Holmes and Watson

by June Thomson

  * The substances from which medicines are compounded.

  * The Royal Victoria Military Hospital was demolished in 1966/7. The site is now a public park.

  * See Appendix One.

  * Strictly speaking, Watson was never a member of the Indian Army but of the British Army serving in India.

  * Bobbie was subsequently run over and killed by a hansom cab in Gosport. He can be seen, stuffed and mounted in a glass case and still proudly wearing the Afghan Medal round his neck, in the Royal Berkshire Regiment’s museum in Salisbury.

  * Despite their defeat, the Royal Berkshire Regiment still carries ‘Maiwand’ as one of its battle honours.

  * In The Encyclopaedia Sherlockiana, Jack Tracy suggests that the phrase ‘to keep a bull pup’ was Anglo-Indian slang meaning ‘to have a quick temper’. However, most commentators seem to agree that the dog really existed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MEETING

  1st January 1881

  ‘He [Holmes] is a little queer in his ideas – an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I know, he is a decent fellow enough.’

  Stamford: A Study in Scarlet

  Faced by the choice, Watson decided to find somewhere cheaper to live rather than move out of London. By a lucky coincidence, it was on the very same day he came to this conclusion that circumstances contrived to bring about a meeting which was to become as famous in its own way as that between Stanley and Livingstone.

  Although we know exactly what Holmes and Watson were doing on that day, Watson has failed to record the date when the introduction took place. The suggestion that it occurred on 1st January and was the result of a New Year’s resolution on Watson’s part to opt for less expensive accommodation seems plausible. This date is accepted by many students of the canon.

  Holmes had set off from his rooms in Montague Street for the chemistry laboratory at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to continue his experiments into finding a more effective test for haemoglobin, research which has already been referred to in Chapter Two. During the morning, he spoke to Stamford, Watson’s former dresser at Bart’s,* and in course of the conversation happened to mention that he was looking for someone with whom he could share lodgings he had found.

  That same morning, Watson left his hotel off the Strand and, no doubt feeling at a loose end as usual, found his way to the bar of the Criterion Hotel in Piccadilly Circus, then called Regent Circus, much smaller than it is today and lacking the central statue of Eros which was not erected until 1890.

  It was a large hotel, built in 1873, and was well-known for its restaurant but most particularly for its American or Long Bar. Sumptuously decorated with marble-clad walls and a ceiling inlaid with gold mosaic and semi-precious stones, it was a popular meeting-place, although its prices were not cheap. It is still standing on the south side of Piccadilly, its ornamental white stone façade recently cleaned. Part of it houses the Criterion Restaurant, the original American Bar, its interior restored to the magnificence that Watson would have known.*

  By great good fortune, Stamford also chose to call at the ‘Cri’ that same morning on his way home from Bart’s and recognised the figure standing at the bar as Dr Watson, although much thinner and browner than in the days when they had walked the hospital wards together. Going up to him, Stamford clapped him on the shoulder.

  For his part, Watson was pleased to meet him again for, although they had never been close, he was delighted to see one friendly and familiar face among the teeming multitude of four million strangers which then made up London’s population.

  He promptly invited him to lunch at the Holborn Restaurant† in Little Queen Street, since widened and now forming part of Kingsway, regaling Stamford on the journey there by cab with an account of his adventures since they had last met. One has the impression that Watson was grateful for the opportunity to talk to someone, another measure of his loneliness.

  Holborn is greatly changed since that lunch-time over a hundred years ago, when the two of them rattled through it in their hansom, and it is doubtful if Watson would recognise parts of it. In 1881 Little Queen Street was still lined with old houses, some of which dated to before the Great Fire of London of 1666. It led into Clare Market, a slum area of narrow streets and historic buildings, all of which were demolished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Aldwych and Kingsway were developed, proving that urban vandalism is not confined to our own times.

  Like the Criterion, the Holborn Restaurant was not cheap. Luncheon cost 3s 6d (about 33 pence) per person and presumably, as Watson had issued the invitation, he paid for Stamford as well. Wine was drunk with the meal and taking this into account, together with the hansom fare and a tip for the waiter, the total bill probably cost Watson more than a day’s pension, as Michael Harrison has pointed out in In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes.

  But the expense was worth it for, over the meal, when Watson confided in Stamford his need to find somewhere cheaper to live, Stamford remembered a similar conversation he had held with Holmes that very morning, and passed the information on to Watson that a man he knew had found lodgings but needed someone with whom he could go halves with the rent. Watson treated the news with enthusiasm. More sociable than Holmes, he welcomed the opportunity of sharing rooms rather than living alone, despite Stamford’s warning that Holmes, while seeming a decent enough fellow, might not make an ideal companion. He was, Stamford (who seemed to be having second thoughts about mentioning Holmes) explained, eccentric, uncommunicative and a little too cold-blooded for his own tastes. Furthermore, Stamford had no idea what career Holmes proposed taking up for; although he was a first-class chemist, he was not a medical student.

