The Deadwood Stage

by Mike Hogan

  Doctor Roose gave him an irritated look.

  Philpot squatted and pointed at a section of the pipe near the window of Mrs Hudson’s bedroom.

  “There’s a good deal on plumbing in the Good Book, sirs: ‘They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not’. I followed my nose and all was revealed. See that?”

  He pointed to the back of the pipe, next to the wall.

  “A crack six inches long, and half an inch of pipe gone off.”

  He straightened and nodded sagely.

  “Windows opened for the first time in the warm weather after the chill of last winter; sewer gas building up and escaping through this here hole. What you have, Doctors, is a miasma, sure and certain, or you can call me Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar.”

  I left the plumber and his assistants mending the cracked pipe and saw Doctor Roose to the door.

  “Sewer gas poisoning,” said Doctor Roose as he took his hat and stick. He smiled. “You will have an article for The Lancet. You can champion us experienced practitioners against Lister and his germ fanatics.”

  Doctor Roose retrieved his hat from the stand in the hall. “I spoke with Lady Randolph. I understand that she has requested that you examine Winston.”

  “Instructed, not requested,” I replied.

  He chuckled. “Yes, she has a way about her. It is all nonsense, of course, or at least I hope it is. When Winston was born, the father’s terrible disease had not fully manifested itself; I do not believe that the child was affected in the least. However, you have seen a great deal more of the diseases in your Army service, Doctor. If the boy is not up to snuff -”

  “He seems to be a normal boy.”

  “That he is not,” said Doctor Roose firmly. “Winston requires a firm hand. He stayed with me twice last year: in March, he nearly died of pneumonia, and then there was an outbreak of cholera in the servants’ hall. He is a wilful and lazy boy, precocious, but not given to study or application of any description. He would far rather play with his toy soldiers than read his Scripture.”

  He put on his top hat and considered.

  “However, he is a loyal and truthful young fellow, and he will have a devil of a time with his father if this period of remission gives way to the full horror of the disease we suspect. As we know, Doctor, it is ineluctable: it is no respecter of rank. It will kill Lord Randolph as it would a costermonger of the lowest order.”

  He stopped at the door.

  “You need not concern yourself about the younger brother, Jack. His conception took place in Ireland, while Lord Randolph was about his occasions elsewhere in the Kingdom. Lord Randolph was not involved in any phase of the boy’s formation.”

  I bade Doctor Roose farewell, then returned to the waiting room and prescribed a further course of opiate painkillers and cool barley water for my patient. It was a balmy evening, and I ordered the nurse to draw the curtains and open the windows wide to allow the soft breeze to remove any trace of miasma that might have penetrated the room.

  I stomped upstairs. Holmes was alone, pasting articles cut out from the newspapers into one of his scrapbooks. He looked up inquiringly as I entered.

  “She is much the same, I am afraid. She drifts in and out of consciousness. I have administered opiates.”

  I sat in my usual chair in front of the empty fireplace.

  “There is a possibility of miasmatic poisoning,” I said. “I suspected poisoning because of the rapid onset of symptoms and their intensity. That is why I engaged Mr Philpot. He examined the drains at the new St Thomas Hospital last year after an outbreak of unexplained fevers, and he made some intelligent suggestions. He found a broken escape pipe below Mrs Hudson’s bedroom window. Numerous cases are reported in the medical journals of unwholesome fumes from the sewers causing reactions similar to those we have seen today. If you took a map and marked the districts that are the constant seat of fevers, fits, and infant deaths, you would be able to trace with mathematical exactitude the line of the sewers of London.”

  I leaned forward in my seat.

  “It is not just a question of sewer gas explosions levelling a house here and there. We have under our streets a dark and fecund jungle as dangerous to civilized man as the leech-infested jungles of the Congo basin. Incidences of cholera precisely follow the pestilential tunnels of the Metropolitan Line Underground Railway. Rats the size of cats infest the workings and think nothing of taking down a man.”

