Watson was kind in his setting down the case of the Norwood builder, particularly as he was privy to my failure to pursue the thread to its end. In some ways, I believe, it was a quid-pro-quo for one or two of his own eclipses which are not found in the stories and that best remain in shadow.
One confessed murderer—Leon Sterndale—benefited from my mother’s compassionate bent which, from time to time, has kept me from acting upon all that I have deduced. It can be argued that the perfect murder is, perhaps, accomplished far more often than thought as a result of the selected non-intervention by a compassionate investigator. For me, there has existed a line of demarcation between premeditated homicide and justifiable homicide. Often, that line has described the boundaries of love, honour, fidelity, and, yes, revenge. Across the boundary, however, there exists only savagery, cruelty, pathology, and horror. It has not been difficult for me to place myself on that line of demarcation on those occasions where the line was true and defined. My responsibility is to Reason. Atonement does not signify and is best left to those who practice in the realm of spiritual mythology.
13
Langdale Pike. A most extraordinary person. No one in London knew more about the gentry, the aristocracy or the Royals than Langdale Pike. He studied society as intensely as I studied crime. He organised and filed relationships, indiscretions, infidelities, affairs of the heart, addictions, bankruptcies—all the flotsam and jetsam of the upper class and the individual foibles of the most and least prominent of its members. This encyclopaedic knowledge was contained wholly within his formidable brain equipped with its photographic memory. The workings of his mind were those of an automaton. A new fact stimulated a file of older facts and aligned them into new relevancies with other facts about other people pigeon-holed in perfect reason and deduction. Pike and I were equals operating in different disciplines, but using the same powers of observation, knowledge and synthesis.
Pike was born in London in 1855 to a wealthy family of long establishment in the law of admiralty, the insuring of vessels, and sole owners of a large shipping fleet. Through being the lawyers and the insurers, as well as the ships owners, their cases never went against themselves and, regardless of the verdict, the Pikes claimed either the reward or the fee. In consequence, the family amassed a fortune and ranked in the upper strata of London society.
Young Langdale went up to Cambridge where he studied the arts of the dilettante. His knowledge of fine art, porcelain, literature, music and theatre was sufficiently broad to equip him as a highly accomplished raconteur and favoured dinner quest. After coming down with an Ordinary in Humanities, Langdale took to spending his days at Swithin’s, his club in St. James Street, lunching at the St. James Hotel where he daily sampled liberally the prize French wines in the hotel’s extensive underground vaults, and returning to sit in Swithin’s bow window to observe the to and fro movements of his specimens and be available to all who curried his favour by informing him of the latest gossip above and below stairs in the great homes of London society. Pike was created to be precisely what he was: a handsome mannequin, an arbiter of taste, and the repository of all of society’s most intimate secrets. He was invaluable to me as a source of information, and I was invaluable to him as a source of hints and directions as to where to turn his energies.
Now, three years since his death, it is possible to accord Langdale Pike his proper place in history. London’s most accomplished dilettante and gadfly was, in reality, Great Britain’s most important intelligence officer from 1875 through his last years in the early 1920s. For nearly forty-five years, Pike filtered the endless river of gossip and innuendo that came his way daily and sieved from it those national and international bits and bobs that signalled threats to the monarchy, the government, and the people of Great Britain, passing them on to his one contact in Whitehall: Mycroft.
During the Great War, Pike was the human dial upon the surface of war. He alone was privy to the sacrifices and heroisms of the British upper class, as well as their perfidies, acts of treason and war profiteering. Masterfully inhabiting his well-developed role as social gadfly, Pike was instrumental in successfully forestalling forty-seven national threats to my certain knowledge and there may well be numerous others of which I am unaware. Only Mycroft knew for sure, and Mycroft was a closed book.
My intersections with Pike notably occurred in the business of the Bruce-Partington plans, and that of the naval treaty, the Greek interpreter, the red circle, Mrs Mary Maberly and, of course, the matter concerning Baron Von Herling. Not once in all the years was Pike ever wrong in his analyses or conclusions.
