by Anita Janda
It is one of my many failings that, finding myself in a quarrel, I can nearly always see my opponent’s point, often to the extent, over a couple of hours, of losing sight of my own. I could never have been a lawyer. Holmes would have made an excellent lawyer—never does he lose sight of a single advantage attached to his position and he hates to lose an argument—but that is neither here nor there. I owe Mary an apology. I had felt constrained to place the demands of friendship temporarily above the demands of marital openness and that is bound to be a source of hurt and confusion to a wife. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
* * *
All is forgiven.
A few tears fell, I told her my idea for ‘The Red-headed League’ (“Oh, John! Do you think you should?”—very gratifying), and we have made a solemn pact: henceforth, Mary will read each of my adventures as they come from my pen, in advance of my friend Holmes. I am not sure why that should have made everything right between us—it is only what I have been asking for since I began this diary with my account of the adventure of the etheric manipulators, after all—but so it proved. I gave her the revised version of ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ on the spot.
“After all,” she said, “I may be able to suggest ways in which to make the written adventures more palatable to Mr Holmes.” Isn’t that sweet? I am glad I told her how reluctant Holmes was to see the Irene Adler story in print.
“But John, he is so human in that one!”
My sentiments exactly, but then we all know that Holmes’s humanity is not his most prized possession. I even told Mary about Mr Jellett’s latest complaint and do you know, she was able to make a very worthwhile suggestion.
“John, why do you not refer Mr Jellett to a specialist? You can do nothing for him, he takes up valuable time that might be better spent in any number of ways” (at which point she gave a delicious little wriggle), “and it is an awesome responsibility to have to tell yourself over and over again that he is not really ill. After all, Mr Jellett is going to die sometime, like the rest of us. At some point, certainly, he will be ill. Why not now?”
Why not, indeed. Mary may not be reliable on the subject of Mr Holmes, but she is lucidity itself on the subject of Mr Jellett.
I’ll do it.
Chapter 20
I need a new chapter for this one.
This afternoon, I sustained a visit from two young readers of the Strand Magazine who were inspired by the exploits of their hero, Sherlock Holmes, to the utterly unexpected extent of consulting their uncle’s Medical Directory to search out the bona fides and current address of Dr John H. Watson. They actually called on me. I can’t believe it. At their age, I should not have dared! Of course, at their age, I couldn’t have done it—my favourite author was long since dead. In answer to my question, they told me proudly that they did not want to disturb Holmes at his work in Baker Street. I congratulated them on their thoughtfulness and was rewarded with two of the brightest smiles I’ve seen in ages.
They were very polite, it’s true, but they stared a great deal and wanted to know how they might obtain a copy of ‘A Study in Scarlet’ and ‘The Sign of Four’. I distributed autographed copies of my first novel and suggested that they apply directly to Mr Nathaniel Fitsch of the Strand Magazine for information regarding my second. They seemed disappointed that the autograph was mine and not Holmes’s.
Mary says that it is a great compliment to “the persuasive power of my writing,” and I suppose that in this, she is saying no more than the truth (it has not escaped my notice that the adventure which brought them to my door was the Irene Adler story, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’), but I am moving my practice in consequence. Readers of ‘The Red-headed League’ will find me hard at work in Kensington and conclude that their directory is out of date. This technique will not discourage a Mary Sutherland or a Jabez Wilson (not that I look for a visitation from Mr Wilson alias Rufus Jamison), but I expect it will answer for at least some of the William Smiths and Mary Browns who might otherwise track me to my surgery.
I have always wanted a practice in Kensington.
Chapter 21
“Kensington, John? We are moving to Kensington?” asked Mary.
“Only to avoid my public,” I explained. Perhaps I should have asked her first? I have only been married a short while, but I know that Mary expects to be consulted about many more things that my mother ever did. “I should have asked you first, I know, but it was very late and besides, I thought you’d like Kensington.”
“I’m sure I should, John. You have often spoken of it.” My ear detected a note of doubt. Oh well, I could afford to be generous.
