Doctor Watson's Casebook

by Patrick Mercer

  ****.

  Chapter Three. Duck and Weave.

  "Doctor Watson, sir, you'll just 'ave to trust me on this one," Inspector Gregson replied, puffing at his pipe in a way that seemed awfully reminiscent of my colleague. It was odd how everyone had become addicted to tobacco. Personally, I'd never used it. Most of the medical journals talked of its beneficial effects, although some damned it, warning how it could harm the lungs, make your hair fall out or cause all other sorts of mischief. I rather agreed with the latter view and anything that made me struggle even more with my fitness had to be avoided. Everyone else, though, puffed away like steam engines - I'd watched Bowler light one of what he called his 'gaspers' just before we were shown into Gregson's office in the Yard. He then concealed it within the palm of his hand, as I'd seen soldiers do all the time in the past, then take great, deep pulls at it, exhaling clouds of blue smoke as we sat and talked.

  "No, really. It's an open secret that Gutteridge knifed Ezekial Shaw, but we don't know what the motive was and we can't place him in Saint Leonard's Walk with any certainty." Gregson paused and added to the fug by striking two more matches in trying to get his damn chimney going again. I often wondered if people smoked pipes rather than cigarettes or cigars in order to give themselves time to think and to appear more serious - and I include Holmes in my suspicions. "The knife wounds were just what you'd expect from someone with his degree of familiarity with stabbing weapons, we know there'd been - how shall I put it? - friction between Shaw and Gutteridge over Mrs Shaw. And the only person to provide any alibi at all for Gutteridge was the self same woman Amelia Shaw, hardly a reliable witness and someone who I now believe to be an accessory to the whole, bally thing."

  "Well, why don't you arrest the man, Inspector?" I asked, knowing that I'd get pretty well the same answer that I'd got from Holmes - and I did…well, almost.

  "Because, Doc…" but Bowler cut Gregson off in a way that I never could.

  "Now, sir, the Doctor is the Doctor, not Doc'. How'd you like it if he showed your rank no respect and called you Insp'?" We were both rather shocked by the indignation of my companion, but it served. I loathed such slackness, Bowler was quite right, even if he was a little abrupt.

  "Oh, I do beg your pardon. I meant no rudeness," Gregson replied, but he was quite clearly not going to repeat that mistake. "Well, to continue, because we've a howling mass of Shaw and Gutterdige's supporters out there who simply won't believe that the great, sporting combination of these two men, the pair who were going to realise the romantic dream of the champion brought back from the brink of ruin by hard work and manly exertion - the very things that so many people use to guide their daily lives - were anything but bosom pals. No, if we lift Gutteridge we'll have to lift Mrs Amelia Shaw too and that would be a step too far without hard evidence. Some of the papers would never tolerate that."

  "But I thought that the press were set dead against Gutteridge," I neglected to mention what Holmes had told me, that he'd given the line to The Times, depending upon his good name and visceral instinct in an attempt to galvanise the pollce.

  "Some, certainly, Doctor. But there are others that simply won't have it. They'll bellow black is white that Gutteridge is innocent and that there's another, shadowy assassin on the loose and that if we arrest our main suspect without copper-bottomed proof, there'll be the devil to pay. Our name does not stand high at the moment, Doctor - but I'm surprised to have to tell you all these things."

  "The Doctor ain't been well, not at all well. He’s still suffering from one of them fevers contracted in Afghanistan," Bowler said, lingering on his final word. The Inspector looked suitably humbled by having two veritable heroes in the same room as he. The truth, though, was rather different. My mental distraction over the past couple of years meant that I'd missed all sorts of the most basic facts and events - I often though it was what made Holmes so short with me.

  "Forgive me again, Doctor. We owe so much to people like you and Mister Bowler here. But without more evidence, I fear that we're at a bit of a stalemate. That's why I was so pleased to hear that Albert Gutteridge was about to pull the oldest trick in the book by going to a private detective - if I may style Mister Holmes so - in order to hide his guilt. I expected Holmes to uncover something pretty juicy - and we could get the whole, messy business sorted out to the satisfaction of the public."

