My Dear Watson (30 page)

Holmes told the captain to calm down, to have a cigar, and assured him that he did not smoke with just any common criminal off the street. Watson rolled his eyes discreetly; probably Captain Crocker would be surprised at how many uncommon criminals there were, since Holmes had unearthed plenty that he liked to sit and linger with.

Crocker told his tale; he had loved this recent widow, Mary, from before she had wed, though when he heard of her nuptials he did not grieve. “I was not such a selfish hound as that,” Crocker said, and Watson wanted to nudge Holmes teasingly about their own Mary and his jealous reaction, but he saw the signal of Holmes’s hand that said jokes should wait. Holmes was on the edge of his seat, waiting to hear the details of his crime scene. He would not tolerate interruption well at this moment.

Crocker made a full confession, and after testing him to see if he really was devoted to the lady and her happiness above his own, Holmes declared himself a judge and Watson a jury and they set the man free. Holmes had absolutely taken the law into his own hands, and it was a pleasing, powerful sort of feeling. He would do it more often in the future.

1897: Charles Augustus Milverton

Before the year was out, on a day when the winter chill had calmed enough to make the weather pleasant, Holmes and Watson were out on a walk. He couldn’t be cranky every day, and this was one of the better ones. They went walking like they did in their younger days, a long, meandering route that Holmes kept perfectly in his head, knowing exactly where they were at all times. They managed to walk past their alley, which never happened by accident, and they lingered just at the entrance while Holmes lit a cigarette and reminisced.

His long history with Watson being in his mind as they returned home, that is why Holmes reacted with such vehement disgust when he saw the card that had arrived in their absence. Charles Augustus Milverton was, according to Holmes, the worst man in London. He was due to come around that evening.

“Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures?” Holmes asked as he stretched out before the fire, probably trying to rid that very tightening from his skin. “Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me.” He would prefer to deal with murderers over Milverton, and I will tell you why.

The Labouchère Amendment that became official law in 1886 was known as the Blackmailer’s Charter. It made homosexual acts a crime, and it made being a homosexual criminal. Should a letter or a photograph of a compromising nature fall into the wrong hands, the man whom the evidence concerned could be blackmailed without recourse. Even a married man, if his mistress should be discovered or his gambling debts exposed might not have to go to jail for his shame, but for a man like Holmes…

He had been careful and lucky all his life, either engaging with gentlemen or with those who would not be believed against Holmes anyway; mostly his judge of male character saved him from anyone who would sell his secrets to a blackmailer, but then he had other precautions too. He knew better than most not to put such things in his correspondence, not even a passing reference, not a single hint. He was never one for love letters anyway, Sherlock Holmes. No one knowing Holmes ever got a sweet, anonymous card and attributed it to him.

Moreover, it isn’t exactly easy to rob a thief. You would discover Sherlock Holmes’s secrets and use them against him? You had better pray you don’t have any secrets of your own. If it meant his reputation, I don’t imagine Holmes would spare any avenue of deception, and might go so far as to frame a man who had it out for him. He certainly, at the end of this case, had no problem seeing a threat killed, though it was not by his own hand. But how guilty is the hand that doesn’t rise to prevent such an act? Holmes’s answer is probably different from ours:

“I have said that he is the worst man in London,” he told Watson of Milverton, “and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian who in hot blood bludgeons his mate with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?” But what about the man who declines to act, in cold blood, like Sherlock Holmes? Of that he has never really given his opinion, but we might venture to guess.

Watson, always a man of trust and naïveté, wondered if Milverton was entirely beyond the reach of the law.

“His victims dare not hit back,” Holmes said as if the words were foul in his mouth. It filled him to the brim with a gentlemanly disgust to think of a leech like Milverton. It was so frightfully unsportsmanlike, so very unmanly, to wheedle money from people in the dark. “If ever he blackmailed an innocent person, then, indeed, we should have him; but he is as cunning as the Evil One.” And where would he find an innocent person anyway? Everyone has secrets.

