Murder, My Dear Watson

  “Morestone’s got rheumatiz pritty bad. And he don’t do much surgery no more, on account of his ’ands is all crippled up. His brain’s as sharp as ever, but the old machine is wearin’ out. He looks like a man who could use a rest, but he’s probably giving a thought to his daughter, isn’t he? He needs to stay active until she’s taken care of, married or provided for, one way or another.. . . One more bit I found out, Doc,” said Budger, his pale eyes dancing with secret amusement. “He put in some time as a Army surgeon when he was a young ’un. He might take a shine to ye.”

  I told Budger that I appreciated his efforts on my behalf, and despite his disappointment, I hurried away from Harley Street determined to forget his presumptuous arrangements for me.

  However, my resolution did not withstand my curiosity. After a day or so, I began casual inquiries of my own and discovered Budger had made an excellent choice, by his lights. I repaired to the George and apologized for my brusque treatment of him. He took it well and allowed as how people didn’t like to have their lives arranged for them by an outsider. I did, however, have a question for him. Assuming I decided the situation was desirable, how was I to go about ingratiating myself to Dr. Morestone? This put Budger at a loss, but he said to leave it to him, he’d think of something, hadn’t he always?

  In the meantime, I arranged a proper introduction to Dr. Morestone through my former mentor, Dr. Averill. It was at a reception for the new director of Lambeth Hospital, with the cream of London medical society present. I doubt I impressed him very strongly as there were many young doctors there, ready to make themselves agreeable in hopes of future notice by their betters.

  One morning as I sat over a cooling pot of breakfast tea, I received a note from Budger. His writing was not educated, but the message was clear: I was to meet him at Dr. Morestone’s address in Harley Street at 12:20 promptly.

  I wondered what adventure was afoot as I dressed with more than usual care.

  I appeared at the corner at 12:15 and started toward the doctor’s address. Budger’s bowler-topped head appeared from behind the steps of the house opposite and he waved me back. I stopped at the corner and looked around for a few minutes, wondering what Budger wanted of me. I checked my watch, and found that the appointed hour had arrived. I looked up as I slid it into my waistcoat pocket to see Budger’s arm motion me forward. As I started toward the address, a young lady came down Morestone’s steps and entered a brougham which had been waiting, apparently for her. My brief glance had told me the woman was comely and well dressed. I assumed her to be one of Dr. Morestone’s patients.

  No sooner had the carriage pulled into the street that I noticed Budger’s signal again from the corner of my eye. I looked about me wondering what I was supposed to do, when a boy with a handcart darted in front of the brougham. The driver reined in the horses to avoid collision and the horses shied. The urchin escaped, but a loud noise from across the street alarmed the horses further and they began galloping in my direction. The driver could not control them and they were gaining speed as they approached me. I limped desperately toward the horses, grabbed the harness of the one nearest me, and pulled with all my weight. With the aid of the driver we stopped the animals and brought the brougham to a halt.

  My next thought was for the lovely occupant. I pulled open the door and found her sitting bolt upright, her face pale and her hands gripping the seat so that the knuckles showed white from the strain. She took one look at me and her eyes slid up as she fainted. I hoped it was from the shock and not from my appearance. I propped her up in the seat and called to the driver that I was a doctor, that she had fainted, and that I wished to take her home. He answered that she was Miss Morestone and that she had just come from her residence. Rather than wait until he had turned the vehicle around, I swept her into my arms and carried her down the street to her father’s house.

  The door opened as I climbed the steps. A maid evidently had seen what had happened and was waiting for us. She showed me into a parlour, and I laid the still insensible Miss Morestone on a horsehair sofa. Her father hurried in, his stethoscope still dangling from his neck. He pushed me aside (I had been beside Miss Morestone, taking her pulse), and examined her himself. I sat on my heels and waited. He held smelling salts under her nose and presently she came around.