  Not at all deterred, Watson, assuming from Stamford’s remarks that Holmes was a man of quiet and studious habits and would therefore suit him as a fellow-lodger, suggested a meeting, which Stamford proposed could take place that same afternoon at Bart’s, although he refused to take any responsibility for the outcome of the introduction.

  On finishing luncheon, they therefore took another cab to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, familiar ground to Watson who needed no help in finding his way up a stone staircase and down a long, whitewashed corridor to the chemistry laboratory. It was here in the high-ceilinged room among the broad benches, littered with bottles, retorts and Bunsen burners, and empty apart from Holmes, that the famous meeting took place.

  The timing was dramatic, for at the very moment Stamford and Watson entered, Holmes found the reagent which was precipitated by haemoglobin and nothing else, a discovery which he greeted with the exultant cry of ‘I have found it!’, as triumphant as Archimedes’ shout of ‘Eureka!’

  After the formal introductions, Holmes astonished Watson, probably intentionally, by announcing as he shook him firmly by the hand, ‘You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.’ There was no time for Watson to ask how Holmes knew this. In his eagerness, Holmes had seized him by the sleeve and dragged him to the bench where his experiment was set up, digging a bodkin into his own finger and drawing off a drop of blood which he used to demonstrate the efficacy of his new test for haemoglobin.

  It is clear from his excitable behaviour that Holmes was going through one of his manic periods and it is not surprising that Watson, unused then to his companion’s swings of mood, was much taken aback, although a few minutes later, in an exchange of mutual confidences regarding their personal shortcomings, Holmes confessed, ‘I get in the dumps at times. You must not think me sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be all right.’

  He was careful at this early stage of his acquaintance with Watson to make no reference to another habit of his, that of regularly injecting himself with cocaine. Both admitted they were smokers, so that was all right. In his turn, Watson confessed to his own drawbacks: his ownership of the bull pup; his laziness; his habit of getting up at ungodly hours. However, his admission that he had another set of vices when he was in good health is puzzling. To what vices
can he possibly be referring? One suspects that Watson, suffering from low self-esteem, a symptom of depression, and conscious of Holmes’ intelligence and brilliant eccentricity, wished to present himself in a more interesting light.

  Watson’s last confession that, because of his shattered nerves, he disliked ‘row’, caused Holmes some anxiety. Did this, he asked, extend to violin-playing? Watson, not knowing Holmes’ musical proficiency, hedged a little. It depended on the player, he replied, adding rather sententiously, ‘A well-played violin is a treat for the gods – a badly played one …’

  Holmes, who clearly considered his talent belonged to the former category, brushed aside any further objections with ‘a merry laugh’ and, treating the matter as settled, made arrangements for Watson to call for him at the laboratory at noon the following day so that he might accompany Watson on an inspection of the rooms.

  The next day, probably 2nd January, they therefore met again as arranged and set off for Baker Street.*

  Despite bombing during the war and redevelopment, many of the original brick-built houses of four or five storeys, with their plain façades and tiers of sash windows, remain relatively unaltered. Until the early 1860’s it was a fashionable area but, with the coming of the Metropolitan railway and the construction of Baker Street station, its character changed and it became more commercialised. However, it still remained a respectable, middle-class address.

  By 1881 many of the houses were used as business premises, including the waxwork museum of Madame Tussaud and Son which was at numbers 57 to 58. Not far away were the popular Portman Rooms and the Baker Street Bazaar. Other smaller commercial entrepreneurs included dressmakers, music and dance teachers, dentists and milliners. As he frequently sent telegrams, Holmes would have found the presence of a post and telegraph office at number 66 particularly useful.

  In many other ways, Baker Street was a convenient address. Baker Street station lay only a short distance away in Marylebone Road, although there is only one instance recorded in the canon of Holmes and Watson using the underground railway when they travelled to Aldersgate on their way to Saxe-Coburg Square (‘The Adventure of the Red-Headed League’), while Cadogan West’s body was found on the rails near Aldgate Station (‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’). The trains were drawn by steam engines and although parts of the line ran above ground, passengers suffered the inconvenience of smoke and coal smuts accumulating in the tunnels.

  There were also omnibus routes nearby, among them that of the green ‘Atlas’ which ran via Baker Street or, if Holmes and Watson chose to walk through Portman Square into Oxford Street, with its excellent shopping facilities, they had a choice of no less than seven omnibus companies. However, there is no reference in the canon to either of them using this cheap form of transport.

  They generally preferred cabs, usually a hansom which seated two, or, if more people needed to be accommodated, a four-wheeler, also known as a ‘growler’. There was a cab-rank outside Baker Street station or a passing cab could be hailed in the street or summoned by blowing a whistle, one blast for a four-wheeler, two for a hansom. Many Londoners carried a cab whistle on them for this purpose.

  But where exactly was 221B Baker Street?

  Apart from the matter of dating, this is one of the most vexed questions facing the Sherlockian scholar, and several different sites have been claimed as its location. The problem is compounded by two factors: the renaming of part of Baker Street since Holmes’ and Watson’s time, and the renumbering of the houses.

