"That'll teach you more about the latest form of boxing than anything else, Doctor," here was another Beelzebub, a Gutteridge lookalike. "You’ll be lighter on your feet next time, Doctor Watson, sir!"
The illusion was shattered. "Pay no attention to these gougers, Doctor…" the beauty cut back in, putting such a lilt, such sauce into that last word that my senses started to clear at once. "The brute that Albert Gutteridge here puts such faith in has knocked your lights quite out and they've brought you to my wee cottage for a lie down." The honey continued to drip most agreeably and I looked around at a scrupulously tidy, fire-lit sitting room that was decorated in the palest of most fashionable canary yellows. The furniture matched and I appeared to be lying on a satin covered chaise-longue surrounded by over-stuffed cushions.
"Have I been out long?" My tongue seemed to be slightly numb, my words half-formed.
"Aye, a good five minutes, Doctor. Anyway, you're awake now. Have some of Mrs Shaw's tea and then let's be off," Bowler had donned his cloak of authority. It was typical of him, once something went wrong, back came the non-commissioned officer, the grip in the voice, the base authority. It was just what we'd all needed in the horror of Maiwand, but I didn't like it then, I didn't like it now. This wasn't Afghanistan and this was the parlour of a woman to whom I wanted to talk. A damned fine looking woman, I might add, whom I was meeting on very different terms from those upon which I had expected. I was the vulnerable one, she was in control of me and this was just the sort of situation in which she might be inclined to talk more freely. And there were those eyes - and those lips.
"I feel damn queasy," I mumbled,
"No shilly-shallying, Doctor. It's only a bump. If you still feel bad when we gets you back to Baker Street, we can let Mrs Hudson look after you," Bowler annoyingly advised.
Dear God, why would I swap this for Mrs Hudson? Why change velvet for leather, scent for starch? But, this was the time when the real man would awake. The real man would ignore his hurts, he would wobble to his feet and try to stride off heroically. But another part of this real man responded most eagerly to what proved to be the clincher.
"Will you not leave him now, you monsters? He needs a drop of tea and a minute's peace to clear his dear, bruised head," she put her palm on my forehead…she did, I promise, I hardly knew this little peach and she put her sweet-smelling palm right there on my forehead! "He's got a temperature, so he has. D'ye not need to go back to your pets in the gym, Albert Gutteridge? And you can leave your master in my temporary care, Mister…?"
"Bowler, ma'am."
"Mister Bowler, I know how to look after a gentleman right enough."
Now, normally, I'd have remonstrated with anyone who suggested that Bowler was my inferior. He was, of course he was, but I was determined to get him out of the habits of his past and to try and treat him like an equal - well, almost an equal. But now I just wanted him out of the way. I wasn't so groggy, though, that I missed how Gutteridge reacted. He'd suggested that he was about to snatch Amelia away when her husband was killed, that he was in charge and very much calling the pace. But when Amelia spoke he jumped; he jumped right well and went off with hardly a word back, I assumed, to his sweaty paradise.
"Well, if you're sure ma'am." Bowler pulled his nasty, cheap Yankee hunter out of his waistcoat pocket and was squinting at it as he reamarked, "I have got some fares to pick up tonight in time for the theatre and Mrs Bowler…I'll tell Mr Holmes what's happened, sir."
"No, no need to do that," I replied - to my shame, I could hear myself putting on a little, hurt boy's voice. "That'll only worry him. I'll be home very shortly. You've no need to bother him, but thank you." That sounded good; brave and courteous.
"You just lie there Doctor." My two companions had closed the door behind them and Amelia was taking off her coquettish hat and her top coat. Now, I don't know if the punch really had given me a fever, but I swear that she removed that garment in the same way that a professional lady might remove a corset. My eyes must have bulged. "You just recover yourself, there's all the time in the world. Those bullies can take themselves off and leave you alone. I'll look after you, so I will."
Chapter Four, Rapture.
