by Marvin Kaye
The instant I observed the proceedings, I saw that I would have a difficult time in pursuing my original purpose. Old Mrs. Hudson, no fool she, was in a state, indeed. The poor old dear couldn’t stop wringing her hands, telling all who’d listen, as well as them that wouldn’t, how worried she was that somewhat would befall the house, what was left her by her good dead man, that was her sole support in her old age. You see, Mr. Holmes had hired a driver and a helper to bring the piano in question up the stairs. The two he hires are rather . . . underbalanced . . . and somewhat high-strung. Perhaps they could have done the job, if they hadn’t been driven off . . . but I get ahead of my tale.
The helper is a dour, little bald-headed jockey of a Scot, name of Finlay—couldn’t have weighed more than seven stone or stood higher than fifteen hands. Moustachioed like some Baghdad pasha, he hardly stood still a second, bobbing about in a birdy way. Had the oddest way of cockin’ one eyebrow, too—like it was pulled up by a string—and growling low when his ire was ruffled.
The driver’s a hale, stout Irishman, Cannady, he calls himself, and he’s twice as tall and twice as meaty as his assistant. He’s no happy bloke, either, and don’t have much more hair than that damned Lowlander. Always clenching up his face like a great wrinkled fist and scowling. Dumb as pisswater, he was, and slow moving, lumbering. Strong as an English ploughhorse, however, I’ll say that for him.
They drove up in a van with the words Grosvenor Square Furniture written across one side, and We Haul Ash on the other. No sooner do they step out than I attempt to ask Holmes a few questions, since I had no intention of getting involved with this piano foolishness. Holmes wouldn’t deign to answer—walked away without a word like I hadn’t spoken.
Suddenly, I felt an eye boring into the back of me skull. It was this little Finlay fellow. I turned to him like a gentleman, raised my hat, and introduces myself as an officer of the Queen. He juts his neck forward and glowers at me first with the one eye, and then the other. “Officer, ye say,” he growls, then turns away and quick looks back like I was trying to sneak up behind him. He turns, takes a step away and to my utter amazement, swings back yet again! Muttering something incomprehensible and Gaelic—and insulting, I have no doubt—he finally walks right past me. Well. I had never seen the like.
Finlay and Cannady drag the piano to the edge of the wagon, then Cannady jumps down and Finlay pushes one side of the instrument off the wagon onto Cannady, then jumps down, slides it over and tries to lift his end. Unfortunately, Finlay can barely hold it aloft at all. Trembling like a new bride, he sinks to the ground caterwauling, “WhaehaeyedoonyeHiberniansavage?OHHH!” waving his arms and legs frantically. The Irishman sighs and has to set his end down and go over and push the piano off his partner. Who gives him not a word of thanks. Instead, he leaps to his feet and barking, “Back, ye scrofulous Saxon scum!” Finlay clears a path as the sweating Cannady pushes the business up to the door.
All the while, Holmes has been busy . . . in his own way. With Watson in his wake, he’s been walking around whistling tunelessly, peering into, over, around and under everything with a magnifying glass. Since he’s bored, obviously, with nothing to do, I make another attempt to engage him in a discussion of my case. “It is your duty, sir, to aid the police in whatever manner possible. Now, here are the facts . . .”
Ignoring me completely, Holmes announces in a loud voice, “I have investigated all of the available evidence and I have deduced the single most efficacious method of bringing the object up the stairs. Based upon that deduction, I have formulated a plan of action.” A hush settles upon Baker Street as the silly blighter continues. “The piano must be pushed up the stairs a stair at a time.”
As if that were a great revelation. And there’s seventeen stairs (Holmes ain’t the only one to have a sharp sense of the world about himself). Throwing my hands up in the air, I have to walk away.
The crowd by now has grown raucous—so raucous, in fact, that it even penetrates the glaze around Holmes. Once the piano, surrounded by Finlay, Cannady and Watson—and myself, of course; by now I have decided there is more entertainment than information to be got at Baker Street—is in the foyer of Number 221, Holmes closes the door, though the rumbling of voices outside can still be heard.
Well, up Cannady goes, pushing the piano, whilst Finlay bleats encouragement at him in that horrible Scots bray.
Poor Mrs. Hudson is making little high noises in the back of her throat, knowing that the weight and banging is doing damage to the steps. It doesn’t help when Watson suddenly turns to her, smiles and gives his tie what I’m sure he believes is a reassuring little wiggle from the bottom.
Nearing the top step, Cannady puts on a last burst of fantastic strength and the piano turns straight up and crashes to the floor of the landing, cracking several of the wooden slats. Mrs. Hudson screams in anguish.
“EXcuse me, Holmes!” yells Watson. “Stand aside, Watson!” orders Holmes.
Finlay decides to act the peacemaker and push the two gentlemen apart. Holmes shoves him back; the Scot collides with Watson, who pushes him towards Holmes. Before you can say “Robert Peel,” Finlay’s grimacing something fearful and latching his scrawny hands around Holmes’s throat, shaking for all he’s worth. Doctor Watson gets him by one of his legs trying to pull him away, but pulls instead on Finlay’s pants, the only place he can get a grip.
Leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of my chest, I can only shake my head. I am a trained professional and I can see that there is an exceptional situation developing here. I’m thinking, too, that a professional policeman’d be trained in taking his man along, but your civilian thinks he can do without training. Which explains why the doctor’s got Finlay by the pants leg, pulling the man’s breeches half down. Which is just what the little blighter is screeching—except when it comes from his gizzard it sounds more like “YERPUILLINM’TROOZERSDOON!OHHH!”
Cannady, up top of the steps, bellows loyally, “I’m a’comin, Finn!” and barrels down the stairs with a full head of steam. Holmes sees the Irish juggernaut and shouts to Watson, “Look out, old man!” They drop the squirming Finlay and dive to either side. Cannady, unable to stop, trips over his helper and sails through the door—the closed door—with a resounding CRASH. Leaving a neat hole the width of his shoulders in the wood, he tumbles like a boulder into the crowd pressed thick right up against the door. His size and the force of his flight is such that perhaps twenty all told are laying about moaning and rolling around in the filth of the street. Those that are left standing take to their heels yelling for the police.
As I walk up behind Holmes and Watson peeking through the hole, the great deducer, Holmes, says in very cool tones, “Deucedly difficult getting good help these days. Don’t you agree?”
Finlay sees this as an opportunity to attack from behind. Unfortunately, his pants are still around his ankles, so he trips and falls flat on his face. Holmes at this point has had quite enough—and I must say that I concur. He turns to Watson and says, “Heave-ho, eh?” Watson smiles and opens the door. “Quite so.”
I step aside as the two take Finlay by his arms and legs, swing him several times and heave him—pants still around his ankles—into the crowd around Cannady. The hollow ratatat of night-sticks beating the sidewalk can now be heard in the distance. Whistles screech, sounding closer, as the brave protectors of London’s citizenry answer the call for help.
Holmes and Watson take all this in, look at each other, smile and nod emphatically.
The police arrive as Cannady is helping Finlay pull up his pants. Finlay, is caterwauling at the top of his lungs and bouncing quite energetically, so Cannady is having a hard time of it.
Not surprisingly, the police jump onto Cannady, and Finlay, who rushes to his partner’s defense yelling a battle cry of “Sodamtin’NormansOHHH!” at the rather surprised officers. A wave of police break over the wildly struggling Cannady and Finlay and they drag the two off into a wagon and away.
Holmes comes running to help the old woman but stops as he takes a good look. Her hair is a frightful mess and her clothes are all rumpled and filthy and she is lying atop the stunned Doctor Watson. Even the “great detective” of Baker Street senses he must approach with caution. She glares at him for a moment, but Holmes realizes he must try to pull her up. He almost gets the old dear to her feet, but his sweaty hand can’t hold the grip, and both fly over backward—him into a hinged, full-length dressing mirror which swings about striking him a hard whack on the head—breaking the mirror—and her into the mess of chemicals, tobacco, gunpowder and Watson, still on the floor.
Mrs. Hudson has been driven, by all these shenanigans, quite literally beyond the use of coherent speech. Her visage resembles that of an animal attempting to pass an egg that is too large. Even though I have several weapons on my person, I do not think it wise to approach too closely. I am content to watch while standing just outside the room.
Mrs. Hudson frantically searches for a suitable method of demonstrating her feelings and grabs a washbowl full of water. She flings it at Holmes who ducks, and the cold water hits the rising Watson full in the face. Holmes laughs uproriously; in a quite ungentlemanly way, I might add. “Oh ho, old man!” he shouts. “I wish you could see yourself! Ho ho!”
Watson, too, seems now quite discombobulated. He walks up to Mr. Holmes and kicks him, firmly, in the right ankle. Holmes hops about for a few moments then, game as a cock, leaps back, and kicks Watson in the backside as hard as he can. Balling up their fists—or their feet, I should say—Holmes and Watson begin shinkicking in real earnest now. And something it was to see. My money would be on an Army veteran like the doctor, except that Holmes is spinning around yelling suspiciously French words at the top of his lungs and putting through some very fancy Froggy kicks at the doctor’s poor legs. I’d like to say that this does nothing but prove what I always say on the subject of people always falling to their natural station in life, but I’m too polite to say so either then or now. So I won’t.
Watson is clearly getting the worst of this, I’m sorry to report, and begins casting about for some way to get some of his own back. Suddenly, he runs over to the candlestand, grabs a candle, and wallops Holmes on the head with the thick candle. He is rewarded by the most satisfying bop! I have ever heard in all my years on the force. Holmes, recoiling from the blow to his head, falls against the piano. It holds him . . . for a moment, then rolls to the edge of the stairs and over.
Everyone, including myself, screams as the piano sails down the stairs and through the closed door. The unmoveable force meets the irresistible object as both door and piano are smashed into a million smithereens . . .
All is silence. We all realize that nothing will ever be quite the same . . .
Then Mrs. Hudson lets go a bloodcurdling cry that has everybody jump straight up in the air. She runs downstairs, yelling incoherently. A tremendous racket of banging pots and pans and breaking glass and Mrs. Hudson’s angry yelling comes up the broken stairs. We all rush to investigate, but Holmes and Watson contrive so strenuously to be first that they succeed only in tripping and undermining each other and come rolling down the stairs in an angry heap, breaking the bannister into splinters on the way.
