by Anita Janda
“Jules, John. Jules. In the goose.”
She had never called me “Jules” before, but then she had never been hysterical before, either. I raised her chin off my waistcoat.
“Who is Jules, Mary?” She made a visible effort at composure.
“John, there are jewels in the goose. Jewels! I don’t want any more jewels. Pearls in the post, diamonds in the goose, I won’t have any more, do you hear me? I won’t, I tell you!”
I suppose, from her point of view, it was rather trying to be persecuted in this fashion. First the yearly pearl from her father culminating in the deadly ‘The Sign of Four’ and now this.
“Some women would be glad to find diamonds in their Christmas goose, Mary,” I said, trying for a lighter touch. She caught me eyeing the modest diamond chip in her wedding band and kissed me, saying, “This is the only jewel I ever wanted, John. Don’t you know that?”
I think we both needed the reminder.
“You don’t believe me,” she accused. “There, in the crop. I was cleaning it to make the gravy. A diamond, John, as big as, as big as my thumbnail. A blue diamond.” She was at the crossroads now. The relief of laughter or the relief of tears, it depended on what came next.
She pointed at the denuded goose and I sidled up to the animal with the caution she seemed to think it deserved. I half-expected (I can confess it now) that it was all a trick of the light, a rough lump of quartz that had caught the light for a moment as she worked it out of the crop. If I have learned one thing from my years with Holmes, however, it is that prediction is a dangerous game, waiting on future events a safer. Sweeping the liver and heart slowly aside, I saw a gemstone whose worth it is beyond my ability to estimate. I have never seen such beauty. Very nearly the size of a pen nib, it was cut with literally dozens of facets and flickered in the gaslight like blue flame. I cannot be sure it is a diamond, but no cutter ever achieved an effect like that with quartz. I said the first thing that came into my head.
“I will never complain about your giblet gravy again.”
“I thought you liked my giblet gravy!”
We laughed until she cried and no doubt it did us both good. She wiped her eyes on her apron.
“You will have to take it to Mr Holmes,” she said unsteadily.
“How many people,” I mused, “finding a jewel like this in their goose, would have someone to turn to in their social circle?”
“Oh don’t, please, John. I can’t laugh any more. I can’t. I’m sorry I frightened you by screaming like that. But please, if you love me, don’t make me laugh any more.”
I promised readily enough. When she sits on my knee like that, I will promise her anything and this was a small thing.
“It is odd, though, that Holmes should be the one to have given us this particular goose, don’t you think? Some woman who was feeding the geese must have lost this from a brooch or ring. It fell into the feed; birds are attracted to shiny things; this one gobbled it up. The poor woman must be half mad with anxiety. What a calamity, right before Christmas, too.”
“John, you must go right away. That poor woman!”
“If anyone can trace this, it will be Holmes. You realize we will probably be unable to attend your supper party?” I was very proud of that “probably.”
“Yes, John, yes. Only hurry. I will make your excuses to Miss Tate”—imagine, it was the equestrienne, after all—“she will understand perfectly how it was. Your diary, John!”
Which is how I came to be seated in Holmes’s consulting chambers by myself, in front of a roaring fire, alternately contemplating a jewel which may be a diamond or a pale sapphire or a blue topaz for all I know about gems, and a battered billycock. I had no idea Holmes had taken to wearing a bowler. Perhaps it is for one of his disguises. If he doesn’t arrive soon, I shall have to consider the wisdom of returning in time for the unveiling of the goose that laid the sky-blue egg. It would be a pity, particularly now that I have bespoken supper for two from Mrs Hudson, but it would not do for me to linger here while Holmes goes directly from wherever he is to his rendezvous with destiny and Miss Tate. One half-hour more.
Chapter 14
Damn Holmes. And his women! [Note: Mary must never see this diary.] Whatever peace of mind his peculiar brand of misogyny may have brought me during my years in Baker Street—and I admit it was considerable—I have paid for since, you may be certain of that.
