Baker Street Irregular

by Copper Beech

It began innocuously enough. Mrs. Hudson and I were headed to London to celebrate my birthday. It was now March, fully two months past the day. But she had been in Australia in January and had not been present for the small gathering that marked my entry into the world. She wanted to make up for it by taking me to London. Of course, I had been to London many times - had lived there in fact, but this was to be something different.

We began the familiar trip from our small station. And by the time we got to London, we were ready for a late lunch. We stopped at a restaurant in Westminster. And even though she wasn't cooking, Mrs. Hudson made sure I ate enough to keep me going until supper - tomorrow's supper. That accomplished, we stepped into the increasingly cold air. The sky was turning an ominous shade of steel grey.

"What do you have next for us, Mrs. Hudson?" I asked.

"Well," she said slowly, "I have tickets to this evening's ballet, but first there is a place you might like to see."

We walked briskly down the street. The wind was starting to pick up and I kept my head down. I could feel us turn several corners, though all I saw was the pavement in front of me. It was becoming white. I looked up to see thick white flakes of snow and Mrs. Hudson stop. I avoided a collision with her by placing my hands on her shoulders. With my progress halted, I looked over her shoulder to see a doorway. Glancing up, I saw the number: 221. I looked at Mrs. Hudson who said, "Come, Dear."

We moved to the doorstep where she produced a key and with it, opened the door. We made our way to the entryway where my glasses immediately fogged up. I took them off and followed her up a flight of stairs, counting them as I went. Seventeen. Exactly.

Mrs. Hudson opened the door at the top of the stairs and into a sitting room we went. There was a fire burning merrily in the fireplace. I took off my coat and placed it on an empty chair. Mrs. Hudson motioned for me to sit in a chair by the fire. When she saw that I had, she did the same. I started to ask how it was possible to be in Holmes' old rooms of 221b Baker Street, but before I got out my first word, Mrs. Hudson said, "I still own it you know." I did not know. "My niece deals with the day-to-day upkeep, but it still belongs to me."

"Why did we come here?"

"I thought you might like to see the place."

"Yes, of course," I said getting up to take a closer look at the lodgings of my husband's youth.

I ran my fingers over the center of the mantelpiece. It had been painted over, but I could feel the rough places where Holmes fixed his unanswered correspondence with a knife. I moved to the coal scuttle. No remnants of tobacco from Holmes' cigars. I crossed over to the bow window. Here, I thought is where Holmes looked out more than once to see a client approach his doorstep. I saw no client, but clouds dark and thick and snow coming down at an accelerated rate.

I turned to see Mrs. Hudson. Would you like to see his room, Dear?" she asked. I nodded and I followed her through yet another open door. It was smaller than I expected, but suitable to the purpose. I ran my fingers over the quilt on the bed and wondered what dreams Holmes might have had here. And if he ever in the wildest of them, thought he would meet me.

Mrs. Hudson put a hand on my shoulder and we walked back into the sitting room. "He was a young man here," she said. "No more than your age when he first came."

"Tell me about him," I found myself saying.

"What would you like to know?" asked Mrs. Hudson.

"You must have some stories," I said.

Mrs. Hudson considered for a moment. "Well," she said, "I could tell you about our first meeting."

"Please," I said.

"It was a Sunday afternoon as I recall. Yes, because I had just returned from services and here was this tall thin young man on my doorstep."

'You must be Mrs. Hudson,' he said.

"I didn't bother to ask how he knew, he said it with such confidence. I told him that I was indeed Mrs. Hudson and asked what I might do for him."

'Rent me rooms, if you please,' he said.

"Well, I don't know," I said. "Do you have any references?" He allowed as he did not, but assured me that he was a trustworthy fellow. I wasn't so sure, but I told him to come along and see the rooms.

"When we entered this room, he examined every inch of it very carefully. I'm still not sure what he was looking for, but he seemed satisfied that he had either found it or not found it. I showed him the bedroom and the other rooms. When we found ourselves back in this room, he asked the price. I told him, but added that before either of us could enter into this contract, I would have to at least know his name. 'Sherlock Holmes,' he said, 'The world's only unofficial consulting detective.' I must have given him a puzzled look, for he went on to explain that he took on cases that the police would not or could not. I smiled, still not sure what that might mean, but told him when the first month's rent was due and when he could move in.

"To this day, I don't know what possessed me to lease him the rooms, but but there have been few days that I was sorry I did so."