The noise has gotten even louder and Mrs. Hudson is shouting things that t’would leave a sailor gaping in awe and respect. As Holmes and Watson stop just before the door to the stairs leading down to the kitchen, all noise stops and there’s a dead, ominous silence.
The two men look at one another and then at the yawning doorway. They back up several steps, fearfully. Unwilling to be anything more than an innocent bystander, I am behind them in the hall. Watson hits Holmes in the shoulder and motions towards the door; the brave Holmes shakes his head No vigorously. Watson pushes Holmes. Holmes takes a sliding step towards the door while trying hard to lean away from it at the same time. He’s about to start down the stairs when an egg flies out and Mrs. Hudson, bellowing, charges right out after it.
Eggs start flying, and the two men run and fall all over themselves to get out of the way. I press myself against the wall as she comes rushing past, holding a big pot filled with eggs. Chasing them out of the house, scattering the crowd, they disappear down Baker Street. The last I seen is Watson and Holmes, knees and arms pumping, running for their very lives—curiously, their bowler hats are still on—Mrs. Hudson, the avenging Valkyrie, merely a step behind the detective and the scribbler.
I do not know how them two got themselves home or how far they travelled, or who cleaned up the colossus of a mess that was made in Mrs. Hudson’s house, for I strained myself nearly into herniation with laughing.
I joyful took my leave then and came straight to pen and paper. I sat myself down to narrate this account in a fresh green memory. It all happened just as you see it set down here. This, I believe, will once and for all paint the true picture of the famous Mr. Holmes for the world entire to see. My duty as I sees it.
As a postscript, I must mention that Finlay and Cannady were released the next morning . . . but there is still the little problem of the Grosvenor Square Furniture van, which disappeared and has not yet been recovered.
Holmes turned the last page, stood and ripped the papers to tiny little shreds, kicking the pieces across the floor.
“That was a copy,” Watson said tersely. “Lestrade has the original. He wants . . . one thousand pounds. He will suppress this . . . tale, and he will keep his mouth shut.” Watson walked over to pour himself another whiskey, his third. Drinking it down in two gulps, he added, “Forever, God willing. I recommend, for both our sakes, that we pay him. If this were to become public knowledge, we would be the laughing-stock of all London—at the very least—and you would see precious few cases in the future.”
Holmes stood speechless, quivering, for long moments, then shouted, “He’s mad I tell you, mad! We must . . . How he . . . Why I . . .” Sherlock Holmes stopped, shoulders slumped and said resignedly, “Pay him and have done.” He took long strides to his bedroom, stopped with his hand on the door, and before going in said, “What did happen to the van? I wonder . . .
“But do see Lestrade immediately. You are quite correct—if this story were ever to be published, I should have to retire to Essex and raise peas!” The door slammed behind him.
Watson was silent a moment, then growled with a sudden pain in his tooth, and said derisively, “Raise peas. . . . Why, the very idea!”
À la Recherche
du Temps Perdu
Seldom will Sherlock Holmes speak of bygone times, and Watson, except for his war wounds, is even more close-lipped about his past. It is quite a coup, therefore, to offer two glimpses into certain painful childhood memories of each of our heroes. This section also contains another early case of Sherlock’s, as well as a fascinating diplomatic exploit that happened during that melancholy period when the world believed Holmes to be dead.
The supernatural never obtrudes into the ordered world of 221 Baker Street, but sometimes, as in The Hound
of the Baskervilles, it comes mighty close. “A Ballad of the White Plague,” whose title refers to the chilling folk song, “The Mistletoe Bough,” circles even closer. Here is a powerful memoir of Holmes’s childhood that tells a bit more about the detective’s family, a subject he hardly ever mentioned to his friend Watson.
A Ballad of the White Plague
BY P. C. HODGELL
“Denn die Todten reiten schnell,’ ” Holmes quoted in a sudden, mocking voice. “ ‘The dead travel fast.’ My dear Watson, we are not dead yet, but that may soon be remedied if you overturn us in a ditch.”
I was almost startled enough to do exactly that, so long had it been since last he had deigned to speak to me—as if our current plight were entirely my fault!
Lightning flared to the north, broken forks seen through a black canopy of oak leaves, and a moment later thunder rolled down on us like a run-away cart full of rocks. The pony’s hooves clattered nervously on the rough stones of the old Roman road. Our rented trap bounced and swayed. With nightfall, a cold wind had pushed aside the heat of the August day, and now we stood a good chance of being half drowned, if not pelted with hail or struck by lightning.
“My dear Holmes,” I said, mimicking his tone to cover my own quite natural nervousness. “You must admit that our situation approaches the gothic, if not the ludicrous. Lost in the wilds of Surrey! What time is it?”
“The dead of night,” he replied in a hollow voice. “The third watch. The witching hour.”
“In other words,” I said crossly, “about midnight. At this rate, we will never make Bagshot in time to catch the last express to London.”
“It was your idea to drag me off for a drive in the country.”