  I was riveted to hear Inspector Gregson bringing everything back to the papers and to public opinion rather than the rule of law - it was just as Holmes had predicted. "Well, Inspector, I fear that you only have myself and Bowler here instead. But tell me, you've suggested that the arrest of Mrs Shaw might also be controversial?"

  "You really have been ill if you've missed that little vixen. I'll say no more than the fact that she's as much part of the Shaw-Gutteridge circus as the men themselves. Go an' see her for yourself if you haven’t already, but don't let Mrs Watson get to know of it, leastways, not till after you've had the interview."

  "There is no Mrs Watson, Inspector." He touched upon something of a sore point. I often thought that if there is some fair creature waiting for me instead of the blue-jawed, over-brained, fiddle-scraping Holmes, that my lot might be rather easier.

  "Even better, sir, go and feast yer eyes, but just don't get carried away with her tongue," Bowler snorted quite needlessly at Gregson's awkward phrase. "No…oh no, I didn't mean anything like that Doctor. Just go and see her for yourself, sir and if Mr Holmes doesn't want to take the case, I reckon you'll do a not half-bad job," said Gregson smiling broadly and giving me what, I supposed, passed for a compliment.

  ***

  I took Bowler up onto the open top of the Number 88 omnibus in order to clear my head and sinuses of all that cloying smoke. We rattled and bumped over the setts and cobbles, the horses seeming to be some of the oldest and most threadbare that I'd seen on this route. But at least they were docile. The roads were clogged with so many bicycles, all of them with jingling bells that I would have quite expected any animal with any spirit at all to be skittering and pecking at every covey on the damn things that passed. But no, this pair just plodded on, they dragged themselves into almost a trot as we passed over Vauxhall Road Bridge and then pulled up at every bus stop in creation without seeming to need any instructions at all from the driver. They were slow these things, but at least that gave you time to think. Bowler had sensed my need for quiet, he had no excuse for any of his irritating marching tics; indeed he was utterly silent until we go off at the Tate Library.

  "You still think he did it, Doctor? The Peelers do - so do I, crafty, lying begger."

  "Yes, I do." Actually, my certainty had wandered for a while when I'd seen the act that Gutteridge put on - he was very good. But there was too much that he had been unable to tell us, too many knots left untied. "I'm positive; I expect Mrs Shaw's excuses will prove to be just as shallow as Mr Albert Gutteridge's." Now my conviction had returned, but that wasn't going to stop me from meeting the extraordinary sounding Amelia Shaw. I was quite entranced, I don't mind admitting, by the prospect of setting eyes on the woman herself. Bowler only added to my expectations.

  "Yeh, blimey, sir, I'm surprised you haven't heard of Ezekial Shaw's missus. The first thing that some of the lower members of the press suggested that there would be an unholy queue of suitors lining up outside her door once the Champ was cold. She's almost as popular as Shaw an' Gutteridge, after all the shenanigans at the training camp."

  "Really, this must have passed me by, Bowler. Tell me more." I thought she sounded most intriguing,

  "Well, Doctor, it was nothing more than the fact that every photograph, every sketch of the Champ in training seemed to include an image of Mrs Shaw - and what a right tasty piece she looks too. There was one sketch with Shaw striking one of them boxing poses you know, gloves up, on guard, with her draped all over him dressed like she was going to the races. Had all the ladies a-twitter about where she got her bodices made - I even had to buy my Alishya a satin v
ersion. But the one that got everyone hot under the collar was one of the Champ in the gym stripped down to his drawers and that with Mrs Shaw wearing a right spangly set of kit - sort of tights an' laced up vest affair that left sod all to the imagination - it was indecent, it was shocking, it was bloody marvellous." Bowler lost the normal inability of a man of his education to express himself clearly when something caught his interest. "Then she was a sensation that was only added to when all the old grannies and the God-wallopers started their moaning. I'd have thought that a man like you," I swear Bowler winked at me, "would have known all about such things,"

  "What do you mean, Bowler?" but I knew I didn't sound convincing,

  "Oh, come on, sir. We knew what you was thinking when you gave the Battalion all them pox lectures in Karachi. We saw you and the rest of the officers down the bibis' quarters when you didn't know we was watching."

