Murder, My Dear Watson

  I began limping about despite the pain, as soon as I was able, thinking that improved circulation of blood to the region would aid its healing. At first I ventured in the immediate vicinity of the hotel where I had taken lodgings. As I regained my health, I roamed further afield to escape the dreary hotel. On the streets of the great Metropolis of London I found human beings of every description—prosperous businessmen, ladies of fashion, street Arabs, gin-sodden bawds, stevedores from the docks, Roman clergy like so many ring-necked blackbirds, well-dressed children accompanied by uniformed nannies. When my distress at having my career in India cut short got me in the dumps, I would take to the streets, learning each avenue, lane, and mews as I once learned the arteries of the body while studying medicine at the University of London. I learned the texture and humour of the city as I spent day after day stumping the streets, my stout cane in hand. I walked through drizzle and fog, some days from mid-morning until the lamps were lighted at dusk.

  My legs and eyes were well occupied and my self-prescribed cure worked very satisfactorily, but I cast about for some similarly healthy occupation for my brain. I am not a person of great imagination, nor am I prone to be in exceedingly high spirits or low, but when left with no occupation, memory returned again and again to the horror of battle. Over and over my thoughts recalled the heathen cries of the attackers, dust obscuring the charge, red blood soaking redcoats, pounding hooves, and the piteous cries of the wounded. I would not have escaped but for the action of my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse and brought me safely to the British lines.

  Thus I revived my youthful habit of composing verse in my head. My Bohemian proclivities (which had nearly prevented my taking a degree) came to the surface in aid of my practicality. As I walked, I occupied my mind with rhyme, meter, form, and syntax. Nothing equals verse in its demands on the writer. After several hours I would return to my hotel and transcribe the lines into my journal, another therapeutic aid to maintaining sanity. I passed several months and regained my health to a large extent, although my shaken nerves would not bear disruptions or rows.

  I continued to walk as if in the streets of my beloved London I would find direction for my future. I had neither kith nor kin in England and no money, my wastrel brother having squandered the little our father had left him. I needed to rouse myself to recommence the practice of medicine, or resign myself to a limited existence on half-pay. But when the weather turned cold and rain poured down daily, the soot-coloured fog seemed to penetrate even my lodgings. I would prop my bad leg on a cushioned chair and sink into a brown study. Although my wound did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at the change in the weather. The thoughts that filled those grey days in my rooms were of money—how could a surgeon on half-pay find the capital to buy a London practice? I had proceeded to Netley after taking my degree and went through the course prescribed for Army surgeons. To what use could I put that knowledge in London?

  And what girl, or rather, woman, would ever condescend to share my life under these circumstances? What woman could look upon my wounds, though fading from scarlet to a politer pink, without repugnance? I was still in my twenties, and while I counted myself not bad looking in a sandy, freckled way with my imposing new mustache, I could not rely on charm or dash to carry my suit. Rather, common sense, respectability, and application were my virtues. I had no fear that my Bohemian penchant would interfere with married life. My mentor at university, Dr. Averill, described it a response to boredom. Loyalty and not so many brains as to be likely to get myself in trouble was his estimation of me.

  It was on one of my rambles near the Thames that I made the acquaintance of Budger.

  I was negotiating the cobblestones outside the saloon bar of the George & Dragon when my cane slipped on the muddy surface. My bad leg gave way when the unexpected weight of my body fell upon it. I lay on the stones for a moment to catch my breath and ensure no serious damage had been done. Before I could right myself, however, I felt a helping hand reach over my shoulder and help me up.

  “This ain’t Afghanistan, Doc,” said a man’s voice as he heaved me to my feet. I turned to thank him and beheld a minuscule Cockney, whose strength belied his size, a bowler tilted to a raffish angle and hands already back in his pockets.

  “How did you know I was a doctor?” I asked.

  “Are ye, now? Why a lucky guess, I’m certain.” (I will not try to set down his Cockney dialect exactly. The transliteration is tedious for the writer and even more tiresome for the reader to decipher. I will try only to capture some slight indication of his colourful manner of speaking.)

