by David Ruffle
“Amongst so many treasured memories I especially enjoy thinking back to the uniqueness of some of the cases you handled.”
“Whilst some cases admittedly had echoes of others; after all there is nothing new under the sun, the old wheel turns and the spoke comes up. But they were all unique in their way, each and every one of them.”
“From the comic to the tragic, it was all there. And then there was the occasional horror; I was not often fearful, but even I felt tremors of fear out on that bleak moor where the Baskerville hound roamed. Yet, the real reason I like to reflect on the case was the feeling of pride I had in myself that you saw fit to despatch me in your stead to report and investigate on your behalf. My subsequent discovery that you had been camping out on the moor did nothing to quell those feelings.”
“And a very good job you made of it too. A fairly simple case in the end of course; the age old story of greed and revenge. Even though it was such a run of the mill enquiry I profess I am amazed that it seems to be trumpeted to the world at large as one of my greatest triumphs. The power of the written word I suppose, Watson, your written word.”
“I was quite proud of that particular piece. I worked hard to create a certain atmosphere which would reflect those aspects of the moor that leant itself to such tales and legends, the gnarled, wind-blasted trees, the hidden valleys, the ancient Neolithic settlements. The reviews I received were actually rather good.”
“I have to say that if we are praising embellishment and sensationalism then yes, it was a fine piece of work.”
“Thank you, Holmes. Did any of my stories meet with your fullest approval?”
“They met with my limited approval and grudging admiration, but I still feel you missed the chance to record the extent that painstaking detective work can bring villains to book. The actual science of detection seemed to be entirely absent from your chronicles. I fear my deductions came out of the blue to many of your readers who no doubt saw me as some kind of wizard.”
“A view that did not greatly differ from how I saw you myself in the early days of our association. The depth of your deductions and the speed with which you elucidated them had me convinced that you would have been burnt at the stake in a bygone, less enlightened age. Yet, as time went by I was able to follow your deductions and on occasion offer up some of my own.”
“Yes, I recall they were often erroneous though. But, to be fair, not all... you always had the makings of a fine detective yourself, Watson.”
“Thank you again. I believe I made some useful deductions regarding Mr Henry Baker’s hat for instance and remember, I did so in a very few seconds whereas you had been examining it for quite a length of time.”
“Ah yes, that most singular and initially whimsical problem that chance dropped in our laps. The Countess of Morcar’s missing Blue Carbuncle. It certainly staved off the ennui of the Christmas period, bringing with it the return of the precious stone, the release from gaol of John Horner and a £500 present for the commissionaire, Peterson.”
“I thought the reward the Countess offered for the return of the stone was the sum of £1000.”
“Oh yes. I had forgotten the exact amount.”
“Holmes! You never forget anything. I have the notion that you pocketed the other £500. I never was a great believer in your protestations of ‘art for art’s sake’.”
“A man has to live, we had to live. It’s not as if you did not make some money yourself out of our association. Besides, there was the small matter of assisting you with the purchase of your practice and home in Queen Anne Street.”
“For which I was very grateful, rest assured. And you announcing to the Duke of Holdernesse that you were ‘a poor man’, what do you say about that?”
“I rendered a service to the Duke and he paid me as he would pay anyone who rendered him such a service. At the time I did consider myself a poor man... by comparison with him.”
“Not after his huge payment to you, Holmes, but I do not sit in judgment on you. I had my rewards too; financial, physical and spiritual. The Duke was indeed a worthy client in all respects.”
“As you know, Watson, a client’s standing was not of the slightest interest to me. What mattered were those cases that had sufficient strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to my imagination and challenged my ingenuity. If such problems came my way through the humblest of clients then I was happy to take their case on at the expense of more exalted clients.”
“I agree completely, my friend.”
“Yet, I seem to recall that when I mentioned to this to you, you instead labelled me capricious. Capricious! Me? I could accept the epithet ‘unworldly’ but not capricious. I believe it to more of a female trait, more suited to that species.”
“I stand by my usage of the word. And, Holmes you often displayed female traits to my mind. After all, I know you better than anyone and as you did a few minutes ago, I include your brother in that statement. How is Mycroft by the way?”
“Finally retired, although he recently assured me he is still called upon from time to time by this present government when they have a knotty, diplomatic problem they wish to be solved with the minimum of fuss.”
“He still makes London his home then?”
“Yes. Neither old age nor retirement will in any way impede or obstruct my brother’s lifestyle. His life runs on rails which trundle remorselessly between their three ports of call; Whitehall, the Diogenes Club and his Pall Mall lodgings. Mycroft is impervious to change.”
“Was he like that as a child?”
