by David Bagchi
Chapter Seven
THE FIRST REPORT OF DR JOHN H. WATSON, WRITTEN ONE WEEK BEFORE THE EVENTS HERETOFORE RECOUNTED
The Eastwall Hotel,
Oxford,
Thursday 5th June
My dear Holmes,
The best possible news—I have him! From the excellent photographs supplied by your brother Mycroft, and with the co-operation of the Oxford City Police, it was only a matter of time before I tracked down the one known as ‘Jan’. You asked me to provide you with the fullest possible details of everything connected with this fiendish conspiracy, and to dismiss no fact, however apparently small or insignificant, as unworthy of your attention. What follows, therefore is the full story of our Bohemian friend’s interception.
The city of Oxford is so designed—or rather, has over the years so developed in its charmingly higgledy-piggledy way—that any visitor who spends more than a few hours there must sooner or later traverse the central crossroads, its carrefour, as the French would have it, known here as Carfax. There is, therefore, no need actively to seek out anyone in Oxford, a fact which seems to suit the sedentary and studious nature of its scholarly inhabitants: wait at Carfax long enough and the one you seek will come to you. And so it has proved, my dear Holmes! This morning I was standing by the railings outside Carfax Church, watchful behind my newspaper, when one of the policemen regularly stationed there (but who like the other constables had been shown the photographs) beckoned discreetly to me and drew to my attention a strangely-garbed fellow walking towards the High Street from the west. This was not long after the church clock above me had chimed eleven.
Despite his highly theatrical oversized cloak and broad-brimmed hat which obscured half his face, I saw enough of him to be able to second the constable’s identification. I waited awhile before setting off, for I decided to follow him at a considerable distance. I was rashly confident that such a costume would make him easily distinguishable for miles, while I would be in no danger whatever of being seen by him, still less identified as a pursuer. And it is true that in any other provincial town or city in England, such a ‘disguise’ would have been quite useless—the more so at the height of summer—in that it would unfailingly have drawn far more attention towards him than it could possibly deflect. In Oxford, however, as I was soon to discover, almost at great cost, matters were arranged quite differently.
It was as he approached Magdalen College that I realized my mistake. For there, spilling out of the porter’s lodge to fill the pavement and even some of the road, was a veritable sea of Magdalen men of the ‘Lord Alfred Douglas’ type, all dressed in flamboyant fashion completed in every case by a swirling black cloak and broad-brimmed hat. Jan was soon absorbed into this throng, a drop of black in an ocean of blackness. I looked on in horror as this party made its way across the road towards the University’s Botanical Gardens. I would have to follow, but what chance had I of finding my man amongst them?
A fracas was evidently developing at the splendid gates to the Botanic Garden, and I hastened my pace to catch up. As I approached, the reason became obvious. The keepers of the Gardens meant to deny access to these flamboyant undergraduates, and were not only remonstrating with very direct language, but were also wielding hoes and grass-scythes in an intimidating manner. I know that many feel threatened by the outward display of aestheticism in their fellow men, and I appreciate that such feelings would be magnified in the presence of such a large concentration of Magdaleners. However, whatever one’s personal prejudices about such matters, to me it seemed insupportable to use that as a reason for depriving anyone of the simple enjoyment of nature, and I determined to uphold the rights of the black-cloaked multitude. Although my own position was weak—being neither a current nor an old member of this ancient university, nor even a citizen of Oxford—I headed directly for the leader of the keepers in order to give him the benefit of my opinion on the matter. I need not have concerned myself: the press of Magdaleners was so great that the garden-keepers were simply trampled underfoot by them. After making sure that all of the keepers were still alive and likely to remain so, I followed the mob into the gardens proper. There I witnessed the reason for the gardeners’ reluctance to admit these men. It was not, I now realized, borne of unthinking prejudice, but of an understandable professional desire to prevent the fruit of their labours from being consumed. For each undergraduate, ignoring the clearly-printed signs, which populated the gardens quite as abundantly as the plantings, forbidding just such actions, now cut for himself a colourful buttonhole from the flowers on display. The more exotically-minded members of the throng made for the hothouse, no doubt with the same end in view. The search for fresh blooms was evidently a daily occurrence, and at this rate of consumption the University’s flora could surely not stand another two days’ such depredation.
As each man gathered his bloom, he stood aside to let another black locust take his place, until each was newly decorated with a fresh flower representing the full gamut of the spectrum and more besides. All except for one man, whose pathetic return was a simple daisy, plucked from a wheelbarrow of mown grass, and a none-too-fresh one at that. In such a company, a man who was not a true aesthete, but only feigning aestheticism in order to avoid detection, stood out, despite his cloak and hat. I had regained contact with Jan, and I would not lose him again.
