"This is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife..."

-- Sherlock Holmes, "A Case of Identity"


The Dundas Separation Case

Copyright (c) 1998 by Sonia Fetherston


In the Berwick Museum of Dentistry, at 11:15 p.m., teeth weren't the only thing chattering. Annie Moxness, special exhibits curator, jabbered in excitement over that afternoon's U.P.S. delivery. Within the next two weeks she would be responsible for transforming the contents of 47 cartons of varying size into the museum's grandest event of the year. The show would be called "Devices Dental: Great Mouths and Their Contents."

"It's Khrushchev's!" she squealed, extracting a gold tooth from a mound of Styrofoam. "It'll be the centerpiece of the show! And look at this, Richard," she said, feeling deep in a box. "Oh my God! Can you believe it?!" She marvelled over a bumpy pink disc that emerged from some bubble-wrap. "Madonna's old retainer!"

I heaved a tired sigh. It's not easy being assistant to the woman they sniggeringly call The Tooth Fairy. Dentistry isn't something I sink my own teeth into; I'm just a student intern from the university's history department. It's hard for me to muster any enthusiasm for other peoples' oral hardware, but I tried my best to participate. "What's this thing, Annie?" I queried, holding up a pale yellow chunk of porcelain, scored by a couple of hairline cracks.

I glanced over at her. She sat motionless, blue eyes fixed stupidly on my find. Her jaw sagged half an inch. "Annie?" I was worried. She seemed to have stopped breathing.

"Richard......" My name was exhaled with a slow rattle. Her hand rose to clutch her collarbone. Tears welled in her eyes. "I can't believe I'm in its presence." She bowed her head slightly, as if paying homage.

"Uh, yeah, but what is it?" I asked again.

She didn't look up at all, and I had to lean forward to hear her dramatic whisper. "That's the last surviving fragment of George Dundas's dentures."

"Oooooooo!" I squealed at top volume, in a fairly good imitation of Annie herself.

"Richard!" she scolded with genuine anger, and I was instantly sorry. Dental heritage is a serious matter to her.

After apologizing, I asked her to tell me about Dundas and his dentures. She smiled dreamily.

"It's in the Sherlock Holmes books," she began. "Only just. Dr. Watson touched on it in one of his stories, but unfortunately he garbled what little there was. Why he never devoted an entire narrative to the Dundas case is a modern dental mystery. From Holmes' own notes we've been able to piece together most of the pertinent facts." Annie gently lifted the denture from my hand and cradled it next to her breast. She'd settled cross-legged beside a packing case.

"It seems George Dundas was a wreck of a human being," she resumed after a quiet moment communing with his false teeth. "Vagrant, pick-pocket, drunkard, scoundrel. He'd sinned 'most every sin that was. But then he caught the fever."

"Brain?" I ventured, helpfully.

"No religion, silly. He reformed quite spectacularly after hearing a sermon on a street corner in Whitechapel. Swore off the bottle. Goodbye to wicked ways. Promised to make good on every last thing he'd ever pinched. While the angels were rejoicing, the C of E had trouble mustering any enthusiasm for the likes of him. One Sunday morning he wandered into a church service in Notting Hill. During the sermon George let loose with a 'Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!' 'Hssssst!' replied one of his pew-mates. 'Nobody's allowed to praise the Lord in this parish!'

"George Dundas had two choices: tinker with his own soul's care, or find a denomination that could accept him as he was. That's how he ended up at The Salvation Army. Oh, the Sallies were thrilled with him, a bona fide reformed sinner of the worst sort! They fed him, cleaned him up, dressed him in the uniform of a Salvation Army soldier and resolved to make George the main attraction at the dedication service for their new charity centre in Bishopsgate. He was to give his personal testimony on the error of his ways. It would be the most important day of George's life! Even Prince Arthur would be there to hear him."

"Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught? Queen Victoria's son?"

"Her favourite son," Annie corrected. "Stop me if you've heard this before, Richard."

"No! No, go on," I urged.

"In honour of the event the Sallies fixed George up with a new set of dentures, the first he'd ever worn. Most of his own teeth had been knocked out in drunken brawls. George nearly lapsed into the sin of pride, showing off the dentures to 'enry, a shabby fellow, little long in the tooth, who hired on to tidy up the place before the big day.

"Tuesday arrived, a light drizzle outside, and the smell of wet wool uniforms filled the air. The speeches were to take place out on the pavement, His Highness would unveil a new sign beside the front door, then everyone could move inside for tea. Aside from the prince, a number of Sallie officers had turned out. There was a lieutenant colonel all the way from Blackpool, and a corps sergeant major from Wales scooted in at the last minute. General Booth was away on one of his trips to America, but he sent his personal emissary -- a stout brigadier named Mary Bates. A music shop sent 'round an inaugural gift -- a big bass drum. Those Salvation Army bands are always off-key, aren't they, Richard? The ensemble that day was said to be especially dreadful. Did you know that playing a cornet deforms the upper arch?"