Holmes has unwelcome news for a female client? Let Watson tell her. He even quoted Hafiz at me. And I walked right into it. I was so incensed that I had the remedy in my hand the very next morning, as I recall, and knocked him up a good two hours before his usual time. It will do him good, I thought, to see the sun rise.
Oh, I was quite short with him, I’m afraid, full of the virtue that only a sleepless night spent in the performance of some noble duty can confer. I thrust the manuscript at him, refused a cup of Mrs Hudson’s excellent coffee, and stood at the window in apparently rapt contemplation of the sylvan charms of Baker Street, which consist of one stunted ash that is a disgrace to its species and a half-grown evergreen that was provided by the Teutonic tobacconist across the way in a fit of unaccustomed generosity shortly after we established ourselves here.
I was impatient, Holmes was thoughtful, and we spoke in unison.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he wanted to know, while I asked, “Have you any objection to make?”
We answered each other in unison as well. “Quite sure,” I asserted. And “No, not in the least,” he said.
Then, glaring at each other, we agreed: “That’s settled, then.”
He might have told me what would happen, but that’s Holmes all over. As long as the inevitable consequences pose no threat to his own convenience, he is satisfied. Caveat author, or whatever the Latin word is. He takes an Olympian view of history, does Holmes.
“Have a kipper, Watson?”
Writing is hungry work. I ate the kipper.
The exercise of recollection, like the keeping of a diary, is apt to be its own reward. As the diary grows with the keeping, so the range and power of the eidetic memory grow with the prompting. One memory begets another and facility follows upon fatigue until I find that I can wander at will, reconstructing entire conversations, complete with gestures, tones of voice, and all the rest. If, as Holmes has so often remarked, I see but do not observe, then I may justly say in my own defense that I remember as few others do. How many “observers” would be able to remember a conversation as apparently trivial as this at two months’ distance, and remember it well enough to be able to analyze the conversational cross-currents?
Holmes wanted me to write that adventure, that “case of identity,” as he called it. I can see that now. I can see that now that I have been accosted in my own surgery by this selfsame client. Damn Holmes! He pursues his profession in accordance with his eccentric whims and I interrupt mine to cope with the consequences. He safeguards his privacy in conformity with his reclusive tastes and I take my tea in an atmosphere redolent of the schoolroom. Governesses to the right of me, governesses to the left of me, and every last one of them expecting me to be able to produce the eligible bachelor at a moment’s notice, like a rabbit out of a hat.
I recognized her, of course: Mary Sutherland, from ‘A Case of Identity’, whose stepfather had taken such cruel advantage of her myopia. There I was, struggling with the opening paragraphs of what I plan to call ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’, due I might add in two days’ time, and there she was, brandishing the December issue of the Strand Magazine. No visiting card, no introduction, no curtsey, no apology for disturbing me at my work: it was our parlourmaid’s finest hour. The chit is impossible, I don’t care if she is Cook’s second cousin once removed.
Mary Sutherland, Mary Sutherland, I thought frantically. What was Mary Sutherland’s name? I could not imagine. I could not remember. I rose to my feet.
“Is this true?” she asked.
“Please,” I s
aid, indicating the chair to my right. “Annie, will you see that we are not disturbed?”
Mary Sutherland, Mary Sutherland. Asking me if it were true that the man who had left her at the altar was her own stepfather. Asking me if it were true that the man she had hired to trace her lost lover had discovered this fact and chosen not to tell her. Asking me if it were true that I had chosen to tell the world her story in this month’s Strand. Damn you, Holmes.
“Yes, it is true. I am so sorry. Please sit down, Miss…”
“Morrison,” she said absently, “Sarah Morrison. I suppose you think of me as Mary Sutherland. Of course you do. We are all disguised, are we not, Doctor? I become Mary Sutherland, Angelo becomes Hosmer Angel, his Italian accent becomes the after effect of a childhood attack of the quinsy, the typesetters’ ball becomes the gasfitters’ ball. You made a mistake, though, when you made me a typewriter. I am far too shortsighted for that. It is not enough to memorize the keyboard, you see. One must be able to read the handwritten copy with both hands placed securely on the machine. No, I do not think I can become a typewriter.”