"I can guess one day," I said.

"One day, what Dear?"

"One day you were sorry you let your rooms to Holmes."

"Oh, yes," she said after a moment's thought. "The day he shot a patriotic VR into the wall of the sitting room. I had just come home from the butcher's shop when I heard a loud bang. I'd like to have dropped the meat on the floor, but I ran upstairs with it still in my hands. I heard another bang before I got half-way up the stairs. Then another. By the time I got to the top step, the noise had stopped, but I could smell gunpowder in the air. I called to Mr. Holmes to see if he was alright. He opened the door and I half-expected to see a body on the sitting room floor. I looked down and saw blood on the floor. I gasped and heard Mr. Holmes laugh.

'Mrs. Hudson,' he said, 'that blood did not come from a body I wounded, but one our butcher did.'

I looked at my hands and saw the meat had bled through the paper it was wrapped in. Mr. Holmes took the meat from me and placed it on the newspapers that littered the table. Then he got me some water to wash my hands. As I dried them, I looked around the room. Everything seemed in order until I saw the far wall. Instead of the usual pictures, I saw several small holes. I looked again and saw that they made the letters VR. Before I could say a word, Mr. Holmes handed the meat back to me and walked me to the door. As I left he said, 'Do let me know when dinner is ready, Mrs. Hudson.'

The next day he assured me that if and when he no longer engaged the rooms, he would make sure the wall was repaired. As you can see, he was as good as his word.

Mrs. Hudson glanced at her watch. "We should be getting on," she said. I picked up my coat and as I readied to put it on, I looked out the window.

"I don't think we'll be going anywhere anytime soon, Mrs. Hudson," I said, returning my coat to the chair from whence it came.

"And why not, Dear?" she asked.

"Come look," I said. And we both peered out the window. There was snow everywhere. In the air. In the street. In the pale lamplight.

"We'll not be going out this evening," Mrs. Hudson said, echoing my own statement. "I'd better lay a fire," she added. "It looks like we'll be spending the night."

Mrs. Hudson left the room to get coal and though I offered to help, insisted she needed none. I sat by the empty fireplace and thought about Holmes and his days here. I wondered for a moment what it would have been like to be part of his life then, but he was not the same person then and I was yet to be born, so the point was moot. I gave a sigh and turned to see Mrs. Hudson coming with the coal. I got up and helped her prepare the fire. Soon, the room was warm and the light of the fire cast shadows on the plain walls of the room. We sat companionably by the fire and Mrs. Hudson told me the familiar stories set down by Uncle John, but from her perspective. She went through as many as she could remember, ending with "The Empty House."

"I can tell you my heart stopped when that bullet crashed through the window," she said. I smiled and remembered another time that happened, though it was not Mrs. Hudson's heart that stopped, but mine. And it was not the window of 221b Baker Street, but that of Scotland Yard.

With the telling of the final story, we for bed. Mrs. Hudson went to her old room and I to that of Holmes. Or what once was his room. I went to sleep that night wondering what dreams I might have, Holmes' or mine.

The dreams were, of course, my own, but Holmes was definitely present in them. In one, I had come to Baker Street on my bicycle. I told him of my life as a tutor. He examined my hands and instead of saying how music gave my face a spiritual look, remarked on the stains of ink on my fingers. In another, I became Watson and Holmes and I chased snakes from empty rooms. In another, I was Mrs. Hudson, serving stolen documents to Percy Phelps.

The morning found me rested, despite the great activity my brain experienced during the night. I prepared for the day and went to join Mrs. Hudson for whatever breakfast we might find. Mrs. Hudson was busy preparing eggs, toast, and coffee. Seeing my puzzled look, she gave her best impression of a Scots woman and said, "Have you not looked out the window, Mary?"

"No," I replied walking to the nearest one. I pulled back the curtain and expecting to see at least a foot of snow, saw no more than two inches covering the ground.

"We must have seen the worst of it last night," Mrs. Hudson said. "It looks like it stopped shortly after that. It wasn't hard to get out this morning and find provisions for breakfast."

I dispatched my breakfast with deliberate speed. Mrs. Hudson was more ladylike. She finished as I sipped my second cup of coffee. When the cup was empty, I set in neatly on the saucer. Instead of hearing a faint click, I heard a knock. As I stared at the cup and saucer, Mrs. Hudson got up an answered the door. She came back with a slip of paper in her hand. "It's a telegram for you, Dear," she said, handing the paper to me.

