A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes

by Raynes, Katie

  The warehouse was as huge as Tanny had described it in the tale of his adventure with Eric. Aside from the indoor storage he had mentioned, there were large roofed-over areas for cargo outside, with open yards in between. They presented an intricate maze with darkened, irregular paths between cranes, between stanchions, between crates, and between loose wares.

  Tanny and I hid ourselves and waited.

  Just before the appointed time, Tanny went out and seated himself idly, appealingly, on a crate. He had one foot on the ground and the other leg drawn up.

  A hansom came down the street with the horse’s hoofs ringing on the cobblestones and its wheels thudding up and down. Linton Soames got out and sent the cab away.

  I touched the pistol in my pocket.

  From my station hidden behind Tanny, I heard his voice brightly welcome the major.

  With a laugh of triumph, Linton answered, “You’re mine at last!”

  Tanny said, “Yes.”

  “But not in the sexy style you expect. You’re on your way to hell, you little degenerate.” Linton advanced closer. “I’m going to put an end to your filthy life.”

  I stepped forth.

  Linton sneered, “So, you’ve brought him. I can kill you both.”

  A voice rang out behind me. “That will be enough!”

  Inspector Hopkins came out, accompanied by two constables.

  Linton was nonplussed. His arms dropped to his sides.

  Hopkins said to him, “In the name of the Queen, I arrest you for soliciting prostitution, for gross indecency with a male, for threat of bodily harm, and for attempted murder.”

  Linton’s courage returned. He resumed his military bearing. “What about your friends here? You’d have to arrest them too. It seems to me you’re all caught in your own trap.”

  Two four-wheelers turned into the street and rolled toward us.

  Hopkins was cool under the major’s bluster. He replied, “These two men,” indicating Tanny and me, “have been acting under my direction as agents of Scotland Yard. One is the famous and respected Dr Watson. You have offered this other man money to perform indecent acts and you have threatened both men’s lives in full view and hearing of a Metropolitan Police inspector and two constables.”

  The four-wheelers stopped next to us, but no one got out.

  Hopkins continued, “Do you understand your situation?”

  The major nodded, an appeal for mercy in his eyes.

  “I am prepared, temporarily, to be lenient in view of the unblemished reputation and memory of your father, General Sir Attwood Soames, and his magnificent services to our Queen.”

  Linton smiled.

  Hopkins took a paper from his inner pocket. He said, “You have only to sign this confession. It will remain, sealed, in my desk drawer, available to Sherlock Holmes, to Dr Watson, or to me to use in the event that any harm of any kind should ever befall this young man here or either of your two brothers. The slightest threat or suggestion to them will bring you down. If I ever hear your name, except as mentioned for bravery in dispatches from your military superiors, I shall gaol you.”

  He handed the paper to Linton, who read it and exclaimed, “This accuses me of kidnapping my brother, battering him, and holding him against his will. I will never sign such a lie!”

  Hopkins replied with calm indifference. “Well, then, do as you like. If you prefer instead, it is within my power to arrest you and make you by noontime tomorrow the most famous officer in the British Army.”

  Linton signed the paper and returned it to the inspector.

  6. The Conclusion

  The door of one four-wheeler opened and Sherlock Holmes stepped out. After him came a young man who resembled Tanny, and who must be Eric Soames. He was followed by a boy, his brother Andrew. Previously warned by Holmes, I prevented Tanny from rushing into Eric’s arms in front of the policemen.

  Linton saw his two brothers and exclaimed, “You! And you!”

  Hopkins said, “Your solicitors will be receiving visits from solicitors representing your brothers and wishing to settle your late father’s estate. I advise you to ensure it is done with scrupulous fairness. There will also be papers for you and your mother to sign, appointing Eric as Andrew’s guardian.”

  Linton looked as if he were ready to choke.

  The inspector continued, “You are free to go. If you wish, these two constables can bring you in their cab and drop you where you want.”

