by Mike Hogan
“Actually, Holmes, it was I -”
“He values the watch: he took it out twice more after our little fracas to see that it was undamaged. When he put it away on leaving us, he was careful, despite his lateness, to ensure that there were no coins in his pocket that might scratch it. Yet, it bears numerous scratches on the case. This extravagant care is of recent foundation and is probably the result of a paternal scolding. The coat of arms suggests a present from his uncle, not his father. I cannot imagine the adolescent scion of a ducal house under such slack supervision.”
“It is as if you know the boy.”
“I think we have enough data to identify him. The coat of arms was that of the House of Marlborough. The younger brother of the present Duke is the chairman of the Primrose League, and the father of a teenage son. I think we may confidently assert that our young hero is the son of Lord Randolph Churchill, who so recently and dramatically resigned from the Government.”
The resignation of Lord Randolph from the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer was still, some months after the event, a matter of intense political speculation. I understood that he had expected his resignation to result in his restoration to office on his terms. In fact, the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, had reconstructed the cabinet with a new Chancellor, leaving Lord Randolph out of the government.
“I fear that the boy has inherited his august father’s lack of mathematical prowess,” said Holmes, picking up the conversation.
“You are referring to Lord Randolph’s remark about decimals, when he was in office as Chancellor?” I asked with a smile.
“Yes,” said Holmes. “He said that he could make neither head nor tail of those ‘damned dots’. His son today carried a mathematical primer in his jacket pocket, but one more suitable for an eight-year-old than a boy of his age.”
“No doubt he is cramming for the entrance examination to a great public school,” I said. “The Marlboroughs attend Eton.”
“He will not pass the mathematical examination into Eton by counting on his fingers.”
I laughed. At times, Holmes applied his wry humour with an almost Socialist abandon. “He may inherit other talents. Lord Randolph has a formidable reputation as a parliamentary wit.”
Holmes smiled. “At gatherings of the indolent classes, a very little wit goes a very long way. A sharp-witted man may be admired or feared, but he will not be loved.”
We passed Wren’s lovely St James’s Church, much disfigured by a pair of faux-ancient wrought-iron gates. I smiled as I thought of “Old Q”, the sporting fourth Duke of Queensberry, whose grave was in the church.
“You know, Holmes,” I said. “There is a story -”
“Cricketers. The bet was to convey a letter fifty miles in an hour, a feat that in the middle of the last century, before the advent of steam, was deemed impossible. Queensberry engaged twenty expert cricketers and staked them in a circle a certain distance apart. They tossed a cricket ball, in which the letter enclosed, from one to another for an hour. They achieved the distance, and Old Q won the bet.”
“I was going to say that, Holmes,” I said. There were times when Holmes’s encyclopaedic knowledge could be wearing on a sensitive spirit.
“Quite so.”
He stopped and consulted his watch. “Come Watson, what do you say to a chop and half-bottle of Beaune? We can cut through to Regent Street and the Cafe Royal. I think we deserve a little celebration after our adventure in the Park, and I owe you an apology.”
“What, for catching the thief? That Japanese nonsense?”
Holmes gave me a stern look.
“No, not at all. I took the last cup of breakfast coffee.”
The Displeasure of Lady Randolph
After a pleasant luncheon, we took a cab back to our digs in Baker Street.
“It is your turn to pay,” said Holmes.
He paused at the door of our lodging house. “You know Watson, when you are required to pay nine shillings and sixpence, as we were today, for a bottle of Claret but three years old, then something must be wrong with the world.”
We entered the hall and found it bustling with activity. Mrs Hudson, the maid Bessie, and young Billy, our pageboy, plied brooms and feather dusters in the hall and waiting room.
“Whatever are you doing, Mrs Hudson?” cried Holmes. “We endured spring-cleaning in its usual month. This hygienic obsession is wearing on your paying guests. Dust undisturbed poses no threat to health, as Doctor Watson will agree, while the same quantity wantonly beaten into the air, from a carpet or curtains, may cause severe respiratory effects.”
