The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

by Marvin Kaye

  It’s hard to recall what I said by way of thanks just then, in the way one cannot call to mind senseless dreams: I believe I began several sentences, and taken as a whole I said nothing coherent.

  As a practical divertissement, I pulled a telescoping ebony and rose-gold dip-pen from my vest pocket, but Holmes said, “No, no, don’t use that,” and leapt from our embarrassing tête-à-tête toward his desk. He rapidly twisted open some fine mechanism. “Watson, quick!” I scurried over and handed him a curiously darkened glass hypodermic syringe, which he emptied into the vial in his hands, then set aside. With a deft motion he twisted an end-cap and re-assembled the thing, which turned out to be an uncommonly beautiful writing instrument, overlaid with yellow gold in a barleycorn pattern. But instead of a nib, the pen too seemed to have a needle. “It’s a McKinnon stylographic point,” Holmes explained. “Cross is stealing the patent. The Reverend Franklin Dubiel presented me with this pen for ‘the favour of exonerating him.’ ” Holmes shrugged, as if to say, Why do people credit me with the truth? (As ever, though sanguine of his very real powers, he lacked the arrogance to enjoy gratitude, which he often regarded as inaccurate praise.)

  I stared at the wire-like nib. “Try it,” he said. I did so. The narrow-nose pen seemed to skate across the vellum page, yet at the same time my handwriting took on the precise and even the look of Holmes’s own.

  “Quite satisfactory!” I declared.

  Holmes leafed forward several pages. “You may set down your prefatory notes later. For now, write of the events concerning Vittoria the Circus Belle. And write of your cousin Madeline, setting down at length all you know of who she is, not neglecting why you feel that Lord Randall has been some harm to her.”

  “I say, Holmes!” I objected. “Such harm isn’t something I feel, it’s what I know! The deceased was a minor earl, true enough, but I assure you he was no gentleman!”

  The voice that answered me was slow and deliberate. “His social standing is not at issue. Nor is your depth of feeling, my dear friend, which I assure you I respect for the honourable drive and empathic insight they impart to all your dealings, both medical and personal.” Holmes drank some tea. “As you faithfully catalogue all the events to which you were witness, I shall smoke a few pipes and cogitate on various matters. Then with your emotion frozen in ink, we shall journey together to the earl’s townhouse, and see for ourselves the impact of his villainy.”

  His plan caught me by surprise. “I appreciate your concern, Holmes, and wondered if alone I could will myself to go there, though I must. But haven’t you better things to be about?”

  “Many more pressing to the police, I’m sure,” he chuckled, “but none better. Now write. No one need ever see what you shall scribble in that book. But if you will not do this, I fear for your nerves.”

  So saying, he began fussing with his slim flame-blackened clay pipe. I knew at once from this choice that all I’d hear from him would be the sigh of his smoking, interspersed perhaps with an occasional muttered revelatory expostulation, all in counterpoint to the ticking of the clock.

  Once, indeed, in the ensuing moments, he cried, “Had they but recalled da Vinci invented the scissors, the forgery would have been plain!” and another time, “No precedent?! The Sanskrit word for ‘war’ means ‘Desire for more cows,’ ” and yet a third time: “. . . much the same way that pressing one’s thumbs into the eyeballs opens a crocodile’s jaws.” But no matter how intriguing or preposterous the outburst, I knew better than to interrupt him to ask elaboration.

  Mostly, though, Holmes was quiet. His mind absorbed now with History, Legalities, Natural Science—the whole scope of other men’s problems—he left me in a companionable silence to face my own.

  The tea quieted my mind enough to work, and I began piecing together a mental scrapbook of Madeline.

  Madeline. We were tiny children when we met. I’m not sure she noticed me then, for all were gazing upon her: the golden ringlets haloing her face, skin like a pale brown hen’s egg but dimpled with a proud smile, and her eyes like the blue in a flame. ‘Twas maybe Maddy’s third or fifth Yuletide—I wasn’t much older—and she’d been dressed in white, trimmed with lace and a crimson velvet sash. Much noise was made how like a frescoed Cathedral cupid she looked, all too precious for earthly use. I myself was quite invisible.