Despite what happened later, I can't regret it. I'd had a damned hard time with all the things that had piled up when I came back from Afghanistan. Also, whilst life with Holmes was interesting, diverting even, it certainly wasn't easy. No, I felt like a bit of softness in my life and well, frankly, as Rudyard Kipling would go on to say, 'single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints'. Mrs Amelia Shaw did look after me, she looked after me so well that I let Sherlock and Mrs Hudson go hang: they could think what they damn well liked. Besides, it gave me the best chance I was going to get of interviewing Albert Gutteridge's principle accomplice.
It was about three in the morning when I went to the water closet. The Shaws' house in Aldebert Terrace was all that might expect a well rewarded sporting champion's place to be, for it was in one of the new terraces, not vast, but well appointed and with every modern convenience. I was surprised that she had no staff, but where their quarters might have been, there was now a splendid bathroom with - to my delight - wonderful plumbing including some of the latest American flush porcelain. Whilst I was applying myself to this, I noticed a poster identical to the one that Bowler had spotted in the Muscle Factory, The Great Pierce and his assistant. But only now did those luscious curves within the star-spangled corset look delightfully familiar.
"That poster in the privy…" I wandered back into the bedroom wearing nothing more than a towel, "do I recognise the young woman who's dodging Mr Pierce's blades?" There was no point in not asking. Not only was I sharing the mattress of the one-time champion of all England, I was also sharing it with the very woman who was about to elope with his trainer. This Amelia Shaw was a vixen indeed.
"You do surely, Doctor. Now come back here, won't you?"
"Oh, Amelia, I'm not sure that I can again." But she wouldn't listen.
“Doctor, when a woman asks, it's a gentleman's job to do all that he can to please her," soft enough words but said with an edge that, as I was to find out later, hid a character that brooked no argument. Anyway, there was another interlude that left me quite done up, but at least allowed me to pursue my line of questioning.
"Yes, that's me in the poster, my darling. I was the lass who let The Great Pierce practise his art on her, well, in some ways, but never quite the way he wanted." I got the whole history from her, beginning with how Gutteridge had picked her up in Pembroke Dock where he had a travelling show for the garrison there and she was fresh off the boat from Kingstown. First, he'd taught her how to fence with him so that she could be disguised as a man who slowly had most of the clothes slashed off her by Gutteridge's rapier revealing far too much, a bit of knife play and then the revolving target act. Her fame had grown, she became the main attraction, even outstripping the stable of boxers and bruisers whom The Great Pierce used to support the act. He'd bought her all the clothes she wanted, paid for cosmetics and done all that she'd asked him to in order to allow her to bolster her feminine wiles. Eventually, after shows like the one at Chesterfield that I already knew about, the act had become so decadent, so scandalous that Albert had decided to follow a new tack. "And that came after the appearance of Mr Ezekial Shaw," she told me.
"Did he just come out of nowhere?" I interrupted,
"He did surely. We were on the Roodee one day after Chester races, our stalls were set up next to the fair tents and this strapping feller says he's up from working on the quayside, knocks down two of our finest lads and refuses to take the golden guinea reward, preferring to seek a job with the Great Pierce, little realising that he was just about to be offered a whole of a lot more if he'd accept Gutteridge's inducements. Well, the thing just took off from there."
Amelia snuggled into my arms, puffing a cheroot despite all my advice to the contrary and told me how the show had gone from travelling the fairs to
semi-permanence in Doncaster on the back of Shaw's first big wins and its evolution from novelty acts to professional pugilism as Shaw and lesser stars had kept not just abreast of the changing modes of boxing, but had even set the trend. Finally, with yet more winnings coming in, The Muscle Factory had been set up off the the South Lambeth Road a year or so before Shaw took the all-England title and the fame and wealth of the place had grown and grown. This account was heavily interrupted by all sorts of warm-blooded attentions from Amelia, whose part in events had hardly been granted a mention.
"But, my dear you've hardly said anything about where you were in all this, your move from innocence to grieving widowhood," I ventured.
