My Sherlock Holmes Page 9

  The pub was a low dark place, though somewhat quieter than I would have expected. What clientele there was appeared no better than it should have been. I was frankly contemptuous of any man who hung about a pub at this early hour, for it was just after noon. The air was redolent of tobacco smoke and cheap spirits, an odor I fancy I would have recognized from the single mote of sawdust left in my entryway by Mr. Harvey Maynard had I actually been able to detect it. Being in such a place made me quite nervous—a feeling obviously not shared by my companion.

  Baleful eyes watched as we approached an empty table and sat down. The tabletop was sticky with previous libations, adding disgust to my nervousness. Still, the hope that we would find Harvey Maynard here forced me to ignore my discomfort.

  A waiter appeared, growled at us, took our order from Holmes, and went away.

  “Are you sure we are in the right place?” I asked.

  “I assure you there is no other like it anywhere nearby.”

  I nodded. My confidence in Mr. Holmes was absolute.

  “Do you see him?” Holmes asked.

  “I did not see him as we entered. He may be one of the men sitting in that dim corner.”

  Holmes nodded. “Then we wait,” he said.

  Time passed. The waiter brought two mugs of foul-smelling swipes, which I sipped at for appearances’ sake. Holmes allowed his drink to sit before him untouched.

  My eyes adjusted to the light in the pub, and I knew that not one of the men in corner was Harvey Maynard. I reported this fact to Holmes. He nodded.

  Men came, drank down their drinks, wiped their mouths with the backs of their sleeves, and went out again. Other men stayed, seemingly as much a part of the decor as the furniture.

  Suddenly, a man exploded through the closed door at the back of the room, sending large splinters of wood in all directions. The man could not get his balance, and he reeled backward onto a table, which collapsed beneath him with a loud crash. The men who’d been sitting at the table dived for cover. Immediately another man emerged from the back room, leaped upon the first man, and began to pummel him about the head and body. But the man on the floor gave as good as he got.

  “That’s him,” I told Holmes excitedly. “The man who flew through the door first is Harvey Maynard.” I stood up, preparatory to grabbing Maynard, but Holmes rested his hand on my arm and shook his head.

  One of the men who had been at the table pulled Maynard’s attacker off and began to punch him. Then another man began to punch him. Soon the entire room was involved in furious fighting. Holmes and I backed toward the door.

  Maynard pulled a knife from somewhere about his person and brandished it at the man who had attacked him first. Suddenly, a shot was fired, by whom I cannot say. It could have been fired by any of a dozen rough, hulking men who were still in the room.

  Everyone froze. Only Harvey Maynard moved. He crumpled to the floor, obviously mortally wounded. We heard a police whistle and then heavy running. The men who had been drinking so calmly earlier shoved past us, hurriedly leaving the room, no doubt fearing to be discovered in such a place at such a time.

  I wished to follow them but Mr. Holmes set his hand upon my arm. “Wait,” he said. Against every instinct in my body I waited. Soon the room was empty but for us and the Mr. Maynard, who lay silent and still on the worn dirty floor. Blood spread onto the sawdust that had been so helpful to us. Holmes quickly approached him and with a skill born of long practice, he quickly went through the man’s pockets.

  “Ah,” Holmes said as he extracted a packet from Maynard’s inside coat pocket. Inside the packet was a sheaf of ten-pound notes. The money Alice had stolen—it had to be! I was delighted. Holmes glanced at me meaningfully and pushed the packet into his own coat pocket. In one graceful motion he got to his feet and pulled me toward the door. We went outside and rushed into a mews across the way. From there we watched policemen swarm into The Twin Lambs at a gallop.

  “Someone shot Maynard,” I exclaimed.

  “Indeed,” Holmes remarked quietly. “I believe I will leave the solution of this crime to the police. The death of a cur does not much concern me.”

  I looked at him, shocked. Though I certainly had no love for Harvey Maynard, the attitude of Mr. Holmes was something of a surprise. But upon reflection, even at that moment, I knew my Alice and I had been visited by a merciful Providence. Mr. Holmes would return the money—all that Maynard had not already spent—to Morehouse & Co., thus bringing another of his cases to a successful conclusion. Morehouse & Co. would graciously accept the money it had lost, though no one there might ever learn the truth of why and how it was stolen. And perhaps most importantly, Alice and I were now free from the depredations of Harvey Maynard.

  Holmes and I returned to his rooms, where he quickly arranged my journey to Kent to meet my wife, and from there to a ship that would soon be sailing for the United States of America. Our final destination would be San Francisco.

  “I must ask you and your wife never to return to England,” Holmes warned. “I ask you this as much for my sake as for your own: the police are certain to take a dim view of some of the activities performed by the three of us.”

  I nodded. “I cannot thank you enough for your kindness,” I said as I shook his hand.

  “My blushes,” Holmes said, and lowered his eyes.

  WIGGlNS, LEADER OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

  “What on earth is this?” I cried, for at this moment there came the pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.

  “It’s the Baker Street division of the detective police force,” said my companion gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped eyes on.

