Dr Watson & Love All

"My dear Miss Oakes! This is the spirit that won the Empire!"

Even my old heart beat faster with uncontrollable admiration as I gazed at this perfect example of English womanhood, this divine mixture of physical perfection and ardent spirit. No wonder we bred the finest stock in the world with such dams.

Indeed, dear reader, could anybody blame me if for once I regretted my everyday humdrum existence and wished for some magical spirit to appear carrying gifts of grand titles and a great estate. For in a moment of madness I could not help but think of Adeline Horsey de Horsey, one of the most beautiful women of her generation, a girl who could speak fluently in five languages and had written an operatic score at the age of fifteen. How impossible it had seemed to all of society that, in the prime of her life, Adeline should have chosen to marry that brainless, womanizing buffoon the Earl of Cardigan.

Yet it had happened. Somehow a girl of her shining talents had managed to fall in love with an old dog over sixty years old, a rancid ancient libertine carrying the sacrificed souls of the Light Brigade forever on his conscience, not to mention the miseries of many seduced and abandoned young girls. If such a thoroughly undeserving man of mature years had succeeded in wooing a younger girl of great abilities, might not another older gentleman of greater moral worth also dare to dream?

Well, of course he couldn't. Even as a peer of the realm Cardigan had had to wait until his first wife had died before he could propose marriage to Adeline. And in his seventies the Earl had still been one of the finest riders to hounds in England, retaining the figure and bearing of a Light Dragoon into old age, whereas I could hardly drag my overweight and gout ridden frame out of my chair. 'Doctor, cure thyself' I thought in a spat of bitter regret for time past. The game was no longer afoot for James Watson.

It was the voice of Miss Oakes which brought me back to my senses.

"So, you see, Doctor, perhaps you can assist me even without Mr Holmes’ presence. Surely you must retain some trophies from the many cases you have been involved in together? Is there in your possession such a thing as a small pistol which I might be able to conceal upon me?"

Sadly, I had to shake my head. I knew of no such item being on the premises. It was true that there were many remarkable souvenirs stowed away in various nooks and crannies of 221B Baker Street but none of them of the kind that Miss Oakes was seeking. For one fleeting second I considered giving her a vial of vitriol to use if necessary, but it was a thought which passed away in a shudder of horror as I recalled the dissolved remains of Baron Gruner's face after that hellcat Kitty Winter had taken her revenge upon him with a glassful of acid. No, no human being with any hope of salvation could suggest or encourage the use of vitriol on any living creature, no matter what the circumstances.

Then, when I was on the very point of confessing my inability to help my fair guest in any way, inspiration not only tapped me on the shoulder but fairly shouted in my ear that I was a confounded fool not to have realized before what I must do. I hammered on the floor with my stick and called out in such force as to bring Mrs Hudson up the stairs in a flash and to cause to stare in astonishment at me.

"Mrs Hudson! Mrs Hudson! I want you to send for Wiggins immediately. You know where he is to be found nowadays?"

"Wiggins, Doctor? Of course I do, at his place of business in Coneysale Road, not five minutes away by cab."

"Then I desire you to go into the street, hail the first hansom you can find and go to Coneysale Road immediately. My compliments to Wiggins and I have the most urgent need of his immediate attendance here. No matter what else he may be doing, this matter if of more importance. You understand, Mrs Hudson, of prior importance."

She curtsied to show her understanding and eagerness to act as my Mercury: "I'll get my bonnet and be gone on my way in two shakes of a lamb's tail, Doctor."

Miss Oakes's brows were still furrowed with curiosity as Mrs Hudson retreated down the staircase again.

"Doctor, pray tell me, who is this Wiggins?"

"Why, Miss Oakes, when I first met him he was nothing more than a dirty little Street Arab. That was long ago, when I first came here to share these lodgings with Holmes. But even then my friend had already organized the gang of urchins he called the Baker Street Irregulars. Wiggins was their leader and I first met him and the other Irregulars when Holmes called them in to help him search the Thames for Mordecai Smith's steam yacht, the Aurora."

