “it is interesting, chemically, no doubt, but as to its practical uses...”

The grin on Sherlock Holmes’ face informed me that I had responded to his query in exactly the manner he had wished. It gave him the opportunity to explain the potential of his discovery in detail.

“Why, man,” he cried enthusiastically, “it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years! It gives an absolutely infallible test for bloodstains. Come over here now!’ Seizing my coat-sleeve in his eagerness, he drew me over to the table at which he had been working. ‘Let us have some fresh blood,” he said, and without flinching he dug a long bodkin into his finger and drew off the resulting drop of blood into a chemical pipette. “Now, take note, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.”

As he spoke, he threw a few white crystals into the vessel and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. The effect was instantaneous. Immediately the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour and a brownish dust precipitated at the bottom of the glass jar.

Holmes’ face flushed with pleasure. “There! What do you think of that, gentlemen?” he cried in triumph.

“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked, “but effective.”

“Effective? It is
beautiful!
Beautiful! The old guaiacum resin test is so clumsy and unreliable. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now,
this test appears to work whether the blood is old or new. Had my discovery been available earlier, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long ago have paid the penalty for their crimes.”

“Yes, I see,” I murmured, somewhat overwhelmed by his enthusiasm.

“
Do
you, Watson? I tell you, criminal cases are continually hinging on that one point. A man is suspected of a crime perhaps months after it has been committed. His linen or his clothes are examined, and brownish stains are discovered upon them. Are they bloodstains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains, or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many a criminal expert, and why? Because there was no reliable test to determine the presence of blood. Now we have the Sherlock Holmes test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.”

His eyes glittered as he spoke, and he placed his hand over his heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured by his imagination.

I could not help but be moved by the verve and enthusiasm of the man, and I felt myself sharing in his delight at his discovery. “You are to be congratulated,” I remarked.

“When I think of the cases where this test would have been invaluable. There was Von Bischoff in Frankfurt last year. Then there was Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier, and Samson of New Orleans. Oh, I could name a number of cases in which it would have been decisive.”

“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford glibly, with a laugh. “You ought to start up a paper on those lines. Call it
Police News of the Past
.”

“Very interesting reading it would make, too,” replied Sherlock Holmes, sticking a small plaster over the wound on his finger. “I have to be careful,” he explained, turning to me with a smile, “for I dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and I observed that it was mottled over with similar pieces of plaster, and discoloured
with strong acids. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and I also noticed the evidence of pinpricks and small scars on the insides of his white arms. These were the tell-tale marks of a hypodermic needle. I glanced again at those animated features and vibrant eyes, and realised that at least part of his exuberance came from artificial stimulants.

“We came here on business,” said Stamford, perching on a high three-legged stool and pushing another one in my direction with his foot. “As I intimated this morning, I said I would keep my eye out for you in the matter of living-quarters.”

Sherlock Holmes raised a quizzical brow.

“My friend Watson here is in need of digs, and is very amenable to the notion of sharing, so I thought that I had better bring you two together.”

Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the thought of my sharing rooms with him, which surprised me. Perhaps his all-seeing eye, which had told him that I had recently come from Afghanistan, had gleaned sufficient information about me to allow him to be at ease with such a situation.

“I have my eye on a suite of rooms in Baker Street,” he said, washing his hands, “which would suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?”

“I always smoke ship’s myself,” I answered.

He nodded approvingly. “That’s good. I usually have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?”

“By no means.”

“Let me see — what are my other shortcomings...?”

As Holmes confessed his bouts of moodiness and his sulks, I hardly heard him for I was tingling with the realisation that it really was going to happen. It had come to pass as Moriarty had planned and promised. I would be sharing rooms with this strange and brilliant young man with the piercing eyes and strange enthusiasms — and I would begin my life as a spy. The enormity of this reality almost took my breath away.

“What have you to confess, Watson?” Holmes was saying. “It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.”

I laughed at this cross-examination. It seemed to have a farcical aspect in relation to the truth of the situation. I noticed also that in Holmes’ catalogue of his supposed failings, he did not mention that he was a user of drugs, possibly an addict.

“I am fairly easygoing, I would say,” I responded, “but I do object to rows, because my nerves are still somewhat shaken. I get up at ungodly hours and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.”

“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” he asked, with some concern.

“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played violin is a treat for the gods — a badly played one...”

“Oh, that’s all right then,” he murmured smugly. “I think, my dear doctor, that we may consider the thing settled — that is, if the rooms are acceptable to you.”

I realised that I must not appear too eager. I knew that from now on all my actions must be guarded and calculated. “When can we see them?”

“Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we’ll go together and settle things up.”

“All right — noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.

Stamford and I left him scribbling his findings in a large notebook. On leaving the hospital, we walked for some time in the direction of my hotel.

“By the way,” I said suddenly, stopping and turning to Stamford, “you didn’t tell him that I had just returned from Afghanistan, did you?”

“Of course not. How could I?”

“Then how the deuce did he know?”

My companion smiled an enigmatic smile. “That’s just his little peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out.”

“Oh, it’s a mystery, is it?”

“If you want to unravel it, Watson, you must study the man. You’ll find him a knotty problem. I’ll wager he learns more about you than you about him.”

“I sincerely hope not. I wish my skeletons to remain firmly in their cupboard.” I spoke jokingly, but I was deadly serious.

