by Anita Janda
“But, Watson, why a blue carbuncle? The carbuncle is a species of ruby, ranging in colour from deep orange to blood red. There are no blue carbuncles.”
There is no Duchess of Morcar, either. Really, sometimes Holmes tries my patience. Does he think this is easy? I should like to see him try his hand at this some time.
I have written to Miss Turner, offering her our condolences on her sad loss, urging her to do nothing in haste, reminding her that I was with Holmes when he answered Lestrade’s appeal for help, promising her a full account of the circumstances of Charles McCarthy’s death within the week. It will take me that long, I judge, to discover how to work in the story of James McCarthy’s entanglement with that barmaid. I will leave it to her judgement, I told her, whether the facts uncovered by the unremitting efforts of Sherlock Holmes preclude a marriage with young McCarthy. That gives him about a week to make his confession to her. In all conscience, I can do no more for the lad. My first duty must be to the lady, who also happens to be our client—or, rather, Lestrade’s client. It is a material consideration, as Mr Turner’s reflections on the nature of business remind me.
Miss Turner seems to be a sensible girl, one who may (I hope) be tactfully encouraged to accept the happiness that Life offers her. As Holmes’s reluctant intermediary, I emphatically reserve the right to so encourage her. It would be too cruel if with one blow, I were to shatter both her memory of her father and her hopes for the future. John Turner was a long time dying and it is a great pity he chose to use that time to try to spread the enmity of his generation like a blight onto the happiness of the next. He shall not succeed if it lies within my power to prevent it.
I suppose it is too much to hope that Alice Turner suspects the truth. Imagine promising the old reprobate that you would not marry “the killer of Charles McCarthy”! Logically, John Turner would have to be content with that wording of the promise. Cold comfort for the dying man, seeing that he was himself the killer. Interesting that he should have remained convinced to the end that the son of a blackmailer was no fit husband for the daughter of a murderer.
I must do what I can to bring the truth home to her in a gentle way. I must put a good face on it. Perhaps I can put the text of Charles McCarthy’s providential ‘Memoirs of Ballarat’ into John Turner’s mouth—have Turner confess his guilt freely and openly to Holmes as if to ease his conscience, sue for mercy on the grounds of failing health, vow that he always intended to come forward in the event that young James was forced to stand his trial. Recent events may make that last part a bit difficult for Miss Turner to credit, but it’s worth a try.
This is ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, not Romeo and Juliet. John Turner is dead. May God have mercy on his soul.
* * *
And now we have a communication from Mr Fitsch:
The Strand is unable to accept ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’ for publication at this time and begs that you will supply the deficiency with another of your excellent adventures of Sherlock Holmes (not less than six nor more than nine thousand words) by the 12th inst. at the latest. We are presently working on the February issue of the Magazine—‘The Blue Carbuncle’ is a Christmas story and no light editing of mine will serve to make it anything else. Exchange the snow for a spring shower, the goose for a ham, and you have the makings of an Easter story in deplorable taste. Your protagonist may pardon the good thief in a Christmas story, but hardly in an Easter fable, don’t you agree? A little reflection will, I am sure, convince you of the truth of what I am saying. We will be most pleased to accept ‘The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle’ for our December issue, should you care to resubmit it to us at that time. I return the manuscript to you forthwith. I trust that you and your wife are keeping well and managing to avoid the influenza.
Remember, I need the new adventure by the 12th—if it’s a bit over 9,000 words, I won’t say no, but spare me that “Sign” thing. I noticed you referred to it again here. Are you trying to create a demand for book-length fiction within the pages of my magazine?
Yours etc.,
Nathaniel Fitsch
I didn’t think it was so obvious. Well, what is obvious to Mr Fitsch may not be so obvious to Mr Fitsch’s readers. If I intend to create a demand for the long story that is languishing in my files, I shall have to look sharp and slip in my references where Mr Fitsch’s infamous light editing can not easily take them out. Were I more like Holmes, no doubt this would add to the excitement of the task confronting me at this time but as my readers are bound to discover, I am not like Holmes, and it is not excitement that I am feeling. How does Fitsch imagine that a doctor is avoiding the influenza? So far I have avoided taking the influenza, it is true, but I can hardly avoid seeing it, hearing about it, talking about it, thinking about it.