"Innocent! Grieving – ha! When Ezekial came a-jiggin' off the Roman wall that day up Chester I'd not seen anything so dashing in my life. Now, it would be fair to say I was no blushing maid, I'd had me outings and I'd had to learn how to look after myself in that damned act. I spent half the day stripped to the hide with every man in creation trying to grab me as I whirled around on that wheel then had to get the straps off all dizzy-like. Once, in Liverpool, I even had to threaten a sailor who'd had too much grog with a throwing knife. It was getting really nasty - I was actually ready to cut the feller when Albert heard the commotion, came in and almost thrashed the rogue to death. Why, if I hadn't pulled him off, he'd have killed him with his bare hands. But then he wasn't no better himself; always trying to paw me about, the great creature."
This seemed at odds with what I'd already heard, but I let her continue.
"I'd always kept business as far away from fun as I could. But Ezekial was different, the moment I saw him I wanted him and he'd only been with us a few days before I offered to take the bruises from out of him after a session with a feller much bigger than he was. Well, I did - and much more…now don't go blushin' on me…"
I wasn't blushing at all, for I could tell that Amelia was mistress of her trade and had clearly served a thorough apprenticeship.
"Anyway, we were married within a six-month span, just as the money started to roll in. You remember how Ezekial shot to fame?"
I knew some of it, for sure. I'd been abroad, though, and my mind had been elsewhere, but it was only polite to pretend that I knew every detail,
"We bought a nice wee house in Donny, I fell pregnant and everything in the garden seemed rosy until I lost the wee'un at six months. At first I thought that Ezekial would soon regain his appetite for me - I worked hard to get my belly down and the fat off; I went back to all those exercises that I'd done when I was prancing around fencing and spinning for Albert and in no time I was fitting back in the corsets and things that had so caught Ezekial's eye when we first met, but it was no good. He said that the training was too much for him, that he had to be in prime condition and that the doctors had told him to not to spill his vital juices. Ha, spill 'em! He hosed them all around Sheffield, Nottingham, Salford, wherever he could, every little slut in creation - but I soon learnt not to care."
Despite this denial, I could see how Amelia was twisting the corner of a pillow case. Her hands had gone white from the tightness of her grip and she was obviously knotted up inside.
"Did you not think about leaving him?"
"A fine question, my jewel. I asked myself the same, I asked myself a thousand times, but the money was flooding in, then we'd bought this house here in Aldebert Terrace. I was also all over the papers - at the training camp, at the theatre, at fancy restaurants with the man who was going to keep his title against all comers. And I found myself just hoping that the the press wouldn't find out about his drab Kitty Vavasour and oh, the entire thing was just a mess," and with this her whole facade collapsed. One minute she'd been spitting fire, the next she was a piece of sodden tow, bawling, helpless. I tried to comfort her, put my arms about her, smoothed her hair - the usual drill in these cases and I did indeed succeed in calming her a little. I probably should have left it there, gone off and got her some hot milk with a nip in it and been content to find a little more out after a later bout. But no, I was the one who was always telling Holmes he was too impulsive, that he lacked patience and yet here I was making the same mistake. The details about Kitty Vavasour could follow, but first -
"And I suppose this was what drove you back into Albert Gutteridge's arms?"
"Gutteridge; that wee gouger? I've told you already, I never let him get one of his maulers anywhere near me, what sort of a woman do you think I am?"
Well, I knew the answer to that, but I reckoned any expansion on the subject would not be helpful just at the moment.
"He's a thing, so he is, and you think I'd let him," - and the yowling started again. It was worse than before, she shook with remorse and there was nothing that I could do to console her. Finally, when she'd rebuffed all my attempts to soothe her and I'd realised that I would get nothing more useful from her, Amelia came out with the inevitable, "Oh, leave me won't you?" as her shoulders shook uncontrollably, "leave me to my bloody misery."
So I did, picking up my clothes from the floor, the stairs, the parlour where they'd been strewn, levering myself into them and stealing out into the half-light of a winter's dawn tired and physically sated, but knowing that Mrs Amelia Shaw held the key to her husband's murder. At least I had the name of the woman with whom Ezekial Shaw was involved at the time of his death and yet Amelia had denied any affair with the very man who was about to elope with her - or so he claimed. She seemed to have taken away any motive for the prime suspect to kill her husband. I could see that I'd have to interview Mrs Shaw again and whilst that would be exhausting, I suspected that I could rise to the challenge.