  “’Tention!” cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. “In future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you must wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?”

  “No, sir, we hain’t,” said one of the youths.

  “I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do. Here are your wages.” He handed each of them a shilling. “Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next time.”

  He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many rats, and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.

  “There’s more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than out of a dozen of the force,” Holmes remarked.

  —A Study in Scarlet

  by NORMAN SCHREIBER

  Call Me Wiggins

  Call me Wiggins. It’s how my most intimate friends address me—with the sole exception of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. He calls me “young fellow,” “young man,” and on certain occasions, the import of which escapes me, “Mr. Wiggins.” All of these sound better to my ears than his customary description of me in the old days as his “dirty little lieutenant.” That’s when I was leader of that group of street urchins that Mr. Holmes was pleased to call his Baker Street Irregulars.

  And yes, I do count Mr. Holmes among my friends and, if it’s not too boastful to add, I know things about him that nobody else knows. Things, I believe, that his proud nature would not allow him to reveal. For example, the man is a philanthropist. Yes, he is! He created what he is pleased to call “the Wiggins Fund” and pulled me out of the gutter. I am not ashamed to say that I am a child of the streets—brought up “on the stones,” as we say. Mr. Holmes has advised me to mention this rarely if at all. But it is God’s truth. He contrived to alter my life—for which I am mostly grateful.

  Mr. Holmes and I first encountered each other when he had just set himself up as a consulting detective. I knew right away that he was going places. I was eleven years old at the time; but I, too, was going places. And were it not for Mr. Holmes I might be in one of those places even now. My mates and I did favors—
errands and the like—for various folks. We were the best and fastest at fetching beer. And if you needed someone to hold your horses while you tended to business we were the Arabs for the job. It beat crawling up chimneys for a pittance and having nothing to show for it but a coating of soot and a cough that lingered for the rest of your life. And when no moneys were to be earned we were not too picky. We might grab an apple off a pushcart or a sneezer—that’s a handkerchief to you—or whatever from some geezer’s pocket. Always a few pennies to be made from the contents of someone else’s pocket.

  The police—or at least the more intelligent members amongst that whole sorry lot—would journey to the now famous flat at 221B Baker Street for advice. Mr. Holmes, in turn, occasionally called upon the services of me and my comrades. So you might say that I was the consulting detective’s consulting detective. He was generous with his gratuities. More impressively, he was fair. He employed us to be his eyes and ears. He said nobody would ever suspect waifs of being spies. I didn’t fancy being called a spy. That’s almost as bad as being thought a snitch. But I liked the feel of his money in my palm and the work was exciting. And in our ways we were helping people. That was good, too.

  Not too many people know about the Wiggins Fund—in part because there’s not really any such thing and in part because I’m the sole recipient. It happened when I already was quite advanced in years. I was at least twelve years old, possibly thirteen. I had just finished furnishing him with my latest findings in his behalf. He was sitting in that great chair of his. He scarcely seemed to be listening to me. His eyes were half-closed. What little energy he exerted seemed to spend itself on the task of throwing up great clouds of pipe smoke over his head, as if a tidy little storm were brewing.

  I completed my spirited recitation about the comings and comings of a sneaky bloke and there was silence. There was not even the usual, “Well done, Wiggins,” which was the kindest appellation he affixed in those days. Suddenly he rose from his chair, scattering ashes onto the floor; opened his eyes wide and stared straight into my eyes.

  “If I,” he said intensely, “were to give you and the boys three guineas for a month’s work, how many shillings would that be?”

  “First of all, sir,” I said, “that would probably be shortchanging us by at least two guineas, based on the amount of commerce we do with each other.” And then I added, “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir.”

  “Answer my question,” he snapped.

  “I don’t like the direction of this conversation, is all,” I said.

  “We’re not talking about your income,” he said. “I’m just trying to solve a problem.”

  Well, that was different. He excelled at the knack of talking about one topic while you were certain it was another.

  “Three guineas,” I said, “is sixty-three shillings.”

  “And twenty guineas?”

  “Four hundred and twenty shillings,” I shot back.

  “Recite a line from Shakespeare,” he said.

  “Oh Romeo,” I said, in a falsetto, while flailing my arms about, “Wherefore are thou, oh Romeo?”

  “Where did you learn that?” he asked.

  “Oh, everybody knows that one,” I said.

  “What does it mean?” he asked.

  “Wherefore art Romeo,” I tentatively offered.

  “In your own words,” he barked.

  “I guess she’s inquiring—”

  “She?” roared Holmes. “Who is she?”

  “Juliet,” I whispered.

  “Yes, go on.”

  “Juliet is inquiring into the whereabouts of Romeo.”

  “‘Wherefore’ means ‘why,’” Holmes barked, “not ‘where.’”

  “It does?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Oh, then she’s asking why Romeo is—is what?”

  “Why Romeo is Romeo.”

  “Why he’s named Romeo? Well, I guess that’s a good question. It’s a dumb name, ain’t it?”

  Holmes shook his head. “Young man,” he said, “you’re as sharp as a pin, but you’re sadly in need of an education.”