  The major turned instead and marched off down the street. The two constables departed in one of the four-wheelers.

  Eric looked at Tanny and said, “Tanny, you still wear the ring – ‘my ring on your finger.’”

  “I could not take it off.”

  “You were loyal. You got me rescued even when you must have thought I deserted you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Eric gave the elegant, insouciant, yet warm and honest smile I recognized perfectly from Tanny’s account of him. “I owe you my life. It belongs wholly now to you. But then, of course, it always has.”

  Tanny sobbed, “If you remember, I – owe you my – freedom too.”

  We six got into the remaining four-wheeler, I next to Tanny and Eric, and Holmes next to Hopkins and Andrew. We gave the driver Tanny’s address and got under way.

  Holmes said, “Andrew here has been one of the heroes of today. It’s good that he returned from Summer Half at school and was available. He met me by prearrangement at his front door with the key to Eric’s room, which he had borrowed. When his mother appeared as I was unlocking it, I was able to say it was by Andrew’s invitation. I convinced her it would be best for her late husband’s reputation to forestall a Scotland Yard enquiry by allowing Eric and Andrew to depart.”

  Andrew blushed, and Tanny reached across to squeeze his hand and say, “Thank you, Andrew.”

  Hopkins smiled to Tanny and Eric. “In the course of this investigation, I have heard various hints about both of you. I am entitled to discount them. I also understand that you are close friends and may wish to live together. But please, for all our sakes, do not allow any suspicion of activities with other persons to reach me.”

  They assured him that they wouldn’t. I worried at first how they would support themselves without their usual employment, but then I realized that Tanny had his savings and Eric had some too, and also hopes now of an inheritance.

  Holmes added, “Actually, I believe you will both be fully occupied. Tanny, forgive me, but I’ve presented your story to the Marquess of Ottenbury. He was chief of Her Majesty’s forces in Afghanistan during the time your father was there. As I expected, he has taken it as an insult that the young child of a man who fought and died under his command should have been forgotten and left so defenceless. It particularly outrages him that your education from Mr Kent was so superior to what your country would have given you.

  “The Marquess has proposed reforms in the orphans’ and the veterans’ laws. He and his wife are also organizing two foundations, for boys and for girls. They will house poor children with exceptional ability, especially children of fallen servicemen, who will receive the best teaching England can offer. The Queen herself has become enthusiastic and has donated two properties to house them. Many of the nobility have contributed.

  “The need is to find suitable persons for the daily administration. The Marquess and his wife are to be nominal heads, but are elderly. It has been suggested to Her Majesty that the Marquess might be seconded in the direction of the boys’ foundation by the middle son of General Soames and by the son of a sergeant who gave his life at Maiwand.”

  At this, they were most gratified, and they thanked him.

  The cab arrived at Tanny’s apartment, where he, Eric, and Andrew got out. Then it resumed, with Holmes, Hopkins, and myself.

  I was most pleased with the outcome. I said, “Holmes, you’ve outdone yourself this time. You’ve made two deserving young men happy. No one could have done more for them.”

>   “Thank you, Watson.”

  Holmes thought, then laughed and continued, “Actually, there was another reason for extra efforts, not counting Tanny and Eric’s own merits.”

  t="0" w$What is that?”

  “I knew making Arthur Tanner safely, permanently ensconced with his Eric would be a great help in restoring full peace of mind to Inspector Hopkins… And, that would be important.”

  What? I didn’t see how Hopkins would come into it at all. Why was it his wish to make Tanny happy? He’d been businesslike throughout, and helpful. He’d been fair. But, if anything, I’d have thought that he disliked Tanny in some private way.

  I looked at Holmes and at Hopkins, seated across from me in the darkness at opposite ends of the other seat of the four-wheeler. Both looked back at me. In the flashes of passing lamplight, both had the same amused, affectionate, nervous, but deeply contented smile.

  All at once, I understood.

  It seemed my answer should be brief.

  “Aha,” I replied.

