A Study in Sherlock

“Again, very generous of you, sir.”

I opened my wallet again and extracted another crisp, new twenty-pound note, together with four crisp, new fifty-pound notes.

His eyes didn’t miss a thing. “No need to go to Cox and Co., near Charing Cross, then? Or Lloyds TSB, as it is now, of course.”

“I always prefer to pay cash, if I can,” I offered without any further explanation. “And, again, you’re sure it’s no bother?”

“As I said, sir, no bother. All in a day’s work.” He nodded and smiled and slid the banknotes inside his own commodious wallet. “Thank you.”

“Good,” I said, removing my overcoat as it was now rather warm inside the taxi. “Glad that’s settled. Now we can truly say: ‘The game’s afoot!’ ”

“And very appropriate, too, if I may say so, but before we step into the unknown, so to speak, would you mind if I ask you something by way of a personal question? Nothing intrusive, just me indulging a little hobby of my own, you could say, founded as it is upon the observance of trifles.”

“Yes, I see no harm,” I said, immediately putting up my guard. “I have rather imposed myself on you, after all. What would you like to know?”

“Are you a doctor, by any chance, sir, and more to the point, ex-military?”

“Well, yes, I am, as a matter of fact. I studied at Barts. Simply wanted to take another look at the old place before it’s changed out of all recognition.”

“After which you were a houseman, possibly a GP? Forgoing private practice until you joined the Royal Army Medical Corps; the old Linseed Lancers, In Arduis Fidelis, ‘Steadfast in Adversity,’ and all that? With whom you completed a couple tours of duty in Afghanistan? And from whom you’ve only very recently been demobbed—in all probability due to that leg wound of yours?”

“Well, yes, I was, I mean I did, but how on earth did you deduce all that?”

“Easy enough, sir. And please don’t mind me saying, but if clothes doth oft proclaim the man, then it’s highly unlikely you were ever in private practice. Tattersall-check brushed-cotton Viyella shirt, frayed at the cuffs; Harris Tweed jacket, leather patches at the elbows; cavalry twill trousers, well used; highly polished pair of tan brogues, recently reheeled and resoled; everything courtesy of Messrs. Aquascutum and Church’s, ergo Regent Street not Jermyn Street; all standard issue ‘home counties,’ not-so-well-off officers, for the use of. Then, of course, there’s the little matter of your regimental tie; alternate maroon and yellow, broad diagonal stripes against a dark blue field; not to mention your lapel pin featuring the RAMC’s rod and serpent cap badge, in miniature.”

I found myself fiddling unconsciously with my tie. I swallowed and endeavored to remain calm. One doesn’t come across such displays every day.

But the taxi driver hadn’t finished with me yet. “Then of course there’s what’s left of that suntan of yours, which incidentally is so engrained a child could see it never came from just ten days in Torremolinos. Add the sweat-stained NATO watchband on your rather, if I may say so, somewhat worse for wear Rolex Oyster Perpetual. Add to that the limp when you walk. And I’d say you got yourself banged about a bit, maybe as the result of coming into too close a proximity with an IED, and subsequently you had a couple of months’ hospital and physiotherapy, before finally being invalided out back into civvy street? That’s about it, though, given no more than a cursory look.”

“But that’s extraordinary,” I spluttered. “How on earth … how could you deduce so much from so little, the improvised explosive device and everything?”

“As I said, it’s just a little hobby of mine, sir, seeing as how I come into contact with so many strangers during my working day. And what with one thing and another, I’ve found it pays not just to look, but to try to really see.”

“You most definitely have a touch of the detective about you,” I said.

“Comes from being blessed with a ceaselessly inquisitive nature and an eye for the telling detail. Take that posh new Cancer Centre at Barts. I’ve heard rumour people there are embarking on stem cell research. Yet another attempt to further the brave new world that began some fifteen and more years ago when the very first mammal, Dolly the sheep, was cloned in a laboratory up near Edinburgh. Now, according to the BBC, over in Japan they’re going to try and get some poor elephant to give birth to a prehistoric giant woolly mammoth. You ask me, they’ll be cloning people next, the most dangerous bloody mammal of all. After which, there’ll be no telling who they’ll try bringing back to life. I tell you, there’s always been a lot more goes on than they’ll ever let on to the likes of you and me. So it wouldn’t surprise me if secret experiments had been going on for years and the scientists were just waiting for the right time to tell the public the truth of it: that they’ve already got real live human clones ready and raring to go.”