My memories vaulted back to that dark night, the swirl of foam under the Aurora's stern, the pounding of the engine of the police launch as Holmes raged at the vessel's delay in overtaking our prey, the swirling sparks dancing away in the wind betwixt the white funnel smoke and the river's black water. In the end we'd driven the Aurora ashore on Plumstead Marshes with a murderous native dwarf lying dead upon the deck and a one legged madman making a futile effort to escape by leaping overboard, only to get his wooden leg hopelessly stuck in the deep mud. But what we didn't know then was that Jonathan Small had already had the last laugh in the affair, nor that we'd left a trail of Indian gems worth half a million pounds behind us on the bottom of the Thames to mark the course of the five mile chase.

"Wiggins, Doctor. You were telling me about this Wiggins," Miss Oakes reminded me.

"Oh, I'm sorry . . . an old man's dreams, I'm afraid. Yes, Wiggins was the leader of the Irregulars then, by virtue of his energy and cleverness and has since gone on to lift himself up in the world by his bootstraps, as the saying is. Which is very good work indeed for a boy who owned no boots or shoes to begin with. Holmes provided money for him to learn to read and write and then to set himself up in his own business, at which he has proved remarkably successful. Indeed, he is still only eighteen or nineteen, I believe, and yet his agency employs some dozen people now."

"Really, that does sound remarkable, Doctor," Miss Oakes agreed. "But what is his business and why do you wish to summon him here so urgently?"

I smiled at my own stupidity: "Of course, I should have said. As it happens, Wiggins has traded very successfully on the public attention he has received from my accounts of Holmes’ cases. He announced to the world that anyone clever enough to help the great Sherlock Holmes must be worthy of hire as a private investigator in his own right, and a very plausible argument it has proven. The Wiggins Investigation Agency has gone from strength to strength since its founding."

"Indeed. But surely it could not have continued to be a success if this Mr Wiggins had not been good at his work?" Miss Oakes asked shrewdly.

"That is so. Even as a child Wiggins had great abilities and he certainly did learn much in assisting Holmes in many cases. Indeed, one of the first thing he did on his own account was to form another band of irregulars to work for him as he himself had led Holmes' own band of urchins. With the great man out of the country, I can think of no better course of action than to seek Wiggins' advice as the most immediate and satisfactory substitute."

I paused and then realized how difficult a position I had placed my guest in.

"Of course, Miss Oakes, no doubt you would wish to leave now. It would be intensely embarrassing for you to be present whilst another male reads the contents of this evil letter."

Again those eyes, aimed at me as unwaveringly as Afghan musket barrels: "No, Doctor, with your permission I will stay. This matter is too important for me to worry overmuch about such niceties."

"Very well, Miss Oakes."

Over the years I have chronicled Holmes' cases some remarkable examples of untypical female behavior had come my way. Mrs Maria Gibson, for example, who had blown out her own brains after using them to arrange a suicide which would see her rival in love hung for murdering Mrs Maria Gibson: Mrs Burnett, who had been prepared to live for years in the dreadful household of the Tiger of San Pedro in order to have her marital revenge, and, on a lighter note, perhaps, the unforgettable Hatty Doran, who had run away from her own wedding reception as Lady St. Simon and had turned up again the following day, bright and cheerful, as the lawfully married Mrs Hay Moulton.

It would hardly be fair to classify Miss Oakes as belonging in such wayward company and yet, with every gram of scrupulous fairness towards her, I could not help but feel that she seemed oddly complacent over the prospect of Wiggins reading this obscene proposal in her presence. It even seemed as if she might be finding some hint of perverse pleasure at the thought.

I struggled to free myself of such unworthy suspicions, and glad I was to hear the crack of a cab driver's whip and the clatter of hooves through the opened window. Miss Oakes glanced in that direction, half rising from the sofa: "May I . . . "

"Of course."

She rose, walked to the window and looked down into Baker Street. "Why, is that Mr Wiggins, Doctor? The handsome well set up young man with a fair moustache? It must be he because Mrs Hudson is also getting out of the cab. She must indeed have hurried to Coneysale road because her complexion still seems most flushed and agitated."

"That sounds like Wiggins," I agreed, and was proved correct in scarcely a moment as somebody moved quickly up the staircase and knocked sharply on the door. At my invitation the door opened and Wiggins strode in.

