‘Holmes was a very serious student who worked very hard at his subject. Like many younger brothers he was destined for the church. However, charming as he could be, I could not imagine him officiating at christenings, tea parties and fundraising sales for good causes. His study was somehow too fierce for such a placid round. He wanted to learn the Truth. This involved the study of the original Bible languages (Holmes was a very remarkable linguist), calligraphy, manuscripts, other contemporary sources, as well as the close study of ethics, logic and philology. His researches led him to believe that Mark’s Gospel was the earliest of the four and that the ending to it was written by another, later hand. If this were true it would bring the story of the Resurrection into question and with it the whole foundation of Christianity and those societies which based themselves on it. He could find no real satisfaction in the solutions of his Dons. The Church told him that this discovery required an even greater act of faith on his part. This was a trying time indeed for him. He had contemplated becoming a missionary but how could he if his faith was so eroded by doubt?
‘He left Oxford for the Easter vacation weighed down by doubt. I learned later that he had stayed with his brother Mycroft in Montague Street and had spent a great deal of his time in the Reading Room of the British Museum having been furnished with suitable letters of recommendation by his college to enable the under-aged reader to gain admittance.
‘When he returned for the third term he looked to have cleared some doubt from his mind but there was still something nagging at him. I tried to bring him out of himself. I asked about his brother Mycroft: he was apparently as slothful as ever and wished to get some rooms near Pall Mall as he had had an idea about a club he was thinking of forming with people he was glad to never have to speak to and did not wish to be too far away from it. This man sounded incredible! “Oh, he is,” remarked Sherlock, answering my expression, not any vocal exclamation. “He is quite the most brilliant man in London.”
‘At the mention of Mycroft, his brother seemed to brighten up considerably. We decided to spar for a few rounds. I was considered a large strong fellow but I could never master Holmes’s straight classical left jab nor his rapier-like right. I was amazed at the strength of one so slight, but not at all surprised to discover that he was a very good swordsman. His blade was an extension of his arm.
‘Over the weeks Holmes seemed to relax more after the tension of the Lent term which had started with a bull terrier gripping his ankle and ended with a remarkable piece of Biblical exegesis. We often went on walks around town and on one occasion he asked me to take him round Oxford in a cab which was shuttered and in which he was blindfold to see if I could catch him out on any of the street names. He was 100% correct.
‘On another occasion we visited a fair in St Giles, only a small affair, not the proper one, probably just a last vestige of the “mops” they used to have. Here he dazzled the fortune teller by telling her all about herself and where she would end up if she did not change some of her ways. She fell back in amazement at his revelations and all she could say (although it was more of a shriek) was, “ ’Ere, I fought I was the fortune teller round ’ere.”
‘Some of the more speculative students thought that Holmes had some sort of supernatural powers and they compared him in his physique, talents and violin virtuosity with another similar man of whom the same slanders were spoken — Nicolo Paganini. Holmes’s reply to that was always a chuckle and an enigmatic smile which provoked even more idle curiosity.
‘It was that summer that Holmes came to stay for a month with us at Donnithorpe. I will never be able to forget it. That first incredible series of deductions about my father as we sat over a glass of port after dinner. He started by saying that there was not very much that he could deduce except that during the last twelve months my father had gone in fear of attack, that he had boxed in his youth a great deal, had done a lot of digging, that he had visited New Zealand and Japan, and that he had been intimately associated with someone whose initials were JA and whom he afterwards was eager entirely to forget.
‘This resulted in my old governor pitching forward among the nutshells in a dead faint. From that day on he eyed Holmes with suspicion which cast a bit of a damper on things. Later when a man calling himself Hudson appeared things got worse. My father gave him an excellent job with hardly any responsibilities and was repaid by this man behaving in a terrible way, getting drunk and behaving badly with the other staff — particularly the women. I was all for throwing him out on his ear but my dear father would have nothing of it. One day he insulted my father and I threw the wretch out of the room. Then to my utter amazement my father asked if I would apologize to Hudson! I refused point blank.
