‘Sarah, you mean? Don’t be bleeding stupid, she’s nobody’s girl. She’s had more men than you’ve had hot dinners.’
‘Supposing I told you I knew she’d rung you that night.’
Jack made a growling noise. Harry answered, with undiminished good humour. ‘You wouldn’t try to plant that on us, Mr Devenish. If you want to know who killed Pow, ask the nig nogs, those Beastlies. Not that I’ve got anything against ’em, mind you, only you can’t trust ’em. Jack here had a black girl-friend who was supposed to be a virgin, and what happened? He caught a dose.’
‘Okay now, free sparring,’ Riverboat Jackson said. The thirty young men and half-a-dozen women advanced towards each other, making chopping gestures and every so often kicking up their right legs in a balletic manner. There was a minimum of bodily contact, although the flying kicks delivered barefoot landed occasionally on thigh or backside.
Half of them were blacks, and Riverboat was black too, a big Negro who was said to have got his name from working a gambling boat on the Mississippi, although for all Devenish knew that might have been a romantic invention. The place was called the Anglo-American Fitness and Athletic Club. It was used a good deal by blacks, and Riverboat occasionally dropped a bit of information about black militants. Now he called out words of encouragement and criticism.
‘Number fourteen there, don’t twist your body, you’ll lose balance. Balance, balance, remember what I said, I didn’t give you a technique for falling over, but that’s what half of you have got. Number twenty-six there, good, that’s good, got a bit of style. Remember what I said about blocking, as well as the punching techniques. Uke-waza, now, uke-waza, you defend as well as attack.’ He winked at Devenish, murmured, ‘Rubbish, the lot,’ then clapped his hands. The free sparring stopped. ‘That’s it, boys and girls. Remember now, technique’s the word, you got to have it. For the strike, uchi-waza. For the kick, keri-waza. The punch, tsuki-waza. The block, uke-waza. Remember.’ He demonstrated, and Devenish admired the grace with which he performed punch and kick. Riverboat raised a hand, and the group left him for the changing-rooms. He shrugged. ‘Rubbish, but it’s money, you can’t deny it.’
Devenish was looking round. They were in a hall near Euston, a former Methodist chapel turned over to physical instead of mental health. Another part of the hall, separated by ropes from the rest, was used as a gymnasium. A vaulting horse stood in one corner and parallel bars in another, ropes looped from the ceiling, there was a boxing ring. Riverboat followed his gaze.
‘Tonight’s karate class, but I teach everything. Judo, Kwang fu, the noble art of self defence. Riverboat’s an expert in them all. Just wait while I change.’ Like the class he was barefoot, and wearing loose white jacket and trousers. ‘It’s karate that interests you?’
‘Right.’
‘Thought it might be. You can buy me a beer.’
In the saloon bar of the Three Chairmen up the road, Riverboat drank two pints of beer quickly, and shook his head to suggestions that the Beastlies might have used karate as a lulling method.
‘What would they be doing that for? Some of those boys got guns, all of ’em got knives, what’d be the point?’
‘Fooling policemen like me.’
‘Man, you’re too subtle.’ He showed his splendid teeth, laughing. ‘Subtle those kids ain’t.’
‘Say one of them had karate training in the army, became an expert, how about that?’
‘Mr Devenish, you don’t know much about karate.’ Devenish agreed. ‘You know what karate-ka means, it means karate player. It’s a sport, you understand.’
‘Oh, come on now. You mean those boys in there were learning it as a sport, like cricket or tennis?’
‘Not cricket or tennis, but I’m telling you they’re not going out to kill anybody. Self-defence, yes, it’s useful. Attack, not so much. In the army they don’t teach karate, just unarmed combat. Turn around, I’ll show you.’ Devenish unwisely turned, and found an arm immediately encircling his neck, so that he was gasping for breath. The barman put down a glass he was drying and came up. Devenish waved him away, dug in thumbs below the arm, levered his hand in, broke the grip, and moved away. Riverboat’s grin split his face.
‘See? Unarmed combat. Garrotting, like the Indian thugs. Karate, no.’