“To some extent, yes. He is of course, seven years older than me, so we did not exactly grow up or share a great deal of time together until I was in my mid-teens and he in his early twenties, when we shared some interests, or rather some interests were forced upon us by circumstances. He was extremely close to my father who was himself a man of narrow fields and interests. They spent their time in ganging up on me as if they resented my presence within the family. As if I was an intrusion.”
“How did your mother react to this?”
“We had a special bond and that helped to distance us from the antics of the other males in the household. My mother was a beautiful woman, Watson, tied to a domineering man. If Mycroft had been able to ally energy to his cerebral powers then he would have turned out to be a copy of my father in the smallest detail. I clung to my mother for dear life and she to me.”
“Did she ever consider leaving your father?”
“It was not an option or course of action she felt able to take. She was loyal to the concept of an ideal family and the fact that we were far from that did not sway her from what she saw as her duty, her matriarchal duty. My father, on the other hand, showed no such attention to duty.”
“It must have been an intolerable time for you, Holmes.”
“I feared what was to come when the time came for Mycroft to go up to Oxford. Would it bring about a change in my father’s attitude towards me? I thought it unlikely and I was to be proved right. Watson, do you need to rest once more?”
“Five minutes, maybe, just five minutes if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, I understand only too well.”
Interlude
“Where’s the old battle-axe now, Lucy?”
“Out back with her cauldron, the old witch!”
“Let’s have a breather then. How’s your Mr Travers? Behaving himself now is he?”
“He’s quite sweet really and you can’t blame him for trying it on when you look as good as I do.”
“Lucy Pollett! Don’t you dare be so conceited! He would make a play for me you know, but he noticed my wedding ring.”
“No, Polly. He noticed me! You know it’s the truth. Men just gravitate towards me.”
“They must know lax morals when they see them.”
> “Jealousy, Polly, it’s pure jealousy. Just because you’re tied up and bound to your old man doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t enjoy ourselves.”
“Yes, and we all know about you enjoying yourself, Lucy!”
“I have just looked in on Dr Watson again. Such a sad state of affairs, to think he’s got nothing left, but to talk to himself. Except it’s not even like normal talking to yourself; he is having a right old conversation in there with somebody in his head.”
“Are you sure you didn’t let a visitor stay behind, Lucy? The witch will come down hard on you.”
“No, of course not. A mouse could not hide in those rooms. Poor Dr Watson, Polly. Not a single visitor these last two months.”
“Come on, Lucy. Cheer up and go and put the kettle on. Let’s have a cuppa.”
“That’s your job isn’t it?”
“Mine?”
“Polly put the kettle on, we’ll all have tea.”
“Funny girl... and by the way-you can’t sing!”
Chapter 3
“What time is it, Holmes?”
“You could say it is both late and early, but in reality the time is of no importance.”
“I seem to have forgotten what we were talking about earlier; my brain feels as though it has turned to cotton wool. An old case was it?”
“Actually, we were discussing... yes, you are right, Watson, an old case it was.”
“Why did I get the impression just then that you were humouring me? Oh well... we certainly faced some dangers together, some more tangible than others. Some more deadly than others. That blessed swamp adder; Dr Roylott’s deadly gift to his stepdaughters.”
“It was a nerve-wracking time waiting there in the dark of Miss Stonor’s room for its presence to make itself known.”
“You at least had some notion of the nature of what was on its way. I, however was completely in the dark, quite literally of course”
“I did not feel at any time that we ourselves were in danger as long as we acted immediately and decisively.”
“Which, of course, you did in returning death to its originator.”
“As I have often said and indeed stated on that occasion; violence does in truth recoil upon the violent and the schemer falls into a pit he digs for another.”
“A shocking way to die though, Holmes.”
“It was a fate he entirely deserved, he had no compunctions about inflicting such an end on his victims who, after all, were his wards and as such should have been entitled to protection from their stepfather. So, I have to say that Dr Grimesby Roylott’s death has never been on my conscience at any time.”
“A life for a life, Holmes? Regardless of a seemingly just end, it has been an eternal struggle for my conscience. And what of Charles Augustus Milverton?”
“Now there was another evil man who filled me with a revulsion I had hardly known before or indeed since. A miserable man who inflicted misery on those he sought to squeeze of their cash. And if that cash was not forthcoming he thought nothing of ruining reputations and destroying marriages, in fact he delighted in it. As to his death, no, that is not and never has been on my conscience. A cruel man such as he can hardly have cause to complain when justice is meted out to him in such a fashion.”
“That having been said, Holmes, we could still have saved him and in due course he would have paid the penalty for his crimes.”
“The end result would have been to destroy that noble woman’s life completely; she who had suffered so much already. No, her bullets were the best end for him.”
“I remember so clearly your refusal to help Lestrade when he appeared in our sitting-room the following morning. If only he had obtained better descriptions of the two men seen fleeing from the house then we might well have landed up in the dock ourselves. Hampstead Heath seemed endless that night.”
