The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (57 page)

Doyle led us to the table, where he made the appropriate introductions—to Miss Leckie and to Mrs. Charles Altamont Doyle, his mother.

“The Ma'am was good enough to join our party at the last minute,” the author explained. “The more the merrier I always say,” he added with a laugh, which may have been a bit forced.

While there was undeniably a certain strain in the air, I have to say that supper passed agreeably. Holmes for one appeared wholly at his ease, discussing prospects in the prize ring with Doyle and the careers of various well-known sopranos with Miss Leckie. The senior Mrs. Doyle said little, presiding over the scene with quiet strength and dignity. As the public area filled up with voluble diners, conversation became increasingly an effort and we all focused on polishing our plates.

Afterwards, as everyone rose and said their farewells, Doyle drew me aside. “I say, Watson,” he whispered. “I almost did a foolish thing tonight. A very foolish thing. Fortunately, the Ma'am arrived when she did, though the devil knows how she found out to intercept us here. An amazingly omniscient woman, the Ma'am. After her lecture on fidelity and chastity, I assured her that Miss Leckie and I would never, as long as Touie…Well, I trust I can rely on your discretion—and that of Mr. Holmes.”

“You can indeed, Doyle,” I promised.

Since we had to maintain our pretence that we had come to Gloucester on other business, Holmes and I lingered at the Everson Arms public bar while the lovers and their chaperone proceeded to the railway terminal, to catch a late train to London. Over a final pint of bitter I recounted Conan Doyle's parting comments to me.

“A noble husband, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes. “After this recent test of his mettle, I have no doubt the man will keep his word. The question now becomes what, if anything, we tell that saintly soul, his wife.” We finished our pints in silence.

“It has been a long day, old fellow,” announced my friend at last. “I am weary and in no mood to hurry back to London. While Gloucester may boast many respectable inns, I am sure the Everson Arms offers as comfortable a bed as any. They should have at least one available
room, following the unexpected departure of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Parker.' ”

The next day, after a short sightseeing excursion to the Forest of Dean, we rode the train back to Paddington. I accompanied Holmes to Baker Street, where two missives awaited him. The first, a wire dated the previous afternoon, was from Wodehouse, stating that Doyle's man Mason had cabled Doyle's mother to alert her to the impending assignation. Mason was confident Mrs. Doyle would do what was necessary. The second was a letter written in a feeble female hand. Holmes read it aloud:

My dear Mr. Holmes
,

I hope you will not think too badly of me, but I no longer require your services. While I shall always wonder about the other woman, I now realize that it is quite the best and wisest course not to risk disrupting things as they are. Ignorance is bliss, as they say
.

Since his return from South Africa, Arthur has been so kind and attentive to me, while I, confined to my room, have been no use to anyone. This past weekend I was too ill even to receive house guests
.

Forgive me my foolishness! With apologies for any unnecessary trouble I may have caused you and Dr. Watson, I am

Sincerely yours
,

Louise Hawkins Doyle

“I say, Holmes,” I said, unable on this occasion to suppress a smile. “Like Lady Chiltern in
An Ideal Husband
, Mrs. Doyle seems now content to await the perfect partner in the next world.”

“Indeed, Watson,” my friend replied, with only a hint of testiness, “though let us not forget the tragic example of the author of
An Ideal Husband
, who unlike the worthy Mr. Doyle permitted passion to overrule his better judgement.”

The following year I resumed publication of these memoirs of mine with
The Hound of the Baskervilles
, while P. G. Wodehouse made his first professional magazine sale. In 1902, for his efforts in presenting the British position in the Boer War, Arthur Conan Doyle received his knighthood, though he accepted only reluctantly, at the insistence of his mother. Sherlock Holmes refused a knighthood the same year. Louise Hawkins Doyle died of tuberculosis in 1907. The year after, Sir Arthur married Jean Leckie, who bore him three children. According to his son Adrian, a few months before his death, Conan Doyle left his sickbed unseen to go out into the garden. A few minutes later the butler found him, collapsed in a passage with a heart attack. In his hand he clutched a snowdrop. It had been his custom to observe the anniversary of his meeting Jean Leckie, on the fifteenth of March, 1897, by picking the first snowdrop of the season.

ALTHOUGH VERY WELL
known during his lifetime as a journalist, raconteur, and friend of such literary luminaries as Mark Twain and Henry Van Dyke, William Oliver Fuller (1856–1941) is little read today.