If Miss Morrison’s case held no great mystery for my friend Holmes, who maintained from the first that it was the merest commonplace, it has held nothing but mystery for me, his biographer. The greatest mystery of all was the attitude Holmes chose to take toward his client. From the beginning, he counseled her in the strongest possible terms to forget her lost love, make a new life for herself, concentrate on the future, leave the past behind. Sound, practical advice, certainly, but advice the jilted bride must have received free of charge from the vicar on the church steps, assuming the man had even a modicum of sense. She had expected more from Holmes, and she still expected it when she had quitted his office: he would do his best for her but he was very much afraid that she had seen the last of Mr Hosmer Angel. So she had, of course, but to my mind that did not excuse Holmes from his obligation to his client.
It was a mystery to me how he could justify solving the case simply in order to satisfy his own idle curiosity, Hafiz or no Hafiz. If it had been a more interesting problem, I suppose he might have felt some slight responsibility toward the woman who had been the means of bringing it to his attention. Once events had confirmed his preliminary hypothesis, however, he lost all interest in it and in Miss Morrison, whose situation was of course in no way improved by his enlightenment so long as he chose to keep it to himself. By his rarefied standards, the case was thereby proven to be the twice-told tale he had stigmatized it from the first, he was vindicated, and good old Watson was a godsend. He was more than happy to surrender the obligation to me and very clever about arranging for me to wrest it from him, too. It was entirely my own idea to pick up the cheque. Will I never learn?
I should have done better to wrestle with the Jamison case, after all.
It is a great pity that there is no way for me to warn the public of the danger involved in bringing Holmes what he will consider a pedestrian problem. Not that the average person confronted by a peculiar combination of circumstances of a disturbing or even downright threatening nature would have any way of knowing whether it will strike Sherlock Holmes as pedestrian. Miss Morrison certainly found it extraordinary to be suddenly minus one fiancé from his hansom cab en route to their wedding, particularly in view of said fiancé’s having earlier taken the trouble of extracting her solemn promise to keep faith with him no matter what untoward event might transpire to wrench them apart. I do not suppose she found it any less extraordinary once she was informed by the Strand that the man was her own stepfather, either. The professional always sees these things differently from the client.
I have known doctors like this in my time. Give them a rare tropical disease and they will work night and day to arrest its progress. Break your leg on their front steps and you can lie there until it is your turn in the queue. “Where is the challenge in modern medicine?” they cry, stepping over your body. But I digress. I was talking about Holmes.
Holmes might have told Miss Morrison (with perfect truth) that Hosmer Angel had cruelly deceived her—that he is legally (and to all outward appearances, happily) married under a different name which it is to be hoped is his own; that his household includes one very healthy wife, as well as her daughter from a previous marriage; that he had balked at the crime of bigamy, for which cause she should give thanks to heaven; but that having once laid eyes on her at the gasfitters’/typesetters’ ball, he had not been able to rest at the thought that she would ever give herself to another.
I wish I had thought of this at the time. It is romantic, it is technically true if happily misleading, and it would have made an admirable preamble to that little speech of his about the wisdom of putting the past behind her, which might have been repeated in toto and to some positive effect at that juncture. It certainly fell on deaf ears the first time.
This carefully constructed version of the truth has the further merit of answering all of the questions Miss Morrison asked Holmes in the first place: “Where is Hosmer Angel? What has happened to him? Is he all right? Is he coming back to me?”
She never asked Holmes, “Who is Hosmer Angel?” That question Holmes asked himself. A lesser detective would not have asked the question at all, but a better man might have shared the answer with his client instead of with me.
I did not have the luxury of choosing my audience. Nothing less than the whole sordid truth could serve my turn as a writer. Once I was involved, it was in very truth ‘A Case of Identity’ and all hope lost.