Langdale Pike was an example of what can emerge when privilege, wealth, education and class combine to benefit society. Just as easily, he could have been exactly what he seemed to be, but he wasn’t. In many ways, like me, the Langdale Pike known to the world was partially a figment. Only through the successes of his work did we catch a glimpse of the real man.
14
Many of my cases were associated with America or had American connexions. I do not prefer Americans as their lack of education makes them difficult to penetrate. One has to work so hard to get to the truth with Americans and, then, it is often not to be relied upon. I admit to my having a definite prejudice for things British. Consequently, I was annoyed with Watson’s insistence in devoting so much of his efforts to the Mormon case and the minor piece about the Scowrers. I have always thought the Pinkerton’s to be amateurs in the business of crime detection and to devote two lengthy works to these cases was, in my opinion, a reflection of the publisher’s wishes, or those of Watson’s supposedly informed literary agent. I would have preferred a bit more of a focus on those cases where the highest levels of reasoning and deduction were demonstrated. One such early case where Watson accompanied me and kept excellent notes would have been the case of the vanished mayor of Stow-on-the-Wold. One moment the mayor was in the chair presiding over the town council and in the blink of an eye he had vanished. The following fortnight was filled with the most intense period of reasoning I have ever been called upon to undertake. At the conclusion of the case my intellectual powers and reserves were at the lowest ebb of my career, then or since. The combinations of possibilities in that case would have required a two-volume edition to do justice to the complexities of the intellectual problems.
Even had Watson written of the Cotswold mayoral case, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the unparalleled mystery of the Avebury church crypt and dovecote showed powers of extrapolation and inferential observation to a degree never found in any other of my cases. Were I to sit down and simply list the chain of deductive tests that formed the basis for the premise and thence the proof, the number of pages would exceed three-hundred easily.
With the time required for Watson to write and negotiate for publication A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear, he had no time to finish the eight extraordinary cases that we referred collectively to as “The Scotland Adventures.” These were:
The McDonald of Skye and the missing sporran;
The blank gravestones of the Black Isle;
The Laird of MacCull and the Peruvian arrow;
The Hebridean magpie;
The Duke of Argyll’s bloody leather kilt;
The Ness Walk amputee;
The shrinking whisky distillery;
The crone of Portree.
All of these cases presented far more interesting problems than my two concerning America. Perhaps I should next write fully of the Scotland adventures as I believe it is an important body of my work that should be available to serious students of crime and deduction. The events surrounding the Hebridean magpie and the astonishingly evil crone of Portree would occupy both criminologists and those who study the criminally insane for decades to come. Indeed, the crone is unique among all female antagonists of my experience.
Unknown to the world, and revealed for the first time in this brief but fascinating recounting of my life, I did travel to America and Mexico a sec
ond time after my 1912 trip as Altamont. It was in 1917, at the request of President Wilson, to obtain the infamous Zimmermann Telegram sent by the German Foreign Minister to the President of Mexico inviting Mexico to join Germany as an ally against the United States. In return, Germany would finance Mexico’s war and help it recover the desolate territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. After two weeks in Mexico City and a carefully arranged espionage plan, the telegram was delivered by a presidential palace valet to a coffee buyer from New Orleans and hidden inside a sack of green Arabica coffee beans from Chiapas. The coffee buyer set sail with his diplomatically sensitive cargo for New Orleans and within ten days personally handed the Zimmermann Telegram to President Wilson. Soon after the sinking of seven American merchant ships by the Germans, President Wilson revealed the Zimmermann Telegram to the American public and called for war on Germany, which the American Congress declared on 6 April 1917. The coffee buyer quietly returned to London and his familiar rooms in Montague Street, having made his last trip to North America.