Born in Rockland, Maine, he lived there his entire life. He became the postmaster of Rockland (1902–1914) while also working as a newspaperman, having founded the
Rockland Courier
when he was only eighteen. It was merged with the
Rockland Gazette
to form
The Courier-Gazette
in 1882, of which he was the editor and manager for decades. He was presented with the Silver Plaque of the Maine Press Association in 1937 for being the oldest editor in point of service (sixty-three years).

Known for his charm and wit, he was a successful lecturer, after-dinner speaker, and author. Near the turn of the previous century, he contributed humorous sketches to the New York
World
with such subject matter as “Unknown Husbands of Well-Known Wives.” He also wrote books:
What Happened to Wigglesworth
(1901), a comic novel in which the life of man-about-the-house Ellery Wigglesworth is a walking accident waiting to happen, and
An Old Town by the Sea
(1908), the story of the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial House in Portsmouth, produced when the house was dedicated in 1908. His close friend, Aldrich once described Fuller as the nearest in style to Charles Lamb of any writer he had ever known.

“A Night with Sherlock Holmes” was a paper read by Fuller to the 12mo Club on January 1, 1929. He claimed that he had received the manuscript directly from Arthur Conan Doyle. It was originally published in a limited edition of two hundred copies (Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Riverside Press, 1929). It was first commercially published under the title “The Mary Queen of Scots Jewel” in
The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes
, edited by Ellery Queen (Boston, Little, Brown, 1944).

IT WAS ONE
of those misty, rainy mornings in early summer when the streets of London contrive to render themselves particularly disagreeable, the pavements greasy with mud and the very buildings presenting their gloomy façades wreathed in a double melancholy. Returning from a professional call and finding Baker Street in my way, I had dropped in on my friend Sherlock Holmes, whom I found amid the delightful disorder of his room, his chair drawn up to a fire of coals and himself stretched abroad in it, pulling at his favorite pipe.

“Glad to see you, Watson,” he called heartily. “Sit down here, light a cigar and cheer me up. This infernal wet spell has got on my nerves. You're just the company I require.”

I helped myself to a cigar, put a chair to one side of the grate and waited for Holmes to talk, for I understood that in this frame of mind he had first to relieve himself of its irritability before a naturally pleasant mood could assert itself.

“Do you know, Watson,” he began, after some moments of silent smoking, “I don't at all like your treatment of my latest adventure. I told you at the time that the part played by that country detective threw my methods into a comparison with his such as tends to overrate my abilities.”

Holmes's querulous allusion to the now famous Amber Necklace Case, to my mind one of his most brilliant exploits, I could afford to let pass in silence, and did so.

“Not,” he added, with a suggestion of the apologetic in his voice, “not that, on the whole, you let your pen of a ready chronicler carry you too pliantly into the realm of romance—but you must be careful, Watson, not to ascribe to me the supernatural. You know yourself how ordinary my science is when the paths of its conclusions are traced after me. As, for instance, the fact that I am about to have a caller—how I know this may for a moment appear a mystery to you, but in the sequel most commonplace.”

There came on the instant a rap at the street door, and to my surprised look of inquiry Holmes replied, with a laugh:

“My dear Watson, it is kindergarten. You failed to hear, as I did an instant ago—for you were listening to my morose maunderings—the faint tooting of the horn of a motorcar, which it was easy to perceive was about turning the upper corner of our street; nor did you observe, as I was able to do, that in the proper space of time the unmistakable silence caused by the stopping of a motor engine was apparent under my window. I am persuaded, Watson, that a look out of that window will plainly disclose a car standing by my curb-stone.”

I followed him across the room and peered over his shoulder as he put back the curtains. Sure enough, a motorcar had drawn up to the curb. Under its canopy top we perceived two gentlemen seated in the tonneau. The chauffeur stood at the street door, evidently waiting. At this moment Holmes's housekeeper, after a warning rap, walked into the room, bearing two cards on a tray, which she passed to Holmes.

“
MR. WILLIAM S. RICHARDSON
—
MR. WILLIAM
O. FULLER
,” he said, reading the cards aloud. “H'm. Evidently our friend the Conqueror has many admirers in America. You may ask the gentlemen to walk upstairs, Mrs. Hudson,” he added.

“How do you know your callers are from America?” I was beginning, when following a knock at the door, and Holmes's brisk “Come in!” two gentlemen entered, stopped near the threshold and bowed. They were garbed in raincoats; one, of medium height, smooth-shaven, resembling in features the actor Irving; the other, of smaller stature, distinguished by a pair of Mr. Pickwick spectacles.

