Stepping from behind Holmes’s bed, I grew to full size and said, “Of course, old man.”
“Well, you’re a doctor. What do you think? Is there anything to be done?”
“Oh. No, I shouldn’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite, I’m afraid.”
“MEEEEAAAAAHGHUAH!”
Hearing that no help was coming to him, Culverton Smith turned to run for aid—a process that would have gone better for him if he had not had several needles in each eyeball. He collided face first with Holmes’s wall with a tremendous bang.
“Well, now you’re just pushing them in deeper,” Holmes noted.
“HEEEEAAAAAHEEEEEEAH!” Culverton continued, as he scrabbled out Holmes’s door, across the sitting room, down our stairs, out onto Baker Street, and off across the city.
“Listen to him go,” Holmes said as the screaming faded into the distance. “Poor idiot—that’s not even the direction his house is in.”
Holmes gave a deep sigh and hung his head.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out as you’d hoped,” I told him.
“He was perfect for me, Watson.”
“Do you know, I think he was.”
Holmes gave another sigh.
I cleared my throat. “I mean… I suppose I might come by from time to time. If you’re lonely.”
This was sufficient to jar Holmes from his reflections. “Out of the question, I fear. I’m firm on that, Watson.”
“Oh, very well.”
We sat in silence for a time. Finally, Holmes muttered, “I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“You could always do what other elderly gentlemen who live alone do: cultivate a closer relationship with your cat.”
“Yes, I suppose. Wait… My what?”
THE BOGGART VALLEY MYSTERY
WE WERE SEATED AT BREAKFAST ONE MORNING, MY WIFE and I, when the maid brought in a telegram. She brought it to Mary, which she should not have done for it was addressed to me. Still, I found the transgression entirely pardonable as I was not certain Little Sally could read and she was—let us recall—nine years old.
“Wrong!” said Mary, when she saw the thing. “Wrong! This is not for me, Sally, this is from one of John’s little friends.”
She flipped it across the table to me and—as it happened to land face up—I could instantly tell she was mistaken. I took a deep breath, put down my napkin and said, “Well, I hate to correct you, darling—”
“No, you don’t,” Mary spat.
“Hmm. No. I suppose I don’t. In point of fact, this message comes from the least little friend I have ever had. Unless I am much deceived, the syntax proves the author to be none other than Torg Grogsson.”
Mary narrowed her eyes at me. “Is he that tall, brutish fellow who carried my empty treasure chest over so you could gloat at me when you opened it up, the night you ambush-kissed me and proposed to me and ruined my life?”
Which, the reader may recognize, was a bit of a weighted question. I got a lot of those in those days. But this one was better than most, for it had a one-word answer.
“Yes,” I said, and bent to examine the note. It ran as such:
He is inusent.
U ar smart.
U com help.
–Torg
I frowned.
“Another little adventure?” Mary asked.
“Erm… probably?”
“What do you say, dear?” said my wife, looking across at me. “Will you go?”
“I really don’t know what to say. I have a fairly long list at present.”
“Perhaps we could get Dr. Anstruther to see to your patients while you are away,” Mary suggested, grinning evilly.
I crinkled up my brow. “Dr. Anstruther? Do we know a Dr. Anstruther?” I could not recall ever meeting the man, but his name did strike me as familiar. Had I read of him? I seemed to recall I might have heard something of him in the papers. Recently. Oh! Quite recently! In fact, had he not been mentioned in the morning edition I had finished with not ten minutes previously and slid across the table to Mary? To answer my unasked question, Mary’s left index finger gave two purposeful taps against one of the front-page articles.
“Wait!” I cried. “Horbeghast Anstruther?”
Mary gave me a light little “Hmm” by way of confirmation.
“The Butcher of Bagstreet Way?”
“Hmm,” she said again.
“The man is accused of killing half his patients!”
“Exactly,” said Mary, with the kind of exasperated sigh she used to use on the children she’d governed. “Accused. Nothing is proven. The man is still open for business. And according to this article, his patient schedule may have one or two vacancies, mightn’t it?”
“And I suppose it would not disturb you if he chopped half my patients to death?”
“Should it?” she asked. “You’ve said yourself there’s too many of them. And try as I might, I cannot remember any of them ever paying us anything.”
“Well…” I said. “True…”
“Oh, do go,” Mary urged. “Bugger off out of this house and give me a moment’s peace, why don’t you?”
Which, dear reader, I did. Grumbling all the way, I made my way out onto the street, hailed a taxi, and drove to Scotland Yard, where I asked to speak with Detective Inspector Torg Grogsson.
He wasn’t there.
What his note had failed to mention was that he’d been assigned to the McCarthy murder case—one in which the defendant was regarded as so clearly guilty that only a five-year-old child who’d had one too many mugs of whiskey would ever consider that outside help might be required. Well, or Torg Grogsson, of course. The lads at the Yard had a good hard laugh at his expense and apologized that my time had been wasted.
And yet…
Whatever one might say about Grogsson’s intellect, the fact remained that he solved more cases than any other inspector. More to the point, he had an unflinching sense of honor. Though I knew his compatriot, Lestrade, had sometimes demonstrated no hesitation pinning a crime on an innocent party, this is a thing Torg could never do. To complicate matters, Grogsson and Lestrade were handling the case together, so there was some danger that despite Grogsson’s