15
Upon reading Watson’s extensive notes, I am amused by the attention paid to restaurants, food, wine and spirits. He wrote sparingly of gastronomy in his books, but his notebooks are full of details of dinners we had together in restaurants and our rooms, as well as tasting notes on wines we shared which are found in a quite remarkable tasting journal I never knew he kept. Apparently, Watson had quite an unseen side to his personality. The two of us dined often at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand and I continue to have dinner there twice weekly, usually on Tuesday’s and Friday’s. Simpson’s opened its doors in 1828 and has served traditional British food with few changes to the menu. The Grand Divan, Simpson’s formal dining room, is a dark mahogany room with massive crystal chandeliers where comfort, excellent waiters and fine Scottish beef served from domed silver trolleys have been the tradition for over a century and a half. Its cellars house the grand and premier crus wines of the great chateaux of Bordeaux and the Burgundy vintages are of the highest quality and age. My favourites over the years have been the roast Scottish beef, the Scottish salmon and the saddle of lamb. Watson usually chose the excellent steak and kidney pie or the Dover sole. On occasion, after returning to London on an early morning train, we would go to Simpson’s for the Great British Breakfast which has been unchanged since the restaurant’s early beginning. We would have our fill of Cumberland sausages, streaky and back bacon, Stornoway black pudding, fried mushrooms, baked tomato and poached or fried eggs, as well as toast and orange marmalade and pots of hot tea or coffee. Watson was a tea man in the morning; I preferred coffee.
It was rare that Watson or I took lunch, although an ample tea at half-four each afternoon was looked to by Mrs Hunter. Her teas were quite splendid and our Scotland Yard friends often found good reasons to call for advice between four and half-four in expectation of her almond macaroons and orange cream pudding. Her breakfasts and dinners were quite good and she was always ready to see to our nourishment upon our arrival at any hour of the day or night. She still prepares tea today, but the housekeeper sees to light breakfasts and lunches and a few favourite dishes for our respective dinners.
Watson and I also dined at Christopher’s at Number 18 Wellington Street, Covent Garden on occasion. The restaurant opened in an old papier maché factory and a casino was added in 1870. Watson made far too many racing bets from Christopher’s as it was a centre for gaming in the last quarter of the century.
Another of our occasional haunts was Langbourn’s Coffee House in Ball-Alley, Lombard Street. Rebuilt in 1850, it had a broiling-stove in the coffee-room, from whence chops and steaks were served hot from the gridiron around the clock. Langbourn’s also had a wine and cigar room, embellished in a handsome old French décor. This was also one of my stops when I was intent on a case and needed only the necessities of nourishment: a glass of claret, a bit of cheese, and the rejuvenation of a good Cuban cigar.
My own taste runs to French cuisine, doubtless the influence of my mother and her preference for the dishes of Belgium, France and the grand resorts of Europe. When on my own, I would often have dinner at Rouget’s in Castle Street, Leicester Square, where the French dishes were capitally done and the soup Julienne was as good as any to be had in London. Rouget’s also had the advantages of being inexpensive and quiet. Unfortunately, it closed in 1900.
Whenever Watson and I required balm for our souls, we sought out Bertollini’s in St. Martin’s Place at the back of Pall Mall East. A wonderful man was Bertollini: a short heavily-built Ligurian from Recco on the Italian Riviera, who superintended every aspect of the restaurant himself: now instructing the kitchen; now decanting the wine; now pointing at table with his short fleshy fore-finger to especially succulent pieces in the dish. There is no doubt the ingredients were mysterious; but they were well-flavoured, well-seasoned, and always relished by me and by Watson. With a bottle of Chablis or Claret, Bertollini’s food was a pleasant interlude from the roasted joint or the never-to-be-avoided chop to which the London tavern-diner was eternally condemned. Bertollini passed from life in 1910 and his restaurant was ceremoniously closed upon the closing of his coffin.
Watson enjoyed his whisky, never to excess, but well-appreciated after a long day at his surgery or after a longer night on the moors during one of our adventures. We maintained a small stock of vintage wines below stairs at Montague Street. Our wine and spirits merchant was Josiah Vamberry until his murder in the cellar of his establishment in Fleet Street. He was found badly corked with a wine key screwed into his brain and the word ‘trahi’ scratched into his forehead. I quickly connected the murder to two unsavoury characters in the employ of one ‘Archison’ who was implicated in a vast European conspiracy to destroy the French wine trade. The mysterious and deadly Archison was linked to a chateau in Margaux unexplainably owned by an obscure stationmaster in the West of England. Any connexion to Vamberry could not be established, but I remain steadfast in my belief of Moriarty’s involvement. Regardless, we provided our spirits and wine custom thereafter to Francis Davy in the Strand beginning in 1870, who continues to supply my fine wine needs today.