I looked at the simple words.

R,

Find me

- H.

This was not the first time I had received this message from Holmes. The first was when I was apprentice. Then, it was a small task to find him working in his laboratory. To find him in all of London would be a greater challenge. And in the middle of winter, a cold one.

I looked up at Mrs. Hudson. "What do you know of this?" I asked.

"If you mean do I know where Mr. Holmes is, I do not," said Mrs. Hudson. "He did tell me that he wanted to surprise you. He didn't tell me how."

I went to the door and examined the footprints in the snow leading up to the front step. They were not Holmes'. I went back into the kitchen and poured myself one last cup of coffee and sat down to think.

"Mrs. Hudson," I said after a moment, "How did Holmes know I was here?"

"He didn't," she said. "Or at least he didn't know it for certain. I told him we were coming here, but that we were likely to stay at the Langham Hotel. He must have checked there first and when he was told we were not registered, deduced that we spent the night here. Or maybe it was that I called Dr. Watson last night to let him know we were here."

"So Uncle John knows where Holmes is?"

"I don't know Dear, but he is expecting us. We can ask him."

"He's expecting us?"

"Yes. Come along now. We don't want to be late."

I grabbed my coat, wondering who was in charge of this expedition. (I could hardly call it an investigation.) Mrs. Hudson hailed a cab with the expertise that comes from living in London most of one's life and we made our way to Uncle John's home. The maid greeted us at the door and brought us into the drawing room. "Dr. Watson will join you shortly," she said as she left us. She was right, for less than a minute later, in did come Dr. Watson in a most merry mood.

"What brings you here, Mary?" he asked, giving me a hug.

"I was hoping you would tell me that."

Mrs. Hudson telephoned and told me where you were and that you would stop by to see me this morning."

"And did you speak with Holmes after speaking with Mrs. Hudson?"

"No, but I did get a telegram from him this morning."

"Uncle John took a piece of paper out of a waistcoat pocket and handed it to me. It read:

Watson -

Genesis 4:9

- Holmes

"I looked it up," said Uncle John. It's the story of Cain killing Able. You know the one, where Cain tells the Lord he's not his brother's keeper. I have no idea what it means or why Holmes sent it to me. Do you?"

"Yes," I said. "It means I am to see Brother Mycroft."

Mrs. Hudson stayed to visit with Uncle John while I made my way to Mycroft's rooms. My brother-in-law greeted me warmly and bade me sit. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

I believe you have the next clue in the treasure hunt."

"He looked at me with familiar grey eyes. "Did you receive a telegram from Holmes this morning?"

"Indeed I did," he said and handed me yet another piece of paper. It said:

Mycroft -

Alice 1

- Sherlock

"From Alice in Wonderland ," I said in response to his puzzled look. But what part of Chapter One?"

"Best start from the beginning," said Brother Mycroft.

I began to tell the story as I knew it. When I got to the part where Alice falls down the rabbit hole, Mycroft stopped me.

"That's it," he said.

"What's it?"

"The rabbit hole," he said. What other kind of holes do rabbits have?"

"Bolt-holes," I said. "Of course."

I thanked Mycroft for his assistance and went about finding the right bolt-hole. I had only been to two of Holmes' hideaways, though I knew of at least one more and suspected yet another.

The first one showed little evidence of Holmes' presence. The second had a small note pinned to the mantelpiece with a knife. It read:

It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs.

Now where had I heard that before? It sounded like something Holmes would say. Did say. Oh yes. Uncle John quoted him in that story of the Bohemian king and Irene Adler. Certainly Holmes did not want to remind me of her. It must be the king. I ran the story through my mind trying to picture all the places mentioned. Finally it came to me. The Langham Hotel.

I took the paper, placed in my pocket with the others and made my way to the Langham Hotel. I went to the desk and after explaining who I was, asked for Mr. Holmes. A helpful young man directed me and I found Holmes' room. I knocked on the door and Holmes let me in. Before I could speak, he took me in his arms and kissed me. When I finally remembered why I came, I said, "Holmes, why did you have me chase all over London to find you?"

"It was not my intention, Russell. Mrs. Hudson said you were to stay at the Langham Hotel. I was going to join you for dinner, but when I found you had not registered , I did a little detecting of my own and discovered you were staying at Baker Street. Rather than call upon you so late, I decided to have you find me the next morning."

"And now that you have, what are you going to do with me?"

"That my Dear Wife, is something you will soon discover."