“Come, Mary, where would you like to live? All of London waits at your feet. It’s not often that a man can say to his wife, ‘Your wish is my command,’ and mean it from his heart.” I teased. “Now where shall it be?”
“Kensington is fine, John, truly. I know you have always wanted a practice in Kensington. I was simply a little startled to hear you have one, that’s all. I must adjust my ideas a little in the wake of this very remarkable adventure. I hope you found us a nice big house,” she teased. “I expect Mr Holmes will have to adjust his ideas a little as well. I suppose you must show it to him before you publish it?”
“I don’t know about ‘must,’ Mary, but certainly I had thought to do so. You don’t think he’ll like it?” It always hurts me when Mary speaks slightingly of my work and I had taken more trouble over ‘The Red-headed League’ than any of my other adventures.
“I’m sure I think he should like it! It’s a wonderful story, John. My heart was in my mouth when he tapped that sidewalk. Then, later, in the bank—you have a great gift for description, John. I mean it. By acknowledging the preposterousness of your Red-headed League, you made it impossible for me to doubt it for an instant. I don’t know how you did it, but you made me see your Mr Jabez Wilson’s red hair stand out like a flame against a long line of drab pretenders to the distinction. It was as if he were Royalty and they, commoners. I had no problem with it at all, even knowing the spuriousness of it. I can see Mr Wilson’s red hair yet. Later, I could feel the tension mount as you waited for John Clay in the dampness of that bank vault. Did Mr Holmes really bring a deck of cards with him that evening?”
By now, Mary should know both her husband and his friend well enough to understand that I am never driven to exert my powers of invention on his behalf. My friend Holmes is unique. I could not begin to imagine how to embellish his behaviour for my readers. He is the one fixed star in a sea of invention.
Mary was right about one thing, though: I shall have to choose the time and place for sharing my adventure of ‘The Red-headed League’ with Holmes very carefully. I am glad I have ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ to fall back on in case of need. Reader, she married him. That’s right, Alice Turner is now Mrs James McCarthy. Mary was so proud of me.
Mrs McCarthy wrote to me from Scotland, where she and her husband have fled to avoid the tongues of the Boscombe Valley gossip brigade, stimulated to new heights of activity by her “precipitous” marriage. (She has only known James all of her short life. I wonder what they would have made of my marriage to Mary? Not much, I’ll be bound.) And while she has asked me to convey her “sincere appreciation” to Mr Sherlock Holmes, Mrs McCarthy’s letter made no secret of the fact that she reserved the greater part of her gratitude for the author of ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, an adventure that she for her part would be only too glad to see in print. “For however unpleasant it may be to see our fathers’ crimes uncloaked in the public press, I can only rejoice to see my husband vindicated before our family, friends, and acquaintances.” She went on to say that she must think of the future. Their children, if any, should live in a world where the truth was honoured and made known. So I am one adventure to the good, anyway. Holmes won’t quibble with me over this one, I’m sure. He will be as glad to see the end of it as I am.
It’s a pity I can’t count on his feeling the same level
of detachment regarding the Jabez Wilson case but there, a man’s acknowledged victories always loom larger in his memory than his secret successes. I reveal that, far from being one of Holmes’s rare failures, the Boscombe Valley Mystery was no mystery to him at all, and I am a hero. I describe the ins and outs of the detective process that led Holmes from Jabez Wilson’s unsavoury leisure-time activities to John Clay’s criminal ones, unmasked before a grateful Bank Manager and an Inspector at Scotland Yard, and I will almost certainly be told that I have failed miserably at conveying the magnitude of his achievement. Practically speaking, it is inevitable. Besides, it would be just like Holmes to decide that my Red-headed League was distracting the reader from the inherently much more interesting matter of an overly dedicated shop assistant with grubby knees to his trousers, working for half wages at a shop whose pavement sounded different from that of the surrounding shops. Those were the points of interest that recommended themselves to my friend Holmes, as I recall.