“I’m sure that was the impression your readers would have had after reading your account of the matter. Your estimate of how far we ran that night was somewhat of an exaggeration, my friend.”
“Poetic licence cuts across all notions of time and space, Holmes. My readers came to expect a certain style in my work; rhythm, prose...”
“...and a lack of attention to detail!”
“As to that, there were details that I could not possibly add to those tales I chronicled. Dates had to be changed, identities hidden beneath pseudonyms, scandals to be avoided. At times, I felt I did not go far enough with this concealment policy; the more astute reader...”
“If such a creature existed.”
“...the more astute reader could have possibly pieced together sequences of events and obtained for themselves the identities of the various people involved.”
“If not this mythical astute reader, then certainly some of the principals involved.”
“But to do do full justice, at least in my eyes, to the recording of your investigations, then that was unavoidable. If it was not so, I might as well have been writing fiction.”
“At times it came perilously close to it, Watson!”
“I consider that a tribute and a compliment to my literary skills. Thank you, Holmes.”
“You know full well that was not my meaning. But I do feel able to compliment you, grudgingly maybe, but a compliment all the same.”
“I wonder what would happen if we could transport ourselves eighty or one hundred years into the future. How will we be remembered, if at all?”
“I dread to think given the stage and screen appearances we seem to have engendered already. But, it’s possible that we may live on only in dry text books detailing crimes of the period. To be a mere footnote in criminal history may end up being our lot. One hundred years is a long time for anyone to be remembered regardless of their achievements, particularly if those achievements were relatively minor. Or it may be as you intimated earlier, that we will be considered men of fiction rather than reality.”
“I agree. I, for instance have had trouble for some time remembering times, places and people that we encountered even from a relatively few years ago, although in spite of a certain fog obscuring my brain tonight, I feel my memories are at present coming back to me with a greater clarity than ever. They flit across my consciousness, shades of those long gone, gathering around me, jostling each other to gain a place in my memory. I see Jabez Wilson with his fiery red hair smiling down on me; always a jolly man in spite of what befell him.”
“Another case like that of the Blue Carbuncle which started off in a whimsical fashion, but turned into something darker and deeper. One of the paradoxes of life is that the simplest things can also be said to be the most complex. It is something we saw often is it not, Watson?”
“The affair at the Copper Beeches falls squarely into that category. The initial inquiry from Miss Violet Hunter, you were positive was the very nadir of your career, for now you were being consulted as to whether a young lady should take up a post of governess that she had been offered.”
“I believe I likened it to being called upon to recover lost lead pencils and giving advice to girls at boarding schools.”
“And yet you were impressed by Miss Hunter even before she detailed her problem to us. Your manner with her was most attentive and I am quite sure she was as charmed by you as you were with her.”
“She was a client and my manner was designed to put her at ease. My attentiveness was an outward sign of my impatience to hear her story. Watson, you always saw romance everywhere, being of a romantic nature yourself, but it was foolhardy of you to expect such a romantic streak to suddenly manifest itself in me.”
“I confess to feeling disappointed that you showed no further interest in her when she ceased to be the centre of one of your problems.”
“I recall you saying so at the time and also the fact that you inflicted y
our hopes and therefore your disappointment with your readers.”
“I just wish that you could have known the contentment and happiness that I felt during my happy marriages. No other feelings come quite so close for me.”
“My contentment lay in my work; my happiness lay in working out the most abstruse problems. Although I would be the first to concede that wedded bliss suited you entirely, it was not and could not have been for me.”
“Nor for your brother! I just find it odd, that’s all.”
“I see nothing odd about it. We had both seen an unhappy marriage in operation. Although we saw it from opposing viewpoints, we could both recognise the disintegration that went on in front of us. I am not saying that is the sole reason we never married or formed close relationships, but it is no doubt a factor.”
“I was fortunate in that my parents’ marriage was extremely happy and my brother, Henry was always the closest of companions, we spent all our time playing together. My parents always had time for us and we did so much together as a family. Often they would be very simple pastimes such as walking down country lanes and picking blackberries or mushroom collecting in the fields behind our house at dawn and then rushing back to the kitchen with our trophies and frying them up for breakfast.”
“You paint a very rosy picture, Watson. I do envy you those happy, precious memories. My lot in childhood was rather different, but it was all a long time ago now and it does no good to dwell on unhappy memories.”
“I sense that you do dwell on them more and more. When I woke up a few minutes ago and asked what we had been talking about, you fell in with my suggestion that old cases had been under discussion. In fact, it was your family life we had been discussing.”
“Yes, Watson. That is so. But I feared my revelations were perhaps too much for you.”
“Nonsense, there is no shame attached to having an unhappy home life, I am hardly likely to be shocked at such outpourings from you.”
“You may be, my friend, you may be.”