Doctor Watson's Casebook

by Patrick Mercer

  "Doctor", Bowler said quietly from the driver's seat, whip in hand and quite at odds with the confident voice that came from the interior.

  "Come on, Watson, jump in." There sat Holmes, muffled up in his tweed Inverness, puffing at his pipe and smiling thinly. "Right, Bowler, Baker Street please. I dare say Mrs Hudson will have tea ready with muffins," he continued cheerily, quite oblivious to my mood. "Well, my dear fellow, how was our lovely culprit, unrepentant, I suppose? You've pulled off quite a coup, you know," and with this he shook out a copy of the evening paper across the front of which was splashed the headline, "Justice! Champion's Wife to Hang!"

  "I don't know what to say. She was, she was extraordinary," I muttered and tried to deflect him by raising my voice above the noise of the horse's hooves. "Thank-you for coming to get me, Bowler."

  "S'all right, Doctor," he replied. But Holmes wasn't to be cheated of his moment.

  "Ha, it's been a damn good job that I asked Bowler not just to come and pick you up, but to keep a weather eye on you throughout this whole, sordid little case. Gutteridge certainly owes his life to him and I reckon you owe him a vote of thanks, too. What d'you say, Bowler?" and I thought I heard Bowler mutter in best barrack room manner.

  "Fuck all, sir." Before, much louder, "Oh, aye, Mister Holmes, sir, whatever you say."

  "Yes, Bowler and I have been quite concerned about you. Luckily, he listened to exactly what I told him and was on hand not just when that Moriarty fellow roughed you up, but also when Gutteridge was on the prowl/ Oh, I say, Bowler, do be careful, you almost had me out on the road then!" Holmes yelped as the cab dipped its off-side wheel - the side upon which he was sitting - into a deep rut.

  "Oh, sorry sir, must have missed that one," and I swear he looked back at me and half raised an eyebrow.

  "Yes, well just keep your eyes peeled. Now, where were we?" Holmes recovered his composure. "No, I'm sorry that you've come out of this little affair in such a bruised state." Amelia had hardly mentioned my knocks and slung arm, but not Holmes. "But you really have saved me an awful lot of trouble and, I daresay, learnt a very great deal. It'll stand you in good stead, you know, if I have to ask you to take on another case on your own," he remarked, paused and jabbed at his pipe.

  "I don't recall you asking me to do anything, Holmes. I took this on because you wouldn't do it," I answered, trying not to let my indignation show.

  "Ha, you're right. I'm afraid I did practise a little bit of - how shall I put it? -ring craft. You see, I knew that if I asked you to do it, you'd probably refuse. Why should you take on something that I'd swerved? I baited the hook a little, I admit, what with all that talk of half naked showgirls and the like - I knew you wouldn't resist that and I even put on a show of most appalling petulance: forgive me. I was sure that it was Gutteridge until I saw him in the flesh and then it was obvious that he was not guilty - but I guessed he knew who was. The papers had made no progress so I set you a nice little poser upon which to whet your skills. No, it was clear as a pikestaff to me as soon as I met Gutteridge that he wasn't our man, that he was trying to shield someone and hoping to use me to throw the police and papers off the scent. I thought you'd spotted it too."

  "Spotted what?" I was getting very tired of his games.

  "Why, the fact that he's left handed. You must have seen how he handled his cane and drawn the same conclusion that I did. Shaw was knifed by a right handed assassin yet Gutteridge was distinctly sinister."

  "So you sent me off to find out what you already knew by almost getting myself beaten to death?” It was almost too much coming on top of the ghastly business with Amelia.

  "I thought it would do you good. Something to get your teeth into, take your mind off your other woes. And now see what's happened, you've brought one of England's most ruthless murderesses to justice, enjoyed all sorts of other distractions along the way and quite made your name. Besides, I knew that once I given Bowler orders to look after you, you'd be fine…", but even before Holmes had finished, the cab lurched most horribly, quite upsetting the Great Detective. “Bowler, please, have a care, can't you? Drive more in the centre of the road, keep out of the potholes!"

  "Oh, sorry, Mister Holmes, it's a good job me and the Doctor have got you to guide us." And I swear Bowler winked again.

  Doctor Watson’s Charge

  Chapter 1.

