A Study in Sherlock

opposite foot, and made a little bow.

“By the way,” he told them, “the lady on the second bench is Mrs. Barnett. Inspector Gregson will be forever in your debt if you should mention to him the curious silver key which you will undoubtedly find in her handbag.

“Come, Watson,” he said to the doctor, “the incomparable Evelyn Laye is at the Gaiety and we have just time enough to fortify ourselves with roast beef at Simpson’s. The thespian art is one which does not always receive sufficiently hearty applause.”

As they dragged me away, I couldn’t resist taunting him over my shoulder.

“What will you do, Holmes, when you’ve brought to book the last criminal in London? You’ll have no more excuse to dress up in your fancy disguises!”

I’ll admit my fury had got rather the better of me. As we passed in front of her, Frieda—poor, dear, weak Frieda, with the now-that-you-mention-it pinkish teeth—didn’t give me even so much as an upward glance.

“Elementary,” I heard him call out as we passed beneath the limes and walked towards the iron gates. “Elementary, my dear fellow. I have my eye on a cottage in St. Mary Mead.”

Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mysteries have been translated into thirty-one languages. Bradley has retreated to a Mediterranean island, taking with him only his wife, his books, and two cat assistants. As a boy, he was introduced to the Holmes tales by a favorite uncle, who faithfully reread them every fifth year. He is also the coauthor (with the late Dr. William A. S. Sarjeant) of the controversial Ms. Holmes of Baker Street, in which the authors prove that Sherlock Holmes was a woman. Bradley may have changed his view since.

The last official record of Holmes’s life is the story “His Last Bow,” published in 1917 in the collection of the same name. It tells of Holmes’s war service as an undercover agent and is written by an unknown author (although it appeared under the byline of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

AS TO “AN EXACT KNOWLEDGE OF LONDON”

Tony Broadbent

It was a crisp morning and quite bracing even for that time of year, the fog of yesterday thankfully consigned as if to distant memory, and certainly cold enough for my breath to steam in front of me and linger for a moment before it disappeared into the ether. I remember staring up at Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s magnificent iron-and- glass canopies, a sequence of all-encompassing spans that dwarfed everything beneath. And maybe it was the hour or my heightened sense of place, but I couldn’t help but notice that the diffused light from above reduced shadow and perspective to such a degree that people below were rendered as tiny indistinct figures in a landscape. It struck me then that the many diverse aspects that presented themselves to my gaze resembled nothing so much as a series of huge painted backcloths in some newly got-in production at Drury Lane or Covent Garden. But, as the immortal Bard once wrote, all the world’s a stage.

Indeed, the noise and bustle of the great terminus sounded for all the world like an orchestra tuning up and awaiting its conductor; all at once cacophonous, discordant, and deafening and yet even to my untutored ears, oddly comforting; a sonic harbinger of a symphony newly composed to celebrate a mighty capital city in constant reinvention of itself.

Maintaining British-army time, I stood there, fully five minutes early, both feet firmly planted, as wave after wave of blank-faced commuters streamed past me toward the exits and the entrances to the Underground. I took several deep breaths so as to help gather myself for the day ahead. I may have also rubbed my arms with my gloved hands and even stamped my feet, though I’m sure that was more from a simple desire for additional warmth than any undue display of impatience. But then as I’ve so often observed when in London, the very act of waiting, be it for taxi, Tube train, omnibus, or policeman, is a necessary part of one’s visit, and to fight against the inevitability of lost minutes or indeed lost hours would be as if to try and hold back the very times and tides, which is to say quite impossible. Not that that has ever stopped people from trying. I do remember I pulled back the cuff of my leather glove to glance at my wristwatch. “Times and tides, indeed,” I muttered.

“Er … you wanting a cab, are you, sir?”

“Well, yes, I have been waiting … I mean, yes, I do want a cab, thank you.”

“Very good, sir, where is it you’d like to go; that all your luggage, is it?”

“Ah … Baker Street, please, number 221B. And, yes, it is.”

“Need help with it, sir? Only, I couldn’t help but notice the walking stick.”

“Well, perhaps a hand with the suiter; it is a little heavy. I’ll keep my shoulder bag with me.”

“Right, you are, sir. Nice Brady bag, that. Got one myself and very handy they are, too. Going hunting, shooting, and fishing, are you, sir?”

“Yes, I rather suppose I am,” I said good-humouredly.

Suddenly there was a tremendous bang, in all probability nothing more than a luggage trolley or parcels van hitting a barrier, but it startled me no end and I may have uttered a cry of alarm, I can’t recall. For it was then I took a single step forward and stumbled over my ballistic nylon garment bag, lost my balance and went sprawling, dropping my walking stick and sending myself and everything flying. “Blasted leg!” I cursed aloud. “It’ll be the death of me yet.”

“Here, you okay down there, are you, sir?” the taxi driver called out.

It’s as much the embarrassment as the shock you have to contend with when you suffer an unexpected fall, and it took me a moment or two to gather my wits. “Thank you, I’m fine,” I shouted back, quickly waving away a passerby who’d stopped to enquire whether I needed help. “Just me being clumsy,” I offered by way of explanation. “Perhaps, Mr. Taxi Driver, if you’d be so kind as to store my suiter up front, with you?” I called out to the cabby.

“Righto,” he shouted, and I heard him exit the cab and saw him fully for the first time as he came round to where I was still lying on the cold concrete. I slowly got to my feet, holding on to the side of the taxi for balance, and bent down and after a little scrambling around managed to retrieve my tweed cap, my walking stick, and my shoulder bag. As I brushed myself down, the cabby shook his head in sympathy. “You took a right tumble, but as long as you’re alright?” I nodded and waved a hand as if to wipe away the whole incident. “Very good, sir. I’ll get this garment bag of yours stowed up front. Need help getting in? Only, I’ve got a ramp I can pull out if you can’t manage the step?”

I shook my head, thanked him profusely for his concern, opened the passenger door, and climbed gingerly into the back of the taxi. The cabby nodded and returned to the driver’s seat. I have to admit I was a little shaken by the incident and I took no small comfort in hearing the door-locks engage as the cab drove off, up towards Praed Street. And I settled back in my seat, let out an audible sigh of relief, and then reached for my mobile telephone.

“Stop! Please stop! Please pull over,” I called out. “I think I dropped my phone, back there, when I fell over. If I can possibly get out and take a look?”

“Blimey. Righto. Hold on.”

The taxi skidded to a halt and the moment I heard the doors unlock I grabbed the door handle and was out and onto the pavement and off like the proverbial rabbit. “Thank you,” I called over my shoulder. But I hadn’t gone ten feet when I stopped dead and spun slowly around. “No, no, wait a minute. Fool me.” I returned to the taxi and bent down to be at eye-level with the driver. He lowered the window. “Sorry to be such a bother, but could you open up so I can take a quick look inside my garment bag before I go scuttling off like an idiot? As now I come to think of it, I’m sure I put the damn thing in one of the pockets.”

The cabby smiled, but I noticed his eyes were a tad wary, out of long habit, no doubt, but he nodded and opened the door to the front luggage area. I pulled the door fully open, nodded my thanks, and began feverishly unzipping the outer pockets of my garment bag, in my haste all but upending it and sending everything flying again: paperback, Moleskine notebook, spectacles case, tin of peppermints, ballpoint pen; there seemed no end to the contents of those deep pockets, but alas there was no mobile phone. I stuffed everything back, without regard to