  “Oh, Papa,” she said, “The most dreadful thing happened!” She then looked about her and noticed that she was in her own parlour and that I was present. She gasped and said, “This gentleman rescued me when the horses bolted. How did I get home?”

  “There, there, now, you’ve had a fright,” the old physician replied. “You’re safe and sound.”

  As if to prove his words, Miss Morestone sat upright and looked at me. “And you, sir, is it to you I owe my thanks?”

  So abashed was I in the presence of her beauty, I merely nodded my head, not trusting myself to speak normally. I realized that I had held her in my arms in a moment of need, and would never again have that privilege.

  “So I, too, have you to thank,” said Dr. Morestone. He extended his hand and we rose (me helping him slightly) and shook. “Who are you, sir? And how did you happen to be in Harley Street today?”

  “I, too, am a doctor, and was coming to meet a friend.” In the excitement I had totally forgotten about Budger.

  “In that case, perhaps we should not impose any further upon your time,” he responded. But a glance from Miss Morestone told me that she did not wish me to depart.

  “My friend had not arrived,” I temporized, “so I am completely at your disposal.”

  Tea was ordered and the doctor took a few minutes from his surgery to make my acquaintance again. I mentioned that we had met, and at his urging told him a little about myself. He then left me with Miss Morestone. Our conversation was commonplace—weather, health, and the current debate in Parliament. If eyes could speak, mine would have poured out the entire sonnet series of Shakespeare, so smitten was I with Miss Morestone’s charms. She seemed not immune to whatever charms I may have displayed. Before I left, I had secured an invitation to tea two days hence.

  I scarcely remembered leaving and was halfway down the block on my way back to my lodgings when a familiar voice reached my ears. “Dropped yer stick, Doc.” Budger! I had completely put him out of my mind. It was now over an hour past our appointed time!

  “Oh, Budger, my friend! I have completely forgotten you in the excitement! Did you see me take the lady into Dr. Morestone’s house? That was Miss Morestone, and a lovelier lady I have yet to meet. What were you doing by those steps? And what happened to the boy with the cart?”

  Budger looked up at me quizzically and did not reply. Slowly the realization came over me! Budger had arranged my “heroic” rescue of Miss Morestone!

  “Budger, did you have anything to do with what happened today?”

  “Now, how could I have anything to do wif an Act of God, like an accident?” he said with a twinkle in his eye. I gave him a hard look and he gave me a cheeky grin and nothing more was said.

  My visits to the George became more infrequent in the following weeks. I called on Miss Morestone as often as she would allow. I had progressed to dinner invitations and then to driving out with her (in her father’s brougham, alas). The old doctor took to me, and my fondest wish was granted on the evening he took me into his private study.

  “You wish to marry my daugher?” he asked bluntly.

  “More than anything in the world,” I replied.

  “And what will you live on?”

  “I receive half-pay from the Army and hope to find a suitable situation, perhaps with a hospital as a resident physician, so that I can support her.”

  “I see. What would you think of coming here as my assistant?”

  My mouth fell open and I did not trust myself to reply.

  “The hours would be easier and I could use some help,” he continued. “If you’re not completely an idiot, you should be able to take over my practice so I can retire
in a few years and enjoy my grandchildren.”

  I could think of no suitable reply, but simply grabbed his arthritic hand and shook it until he winced. My problems were solved and my life better arranged than I had dared hope, and all thanks to Budger.

  The ensuing months sped by. Miss Morestone and I were soon married, and I moved into the house in Harley Street. I began by taking overflow patients, and after a few months was seeing all but a few of his oldest patients, whom he reserved for himself for old time’s sake. In a year, I could scarcely remember the trying time when I stamped the streets of London, wondering bleakly what the future would be.

