by Lyndsay Faye
Whensoever I think that my colleague is a volume long since memorized, I turn another page and he surprises me. In this instance, it was the candor and patriotism with which he replied to a remark about our monarch I had made with utter flippancy. At the best of times, I can be glib, and at the worst, unforgivably callous—to be taken seriously when I had not meant the sentiment at all was highly uncomfortable. I was abashed enough to redirect my attention to the mantel clock, for occasionally the doctor’s sincerity is slightly overwhelming to a man of my reticence.
After all, despite my legendary prickliness, I am flesh and blood in addition to smoke and mirrors.
“You left yourself out, my dear fellow,” I mentioned carelessly a few seconds later. “I’ve no wish to see you paraded like a circus tiger either.”
“Your brother wouldn’t have written if it wasn’t important.”
This recalled to my mind the unease I felt about something to do with Lord Templeton’s account, something I could not put my finger upon which itched at the back of my brain. Having given the case so little thought save for detesting the prospect, I wondered what it was I had missed.
“Don’t wind yourself up too tightly, Watson. If this matter involves nothing save wild geese . . .” I warned him.
“Then we’ll have been paid richly to eat a lavish dinner. Where’s the harm in that? I’ll combine my funds with yours and you can send another set of your Irregulars away to school, the way you did with the Duke of Holdernesse’s reward money last year.”
My mouth dropped open, I confess. “You . . . I never . . .”
“Yes, you did. Don’t lie to me, it’s in poor form, my dear Holmes. I saw young Jenkins in the street the other day, who heard from Poole, who had it out of Jemmy, who spilled all.”
This was most vexing. “Well, I must have a stern word with Jemmy, in that case, upon the subject of privacy.”
Watson had the gall to laugh in my face. “Oh, come, I knew you were scheming to do something with the duke’s six thousand pounds. Aside from your taste in wine, and your meticulousness with your tailor, you’re the most frugal bachelor in existence, and how many times have I heard you repeat that your fees are fixed—save, of course, when you remit them? Anyway, do you suppose I don’t notice when Irregulars vanish, are replaced, and one day reappear in the metropolis as clerks and solicitors? If I didn’t already know you fail to consider me a complete imbecile, I should be insulted.”
By this time, I was blushing furiously, a symptom of strong feeling long abhorred but uncontrollable nevertheless for a man of my waxen complexion. “Of course I don’t, but—”
“Honestly, Holmes, what did you imagine I would conclude?” My friend’s eyes sparkled. He was enjoying himself immensely. “That you suddenly bought a landed estate in Kent? That the price of shag tobacco had increased astronomically? Get up—I poured you tea and it’s rapidly expiring.”
Shutting my mouth, I obeyed, which was both more pleasant and simple than arguing. Watson is no genius, but I can personally attest that he owns a remarkable capacity for managing one. And half an hour ago, I found the emerald tiepin given me by our previous gracious sovereign, which I plan to wear this evening, and spent a wistful few minutes studying it.
Watson was a courageous soldier and remains one at heart, so why should it have surprised me that Mycroft’s urges combined with my machinations moved him to undertake a repellent task so gracefully? I stopped to set this small domestic interlude down almost without knowing why, but I think I have it now.
Someday, God forbid it should ever prove necessary, I would like to think myself as ready to be of service to England as John Watson is to both the nation and its sole consulting detective. I would also like to think that he knows as much.
Monday, April 14th, 1902.
This diary belongs to the biggest fool ever to draw breath upon this island. Watson would not say so, in fact praised my quick thinking, but he may as well have complimented a prize cock for making an infernal racket. That would be very like him.
When we had donned white gloves and tall hats and called down for a hansom, and while Watson was making an adjustment to his cravat in the mirror above the sideboard, I finally opened the card Lord Chesley Templeton had given me with instructions as to the whereabouts of the Claire Wyndham, and suffered a profound shock.
“What the devil!” I exclaimed.
“Holmes?” Watson was peering over my shoulder seconds later.