“I do not think I can become a typewriter,” she said.
I do not think she can become a governess, shop assistant, clerk or nanny, either, and I shudder to think of the dangers her short sight would expose her to in a textile mill or manufactory, but I felt obliged to ask the question even so.
“Why should you wish to become a typewriter?”
“I must do something, Dr Watson. I cannot return to live quietly under the same roof as my mother and stepfather now that I know the truth. Surely you can see that?”
I could, of course. I am only sorry that I did not see it two months ago, when I wrote that wretched story. We had come to a lull in the conversation just when we could least afford a lull. In another moment, she would be thanking me for my time, gathering up her possessions, and going out into a world I had inadvertently stripped of all its promise. The fact that the promise was false suddenly meant less than nothing. Where would she go? What would she do?
What would Holmes do in my place?
At last, a question I could answer: Holmes would never permit himself to be in my place—or what’s a Watson for?
She was collecting herself. Tucking her magazine under her arm, searching for her gloves. Found them. Tugging on first one, then the other. Her hands were slightly puffy, I noticed. I longed to tell her to eat less salt. She rose to her feet. She was about to speak. I was on my feet myself when I heard a familiar rap on the study door and saluted my salvation.
“Mary, I am so pleased to see you. I did not expect you back for hours, else I should have asked our guest to wait. May I present Miss Sarah Morrison? Miss Morrison, my wife, who may be able to be of some material assistance to you. Have I your permission to tell her your story?”
Mary’s entrance had been precipitate—prompted, no doubt, by what must have been a wonderfully lurid account of the lady’s arrival by our Annie. Mary was all over wet, the wool steaming gently in the overheated room (I do like it warm for writing), the lone feather on her second-best hat dripping nicely down her astrakhan collar, and she was white to the lips. I was pleased to think that these details would not be apparent to the myopic Miss Morrison, who was acknowledging the unwanted introduction with a meaningless smile and a perfectly numb and incurious, “How do you do, Mrs Watson?” She gestured helplessly, as much with her copy of the Strand as at it, which I did not scruple to interpret as consent.
“Mary, I have introduced you to Miss Morrison as if she were a stranger, but wha
t if I were to tell you that Miss Morrison is none other than Mary Sutherland?”
“Mary Sutherland? Whose stepfather… Oh, John!” Her eyes flew to the Strand in sudden recognition. She fairly tore the dripping hat from her head and I watched the colour wash across her face as though released by a spring concealed in the constricting ribbons. I steadied her for a moment. “Miss Sutherland, Miss Morrison, you have had a great shock, you must let us offer you some tea. Please, I insist—if for no other reason than to get Annie away from the keyhole while we consider what is best to be done. John, you were absolutely right about that girl, I came home to find her polishing the doorknob with her ear, she will have to go at quarter-day. Excuse me, Miss Morrison, I realize that the inadequacies of our maidservant is not a topic of general interest but if you will let me take your things and—thank you, John, I will add mine to the pile. Do you have them? There. Annie, you will please hang these up and tell Cook that we require tea for three, immediately. Yes, in the study. And we should like some of those scones Dr Watson is so fond of. That will be all, Annie.”
Annie bobbed a very inadequate curtsey and dropped a glove and then a hat, but she got the door closed eventually and I blessed Mary for her seemingly inconsequential chatter. Miss Morrison looked far less stricken than she had a few short moments ago. She actually laughed when Mary announced that she hoped neither of us was particularly fond of scones because she happened to know there wasn’t a currant in the house and Cook being the perfectionist she was, Annie was probably halfway across town now, searching for them. When Miss Morrison said, “Mrs Watson, I don’t care if I never eat another scone,” it had all the force of a religious conversion. Holmes has a lot to answer for, I thought.
“Good. Now tell me everything, from the time you first read my husband’s account in the Strand. How long had it been since you last saw the man you thought of as your fiancé?”