Sherlock Holmes At the Raffles Hotel

by John Hall

“I think there is nothing wrong with Martha’s mind, and nor do you. She was merely exercising her feminine prerogative, and interfering in matters which are no concern of hers,” said Holmes, with a good deal more spirit than he had shown thus far.

  “My dear fellow, it can scarcely be called meddling, if she is so worried about you that she needs must consult me” I put down my knife and fork, and spoke as earnestly as I could. “Holmes, we have known one another now for a very long time. Will you not trust me in this, rely upon my discretion and my goodwill? To be blunt, will you not confide in me, if there is something bothering you?”

  “Well, then, I had a few twinges, some months back, which the local doctor diagnosed as rheumatism.”

  “Is it bothering you just now?”

  “No.”

  “Of course, it is annoying to think that one is growing old,” I told him, “and rheumatism can be a nuisance. But I cannot think that it is just that which caused Martha to consult me on your behalf. Is there really nothing more, nothing that I might be able to help with?”

  Holmes sat there, regarding me in silence, for very long time. Then he smiled. “It is the old enemy, Doctor.”

  “Not …”

  Holmes shook his head. “If I am weary it is not from some artificial cause, some noxious drug, but rather the all too natural consequence of boredom, of rank, mind-numbing stagnation. Oh, I have my little garden, and my bees; indeed, I am in the throes of writing a monograph upon the art of bee- keeping which shall be the last word on the subject. But, whilst that is all very well in summer, when plants and bees alike are busy about their lives, it is somewhat different in this cold and wet season. You see me, Watson, at the end of some six months of inactivity. Though … a fortnight ago I was consulted by a local man about the raids on his hen house; he was convinced it was a fox though no fowls had been killed, and wanted expert advice. I saw at a glance that it was no fox, but a naughty schoolboy, after an egg or two to form the basis of an unauthorized supper in the dormitory; more, I could identify the culprit at once as being one of the young pupils at The Gables. But, naturally, I could not say as much, for it would have been unsporting. Publicly I had to admit defeat; privately, I had to be satisfied with taking the lad aside and giving him a severe lecture on the evils of petty theft and the dangers to one’s digestion of eating after ‘lights out’. That, Doctor, is the extent to which my deductive powers have been tested of late. Can you wonder, then, that I am listless, have no appetite, that Martha is so concerned that she calls you away from your work and your patients?”

  “My work? Huh!”

  Holmes ceased his lamentations, and looked at me with some sympathy. “You, too, Watson?”

  “Oh, I grow old, Holmes. Old and weary, like you.”

  “Well, I would perhaps not say old, exactly,” Holmes told me, with some return of his former asperity.

  “Things are not the same, Holmes. A man needs work, if he is to enjoy life properly, and my own work has become tiresome. My case is not entirely dissimilar to yours; I am faced with patients whose only complaint is that … at the end of winter … they have a runny nose and a cough. To be sure, it is a compliment to a doctor to think that his patients are so healthy that they can dispense with his services, but it scarcely makes for an interesting day.”

  Holmes nodded. “Then you will know exactly how things are with me. Beyond even your medical skills, I fear, Watson. Yes, our cases are remarkably similar, my boy. And, speaking of cases, I was thinking just the other day about that curious little problem of the Beryl Coronet, and its subsequent ramifications. I don’t think you ever heard the real outcome of that one, did you? Well …” and off he went, happily reminiscing about the good old days when he was in practice in Baker Street.

  I encouraged him in this search for lost time, prompting him with reflections of my own on this old case and that one; and I was considerably cheered to see that, in the intervals of reminiscing, Holmes actually made a reasonably good attack on the food in front of him.

  When we had finished our dinner we sat by the fire, smoking our pipes and still yarning about the strange folk we had encountered, and their even stranger little problems, until it was woefully late.

  Holmes noticed my badly stifled yawns, and apologized for keeping me up, saying with a wicked grin that I must have had a most disturbing day, that it was dangerous for an old fellow like me to hear too often the chimes at midnight, and that I would be ready for my bed. I could not argue with him, and in a very short while I was snugly tucked up in the spare bedroom, and knew no more that night.