And Mary suspects me of embroidering Holmes’s idiosyncrasies! She must be mad.
* * *
“Miss Morrison, may I present Dr Stamford? Dr Stamford, Miss Morrison.” I marvelled at the ease of Mary’s manner as she made the necessary introductions. “Tea, John?” She seemed to have no sense of the falseness of the occasion. I wondered that she could keep her countenance in the face of the astonishing transformation that had befallen Mary Sutherland. Miss Morrison, Miss Morrison, Miss Morrison: the correction thrummed in my ears. Mary would not thank me if I were to call our guest by the name I had given her in my adventure.
I accepted a cup of tea and during the interval of passing the cups, examined our guest. Discreetly, I assure you. And I promise you, this was not the Miss Morrison I knew. Or rather (I must correct myself again), the Miss Morrison I thought I knew. That Miss Morrison, better known as Mary Sutherland, had fallen prey to the unscrupulous designs of her stepfather, who had masqueraded as one Hosmer Angel (to give him the name I gave him in my adventure) in order to attach her affections to his absent person and secure her little income to his household on a permanent basis. It was a vile, contemptible trick and she had been its victim. She even looked like a victim. Defeated in her lovelorn ambition to become a typewriter by her short sight, she had no particular style or grace, regularly wore mismatched boots, and beat the air with a breathless, untidy staccato that spoke equally of entrapment and escape. That Miss Morrison had been all abroad in her behaviour, all distress and distraction, at once bereft of her hopes for the future and the security of her past. There was every indication that her mother had joined with her stepfather in her deception.
This Miss Morrison, by contrast, had apparently never known an unquiet moment. She took no cream, no sugar, but stirred her tea as though to keep us company. Her new—and very modish—costume was a welcome breath of spring on this raw day. I specifically checked her boots: new and very daring, being made to match not only each other but also her bottle-green hat with the butter-coloured feathers that crowned the whole. I knew that the vagueness of her gaze was attributable to the ravages of myopia, but I doubt that explanation occurred to young Stamford. She kept her gaze softly focussed on what little she was able to see of the room, while he fell all over himself trying to attract her attention. Stamford always was a specialist at heart—the respiratory system was and is his special area of concern. She was undeniably alluring. She spoke when spoken to and seemed as grateful for the attention as for the tea, but initiated no conversation and was well content with silence. Her unaccountable ease of manner would have melted stronger hearts than young Stamford’s.
Perhaps nothing will come of it. Mary says that it would be most unusual if her very first introduction were to bear marital fruit and I can see the logic in that, but I can also see the light in Mary’s eyes and that light tells a different story. We are promised to escort Miss Morrison to the surgeons’ ball next month, as Stamford’s guests, so that he might pursue the connection. I don’t know why we need all of these contrivances! When I was ready to marry, I met my Mary and we managed to reach an understanding in spite of the very considerable handicap of Holmes’s constant detecting presence. Of course, it’s not everyone who could have brought that off as well as I did. And Mary Sutherland does have some claim on my good nature. Oh, bother the woman! I hope she does manage to attach young Stamford. It will be easier to remember to address her as “Mrs Stamford” than as “Miss Morrison.”
Finally moderately well pleased with the adventure of ‘The Red-headed League’. All told, it has taken almost twice as long as I had anticipated, but in this case I think the extra labour was justified. I want the reader to understand that Jabez Wilson’s hair was of such a consummate redness that the most casual observer (that is to say, Dr Watson) would be immediately struck by it. I had to work the description in early, direct the reader’s attention to it smoothly, and let the significance of my description build to a crescendo against a fast-moving adventure in which every loose end fits, and the conjuring trick fades into the background.
The worst part of the creative writing business is that when you finally manage to do it and do it well, no one has any idea that you’ve done anything at all. In this regard as in so many others, it is the exact opposite of the deductive process.