“Pray come in, gentlemen,” said Sherlock Holmes, with the courtesy of manner that so well becomes him. “Throw off your raincoats, take a cigar, sit here in these chairs by the fire, and while you talk of the circumstances that have given me the honor of a visit so soon after your arrival in London, I will busy myself in mixing a cocktail, one of the excellent devices which your American people have introduced to an appreciative British public.”

The visitors responded readily to these overtures of cordiality; from a tray on the table selected with unerring discrimination what I knew to be Holmes's choicest cigars, and in a brief time the four chairs were drawn in a half-moon before the glowing grate. Introductions had quickly been got through with.

“Dr. Watson, as my somewhat o'erpartial biographer,” said Holmes as he lighted his pipe, “was on the point of wondering, when interrupted by your entrance, at my having in advance pronounced upon the nationality of my callers.”

The taller of the gentlemen—it was the one bearing the name of Richardson—smiled.

“I was myself struck by that allusion,” he responded, “no less than by your other somewhat astonishing reference to our being but newly come to the city. In point of fact we have been here a period of something less than twenty-four hours.”

Sherlock Holmes laughed pleasantly. “It is the simplest of matters when explained,” he said, “as I have often pointed out to Dr. Watson. In the line of research to which I occasionally turn my attention, as he has so abundantly set forth in his published narratives, acquaintance must be had, as you will know, with a great variety of subjects. The motorcar, for instance, that ubiquitous invader of the realm of locomotion, naturally falls within the periphery of these attentions; nor could I long study its various interesting phases without coming to recognize the cars of different makes and nationalities. There are, if my memory is not at fault, some one hundred and thirty varieties of patterns easily distinguishable to one adept in this direction. When Watson looked out of the window, at my shoulder a moment ago, his investigations, pursued in quite different channels, did not disclose to him what was evident to me at a glance, namely, an American machine frequently encountered in this country. It was easy to guess that its occupants were also from the States.

“As to the other matter—among the earliest things the American man or woman of taste does on reaching London is to give an order to the engraver for his name card in the latest London style. The card this season, as we know, is small, the type a shaded variety of Old English. The cards brought me by the hand of Mrs. Hudson were of medium size, engraved in last year's script. Plainly my American callers had at the longest but a short time come to the city. A trifle hazardous—yes—but in these matters one sometimes has to guess point-blank—or, to quote one of your American navigators, ‘Stand boldly to the South'ard and trust to luck!' You find this holds together, Watson?”

I confessed with a laugh that I was quite satisfied. The American gentlemen exchanged glances of gratification. Evidently, this exhibition of my friend's characteristic method of deduction afforded them the highest satisfaction.

“Which brings us,” remarked Holmes, whose pipe was now drawing bravely, “to the real object of this visit, which I may say at once I am glad to be honored with, having a high appreciation
of your country, and finding myself always indebted to one of your truly great writers, whose French detective I am pleased to consider a monumental character in a most difficult field of endeavor. My friend Watson has made some bold essays in that direction,” added Holmes, with a deprecatory shake of the head, “but it is a moot question if he ever has risen to the exalted level of
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
.”

As Sherlock Holmes ceased speaking, the visitors, who had turned grave, looked at each other questioningly.

“It is your story,” said the one in spectacles.

The gentleman by the name of Richardson acknowledged the suggestion.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I would best begin at the beginning. If I am too long, or obscure in my details, do me the honor to interrupt me.”

“Let us have the whole story,” said Holmes. “I naturally assume that you solicit my assistance under some conditions of difficulty. In such matters no details, however seemingly obscure, can be regarded as inessential, and I beg you to omit none of them.”

The American flicked the ash from his cigar and began his story.

“My friend and I landed at Liverpool ten days or more ago, for a summer's motoring in your country. We journeyed by easy stages up to London, stopping here only long enough to visit our bankers and to mail two or three letters of introduction that we had brought from home.”

“To mail—” interrupted Holmes; then he added with a laugh: “Ah, yes, you posted your letters. Pardon me.”

