by Mike Hogan
“Nearly home, Watson,” said Holmes. “Is it the Jezail bullet?”
“Damn my leg, Holmes,” I cried. “And damn me for a fool. We may be too late.”
“The boys are almost at the station, sir,” said the sergeant patting me on the shoulder. “Never say die.”
I was half dragged to the junction with Baker Street. I hobbled to where the street Arabs congregated outside the entrance to the railway station. I glimpsed lighted windows on the other side of the street through dense banks of fog. A racking cough from one side was answered by another farther along.
Holmes thrust out his arm and pointed. “Our lodgings are there, Watson, at precisely twenty-three degrees -”
I heard a shout of ‘Ahoy’, and saw a moving point of light as one of the policemen waved his lantern from across the street. There was another shout and flash of light as his colleague joined him and hammered on a door. It opened and a vague figure appeared, silhouetted against the diffused glow of gaslights.
Holmes arm swung to the lights. “Exactly one hundred and fifty-five degrees left.”
“Pay the boys, Holmes.”
I staggered across the street on the sergeant’s arm, up the steps, past Bessie and into the lobby of 221B.
“All of you,” I ordered. “Cover your mouths and noses.” I rested against the stair balustrade and took out my handkerchief. I was folding it into a kerchief or mask when I spotted the bright green sparkles again. I threw it down. Holmes came into the lobby and covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief tied behind his head. His bright eyes regarded me with reassuring confidence.
“In there, Holmes,” I said, pointing to the waiting room. “Bring out Mrs Hudson and the nurse. Stay well clear of the windows.”
“Miasma, is it, sir?” the sergeant asked with a grim look. “Is it mortal, like?” He gravely tied his handkerchief over his face, and the other policemen, wide-eyed with dread, covered theirs.
“There is little danger if you are quick, but you must not stir the atmosphere; move speedily but temperately.”
Holmes opened the waiting room door and stalked inside followed by the sergeant and the two trembling police constables.
They reappeared a moment later carrying two inert bodies.
“In here.” I opened the door of Mrs Hudson’s sitting room and watched as they lay Mrs Hudson on the sofa and Nurse Levine in a chair.
“Hot water, sponges, brushes, and my medical bag, Bessie,” I ordered. “Gentlemen, throw your handkerchiefs to the floor, throw them down instantly. Close the door of the waiting room. No one is to enter there or here. You are safe outside. Leave the front door open.”
As I hobbled into the sitting room, I heard Holmes murmur to the policemen.
“Do any of you know how to make coffee from the raw bean?”
The Power to Cure and to Kill
“Ah, there you are, Holmes. Good morning.”
“Good morning, Watson. I see by your smiling countenance that you have some positive news.”
“Indeed. It is a beautiful clear day outside, and Mrs Hudson is much improved. She imbibed a half-pint of beef tea early this morning and roundly criticised it as too salty.”
“I am heartily glad. What of the district nurse?”
“She is resting, but already planning her afternoon safari into the rank jungles of Lambeth.”
Holmes joined me at our breakfast table and lifted the lid of the chafing dish in the centre.
“What is this?”
“That is a curried chop, Holmes, braised with onions.”
“Where is my customary six-minute boiled egg?” he asked stiffly.
“My dear fellow, Mrs Hudson is still unwell. We must make do.”
“Who prepared this repast?”
“I did.”
He gave me a sceptical look.
“I campaigned through Afghanistan, Holmes,” I said warmly. “My soldier servant Murray, though as brave as a lion, ate his meat raw. I have mastered the art of camp cooking, and with the aid of Mrs Beeton’s compendious book, I expect to hold the culinary fort until Mrs Hudson relieves me.”
Holmes contented himself with tea and toast.
Billy let in Master Spencer-Churchill. He wore the same Eton jacket he had worn in the park.
“Ah, good morning,” I said. “Have you breakfasted?”
“Somewhat, sir.”
“Could you manage a curried chop?”
“With delight, Doctor.”
The boy helped himself; not without, as I was pleased to see, commendable relish.