‘When this Hudson finally slunk away still I had not apologized and he looked very threateningly at my father, saying he was going to see Mr Beddoes in Hampshire. My father remained in a high state of agitation and finally received an incomprehensible note about “game”, “fly-paper” and your “hen-pheasant’s life”! My father took one look at it and had a stroke. I wired Holmes immediately; only he could unravel this mystery — and he was also my only friend in the world. He came immediately and soon cracked the code of the message — “The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.”
‘My father had left a document for me which he had written when that devil Hudson was in our house. It revealed that my father was not named Trevor but he was a James Armitage who had been transported to Australia for using money that was not his own to repay “a debt of honour”. He expected to be able to replace the money with no-one the wiser, but there was a premature examination of the books before he could make good the loss and the penalty was transportation in the Gloria Scott.
‘Worse was to follow. There was a mutiny by the prisoners and after a night of carnage they had taken control of the ship. Those, including my father, who had had enough of the killing were set adrift in an open boat. Later there was an explosion and the Gloria Scott sank with only one survivor, Hudson, a young seaman. After my father and a friend named Evans (later to be Beddoes) had made their escapes and their fortunes, they returned to England where this Hudson blackmailed them.
‘You can imagine how I felt, Surgeon Stewart.[5] Then perhaps you cannot (I certainly could, Mr Victor Trevor, believe me). No matter — Donnithorpe was now a cruel jest to me. My whole family dead, despite their good intentions, and I was not even really Victor Trevor but Victor Armitage. I had no family, no household and now no name. I was heartbroken by it all and could not face any more of Oxford or of England. Thus you find me here, planting tea in the Terai.
‘Whichever way I look at my experiences I feel that my life has been blighted. I have wealth with this plantation but what will happen if I go back to England? How will I know whether I am wanted for my money or myself ? My wealth will make me the prey of fortune hunters. I despair of happiness.’
Stamford Resumes
Just then a boy came up to the verandah to inform us that the ship was loaded and it was time for me to board. I could not leave young Trevor like this, therefore I told him two things which I hoped would sustain him. First, I told him Holmes’s new address in Baker Street. Second, I told him that if his old governor had needed an epitaph he could ask for no finer one than to be remembered as the man who gave Sherlock Holmes the advice that he was missing his vocation if he did not become a detective. Holmes admitted that it was the first time that he had ever felt that a profession might be made out of what up to then had been the merest hobby. Trevor’s words might have lost Biblical Studies a great scholar but they gained the world its greatest detective.
What happened to Holmes next? As I have already pointed out he spent quite some time agonizing over old Trevor’s words. The Bible or the detection of crime?
He sought out Samuel Dodgson and enjoyed the cut and thrust of logical debate, the beauties and complexities of higher mathematics. Life at Oxford could be so pleasant and he was young — was there
need of any decision just yet? Why not just drift with Isis and be borne on her foaming wings to easier victories?
He brooded over his family. His father was in Sussex, his mother in France, and his brother in Montague Street. Once again he felt alone. He made a list of all the things in favour of his continuing his Biblical Studies and all those things which could be regarded as against this course of action. He did the same for a career in criminal detection.
None could doubt his abilities in either field. Holmes had already formulated the idea that to the logician modesty is as great a departure from the truth as the exaggeration of one’s powers, and so sought the answer to his problem in cold reasoning and logic. Later he was to say[6] that there is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion — ‘It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner.’ But where had his reasoning and deduction got him? It had led to doubt and he felt that to lead a life in which he caused others to doubt would make of faith a mockery. There was only one honourable course open to him — he must fight crime and by so doing bring succour, not confusion, into the lives of those less gifted than himself.