  I rummaged in my now-muddy trousers for a coin with which to reward him.

  “No charge, Doc, glad to oblige.”

  “Would you do me the favour of sharing a pint with me?” I indicated the George which I had just quitted.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he replied, and took my elbow as if he feared I might come a cropper again. He steered me into the public bar and I ordered our pints. We introduced ourselves and he told me his name was Budger.

  Again I asked, “How did you know I was a doctor? And that I had been in Afghanistan? Do you refer to everyone as Doc? Surely a lucky guess would not have been so accurate.”

  “To tell yer the truth, Doc, I know what I know, but damme if I can learn how I know it. Fer instance, take that man at the window table. He’s a railroad worker, probably a ticket agent, who works at Waterloo. He’s stopped in here for a pint afore he goes home. He’s got to stop and pick up sothin’ fer dinner and take it home to the missus.”

  I gaped in astonishment.

  “Now it wouldn’t do, would it, Doc, to disturb the man’s privacy and ask if it was true, but we can follow him out and after he runs his errand, ask him for directions and say he looks like a ticket agent of our acquaintance from Waterloo. Are ye game, Doc?”

  “Yes, certainly. But try to think of how you knew I was a physician.”

  “There’s yer mustardy-colour complexion, if you’ll fergive my mentionin’ it. That says you’ve been in Hindia or Afghanistan or one of them places probably, most likely with the Army, as you don’t have the look of the sugar merchant about you. More military-like in the way you walk, despite yer limp. Now if you was a gentleman, you would be exercising on horseback; if you was a foot soldier, you’d rather be drawn and quartered than walk. Since yer neither fish nor fowl, I’d taken you for an Army doctor. With yer limp and the faded look of yer skin I’d say yer were invalided out three month ago, give er take a week. ‘Ows that?”

  “That’s remarkable!” I exclaimed. “You guessed within a week of how long I had been back.”

  “Well, now, I can study as to how I know these things,” he said with a touch of surprised pride.

  At that moment, the man arose from the window table and left the George. We followed him from a slight distance and, true to Budger’s prophecy, saw him stop at a greengrocer and come out in a few minutes with a parcel. “He’s getting on fer ’ ome,” said Budger after a few blocks. We picked up our pace and overtook him at the next corner.

  “Pardon me, guv’nor,” said Budger, in his engagingly cheeky manner. “Is this the way to Nelson Square?”

  “Why no,” our quarry responded. “You must go in the opposite direction to find it.”

  “Sir, you put me in mind of an agent I’ve boughten tickets off of,” said Budger.

  “That may be true,” said our anonymous friend, “I have a cage at Waterloo, although I hope I shan’t offend you if I say I do not recognize you.”

  “Notter tall, sir,” said Budger, “and thankee for the directions.” He winked as he rejoined me, pleased with his success. We waited until the ticket agent had turned down the street, then I besought Budger to explain his “lucky guess” this time.

  “Well, got a whiff of him as we came in and he ’ad the smell of the coke they use for steam engines. If you spend much time at a train station, it gets into yer clothes and hair. There were a wo
rn place on the front of his waistcoat where he must rub against the edge of the counter and red stamp-pad ink on his fingers from stamping the tickets.” He cocked his head to see if I followed his drift. I nodded him to continue. “Then Waterloo was a guess. Victoria’s on the other side of the river and if he lives hereabouts, why the George is halfway between it and where he’s headed ’ome, and handy fer a nip. He was scowling at a piece of paper, probably a note from the missus. What should it be but sothin’ he fergot she wants him to fetch and he ain’t too happy, neither.”

  I gaped at him, astonished. Truly, he knew better than he could explain.

  When weather permitted, I found myself drawn by curiosity to the George, where Budger could usually be found at midday for tiffin and a pint. He continued to announce his speculations on his fellow tipplers with surprising accuracy, occasionally winning a bet from doubting persons not yet familiar with his peculiar gift.