  Editor’s Note

  by Sir John Wright CH, CBE

  It is I who have turned out to be the executor, referred to in the second paragraph of this tale, of the kind and decent man who helped bring me up and who taught me how to write fiction. I cannot add to the art with which Dr John H. Watson has told our story.

  The youngest and now the last living of the five men named in that paragraph, I have obeyed Dr Watson’s direction to publish the manuscript word-for-word as he left it. After his death, I showed it to my friends Arthur Tanner and his companion, Eric Soames. They and I agreed heartily that the possible consequences to ourselves should not prevent its appearing as soon as an opportunity arose for it to do the most good. We felt that Sherlock Holmes and Stanley Hopkins, both dead then, would have wished that as well.

  Reading this story gave us three an odd feeling of mixture, that we had lived our lives – as others do too – both in beauty and in darkness, but also constantly risking prison either for homosexuality or else in needless situations arising from attempts to suppress it. When I was thirteen and Inspector Hopkins arrested Mr Kent and Mrs Renfrew, a strict interpretation of the law would have had him gaol me, their victim, as well. Holmes and Watson saved me from those two, but I was – and am – still homosexual. If the authorities wish to charge a seventy-three-year old man for admitting this, then let them. Astonishingly, barbaric laws that we lived in fear of remain on the books today.

  It is now 1954. The Wolfenden Committee has begun meeting, and the eventual release of their report could mean the end of that era of fear. I publish this story that Dr Watson wrote, hoping – as he did – to hasten that.

  A missing bridegroom, whose clothes have been found in a river. A bride who is not unhappy at the prospect of being free of her marriage. These are the elements of this tale narrated by Holmes himself. Nothing is as it seems but no one pays enough attention to the facts. Lestrade and W atson fail to see what is before them and only Holmes correctly interprets the facts and the green carnation which they find.

  The Bride and the Bachelors

  by Vincent Kovar

  Just as every criminal has the overwhelming tendency to return to the scene of his crimes, so too did my own nature pull me back to London in the spring of 1894. Unburdened of public expectation due to the affair at Reichenbach Falls, which was described by my earnest biographer as “The Final Problem,” I was, for perhaps the first time in my life, a free man. However much I enjoyed this Great Hiatus, I too was eventually drawn back to the familiar scenes of London, back to Baker Street and back to the world of mysteries. The world being what it is, no problem is ever quite final.

  Though I had been in contact with the Foreign Office during my sojourn, I rather grew to enjoy the measure of anonymity that such a literary death had afforded me. For this reason, and another which I will explain later, upon my return I forbade Watson any further publication of my adventures. The editors of The Strand put up a particularly strenuous hue and cry, as did many other periodicals but I held firm. Watson scribbles away furiously even still, waiting for a weakening in my resolve, but there are some tales for which the world is not yet prepared.

  This moratorium is not to say that my reappearance went unnoticed, however.

  On May the 15th, shortly after my return, Watson came up from the street to find Mrs Hudson on her hands and knees just outside the door to my rooms, picking the broken crockery out of the ruins of my tea tray.

  “Was that the Marquess of – ?” he began.

  “It was.” I snapped but then caught the worst of my foul mood by the tail. “Forgive me, Watson. It would seem that the empire’s most pugilistic aristocrat took my refusal to accept his case…poorly.”

  “I should say. Here, let me help you, Mrs Hudson. And what did the marquess want?”

  “He wants what cannot be had. Stolen letters can be recovered. Missing jewels located and kidnap victims returned but his lordship wishes to not know something, something which he already very well knows to be true. I refuse to indulge in such perverse mental acrobatics. The facts are the facts, Watson. Like the discoveries of Galileo, neither church nor state nor the timid sensibilities of society can change the truth.”

  “And the tipped tray?” he asked as he helped Mrs Hudson to her feet.