I observed him take lunch at a café near to the Queen’s College, then in the afternoon followed him down to a boat-hire firm on the Isis, where I overheard him book a single-sculled boat for 9 a.m. the next day. I quickly booked a similar craft myself for 9.15, then followed him back up St Aldate’s to the General Post Office. I followed your advice and kept to the other side of the road and observed him as much as possible in the reflections of shop-fronts. I witnessed him place an envelope in the posting box, outside the post office, marked ‘London & the Home Counties’. Was it addressed to the lady in question? I know it is wrong to speculate in the absence of sufficient data, but it seems, as you yourself suggested, that he may be trying to intimidate her so that she acts precipitately in the matter of the photographs, to the inevitable discomfiture of our royal noble client.
So tomorrow morning will see me on the river, for the first time since my varsity days in London. I shall follow my prey and report by letter as I am able.
Chapter Eight
On the extraordinary effects of country air—The guile of the seasoned huntsman—On the extraordinary effects of country air (again)—The guile of the hunted—My long-lost Uncle Toby found
Thursday 13 June
At Reading, Harris and I decided to stow the bulk of our things at left-luggage, to be retrieved later. We then boarded the slow train to Oxford. I dismounted at the very next stop, Pangbourne, and waved Harris off on his way to Goring.
Pangbourne, by common consent, lies on one of the loveliest stretches of the Thames. For the city-dweller, however, the prospects hereabout offer something far more profound than picture-postcard prettiness. They offer refreshment, and I do not mean that sticky concoction they mix with water and try to sell you for thrupence a throw, if you are fool enough to buy it. No, I mean the soul’s refreshment which our universal mother, the Lady Nature, wishes to bestow upon all her offspring. For what denizen of the city does not feel his heart thrill within him when he is once enfolded in nature’s verdure? The grey city, which we falsely call our ‘metropolis’, is no true mother to us. For her we slave; and each day spent upon her streets and in her tenements we grow meaner and baser, for we grow further from our roots. And yet: and yet we know we are of noble stock, queen-born, and we long to find our true, royal mother.
Come to me, she seems to call, and rest awhile your weary head upon my breast. City worker and merchant, shopboy and shopgirl, clerk and man of accounts, drayman and coster: cast off your heavy garb of care, lay down your burden of worry. Let them slip away betimes, to fall into my deep currents and thence be swept out to the tid
e beyond, where waves of Sorrow must break, ere long, upon the shores of Joy. Fill your hearts, my children, with such clamour as I provide: the distant rasp of grasshopper; the song of gentle thrush; the cheerful hubbub of the bee, who for his honest toil wins sweeter reward than thy slave-wage. Nay, listen with yet more profit to my silence: the swan upon the water; the swallow upon the wing; the growing of the flower and the leaf. In my deep silence, let your strength return, let your thoughts be purified, let your lips breathe only my sweet breath. Until at length, as if born from me again, you return to the noisy city, there again to be sullied withal, yet never forgetting your mother’s embrace.
It was not yet 9 a.m. when I stepped out into the station road and filled my lungs with good Berkshire air. I felt the inner transformation begin. Simply by breathing in this rich atmosphere, and exhaling the miasma of London from my body, I was sloughing off the city and reverting—or perhaps evolving—into a different creature: the countryman. It is always there, deep in the inmost recesses of every Englishman—his country self. Nobler, freer, stronger than his city soul, bound as the latter must be by the craven limitations of urban life. My senses were instantly more potent. Contours were sharper to my eye, colours more vivid. Sounds which with mere city-ears I could never have heard now came to me through the clear air with the pellucid clarity of a churchyard bell. It was as if Nature herself were endowing me with her panoply of arms, equipping me to track down my quarry in a righteous cause. Even my sense of direction was miraculously more acute, more sure. I set off resolutely, every nerve steeled to the coming chase.
‘You be going the wrong way, sir.’
‘What?’ I said, spinning round to see the station-master leaning out of his office window.
‘That’s the wrong way. I assume you’ll be wanting the river, what with all that fishing gear you’ve brought with you.’
‘Er… yes,’ I said. My ensemble of waterproofs, waders, rod, spare line, spare waders, net, basket and other essential paraphernalia was designed to leave little doubt in the eyes of the casual observer as to the purpose of my visit to these parts.
‘The river’s down that way. You be going away from it.’
I thanked the whiskery old gentleman for his advice. I could have explained to him that, like any seasoned huntsman, I was merely reconnoitring the lie of the land upon which my great hunt would be played out. I could have explained to him that my prey was not a fish. I could have explained to him that my prey was man—more deadly than the trout. But as he struck me as more than usually dense—in a noble, rustic sort of way—I felt that the process would intrude too much upon my time. Besides, I had no wish to reveal to anyone my true intent. Raising my hat to him (and pricking my finger on one of the many fine flies that adorned it), I set my face towards the river and towards the honest yeomen of England that do their business in the great waters of the Thames.
I needn’t have bothered.
‘How’s business?’ I asked cheerily of the first Thames-man I met, evidently the proprietor of the anglers’ shop he sat in front of.
‘I wouldn’t know about yours. And I like to mind me own,’ he said.
I decided to ignore this man’s manners for the sake of the greater quest.
