Sherlock Holmes and the Holborn Emporium

by Val Andrews

  “Why, if it isn’t Doctor Watson,” she said at once. “What a surprise. But how nice to see you again, sir. You’ll be staying a day or so, I take it? I must have had some sort of premonition that you were coming, sir, for I’ve done easily twice as much as would feed Mr Holmes here. Sit down, gentlemen, and I’ll serve the supper at once.”

  “Come now, Martha,” said Holmes, in a tone of mock severity. He brandished the telegram at her in an accusing fashion. “Your little scheme is revealed. The good doctor here, in his usual robust manner, has, in the argot of fifty years ago, ‘blown the gaff’. In a word, Martha, your surprise is a sham. You are yourself responsible for Watson’s being here, and you must explain things to us.”

  “Well, then, sir, I’ll tell you straight that I did send that telegram, and there’s no use denying it. I went down to Fulworth and saw Abigail Oldwhistle, her that keeps the little draper’s shop, for I knew she was bound for Brighton this morning, and that’s how I did it.” And Martha folded her arms and regarded Holmes complacently.

  “I was less concerned with how, and more with the why of the thing,” said Holmes.

  “Well, sir,” said Martha obstinately, “just as I can’t deny that I sent that telegram there, so you can’t deny that you haven’t been looking after yourself properly of late, nor can you deny that you’re not as well, not to say as lively, as you ought to be. The Doctor himself will say the same, I’m sure, when he’s had a chance to look at you.”

  Holmes made as if to protest at this, but I got in first. “Ah, yes. Martha, you just take yourself off for a moment, would you, whilst I have a look at Mr Holmes? Holmes, remove your tie and unfasten your shirt.”

  “Really, Doctor, this is quite …”

  “Say, ‘Ah’, please.”

  “Watson …”

  “And cough.”

  I gave Holmes a pretty thorough examination, and could find absolutely nothing amiss. “H’mm. Heart and lungs quite sound. You could stand to put on a few pounds more in weight, but you never were what I’d call hefty.” I put my stethoscope away, and metaphorically scratched my head. “I really am at a loss to understand why Martha should have sent that telegram, Holmes. Not that I’m not pleased to see you. You’ll not object, I trust, if I lodge here a day or so? Not that I’m worried about you, dear fellow, but, truth to tell, I could use a short break from London myself just now.”

  “Ah, London.” A curious look came into Holmes’ eyes.

  Then he shook himself. “Stay? Of course you must stay, my dear Watson. I’ll have Martha make up the bed in the spare room.”

  “No need, sir,” said Martha, who by that curious female process of divination had realized that my examination of Holmes was complete, and put her head round the kitchen door. “No need, for I did that yesterday, and set a hot water bottle in the bed to warm it last night. Now, if you’ll sit down at the table, sir, I’ll serve supper.”

  I confess that I was ready for my supper, for it had been a long day, a worrying day, and I had been too bothered to eat anything since my breakfast. I took the opportunity to study Holmes, and was somewhat concerned to see that he was merely pushing the food around his plate, evidently making a show of eating for my sake, but not really taking any sustenance. I knew well enough that this was his way when he had some knotty problem, some tricky investigation, in hand; indeed, I had protested to him about it often enough. But when he had no such case to bother about, his appetite, though never on a Rabelaisian scale, was usually hearty enough to satisfy any medical man.

  I determined to sound him out. “There must be some interesting little local problems to occupy you, Holmes?” I ventured.

  He raised his head, with what looked like an effort, and regarded me with lacklustre eyes.

  “Doubtless you have some intriguing little matter, if not two or three, in hand just now?” I ploughed on.

  For answer, Holmes made a sound remarkably like, ‘Huh!’ and lowered his eyes to his plate again.

  “You know, Holmes,” I went on, as if I had not heard this, “I am quite concerned about that telegram …”

  At which point, Holmes said something which may have been, ‘Darn the telegram!’ but again I chose to ignore him.

  “I am wondering, since there is nothing wrong with you, whether Martha may not be … well, not quite as sound in her grip of things as when she was younger. Do you think …”

  “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 s
ubsequent 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.

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