  "Damn me, Mrs Hudson," I exclaimed, and I knew I'd sinned most horribly the moment I said it.

  "I'm sure you will be, Doctor – language like that," she replied with one of her icy, perpetual sniffs while we stood in the hall of 221b Baker Street as the water dripped off my coat and started to make little puddles on the waxed floor boards. "Stand away from the carpet, can't you, Sir? The poor wee thing's not seen a flood like this since Noah used it in that Ark of his."

  I had dragged the rug back from Afghanistan with me. I had bought it for nothing in the bazaar in Kandahar and used it in my hut and tent. It had seen better days even when it was new to me: now it looked worn, threadbare and damp at the corner – I knew the feeling well.

  "Aye, it's an inundation alright." I had walked back from a rather modest lunch in my club in Piccadilly, hoping to save a cab fare and stride off one of those strange set of shivers that had beset me since I'd awoken this morning. It was very odd; most days I was fine, I could concentrate on my work and went about things without a care in the world. Then other days I'd wake early, doze and then get up and shave with a curious, tingly feeling creeping about my shoulders and neck, a sense of dread stalking me that would only be shifted by a hard, sharp run or a long walk that left me breathless. The soaking hadn't helped.

  "I'll hang your coat in the kitchen, Sir, dry it off. But don't let me forget it, will you? It'll singe if it gets too dry." The fox's mask looked down at me as he always did, hanging there over the door that led down a steep flight of steps from the dark little hall to the kitchen. "Mr Holmes has got a Captain Smethwick with him, Sir. They've been talking a while, they have; he asked for you to join him as soon as you're free."

  "Did he, by God?"

  "He did, Sir, though what the Almighty has to do with it I couldn't say," she replied with another sniff.

  "Indeed, Mrs Hudson. And what do you make of our visitor?" I always fancied that the inexpert snarl into which Foxy had been fixed was really a knowing grin. He was on my side, I knew, a fellow victim of persecution, and occasionally I would get a wink from one of his glassy eyes.

  "Couldn't really say, Sir. Man in his forties, I'd guess, military type from the title and the visiting card – one of those new photographic ones showing him in uniform. Probably up from the country judging by his tweeds."

  It was catching, this habit of Holmes's, I thought to myself. Even Mrs Hudson couldn't resist an attempt to analyse everything and everyone.

  "Visiting card; may I have a look?" They'd become very fashionable recently, a little paste-board card with a photograph of yourself on the reverse.

  "You can, Sir, but I took it up to Mr Holmes," she replied.

  "And tweeds, you say?"

  "Yes, Sir, there's his coat hanging there…" she said pointing to a great, heavy herringbone on one of the hooks next to the looking glass, "…and that's his cane."

  I felt the coat – it was new and told me nothing, but the stick was a thick affair, cut from thorn with a ferrule and a most handsome oval, gold cartouche at the top, well engraved with 'JACS' – his initials, I guessed – and the number '11'.

  "He looks like the real thing, Mrs Hudson, not one of those Johnny-come-lately tradesman's sons who was bought a commission in something strange then spends his time loafin' round London dressed for the shires, wouldn't you say?"

  "Sure as I don't know, Sir. Mr Holmes was most particular that you should go up as soon as you got in, though. He had the gentleman with him for about ten minutes, then excused himself and was a-hissin' at me to get you upstairs as soon as you came in – an' that must be twenty minutes ago, Sir…"

>   I loathed the way that Mrs Hudson fussed over Holmes's whims. She was always prodding and pushing me around.

  "Go on then, Sir. Don't dither about an' provoke the man, you know what he's like, he'll have been timing you in his head, so he will, and wondering why I've detained you." There was just a hint of hysteria in her voice, silver hair bobbing in its bun in time with her turkey-wattle chin.

  So, giving Reynard a comradely nod, I set off up the stairs just idly enough to show Mrs Hudson that I'd suit myself, stumping slowly up to the first floor landing, pausing to straighten my tie and run a hand over my hair that seemed to grow faster now than when I was younger, grasped the door handle noisily, paused to give Holmes some slight warning, and walked in.

