Thirty-Nine Steps from Baker Street

by J. R. Trtek

  “Some time ago, as part of a grand ruse, I travelled to Chicago in the United States and there posed as an American of Irish descent, one Altamount—it was as Altamount that I came to you complaining of migraines. Well, in time, I managed to wend my way back across the Atlantic and get myself recruited for Von Bork’s far-flung organisation, bringing with me Jack here.”

  The young man did not turn round but merely raised one hand briefly as he negotiated the taxi around a stalled horse-driven wagon before turning into Crawford Street.

  “Together,” Holmes said, “we conscientiously began assembling intelligence for Von Bork, most of it spun from our imaginations. And in the meanwhile, having gained Von Bork’s trust, I also recruited two others for his organisation here in Britain whom you should find familiar: a Mr. Hollins and a Mr. Steiner.”

  “Hollins and Steiner? Two of your former agents from the Baker Street days?”

  “The same. I should very much have wished to enlist instead Frank Farrar and Shinwell Johnson for this particular mission, but they, of course, have become somewhat too well known here in London to pose as potential German spies.”

  “Their fame hardly exceeds yours,” I noted.

  “Yes, but their skills at disguise also pale accordingly,” said my friend.

  “I should never have thought that unmatched pair would, together, make a successful detection agency.”

  “Nor I, but their enterprise has flourished this past decade, has it not?”

  “Indeed, it has,” I remarked. “So you have taken over Von Bork’s spy machine, in effect?”

  “Well, in part. The four of us supply him with much of his information, most of it false, and he periodically forwards it on to Berlin. The Germans believe they know everything, when they in fact know little or nothing. The troubles that the Secret Service had been experiencing have nearly vanished. It is a neat and tidy arrangement, though how long I am to maintain my pose as Altamount I do not know. I hope it will not be of indefinite duration, however. Ah, we are getting close. Please maintain speed, Jack,” Holmes said primly to the young American.

  The detective had glanced outside at two young women smiling at our chauffeur, who in his turn had slowed the motorcar in order to better appraise the pair.

  “There will be time for frolic when there is time,” Holmes said good-naturedly. “Not before.”

  “As you say, Mr. Holmes,” Jack sighed with disappointment as the vehicle increased speed, leaving the damsels behind.

  “I should have expected our destination to be somewhere in Westminster,9 if we are to meet a government spymaster,” I said. “But we have been travelling in the opposite direction.”

  “We will still be encountering a bit of Westminster away from Westminster,” said Holmes lightly. “Pull over now, Jack.”

  The taxicab suddenly veered toward the kerb and came to rest.

  “Increasingly these days,” my friend said, “matters of espionage are directed from locales away from the formal halls of government. It is a bit of a far cry from that quaint era, now past, when the two of us dabbled in such foreign intrigue now and then.”

  “You mean cases such as the Bruce-Partington business,10 for instance?”

  “Yes, whether one is speaking of the investigation that actually occurred some years ago or the highly embroidered version you later foisted upon the reading public, the notion is still the same. We will be meeting Bullivant in that house,” Holmes revealed, pointing several doors down.

  “I will exit first and wander around and in through the back, as I did at Portland Place, for I have a key. Jack here will run you on a ways and then let you out. Please walk back along a winding path, and when you ring the bell, do so twice and wait a moment before ringing once more.”

  “Two then wait then one,” I repeated. I glanced again from the taxicab at my eventual destination: a dun-coloured house lodged among others of its type. “A rather unassuming place,” I observed.

  “Unassuming and therefore, it is hoped, easily overlooked. Mycroft has dubbed it Safety House.11 There you will meet Sir Walter Bullivant, for whom I have danced these past two years.”

  Holmes then made a show of slipping some coins into Jack James’s hand and stepped from the taxicab.

  “When the house door is opened, be certain to ask for Mr. Sherrinford,” he directed.

  Shovel hat pulled down over his forehead, Holmes then closed the door and strode quickly away. James drove me on for three more blocks before veering to the kerb and stopping, this time quite abruptly—throwing me forward, almost off my seat.