The card was of the finest stock, deeply letterpressed with excellent ink, and read:
Mr. Sherlock Holmes & Dr. John Watson:
Please be at Cleopatra’s Needle at 11:45.
The Diadem Club is honored to welcome you.
“Something about this alarms you?”
“Extremely.”
Lord Chesley Templeton had been wearing a ludicrous suit impeccably tailored to fit him.
We meet under cover of darkness for fear of assassins, but don’t think that stops us having a cracking good time, he had said.
I only just hatched the notion of bringing you two hours ago and jotted off the wire posthaste, he had also said.
Then, following my abrupt departure, the note from my brother. I cursed under my breath.
“Oh, Watson, Watson! I nearly made a farcical blunder, and we have been saved from my own stupidity only at the last moment. What a blind beetle I have been! Your revolver is loaded, I trust?”
“It should be of little use if it weren’t.” The doctor’s eyes were wide. “May I ask what precisely we’ll be doing this evening apart from attending a grotesquely snobbish dinner party?”
“Preventing a murder,” I answered with unrestrained glee.
Watson’s expression as I turned on my heel and trotted down the stairs following this pronouncement was worth every second I had spent in Lord Templeton’s company.
The journey was uneventful and I kept my peace throughout. Both Watson and I benefit from these interludes—they stimulate his imagination and allow me time to focus my thoughts. We paid the cabbie and alighted to the street, walking unhurriedly to the Victoria Embankment. The night was quiet save for the occasional stroller, stately rows of trees along the gaslit walkway rustled in the cool breeze, lights danced over the Thames, there was bloodshed to be thwarted, and I reflected that I might be forced to reconsider my uncharitable opinion of April.
When we reached the looming and—under the circumstances—ominous-seeming Cleopatra’s Needle, we found Lord Chesley Templeton leaning against its base like the most worthless titled rake in Christendom. He had suffered no injury from the spirit gum but was instead smooth-cheeked and debonair with his tousled pale curls jostling each other beneath his top hat, as I had anticipated. I bit down upon a smile and affected an air of supercilious irritation, which I admit comes naturally to me.
“By Jove, but here’s the famous pair!” Lord Templeton cried. “Curse me if I’m not the prince of the Diadem Club after tonight. Strike me down if I am mistaken! Mr. Holmes, a pleasure to see you again. Dr. Watford, delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Watson raised his eyebrows but, consummate gentleman that he is, he made no other sign as we all shook hands. I could not blame the doctor for his skeptical expression: the aristocrat wore a waistcoat of crimson velvet beneath a suit so expensive its price could have purchased a small country.
“This way!” He waved us along with a flourish, going so far as to execute a small jig as he set forth. “We’ve a private dock, of course, and the Claire Wyndham will arrive shortly. What a jolly night it is, to be sure!”
My friend knew better than to question me, but he did dart me a glance of such profound irony that I could not resist smirking in return.
At this point, were Watson writing the narrative, he would wax on endlessly about the quality of the fog tendrils beginning to creep along the turgid
waters and the humble appearance of both the dilapidated private dock and the Claire Wyndham, with shabby black curtains drawn over its windows, bilge and barnacles crusting its hull, and chipped red paint flaking from its paddle box. And once we had been led inside the decrepit vessel, he would rapturously describe the sumptuous chandeliers, the champagne flowing into silver chalices, and the arch chatter of some two dozen aristocrats and their pet prodigies, all gushing effusions at each other as we progressed along the Thames.
I shall retain silence on the subject save for the fact it was every bit as beastly as we had both anticipated.
We were introduced to all and sundry; grotesque levels of enthusiasm were expressed at our presence; and I was seated adjacent to Lord Templeton for dinner, Watson next to a baroness with a wide, pleasant face and plentiful ropes of pearls (fiction writer, Hungarian origins, obviously from a musical family). Turning to my left after the soup had been cleared, I shook hands with Sir Alderford Blythe. A short man with a waxed moustache and thin black brows, he brought to mind a rather skittish beetle. His shoulders were stiff with tension, but his eyes remained determinedly neutral, and he had touched neither food nor drink.