  We became friends in a way. I sadly lack a firm sense of class consciousness. I frequently wonder who I am and who I presume to be, and to which class I would most familiarly fit. I am a physician by training and inclination, but the rigid restrictions of my time and place frequently weigh heavy on me. Often I wish for the camaraderie of the officers’ mess, the openly sensuous women of the East who are not bound by convention, as exemplified by our beloved sovereign. Every woman I saw in London was encased in that cage of whalebone which symbolised these conventions. It was deemed necessary for beauty, but was nearly disastrous for muscle tone and adequate breathing (although it did aid some back disorders and those of posture). The frequency of fainting could probably be laid at the door of the corsets necessary for fashion.

  Budger, with the delightful cheerfulness of his rank and class, was also a maverick, in his own way. He treated me like an old chum from the docks rather than as a proper professional man. My rather shabby though genteel clothes and penchant for unconventional experiences gave him leave to take what liberties he might.

  Budger seemed always to have enough money to while away his afternoons at the George. If my powers of observation had been as acute as his, I would have made note of his coming and going there. He moved from his own table and talked briefly first to this man, then another. So expert was his sleight of hand, scarcely ever did I note money and information changing hands.

  One brisk day as the winter sun endeavoured to pierce the yellow pall of fog that hung over Bankside where we strolled, I put it to him. “How,” I asked, “do you make your living, Budger? Now tell me straight. We’ve known each other several months and I have yet to see you short of funds, yet you are daily at the George. No common labourer, office clerk, or delivery man could spend his time so freely. Tell me, what is it you do to support yourself?”

  We had stopped and Budger gave me a sharp look from under the rim of his bowler. He was so short and I so tall that it was better to converse while sitting. He had once remarked as we strolled out of the George together that he looked like my pet that I was walking off the lead, so vast was the difference in our respective sizes. He did not answer at once, but turned his glance from me and began strolling again. “Well, Doc,” he said at length, “I know there’s no malice in yer intention, but it’s for the best yer don’t know too much. Wotcher don’t know can’t hurt ye, don’t yer know.”

  “But surely you have some visible means of support,” I remonstrated.

  “Doc, ye must take this much and not worry me fer more: I’m in the way of being a private accountant. I hold money while my foolish friends bet, taking a percentage for my profit. I’m apt to run errands for solicitors and other toffs who don’t wish to be seen digging for information for their cases among the low life. If a gentleman is looking for a coachman, likely I can find an out-of-work chap who’d fill the bill. I do a bit o’ this and a bit o’ that, and one way and another I make enough to stay ahead of me creditors. If you must, call me a private agent, but an agent of what, I couldn’t say.”

  I mused over this information for a bit, and then commented, “You are putting to use your remarkable gifts of judging people.”

  “Coo! I guess I am,” he replied in amazement. “I never thought of it like that, Doc. It must be good for sothin’.”

  We turned away from London Bridge and retraced our steps to the George, and after a bit I ventured, “It occurs to me that you could make yourself wealthy, putting this gift to great use.”

  “Wadder yer mean, Doc?”

  “Why, you could go upon the musical comedy stage and astound the audience with your divinations, or, with a little backing, go into a business where your knowledge of human nature could be turned to profit.”

  “Aye, yer on the track, Doc. But there’s sich a thing as telling people more than they want to hear, isn’t there? A little bit of it now and again is fun, and people says ‘How amazing!’ and ‘Wadder yer know!’ But tell a man he’d ’ad a fight with his missus that morning, that he must have got dressed in a rush because his socks don’t match, and his boots ain’t been cleaned nor his hat brushed, and he won’t thankee for it.” We walked in silence for a bit as I slowly recognized the truth of what he had said, and then he continued: “Tell a lady she takes belladonna at night, laces her stays too tight because her figger ain’t wot it uster be and uses powder to cover the circles under her eyes, and she won’t thankee. Lucky you’ll be if she doesn’t throw a ’ysterical fit and pretend to faint. Add to that that she not only knows what a mattress is for but has enjoyed the time spent there, and she’ll fall into a brain fever and take three month to recover. Too much o’ the truth is frightenin’ to folks.”