Holmes was meeting with Milverton that evening on behalf of a client who was to be married in a fortnight, unless of course some of her unwise and youthful letters were to be mailed to her fiancé. Holmes could not bring himself to be civil with Milverton, a rare thing indeed. This whole topic was a matter of one of his few (but firm) principles. Holmes wouldn’t even shake Milverton’s hand, regardless of the pleasure it gave Milverton to receive the snub. Men like this parasite loved to be under another man’s skin.

Milverton gestured to Watson asking, “This gentleman? Is it discreet? Is it right?”

Watson swears those were his questions, not asking whether Watson was discreet, but if it were discreet, that is the situation in the room. Holmes was not unclear as to his meaning, and his lip curled in a sneer. He told Milverton defiantly, “Dr. Watson is my friend and partner.”

“Very good, Mr. Holmes,” Milverton said in an oily voice. He deflected the implied threat by turning the conversation to Holmes’s unfortunate client. Milverton could not be bargained down, he was not in the business of negotiations. Holmes was rash in his uncommon anger. He told Watson to block the exit, but Milverton showed a weapon, and even worse told Holmes that he was disappointed in this lack of originality. So many people have tried to trap and rob him; he expected more from Sherlock Holmes.

Milverton was allowed to leave unmolested. It really was highly unlikely that he kept his ill-gotten letters on his person, but Holmes followed after Milverton quickly, dressed like a rakish young workman (Watson’s words—Holmes was almost forty-four years old, and I’d never call him rakish). He was off to wage his assault against Milverton.

Holmes left for hours each day, several days in a row, and he seemed to really absorb his character, for he had a smug youthful look on his face whenever he returned each night. And then one day he came back with his cheeks flushed from the wind, laughing like a man fit to burst from the pleasure he felt.

“You would not call me a marrying man, Watson?” he asked archly.

“No, indeed!” Watson said. Good heavens, the unfortunate woman it would take to marry Sherlock Holmes…

“You’ll be interested to hear that I am engaged.” To Milverton’s housemaid. And very pleased he was to prove he could manage it. He had never been engaged before, and it was a hilarious thing to do! Watson was offended that he would trick the girl so terribly, but Holmes has always cared little for the feelings of women, and of course young people would get engaged here and there with no harm done.

“I rejoice to say that I have a hated rival who will certainly cut me out the instant that my back is turned,” Holmes told Watson, to reassure him that the girl would not be left in the lurch. “What a splendid night it is!” Holmes exclaimed. He meant to use the weather to cover his robbery of Milverton’s house. He only wanted the layout of the house from the maid, and he didn’t care who he had to lie to, for he rather enjoyed doing it, as I have already documented. His own small crimes were getting bolder.

Watson didn’t like it one bit. He could just see Holmes getting caught. Scotland Yard would be called. Lestrade or Gregson would have to come for him. Milverton would be smiling, obsequious, only too happy to give evidence against the formerly magnificent Sherlock Holmes. The inspectors would shake their heads at him, but they would say they knew it all along. Sensed it really, that the man had never been quite right. Oh, it would be an agony. Watson’s own name would go down foolishly. His own words in every story would serve to make him a mockery for eternity.

“For heaven’s sake, Holmes, think what you are doing,” he said pleadingly. But Holmes was already decided. He believed he could pull it off, after all, and the chance of such a victory absolutely outweighed the risk. He could taste his satisfaction in besting Milverton. It, much more than his costume, made him feel young again. This was what he had been searching to find, this feeling again.

It is not hard to talk Watson into any task he finds displeasing, you only have to strike the right tone; one that says you too are torn by the decision, but also bound to act for some noble reason. Earning his trust initially is no easy feat, but once he has vetted you and found you sound, you might convince him of anything using your own fine character as collateral. Holmes would commit his crime that very night, with or without Watson, but knowing full well that Watson would not let him seek any sort of peril alone, nevermind what petty reasons really lay at the bottom of Holmes’s motivation. Such as pride:

“Milverton had, as you saw, the best of the first exchanges; but my self-respect and my reputation are concerned to fight it to a finish.”