  Quickly, the young man turned round, his nose pinching at the malodour his improper braking had produced.

  “Sorry, sir. Sometimes I have the devil of a time getting the hang of this contraption.”

  “Use the lever and not the emergency brake,” I reminded him gently, speaking from my own experience. “Do heed that advice, for otherwise, you may someday ignite the linings, and most certainly damage your transmission in the meanwhile.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” the young man said, extending his hand toward me. “Make as if you’re giving me fare also, if you will, Dr. Watson,” he requested with a twinkle in his eye.

  Without hesitation and with raised brows, I cooperated in the ruse.

  “Thank you, sir. Mr. Holmes would want us to be careful. Again, it’s nice to meet you. Perhaps the next time you can give me some advice about cresting hills in this flivver.”

  I smiled in an avuncular manner. “Slipping the clutch can be a brutal business, that is the truth, but I will be happy at some point to impart to you what small insight I have gained concerning the practice. In the meanwhile, it has been a pleasure to meet you, Mr. James.”

  “Jack, if you will, Dr. Watson.”

  “Very well—Jack. We will meet again to discuss those hills.”

  “I’m sure we will. And we’ll be meeting again and again for other purposes as well, I reckon, before all this business with Mr. Holmes is done with. Take care of yourself, sir.”

  I left the taxicab, medical bag in hand, and strolled along the pavement before rounding a corner to begin a circuitous journey that brought me to Safety House.

  Reaching its door, I rang in accordance with the instructed pattern, and after a few seconds, the door was opened by none other than my friend’s brother, Mycroft.

  The elder Holmes sibling had lost not a fraction of his massive figure during the many years since I had last seen him, and he retained an expression as cunning as ever there was—his eyes quickly casting a critical glance over me, silent testament to the continued sharpness of that analytical mind whose powers exceeded even those of his more famous brother.

  “Well,” said he, extending a fleshy hand, “this has been a day of surprises, at least one of them now pleasant. Dr. Watson, I confess you are perhaps the fifth least likely person I should have expected to call at this door. I assume you are seeking Mr. Sherrinford,” he remarked coyly as our handshake ended, before I could utter the password phrase I had been given. “In with you then, and let us be quick about it.”

  I stepped over the threshold, and Mycroft Holmes rapidly closed and bolted the door, which, I noticed, was equipped with a peephole as well as letterbox. Looking round, I found myself standing in a plain-looking entry devoid of any decoration. A dull, musty smell hung in the air, though I also detected the faint, incongruent aroma of fine tobacco.

  “One distinct disadvantage of this place is the absence of service,” my host said, extending his arms as if to prompt me to remove hat and coat. “We dare not employ regular help because of concerns about security, and to require Foreign Office clerks to serve as footmen, let alone as maids, would be too much to demand, even of those poor fellows. Permit me, please,” he said as he took my coat. “Yes, thank you,” he added as I gave him my hat as well.

  “You don’t actually reside here, do you?” I asked as Mycroft turned to place my articles in a wardrobe.

&
nbsp; “Oh heavens, no,” he replied. “That would be a vile purgatory, indeed, would it not?” He turned round to face me once again and then glanced at my bag, which I had set upon the carpet. “Shall I place that with your other items?”

  “Allow me to do so,” I insisted, uncertain as to either the man’s ability to bend sufficiently far to reach the handle or my capacity to gracefully transfer the valise to his pudgy fingers. And so, instead, I merely lifted the bag from the floor and set it beneath my coat, already hanging in the wardrobe, before stepping back to await Mycroft Holmes’s direction.

  “Off to your left, there,” he indicated. “The main sitting room is beyond that doorway.”

  I proceeded along a short hallway, stepping past a small alcove of shelves, upon which lay open boxes with names emblazoned upon their sides, and then into the next room, where I immediately caught sight of a large man with a fat, sallow, clean-shaven face, sitting in a basket chair beside a small table. His sleepy eyes regarded me calmly, like those of a contemplative steer, as he put down a cup from which he had been drinking. So this, I thought, was the mysterious Mr. Bullivant.