“Long enough to post our letters,” repeated the American, adopting the humorously proffered correction. “Then we pushed on for our arranged tour of the South of England. At Canterbury a note overtook us from the Lord M——, acknowledging receipt of our letter of introduction to that nobleman, and praying us to be his guests at dinner on Wednesday of the present week—yesterday—as later he should be out of the city. It seemed best, on a review of the circumstances, for us to return to London, as his Lordship was one whom we particularly desired to meet. So Wednesday found us again in the city, where we took rooms at the Langham, in Portland Place. It wanting several hours of dressing time, we strolled out in a casual way, bringing up in Wardour Street. I don't need to tell you that in its abounding curio shops, which have extraordinary fascination for all American travelers, we found the time pass quickly. In one of the little shops, where I was somewhat known to the proprietor by reason of former visits, we were turning over a tray of curious stones, with possible scarf pins in mind, when the dealer came forward with a package that he had taken from his safe, and removing its wrappings said: ‘Perhaps, sir, you would be interested in this?'

“It was a curious bit of antique workmanship—a gold bar bearing the figure of a boy catching a mouse, the whole richly set about with diamonds and rubies, with a large and costly pearl as a pendant. Even in the dingy light of the shop it sparkled with a sense of value.

“ ‘It is from the personal collection of the Countess of Warrington,' said the dealer. ‘It belonged originally to the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, and there is an accompanying paper of authentication, showing its descent through various hands for the past three hundred and forty years. You will see engraved here, in the setting, the arms of Mary.' ”

Holmes, a past master in the science of heraldry, his voice exhibiting a degree of interest with which I was quite familiar, here broke in:

“Or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory and counter flory, gules. Mary, as Queen of Scotland and daughter of James I, would bear the arms of Scotland. I know the jewel you are describing—indeed, I saw it one time when visiting at the country seat of the Countess, following a daring attempt at burglary there. You know the particulars, Watson. I have heard that since the death of the Countess, the family being straitened financially, some of her jewels have been put into discreet hands for negotiation.”

“So the dealer explained,” the visitor continued, “and he added, that as the jewels were
so well known in England, they could be sold only to go abroad, hence the value of a prospective American customer. I confess that the jewel interested me. I had a newly married niece in mind for whom I had not yet found just the wedding gift that suited me, and this appeared to fit into the situation.

“ ‘What is the price?' I asked.

“ ‘We think one thousand pounds very cheap for it, sir,' said the dealer, in the easy manner with which your shopkeepers price their wares to Americans.

“After some further talk, our time being run out, my friend and I returned to the Langham and dressed for dinner. It was while dressing that a knock came at my room door. Opening it, I found a messenger from the curio dealer's, who, handing me a small package, explained that it was the jewel, which the dealer desired me to retain for more convenient examination. In the embarrassment of the moment I neglected to do the proper thing and return the package to the messenger, who indeed had touched his cap and gone while I yet stood in the door.

“ ‘Look at this, Fuller,' I called, and stepped into his room—it is our traveling custom to have rooms connecting. ‘Isn't this quite like an English shopkeeper, entrusting his property to a comparative stranger? It's a dangerous thing to have credit with these confiding tradesmen.'

“My friend's reply very clearly framed the situation.

“ ‘It's a more dangerous thing,' he said, ‘to be chosen as the safe-deposit of priceless heirlooms. It is scarcely the sort of thing one would seek to be made the custodian of in a strange city.'

“This was true. The dinner hour was close on our heels, a taxi was in waiting, there was no time to arrange with the office, and I dropped the package into my inner pocket. After all, it seemed a secure enough place. I could feel its gentle pressure against my side, which would be a constant guarantee of safety.

“We were received by Lord and Lady M——with the open-handed cordiality that they always accord to visitors from our country. The company at table was not so large but that the conversation could be for the most part general, running at the first to topics chiefly American, with that charming exhibition of English naïveté and ignorance—you will pardon me—in affairs across the water. From this point the talk trailed off to themes quite unrelated but always interesting—the Great War, in which his Lordship had played a conspicuous part; the delicious flavor of wall-grown peaches; the health of the King; of her ladyship's recipe for barleywater; the recent disposal of the library and personal effects of the notorious Lord Earlbank. This by natural steps led to a discussion of family heirlooms, which speedily brought out the jewel, whose insistent pressure I had felt all through the courses, and which was soon passing from hand to hand, accompanied by feminine expressions of delight.

“The interest in the jewel appeared to get into the air. Even the servants became affected by it. I noticed the under butler, while filling the glass of Captain Pole-Carew, who was holding the trinket up to catch the varying angles of light, in which it flashed amazingly, fasten his eyes upon it. For an instant he breathed heavily and almost leaned upon the captain's shoulder, forgetting the wine he was in the act of decanting, and which, overflowing the glass, ran down upon the cloth. The jewel continued its circuit of the table and returned to my inner pocket.