16
At the outset of this reflection, I stated that it was my intent to expand upon Watson’ masquerades and inaccuracies found in his body of writings about our years together. When one reads the various stories, one is given Holmes through Watson, and Watson is often generous to Holmes to a fault.
There exist a number of textual and factual inaccuracies, created intentionally by Watson, that portray me in a more favourable light. Ever my Boswell, Watson sought always to put me at the heroic centre of the stories (how I abhor that word; these are historical, scientific archives, not ‘stories’ which imply fictions). I cannot allow these untruths to endure and, here, will set but three to rights, although there are fifty-six other instances of intentional inaccuracy in the entire written collection.
In the matter of Silver Blaze, Watson’s text has me replying to Gregory’s question, ‘Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’ with the words, ‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’ Gregory retorted, ‘The dog did nothing in the night-time.’ I supposedly re-joined with, ‘That was the curious incident.’
The truth, in fact, was quite different. Watson had been particularly acute during our investigations at Dartmoor. More than once, he had surprised me with connexions that imparted insights to my findings. I had specifically asked Watson for his impressions and insights on the case and his reasoning was quite beyond his normal performance. During our walk across the moor, when we reached the hollow and I remarked with a bit of smugness to Watson, ‘See the value of imagination’ he came out of his reverie, looked at me and said, ‘But, Holmes, what about the curious incident of the dog in the night-time?’ It was I who replied, ‘The dog did nothing in the night-time’ and it was Watson who penetrated to the truth asking, ‘Was that not a curious incident, Holmes?’ From there, I made immediate infere
nces leading to proofs, and we know the outcome. But good old Watson went to some pains to write the narrative in a way that deflected the flash of deductive brilliance from him, placing it entirely upon me.
A second moment of prescient illumination visited Watson during the case involving Sir Robert Norberton and our investigations in Berkshire. It occurred at the Green Dragon when Watson and I were considering the data surrounding the supposedly curious behaviour of Lady Beatrice Falder. My own preferences favoured only Sir Robert’s imminent bankruptcy as the motive for his deceitful actions. However, it was Watson who reasoned the importance of the crypt and Lady Beatrice’s devoted dog and returned to that point several times, finally suggesting to me that Lady Beatrice may have died and been placed secretly in the crypt. Once again, it was Watson’s insight that gave me the final piece of data necessary to order the logic and complete the deductions needed to solve the Shoscombe Old Place case. As true as the unvarying constellation he was, Watson wrote of the adventure in a way that once more positioned me as the pole star of the solution when, in truth, I can only accept partial credit.
Perhaps the greatest of Watson’s intentional masquerades, however, is found in his writing of the case he called The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier. It is a manuscript ostensibly written under my own hand in response to Watson’s retort, ‘Try it yourself, Holmes’ when I admonished him for his pandering to popular taste in his writing rather than confining himself rigidly to facts. In the long opening paragraph, I devote myself to a somewhat ungracious satirical account of Watson’s ‘remarkable characteristics’ and demean his mind as a perpetual closed book. The quality of the writing is not up to that of Watson and my oft-repeated demand for a scientific archival approach to the cases and not a sensationalist spectacle is never achieved in the manuscript. And this is Watson’s finest moment, his greatest score on me for all of my years of criticisms of his abilities, for the story was not written by me. It was written by Watson in my persona and its faux failure to achieve my own standards for writing is, singularly, Watson’s finest moment. In recent years, with the modest success of Watson’s books, quite a number of people from all levels of society—waiters, tradesmen, country squires, nobles, even monarchs—say to me, ‘Your writing talents are superb, Mr Holmes’ and ‘You should really write more of your adventures, Mr Holmes’ or ‘I do believe you missed out on a marvellous career as a writer, Mr Holmes.’ The only thing I can say is, ‘Thank you; I am sure you are overly kind’ and, whenever I have done, I hear a soft, quiet laugh coming from Watson’s favourite chair next the fireplace. Good old Watson.
The Autobiography of Sherlock Holmes Page 6