Holmes tossed his hat to Billy and started up the stairs two at a time.
“Coffee!” he called back.
“I am changing the curtains in the front parlour before Her Ladyship returns,” Mrs Hudson said, taking me by the arm. “These old ones hadn’t been touched since ever so.”
She displayed a roll of soft, shiny green cloth. “I got some handsome, bright-green curtains down from the attic.”
Holmes stopped at the landing at the top the stairs and turned back.
“Her Ladyship? We had a caller while we were out. There, Watson,” he said fiercely. “That is what comes of your walks in the Park.”
He darted out of sight.
I sighed and hung my hat on the stand. “Her Ladyship, Mrs Hudson?”
Billy handed me a gold-embossed visiting card.
“Lady Randolph Churchill,” I read.
“With her son,” said Mrs Hudson. “A most polite young gentleman.”
“Beautiful carriage with the coat of arms on the door,” added Billy. “Two footmen and the driver on top, all nice and proper.”
“Did Her Ladyship leave any message?” I asked.
“Yes, Doctor,” said Mrs Hudson. “She will allow herself the pleasure of calling again in an hour. That was forty minutes ago.”
“Thank you, Mrs Hudson. Some coffee, if you please - when you have a moment, of course.”
I followed Holmes upstairs and found him leafing through a stack of correspondence.
“I expect she wants to thank us for saving the watch, Holmes,” I offered as I sat in my usual seat by the empty fireplace.
He waved my speculation away and continued to read his letters. I settled in my armchair with the latest copy of The Lancet. I had recently written a note to the editor stating that, while I accepted the claims of Doctor Lister and the germ-theorists, I believed that the role of the body’s own mechanisms for resisting and repelling these newly-discovered microscopic menaces had been underestimated. I saw that my letter had not been published. I threw the magazine onto a chair and mixed a whisky and soda.
A carriage drew up in the street below. Our doorbell rang, and I heard a murmur of voices and the measured tread of footsteps on the stairs. Holmes swung open the door to our sitting room with a flourish. He bowed.
“Good afternoon, Lady Randolph,” he said. He looked up. “Eh? It is you, Mrs Hudson. You are not Lady Randolph Churchill. Where is Lady Randolph Churchill?”
“In the waiting room.”
“Well, show her up.”
“She is waiting for you to come down.”
“Good Lord, woman. The King of the Netherlands and the Chief Rabbi of all England did not scruple to attend me in my rooms.”
“Holmes, keep your voice down,” I whispered. I held the door open.
He swept out, and I followed him downstairs.
Lady Randolph stood by the newly curtained windows of our ground floor waiting room looking out into the street. She wore a grey coat over a lemon-yellow silk dress, and a matching feathered hat set slantwise across her head in the antique Duchess-of-Devonshire manner. The boy from our fracas in the Park stood by the fireplace looking nervous. He now wore a blue and white sailor suit that made
him look very young.
“Good afternoon, Lady Randolph. I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and colleague Doctor John Watson. Do sit down. Would you care for tea?”
“Good afternoon, Mr Holmes,” Lady Randolph said with a slight American accent. “I am afraid that this is not a social call.”
She indicated the boy.
“My son, Winston, has informed me that an attempt was made this morning to rob him. A ruffian assaulted him, threw him into the Serpentine and snatched his watch. A constable was called, and the thief was apprehended. My son says that you have a connection with the thief and, on your orders, sir, he was let go. Are these the facts?”
“Mama,” said the boy. “Let me explain.”
Lady Randolph gave her son a dark look that silenced him instantly.
“Those are indeed the raw facts,” said Holmes, “but not in their correct sequence and not glossed for relevance or importance. It was early afternoon, and your son -”
“I hardly think the time of day is of consequence,” Lady Randolph interrupted.
A cold silence followed that observation.
“Perhaps,” I said, “as a simple bystander, I could give an unbiased account of the incident.”