‘Are you telling me there’s no such thing as a karate chop?’
‘Yes, there’s a karate chop all right. But you know anyone who’s ever used it to kill? I don’t, not me, not old Riverboat. I tell you what I reckon. You want to kill somebody with karate you use a straight punch on his throat first. Like this – thrust, then twist.’ The meaty fist came within an inch of Devenish’s throat. ‘Throat or jaw, those are the points. I hit you like that, believe me you’re helpless. Not for minutes, but for seconds, you’re helpless. Then I push down the head’ – the Chief Superintendent allowed his head to be lowered – ‘and then the chop. Maybe once, maybe twice, maybe we have to chop three times.’ A hand hard as a board just touched his neck. He straightened up. ‘And for this chop you need practice. Don’t you try it, Mr Devenish, all you’ll say is, oh ah, that hurts.’ Riverboat shook his hand in mock-agony, drained his glass. ‘You have one with me?’
‘No thanks, I must go. You’re not saying it’s impossible, only that he’d have to be skilful.’
‘Right. Something else. Trying to kill with a karate chop, a professional wouldn’t do it. You punch just a little bit wrong first, you hurt him but not enough. To escape from somebody, yes, the punch is fine. For an attack, no. Too difficult, not sure enough. I’m not saying it can’t be done, you understand, only that a pro wouldn’t try it. What you’re looking for, Mr Devenish, is an amateur.’
Chapter Six The Haynes Family in The Morning
Sheridan Haynes, his long form wrapped in a dressing-gown, sat drinking hot black coffee, eating slightly burnt toast, reading The Times. Val, wearing a twin set, was doing the same thing while reading the Daily Telegraph. They were both papers that had been there in the past, when Holmes smoked his before breakfast pipe while studying the agony column.
A continuous hooting outside seeped through their consciousness. He went to the window. Two cars had collided. A green Ford Capri, coming from a side street, was locked with a Jaguar that had been going along Baker Street. The wings of both cars were crumpled, rather as though they were bulls locking horns. The owners of the cars had jumped out of them and were moving militantly towards each other. Seen from above they looked like puppets. Another puppet, Cassidy the traffic warden, ran to separate them as they seemed about to give battle. The hooting, presumably from one of the cars’ horns which had got stuck, stayed in Sher’s ears as he moved away from the window.
Val spoke without looking up from her paper. ‘If you don’t like the heat you should get out of the kitchen.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He turned to her, away from the window.
‘I think you do.’ She took a cigarette, lighted it carefully, puffed. He knew that it must be ten o’clock, which was when she had her first cigarette of the day. Val was a woman who lived by her habits, the first cigarette around ten o’clock and never more than fifteen a day, the first drink after midday and never more than two before lunch or dinner. Many women looked untidy at breakfast, but Val would have been ready to receive royalty. She had been as composed and practical when shows he was in folded, as she was when they got the news that the Sherlock Holmes contract was going to bring more money in a single year than they had seen before in five.
‘If you don’t like the noise, why come and live here? What was wrong with Weybridge?’
Outside, miraculously, the horn stopped. He went to the window again. A toy policeman was on the scene, talking to the militants. Cassidy had vanished. The collision had caused a hold-up. The cars looked like beetles, filthy little dung-beetles, as they nosed their way inch by inch towards – towards nothing, that was the truth. Dung-beetles at least had an objective but the purpose of thes
e creatures was simply movement, the result a smearing of their excrement over everything civilised. The whole of Baker Street was filled with these objects, they were crawling all over the world. He could feel them on his skin.
‘Nothing was wrong with Weybridge.’ He moved back again, sat down. ‘But you know how pleased the company were when we agreed to make the break.’
‘Don’t give me that.’ She tapped ash carefully into an ashtray. Val was a great ash-tapper. ‘You know very well you were mad keen to do it, once Willie made the suggestion. Weybridge suited me perfectly. Near enough to London to get up in half an hour for a play or a film, a nice easy suburban social life. I’m a suburban woman, as you’ve said.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Oh yes, you did,’ she said implacably, and he knew that if he argued she would be able to tell him the date and the time at which the words had been spoken. ‘And you were right. Coffee mornings and that antique shop, it suited me very well. I like it here, I can even take the Sherlock stuff, I’m adaptable. I don’t want you complaining, that’s all, or thinking that Sherlock will last for ever. It won’t.’
