My Sherlock Holmes

by Michael Kurland

  “At least,” said Mr. Holmes, “you are spared the indignity of having a certain doctor spread the news of your most private habits to the world.”

  “How convenient it must be to have a doctor at your beck and call,” said Dodgson. “Only one medicine helps me. I think that the more one feels one’s own sin, and the wonderful goodness of God who will forgive so much, the more one longs to help others to escape the shame and misery one has brought on oneself.”

  “That may be,” said Mr. Holmes. “I do not traffic in such thoughts. But I know that this young fellow and I will help you to escape the snares of others.

  “Now, then,” he continued, “when were the books taken from you?”

  “About two months ago I had a thought about a word game I could devise that could teach children about logic,” said Dodgson. “It reminded me of a notation for a game I made back then which I thought might assist me in this new diversion. I never finished that first game because writing about Alice consumed so much of my spare time. I went to this very book case and it was gone, along with three of its companions.”

  “And,” asked Holmes, “when was the last time you consulted that diary.”

  “I have no idea. It’s been years and years.”

  “Who else knows about these diaries?” asked Mr. Holmes.

  “Nobody,” declared Dodgson. “Absolutely nobody!”

  “Without being impertinent,” said Mr. Holmes, “I would venture to guess that somebody does.”

  “Lots of people keep diaries,” said Dodgson, “but I have never made any special point about them. I never discuss them. They are never in view when anyone visits with me. Nothing about their appearance invites interest. They are just dull, black books on a shelf in an aging lecturer’s bookcase.”

  “Was anything else taken?” asked Holmes. “Any other book, an art object or trinket or some other private possession?”

  “Nothing,” said Dodgson.

  “You are quite sure?”

  “As you know,” said Dodgson, “it is my habit to make lists of everything. I gathered my various inventories and proceeded to check. I thought of you as I proceeded. I thought you would be proud of my thoroughness and foresight. Nothing else was missing.”

  “I am honored by your thoughts,” said Holmes. “Have you received any communications from the thief?”

  “I have not,” said Dodgson.

  “No threats to make the contents public unless you pay a ransom or perform a service or cease from some real or imagined action.”

  “No,” said the shocked Dodgson, “but I live in fear that a message of that sort will come to me.”

  “Let’s see what facts we have assembled,” said Mr. Holmes. “Four diaries have been taken from your bookcase. The thief took only these and nothing else, so clearly that was his purpose. The crime occurred somewhere between two months and ‘years and years ago.’ You’ve received no menacing letters or demands for money. So we do not have a motive and without a motive our search for suspects can take us anywhere.”

  “Prospects do not seem promising,” said Dodgson.

  “On the contrary, my dear Dodgson,” said Holmes, “this shall he one of my easier adventures.”

  “It cheers me to hear that,” said Dodgson, “but I don’t see how that can be.”

  “It’s simple,” said Holmes. “Whoever did it is someone you know and trust. By definition, that eliminates most of the world’s population.”

  “Most comforting,” said Dodgson. “Actually, Mr. Holmes, I do feel comforted by the knowledge that you are assisting me—even if nothing comes from your labors.”

  “Don’t worry, we shall find your diary snatcher,” said Mr. Holmes. “One more thing. Would you be so kind as to furnish me with a list of people who have been in this room for years and years.”

  “How many years?”

  “That is entirely up to you and the limits of your concentration. The more extensive the list, the greater are our chances of identifying the culprit. And do not exercise judgment. Do not exclude a name because you doubt that they could have done such a thing. Omission of the one guilty name wastes more of our time than the inclusion of a hundred innocent names. And please append to each name, a brief description of who the person is, when they might have been here, and what, if any, grounds for dispute they might have you, no matter how trivial. I will need this infor mation tomorrow morning.”

  “Certainly,” said Dodgson, “now that we have discussed this dreary business, you must have dinner with me in the Hall.”

  The thought of a good dinner cheered me.

  “No,” said Mr. Holmes. “This young man and I are heading to town for dinner and a room, and we will begin the hunt tomorrow.”

  Dodgson was crestfallen.

  “There, there,” said Holmes, “it scarcely would serve our enterprise to have you seen eating and drinking with a somewhat notorious consulting detective. Our young friend will appear at this door tomorrow at noon and you shall give him the list we discussed.”

  And so I did and so he did.

  When I returned to our room in town, I ceremoniously handed the list to Mr. Holmes. He weighed it in his hand as if to judge its merit and glanced at the top page, which simply bore the title, “List of Visitors to Dodgson House at Tom Quad as Requested by Holmes and Wiggins.”

  Dodgson’s list was fourteen pages long. With meticulous longhand he enumerated all who had entered his apartment. In addition to their names, the don added date, nature of visit, station in life, the duration of their stay, and any notation about the disposition of the visitor toward him. Asterisks marked a goodly number of entries. These denoted visitors who made more than one appearance at Mr. Dodgson’s house. Mr. Holmes pressed the lengthy document back into my hand and told me to analyze it.

  I wanted no part of this tedious task.