“How is your leg, sir?” he asked.
“Better, thank you.”
“I understand that Mrs Hudson and the lady nurse are recovering,” he said. “And that it was not the miasma after all.”
“It was not,” I answered. “They were poisoned.”
“Was it the Mormons, Doctor?”
“Eh?” exclaimed Holmes from across the room. “Oh, you have been reading the manuscript of Doctor Watson’s account on the Mormon case.”
“Yes, sir,” said Spencer-Churchill. “I’m almost at the end of ‘A Study in Scarlet’. It is very exciting.”
Holmes turned up his nose and sniffed.
“No,” I said with some satisfaction. “It was not the Mormons: it was the curtains. They have been coloured with a solution of Scheele’s dye: they are furiously arsenical. The fashion twenty or thirty years ago for all things green led to a deplorable competition among manufacturers for the most brilliant hue. Arsenic compounds provide a deep, lustrous green, but at a terrible cost. Mrs Hudson breathed in a quantity of Scheele’s -”
“Schweinfurt Green, rather than Scheele’s,” Holmes interrupted. “At the remarkable density of sixty-eight grains of arsenic per square yard, and so loosely incorporated into the fabric that the poison can be dusted out with ease. Two or three grains will kill if ingested, as I am sure you are aware, Doctor.”
He smiled at my look of astonishment.
“I took a sample of the drapery while you were busy reviving your patients, Doctor. I subjected it to the standard Marsh test, with the Gutzeit additions: the test that exonerated Smethurst, the bigamist. I added zinc to sulphuric acid to create hydrogen, with which any arsenic present will combine to form arsine gas. I ignited the gas, and metallic arsenic precipitated as a black mirror on a sheet of glass.
“I would caution you, Spencer-Churchill, not to try that experiment at home. It requires more than ordinary laboratory experience to perform safely. A leak in his apparatus poisoned the great Adolph Gehlen. He died in agony.”
Spencer-Churchill gave Holmes a wide-eyed look that bordered on veneration. He promised to avoid all chemical experiments other than those specifically recommended by Holmes.
“I had hoped -” I said stiffly. “I had expected to conduct that experiment myself. I thought of preparing an article for The Lancet.”
“Indeed?” said Holmes with an impenitent grin. “Then I have saved you some trouble. The tassel on our concert programmes yielded only four grains of arsenic; much has no doubt already rubbed off on the gloves and hands of music aficionados. I have written to the proprietors of St James’s Hall.”
He stood.
“May I visit the patient, Doctor?”
“Yes, of course, but she is not to be tired.”
Holmes smiled and left the room.
I did not know whether to be pleased that I did not have to test the curtain material myself, or provoked at Holmes’s gratuitous intervention in my case. I had to admit, at least inwardly, that I was not in the first class of experimental chemists; I had forgotten, if I had ever known, that the great Adolph Gehlen died while performing the arsenic test. I should therefore have felt grateful to my friend for performing the
risky experiment himself.
However, my notes on the case, written up, would have provided a strong per contra to the Lister fanatics who insisted than all ailments were the result of germ infestation. There might have been a minor or - who knew? - an important shift in opinion away from the germ theorists and towards those medical professionals who had their feet more on the firm, empirical, ground of experience.
What would my medical colleagues remember of a paper written by me, based on experiments conducted by the famous Sherlock Holmes? Ha!
If Holmes undertook the experiment because of his poor opinion of my laboratory skills, then I had a right to the peevish sense of resentment that I could detect in a dark ignoble corner of my inner spirit. If, on the other hand, he had risked himself for a friend, the matter took on a different complexion -
“I say, Doctor,” said Spencer-Churchill. “This chop is first rate.”
“Thank you,” I said. “The gravy is a mixture of Mrs Beeton’s and my own recipe. Carrots have no business in gravy, as I am sure you are aware.”
I regarded the boy with some benevolence. “My dear fellow, we cannot keep calling you Master Spencer-Churchill.”