  Chapter Two: ...And A Generous Invitation

  I woke on the following morning, at a somewhat later hour than the critical might forgive, and found that the rain had stopped and that an unseasonable sunshine was lighting up the pattern on the chintz curtains – the latter being old Martha’s choice, I felt sure, rather than Holmes’. I got out of bed, flung the curtains aside, the window open, and took a great breath of the glorious fresh downland air. The view was splendid; the earth fresh and washed clean, the sky with just a hint of fleecy cloud speckling the blue. Over at The Gables their roof tiles had not completely dried yet, and the sun glinted and sparkled from droplets of water here and there, making the very prosaic school buildings glow like something from a fairy tale. It was, in short, good to be alive, and I fancy that I told myself just that and in no uncertain terms as I went about the business of preparing for the day. Indeed, I believe that I actually sang some rousing Gilbert and Sullivan air as I shaved and dressed, which was quite remarkable as being the first time for a good many months that I had felt so light- hearted.

  I deeply regret to have to record that my agreeable mood received something of a setback when I clapped eyes on Holmes at breakfast. Martha had done us proud with the meal, and I like to think that I did what I could to cheer up my old friend, but it was all in vain. Holmes’ sombre mood had returned with a vengeance, and he sat there, gloomily playing with his eggs and bacon, and occasionally muttering some reference to one or another of his old cases. Not his triumphs, though, not those cases which had made his name and his fortune, not the cases which had been reported in the national and international press; no, all he could hark back to now were the failures, few and far between though these had been, the cases where he had been unable to find missing gemstones, or a missing husband, the cases where the client had been in danger and Holmes had failed to spot it, with fatal results for the client. Dreary indeed were his ramblings, on that splendid sunny morning, which should have been all warmth and comfort.

  As I have said, I tried to alter his mood, but all to no avail. So, when I had finished my own excellent meal, and offered Holmes my tobacco pouch – which he refused for about the first time ever since I had known him – I told him plainly, “Holmes, this is positively morbid. I don’t know about you, but I’m off for a brisk walk, to take advantage of this unusually good weather. Will you not come with me, blow some of these cobwebs away?”

  He lifted his head slowly, as if it were too heavy for him, gazed at me with dull eyes, waved a languid hand as if it caused him untold agonies to move it. “With your permission, Watson, I’ll stay indoors. If the truth be told, I don’t think I’m very good company at the moment. Oh, and don’t be surprised if I don’t appear at dinner, for I’ve no appetite just at the moment, and I prefer to think alone, in my room.”

  “Very well, Holmes, if you say so. But I think I’ll be staying with you a week or so, if that will not inconvenience you?”

  “As you wish, Doctor,” he answered, without even looking at me.

  I paused there only long enough to light my pipe, and then, considerably disgruntled, I set off for my walk. As I passed the kitchen door, old Martha appeared and put a hand on my arm. “Well, Doctor Watson?”

  I shook my head. “The case is worse than I feared last night,” I told her. “You did well to consult me, Martha. Never fear, though, we’ll soon have him right as rain.” And
with that I left her, shaking her poor old head as she stared after me.

  The doctor’s sovereign anodyne, ‘We’ll soon have him right’, but I asked myself as I went out on to the downs and sought the cliff path, how? How on earth was I to break through this barrier which Holmes had set up around himself, how was I to lift him from this slough of despond?

  My pipe had gone out, as it will when you do not pay proper attention to filling it, when you are distracted and bothered by other things so that you do not pack it correctly. I teased the tobacco out, composed myself to doing it right this time, got a match lit and the tobacco bubbling nicely in the top of the bowl. That’s better, I told myself. Take the job steadily, work out the proper approach, do it right. And just as with the humble briar, so too with Holmes. I needed a plan of campaign, needed to work out what must be done and tackle it in the right order.