“What an outlandish thought,” I said, but there was little stopping him after that, as we’d obviously touched upon a hot button of some kind. It happens, of course; social barriers become lowered because of some unexpected shared experience, there’s a precipitous lessening of reserve, and for a time perfect strangers are suddenly conversing together like old friends. Even though it is true that, in our case, he did most of the talking while I did most of the listening.

After Barts, we fairly flew round to Aldersgate, the Stock Exchange, Liverpool Street Station, and Aldgate Underground station, with me exiting the cab at each stop so as to snap off some digital photographs. And we were on our way to the next point of interest on my list when the taxi driver asked me over the intercom whether I’d like some coffee when we reached the Tower of London. “Got a whole thermos flask full here, up front; black, no sugar, good-quality beans that I ground myself. Got a spare clean cup, too.”

“How very kind,” I said, and within minutes he’d pulled over close by the main entrance to the Tower and had poured the coffee and handed me a tiny cup through the equally tiny opening in the plexiglass partition and we sat there, very contentedly, for a good five minutes and more, he up front, me in back.

“Had them all at one time or another,” he said, sipping his coffee.

“I beg your pardon?” I said, desperately trying not to spill mine.

“Holmes and Watson—we’ve had almost all of them, over the years; by which I mean, me great-great- grandfather, me great-grandfather, me grandad, me dad, or me; we’ve had nearly all the actors in the cabs at one time or another. Great-great-grandad had William Gillette, a real gent by all accounts. Great-grandad had Eille Norwood and that Yank with the famous profile, John Barrymore. Grandad had Clive Brook and Arthur Wontner and once even conveyed the inimitable Basil Rathbone around town.” There really seemed to be no stopping him and, all reserve now dispensed with, he continued to rattle off name after name, a veritable Who’s Who of the acting profession, from the dawn of the twentieth century through to the present day. “Then of course Dad went and did him one better by picking up Orson Welles, who did Holmes on the radio, over in America; huge, he was, almost filled the entire backseat.”

I thought it only polite to show interest so I took a chance and interrupted the flow and offered up my one and only Wellesian quote. “Orson Welles said of Sherlock Holmes, ‘that he was a gentleman who has never lived and yet who will never die,’ which was really rather clever of him, don’t you think?”

The taxi driver threw me a rather disdainful look. “An all too memorable utterance whose very theatricality only serves to misdirect, if not utterly confuse. If only he knew the half of it.” He paused to sip his coffee. “Who else, now? Carlton Hobbs. Douglas Wilmer. Oh, yes, Peter Cushing. He was a very good Holmes, who oddly enough also once played Conan Doyle himself. As for Watsons, we’ve had Robert Stephens and his Watson, Colin Blakely; Christopher Plummer and his Watson, James Mason; and Mr. Jeremy Brett, of course, God bless him, with his two dedicated Dr. Watsons, Messrs. Burke and Hardwicke. We thought Granada Television really nailed it, Brett especially. Tell the truth, we thought we’d nailed him, himself, he was that good. Who else? Well, Dad had Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, but so have I since they’ve been knighted.” I nodded, encouragingly, so as not to distract him. “I’ve had that Yank, Robert Downey Jr., as a fare twice now; in town, for films one and two; mad sod, but pleasant with it; nothing like the real Holmes, of course, but great fun; lots of adrenaline and all that indefinable star power the tabloids are always going on about. That last time, he even had his Watson with him, our very own crumpet catcher, Jude Law. Girls chasing them both down the street, grown women, too, like they were a pop group or something, remarkable to watch, it was. My most recent Holmes was from the Beeb’s Sherlock, their modern take on it all, starring that bloke Benedict Cumberbatch. Odd bloody name for an actor, if you ask me, but it seems to stick in the mind, even if people can’t ever pronounce it