“Your work with Brother Mycroft has been greatly appreciated by many parties,” said I softly. “How go the negotiations?”
“Better than we could initially have hoped, Mr. Holmes,” he returned under his breath. “If we are successful, a Japanese alliance may yet be procured, and would have the profoundest consequences upon our international relations.”
“So I have been told.”
“Your brother is a brilliantly farsighted individual.”
“My dear gentlemen, take a turn upon the deck with me before the fish course?” Lord Templeton piped merrily to Watson and myself, gripping our shoulders. “I’m positively dying for a smoke. I shall simply expire. You must accompany me lest I succumb to boredom, which is the very last affliction which should plague us on this of all nights.”
Pressing Sir Alderford’s forearm reassuringly, I rose and the three of us exited. Secluded in the shadow of a smokestack, Lord Templeton passed us slender French cigarettes and said in an incisive tenor, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson. Your brother explained the mission, I trust?”
All pretense of dandyism had dissolved like so much steam. Watson’s square chin dropped before he abruptly closed his lips again, bless the fellow.
“Your suit and the card had already shown your hand rather neatly,” I demurred. “You deliberately told me you had only just thought of inviting me to the Diadem Club two hours previous, yet somehow you managed to procure a fully tailored Jermyn Street suit for that admirably preposterous disguise and a letterpressed invitation with our names at the top. I was meant to take notice, and Mycroft’s hint clinched the matter. Post me up, if you please. There will be an attempt on Sir Alderford’s life tonight?”
“You don’t disappoint, Mr. Holmes.” Lord Templeton nodded gravely. “Indeed so. I was lucky to have secured a place in the club, and had your brother not intervened . . .” He shook his fair head. “One of the invitees, masquerading as a pioneering physicist, is in fact the spy Louis La Rothiere.”
“Of Notting Hill? You mean the tall fellow with the pomaded hair and the brocade waistcoat?”
“Why, yes, I do. You have encountered him before, I take it.”
“Never, but the chap who was introduced as a Sussex-born polymath remarked upon the vintage Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin they were so liberally serving as only a native Frenchman could ever accomplish. Accents and their origins are a hobby of mine. I’ve had my eye on him all evening.”
Lord Templeton smiled, though he remained grave. “For obvious reasons, I cannot myself intervene—all my value to England relies upon my maintaining this persona. The stalwart duo of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, however? No one will so much as blink. The accent in remarking on the champagne—brilliant! Our cover could not be more perfect. The quarry is in our sights, and the trophy entirely yours, gentlemen. Whitehall thanks you for your service.”
Just then, a rustling which was not the susurration of waves met my keen ears, and I stepped out of the shadows. Watson’s dining companion the baroness stood there, likewise smoking, wearing a look of great attentiveness.
“And that’s the stunner, Mr. Holmes, the knockout punch!” Lord Templeton exclaimed, instantly a pretentious peacock once more. “Oh, Baroness, what luck you’re there! Did you hear my proposal about the play I mean to write about Mr. Holmes and Dr. Whitson here? I shall play the role of the canny spy late of the Boer Wars, India, the Irish conflict, and the Chinese court. It’ll be a smash hit, nothing less, eh? I’d stake a thousand pounds it will. I’d put my life on the line, to be sure. Well, we had all better get back to the fish, what?”
Few words are required to detail what remains. As midnight neared, I identified a concealed knife about La Rothiere’s person. In the ensuing struggle, which was most invigorating, I suffered a slice to the palm, the punch bowl and its entire contents were sacrificed to the cause of justice, and Watson’s revolver finally settled the matter. My explanations were met with actual applause, which was gauche but hardly avoidable. Watson clucked over my injury but finally allowed that his handkerchief would do to stanch the wound until after we disembarked. (While both of us relish danger, we each tend to rather abhor the sight of the other actively bleeding, a paradox I do not wish to have cause to marvel over ever again.) When we docked once more near to Cleopatra’s Needle, a trio of Yard detectives awaited us, and La Rothiere was carted away.