‘Tell me, my good man,’ I said. ‘Have you seen any strangers round here recently? Anyone suspicious, furtive, looking like he’s up to no good? Anyone at all like that?’
‘Oh, yes, I have that. Don’t you worry.’
‘Really? When did you see him? Last Tuesday by any chance?’
‘No. More recent than that.’
Could it be possible? Had my quarry doubled back on himself to throw off his pursuers, and was he far closer than I had imagined? Was he perhaps now the hunter, and I the hunted?
‘When, man? When was this?’ I asked urgently.
‘Oh, this morning.’
This very morning!
‘And where did you spot him?’
‘Oh, I’d say… pretty much where you’re standing now. Arr, pretty much exact.’ He gave himself a self-satisfied chuckle and I perceived the nature of this worthless fellow’s jest.
‘And I suppose he was wearing something like my clothes?’ I asked coldly.
‘Oh, bless me, sir. Now you come to mention it I’d say he wore clothes exact like those. Exact. Ha, ha, ha!’
He threw his head back in uncontrollable mirth, toppled backwards off his stool, and hit the ground hard. He was still laughing. This story, however, had a sad ending. I learned later that he was quite unharmed by his fall.
The sheer rudeness of the countryman towards his city-born betters can be quite breathtaking. I wonder if there is not something in the very air of the country that turns ordinary men into beasts, and yeomen into churls. Did our forefathers not show great wisdom in turning words for country-dwellers, villain and heathen, for example, into labels of opprobrium? Give me civilization over the countryside any day of the week.
The other inhabitants of Pangbourne, it must frankly be admitted, were little more helpful than the angling shop proprietor. Some could not remember further back than the day before. Others gave wonderfully detailed descriptions of visitors, who upon further inquiry turned out to have visited many years ago. It was only when I called at the charming village post office that I met with more acute powers of observation, and the very information I sought, in the responses of the officer of the post himself.
‘Last Tuesday, did you say, sir? Now I think of it there was a strange man come in that day. An old soldier, he was. Very shabbily dressed. Had a patch over his left eye. Had a peg-leg—his right, I think—and walked with a big stick, more of a staff, if you know what I mean. He brought a stamp and left a letter for delivery. Can’t remember the address.’
‘Well, thank you. That sounds just like my long-lost uncle Toby,’ I said, and to express my gratitude bought a set of picture postcards of Pangbourne and environs. ‘I shall be on my way.’
‘Just a minute, sir. I’ve remembered something else about your uncle. He had a small animal in a cage. A ferret I think it was. No—I tell a lie: it was a mongoose, ‘cause I remember asking the old gent what it was. A mongoose, definitely.’
‘A mongoose? That’s bizarre—I mean to say, my uncle Toby is nothing if not eccentric. Thank you, my man.’
‘My pleasure, sir. Oh, there was just one other thing.’
‘Yes?’ I asked, desperate to know every last detail.
‘What exactly is a mongoose, sir?’
* * *
My quarry was now within my grasp, and it was with a light heart that I took dinner at a charming inn before turning back to Pangbourne station and my afternoon rendezvous with Harris. Mrs Hudson’s plan was working perfectly—so far.
Chapter Nine
THE SECOND REPORT OF DR JOHN H. WATSON, SIX DAYS EARLIER
The Abbey Hotel,
Abingdon,
Friday 6 June
My dear Holmes,
The good news is that I am still in contact with our friend ‘Jan’. At Oxford he hired a boat as planned. But he is no river-man, and even though I took my scull out a good twenty minutes after his departure, he was still to be found in midstream rowing in circles. I think he must never have rowed before, and that the decision, whether his own or that of a superior, to adopt this mode of transport is a poor one: he is succeeding only in drawing attention to himself. Moreover, it is difficult as well as tiresome to pursue a man on the river whose main direction of travel is circular: he is as likely to end up following you as you him. And finally, it should be noted for any further adventures of this sort that of all craft the standard rowing boat is the least well-adapted for covert pursuit. One cannot see one’s prey—except by continually looking over one’s shoulder in a manner almost guaranteed to reveal both one’s identity and purpose—while all the time you are clearly in his sight.
I therefore rowed considerably ahead of my prey, and ‘followed’ him from in front. This
is a far more satisfactory arrangement. Or it would have been, except for the fact that when over-hauling him, in an awkward pose calculated to conceal my face from view, I pulled a muscle in my shoulder. As ill-luck would have it, it is the same shoulder which had been struck by a Jezail bullet in Afghanistan. I am now in some pain, which I suspect is exacerbated by the effect of the damp atmosphere, and have therefore engaged an eskimo canoe for tomorrow’s work, and surrendered the single-scull to the local boat hire firm (luckily they are the same company as the Oxford one). It is a lighter, faster craft in which the rower—or rather paddler—faces forwards, and it will allow me to continue my quest with greater ease and less physical strain.
Chapter Ten
An incredible coincidence—The improbability of mothers-in-law—A peculiarity of the English—Women not the gentler sex, proven by observation—The importance of reading public notices—An expensive lesson