  “Mustn’t you examine this yourself in order to further your investigation?” I asked, mustering the best argument I could to forestall this dreary occupation. “Especially since he went to all this trouble to prepare it in accordance with your urgings.”

  “I’ve seen Dodgson’s lists before, and I have no desire to burrow through one more such compendium. Some clue does lurk in that list of names, and your industry will be most helpful in recovering it. As to the other concern, Dodgson knew I would request such a list and made sure to prepare it in advance. He then affixed a title page after we left. Notice the cover sheet is rendered with broader strokes than is used on the subsequent pages. He felt no need to conserve ink.”

  “Why didn’t he provide it yesterday?” I asked with some indignation.

  “He believes that one must not even give the appearance of presuming on the good nature others, even when they are friends, as we are.”

  With that, Mr. Holmes grasped the handles of his worn leather satchel, said, “I trust you to give me a full report when I return,” and was out the door.

  With Holmes’s ominous request dangling in the room’s atmosphere, I attacked the list with the same gusto usually reserved for overboiled cabbage.

  I must admit that, although hardly as gripping as one of those voluminous sagas penned by M. Dumas, Dodgson’s list mesmerized me. It revealed a very different wonderland from the one for which he is so justly noted. It was an almanac of credos and purpose as well as quarrels, rebukes, and misunderstandings. And oh how the man loved rules. I have noticed that some of our species need the guiding lantern of clear and well-articulated instructions for every part of daily living. I have heard that this is particularly evident in those more northern countries of the continent; but I have not been. Charles Dodgson was not simply content to know and live by the rules. He restlessly devised new prescriptions for behavior, for games, for elections, and so on. And he was quick to protect the standards he lived by, his reputation, his faith, his friends, his works, and his privacy.

  Dr. Dodgson reached for his pen at the first appearance of a slight or assault. From one of the gre
atest thinkers in English literature came a steady river of letters and essays to right the wrongs he observed and he was ready for battle with no distinction between the pure and the petty. As a result this shy man who loved to spend his time daydreaming of puzzles and their solutions found himself constantly opening his door to people who wanted to praise him or understand why he had committed to writing a list of their failures for others to consider. And he would tell them.

  Various Scouts in the employ of Christ Church came to that famous sitting room. The Scouts were responsible for assorted housecleaning duties and reported directly to the House Manager. But that did not stop Dodgson from complaining that an accidental fire in this Scout’s chimney made the young man a menace to the house, or that the “dangerous effluvium” coming from beneath that Scout’s room required immediate attention, and this other Scout’s clumsiness caused breakage among some of Dodgson’s favorite pieces of glass and china. Both the Head Chef and the Hall Manager journeyed to Dr. Dodgson’s apartment when he complained about, “beefsteak almost too tough to eat, Portugal onions quite underboiled and uneatable and boiled potatoes that are always mealy.”

  He must have had quite a tête-à-tête with J. Barclay Thompson, reader in Anatomy. Thompson was Dodgson’s match when it came to voicing objections; although Thompson did not have the charm, wit, or good manners that we associate with Dodgson. The “keeper of bones,” as Dodgson referred to the man, took exception to how T. Vere Bayne served as curator of the Common Room. After vigorously defending Bayne, Dodgson was elected to succeed Bayne, an outcome that Thompson took badly.

  Then there was the wine merchant who supplied the Common Room. He was summoned to Dodgson’s premises and informed in no uncertain terms to stop bestowing gifts upon Dodgson and to stop pestering the curator for meetings.

  Nor did Dodgson spare his family from his honesty. His nephew Stuart Collingwood went away from a visit quite vexed. (“He asked me to comment on his attempts at writing with as much frankness as I could muster,” noted Dodgson. “I complied fully and faithfully. Alas, my observations and suggestions did not please him.”)

  Actually it was a relative few who came or left in anger. Dodgson was available to students, met with fellow faculty, entertained notable personages who were visiting Christ Church and, of course, there was his female company—mostly young women under the age of twelve, often, but not always, accompanied by a parent.

  And of course there was the Liddell family. As one might expect, the members of this family had gathered, like rosebuds, the greatest quantity of asterisks. Henry George Liddell was Dean of Christ Church, and the man who made all decisions controlling Dodgson’s life in the community of scholars. The Dean’s daughter, Alice Liddell, is part of the legend of Lewis Carroll. A married woman by the time I met Charles Dodgson, she had been the little girl for whom he named the adorable character and to whom, along with her sisters, he first told the Wonderland stories.

  In his commentary about the family on the list, Dodgson wrote the following. “Henry George Liddell, who was hell bent and I do not use the term lightly to alter the look of the house against all common sense, and has taken exception to each article I have published about the architectural vulgarities he wishes to visit upon us and who has alienated the feelings of his family toward me, the lovely Alice, the poor departed Edith, the sweet Ina, and their loving and saintly mother Lorena.”