“Simply smashing to meet you, Mr. Holmes!” Lord Templeton rejoiced, clapping his hands and then clasping them adoringly under his chin like a music hall ingenue. “And Dr. Waldron. A joy. Best to your brother, Mr. Holmes, and tell the Strand illustrator to stop putting you in that tragic hat. It’s an affront, I tell you, a travesty of justice. You look much better in city togs, curse me if I lie. Strike me down if that isn’t my heartfelt opinion. Farewell!”
We bade him good night, Watson with an air of amazement and I struggling not to laugh until another, better thought sobered me.
“I would do the same, if I were asked,” said I, my gaze on Lord Chesley Templeton’s slim back as he flounced away.
“Beg pardon?”
Watson inspires a dreadful habit in me of blurting out whatever thought comes into my head, supposing I urgently want him to know its contents, and these slips require me to tell stories backward, which is nigh-impossible to accomplish in any elegant fashion. I blame the doctor for this failing unequivocally. His florid syntax has infected my much more methodical approach to language.
Mentally cuffing myself, I explained, “Lord Chesley Templeton is a consummate performer—he lives and breathes the role whilst recording every scrap of data, making deductions, planning his next moves. I would not be inexpert at this task. In fact, I daresay it would fall directly under my purview as a specialist, and if called upon by the Crown to perform such a duty, for years if necessary, I should instantly agree. I don’t know that I’d excel at marching through deserts or returning enemy fire or ordering men to their deaths, but at that . . .” I nodded at the disappearing silhouette. “At that I could succeed. And I would say yes.”
“Holmes,” Watson huffed, frowning in the solicitous way he has, “do you suppose I don’t already know that?”
When I made no answer, for I could think of none suitable, he chuckled fondly. “Let us presume you shan’t be required to, all right? It would mean the country was headed for certain disaster. Your theoretical talents as a spy will keep, for the rest of our lives I hope. Right, I’m finding us a cab. I expected to be done in following a night at the Diadem Club, but admittedly not in this fashion, and I’ve yet to patch you up again.”
Sunday, April 20th, 1902.
“What’s the matter, Watson?” I asked without turning my head after the second p
ost this morning. He was not in my line of sight where I sat at my worktable organizing academic references upon bullet casings (scant though they were), but my chemistry apparatus was, and I always keep my flasks polished to a high sheen.
“It’s terribly disconcerting when you do that, you know.” The doctor’s voice was even, but still his knit brows betrayed perplexity at the letter in his hand.
“When I do what?”
“Deduce me without looking at me.”
“It’s efficient, my dear fellow. Anything amiss?”
“Not precisely.” Watson tossed the paper to his desktop before him. “I’ve had a letter from the baroness at the Diadem Club that night—apparently she’s a writer. She asked whether I would mind her appropriating the details of our adventure aboard the Claire Wyndham. Admittedly you played a minor enough role, and I can’t reveal the smallest hint of Lord Templeton’s involvement, so since I won’t use it myself, I am bound to say yes.”
I swiveled, appalled. “If another spinner of fanciful tales even dreams of—”
“Pray calm yourself. No, I’m your biographer, and I’ll tell her as much.” Watson smiled in a lopsided manner, tapping the desk with his pen. “I can’t think what she’ll make of it without either mentioning you or betraying Whitehall. Of course, I’ll advise her on the subject.”
“What is her name?”
“Baroness Emmunska Orczy.”
“I’ve never heard of her.”
“Well, neither have I. But I can’t see the harm so long as I give her fair warning as to the difficulties.”
Watson set to penning a return correspondence at once. A curious addendum to a curious case, I thought it. Happily, however, a new scientific treatise upon the art of detection will shortly make its way into the world, the quality of which I hope will balance out the endless stream of sentimentality flowing from the pens of loosely factual biographers and adventure authors alike.
Acknowledgments