  And he persisted.

  “Now then,” he asked, “why does Juliet care to know anything about Romeo?”

  “Well, he’s her bloke, ain’t he?”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Holmes said.

  I smiled in relief, not really knowing what I was smiling at.

  “You’re capable of better things, young man,” he said. “We’re going to give you an education.”

  “Education.” I hooted. “I’ve got no time for that nonsense. I’ve got a business to run. And besides, I can’t really see myself, all fancied up like a schoolboy and sitting in a classroom.”

  “Who in the blazes said a word about classrooms? I said you need an education—not an incarceration,” he said. “Classes come later with college.”

  “College.” I snorted. “Me? I’ve got life just the way I want it. Why go muck it up with college? I go about my business. I make my rounds. I know where to get a shilling here and a shilling there. Last week it was, I got two shillings from a gentleman who needed me to hold his horses for ten minutes. Who do you know who can earn two shillings in ten minutes?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” said Holmes. “If you were walking down the street and you came across a half-crown coin resting, half hidden, in the filth of the gutter, what would you do?”

  “I’d look about,” I immediately responded, “to make sure it was not a joke because I hate to be made a fool of.”

  “And if it were not a joke?”

  “I’d snatch it up right quick.”

  “Why,” he asked.

  “If you see something of value in the gutter,” I said, “you can’t just leave it there.”

  “Even if it’s awash in mud and grime?”

  “You clean it off,” I said, “and then you get good use out of it.”

  “You are that coin, young man,” said Holmes, “and you’re due for a good cleaning and an education. Otherwise you will remain in the gutter and have no opportunity for improvement.”

  I didn’t like being tricked by my own words and I stormed out. I walked around London trying to calm down. It didn’t work. His words made me take notice of what was all around me: chaps who were five, ten, or even fifteen years my elder who were, to put as good a face on it as possible, faring poorly. They were no longer swift enough to run errands. They were hobbled by alcohol and atrocious injuries. They were sleeping under bridges and in railway arches. The more industrious of them concocted the vilest of appearances, the better to beg with. I had seen these scenes thousands of times and laughed at them. Thanks to Mr. Holmes, on this particular promenade I felt as if I were seeing my future.

  I returned to 221B Baker Street the following day and announced my willingness to be educated. He smiled and assured me that it would not hurt much. His notions of how to educate me were as unorthodox as that brief academic examination he inflicted upon me that day that was so significant. He taught me the essentials of the disciplines in which he was well-versed. As Dr. Watson has pointed out, there is much Mr. Holmes did not know or care to know. To my new tutor’s credit, he recognized that a great many fields of knowledge might serve me even if they were irrelevant to him. He engaged other tutors to school me. Apparently he solicited donations from a select few souls to pay for any and all expenses. This is what we call the Wiggins Fund.

  I was given a thorough grounding in the classics. He made sure that I learned proper language and manners. He warned me never to speak in my own natural way. He said that the English were of such a peculiar nature that, despite my virtues and all that I may have attained, I would be shunned if my speech betrayed my origins. We’ve all got to come from somewhere and I’m not ashamed of any of it. But I was not going to put all this work in and then lose everything just because of some silly prejudice about aitches, for example.

  To my surprise, I took to this new regime
rather well. I discovered that much of what they call education is similar to how we navigate our lives on the street—except education frowns on the more colorful language with which we seasoned our speech. We take the facts in as we see them and use them to formulate ideas and actions—whether those ideas are about the best way to live a good life or the best way to secure the best errands. The process by which we think and act is the same. That was both depressing and reassuring.

  I was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford, at the age of seventeen. I never questioned how I was able to matriculate there. I know I displayed some merit. I also know that it did not hurt to have Mr. Holmes as a champion. More than anything else I wanted to sit in a lecture where Dr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, whom some may know as Lewis Carroll, stood at the podium and talked about the wonders of mathematics. Unfortunately, Dodgson no longer cared to be a lecturer and had retired from the activity. He did, however, continue to give classes in logic to some lucky few, mostly high school girls. I managed to wheedle myself into a private class he conducted in the house, which is what we call Christ Church College. I had not lost my ability or instinct for doing errands and services and, quite frankly, I had ingratiated myself with Dr. Dodgson.

  I took it upon myself a few years ago to introduce Holmes to Dodgson. My motive was simple. I wanted to be present at what had every promise of being the most dazzling discourse between two of our civilization’s most prominent logicians.

  I suppose I also wanted to show Mr. Holmes that I was moving in respectable circles, not as a mere boastful moment but rather a tribute to Mr. Holmes himself. It was he that transformed me from a street urchin into an educated man with prospects. He did it by revealing to me the world of letters and learning and he gave me a bit of artifice that would help me in the variety of social and professional situations. Thanks to his help and that of those anonymous donors, I had the wherewithal to advance to and study at Oxford. I did not know where my education would take me. Holmes made no secret of his belief that I would be a splendid consulting detective. Dodgson told me the great satisfaction that comes to he who devotes his life to the intricacies of mathematics.