  And there was Captain JAC Smethwick – at least, I assumed that's who it was, standing stock still, his profile silhouetted against the sitting room widow. A big man, mid-forties as Mrs Hudson had said, well made, almost beefy, with a florid, outdoor complexion and one of those damned long moustaches and a funny little trifle of triangular whisker on his lower lip that young Napoleon had made so fashionable. Well, fashionable after a set of Zulu spearman had punctured him a bit and left him to leak to death out on the veldt a couple of years back. It had been a sensation and the hairy compliment had come to be called an 'imperial' – all the swells wore them: ghastly things.

  Equally still, glaring straight back at Smethwick sat Holmes in his dressing gown and that weird old stocking cap, both long, white hands laid gently on the arms of his horse-hair covered chair, his feet casually crossed, one slipper dropped, the other halfway adrift. But he wasn't staring just at Smethwick: his eyes were fixed on the double barrels of a nasty little Derringer pocket pistol, with the good Captain's thumb poised on the hammer.

  Well, what would you do? In the fraction of a second that I had to decide, it did strike me as odd that neither man seemed to have moved as I made my noisy approach, but as Smethwick glanced at me, taking his eyes off his victim for just an instant, I launched myself with a great roar. Now, I don't know why I roared, it just came naturally as I bunched both fists and hurled myself as I might once have done on the rugby field. But, beefy or not, Smethwick moved like a cat, pulling himself back from my flèche and letting me sprawl over another chair, splintering a side table as I did so and quite taking the wind out of me. This wasn't the first time I had grovelled at the feet of an armed man – memories of Maiwand which scarcely needed to be fished to the surface, came shrieking back, not to mention the hiding that Albert Gutteridge had given me not so long ago. I curled into a ball and waited for a boot or bullet.

  But there was silence and no pain. No pain until an icy, supercilious voice broke the quiet.

  "That's as neat a job of cutting kindling as I've ever seen, Watson. Shame it's Chippendale." I peeped out from my enveloping arms to see Holmes half risen from his chair and Smethwick reaching down to me.

  "Oh, oh my word, that's too funny! I'm so sorry, Sir, I can quite see what you took it for…oh, oh damn me…" Smethwick chortled on as he lifted me to my feet, "…you must have thought I was about to plug your master…" even in my winded state I resented that – Holmes was no master of mine. "But why would I shoot the very man whose services I need? No, Sir, I was merely showing him the piece that I carry about with me. We were waiting for you and admiring Mr Holmes's handiwork," Smethwick pointed to the wall-paper pocked into a royal 'VR' by Holmes and his Smith & Wesson one night when the opium had been wisping too thickly. "I thought I'd show him what I carry about the place – I am so sorry to have alarmed you."

  I was on my feet, now, still gasping.

  "Captain Smethwick, you will have already gathered that this is my colleague Dr Watson," Holmes introduced us with just a hint of a smile.

  "Aye, and a damn fine guardian angel you make, Sir…" Smethwick was doing a barely adequate job of suppressing his smirks before adding as a nice little sweetener, "…almost as good an angel as you are a sleuth, Sir. The Ezekial Shaw case was prettily done."

  He had made a good recovery, masking his mirth quite well with a decent compliment that made Holmes frown, I noticed.

  "Well, thank you, er Captain Smethwick, you are swift on your feet too, if I may say." I duly shook his hand.

  "Right gentlemen, enough. Your lateness, Watson, has detained Captain Smethwick too long: I have had to ask him to pause already. Now, we will get some tea and allow our guest to come to the point, shall we?"

  My embarrassment was added to by Mrs Hudson clucking about with the broken sticks of Holmes's once fine table and then making much ado about tea and fruit cake. However, finally my blushes were allowed to subside – without a damn word of thanks from Holmes for acting as his bullet catcher, mark you – and we started on Smethwick's tale.

  "Gentlemen, I must demand your absolute discretion over what I am about to tell you…" the Captain laid his china cup down with surprising care, settled into his chair and made a pyramid of his fingers. "Does the name Adeline de Horsey, Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre mean anything to you?"