  The difficulty with Bowler was that he knew me too well. Not only had he seen me at my most terrified, my lowest outside Kandahar, but he'd also known me in the fleshpots of our hot weather station. This all made him slightly over familiar from time to time and there was damn all I could do or say. In fact, I'd always appreciated the female form, in more than just an anatomical sense.

  "Bloody 'ell, sir, he's got some custom now by the sound on it," Bowler exclaimed as we opened the door to The Muscle Factory to be met by a fresher smell of sweat, that odd 'tss, tss' noise that boxers make and the scrape of light boots on canvas. There were two men wearing a new pattern of gloves, holding their fists back to front and dancing around the ring opposite each other, hurling punches with lightning speed and performing with a lethal delicacy that was new to me. Staring through the ropes with his back towards us was Gutteridge. But even as we came closer, he didn't seem to hear us - he was clearly gripped by the fight.

  "Oh, hello Doctor Watson, I wasn't expecting you," Gutteridge scarcely looked at me when I cleared my throat to announce our arrival. At first I thought this was odd, for the last time we'd met, he was most anxious to show how pleased he was to have found an ally, pretty well falling over himself to be welcoming after his initial frost. Now he was almost matter-of-fact. I wondered if we'd caught him off-guard - so to speak - if he could only act convincingly when he'd been given a while to warm up. But then I looked at his eyes - he was completely wrapped up in the fight, mesmerised by the art.

  "Two decent lads you've got here, Gutteridge," I ventured. Both were small and beautifully muscled, an Englishman and a blackman, both sweating freely. "Interesting bit of ballet.”

  "Ain't you seen the latest way with Queensbury, Doctor? No more slugging now that they've got these new, dense padded gloves. More dancing, you're right and every punch must tell, no gripping, no tripping, it's how the Yanks are starting to do it."

  The Queensbury rules had been around in England since the late Sixties - I'd seen them when they'd become the approved way of doing things in the Army in 1876 - but they were constantly evolving.

  "Want a go, Doctor? You two, knock it off." The boxers obeyed, dropped their gloves and looked at their master meekly. "You stay there, Lincoln, out you come, Hayes, have a rest. Come on Doctor, off with your coat, I know you want to - you've done a bit before, I can see that."

  I suppose it was that last phrase that flattered me into trying my hand.

  "I'll be your second, Doctor." Bowler was up on the boards before I'd even taken my coat and jacket off, holding the ropes apart as if he'd been doing it all his life.

  My instincts told me that this was unwise. I knew from what I'd been through in the past that no matter how easily a boxer is told to take it with a learner, the experienced man finds it almost impossible not to enjoy the easy meat. Why, I could remember doing it at medical school when I was in prime form, when we'd just begun to understand how gloved boxing should be practised. I'd been well matched with Tomkins, a friend of mine and a better boxer, when a new lad had been spoiling to try his luck in much the same way as I was today. Well no, not in the same way at all come to think of it. That lad didn't have Bowler dragging him through the ropes, he didn't have…oh, what the hell? I'd given that kid what-for and I now knew that I was going to get more of the same. I could almost hear Holmes's laughter already.

  "Get your braces down, Doctor and your dooks up, that's it," Gutteridge encouraged me. Bowler, who had had the gloves laced up in a flash whispered, 'Good luck, sir, give the heathen hell', and shoved me forward to meet Lincoln. Now, I wasn't warmed up and I was still not comfortable with the way that the latest style of fighting insisted that I should hold my fists, but the one thing I knew was to get my blow in first.

  I positively charged at Lincoln. He was already covered in sweat, his shirt was sopping as drops of mixture flew from his face and neck when he neatly avoided my onslaught.

  "Dance, Doctor, dance, remember, or you’ll be done for," said Gutteridge from beside the ring. I felt a bit of a tap on the side of the cheek from Lincoln as he side-stepped me, but nothing serious, so I came about and faced my man again. A patter of blows touched my upheld forearms, one dusted my forehead, but the new gloves seemed to shield the weight of the blows quite extraordinarily. So, I wound up for one of my old combination punches, one of the pugilistic cocktails that had stood me in good stead in the past and went at him with all my strength. It was infuriating. The fellow just pranced and bobbed, stepping back and bending from the waist like Indian rubber, leaving me with nothing to punch except thin air. I rounded again, noticed that I'd quite lost any dominance of the centre of the ring and that Lincoln was hardly breathing heavily.