  “How would the miasmatic theory account for Billy’s indisposition?” said Holmes, looking pale.

  “Perhaps you were right; perhaps he was in shock at Mrs Hudson’s sudden illness.”

  “I propose,” said Holmes, shaking his head, “notwithstanding my earlier remarks, that our Billy has not previously shown the slightest signs of sensitivity on any matter whatsoever.”

  I laughed. “Spencer-Churchill has gone home?”

  Holmes nodded and opened the afternoon newspaper.

  “I did not have much chance to observe the boy,” I said. “He seemed normal enough, though rather shy. I expect he leads a rather sheltered life at Blenheim Palace.”

  Holmes flipped down a corner of his paper. “On the contrary, he strikes me as a feisty little fellow. He spends very little time at Blenheim Palace, or at Connaught Place, his family’s London abode. He told me that he stayed with Doctor Roose for much of last year, recovering from illness, and he often remains at his prep school, or stays with school friends, during the holidays.”

  “Connaught Place. That’s in Bayswater; not so far.”

  “Not far enough, I think we will find,” Holmes replied with a smile. “I strongly suspect that young Spencer-Churchill will find it convenient to visit us again. You saw the gleam of excitement in the boy’s eye as Wiggins described his meeting with the American and his companion. I do not think that the Spencer-Churchills are a close, or doting family; remember the luncheon appointment with his mother. I am quite certain that you will have more than ample opportunity to examine the boy.”

  We sat for a while in companionable silence. I went through the day in my mind and tried to think of any steps that I had omitted to take. It was a strange and unnerving experience ministering to someone who was so much a part - the centre in fact - of our little household. It reminded me of my time on the line in Afghanistan, when I operated on and nursed officers that I had messed with; so many had been lost.

  I looked up to see that Holmes regarded me steadily over his pipe stem.

  “Pass me the evening paper, Watson. I saw a poster in Regent Street advertising Madame Neruda at St James’s Hall.”

  He scanned the notices.

  “Yes, we have just missed the Philharmonic Society with Sir Arthur Sullivan conducting. Today is Monday, the usual day for the ‘Pops’ concerts, and unfortunately for the vile blackface Christy Minstrels nearby.”

  “I do not think that I should -”

  “Old friend,” Holmes said. “You will forgive me for saying that while I smoke a pipe or two over a problem and search for a solution, you smoke your cigars and worry on consequences. You must clear your mind and approach the problem from a fresh perspective. Neruda’s exquisite violin playing will refresh your diagnostic faculties. There is also a fine dining room at the Hall and, my dear fellow, we are unlikely to be provided for at home this evening unless our pageboy and maid have undiscovered culinary skills.”

  He was undoubtedly right.

  “Oh, very well,” I said. “Let me change, and I’m your man.”

  “No need,” said Holmes. “One does not dress for the ‘Pops’.”

  A Footrace in the Fog

  As we rode across town in a hansom, I asked Holmes about the case brought to him by Wiggins and the Irregulars.

  “The matter is devoid of interest, Watson. The gist is
that the American boy, Bobby, and his older Negro companion, have disappeared from their rookery in one of the darkest and most infamous courts of the New Cut, Lambeth. He has moved on to another nest of vipers elsewhere. There is no case.”

  “The fact that he is an American boy adds a touch of topical interest to the tale.”

  Holmes looked blankly at me.

  I laughed. “I meant the Buffalo Bill exhibition at Olympia. You must have seen the posters and advertisements. They are all over the city.”

  My laugh sounded hollow, even to me. My mind was still fully taken up with my patient in Baker Street. I had little interest to spare for the affairs of Lambeth roughs and missing American boys.

  Our cab dropped us outside the Piccadilly entrance to St James’s Hall, the principal concert hall of London. I had not been there before, so I viewed the huge building with interest. It was a massive gothic construction with restaurants and bars on the ground floor, and concert halls on the upper floors. According to a placard at the door, the building could seat more than two thousand people.