It had been some time since our last meeting and once again I was astonished at his capacity for continuing self improvement. Wiggins' style of dress had matured from an everyday shop clerk grey to a fawn suit with matching waistcoat and a ruffled choker set off with a diamond headed tie pin, every inch and every seam of his attire perfectly cut and suitable for display at the most fashionable addresses in London. As for the wearer of this excellently tailored apparel, he seemed to have grown taller and developed an even more powerful physique in the arms and chest, presumably through much exercise with Indian clubs or similar bodily strengthening exercises.

It was hard to believe that this swaggering man of style had once been the same little boy who had trailed mud from the gutter across Mrs Hudson's carpets with his bare feet. It was even harder to believe that the same woman was now holding the door open for him and quite unnecessarily laying a hand on his arm to encourage him to enter.

That seemed like rather strange behavior on the part of our normally very formally behaved landlady, especially as she was still red faced and apparently short of breath. It seemed odd that she had not been able to regain her composure whilst riding in the cab, and even odder was the look on her face as she gazed up at Wiggins' features, apparently enthralled by them for some reason. This seemed strange, as was the obvious reluctance with which she finally released our visitor's sleeve.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson."

It was like ordering a water spaniel to let go of a wounded duck. For a few moments I thought Mrs Hudson would never take her leave. Using the keen deductive capabilities I had learned from Holmes I concluded that the good lady was suffering from an attack of acute embarrassment, for one button on the front of her shirt had somehow fallen off and another had been put back through the wrong button hole, causing a great crease in the white material already stretched so tightly across her matronly shape. Perhaps Wiggins had drawn her attention to this matter in the privacy of the cab on their way over. That might well explain her flushed cheeks and deep breathing.

"Don't worry, Mrs Hudson," Wiggins said. "I'll be down by and by to see to your parrot."

"Her parrot?" I asked, in surprise.

"Why yes, Mrs Hudson's parrot seems down in the beak, or so I've heard," he answered in jest. "But I've told Mrs Hudson that I'll stop by later and show her where it needs some deep scratching. That'll soon get it squawking loud enough for all the house to hear."

He winked at Mrs Hudson, her face darkened into a beetroot red in color and she scuttled back down the staircase with one hand clamped around her mouth. If not for the other matters pressing on me I would have followed our worthy landlady and inquired if something was unduly exciting her constitution. As it was I turned back into the room and found Wiggins bending low over Miss Oakes's hand as he raised it to his lips.

A damned foreigner's trick I thought, and one that no decent Englishman should be employing, even one who had so many deficiencies in his upbringing to make good. Though it seemed that Maude had no objection to Wiggins' cavalier style of introducing himself. Her head was half lowered but her look was as sharp and direct upon him as it had been upon me -- though then her eyelids had not fluttered as they were now doing. Indeed, I might even have thought that Miss Oakes was flirting with the young man, though that was impossible of course, as she was of a far superior social class. Even so, I was surprised how little Cockney accent remained in Wiggins' speech.

"This is indeed an honor, Miss Oakes, to make your acquaintance. When Mrs Hudson said that Miss Maude Oakes was here and in need of help I came as quickly as I could."

Maude's lips seemed to be drawing into a smile she couldn't suppress: "But you had enough time to discuss Mrs Hudson's parrot with her on the way back?"

"Oh, yes, I sometimes stop by of an evening at Mrs Hudson's and ask her if she wants a helping hand with her bird of paradise."

Maude flushed and clapped her hand to her mouth in exactly the same way as Mrs Hudson had done. Wiggins seemed to have this strange effect on both women of inducing near fits with a few commonplace words. Why this should be I couldn't fathom. But he continued speaking as if he'd noticed nothing unusual.

"Of course it's something of a trade secret, what I do, Miss Oakes. But if you was to be standing outside her door and listening when I'm rustling the feathers inside, well, you'd be amazed at some of the noises that parrot makes. You might think it was almost human."

Maude now appeared to be having great difficulty in repressing a gust of laughter, even though Wiggins' words seemed a poor jest to me and a waste of time in pointless conversation. Sometimes I can't understand the younger generation at all.

"Never mind about parrots, Wiggins," I said sharply. "Let me explain why I've sent for you."

In a few brisk words I gave Wiggins the same details that Miss Oakes had given me about the loss of her racquet and the absolute necessity of recovering it before the Wimbledon Finals match. Then, reluctantly, but at Miss Oakes's nod of approval, I gave him the letter to read.