  The present-day Baker Street crosses Marylebone Road at right angles, running from Portman Square in the south to Clarence Gate, Regent’s Park, in the north, where it swings west and becomes Park Road. In 1881 this northern section was known as Upper Baker Street. It is in this more recently named extension that the present 221 Baker Street is situated. The site is now occupied by the Abbey National Building Society which has offices at numbers 215 to 229.* A few doors away is the Sherlock Holmes Museum, opened in 1990, which claims to be 221B Baker Street, although its correct postal address is 239.

  When Holmes and Watson arrived to inspect the lodgings, Baker Street was much shorter than it is today and extended only from Portman Square to the intersection of Paddington Street and Cranford Street. The section north to Marylebone Road was known as York Place. The numbering ran north from number 1 at the Portman Square end as far as number 42 at York Place on the east side before continuing south on the west side from number 44 to number 85. There was therefore no number 43. Nor, more significantly for students of the canon, was there a 221.

  Watson has therefore clearly changed the number in order that the house should not be identified in the same way as he changed Mrs Hudson’s* name, as no such person figures as a householder in any of the street directories of the period. However, he has given several clues which might help identify 221B Baker Street, although care should be taken over these. If Watson changed the number of the house and the name of his landlady, he may well have deliberately altered other details as well in order that the house should not be recognised. After his accounts were published and the address became well known, it would have been embarrassing to Holmes’ clients, some of whom were eminent men and women, if sightseers had gathered on the pavement to stare up at the windows.

  Readers are referred to Appendix Two for a more detailed account of the clues within the canon which might point to the possible siting of 221B Baker Street and of some of the theories put forward by Sherlockian scholars. Incidentally, the B of 221B refers to Bis, the French word meaning ‘twice’, signifying a subsidiary address, in this case the set of rooms occupied by Holmes and Watson.

  But wherever 221B was situated, certain facts can be established, particularly concerning the interior of the house, about which Watson had less reason to fabricate.

  There was a basement, where the kitchen, scullery and pantries were housed and where the servants, in this case a maid and possibly also a daily cleaning woman, would have taken their meals. Photographs of the period show areas with iron railings and steps leading down to a basement entrance. Billy the pageboy, whom Holmes later introduced into the household, would have eaten his meals here as well. These basement areas have since been paved over. The kitchen would have been equipped with a cast-iron, coal-burning stove, which needed daily black-leading, and almost certainly a deal kitchen table for the preparation of food, and a range of wooden dressers and cupboards.

  The front door opened into a passage from where the staircase rose to the upper floors and a narrower set of steps led down to the basement.

  The ground floor (American first floor) consisted of two main rooms, the original front and back parlours. As we shall see later in the chapter, Mrs Hudson probably received between £208 to £260 a year from letting off the three upper rooms, not a large income to cover household expenses which included grocery bills, the wages of at least one servant and the payment of ground rent, and she may have augmented this sum by letting out the front room to a commercial tenant, such as a dressmaker. If she did so, there is no reference to one in the canon. However, it would seem that she kept the back parlour for her own use as a sitting-room, which she also made available as a waiting-room for Holmes’ clients. There are several references to such a room and, according to the occupation of the rest the house, it was the only one which would have been free for such a purpose.

  It is unlikely there were any other private tenants. Watson never refers to any and the general impression he gives is of Holmes and himself being the only lodgers.

  From the hall, seventeen steps led up to the first or drawing-room floor which, like the ground floor, consisted of two rooms, a large one at the front and a smaller back room opening from it. When the houses were first built in the eighteenth century, these two rooms were connected by a pair of folding doors which, when opened back, would have made one large L-shaped area. When Holmes and Watson moved into the lodgings, these doors had already been removed, the
opening bricked up and plastered over, and a single door put in their place.

  Watson describes the sitting-room as being ‘light and airy and illuminated by two broad windows’. The use of the word ‘broad’ is a little confusing. As we have seen, the windows were sash and were long and narrow rather than of broad proportions. Watson may have been referring to the fact that they were larger than those on the bedroom floors above. Readers are again referred to Appendix Two in which the vexed matter of the bow window, to which Watson also refers, is examined.

  Watson also remarks that the sitting-room was ‘cheerfully furnished’. From references scattered throughout the canon, it is possible to establish what this furniture comprised. Although individual items may have been changed over the years, it is unlikely that Mrs Hudson went to the expense of refurnishing the lodgings entirely. After he had left Baker Street, Watson writes fondly of returning to the familiar rooms as if delighted at finding them exactly as he had left them.

  We know that there was a sofa, two armchairs and a basket chair, which probably had loose cushions for extra comfort. As well as a mahogany sideboard, the room also contained a table and upright chairs, for it was used as a dining- as well as a sitting-room. Both Holmes and Watson had their own desks, Holmes’ fitted out with pigeon-holes and probably also a roll-top lid. It may have been his own property. In addition, Holmes had a deal bench on which he conducted his chemical experiments and which Watson sometimes refers to as a table. Gas was laid on, so there was no problem in connecting up a Bunsen burner, although water must have been brought to the room in jugs or buckets from elsewhere in the house, presumably from the kitchen. Holmes’ microscope stood on this bench among the test-tubes, retorts and other paraphernalia.