Lady Randolph nodded.
I described the cry for help, our capture of the thief, his identity, and the decision to release him. Her ladyship considered.
“Are you the Doctor Watson who consulted with our family physician, Doctor Roose on - on a certain case last year?”
I bowed. “I had that honour.”
“Very well.”
She took off her gloves.
“Winston and I would be delighted to take tea with you, Doctor.”
She handed her parasol and gloves to Holmes and sat on the sofa.
“What a charming lady,” I exclaimed, as Holmes and I returned to our rooms a half-hour later. “Though daunting at first.”
“Indeed.”
“Ha, yes.” I cackled. “She had you by the collar, Holmes. She was going to drag you off to Bow Street Police Court for aiding and abetting. We should have seen you in broad stripes on the treadmill at the penitentiary.”
I continued to chuckle as Billy entered with a letter.
“Note from Her Ladyship,” he announced.
“Give it here,” said Holmes.
“It’s addressed to the Doctor.”
Holmes sniffed and turned away.
I took the sealed envelope and opened it.
Holmes went to the window. “Lady Randolph’s carriage is still at the kerb,” he observed.
“Good Lord, Holmes,” I said. “Oh, thank you, Billy.”
Billy left, closing the door. I joined Holmes at the window.
“This is extraordinary. Her ladyship wants me to consult on her son. She says Lord Randolph has doubts about the boy’s mental capacity. Their family physician, Doctor Roose, has examined him with inconclusive results. She says she would value my opinion. Holmes, what shall I do?”
Holmes considered. “He seemed sharp enough in the Park. Not overly bright, of course, nor particularly gifted: note the mathematics primer. Given his aristocratic heritage, he will not be called upon to shine intellectually. I expect he will govern Barbados, or minister to his flock as suffragan Bishop of Saskatchewan.”
I read the note again more carefully.
“I have to accept; I owe it to Doctor Roose. He was very kind to me when I started in practice.”
I hesitated. “And there are some, well, other circumstances.”
Holmes gave me a penetrating look. He nodded. “I think I understand. You mean the sins of the father may have been visited on the son.”
The Good Samaritans
I penned a short note and sent it down with Billy. A few moments later, there was a soft knock on the door and young Winston Spencer-Churchill stood before us again. I was about to offer him a seat when I heard a shriek downstairs and a pattering of naked feet on the stairs. A troupe of ragged street boys surged into the room, shoved Spencer-Churchill aside, and lined up as if for inspection.
“Ah,” said Holmes. “The Baker Street Irregulars. What are you doing here, Wiggins? I did not send for you.”
The tallest boy, a redhead of fourteen or fifteen, stepped forward and saluted smartly. “No, Mr Holmes. We come of our own accord, like, on particular business.”
Holmes draped himself over an armchair and lit a cigar.
“Pick two lieutenants to stay with you. The others must wait down in the street.”
“Len and Monty step forward,” said Wiggins. “The rest bugger off.”
Two boys stayed, and the others started for the door.
“Stop!” cried Holmes. “You in the black cap - yes, you, sir - give Master Spencer-Churchill back his watch and handkerchief.”
The boy returned the articles with a cheerful grin. Spencer-Churchill backed warily to the window clutching his possessions. I checked my watch and pocketbook. The last visit of the Baker Street Irregulars had cost me a silver pencil holder and an autographed score of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s ‘The Lost Chord’.
“Continue, Wiggins.”
“It’s a case of missing persons, Mr Holmes - and maybe worse.”
“Go on.”
“We was down the Belvedere, sir, having a jar and a smoke when two coves turn up -”
“That’s the Belvedere Road, behind Waterloo Station,” Holmes said. “When? Precision, Wiggins. You know my methods: I must have data.”
“Six months ago, sir. Bleeding cold, it was, and snowing something awful. We had a fire going under an archway; a proper fire, sir, in a watchman’s brazier that we found in the road, as was not wanted by its owner. It was about eight at night.”