  "Dear oh dear, Doctor, you seem to be out of condition."

  "He ain't at all, Mister Gutteridge, why you ought to see him out runnin': like a bleedin' hare, is the Doctor," I could just hear Bowler defending me above my own snorts and gasps.

  "Looks like you could do with a few sessions here at The Factory yourself, if you don't mind me saying, Mr Bowler," answered Gutteridge.

  "No, not at all. I prefer intellectual pursuits, me. Besides, it'd be a waste - this is all paid for, you know," said Bowler patting his paunch and almost distracting me from another hail-storm of punches that came fast and accurate, getting through my guard - though I don't know how - but so light as to be hardly noticeable.

  Well, this went on for another few minutes until we broke and retired to our corners. Bowler gave me the finest armchair boxer's blarney I'd heard for a while and then we were back to it. More pirouetting, more thumping of the atmosphere on my part and more soft as feather blows falling about my elbows, cheeks and nose. I had to admire the man; he got so close to me at one stage that my shirt was soaked with his sweat whilst his gloves used my ribs and belly like a drum - but none of it hurt worth a damn.

  It was unfair, I know it was, but then, as I've explained, the gentle art of pugilism isn’t fair and it certainly isn’t gentle. I was half aware of a commotion outside the ring but my heart was going so fast now that I could hardly hear what Gutteridge was saying beyond the fact that he was greeting a newcomer. It was enough, though, for Lincoln to lose concentration for just a fraction of a second. Truth was, he was probably bored of having to hit me, by the simplicity of my attempts, but then I saw my chance. I caught him a cracker.

  "Bloody hell, sir, right on the snotter!" shrieked Bowler as Lincoln staggered back, hit the ropes and sat down with a sigh.

  "Oh, bravo, Doctor!" I just heard as I leapt towards my opponent's corner more as a medical man than as his foe. I should have remembered, of course, that dealing with that sort of physical shock to the system is the mark of true fitness. I wasn't in bad shape (I'd hardly noticed my wound such was the excitement of the last few minutes) but I wasn't hardened like Lincoln. He was up like a jack-in-a-box, wiping his glove over his face to check for blood then back at me like a striking leopard, seeing that it was my turn not to be as ready as I should have been. I just had time to think that his gloves had suddenly become a lot harder and to realise that he
really had been punching at half-cock, when my world went black. Well, red, actually; red shot about with little lightning bolts, a fraction of a second's intense numbing shock and then sweet oblivion.

  ***

  "You poor man." For a moment I thought that all I'd hoped for when being preached at about eternal bliss had come true. My vision of heavenly delight was much more in line with what I now saw before me than the bearded, scripture reading, night-shirt wearing coves that the padres usually conjured up. No, a few inches from my face was an angel. Dark haired, scarlet lipped with a hat that appeared to have some sort of pheasant stuck on top of it rather than a halo, but an angel nonetheless. Who was I to argue? If He had decided that I was to be accompanied to the Styx and beyond by this lovely creature, then death seemed very promising.

  "You just lie there an' keep still, so," the cherub continued with just a hint of a brogue. It did puzzle me why God should have chosen a daughter of Erin to help him and why she should have a confection of the height of fashion upon her lustrous curls, but I didn't really care. I was just musing on this, wondering why a heavenly body was wearing such raiment and sinking myself in the deepest of indigo eyes when reality came back to me most horribly.

  "You awake, sir?" There was the same, whiskery nose, the same scrappy moustache and the same curried breath that had hung over and engulfed me too many times in the hospital in Kandahar . "You've been out for ages, sir. Caught you a fair cropper did that Mister Lincoln. Blimey, you didn't half dent the canvas." Oh Good Lord, why did you let Private Bowler pursue me to paradise, I wondered. But then I was gripped by a sudden fear; Bowler was much more likely to be in another place - perhaps this angel was a lovely devil…a devilette, or…