Curious how much busier Anstruther is over this epidemic than I am. He goes about half-shaved, with dark circles under his eyes, and I know it’s not for effect. For some reason, his practice has been much more affected by the influenza than mine has. My six cases have grown to twenty or so, but from the look of him, he’s wrestling with fifty cases, half of them at the crisis. I offered to do his evening rounds for him so he could get some sleep, he can’t go on this way, but he tells me he’s very well, hard work never killed anybody. A lot of nonsense! Hard work among the infected has killed more than one physician who neglected his own health. He’ll be lucky to escape the influenza himself, at the rate he’s going. Then I’ll have him to care for as well as his patients.
Today is the 10th, my new deadline is the 12th, the influenza is everywhere. Realistically, I cannot expect to write a new 6,000 word adventure in two days, in between influenza cases. And why on earth should I have to? Setting aside the 44,000 words of ‘The Sign of Four’, I now have six adventures of the requisite length complete and to hand, not one of them simultaneously acceptable to Holmes, Fitsch, and myself. I shall have to throw myself on Holmes’s mercy—‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ or ‘The Five Orange Pips’, one or the other, it is up to him. I cannot sanction publication of ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ until June at the earliest, and then only with Alice Turner’s permission.
Mary is right. I will stop by Baker Street this evening.
* * *
“Dr Watson, as I live and breathe. The very man we were wishing for. Dr Mortimer, Sir Henry, you remember Dr Watson.”
Holmes, affable? Something was wrong. I turned from Holmes to his guests, searching for the explanation. “You are not well, Sir Henry?” (My question was just pardonable, I judged, coming from a medical man.)
“Nothing that an ocean voyage won’t cure,” Dr Mortimer said heartily. “Salt air, the sea breeze, new faces, a complete change of scene, and a gradual transition to an active life. It was Dr Bruder’s recommendation.”
It was not for me to question the eminent Dr Bruder’s recommendation, I reflected. “You are going to Canada?” I asked.
“To Canada? Why should we go to Canada? There are no interesting skulls in Canada, Doctor. We sail for Africa! In easy stages, I assure you: London to Liverpool, Liverpool to Tenerife—on a passenger liner, not a merchant ship. We must consider Sir Henry’s comfort. We will recruit our strength in the Canaries. Hiking, canoeing, exploring, sleeping rough, with regular excursions to the mainland. When Sir Henry is feeling more the thing, we will embark for the West Coast, wending our way south. We do not have our hearts set absolutely on reaching the Cape, do we, Sir Henry? But the mouth of the Congo, the coastal site of Stanley and Livingstone, that we must venture or call our trip a failure.”
Holmes said, “Dr Mortimer and Sir Henry were kind enough to stop by on this, their last evening in London, for a pipe and a chat. Doctor?” I accepted a fill of tobacco from him.
“She deceived me, Doctor,” said Sir Henry.
“Not as badly as Irene Adler deceived me,” said Holmes proudly. I listened, stupefied, to the recitation that followed. “Watson is calling it ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’” he concluded.
“Isn’t that right, Watson?”
I had just enough presence of mind to add, “You will find it in next month’s Strand.”
Dr Mortimer was smiling. Holmes must genuinely like Sir Henry, I realized. I had not suspected it of him—he always holds himself so aloof from his clients. Dr Mortimer pointed out the moral of the story for us: “You see, Sir Henry, however much these things may hurt at the time, they do pass. It is two years now and here we have Holmes, as heart-whole as ever.”
Neither of them knows anything about it. My thoughts flew to Mary. “I am sorry you will not be spending more time in London, Sir Henry. I should have liked you to meet my wife. You, too, Dr Mortimer.” Moved by some impulse I don’t understand even yet, I picked over my words, rejecting my half-formed references to Mrs Stapleton and the terrible position she had been in, finally insisting, “You must promise to give me the pleasure when you return to London, Sir Henry. Mary would never forgive me if I let you put up in an hotel on that occasion.”