  I finished my notes, and looked around the room for other amusement. Holmes had left enough reading matter. But being interested in neither the daily newspaper nor the Dictionary of Tropical Toxins, I looked elsewhere. Holmes had left his pipe behind. Now there was an opportunity. I always wondered how smoking a pipe would affect my appearance. I suspected it would give me a quite distinguished look. This was my chance. Finding the mirror and striking what I believed to be a pensive pose, I placed the pipe between my lips as I had seen Mr. Holmes do so many times. I tilted my head just a bit for the proper touch of authority, and nearly fainted. What a foul taste! What a wretched residue. I expelled the noxious instrument from my mouth and carefully placed it back where I had found it. Finding no other recreation, I settled into the easy chair and drifted off to sleep.

  Scarcely seconds later, or so it seemed, a thunderous banging on the door awakened me. Annoyed, I flung open the door and saw a mustachioed workman standing in the portal. The impudent rascal hadn’t even bothered to remove his cap.

  “Yes,” I demanded.

  “I’m here to attend to your lamp, sir.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the lamp,” I said.

  “There must be sir,” he said. “They send me to fix it and they don’t generally do that if they don’t have to. And besides, there’s something wrong with every lamp in this fine establishment.”

  “We don’t wish to be bothered,” I said.

  “That’s the funny thing,” the workman said. “Nobody wishes to be bothered, but when something goes wrong in the middle of the night, they don’t mind bothering me. Well, I needs me sleep, too, you know.”

  And with that, the scoundrel stepped right past me into the room.

  “And another thing,” he said, “don’t you know it’s bad manners to smoke another man’s pipe?”

  The workman was Mr. Holmes, of course. He tricked me once again. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him in one of his masquerades. Even though it’s one of his favorite tactics, and even though we continue to have odd encounters at critical junctures with a blind man or beggar or driver or old lady, he fools us. Each time I vow I will see through his disguise the next time. I should stop making such vows.

  “Cold ashes filled the pipe bowl when I left,” said Mr. Holmes, removing his mustache and cap, “and now it’s scarcely one third filled. The stem’s mouthpiece is wet and it’s been hours since I’ve enjoyed the pipe. Anyway I’ve been to Dodgson’s home to see how vulnerable it is to burglary.”

  “That’s why you were disguised as a workman?” I asked.

  “Please don’t annoy me with extraneous questions,” he said. “Of course that is why I changed my appearance. I entered the building that housed his flat with ease. I applied my various helpers to his front and service door locks; but none of my instruments could pick his locks. I went back onto the Quad and with the aid of a bucket of soapy water and a rag, I tested the locks on his windows.”

  “How could soapy water and a rag help you test his windows locks?” I asked.

  Mr. Holmes shook his head in dismay and rolled his eyes.

  “I,” he said, slowly, “was posing as the window washer. He now has the cleanest windows in all Christ Church. He also should have the comfort of knowing that they are quite secure against the invasion of burglars. I shall tell him when we see him. Or rather when he sees me. The window washer tried to give him the good news but by that point Dodgson had no interest in talking with the man.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “He was drawing some kind of sketch while I was outside his window,” said Mr. Holmes, “and my presence apparently spoiled his concentration. He shouted but I couldn’t hear him through the window and he gesticulated and I cheerfully waved back. By the time I was finished he was nearly apoplectic. And what have you learned?”

  Holmes pointed to the list of Dodgson visitors.

  I cleared my throat and announced the clever title I had given my report, “The Dudgeons of Dodgson,” and smiled. Mr. Holmes preferred to frown.

  I stated the number of names cited (482), mentioned the device of the asterisks, brought attention to the number of feuds started or furthered in these various meetings and made particular mention of the House employees and Common Room purveyors whose lives and livelihoods were subject to the whim of Professor Dodgson. I concluded with what I believed to be a cogent summary.

  After a brooding silence that lasted at least two minutes, Mr. Holmes roared, “And that is all you can provide?”

  “I think I acquitted myself rather well,” I sa
id.

  “You think,” he echoed bitingly. “You were so engaged in looking for likely suspects that you never thought to look for clues or patterns.”

  “I told you about all the people he had dustups with.”

  “Which of them had the opportunity?” he asked.

  “They all, at one time or another, were in Mr. Dodgson’s quarters.”

  “How many were there for ten minutes or less and only once?”

  I took the list up, and started to tabulate such occurrences.

  “Don’t bother to answer that question now,” thundered Holmes, “but we can exclude all of those. Whoever snatched the diaries needed time to first discover them, ascertain their worth, and then conceal them. How many felt aggrieved and may have invited to inflict revenge?”

  “Ah yes,” I said, “there was the wine merchant and the Scouts and—”

  “You did a good job of identifying these,” said Holmes.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled.

  “Remove them from the list,” he said. “They are of no interest to us. There have been no overt actions of the sort generally attributed to vengeance.”

  “That’s a bit hasty,” I said.

  Mr. Holmes cocked an eyebrow at my unsolicited challenge to his reasoning.

  “Go on,” he said. “This may prove interesting.”

  “On the streets of London, if somebody trifles with me, I’ll want to get him back. Taking possession of something that matters to him is one good way to show I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Exactly!” said Holmes. “You have just enunciated the law of the street and, for that matter, the jungle and some of the finer castles and manors throughout the world. But if the other fellow doesn’t know that you took his sacred possession or even that something of his was taken, where is your show of supremacy? It’s a rather anemic form of revenge.”