  The next time I recall plainly seeing her half a decade later, no one raised any fuss: Indeed her hair had darkened to no real colour, her eyes had stoked down to palest blue, nearly white; her baby face had ovalled, and her smile when it visited seemed rueful. She wore a simple grey dress. Yet I knew Madeline immediately. To me her quality had if anything increased, and I knew though a child myself that I was witness to the formation of an uncredited elegance far superior to the gaudy infant.

  When I spoke her name, she seemed surprised to hear it.

  Another memory, likely late that night or the next. We were staying at Cousin Maddy’s home, my brother and I in one bed. Noise jostled me out of a profound sleep. Half conscious, I drifted to the half-opened door and peered into the long floral-papered hall. There loomed my mother’s brother railing at Madeline. She looked tiny in her muslin nightdress. She was tiny. The inconstant lamplight made her seem to flicker in and out of existence.

  “But I didn’t forget, Father!” she was protesting. “You never said!” Her voice had a calculated reasonableness to it, under which I sensed a disquieting hysteria.

  I’ve not determined to this day what brought on the conflict, perhaps the lighting of the lamps, but suffice it to say I smelled strong spirits. By spirits, I don’t mean to say kerosene. Far from making him merry, the spirits had the opposite effect.

  “I’ll teach you to forget!” he expostulated. The chance of learning anything else from such a beast seemed remote, so he set out to prove himself. “Where’s my fishing pole? Where is it?”

  “No, Father, please no! You’ll wake the boys!”

  This seemed to amuse him, for a semblance of a smile crossed his coarse features, like a small red wound. “Then fetch it quietly! Now!”

  She returned to him nearly as soon as she’d left with a yard-long bamboo rod and a look of dread. Her large colourless eyes watched him seize the weapon in his right hand, and extend his left toward her, palm up. She placed her wrists into this huge hand and he made a fist around them, drawing them swiftly into the air high above her. Madeline lifted her head, looked at him and quietly said, “I’ve done what you wanted, haven’t I?”

  Rage twisted and darkened his face. Madeline swallowed her breath. The hate in his eyes dissolved her last hope. Her head dropped, and I could see the tracks of tears coursing down her face even before he began lashing her.

  “Never!” he bellowed. “You’ve never pleased me, never!” The force of the beating intensified with his anger. “Hold still, child, will you? Stop making work!”

  From where I stood in shadow I would guess she tried to obey. A glassy look stole over her streaked face with its ghostly eyes, and the fight, even the startle at the blows, seemed to wash from her being, as if she’d died and were only supported by her wrists in his hand.

  The blows fell unaccompanied then. The rod whistled and smacked, whistled and smacked, and only the hem of her white gown responded, moved by the gusts of his fury like a floating apparition, but now and again revealing dark lines on her calves above tiny bare feet.

  I, the coward behind the door, stood watching, sickened from eyes to gut, transfixed but, worst I confess, more afraid to move or breathe lest my mother’s brother next turn his wrath on me.

  Whistle, crack! The stick broke in two across her back. “Look what you’ve done!” the monster roared. “Broken a perfectly fine pole! They cost, you know, but of course you know!” He threw the useless end of the thing at the wall and stormed away.

  Madeline then did something which stunned and embarrassed me. She ran into my room. Before I could explain my cowardice, expiate my shame, “I’m staying here,
” she said. “Come on. We’re asleep.” She climbed into the high bed, and I followed. We settled with me between herself and my brother, who mumbled, “What’s all this?” then turned over into his dream. He slept curled as a foetus, taking more than his share of available space in the narrow bed, but I hesitated to force changes.

  Madeline and I couldn’t sleep at first, and though we were but children, whenever my body came into contact with hers in the slightest she pulled away in fear and pain. She lay on her stomach, breathing raggedly. I wondered if she were crying, or merely trying to catch her breath.

  “I’m so sorry,” I began.

  “Hush,” she gently commanded. “We’re asleep.”