“The chaps at my school in Brighton call me Winston, but that will not do for Harrow. I am thinking of styling myself Winston S. Churchill to be higher in the class list: a ‘C’ and not an ‘S’.”
“You are at Harrow, not Eton? Your father was at Eton.”
The boy coloured and looked down at his plate. “My father thinks that my constitution is too frail for Eton; Harrow is on a hill, and enjoys healthy breezes. After Harrow, I will aim for Sandhurst and the Cavalry.”
“The Cavalry: that’s a fine ambition. I will call you Churchill, if that is not too familiar?”
The door opened, and Holmes returned.
“Well done, Doctor. We will have our old Mrs Hudson back in no time.”
“I hope that you did not harass her, Holmes.”
“I did not. I merely tallied our expenses: the linkboys, twelve shillings; the constables, five-bob a bobby; the estimable Sergeant Baynes, a half-sovereign. Then two-shillings a head to the navvies I hired to take away the arsenical curtains. They assure me that they will chop them up, sugar the fibres, and sell them as fly bait. I merely acquainted Mrs Hudson of the costs incurred during her illness so far. I am sure that will be a capital bucker-upper.”
“Holmes, how could you?”
“What? I did not mention my breakfast egg and toast soldiers, or lack of same.” He snatched the morning papers and slumped into his armchair.
“Mrs Hudson is recovering remarkably quickly,” Churchill said.
“Yes, it is often the case when the source of the poisoning is removed, or, as in this case, the victim is removed from the source. As I recently explained to Holmes, there are only two remedies in my medical arsenal on which I feel I can absolutely rely: opium and arsenic. Both have the power to cure and to kill.”
“Why was Billy hardly affected, Doctor? And Bessie not affected at all?”
“I would not like it generally known, no doctor would, but I have no idea. Billy is young and fit, of course, and he was less exposed to the curtains.”
“He said that poisoning is a woman’s business, sir. He says that hot, spiced gin, taken regular with -”
“Regularly,” I corrected.
“Taken regularly with cayenne pepper, fortifies the constitution.”
“He may be right, at least in his case. Bessie is temperance, or perhaps teetotal. I understand that there are peasants in the Styrian area in Austria who ingest massive amounts of arsenic to improve their health and stamina. They are sleek and rosy-cheeked. Perhaps Bessie has some Styrian blood in her ancestry.”
Billy appeared at the door with a tray.
“Telegram, Doctor.”
I took the form and opened it.
“It’s from the analyst, Herr Voelcker,” I said. “He says that he can find nothing amiss with the rabbit or dumplings, but that the other samples heave with arsenic. Well, I suppose that a second, or in this case third, opinion is always useful, however late.”
Holmes grunted something unintelligible from behind his newspaper.
I helped myself to another cup of coffee.
“I will not, however, completely discount Mr Philpot’s miasmatic - eh?”
Billy caught Churchill’s eye and they both collapsed in giggles.
Holmes flicked down a corner of his newspaper. “What?”
Billy looked down at his feet.
“It’s a remark of Doctor Watson’s,” said Churchill. “When we got back from Lambeth last night.”
“Why, the boys are blushing furiously, Watson. You must have been vehement to embarrass Billy.”
It came back to me in a rush.
“Oh, it was nothing, Holmes. I may have been intemperate. I was tired. I may have said ‘Bother, miasmas, ‘ or something like.”
The two boys convulsed in laughter.
“What is this about Lambeth?” said Holmes dropping his paper into his lap.
Billy and Churchill exchanged nervous looks.
“We went down Lambeth way to have a look-see,” Billy said. “We thought we might find out more about -”
“You took Spencer-Churchill on a tour of Lambeth?” cried Holmes. He jumped up and stood in front of the fireplace, arms folded. “Are you mad?”
“Just Churchill, Holmes,” I corrected. “He has decided to drop the Spencer.”
Holmes ignored me.
“Do you realise that the Doctor is in loco parentis? Imagine his position if something had happened to the boy.”
Billy gave me a strange look.
