2. THE CASE OF THE STRANGE SMELL

Another account of Sherlock Holmes and his ways

It was Mrs Hudson, our landlady and general factotum, who first alerted Holmes to the smell.

“There’s a smell,” she said.

Holmes looked up, and sneered, as was his wont when he’s been interrupted in the middle of a particularly difficult violin solo.

“There always is, Mrs Hudson,” he said, “there’s no such thing as there not being a smell. Everything smells. Everything releases odours into the atmosphere, even my feet, which I washed not ten minutes ago.”

“That you did not, Holmes,” I said, “You’ve been annoying my inner ears with that cacophony for the last two hours at least, and you were playing before then.”

“There’s no need to get personal, Watson,” he snapped, and then: “tell me, Mrs Hudson, what is the nature of this smell? Can you define the word smell with more precision so that I can get a hook on it?”

“Well,” she said, clearly infuriated by his holier than thou attitude and deciding to be clever herself, “you know that of the twelve months that form a year there is a penultimate one?”

He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not like you to launch multisyllabic words at me at this time of the morning, Mrs Hudson,” he said, “this must indeed be important!”

“It may be and it may not be,” she retorted, “though I think it is,” she added, “very important.”

“So there is a penultimate month of the year,” he sighed, “and much is dependent on what calendar you follow, for different societies consider different months with their entirely different names to be the first month of the year, so hence the last month is also different, as is the penultimate month.”

“Look at your calendar, Mr Holmes,” she snorted, clearly furious.

“Hold on, Holmes, be reasonable,” I chided him.

“I am always reasonable,” he snapped back, and he injected himself with a heavy dose of something that looked suspiciously like heroin.

“That will do you no good at all,” I told him, using my medical knowledge to what I hoped was good effect.

“It’s my body,” was his reply, “and my mind, which gets sharpened by this particular tincture. Now tell me about your penultimate month and the smell you are complaining about, Mrs Hudson.”

“November,” she said through gritted teeth, “has many days, and one of them is the fifth. The fifth of November, Sherlock. Does that bring anything to mind? Does it mean much to you?”

“It may do,” he replied mildly. “Take the year of our Lord 1605, for example. That was the year that has been celebrated annually ever since when a team of plotters failed in their attempt to kill the king when he was in Parliament by blowing the whole lot up, lock stock and, as it were, barrel! Guy Fawkes was one of them, and the annual date is named after him.”

“Exactly,” she smiled, “the gunpowder plot.”

“What has that got to do with any kind of smell in the year of our Lord 1903?” he asked. “Surely there are no evil plotters afoot intent on blowing His Majesty to Kingdom Come so soon after his coronation? What has the man done to deserve such consideration?”

“It’s not exactly gunpowder, Sherlock,” she sighed.

“So this smell of yours, that has nothing to do with plotting and gunpowder and treasonous explosives?” he asked, mildly, the heroin having worked on him until his eyes threatened to droop and his pipe fall from his mouth.

“You might recall you mentioned annual celebrations on the anniversary of that failed attempt, Sherlock,” she said icily.

“I did,” he agreed. “Small boys are wont to torment the coin out of us by manufacturing a stuffed effigy out of rubbish, screwed up paper and old twigs, cast off clothing that not even a tramp would select if it was offered to him, and then harangue decent individuals in the street by demanding a penny for the Guy. It’s not all bad, though, for my Baker Street Irregulars find that it has become a welcome annual additional source of income, which I applaud.”

“I wasn’t thinking of stuffed poltroons,” she almost snarled. “I was thinking merely of the smell, the aroma, the stench, call it what you will.”

“Well, some of the lads might benefit from the odd annual bath,” he grunted, and the twinkle in his eye demonstrated that he was being amusing and that we would both benefit by smiling in acknowledgement of what he fondly thought of as a joke. Holmes, you must understand, doesn’t have much of a sense of humour, especially when the blood in his heroin stream is flowing dangerously low.

“And I wasn’t referring to the fragrance of unwashed flesh either, Sherlock,” she almost shouted. “I was solely referring to a scent that might be associated with boys who have been playing with fire! Who have been striking matches and igniting piles of dry tinder! I was, in fact relating what I am trying to report to you to something you may be familiar with...”

“I don’t go around igniting anything but my pipe!” he protested, “Mrs Hudson! I say, Mrs Hudson, you are going too far with your insinuations!”

“It was the smell, Sherlock!” she shouted, but her voice was almost drowned out by the sudden ringing of an alarm bell and the murmuring of a crowd rapidly gathering in the street outside. I went to the window to check, for forewarned, they say, is forearmed.

“There’s a crowed gathering and staring at 221B!” I said, suddenly afraid, “What can be the cause of such fascination?”

Mrs Hudson shook her head. “I was trying to tell you,” she murmured.

“You were trying to tell us what?” demanded Holmes, “all I remember you doing was muttering about November the fifth and bonfire night and that dreadful plot that was supposed to blow up the king! I remember nothing about...”

“There’s a fire engine arrived!” I called out. “It’s one of those new ones, with a petroleum engine and a power pump!”

“Now why would a fire engine be showing any interest in us,” murmured Holmes thoughtfully. “It’s not as if we were on fire, for goodness sake!”

Mrs Hudson put one hand on each waist and looked at him with an expression that was half way between perplexity and insanity.

“But we are!” she said, this time in even, threatening tones, “it’s what I was trying to get through your heroin-addled brain! There’s an uncontrolled blaze in the kitchen and if I hadn’t called for a fire engine the three of us would be cinders in short order!”

“You what?” I ejaculated.

“Really, Mrs Hudson, you must learn to be less melodramatic,” muttered Holmes, and he picked up his bow and continued with the difficult piece he’d been plaguing my ears with as a brutish fireman burst into the room and picked Mrs Hudson clear off the ground before carrying her out.

“Now this is what I call service!” she trilled, and was carried away into a heady mixture of smoke and steam which flowed up the stairs like some obscene liquid. “Take me off, big boy!”

“Shut the door, Watson, I can’t concentrate,” ordered Holmes as he played a soft and rather beautiful adagio on his violin.

© Peter Rogerson 17.07.17