  “Doctor,” said Mycroft Holmes, stepping to my side, “may I present John S. Blenkiron, from America. John, this is Dr. John H. Watson.”

  “John H. and John S.,” said the man in a bluff, friendly voice as he rose. “Let us promise to never reveal what lies behind our respective middle initials.”

  “Dr. Watson is my brother’s former associate,” added Mycroft.

  “Of course he is,” said the man as he shook my hand.

  I realised, as he stood before me, that though Blenkiron’s face was broad, he possessed a figure that was far from plump, and as the American’s hand grasped mine, I sensed great strength in it.

  “You are still associated with that famous detective in a literary sense, aren’t you?” he said. “I know you continue to churn out the magazine tales of his adventures.”

  “I fear he does, all too frequently,” declared Sherlock Holmes from the open doorway. “The doctor has proved most impossible to house-train in that way.”

  My friend stepped into the sitting room, an expectant look upon his face.

  “Sherlock,” said his brother, “this is Mr. John Blenkiron, of whom I have spoken.”

  “Ah,” said my friend, suddenly reassuming the voice of his alter ego, Altamount. “Always good to meet a fellow Yankee.”

  “Indeed, indeed,” said Blenkiron, good-naturedly taking the detective’s hand. “And I deduce that you are Sherlock Holmes,” he added with a chuckle.

  “That declaration reassures me.” Doffing the shovel hat and removing his spectacles, Holmes glanced down into Blenkiron’s cup before sitting in a chair and then stared at his brother. “As I remarked to Watson only a short while ago, I do hope this masquerade is nearing its finale.”

  “Only time will tell, my boy,” Mycroft replied enigmatically, seating himself upon one portion of a large sofa.

  Blenkiron resumed his position in the basket chair. “One never knows when any inning of the big game will end,” he said in response.

  Suddenly finding myself the only one standing, I at once took to an armchair beside the American.

  “And so, Sherlock,” the elder Holmes said, “it appears you have now brought the good doctor into our enterprise—without prior consultation, of course, which will not please Sir Walter, but the move has my strong approval.” Mycroft smiled at me and then looked back at his brother. “I do hope you intend him to do more than simply replace that young man from Chicago as your chauffeur.”

  “I had not considered that possibility,” said the detective, “but I suppose Watson could take over for Jack now and then. Until recently, Watson has rarely deigned to approach a motor, you see, let alone been desirous of taking control of one. Sadly for my old friend, the horse-drawn trade is approaching extinction, leaving him a stranger in a strange land.”

  “On the contrary,” Mycroft chided his sibling. “He appears quite familiar with the landscape, especially that of motors.”

  “Well, perhaps somewhat,” admitted Sherlock Holmes. “He did ride with me here in a taxi, and it is evident that he has made several excursions about the country of late, as passenger in another’s vehicle.”

  “Tut-tut,” replied Mycroft. “Why, it is obvious that the doctor has been the frequent operator of a motorcar for at least several months. Indeed, he is the owner of one, and an enthusiastic owner at that. Are you not?” he asked of me.

  “Well,” I said, eyeing the younger Holmes with caution, “the truth is, yes, I own an automobile.”

  “Clamp him in irons!” cried the detective with mock distress. “This cannot be the real Watson but rather an impersonator. And to think I failed to see through your disguise, sir.”

  “You are most amusing,” I said calmly. “As always.”

  “Mr. Holmes, you’ve not kept up with your good friend’s interests, it seems,” Blenkiron gently interjected, reaching for his cup.

  The detective shrugged. “Yes, involvement in Brother Mycroft’s conspiracies has certainly caused me to lose touch with those I thought I knew well.” He stared at me with an expression of disbelief I took to be at least half genuine. “Is it be true, Watson, that you, of all people, have capitulated and now possess and operate an automobile?”