I would have expected the lady to have averted her attention from Wiggins as he perused the foul warrant for her humiliation, but no. Although she kept her head lowered she continued to glance up at him in a coquettish style, as though to judge his reaction to the suggestion that she be forced to pose au naturel in front of a photographic apparatus. For a moment of time his eyes did lift to hers. But then Wiggins was nodding his head in understanding and talking in a brisk and business like way.

"Well, Doctor, if what it says here is true, then there's no use in nabbing this go-between at Euston, for he or she will not be able to tell us where to find the miscreant who wrote this letter. Which means that the only alternative is to follow Miss Oakes to wherever she's taken and then to rescue her and her racquet."

"Yes," I agreed. "That's the matter, in a nutshell. Can it be done?"

"Hmmm, perhaps." Wiggins paced up and down, occasionally glancing at Maude as he did so. "I've a good team, upwards of twenty if I turn them all out. The deuce of it is that Euston has so many ways in and out, especially for the knowing, and there's always such a press of people around. So maybe we should try something else as well, for I've had this problem before, and solved it pretty neatly."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Why it was a case of a young lady who feared she was going to abducted and forced into a violation of her honor by an older man who'd become besotted with her. I put two of my girls with her twenty four hours a day, as bodyguards you might say, but things went beyond anything they were expecting when they were surrounded by a gang of thugs with drawn pistols. Into a covered wagon they were bundled, still at pistol point and taken to a house in Brixham. They locked my girls up in separate rooms, no windows, bars on the doors, and thought no more about them while the girl they were supposed to be guarding was plied with champagne and lying promises by the lecherous old devil who'd arranged the kidnapping."

"My goodness, can such things really happen?" Maude asked him.

"Oh, certainly, Miss Oakes," Wiggins confirmed. "Why, I could tell you stories . . . but never mind. So, as I was saying, my two girls, Angel and Christina, there they were, in different rooms, each with a pistol tucked in her garter and nothing to be done with them. But I hadn't spent so much time with Mr Holmes without learning something and my gals had another trick up their skirts, so to speak."

Wiggins saw the disapproving look on my face and seemed suitably embarrassed: "Sorry, Doctor, just my little joke, you understand. But, Doctor, you'll remember the time that Mr Holmes needed to find out where that cunning vixen Irene Adler had hidden something he badly wanted to find? You remember how he got himself smuggled into her house and what you were asked to do afterwards?"

"Of course," I said. "Holmes arranged for me to throw a plumber's smoke rocket through an open window. Then he began shouting fire as the smoke spread and Miss Adler ran to retrieve the most valuable item in the house from its hiding place -- and the most valuable item in her possession was the compromising picture of herself with the Crown Prince of . . . well, no matter which Prince it was."

"Exactly, Doctor, exactly," Wiggins said. "I never forgot that little trick, so I arranged to have a secret pocket sewn in each of my girl’s bustles with a smoke rocket in each one. There was a fireplace in each room and the girls both knew what to do as soon as they were left alone. They lit their rockets, dropped them in the fireplaces, stuffed the fireplaces with carpets to keep from suffocating from the smoke and waited for the fire brigade to arrive to put out the chimney fires. As soon as they heard the fire wagon bells ringing and fists banging on the front door they began firing off their pistols, screaming and blowing police whistles. Of course the firemen cut the doors down with their axes to find out what was afoot, with the police not far behind, and everything was soon settled in fine style."

"Good gracious, how clever, Mr Wiggins," Miss Oakes said admiringly. "Are you suggesting that I should also carry a pistol and one of these pocket rockets?"

"Why, I'm sure I'd be happy to give you a pocket rocket whenever you like, Miss Oakes." Wiggins said gravely and again I noticed a quiver in my fair guest's frame as she struggled to contain her emotions. No doubt she was, like Mrs Hudson, embarrassed by her circumstances. "But perhaps I can give you better than that to take along with you."

"What do you mean, exactly, Wiggins?" I asked.

"I'm thinking aloud, Doctor," Wiggins answered me, his brows knitted in concentration. "It's like I've said before, I'm worried that this person who's to collect Miss Maude might somehow give us the slip at a busy place like Euston station. I'm wondering if I should send Angel and Christine along with Miss Maude to the station as an extra precaution. She can say to whoever meets her that she's prepared to let her photograph be taken but she wants the girls to come along as chaperones, as you might say."