  She hiccuped awhile, then stretched her arms toward the headboard and arched her back until presently the convulsions subsided. That was interesting. (I believe now that this combination stretched the diaphragm, interrupting the rhythm of seizures.)

  Meanwhile, I packed myself full hard against my brother’s side and compressed myself as narrow as possible lest I further discomfit her. It was at this time, to the sounds of the child’s pneumatic spasms, that I swore silently that if ever Madeline needed anything—any favour, any wish at all—that need would I fulfill instantaneously with all my powers and all my heart.

  Becalmed by this vow, as if I’d arranged a mortgage against a troubling debt, I fell into a deep sleep.

  Some hours later, I woke in that same board-like position, every muscle aching, head wretched. I lay quite alone.

  Let us move away now from childhood’s dreams and demons. We’ll take up our history years hence, flying to the balmy June which was not only a welcome break from the burdensome and dust-crested tomes of my medical studies, but also which began for me (and ended for her) the summer of Vittoria the Circus Belle.

  All London was tantalized by the countless posted bills. Its tiny etching of the lightly dressed woman on horseback were but a hair’s breadth from scandalous, yet the long broadsides were mounted everywhere, gummed with cheap paste to all surfaces flat or otherwise, and had indeed begun appearing in the dreariest days of March, months before the circus itself paraded jingling into our fair city. Little wonder then that I recall most of the wording verbatim, and even the relative size of the ornate lettering, wherein the longest lines of text were writ tiniest, and the shortest lines writ huge, like a bombastic performer speaking alternately in whispers and then in shouts:

  J. P. Remson & Vincent Craswell Proudly Present

  for your Edification and for your Amusement

  An Authentic Continental Caravan

  CIRCUS

  at which shall appear before your astonished eyes

  A Quality Array of the Best & Most Notable

  Conjurers, Acrobats, Jugglers, Freaks,

  Natural Wonders, Soothsayers & Wildmen,

  Incomparable Feats of Strength & Dexterity,

  Music, Confections, Amusements,

  Diverse Gaming & Dangerous Beasts

  from the Farthest Corners of Our Globe,

  plus the ExtraOrdinary French Artistry of

  the World-Renowned Rider & Dazzling Danseuse

  VITTORIA

  the Circus Belle

  On Promenade With Her Parisian Prancing Ponies!

  Come One, Come All to the Show of a Lifetime!

  (Small Children & Ladies Welcomed at All Times)

  Aside from these ubiquitous announcements and the bemusing reveries they inspired, the Times was all the show I foresaw as I made my way through streets ringing with commerce, festooned with brushes, boots and baskets; a world of merchandise hung in ever-various array a stone’s throw from my door.

  My ears had but adjusted to the morning hubbub of carriages, cabriolets, strident children and distant steam engines when I heard a woman’s voice call out, “John! John!”

  When one’s Christian name is as commonly handed about as is mine, those who wear the moniker take small notice of its use. Indeed, I was very little more likely to respond to “John” than I was to take heed of a cry of “William!” or “George!” Additionally, I knew that the only lady I cared to hear from had returned so recently from a brief sea voyage that she was unlikely to be seen upon the street.

  “John! John!”

  Briskly, I kept walking.

  “John! Watson!”

  I stopped short. The man close behind me, bearing over his shoulder a great staff from which hung the limp cadavers of dressed brown rabbits ready for market, stumbled into my person, and in his mongering bellow performed for the benefit of those men within shooting distance (and unfortunately audible to the ladies as well) a vehement and elaborate oath concerning my shabby pedestrian comportment.

  So I was already speechless and red-faced when Madeline approached, saying, “John, my word, could you not hear me?”

  She let go her hold on her simple blue baise walking skirt, which she had hiked crucial inches that she might make haste and run. Unladylike as that activity was, she did not intend to publicly compound the error by allowing sight of her ankle-high boot-tops. Her face like mine was ripe with colour, but in her case from exertion rather than embarrassment. Beneath her ornate hat, strands of hair had dampened and come undone. Visibly she strained for breath, the whole region between her jacket’s choker-like neck and her tightly cinched waist heaving mightily.