  “It is housed in a motor stable, if you would ever care to examine it.”

  “And what make is it?” Blenkiron asked with apparent interest.

  “A Carleton-Herriott,” I answered.12

  The American whistled before sipping from his cup.

  “And you did not know of this acquisition?” Mycroft asked of Sherlock Holmes, as if to taunt. “When the signs are all in plain view?”

  “I fear I must have missed them,” the younger brother replied with an astringent tone. “I did take note of that well-defined area around the good doctor’s eyes in which the flesh is less lined and tanned, suggesting the frequent wearing of protective goggles.”

  Mycroft sniffed. “Yes, I expect that would have caught the attention of any schoolboy, even a near-sighted one.”

  “I, meanwhile, am apparently becoming all too careless in my dotage,” declared Sherlock Holmes. “Perhaps you may further enlighten me, dear brother.”

  “When I shook the doctor’s hand, I detected calluses on these portions of the fingers and palm,” Mycroft began, illustrating with his own. “They are consistent with the use of only two or three different types of machine tool, including a screw-cutting lathe. I take it that even a Carleton-Herriott’s handmade fasteners wear out in time, and that replacements must be cut by hand?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “In the long run, the lathe has proved a good investment, as the vehicle’s screws are, of course, not uniform. And, I must admit, I find the cutting tool a minor joy to work by myself.”

  “Of course, the calluses in themselves are not conclusive evidence of a motoring enthusiast,” Mycroft said. “However, those same fingers also display mild staining, and not from materials I associate with the practice of medicine—a practice from which our good doctor appears to have retired, though only in part,” Mycroft declared as his brother opened his mouth to speak. “I take it you act as an occasional substitute for one or more of your colleagues?” he asked me.

  “He does,” said Sherlock Holmes glumly, before I could respond. “There is no need for further elaboration on that point, I think.”

  Mycroft smiled at me without glancing toward his brother and then leaned back in the sofa to continue. “The man I employ to tend my motor has cautioned me about the need to frequently dress the leather cone covering the vehicle’s clutch with neetsfoot oil. The stains on his fingers from that substance are about the same hue as those you sport on your hands, Doctor.”

  “Yes, of course,” I commented.

  “And the left portion of your left shoe is similarly stained. If a clutch cone dosed with neetsfoot oil is the cause, that places you in the
chauffeur’s seat, does it not? I conclude that your stained and callused hands are testament to your enjoyment of tending the vehicle by your own effort, and thus evidence of enthusiastic ownership. An admirable attitude,” asserted Mycroft Holmes. “It is, however, one I find myself unable to share—I require a mechanic to keep my automobile in fine condition.”

  “As if you have any need of a fleet motor,” whispered Sherlock Holmes.

  “Did you say something, brother?”

  “What? Oh, I remarked on the absence of street odour. A consequence of the reduced horse population, think you not?” said the younger Holmes.

  Mycroft frowned.

  “I’ve had my man employ collan oil instead of neetsfoot for my car’s clutch cone,” said Blenkiron with amusement. He then related his own past experiences with automobiles, much to the interest of Mycroft and me. Sherlock Holmes, meanwhile, silently chafed as the conversation became dominated by the topic of motoring and its tribulations.

  “Perhaps you should purchase a Fox Type-V, made in my country,” suggested Blenkiron after a while.13 “I saw one here in London but yesterday for only one hundred seventy-five pounds. The parts are standard, fashioned uniformly,” he added. “You wouldn’t need that lathe to cut screws of individual size.”

  The house bell suddenly rang twice and then, after a pause, once more.

  “That should be our final guest,” declared Mycroft Holmes. “I will fetch him.”

  As his brother rose and then ambled from the room, Sherlock Holmes looked at me, his lips forming a single, silent name: Bullivant.

  I nodded, noticing that Blenkiron’s face still held a subtle expression of amusement as he once more sipped from his cup.

  “I trust, Mr. Blenkiron, that your dyspepsia is not proving too much a hindrance during this meeting?” asked Sherlock Holmes.