“Holmes means that I am responsible to Churchill’s parents for anything that might happen to him while he is in my care,” I said. “You do understand that, I’m sure.”
He looked back down at his toes.
“I’m sure I didn’t mean no harm, sir. We were with Harry and his mob. We didn’t go near the George and Dragon. We met in the Duke of Sussex, like we’d agreed.”
“Harry? Do you mean Harry Wiggins of the Irregulars?” said Holmes. “Good Lord, it gets worse and worse.”
“Calm, Holmes,” I said. “They are back safe.”
They were indeed not only safe and sound, but eager to talk about their adventures. I could not find it in me to scold them too harshly. I turned back to Billy.
“Sit there at the table with Churchill and explain yourself.”
He exchanged a nervous glance with Churchill and sat on the edge of a chair.
“Well, sir, we could see that you and Mr Holmes was taken up with Mrs Hudson’s ailment, and you’d not have time for the missing American boy case for a while, so I thought that we might help by -”
“That is not so,” Churchill interrupted. “It was entirely my idea. I made my plan with Harry Wiggins and persuaded Billy to accompany me.”
“I see,” I said. “You went to North Lambeth in a sailor suit. That was brave. You heard what Wiggins said about the rough crowd that frequent the Waterloo area. You might have been knocked on the head and popped down a drain.”
Holmes chuckled, and Churchill reddened.
“I borrowed suitable clothes from Billy,” he said. “They belonged to your previous pageboy; he was about my size. We met Harry and his men outside the Duke of Sussex, and they showed us where Bobby and his dark friend lived.”
He stood and took up a pugilistic stance.
“I can defend myself, if necessary. Raines, one of the under-gardeners at Blenheim, is teaching me the Noble Art. He says I have a formidable left hook.”
He demonstrated the punch, and sat down. “And Mr Holmes needed his data on the case checked by someone on the spot. You know his met
hods, Doctor.”
“Churchill,” I said shaking my head. “People of that character, thieves, vagabonds, and so on, do not stay in one place for long. Things get too hot, the authorities close in, and they move on. I am sure that is what this American boy has done.”
“But what about Mutton-chops?”
“Eh?”
“Doctor Watson missed most of the testimony of the Irregulars when he left to tend Mrs Hudson,” Holmes said as he picked up a notebook from the table and tossed it to Churchill.
The boy found his page, and read. “Wiggins said that a few days after Bobby and Aaron went missing, a cove turned up at pubs and lodging houses along the Waterloo Road asking after a young American boy with blond hair, aged thirteen, and an older Negro footman. He had a photograph of Bobby when he was a bit younger, maybe eleven or so. He said the boy was Robert W Taylor, and the servant, Aaron Long. The man accused Long of stealing clothes and silver. He offered a reward of ten pounds.”
“Move on to the description,” said Holmes.
“A tall cove with big, red, mutton-chop whiskers. He was in a sandy-coloured coat and a soft hat. He had a funny accent like the pot man at the Horse and Groom in the Westminster Bridge Road.”
“This mutton-chop fellow must be the footman’s previous employer,” I said. “It is likely that they stole the silver spoons and clothes from him. The mutton-chop-whiskered man is searching for his lost possessions. What is singular about that?”
“You will remember, Doctor,” said Churchill, “that the boy, Bobby, wore expensive clothes that fitted him. He also had a high-class American accent.”
“If such a thing there be,” said Holmes.
“All very well,” I said. “And what else did your nocturnal perambulations in Lambeth turn up?”
“Not very nocturnal, Doctor,” said Churchill. “We got back before the fog. We discovered that the pot man is from Cape Town. He has a strong Germanic accent. And we got this.”
He handed me a pen and ink drawing of a young boy. “It’s Bobby.”
The drawing was exquisitely crafted. The artist had caught the boy’s pensive expression wonderfully. He leaned against a wall with his hands in his pockets and dared anyone to challenge his right to do so. His grey-green eyes displayed confrontation and defiance: he faced the world with a mixture of bravado and alarm.