  Do you remember? Corsets were so tightly laced when I was young that despite the myriad promised health benefits of such support, it seemed likely that at any moment Madeline would fall into a faint. Being a gentleman, it would be my pleasant duty to catch her in my arms. I’m not proud to say it, but for an instant I wished she would indeed swoon. My sole excuse is that I was young and never in my life immune to her loveliness.

  Perhaps, Holmes, you don’t see the beauty in her still, I wouldn’t know. But I have looked at her longer, and for this knowledge I’m certain I could look at her forever.

  So I nearly did as Madeline and I stepped aside from the foot traffic and paused for a time before a bric-a-brac shop, which specialized in distributing the homey goods and well-thumbed books of debtors. A commode set mirror caught my reflection, causing me to regret that I’d not put more efforts into the day’s ablutions. Nor were my clothes the finest, though at the time I had no better. At last the girl seemed recovered enough to converse, and I, sufficiently collected now, spoke first.

  “I am sorry I didn’t stop. Really, Madeline, I could not imagine until you said ‘Watson’ that it was you. I felt sure that due to your recent voyage, you would be full in the grip of ‘boat lag’ at this time.”

  She smiled. “But John, Jane and I did not sail. The family has experienced—ah—reverses . . .” She took in a deep, satisfying breath, then explained what she required of me: my presence only, but immediately. Protection for herself and her cousin Jane, from Randall, whose motives she did not trust.

  I accompanied Madeline to Jane’s house in a hansom, and all the hurried way she alternated between explaining, and exacting promises. The promises she needed of me were vague and open-ended, that I not do anything without her calling on me specifically, that I simply remain nearby for her to help however she wished, which as you may know I’d agreed to in silence so many years before.

  Most of what she told me on that ride I knew or had guessed, but here are some of the facts which led Madeline to hide me in a parlour wood-closet: Madeline’s mother and mine were sisters, Emily and Natalie, gentle ladies both. Emily died giving birth to Madeline, an event which no doubt worsened the father’s temper. More recently, Madeline’s father had at last succumbed to liver troubles, stemming chiefly (I would say in hindsight) from intemperance, vileness of disposition and notable imprudence. Thereafter her father’s brother had taken in Madeline as a companion for his unmarried daughter Jane, a confident and sought-after creature who greatly enjoyed the girl’s attentions as a respite both from boorishly eager suitors and from her father’s incessant plans to see her well wed. Only recently had
certain financial problems come to light. Madeline suspected these were compounded if not caused by her own dead father, whose pathetic estate her uncle still attempted to manage. Clearly she felt herself at the root of all the misery and ruin. “I always make work for everyone,” she told me.

  So now my cousin Madeline and I rode en route to her cousin (who was by blood no cousin to me) to forestall some ill-stated but apparent man-menace sort of doom. I made promises I did not understand, but she said I would. “You will soon see everything,” Madeline promised.

  Like any man who is no fool, I rode into battle quietly, but in the pit of my stomach I felt afraid.

  It was an unusual structure, the wood-closet. Beside the ruddy and honey-hued stone hearth, it finished out the narrow parlour wall with the same solid masonry. Like the fireplace, it ran tall, wide and shallow. Most of the fuel logs had been considerately removed (some were stacked before the fire), but therein remained an odour of pitch and sap, and not a little debris—splinters, cobwebbing, birch bark.

  I’m not a big man, and was less so as a student. Certainly in those days I was nimble, and eager to prove myself. (Even more so because, to my chagrin, Madeline had paid the driver with her own coin.) As I inspected this aperture, Maddy brought out a long green damask curtain of indeterminate age, which she hung deftly by means of some nails at top within that could not be seen. As if entreating to a waltz, hand to hand I helped the graceful girl down from the tiny footstool on which she’d been standing. She fitted it into the closet. Then smiling, she kept the curtain aside with a hand, elegantly gestured to me with the other and performed a half curtsy as if to say, “Your seat, sir.”