  I retained, however, my friendship with Budger. He had declined to be my best man, saying it would not be seemly, and I’m sure Mary was relieved when I sorrowfully told her his admittedly garish checked suit would not stand up with us. He did sit in a place of honour, grinning like a cat who swallowed a complete aviary of canaries, remembering his part in my happiness. We met almost weekly after that at the George for a pint and a “natter,” as he put it. It felt good to escape my stuffy surgery and the busy round of patients for an hour or so. He continued to astound me with his gifts of acute observation. He, in turn, was fascinated by my tales of experiences in India. At his suggestion, I wrote some of them down and submitted them to the weekly magazines, but with little luck.

  One afternoon, Budger asked what was sticking out of my coat pocket. It happened to be a story returned by an editor with polite regrets. He read it through slowly, then sat staring out of the windows of the George, lost in thought. “Wotcher need,” he said at last, “is some interesting blokes in yer story. You’ve got the action right enough, but the people don’t come through.”

  I was astonished that an unlettered Cockney would have the temerity to criticize my literary efforts, but as he continued I realized he had a good idea. I borrowed his stub of a pencil and made notes in the margins incorporating his suggestions. He added touches of behavior that illuminated the characters in a way I would never have thought of. I put aside my wounded pride as a neophyte author and revised the story along the lines he suggested. The tale was accepted, and I shared the modest payment with Budger when we met. As time went on, our weekly meetings were spent working on other stories I had written. We had a certain indifferent success, until one fateful day when Budger said: “We’re too smart by half, I fancy.”

  “What do you mean, Budger?” I asked.

  “Instead of bein’ God and tellin’ all there is to tell, have the dertecktive tell ’em,” he replied. I had observed that Budger had a goodly share of mother wit, and while he was unlettered, in the sense of formal education, he was not unread. “Why, folks don’t want yer to be too subtle wif ’em, do they now?” he continued. I hadn’t been aware that he knew the word.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Like sayin’ the man who ruined the girls was handsome. People like their villains to look bad. And the dertecktive studying who done it—you gotter give the readers a little show-off stuff, show ’em how ’is mind works, so’s they can see how ’e does it, not just spring the answer on the last page.”

  “Carry on. I think I see what you’re getting at.”

  “Like that jewel thief. He collects art, he dresses well, and the ladies like him. When yer finds out he’s the crook, yer disappointed. Better make him despicable in some way. Or the boxer in t’other story. You’n me know that the bigger the fellow, the gentler he is. A big bruiser knows his strength and isn’t so apt to throw his weight around as some feisty little chump like me. In real life an ugly man can have a heart of gold, but it’s confusing in a story, isn’t it? But people expects the bad ’un ter be nasty and pushy.

  “And take the lady in the story who lied about the jewels. We both know that people can lie without turnin’ a hair, like the patients who come to yer surgery and don’t tell you everything, but expects yer to cure ’em in spite of what they’re holding back. Best let her give herself away a bit, or the end don’t seem ter hang right.”

  I acknowledged the truth of that.

  “In a story there’s got ter be so thin’ to give ’em away, so that yer reader feels good when the dertecktive solves the crime. Like me, I can’t tell a body too much about hisself or he’ll be up in arms and I’ll never get anywhere. But give ’em a bit to attract their curiosity, and they’re eating’ outer my hand.”

  I nodded with increasing excitement.

  “Can ye fathom my meaning, Doc?”

  “That I can, Budger! Let me mull this over, and I’ll bring you a story every editor in London will want to publish!”

  True to my word, I returned in a fortnight with a new tale for Budger to look at. We altered some few lines together on my foolscap draft, then pronounced it finished. We drank a pint of mild to celebrate. “Doc, I think yer on the way to bein’ a spellbinder.” Better praise I never earned.

  The story was accepted by Beeton’s Christmas Annual, and it opened a new chapter in my life. It began with a brief description of the narrator, then picked up a character Budger and I had put together. He had polish and education and a different physical appearance, but he had Budger’s gift of reading a person from slight clues. A show-off, but in an agreeable way with enough quirks of personality to be interesting. We created him without interest in money or women so as to be incorruptible. The narrator, who somewhat resembled myself, was self-effacing in the extreme and nearly colourless, but the protagonist achieved some popularity.