  “The marquess left so abruptly and in such a temper that he collided with the unsuspecting Mrs Hudson, who had just ascended the stairs with the tea. I won’t be needing another tray, Mrs Hudson. Unless you’d like something, Watson.”

  “No,” he said weakly and then watched mournfully as she went away. The injuries he sustained during his Afghan campaign bothered him greatly, especially during the vernal rains, yet he refused to treat himself with the same potency of palliatives that he would any of his patients as he found my own indulgences so concerning. I gestured him toward the easy chair near the grate and watched with a surreptitious contentment as he nidificated amongst his favourite cushions and newspapers. I pushed across the case of cigars and box of lucifers then settled myself in the other armchair. No sooner had I focused on my own reading, a treatise on the recent discovery of the plague bacillus, than the vigilant Mrs Hudson returned with a fresh tray of tea and sandwiches. In her own way, she was an excellent judge of character as it related to the appetite. Upon the tray lay also a large envelope of fine paper, impressed with a stately crest.

  “Here, at least, are items of interest to both of us.” I said, plucking the missive from its perch and leaving the sandwiches to my companion.

  “Not another burr from the social thistle?” Watson teased gently, knowing my dislike of such things.

  “No, conspicuously professional.” I said, turning the envelope over in my hands but not yet breaking its seal.

  “Conspicuously?” he asked. “And how do you arrive at that conclusion. Have you returned from your sojourns a fakir who can pierce the paper with your mind’s eye?”

  “Quite so. All the methods for my deduction are clearly laid out before you. It is a matter of the greatest discretion, regarding a noble but poor house, and a newly minted fortune.”

  “As you say Holmes, as you say. Yet I cannot fathom how you have data for your suppositions beyond the monogram on the letter’s exterior from which you would extract the notion of a noble house.”

  “You have been reading the papers, have you not?” I asked.

  “You know I have, Holmes,” he said, pointing to his abandoned nest.

  “Then you know that this letter,” I waved the envelope before him, “is a desperate plea from the family to save Lord Stamford’s marriage.”

  “Preposterous even for you, my friend,” he sputtered. “Why, that letter could contain a thousand things.”

  “Did you hear the post pass by just prior to Mrs Hudson bringing up the tea?” I asked.

  “Why no, no I did not. But perhaps the letter came before I arrived.”

  “In which case, it would have been presented on
the previous tray, the one so unfortuitously upset by my previous visitor. Yet we can see it is unblemished by the tea which is now staining the rug outside the door. Nor is it marked by postage or calls for the district messenger service. Further, the address has been inscribed with an inexpensive steel-tipped dip-pen made in Birmingham.”

  “Not a fountain pen?” he asked.

  “No, Watson. This is iron gall ink, the use of which in a fountain pen would cause corrosion. Had this letter been from the earl’s new wife, we would probably see the distinct characteristics of either an Esterbrook nib or a writing implement of higher quality.”

  “Enough with your lecture on pen nibs. Open the letter and let’s see if your uncanny powers of detection are as sharp as they were before –”

  Watson stopped suddenly and a shadow passed over his face. In the triangle of rhetoric he is ever the emotional pathos to my clockwork logos. The years I enjoyed with Sigerson, after the events at the Falls, had perhaps been harder on Watson than either of us cared to, or even could, admit. Watson had returned to his practice of medicine for only the briefest time before his second wife, Mary, passed away. Now, the mental fencing that had been the lingua franca of our peculiar friendship tasted cruel on my lips.

  I broke the wax and read the letter aloud.

  My dear Mr Sherlock Holmes,

  His Grace, the Duke of B— tells my wife and me that we may rely upon your discretion and candour. We desire to consult with you regarding a matter which weighs upon our family and promises the direst consequences should it not be resolved. We refer to an occurrence that followed shortly upon our son’s recent nuptials. The import of our quandary can hardly be exaggerated nor can the absolute necessity for the greatest degree of secrecy. We will call upon you at seven o’clock this evening. We implore you to receive us at this hour and reschedule your other engagements.