I owe Mary a bachelor in any case, I thought wildly. By any reasonable standard, Sir Henry Baskerville, romantic baronet and West African explorer, late of Baskerville Hall, would make an admirable substitute for Sherlock Holmes, misogynist and intermittently employed detective.
I was grasping at straws and I knew it. Now that it had come to the point of publication, I found I was not altogether happy about ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ as a solution to my domestic problems. It made a marvelous adventure, though—the best of all the ones I’d written. Holmes was so human in it.
We smoked in silence for a little. Sir Henry stared into the fire. His thoughts were easy to guess. Dr Mortimer might not be such a poor choice of attendant, I thought hopefully. He will be cheerfully oblivious to his companion’s pain and that, together with the distractions of the Canary Islands and West Africa (money helps, there’s no doubt about it), should take Sir Henry over the worst of it. Mary, I knew, could be trusted to do the rest. Weren’t we planning to introduce Mary Sutherland to young Stamford next week? Dr Mortimer and my friend Holmes appeared to be looking for a way to introduce the subject of the Hound. Holmes was the first to find the key.
“What did you think of Selden, Dr Mortimer? Camped on the moor in full view of Lassiter’s telescope for over two weeks, dodging the warders and harrying his reluctant relatives for supplies—he certainly didn’t lack courage. An uncommonly resourceful villain was Jack Selden, don’t you agree? You saw the body, Mortimer. What did his skull tell you?”
This unleashed a flood of reminiscences on the part of Dr Mortimer, culminating once again in a discussion of the pure impossibility of red hair.
“You’re a scientific man, Holmes.” (Holmes raised an eyebrow in token of the compliment.) “You must have noticed that it is a mere figure of speech. Red hair! You might as well describe someone as having a double chin or a turned-up nose. Of course we all do it, but to the scientific mind,…”
If Dr Mortimer has his way, I shall have to resign myself to descriptions of our subjects’ skulls. Red hair, double chins, and a turned-up nose are only the beginning. What about grey eyes? Flashing teeth? Bushy eyebrows? A piercing gaze? Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as a piercing gaze. I have been impaled on the one Sherlock Holmes carries around with him often enough to know better.
I could have listened to Dr Mortimer for hours. I could see Holmes was impressed. He was bored, certainly (Holmes is always bored in company), but he was also impressed—impressed and entertained. It was a new thought and if there’s one thing Holmes likes more than another, it is a new thought. Once or twice I fanned the flames with a carefully modulated objection, raising Holmes’s other eyebrow, so to speak (I wonder whether Dr Mortimer permits eyebrow raising?), but I would not have challenged him seriously for the world. Not then. Not there. I would choose my ground. A practical demonstration was in order, I thought, and I wanted a bigger audience for it than the scientific Holmes and the abstracted Sir Henry. I’ll take Mr Fitsch for my arbiter, I thought: Mr Fitsch and vox populi. I had no doubt that they would be on my side. Wasn’t “red hair” an expression of the people? The salient points, to my mind, were these: (1) Selden had had red hair; and (2) I had had an idea for an adventure.
Holmes shall have his Jamison case. That was a kindly gesture on his part, toward me and Sir Henry both—it should not go unrewarded. And I know the Jamison case would be Holmes’s first choice. I shall call it ‘The Adventure of the Redheaded League’ and send a copy to Dr Mortimer—no, better yet, to “Sir Henry Baskerville, Poste Restante, The Canary Islands.” I will have to change Rufus Jamison’s name (what do you think of Jabez Wilson?) and restore to him the hair of his youth, hennaed out of all recognition, but I believe the device will answer. The problem with that case was always how to account for Rufus Jamison’s absences from his shop, as regular as clockwork, in a family magazine. It was obvious from the start, even to Holmes, that the truth would not do. The question is, will he be amenable to a fiction of such major proportions? An epic fiction, greater even than the one I created for ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’? I think so. It is a hard call, but my best guess is that Dr Mortimer and his scientific mind have antagonized Holmes enough for anything. I have wagered substantial sums on riskier propositions than this in my day! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And Holmes is an irascible fellow.