  We dined and then went upstairs to one of the balconies of the Grand Hall. The long chamber was decorated, according to our elaborately printed concert programmes, in the Florentine style. We took our seats on one of many rows of threadbare, green benches.

  The audience was indeed democratic. I saw people who were, from their dress and deportment, from the lower-middle class. Soberly dressed clerks filled the front rows in what looked like club or office groups; people at the back of the Hall might have come from the more respectable upper reaches of the working class. The atmosphere was, nonetheless, respectful and subdued.

  “Just a bob for the cheap seats,” Holmes said, following my gaze. “The same price as a back-row music-hall seat. There is a universality about music that almost transcends class.”

  He saw my expression and laughed. “I said almost.”

  He tapped his elaborately printed programme. “Look, we have the Joachim Quartet with Bach and Beethoven, then Neruda with a Haydn violin sonata.”

  I flicked through my programme as the house lights dimmed and the gas flared brightly around the stage. The Joachim Quartet, consisting of Mrs Neruda and three foreign-looking gentlemen, was warmly greeted by the audience.

  The music, an early Beethoven quartet, began. I saw my companion lean forward as if to better absorb the sound; he surrendered to the power of the music and was transported.

  I could not put out of my mind the most melancholy thoughts. I was unable to shake off a sense of inadequacy. I had boasted to Holmes that modern medicine was a matter of deductive reasoning, but I had not fully acknowledged the trial-and-error nature of much of the modern physician’s work, or the limited number of proven remedies that he could safely employ for even the most common maladies.

  Holmes’s remark on the differences in our approach to problems had vexed me. It was true: I did worry on consequences. Was it a violation of professional dispassion to be concerned for Mrs Hudson? I thought of her with affection and respect: I thought of her as a friend. I could not retreat from emotion and, like Holmes, envelop my mind and heart in a hard carapace of cold detachment.

  I turned to my companion. He was in profile: his hawk-like nose and determined chin were in silhouette against the gaslights. He had often claimed to be immune to sentimental attachments. His profound immersion in the music while Mrs Hudson lay so gravely ill was an apt and convincing demonstration of the truth of his statements.

  I almost allowed myself a mawkish attempt to characterise my own relations with Holmes in terms of real and abiding friendship or mere companionship and domestic convenience. I instantly suppressed such unmanly and uncomradely thoughts.

  I loosened my collar slightly. The evening was warm, and the heat emanating from the close-packed audience and the bright gas jets made me uncomfortable. I found myself nervously twisting the green silk tassel that adorned the concert programme. My fingers were damp, and I wiped them with my handkerchief. As I stuffed it back into my sleeve, a tiny green sparkle caught my eye. I held the cloth up to the bright light from the flaring gas jets on the stage and saw a cluster of minute green glitters where I had wiped my sweaty fingers.

  I shot bolt upright. Holmes gave me a surprised look that turned to one of concern.

  “Watson, are you -”

  “We must go, Holmes - instantly. There is not a moment to be lost.”

  I stumbled and pushed my way along the row of seats, stepping on toes and eliciting annoyed ‘tuts’ and several more direct expressions of disapprobation. I reached the aisle, pushed past an attendant and dashed for the exit. I took the stairs two at a time to the Piccadilly side entrance and rushed to the porter’s kiosk in which an elderly man in uniform sat on a stool drinking tea.

  “A cab. I must have a cab.”

  Holmes appeared beside me.

  “What about our hats and gloves, shall I -”

  I gave him a look that silenced him. I pushed through the heavy glass doors and stepped into the street. I stared. It was not yet eight-thirty in the evening, but the street was dark and deserted; greasy coils of musty, foul, yellow vapour hung in the air and obscured the sky.

  Holmes came out and stood next to me.

  “Fog,” he said. “It has the makings of an absolute pea-souper.”

  “We must get back home to Baker Street, Holmes,” I said. “I believe that it is a matter of life and death.”