  First of all, I was still paying for that pony and trap, but it did not look as if I should need those again during my stay, so I might just as well return them to their owner in Brighton. I would take my lunch in the town, too, for I could not face Holmes until I had formulated some scheme that should wipe the frown from his brow and make him think that life was worth living.

  My path led me once again past The Gables, where a couple of teams of energetic youths were just beginning a game of rugby. I had played myself in former days, and paused for a moment to watch. The master, a bright young fellow whom I knew slightly from my previous visits to Holmes, touched his cap and nodded a greeting.

  “We’ve met before,” I reminded him, “though I haven’t been in these parts for some considerable time. Doctor John Watson, sir …”

  “Ah, of course, Mr Holmes’ friend.” He offered me his hand, but his brow clouded. “I trust you’ll not take this amiss, Doctor, but here at The Gables some of us are just a touch concerned for Mr Holmes at the moment. He doesn’t seem to get out and about as he once used to, and, to be plain, sir, the last time I spoke to him, he seemed … well, distraught, to put it no higher.”

  I nodded. “Your concern does you credit, sir. I confess that I too am a touch bothered by Mr Holmes’ mood of late. That is, in some sense, why I am here. I do not think it is anything of a serious nature that troubles him, I can find nothing organically wrong. But he is melancholy, there’s no doubt of that, and I propose to stay until he is his old self. Never fear, we’ll soon have him right.”

  And, feeling the most monstrous fraud that ever walked, I touched my hat and scurried off.

  I retrieved my pony and trap from the little inn in Fulworth, and drove the short way into Brighton. I returned the pony and trap to the stable and settled the bill – as I think I told you, the distance to Holmes’s little cottage was such that the walk was an easy one and a pleasant one, provided that this bright weather held. Only a sense of urgency had caused me to hire the trap on the previous evening. Urgency? And was there none now? Well, it is true that my innermost fears had not been realized, so that there was no longer any need for urgency in the sense of unseemly haste; but still I needed to work out what action I must take to save Holmes from his dejection. And quickly, for I knew only too well the destructive effect that boredom might have upon him. True, times had changed, and Holmes would no longer find it quite as easy to acquire those artificial stimulants that the supposedly staid and stuffy Victorian era had accepted without comment. But as a doctor I knew well enough that the legitimate sources of supply are not the only sources of supply. And these substances were perhaps the least troublesome of the alternatives that would face Holmes if he did not find something to occupy his mind, and soon.

  Had he still been living in London, of course, I would immediately have prescribed a sea change. But he was here already, with all the fresh sea air, all the open country, that any man could wish for; and still he was unhappy. Perhaps, then, I should prescribe a return to London, I thought cynically.

  It is perhaps fortunate that there were few visitors to the seaside at that time of year, for I stopped dead in my tracks. All my cynicism vanished, and I considered quite seriously the prospect of recommending to Holmes that he return to London, and indeed to work. But then I shook my head. After all, I had no idea just why Holmes had chosen to retire from practice whilst still comparatively youthful – he was even now little more than fifty. Holmes had never given any reason, and he was certainly not the sort of man who encourages idle chitchat on personal topics. Still, I could to some extent draw inferences from my own unhappy experiences over the weeks prior to my coming down here. My work was no longer satisfying or interesting, and I could well believe that a little place by the sea – a place not so very different from Holmes’ cottage – would suit me down to the ground. But for how long? If that proverbial rose-covered cottage in its turn began to pall, then what was left? What, in a word, would jolt Holmes out of his dejected state, when work and holiday alike had lost their charm?

  I shook my head sadly. It looked very much as if I should have to give the matter up as being beyond my poor wits to solve. After all, if Holmes himself could not arrive at any satisfactory answer, what was the probability that I could do so?

  A moment ago, I said it was fortunate that there was nobody much about, so that I could stand there wool- gathering without interrupting the flow of pedestrians along the pavement. Yet even so early in the year the place was not entirely deserted, and indeed as I stood there I became aware that someone was standing at no great distance behind me. I moved aside slightly, lest I was indeed obstructing the path, and as I did so the man behind me spoke.