The arrogant man. His reputation certainly was on the line, not that he appeared to care overmuch about it. But Watson did care, and he insisted on going with him—it is very much in his nature to risk himself unnecessarily. Holmes said he could serve little purpose in tagging along, but Watson was now resolute. He would take a cab straight to the police station if Holmes refused his company. “Other people beside you have self-respect and even reputations.”

Holmes smiled, but twisted it so that he might appear annoyed. “Well, well, my dear fellow, be it so. We have shared the same room for some years, and it would be amusing if we ended by sharing the same cell.” Watson would not have minded it, though Holmes would be a terrible friend to have in a gaol full of men he’d helped convict. But: when Holmes breaks the law he shatters it into pieces, and let those pieces fall where they may.

“You know, Watson,” Holmes told him as they prepared. “I don’t mind confessing to you that I have always had an idea that I would have made a highly efficient criminal.” Watson nodded distractedly. Yes, he had heard this all before, even said it himself once or twice, but he had never known Holmes to be so enthused by the idea. “This is the chance of my lifetime in that direction!” Just a chance, too, that he happened to have a full burglar’s kit on him, with the most updated picks and a diamond-tipped glass cutter? Not at all; he’d thought this out for quite a while.

Perhaps a few daring instances of breaking the law instead of defending it, perhaps that would make the world interesting again? He didn’t want to go too over the top, at least not at first; no murders (so he thought), no beatings, though he’d be adept at either one. Just another toe in the waters of theft, where the skill was in causing no damage and meeting no people, only the deft removal of the intended object. A nice, clean, intellectual sort of crime. The sort of thing a man of letters could be proud of.

Between releasing Captain Crocker and planning to rob Milverton, Holmes hadn’t felt the overwhelming impulse for cocaine in weeks. He was in a paroxysm of excitement for this burglary. He told Watson to secure some silent shoes. He wanted masks for the adventure so that he would really feel the part. Of course he planned not to be seen at all, but why resist the urge to dress up?

Watson amused his little vanities, though I would say that was unwise. In his middle age, with all the time spent beside Holmes, he had learned to follow that man everywhere, to bolster him in all of his endeavors. When had Holmes ever put him into a perilous place that he could not just as quickly rescue him from? The day that happened (and it would not be a far-off day), well…then things would be different, wouldn’t they?

Watson offered to make masks for the both of them, out of silk. Why not? If one had to ruin oneself for someone else, Sherlock Holmes was clearly worthy. And a cell together, would it really be so different than Baker Street? Surely on the day of his death, Watson would look back and only be amused by it all, no matter how it ended up. He could just as easily imagine someone like Lestrade neglecting to prosecute, or going out of his way to believe Holmes was only on an innocent walk. Through Milverton’s heavily guarded house. In a mask. That is the ultimate test for any choice Watson makes: how will he wish he had chosen on the last day of his life? And the answer is: he would always choose to follow Holmes, to attempt to earn his rare approval.

“I can see you have a strong natural turn for this sort of thing,” Holmes said approvingly to Watson as they readied themselves for the assault. It was such a treat to see him so energized; Watson might do a great many unlawful things just to please him so thoroughly.

They put on fancy dress so that they would blend into the neighborhood. It felt like a childhood caper—a fake fiancé, creeping through someone else’s yard all got up in roguish costumes. Watson is of the opinion that they looked truculent, hostile—I’m sure they looked perfectly adorable, the silly boys. The night started off so playfully that, despite how it ended, they both remember fondly standing in Milverton’s laurels, breathless beside one another.

They broke in through the conservatory. Holmes took Watson’s hand in the dark, in the thick air of the flowers and plants. According to Watson, Holmes can see very well in the dark, better than most mortal men, etc. At any rate, he held Watson’s hand all through the treacherous roots and delicate blooms, and he kissed Watson’s hand before they passed into the house, a secret act Holmes might not remember now himself, so jumped up on his own daring like he was. He kept Watson’s hand pressed to his chest as they entered the house, where Watson could feel his heart beating like a humming bird. As they went through a hall, Watson was lost in the dark, as Holmes had made sure he himself would not be. They froze bravely as a cat rushed by them. They entered Milverton’s bedroom.