Stamford and I parted company at Piccadilly, and I strolled back to my hotel, replaying in my mind my first encounter with Sherlock Holmes in a desperate attempt to learn more about the man. It wasn’t a particularly fruitful exercise.

Sherlock Holmes and I met the following day as arranged and we inspected the rooms. It really was a perfunctory exercise on both our parts. He was very keen to seal the arrangement, and I had no choice in the matter anyway.

However, I found the lodgings at 221B Baker Street ideal. They consisted of a couple of comfortable bedrooms, a bathroom and a single large, airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished and illuminated by two broad windows.

Our landlady, Mrs Kitty Hudson, a widow, a small tidy woman with tightly curled blonde hair rapidly fading to grey, seemed pleasant and gracious, and was delighted at the prospect of “two young gentlemen of respectable character” coming to live under her roof. Her terms were moderate when divided between the two of us, and so the bargain was concluded upon the spot.

That very evening I moved what few things I had from the hotel, and on the following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several
boxes and a portmanteau. For a day, he unpacked and we spent the time laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we gradually began to settle down and to accustom ourselves to our new surroundings.

The seeming normality of this arrangement, compared with the past six months of my life, was so welcoming to me, that I actually began to enjoy living at 221B. Sherlock Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to share with. He was quiet in his ways, and his habits were regular. Frequently he would have breakfasted and gone out before I rose, and he was very often in bed by ten at night, while I regularly stayed up until after midnight, reading, smoking and enjoying a brandy nightcap.

It was about a week after I had taken up residence in Baker Street that I received my first summons. It came through the post. The message just gave a date and time and location: “Today, 12 March. 11.30 a.m., the corner of Wigmore Street and Duke Street.” Making a mental note of the details, I threw the note on the fire and watched it burn until it turned into fine black ash.

At the appointed hour, I stood at the corner of Wigmore Street, when a hansom drew up and a voice from within beckoned me to join him.

“It is good to meet you, Doctor Watson,” said the shadowy figure, once I was seated. “I am Colonel Sebastian Moran, the chief of staff for Professor Moriarty.”

He took my limp hand and shook it. “Shall we go for a little ride?” He tapped the roof of the cab with his cane, and we set off at a steady trot.

“The purpose of this meeting, as I am sure you are aware, is merely to receive a progress report on the arrangements regarding Mr Sherlock Holmes. How are things between you? Have you settled in quite amicably? And more importantly, do you think that Mr Holmes has any idea of your... how shall I put this... your ulterior motives?”

These questions did not surprise me. I had been expecting some kind of inquisition, and so I was prepared. Naturally, I had taken great pains to
observe Holmes in the few days that we had been living together, and already I was building up a picture of the man. In all fairness, because of my natural curiosity and my penchant for writing from life, I believe I would have done this anyway had I not a reason to do so. There were many aspects of Holmes’ character and behaviour that puzzled me, but one thing I was sure of was that he had no suspicions concerning me. For all his reported brilliance as a detective, I was — and remained — his one blind spot.

There had been three callers at our new address enquiring for Mr Holmes: a young girl, fashionably dressed, who arrived in an agitated fashion and stayed about half an hour; a white-haired gentleman with the air of the cleric about him; and a sallow, rat-faced man who was introduced to me as Mr Lestrade. The latter fellow called twice, and behaved in quite a shifty manner on encountering me on both occasions. When these visitors arrived, Holmes requested the use of the sitting-room for privacy. I agreed and took myself off to my bedroom.

I was intrigued by all these comings and goings, but I knew I had to be patient. Despite some desultory conversations over dinner, Sherlock Holmes had not yet divulged to me what his profession was, and I thought it politic, at this early stage, not to appear too inquisitive. I was sure that in his own good time he would reveal all.

I conveyed all this information to Colonel Moran, who listened in silence until I had finished.

“Capital,” he said at last. “I think you are quite right to stalk your prey at a distance for the time being. A bond of trust and reliance must be established between you, and this can only occur when Holmes feels at complete ease with you. I am a practised hand at tracking tigers in India, Watson. I’m an old shikari, and I know the value of patience and allowing your prey to feel relaxed and confident in its safety.

“You ought to know that Lestrade, the fellow you described as rat-faced, is a Scotland Yard inspector who has been using Holmes for some
months. When he gets stuck — which is often — he goes running to our friend for help. I can tell you that the Professor’s organisation would not be half as successful as it is, if there was anyone at Scotland Yard with half a brain. That’s why your fellow lodger is such a threat.”

There followed an uncomfortable pause during which I felt I was expected to comment on Moran’s claim, but I did not know what to say or, rather, what I was expected to say. At length I said awkwardly, “Is that all for now?” I desperately wanted to escape from the dark confines of the cab and the company of this unpleasant man. Such a conversation only reminded me in bleak terms of the reality of my situation, the lie I was living. For the past week I had relaxed and been content, observing my fellow lodger out of a spirit of curiosity rather than with such a degrading ulterior motive as spying on him.

“In essence, Watson. But please do not be so petulant. You are being paid well for your labours. Remember that.”

I leaned forward, anger welling up inside me. I wanted to say that I had been given no choice in the matter. The whole scenario was forced upon me, but as the words came to my lips, they died away. I knew it was useless to complain. I was the proverbial fly caught in the web, and the spider was certainly not going to let me go.