For once I need not worry about his client’s reactions to my literary plans. Mr Jamison must approve his disguise. What man has ever objected to acquiring a full head of hair? It would be like objecting to a sudden surge of virility. Rufus Jamison is not the type to object to that. He will probably dine out on the story for months—in bachelor circles, of course. It is irresistible.
The fact of the matter is that Dr Mortimer, like my friend Holmes, has very little respect for the power of the written word. I’ll show them. By the time I’ve done with my description, no one will question the flame red hair of our Mr Wilson. Jabez Wilson will not only have red hair, he’ll have the reddest hair in all England. No, don’t exaggerate, Watson—the reddest hair in all London. Exaggeration would be fatal to my story. Wait until they see the line of red-headed men I intend to assemble in, I think, Pope’s Court, to compete for a place in my League. The position will be a sinecure, yes, moderately well-paid. I’ve got it! I’ll have him copy The Encyclopaedia Britannica for me, in honour of Inspector Lestrade of the ginger hair. (I want to secure Holmes’s approval, don’t I? An inside joke at Lestrade’s expense will be the quickest way to do that.)
It’s perfect. It even has the flavour of a schoolboy punishment about it. I particularly like the idea of sending Rufus Jamison to Pope’s Court for his sins. I hope it does the old boy good.
Chapter 19
“Mary, I’m sorry, but I tried to tell you it wouldn’t answer.” Oh, why didn’t she let me show her ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ before sending it off to Mr Fitsch? Of course she felt betrayed.
“How did you try to tell me? When did you try to tell me? I had no idea, John. None. You were most approving of Celia Hughes. You never missed an opportunity to take tea with her, talk to her, admire her. Are you telling me that this was on your own behalf?
“And Flora Blish. I know you did not precisely admire Flora, but we were not trying to suit you, John. Presumably, you had already been suited. We were trying to suit Mr Holmes, and that is a very different kettle of fish. I could not know that Celia, as forward as she was, had yet been too modest in her behaviour to attach him! Without a hint from you, I must have moved in the wrong direction. That hint never came. At least I did not fix on a shy, retiring type, all blushes and coltish capers. You may not appreciate poor Flora, John, but she has seen her share of trouble and she has met it with the resources at her command. If those resources, intellectual and emotional, seem as insignificant to you as they did to Mr Holmes, you might at least have the decency to admit that that is not her fault.
“Jo Tate! I suppose you will not tell me that you made yourself clear over Miss T
ate? You avoided Miss Tate, it’s true but that is hardly the same thing.” She appeared to have done for the moment.
“Mary, please. You are upset. It is very natural. For several weeks—very well, for several months, many weeks—you have been trying to accomplish something you can see now had much better have been left unattempted. But Mary, no great harm was done. Holmes does not lack understanding. He knows that I was under a pledge of secrecy, that I could not speak to you.”
“Holmes does not lack understanding!” she repeated. “Mr Holmes may not lack understanding, John, but you don’t understand anything. Oh, go to your surgery! We will talk further of this tonight, after supper.”
Is that any way for a loving wife to speak to her husband? And another thing: do you suppose all wives make appointments to do battle with their husbands? And what about their husbands? Do you suppose their husbands meekly present themselves at the time appointed? I give you my word, I have half a mind to drop in on Holmes this evening.
There’s the bell: my first patient. I have certainly timed this to a nicety. More later.
* * *
It was while I was listening for the fourth time to Mr Jellett’s moving description (no pun intended) of the mysterious pain in his vitals that is sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right but never in the middle, that I gradually came to realize that whether or not all husbands present themselves at the time appointed, one who loves his wife might well choose to be obliging in such a sensitive matter. Surely it is in our best interests as a couple to put this behind us as soon as may be? I could wish it were behind us already but there, that is always the wish of the party in the wrong. I can sympathize with Mary’s resentment in this case, indeed I can. I can see her point.