  His first words were similar to the first I heard from Budger: “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

  “How on earth did you know that?” asks the narrator in astonishment, ever the naive but willing foil for the genius with whom fate had cast him.

  It was all really elementary.

  HOLMES AND WATSON,

  THE HEAD AND THE HEART

  Philip A. Shreffler

  IN ALL OF ENGLISH literature, there are few more celebrated friendships than that between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson—even if the two men sometimes seem to be diametric opposites. Over the years, due to frequent misreadings of the Holmes adventures, and chiefly to a number of theatrical misinterpretations, Watson has often mistakenly been seen as either a mere foil for Holmes’s brilliance or else as a complete bumbler. It’s almost impossible, for example, to imagine how Basil Rathbone’s famous Sherlock Holmes in the old Universal films could have the slightest interest in Nigel Bruce’s huffing, moronic Dr. Watson, much less a true friendship. Yet this error-filled popular view fails to take into account the many facets of Watson’s character that demonstrate him to be not only an intelligent and powerful storyteller (it is Watson, after all, who narrates most of the Holmes tales), but also the perfect complement to Holmes’s more dynamic and eccentric personality. This is particularly so in Watson’s role as an emotional balance to Holmes’s often cold scientific attitude.

  Certainly on the simplest social level, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are well suited to one another. In few of the Holmes stories is there real tension among members of different social classes; Holmes and Watson, at any rate, seem to spring from the English middle class. The social tension that does exist, however, is that between Official Man, usually represented by a police officer, and the unofficially creative and rational man who is, of course, Holmes. The tension, therefore, is between the conformist and the nonconformist—in Holmes’s case, an outrageously unconventional bohemian. As Hugh Eames wrote in Sleuths, Inc. (Lippincott, 1978),

  Sherlock Holmes and his fellow problem solvers are restricted to criminal problems rather than problems in more respectable fields, because Poe [in his groundbreaking Dupin detective stories] placed originality in opposition to social control and, as he did so, created the archetypal problem solver, the genius who is smarter than the cops.

  When Holmes and Watson meet in 1881, each looking to share a flat with another gentleman, Watson is able to adapt to Holmes’s peculiarities because he has just r
eturned from a rough-and-tumble life in the Afghan war: friendless, living on a small military pension, “free as the air,” and “leading a comfortless, meaningless existence.” In short, Watson, too, at this point is an unofficial man, representing no agency but himself. Apprised by Holmes of some of the detective’s strange forms of behavior, Watson replies in kind, saying that he “keeps a bull pup,” objects to “rows,” gets up “at all sorts of ungodly hours,” and is “extremely lazy.” Elsewhere, Watson refers to his “natural Bohemian-ism of disposition.”

  So at the outset, the Holmes stories offer a unique unity of character: the bohemian Watson becomes the chronicler of the bohemian Holmes. But to carry these similarities too far would be to belie the special quality of their relationship. Watson possesses a set of solidly conventional British characteristics, as observed by Conan Doyle biographer Charles Higham (The Adventures of Conan Doyle, Norton, 1876):

  Watson was kindly, sensible, outwardly genial and composed. He enjoyed sea stories, and was only casual about studying medicine. He liked sport, and played Rugby and billiards expertly. . . . He had a kind of wild courage, and tended to be romantic and gullible. He was loyal, a patriot, faithful to his friends and wife. Self-effacing and considerate, though capable of being rash and head strong, he was the perfect Boswell for Holmes.

  As accurate a listing of Watson’s personality traits as this is, it’s still not the whole reason that the doctor is “the perfect Boswell for Holmes.” It does form, though, one of the most popular common perceptions of Watson—that of a rather dull, conservative bulwark of the British Empire, infinitely Holmes’s intellectual inferior. And the image is not much improved upon by Watson’s own comments in “The Adventure of the Creeping Man” about his relationship with Holmes:

  I was a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. He liked to think aloud in my presence. . . . If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.