Now began a period of frantic activity. What was necessary to make him fulfil his natural gifts? What could he study in order to make him fully proficient? Again he made a list, this time of those subjects which would be useful and those which would be of no use. Those that he considered of the most use were chemistry, anatomy, botany (particularly poisons, and possibly dyes), geology (i.e. a practical knowledge of soils as they occur on the surface and immediate sub-surface throughout his chosen area; theories of rock formations were not to be considered but their whereabouts known if he should require such knowledge), the crimes of the last hundred years in detail (those of any earlier period to be confined to his reference section). Law and politics also featured on the list, the former as a practical necessity, the latter as an unavoidable chore. (A crime is a crime and politics merely useful as a source of motives for crime not as a study in itself.) Against this he set those subjects which could only be studied at the risk of overburdening the brain’s retrieval abilities — literature, philosophy and astronomy. Harsh on philosophy perhaps, including as it did in Holmes’s mind religion, but a cruel necessity, as Cromwell said of an earlier truncation. What else could there be of use to him in his new career, he asked himself? Fitness of limb certainly. Then with a smile he picked up his violin and mused, ‘all work and no play will indeed make Sherlock very dull.’
Thus armed he went to see his tutors to see if he could be placed on another degree programme. They scratched their heads, tutted, removed spectacles and rubbed rheumy old eyes, tugged at threadbare gowns, whistled through their teeth, shuffled in their seats, referred Holmes to each other, or simply threw up their hands. In other words they revealed the classic symptoms of academic impotence.
Once again Holmes was on his own. He resigned his place in college but it was not accepted. His work on Bible exegesis was too highly regarded for him to be allowed to escape that easily. The Dons had hoped that he would grow out of this new, strange notion and return to the Church which after all in the past had been God’s canopy that had sheltered many a singular soul. Holmes shrugged his shoulders — a Gallic gesture inherited from the Vernets which he rarely resorted to again. He had no wish to be disrespectful to his teachers and so kept his own council.
The Christmas of ’74 saw him back in Montague Street again. Mycroft was as sedentary as ever, the first signs of corpulence already tugging at his mighty waistcoat. They lunched at Mycroft’s window (Mycroft had no wish to climb stairs to his brother’s rooms) and watched life go by outside. They played the game that they had first played as boys. Then they had called it ‘guessing the job’, now it was ‘the study of mankind’. Once again Sherlock could only marvel at his brother’s superior observation and deduction. Doubt crept into his mind, perhaps the Dons were right after all. A voice broke into his thoughts: ‘Bib Studs and the responsibility of Empire to convert the fuzzy-wuzzy not cracked up to what you expected it to be, Sherlock?’
Holmes turned and smiled thinly at his brother. ‘Well, the reasoning was easy enough, my dear boy, it is your resolution of the problem that lies in the balance.’ Mycroft smiled at his younger brother.
Holmes pondered again. ‘You have just missed a recently retired ship’s surgeon who has done service in the Arctic and who lives with his sister, Mycroft.’
‘Sisters, Sherlock, surely.’
‘You see, Mycroft, how can I become anything to do with crime detection when I am but a pale shadow of yourself ?’
‘My dear Sherlock, you do yourself a grave disservice. When our parents suggested that I became a journalist or a diplomat, I blanched. I was hoping for a career in mathematics, but you know how I antagonized my tutors with my little pranks. They would recommend me for nothing, except perhaps as an army tutor to coach failed entrants or as a very junior accounts clerk somewhere obscure. Fortunately I had the foresight to choose the latter career. Coaching mentally deficient officer material is far more tiring than auditing governmental accounts. Thus I make my way with my figures, and observe for a pastime. A hippopotamus comfortable in his warm river, immobile yet observing with his little eyes all that washes past him. You, on the other hand, my dear Sherlock, have energy. You always wanted to go off doing things when you were younger. I had hoped that you would grow out of it, but alas it was not to be. If you wish to be a missionary an empire awaits you. If you wish to fight crime, London is at your doorstep.’