  “I fear you are correct, Budger, and my suggestion was ill-put. I was only trying to find recompense in measure equal to your gifts.”

  “I know that, Doc, and think the world o’ ye fer it.”

  “I dare say you could have told me more about myself that first day you hauled me from the kerb, had you less diplomacy. Of course, I feel an open book to you now.”

  “Yes, Doc, I could. I could’ve told ye yer were in a bad way for occupation, and getting low on money.”

  “Really, now!”

  “’Tis true, ’tisn’t it?”

  “Yes, I must admit you are accurate as usual. I do not like to burden my acquaintances with my own troubles, but rather to deal with my problems in private. I do not wish to appear a weeping sister to my friends,” I replied, somewhat stiffly.

  “Come offen it, Doc. Yer livin’ on half-pay and there’s not a situation in sight. Yer leg’s ’most healed, as well as it ever will, and ye haven’t had a woman since ye left Hindia.”

  I started to draw myself up and remonstrate with Budger for his liberties. But I knew in my heart that he read me accurately and that any objections on my part would only further prove his statement that people didn’t want too much truth. “Alas, Budger, you are correct,” I replied. “Now, pray tell me, what am I to do about my circumstances? And don’t tell me any more about myself for the time; I’ve heard as much as I can bear.”

  “Doc, I can only indicate. It’s yer life to lead and I’d like to give you a leg up, if I could. Yer going back to doctorin’, I suppose?” He raised his voice to indicate there might be some doubt, but it was a statement of fact, not a question. Yes, I would return to work as a physician, by some means or another. But I told him that I lacked the capital at present to buy a practice in London, and hesitated to ask for a situation at a hospital where the staff physicians worked long days for little remuneration.

  “Wotcher need is an old doc who’s getting on in years and thinkin’ about retiring. One who’s got a good practice now, hasn’t let it slip too much, and who’s got a little put by for a rainy day.”

  I admitted that that was the kind of situation I should like to acquire.

  “Then I’ll keep me eyes peeled, won’t I now?” he said.

  “But now . . . where . . . can you . . . ?” I sputtered.

  “Never you mind, Doc, just leave me at
it,” he said with a wink, and we parted company for the day.

  Inclement weather kept me indoors for several days. When next I sought the George, I found Budger fairly bursting with excitement. After a hasty pint, he led me out and we repaired immediately to Harley Street.

  “I think I’ve found ye a likely situation,” he boasted, as we hurried along the street.

  “Surely I could be counted on to know that all the best doctors reside in Harley Street,” I answered with impatience.

  “Just yer wait, Doc, and we’ll see what we’ll see, won’t we now?”

  Budger drew to a halt in front of a prosperous residence-cum-surgery. A brass plate with the name Morestone was reflecting the midday sun.

  “There she is, Doc,” he said proudly.

  “There what is? Now, see here, Budger, what is this all about? Why drag me along here to see another doctor’s prosperity? Have I not enough to plague me?”

  “Now, now, Doctor, take it easy. First, I said to myself, we needs to find a older doc, one that’d take kindly to some assistance (that’s you). So’s I spent a little time hereabouts chattin’ up the drivers and butlers and some of the prettiest parlourmaids in London. This bloke”— he indicated Morestone—“seems the likeliest prospect.”

  “But how do you know?” said I, ever the naïf where the machinations of Budger’s mind were concerned.

  “First, there’s his steps. The stoops hereabouts was laid when the houses was built, but this one is more worn than many another. Tells me he does a thrivin’ practice. He keeps a brougham and driver, three maids, a butler, a cook, a scullery maid, and a page, all just for him and his daughter, Mary. Not bad at all!”

  “And just how did you learn all this, this . . . intelligence?”

  “Same way I pick up stuff for the solicitor toffs. Hanging about, liftin’ a few at the nearest pubs, keeping me eyes open and puttin’ two an’ two together. You know better’n I how I do it. You studied it; I just do it.”

  Lest he think me unappreciative of his efforts, I murmured, “Carry on.”