  “Admiring the view? Or wondering where to take your luncheon?” The voice was a pleasant one, but the speaker was not English. The accent was strange, and yet somehow familiar.

  I turned, ready to give this upstart a lesson in manners. “Really, sir, I don’t see …” and I stopped.

  The man who had addressed me smiled, and removed his hat, so that I might see his face the better. I saw a man some thirty-five years of age, his dark hair thinning slightly at front so that his brow was impressive, that of a powerful thinker. He was somewhat under the average height, but with a gravity of deportment that made one look twice at him. The dark eyes, though, twinkled at me beneath the thick eyebrows, and beneath the heavy moustache lurked a smile. I looked at him, and looked again. Surely I knew him? I stared at him.

  “Monsieur Sarkies?” I stammered. “Yes, it is … Arshak Sarkies.”

  And Arshak Sarkies, for such indeed it was, smiled broadly and held out his hand to me.

  At this point I must digress slightly. Those of you who were, in Kipling’s memorable phrase, ‘somewhere east of Suez’ in the latter half of the nineteenth century may well need no introduction to the Sarkies brothers, but there are some to whom the name may not be immediately familiar, and for the benefit of these I had best explain matters here.

  The family was, as you may possibly guess from the name, Armenian in origin, part of the most unheralded and yet arguably the greatest nation of merchants and traders that ever existed. There were four brothers, of whom the eldest, Martin, may be regarded as the founder of the family’s fame and fortune. At one time an engineer, Martin Sarkies had turned his attention to the hotel business, and in a short while the phrase ‘managed by the Sarkies brothers’ became a guarantee of comfort and service. The brothers owned and managed a number of hotels at the time of which I write, but perhaps the most famous of them all was the ‘Raffles’ at Singapore, which had been in their care for around two decades, and was managed by another brother, Tigran.

  Arshak Sarkies, who was now standing on the seafront at Brighton and shaking my hand vigorously, was the youngest of the four brothers. In addition to his professional and business reputation, he had another characteristic that had made his name a byword on the other side of the globe, namely his amazing generosity. Generous of purse to a fault – literally, for his liberality would later contribute to the firm’s financial difficulties – he was also generous of sp
irit; in an age notable for its formality, even stiffness, he was almost universally known by his first name, and many a man who has run into a spot of business, or personal difficulty, has had good cause to be grateful to Arshak, who was never known to turn away a request for help.

  I was one such man. It was many years ago, when I was out east, and there is no need to describe exactly what the trouble was – although I can say that it was my own foolish fault. But in my defence, I was young, and it was not a vicious or contemptible sort of fault I committed, and did nobody else any harm. Still, it was a nasty fix in which I found myself, and Arshak Sarkies helped me out of it, without fuss and with no sort of obligation expressed or implied. I owed him more than money could repay, and if I have seemed to sing his praises too loudly, you may think that there is good cause. I assure you, however, that I have, if anything, understated his greatness of heart.

  Now, this is all very well, but you may be asking what this great-hearted hotelier from Singapore was doing in Brighton. It was, to be sure, the very first question that formed in my own mind, once I had properly taken in the simple fact of his being there. I knew that the brothers visited Europe frequently – indeed, Tigran, manager of the ‘Raffles’, would die in England a couple of years before the Great War, though of course we could not know that in 1905. But it was certainly odd to think that a man, whose home was basking in tropical heat, should seek out Brighton in late winter as a place to visit.

  I stammered, “But … but … what …”

  Arshak Sarkies smiled at me, and waved a hand to indicate the hotels that stood round about us. “A professional visit, as one might say,” he told me in a vague sort of fashion.

  “What, you’re not thinking of buying a hotel in Brighton, surely?”

  “One must keep an eye open for business.” The smile became enigmatic. “And another eye on one’s competitors. But you, Doctor Watson? You are perhaps permitting yourself a break from your practice, a well-earned rest, a quiet few days in this quiet season?”