‘Val. Darling.’
She submitted to his embrace rather than returning it.
‘I’ve got to go to a sale in Croydon.’ She had bought a small antique shop of her own in Greenwich, which she ran with an assistant, and it was flourishing. She had a nose for the kind of sale at which the Victorian bric-à-brac she specialised in might be going at reasonable prices. As she was going out of the door she added, ‘Besides, Sherlock Holmes had no time for women, you’ve told me that often enough.’
Left alone in the apartment he settled down to learn his lines, something which he had found increasingly difficult in recent months. The post came through the door, later than usual. There were three letters for him, and a magazine. One letter was from their son Charles, who had taken a job on an Australian sheep-farm after a year at an agricultural college. The gist of his six pages was that he was well, and the sheep were even better. Another letter asked Sher to open a new store in Highgate. The third began, ‘Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes, I hope you can help me…’ It went on to say that the writer’s husband had disappeared, and that it was difficult to tell him all the circumstances in a letter, so that she would be grateful for a personal interview. There was no indication whether the woman thought that she was writing to Sheridan Haynes playing Sherlock Holmes, or to the detective himself. He received one or two letters like this every week, almost all of them from women. At first he had answered them, but then one of the women had come round and accused him of kidnapping her baby daughter. Since then he had had a card printed, which read: ‘Mr Sheridan Haynes thanks you for your letter, but regrets that he cannot deal with any queries in relation to Sherlock Holmes.’
He put one of these cards in an envelope, addressed it. Then he rang up his agent Desmond O’Malley, and arranged that Desmond would fix a fee for the store opening. On Desmond’s advice, and with the company’s agreement, he refused all offers to appear in advertisements, because it had been decided that they would be bad for his image. This, however, was different.
‘That was a lively piece in News Time,’ Desmond said. He had taken care never to lose his soft Irish brogue. ‘Beautiful, Sher boy, you really told ’em.’
When he had rung off he opened the magazine. It was News Time and the story covered nearly three pages. The headline read:
Sherlock Could Solve Karate Killings
says TV’s Sherlock Holmes
Chapter Seven Rise and Slight Fall of a Great Detective
It was not quite true that the pilot script had been done as a send-up of Sherlock Holmes, nor was it altogether false. At the beginning Willie Lowinsky had expounded the idea to the Director of Programmes over lunch at the Connaught.
‘We play the stories absolutely and totally straight, you understand me. We recreate this wonderful lost Victorian world and the monsters who inhabited it. Such villains. Such heroes.’ Willie gave his ‘rs’ an airing as though he were gargling.
The Director nibbled thoughtfully at his whitebait, and did not comment. Impassivity had taken him a long way. The Assistant Director, who wore a green corduroy suit and an enormous red tie, voiced doubts.
‘It’s bound to be comic. Wouldn’t do as a series. Might try a one-shot, play it for the laughs.’
‘No no no no.’ Willie spoke with passion. ‘We must be absolutely serious. If people laugh they laugh, but it will be with the Great Detective, not at him. I stake my reputation on it.’ He put a hand on his heart. Willie was a great staker of his reputation.
‘Who did you have in mind?’
‘Sheridan Haynes.’
‘Not much of a name,’ the Assistant Director said. The Director nodded agreement. He had never heard of Sheridan Haynes.
‘And not such a great actor,’ Willie agreed cheerfully. The Director took a piece of brown bread and butter, and raised his eyebrows. ‘A bit of a ham, a bit out of date. But for this he is perfect. He looks wonderful, that tall ascetic look that is so very English. And he knows Sherlock Holmes, he has read all the stories, he is soaked in the Holmes saga like a baba in rum. What do you thank he is called? Sherry would be the natural name for Sheridan, isn’t that so? But for him it’s Sher, and why? Because it could be a shortening of Sherlock.’