  “Very well.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and called ‘Cab!’ across, down, and up Piccadilly. There was no answering cry or echo. He disappeared back inside the foyer and returned with a police rattle and an anxious porter.

  “You mustn’t spring the rattle, sir, except on police business. And not never during a performance.”

  I looked up to the lighted windows of the concert hall above us. The fog was already dimming them and dampening the sound of Mrs Neruda’s violin.

  Holmes looked quizzically at me.

  I nodded.

  He held the rattle high above his head and swung it furiously. The noise was tremendous. The porter shrank back inside.

  Holmes paused and we listened: nothing. I nodded again and he gave the rattle another long, long swing.

  He paused: all was still.

  “I am afraid that we have silenced the great Neruda,” said Holmes.

  I heard the faint sound of a whistle, followed by another, and another.

  Holmes swung the rattle wildly.

  A light flickered through the thickening fog, and a heavily built police sergeant appeared holding a bull’s eye lantern.

  He shone his light on Holmes, then on me. Two young police constables ran up, also carrying lanterns.

  “Well, sir,” the sergeant addressed Holmes. “What’s going on?”

  Holmes turned to me. “Doctor?”

  “I must get back to our lodgings at 221B Baker Street, by the station. It is literally a matter of life and death.”

  The porter and several attendants came from the foyer of St James’s Hall.

  “Madame Neruda requests that you refrain from noise-making,” said the porter.

  Holmes handed him the rattle.

  “You are a medical man?” asked the sergeant.

  “I am,” I replied. “We must hurry. The fog is getting worse.”

  The sergeant bent forward and took a deep breath.

  “No, Sergeant,” said Holmes, “We are not in drink. I see that you are from C division. You will know Inspector Lestrade, now with the detective force at Scotland Yard. He may have spoken of me: I am Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective. We need a cab.”

  The sergeant considered.

  “No, sir, if you’ll pardon the liberty, you do not. A cabby would have to lead his horse through this muck. You’
ll be faster on foot.”

  He turned to his men.

  “Baker Street lads, on the jog. You two lead the way. Ten paces ahead with your lanterns on the street. I will follow with the gents on either side. Keep to the centre of the roadway. The omnibuses and carriages will have parked against the kerb.”

  We set off in formation, Holmes on one side of the sergeant, me on the other, and the constables ranging ahead.

  The fog thickened as we passed Piccadilly Circus. Twice the constables crashed into stationary cabs and carriages, and with a few shouted insults, we passed on. We were the only creatures, as far as I could tell, moving through the choking, soot- and sulphur-tasting, yellow-brown murk.

  Our way was clearer at Oxford Circus as the gaslights were lit. We paused for breath.

  “Straight up Portland Place, Sergeant?” asked Holmes.

  “Clearest way, sir,” he answered, his eyes gleaming in the lantern light. “Then left along the Marylebone Road to the station.”

  One of the policemen disappeared for a moment and returned with a half dozen ragged boys. They carried bundles of twigs topped with tarred cloth.

  “Link boys, sir: always a mob of them at the corner there for the drunks spilling out of the pubs.”

  “Baker Street,” I said, bending over my knees and gasping for breath. “Two-bob a nob.”

  The sergeant lit the boys’ torches with a match and reorganised our convoy. The boys fanned ten paces ahead, the constables took station in front of the sergeant, and Holmes and I were positioned once again on his left and right.

  We started off again at a steady jog, faster now that we had a screen of lights. The boys excited yelps and whoops, like those of a pack of Mr Buffalo Bill’s Red Indians, echoed strangely, sometimes near, sometimes far away in the fog. The flaming torches lost formation and veered left. We followed.

  “Marylebone Road,” the sergeant called back to us.

  Left again. I stumbled against the kerb and felt a searing pain in my leg. I fell on one knee, panting and coughing. Arms gripped me on either side, and I was lifted almost off my feet.