"Dundas preached, not played," I reminded. "How did he do? Did it rain brimstone all around Liverpool Station?"

She laughed and rolled her eyes. "George sprinted in at the last possible minute, all nausea and nerves. He plunged his fingers into the glass where his dentures were soaking in readiness -- 'enry was holding it behind his back, standing there beside the platform. George actually shoved them into his mouth as he stepped up to the lectern, where Brigadier Bates had just finished leading a chorus of 'Will You Wash the Unwashed?' She turned to embrace George and welcome him to the corps, but witnesses in the crowd saw her stiffen suddenly, as she confronted the newest soldier. The ruching on her bonnet trembled. A hush fell over the crowd.

"With her elbow leading the way, Brigadier Bates' right arm slowly lifted up and out from her body. Her plump hand hovered briefly over George's left shoulder. Then suddenly: rrr-rip! She wrenched the epaulet clean off of his tunic! 'This man has been drinking!' she cried virtuously. 'He positively stinks with gin!'"

My eyebrows shot up. "Gin? He fell off the wagon, then?"

"Actually, no." Annie said. Was that a giggle? "It was gin all right, but George hadn't drunk any. The dentures, these very dentures," she held up the broken porcelain, "had been soaked not in water, but in cheap gin -- you know, the really ghastly stuff that could eat the enamel right off a molar."

"Who put gin in the glass?" I wondered. "Surely not Dundas?"

"Guess again!" she sang gaily and I noticed her own teeth, white, one a little uneven. "Sherlock Holmes did it."

"Holmes?" I was astonished. "Why on earth would he do that?"

"To create a diversion! A ruse! Remember how he upset that table with the bowl of oranges down in Reigate? And remember the cry of 'fire!' outside Irene Adler's house? Holmes worked like a magician: distract the audience with flash and smoke, while quietly palming the Ace. As the teetotaling crowd stared aghast at George Dundas, Sherlock Holmes -- for that was who 'enry was, in disguise -- made a leaping kick at the new bass drum. It rolled down a little alleyway, and exploded with an Almighty boom!"

I shook my head in wonder. "You mean there was a bomb in it?"

"Exactly," Annie confirmed. "Holmes, you see, was not the only person there undercover. The delivery chap from the music shop was unmasked as Gurdot, the Belgian assassin. He'd planted the bomb inside the drum to make an attempt on Prince Arthur's life. Fortunately no one was hurt. Two beggars in the crowd revealed themselves to be police inspectors; they threw off their disguises and knocked Gurdot to the ground. Dundas was so rattled that he really did backslide, reaching for the denture glass and gulping the gin right there on the platform."

"And the dentures?" I wondered. "Did they break during the explosion?"

"Nope," Annie replied, licking her index finger and polishing Dundas's left canine with it. "It happened two days later, just as dinner was cleared away at the Sallie soup kitchen. Brigadier Bates had been looking for George to offer an apology, but he was still in his cups and hadn't been about. He finally crawled in to beg for a little warmed-over coffee, still wearing the tunic with its solitary epaulet.

"'George, I humiliated you! My heart reached for God, but my hand was not stretched out to you. For that I am sorry. Can you forgive me?' she asked, full of real contrition. George swayed and peered at her through bile-shot eyes. With his tongue he thrust the dentures from his mouth and spat them into his hand. 'Madame, I forgive you that, when you forgive me this,' he declared, and he hurled the dentures at her! He missed. They broke. He never again wore an oral device.

"After he'd sobered up, and for good, they negotiated a mutual amnesty. Three months later they asked for their separation orders from The Salvation Army, and George Dundas and Mary Bates were wed. They both continued to work on behalf of the poor, opening a day-labour agency for unemployed men in Bromley Street. It was rumoured that Sherlock Holmes himself gave them the first six months' rent for their little office. For the rest of his days George drank nothing stronger than apple juice."

"And the dentures?" I wondered aloud, as Annie carefully wrapped the fragment in an old-looking piece of velvet. "Somebody retrieved that fragment and kept it safe all these years. Who?"

She settled the piece of porcelain back into its box, which I took note of for the first time. It was a custom-made casket, glossy rosewood with gold fittings. I gaped to see an historic coat of arms decorating the box-top. Annie patted it gently.

"One might say it was a certain gracious. . . . certain grateful. . . . lady," she said, and she grinned so broadly I could almost see her crown.


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