Chapter 22
Bumped into Holmes in, of all places, an opium den—and what would I not have given to have had my manuscript of ‘The Red-headed League’ with me! He was fuzzy-minded. Kept telling me he had a new adventure “for my ears only” and then forgetting what it was. Something about a beggar, a good woman, and a missing husband, but where the opium den comes into it I don’t know. I hasten to add that I, too, was there in my professional capacity or rather, what is beginning to feel like my professional capacity, as Mary’s husband. It was this way.
It seems that Mary does have one friend who is married, and this friend’s husband is an opium eater. Abel Hucknell had been gone since Friday and by Sunday, Mrs Hucknell was frantic. Frantic on Sunday, she thought of Mary on Monday: wasn’t Mary’s husband supposed to be a doctor? Mrs Hucknell brought their wedding photograph with her, for purposes of identification. “Brown hair and blue eyes,” she said tenderly, conferring it on me like a gift. She knew exactly where her husband was: Upper Thames Street, the Silver Bowl; Madame Chang would know. Naturally, I left at once. Hucknell, Hucknell—wasn’t there a couple by that name at our wedding? I wasn’t sure.
Not the best part of town, Upper Thames Street. Idleness is the universal affliction of the poor and evidence of that affliction was everywhere. Saucy city pieces darted out of doorways to accost lonely gentlemen in hansom cabs and passed rude remarks when I ignored them. Young toughs melted in and out of back alleys. The gin shops did a brisk business. We travelled the length of the street twice before I spotted it: on the corner, below a cooper’s shop that had seen better days, the Silver Bowl. It seemed fitting that the entrance should be below the level of the street. With more foresight than I am usually given credit for (and, to be honest, more foresight than I am usually prepared to exhibit), I instructed the cabman to wait.
“Don’t be more foolish than you can help,” I said shortly. “If I’m not out of there in five minutes, ten at the outside,” Holmes says it is as well to be precise, “you may go to the police with my blessing.”
As Holmes says, the secret is in the timing. Be brief, be prosperous, and be sure you reach your exit before your last syllable reaches his ear. Above all, resist the impulse to tip your unwilling assistant as a token of your good faith. He may pocket the tip in lieu of his fare and write off the difference to pride and independence. Holmes says pride and independence should cost a man everything.
“Madame Chang?” I inquired and realized my mistake at once. Two men loomed out of the shadows behind her—this was no place for polite introductions. “My name is Dr Watson. I am looking for—this man.”
“You are his friend?” she asked, making no move to take th
e photograph. Her words came slowly. “I think you will not have to come for that one more than a few times. I think he sees his death in the smoke.” That was Madame Chang’s opinion and who can doubt she knows whereof she speaks?
Loyalty to Abel Hucknell kept my face impassive as I digested this information. The old woman sighed. “The fifth bench on the left,” she said, indicating the curtained entrance to the next room.
Ordinarily, a new scene resolves itself for me very easily into foreground and background. My impression of the Silver Bowl, however, was that it was all background. The floorboards, badly warped, were bare and dirty. No pictures relieved the monotony of the walls, which were of an indeterminate colour tending toward brown and running with river damp. The lighting was uniformly dim and the atmosphere, naturally, was poisonous. I kept my breathing soft and shallow as I picked my way to the fifth bench. “Abel?” I whispered.
Abel Hucknell had been a tall, strapping man. No more. With brown hair and blue eyes, according to his wife. Bleary eyes and matted hair would have been more to the point, I thought as I helped (or rather, hauled) him to his feet. I wondered briefly whether he had had anything to eat since Friday. There was a small bowl of congealed rice next to his pipe: untouched.
“Abel, it’s Dr Watson. Can you stand? Abel? Abel, can you stand? Good. No, don’t sit down, Abel, we’re leaving. No, don’t sit down. Abel? Stand up, Abel! That’s it. Claire is waiting for us, Abel. We must go to her.” I looked around. We did not seem to be disturbing the rest of the clientele: a verminous lot, I thought. “Abel? Can you hear me, Abel?”
“Claire?” His eyes slid off my face. “Where’s the photograph?” he asked.