‘Sherlock Holmes was never called Sher,’ the Assistant Director pointed out. Willie beamed at him.
‘Precisely. Don’t you see that the thing about Sheridan Haynes is that he must identify with Sherlock Holmes? Or are you just kidding a poor foreigner?’
They went on talking, and in the end it was agreed that they would try a one-shot of The Speckled Band, perhaps the most famous of all Sherlock Holmes short stories. Willie insisted that it should be absolutely straight, with Dr Grimesby Roylott a terrifying Victorian ogre and Helen Stoner a quivering maiden in distress. The Assistant Director thought that it would look as uproariously old-fashioned as the Folies Bergère. They may both have been right. Some critics praised the faithfulness of the production, others ribbed it, but they all agreed that in Sheridan Haynes the studio had found a splendid Sherlock. And the rating figures were high.
So Willie got his series. And before the series was halfway through its thirteen programmes, the ratings were astonishing. For three dizzy weeks Sherlock Holmes reached the top of the charts, and was removed only by a new soap opera of supreme asininity. During the whole thirteen episodes it never sank lower than fifth. The series was sold in America, West Germany and elsewhere. When it ended, there was a general clamour for more, and a Times editorial headed ‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes’ praised the network for adding to our stock of innocent gaiety on television, and making no concessions to the shoddy violence of the modern world. ‘Through narrow gas-lit street our hero walks with his foolish but invaluable friend the Doctor. He succours the innocent and brings wrongdoers to book, and we are all the better for it,’ the editorial said. ‘And with all due respect to Eille Notwood and William H. Gillette and the other distinguished actors who have played the part in the past, it does not seem too much to say that in Sheridan Haynes our newest form of visual art has found the perfect Sherlock.’
It was after the first series ended that the publicity department had the brainwave about Sherlock Holmes living again in Baker Street, and Willie went down to Weybridge to sell the idea. Willie knew Sher and Val as well as most people. He had been the producer on a couple of tours in which Sher had played, had done the social problem play that had been the actor’s one real West End success, and had used him occasionally on TV. He regarded Sher as a nice but old-fashioned man, distinguished only by his passion for Sherlock and his hatred of motorised traffic. Val he put down as an attractive, basically discontented woman. It was Val to whom he would have to sell the package rather than Sher, and on a warm afternoon in the garden of their solid Edwardian semi-detached house he did just that. When he had finished she softly clapped her h
ands.
‘Bravo. A fine performance.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. It’s just an idea, you’re free to say no.’
‘When you talk about the advantages of living in London you’re getting at me. You know there’s nothing Sher would love more than to live in Baker Street.’
Sher got up. ‘I don’t care for being referred to in the third person when I am actually present. I’m going in to mix some martinis.’
‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’
‘Val darling, you know I’ll be happy with anything you want.’ Then he was gone, tall, thin, with sloping shoulders.
‘You see,’ she murmured lazily, ‘he longs for it. And the way you’ve talked about it has just been getting at me, hasn’t it? Don’t bother to deny it. Just tell me why I should leave Weybridge. I know the company’s coughing up a lot of money, but why should I move? Lots of friends, nice cosy life. I like it. What’s in it for me?’
The impressive thing about her, Willie thought, was her total composure. He felt certain that she wanted him to make some advance or proposition, and yet he knew that if he said nothing she would not show annoyance. He said tentatively, ‘Are you so completely happy here? I shouldn’t have thought so.’
‘I asked the question and you haven’t answered it. What’s in it for me?’
‘We could see each other more often.’
She shook her head, laughing. ‘Oh Willie.’
He had always found her attractive, and he believed in the effectiveness of a direct approach. ‘I should like to go to bed with you. I think you’d like it too. In London it would be easier, much easier.’
‘Oh dear me, Willie.’ She put her handkerchief to her eyes. Sher came out with the martinis. ‘Willie’s convinced me,’ she said through her laughter. ‘He’s a most persuasive man. Let’s go to Baker Street. If you want to.’
A Three Pipe Problem Page 4