  Well, he might as well have asked, 'have you ever heard of a lass called Good Queen Bess?' for de Horsey was as well known in Victorian England as Elizabeth had been in Raleigh's times – albeit for rather different reasons. Both Holmes and I nodded for de Horsey dominated column inches of the papers whenever she drew breath. She was a fabulous creature, 58 years old now but still an ornament to whatever lucky fellow was allowed to tighten her girth strap. She had shot to fame as Lord Cardigan's mistress whom he was famously straddling even as his first wife (and that marriage was a scandal in its own right) lay dying. Then, not happy with only one woman, Cardigan made no secret of his attachment to the Marchioness of Ailesbury whom the lovely Adeline seemed to tolerate. That all started back in the 50s, whilst the debacle known as the Russian War and all that bloody muddle in the Crimea was fresh in everyone's minds.

  And the name of Cardigan was, of course, synonymous with the Crimea. An outrageous character who had been stripped of the command of one cavalry regiment, winged some poor fellow in a duel – whilst duelling had long been a capital offence – famously abused the command of the 11th Light Dragoons, and had then been surrounded by controversy after the charge at Balaklava. Some called him a hero and others a dog. The fact remained that no-one really knew what had happened in that smoke-filled valley, but his aristocratic coolness and wealth was matched only by his arrogance. Now he had the sons and daughters of toil swooning at his very name and this allowed the wretched Lord to get away with what amounted to the murder of dozens of his own men.

  Then into the lives of Lord and Lady Cardigan, the Brudenells, – in swooped de Horsey like some great, exotic cuckoo and set up shop in Deene Park deep in the best fox-hunting country in Northamptonshire, scandalising all whom she touched, yet apparently gliding through life on a gold embossed magic carpet whilst admirers peeled grapes for her. How did I know so much about de Horsey and Cardigan? Well, who could fail to, they were the most loathed and loved couple of their generation, he with his retinue of ageing Balaklava heroes and she with the looks of a goddess and the cheek of Lucifer. Even as a young man I had followed their doings in the papers and felt a strange pang of loss when the old humbug had fallen off his horse in March sixty-eight and woken up stone dead. Some said it was a heart attack, some said he'd been kicked by his mount when he fell, but it didn't really matter because he was cold mutton and mighty was the fuss as his body was born to its grave by his brother officers and every old buffer who'd strapped on a spur south of Sebastopol wiped away a manly tear.

  I'd only been a nipper when all this happened, but I continued to be fascinated by de Horsey who became the self-proclaimed chatelaine of the Brudenell estates and, to the delight of the penny rags, made it clear that she'd been written to by Benjamin Disraeli with a proposal of marriage. The story went that they'd somehow known each other for years and she, finding herself with a loose stirrup leather after the loss of her husband, led Dizzy
on appallingly. He, wise cove, kept his mouth shut, though there was much speculation that their relationship at one time had been rather more physical than most thought good for the poor little fellow. She was an Amazon by anybody's lights whilst he was slight of frame and never in robust health. The mind quailed at what might have happened to our foreign policy if Disraeli had been locked between the thighs of de Horsey rather than having his mind on that job – so to speak. Why, there could had been chaos – it could almost have been as bad as Gladstone being in charge, which, come to think of it, he was – yet again!

  "Of course we know of the Dame of Deen," answered Holmes and I noticed just the slightest of frowns cross Smethwick's features. "Do you know her too?"

  "I…I, yes I do," Smethwick faltered, "I'm employed at Deene Park as the Countess's factor."

  Now, you know, just sometimes, how you can detect things straight away – especially matters of the heart? I can't confess to be particularly good at such intuitive things – and Holmes, having the emotions of a pumice stone, was utterly useless in those areas. No, it was much more of a female knack. Why, Mrs Hudson would weigh up a fellow's love life in the time it took to catch the pox. Anyway, despite my less than perfect powers of deduction, it stood out like the sorest of thumbs that Smethwick was attached to the woman, even if de Horsey was old enough to be his mother.

  "Yes, I was employed there after I sold out when I came back from Abyssinia. You see, his Lordship and I had been firm friends since I saved his life out East and there had always been an understanding that when I finally handed my cherry pants in…"

  I must have looked confused, for Holmes cut in, "…ah, you were an 11th Hussar, were you, Captain Smethwick?"

  "I was, Mr Holmes, same as Lord Cardigan…" I should have been able to work that out having seen '11' on Smethwick's cane, but then everyone wore khaki in my military days, no time for jack-o-dandy stuff when the Ghazi were at your throat.