***
I knew how scarce cabs would be at this time of the morning and was hurrying along Bolney Street hoping that I'd find one parked in Dorset Road when I saw a figure running slowly towards me on the other side of the road. I could see weights in his hand, he was punching them forward in front of his face from time to time in the way that boxers do - I'd done the same when I'd been training. It was clearly some worthy on his way for a very early session in the Muscle Factory, I guessed, so I pulled the peak of my cap just a little lower just in case we'd seen each other the day before. But then, to my delight, I heard the clopping of hooves somewhere near. Out of the mist came a hansom cab.
"Baker Street please, cabby…why, bless my soul! What in the name of the devil are you doing here? I'm glad to see you, but what a coincidence," I exclaimed, having had no idea that Bowler worked south of the river,
"Aye, sir, small world, ain't it. Soon have you back home, jump up," but he was almost matter-of-fact about it, asking me no questions at all - thank the Lord - just taking his payment, refusing a tip, winking and saying, "call me when you need me, sir," as he dropped me at 221b Baker Street.
I looked at my watch; it was a little after five and twenty past six and almost fully light. The challenge now would be to get back into the house, creep up two flights of stairs and get to my room that lay opposite Holmes's without being discovered. Holmes's habits were erratic for sometimes he'd be up until all hours and then sleep late whilst another day he'd be in bed by ten o'clock, oblivious to the world under the effect of one brand of fumes or another. But, I cared less about his knowing that I'd been away from home overnight and drawing the inevitable conclusions, than I did about Mrs Hudson. Clearly, I was a fully grown adult with the scars to prove it and how I lived my life was my concern and not those of my landlady. I paid her to provide a bed, food and a water-tight roof above me, not moral guidance…and yet. But, as I stood there in the gutter of a deserted Baker Street, I decided to brazen it out. What cared I if Mrs Hudson found out that I'd been paying-court? What business was it of hers? She'd be up and about by this time but she might be below stairs, so I walked firmly up the steps of the house, reached for my key - and then all boldness fled for I decided that my boots would not tread as softly on the boards as my stocking feet.
I'd just got my second boot off, my socks leaving big,
hot imprints on the cold stone of the doorstep and was fumbling with the key when the door swung open of its own accord. That gaze, though, turned me to a pillar of salt: there was Mrs Hudson wearing her pinafore like a cuirass, hefting a dustpan and brush with an expression as cold as charity. It can only have been a second or two, but it seemed like an eternity as she inspected me more minutely than any adjutant, taking in every detail from my toes to the crown of my cap, apparently not one jot surprised to see me. Finally, she broke the silence.
"Well, Doctor, it's good of you to save me the trouble of having to fetch your boots to black them." She reached out, took them from me, bent down and handed me my slippers. Then she dropped her voice, "Give me your coat, hat and stick, Doctor. He's already about, I fear, in the sitting room. I'm just going to take him some tea, why don't you go up and join him, he'll never know, he'll just think you're up early."
Ha, this tickled me! It was good of Mrs Hudson to try to protect me, but I didn't care. Holmes would find out soon enough and if he didn't like it, he could whistle. Well, that's what I thought to utter but instead I heard myself saying, very meekly, "Oh, thank you, yes, yes Mrs Hudson," and walking up the stairs towards the sitting room desperately trying to work out what I would say if Holmes confronted me.
He didn't. He barely acknowledged my, "Good morning, Holmes," from behind his newspaper, remaining just where he was in his armchair, one foot draped over the other. He didn't even stir when Mrs Hudson brought in a pot of tea for us.
"Tea, Holmes; will you have some?" I tried to sound nonchalant, well rested,
"I'd be in your debt," he mumbled without the paper moving an inch. I poured the tea, placed it next to him in complete silence, picked up a magazine and was just beginning to think that he was far too absorbed in something else when he spoke without dropping the broadsheet.
Doctor Watson's Casebook Page 9