What was Mycroft suggesting? Sherlock looked at his brother’s beaming face and the Cheshire cat came immediately to mind. ‘Did you know Dodgson, Mycroft? If you did you will be immortal.’ Mycroft continued to beam.
‘I think it may rain later, Sherlock, feel free to borrow one of my umbrellas but I suggest that you wear a hat instead so that you can keep your hands free.’
Sherlock nodded and in a few moments was proofed against the weather and gone.
London in 1874 was the centre of the world’s largest empire. Not only that, it was the banking capital of world commerce and a leading cog in Britain’s claim to be the workshop of the world. At the many settings of the sun throughout the entire globe, loyal servants of Victoria would toast the Old Country and wish that they were back there taking in a play or a musical show or dining in any of a dozen renowned restaurants or just walking along the Strand or dropping into their club in St James. London was the largest city in the world, a mighty beast of a city of over four million souls, more than the entire population of the Antipodes. Just then Holmes trod in a large dollop of horse dropping. He smiled ruefully as he stamped his foot clean. London was also a place in which it paid to keep one’s eyes open.
From Montague Street Holmes headed south-west to Soho by way of the ‘rabbit warren’ Seven Dials, Shaftesbury Avenue and Piccadilly Circus. From there he headed towards the recently completed Embankment via the Haymarket, Trafalgar Square and Northumberland Avenue. Turning east he walked the length of the Embankment before leaving the River Thames and making for the Royal Exchange. He was approaching unknown land. He had heard stories of the mysterious Orient but London’s East End was no less unexplored by him. Holmes resolved to see for himself and test out the truth of the stories that he had heard, suspecting them to be in error. He toured Aldgate, Whitechapel and, turning for home, Spitalfields. He returned to Montague Street via Bishopsgate, Threadneedle Street, Poultry Lane, diverting from Cheapside to explore Ironmonger Lane and Wood Street, thence past St Paul’s, Newgate Street, the Holborns, turning into Leather Lane and Clerkenwell Road — finally finding himself back in Bloomsbury.
Holmes had been out for several hours and when he returned to his rooms in Montague Street it was quite dark. Mycroft looked as though he had not moved from his chair but a crumb of biscuit in a fold of his ever expanding waistcoat suggested that he had at least moved his mouth in order to eat. Mycroft’s face was still beaming as Sherlock entered and sat
opposite him.
‘I perceive that you have also lost a button from your coat as well as some blood from your lip.’
‘Your advice was well-founded, Mycroft, but I should have taken a cane with me.’
‘It was as bad as that, Sherlock?’
‘The actuality was worse than anything I had imagined from perusing the daily newspapers.’
‘Yes, it is more difficult to retain sang froid in the face of the more elemental forces. And?’
‘Then your powers are failing you, brother Mycroft?’
‘It is missionary work, I take it?’
‘Indeed it is, and London shall be my territory.’
Thus is was that Sherlock Holmes’s mind was finally resolved. That one walk around the streets of the Empire’s mighty metropolis during the season of goodwill was enough to convince him of his calling.
Later he was to tell me how it had reminded him of the accounts of Spain in the seventeenth century. Spain at that time was in possession of the largest empire that the world had ever known. Gold, silver, precious stones flooded into Seville from the New World. Yet every eye witness account remarked on the enormous disparity between the amount of wealth coming into Spain and the grinding poverty of its people. That was London in 1874.
That day the city had been shrouded in fog as it was so often; a mixture of smoke from a million coal fires, some of it of very poor quality, steam from factories which included soap, phosphorus matches, dyeworks and iron foundries, as well as the mist from the river and the odours from a million decomposing objects from human corpses to horse dung. When the wind and the rain for once forced that foul mix away, they brought with them not fresh air from the fields of the home counties but a different menace called ‘London Mud’, sticky soot which stuck to everything from windows to clothes to skin and which gave off a pungent odour when anywhere near a heat source.
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