Holmes nodded for him to continue.
“Describe the coves.”
“One was a tall, black fellah, a Negro, nineteen, as we found out. He was in a footman’s rig, but with a swell overcoat - moleskin lapels - and a bundle under his arm. The boy with him was a white boy, younger, maybe thirteen, and yellow-haired. He wore a bowler and a posh suit and coat. He had a fat cloth bag with him.”
“You decided to relieve these travellers of their burdens,” said Holmes.
“Infamous,” I said.
“Well, sir,” said Wiggins, turning to me. “Some terrible rough fellahs was up the road drinking at the George and Dragon. We thought it would be a kindliness to help the young gents before they got into bad trouble. They’d have been knocked on the head, robbed, and stuffed down the sewer else, sure as toast.”
“What a good Samaritan you are, Wiggins,” said Holmes with a pleasant smile.
I frowned. Holmes was perfectly aware that the street children that he employed as his ‘Baker Street Irregulars’ derived whatever income they had from various forms of crime. Their recruiting ground in a vile section of Lambeth was a notorious nest of thieves, fraudsters and coiners. They were expert pickpockets, as I had learned to my cost. Yet Holmes, despite his considerable influence over the boys, had made no effort to improve them.
Their leader, Wiggins, was an exceptionally intelligent boy. He squandered this aptitude in developing ingenious schemes to rob his betters. I sensed in him a potential for reform. I had given him a copy of a remarkable book on self-help by Mr Samuel Smiles. I felt sure that the many anecdotes it contained of people who had raised themselves from poverty by self-education and healthy bodily exercise would excite the boy’s curiosity. The book described how young men from the lowest stratum of society acquired wealth, or reached positions of social eminence, lauded with honours, by following the precepts advocated by the admirable Mr Smiles. Their successes were a noble example for any young fellow.
Naturally, I also wanted Wiggins to realise that money and positi
on were not the only goals in life: knowledge itself was one of the highest enjoyments. The ignorant man passed through life dead to all the higher pleasures: art, music, comradely intercourse on the great matters of the day -
“Are you with us, Doctor?” Holmes asked. “Do try to keep up.”
I blinked at him.
“Go on, Wiggins,” he said.
“Well, the tall, brown geezer looked nervy when I asked him what’s in the bundle. He saw we was mob-handed, so he was ready to do a runner. The boy, he put the bag down, stood there with his hands on his hips, and asked us what business it was of ours. I explained as how we was cold and hungry, and that the Jew stall in the Lower Marsh would give three bob for a hanky and a lot more for a moleskin lapel coat. We could get hot tongue and tattie stew all round for three bob at the back of the George, if we trod careful, like.
“The boy thought it over, then he opened his cloth bag, rummaged around, and pulled out a handful of silver spoons. He held them up and said, ‘What would you get for these, then?’, bold as brass. He had a funny accent.”
“What sort of accent?” I asked.
Holmes waved my question away. “In good time, Doctor. Let the story unfold in its natural rhythm.”
I turned away in some irritation and helped myself to a whisky from the tantalus. It did not seem so irrelevant a question. At times, Holmes could be quite curt. When I turned back, I saw that Wiggins and his lieutenants stared hard at me.
“Refreshment for Wiggins and his men, Watson,” said Holmes.
“Really, Holmes, I hardly think - and there are only three glasses.”
“Wiggins’s companions can share.”
I poured two small whiskies and added a great deal of soda water.
“Master Spencer-Churchill?” Holmes asked, pointing to the whisky decanter.
“Thank you, no,” he answered softly, slipping into a chair at our dining table.
“The silver spoons was the real thing,” Wiggins continued. “I grabbed them and sent Lenny here down to the pawn shop, and he got three quid. Meanwhile, the blond boy - he says his name is Bobby and his mate’s Aaron - pulled a half-sovereign out of his coat pocket and bought drinks and beefsteak pies all round.”
