34. THE CASE OF THE NEW TELEPHONE

Technology enters the world of Holmes and Watson

“What’s that thing you’ve got there, Holmes?” I asked, pointing at what I knew was one of those newfangled telephones, on his desk next to the ornate stand of his reading lamp.

“You know, of course, Watson,” he replied with a smirk, “but has it ever crossed your mind how useful it will be? Scotland Yard will be in instant communication with me, should the need arise, and even some of your more delicate patients might choose to consult you by Mr Bell’s apparatus!”

“My more delicate patients are hardly in a position to afford such I luxury,” I grunted.

“Well we are,” he assured me, “and as time passes and we start creaking with the advancing years we’ll be grateful not to have to run the length of Baker Street in order to apprehend the criminal underbelly of this fine city.”

“You can speak for yourself, Holmes,” I told him, rather sharply because I have detected the first sharp creaking of arthritis in one of my thumbs and would prefer not to know about it, “I’m in the peak of health.”

The conversation might have carried on but Holmes’ new toy rang like a fire-engine in the night, filling the room with an ear-splitting cacophony.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, and grabbed the earpiece from its stand.

“Hello!” he barked into it, and noticing the amusement evident on my face addressed the mouthpiece instead. “Hello!” he barked a second time.

“Mycroft!” he said, glancing at me, “is that you?”

It evidently was his brother because he waved his hand at me in what I looked upon then and still do as a rudely peremptory way, clearly wanting me to take myself into another room in order to provide him with what would have been privacy had he not been determined to be heard at the other end of his new telephone wire.

I believe I’ve said it before, but if I haven’t I’ll mention it now: when it comes to science and technology Holmes is a dichotomy. Without any conscious effort he fully comprehends the action of various toxins on the human body, the differences between a wide range of tobacco ashes when to me they all seem to be the same and many other quite specialised technical concepts, but if the science doesn’t impinge on his own work and interests, which are detection and the criminal mind, he simply has no curiosity about how it functions. So he might have wanted to use his telephone apparatus, but would never in a thousand years pay any attention to how it works. Hence I heard every word of his conversation with his brother even though I was in a different room and he had ordered me there in order to attain a privacy that his lack of comprehension wouldn’t allow.

“Lord Graymane, you say, Mycroft? At Birkencroft? And you say he is under siege? Tell me, man, what’s afoot? Ah, the Belgian, is it? I’ve heard of him, the Beast of Brussels… have you tried communicating via the telephone with him? No, not the Belgian, with Graymane? You say he hasn’t yet been connected to the telephone network? It’s a good thing some of us have got our eye on the future, that’s all I can say… be assured, Mycroft, Watson and I are on the case as we speak and will be at Birkencroft by early this afternoon… goodbye, brother… yes, yes, goodbye...”

I shook my head, despairing.

“Watson!” he called, “come back! There’s a game afoot!”

“There was no need to order me into another room,” I said somewhat haughtily, “you’ll get no privacy until you learn how the telephone system works, and you most certainly don’t have to shout into it. I heard every word you said. Lord Graymane, is it?”

“Watson, the man’s a fool, but he needs our help. It would seem that a certain Belgian gentleman believes that Graymane has agreed to sell him a particular painting at a vastly undervalued price, and Graymane disputes it. We are to go to Birkencroft as swiftly as we can and help negotiate a reasonable settlement. The next train leaves from Paddington in less than an hour, so make haste!”

“What do either of us know about the value of works of art?” I asked.

“Hardly enough to pass as experts, but sufficient for our purposes here,” he murmured, “now be ready, Watson, while I hail a cab!”

Birkencroft was (and is) the name of the Graymane family seat and lies about half an hour from London by a fast train. Therefore, the train we caught being one of the fastest, we arrived on the small station that served his estate well before noon and were able to take a coughing, hacking, rattling motor cab to what turned out to be a rather modest family seat, as such buildings go. It can’t have had above a dozen bedrooms!

Holmes rang the doorbell at the front, giving no shrift to the concept that tradesmen, which I suppose we were, are always expected to use a rear doorway. The servant who met us frowned, and I smiled inside. This flunky knew his place all right, and was equally aware that we didn’t seem to know ours.

“Wait in here,” he said gravely, and we were shown into a small room in which the only chairs were of a distinctly uncomfortable type. I recognised them instantly because Holmes had bought two for our own rooms on Baker Street. They were intended for the rear ends of unwanted guests in the hope they would encourage a swift exit by same.

The walls of this small room were covered with works of art, and Holmes spent as long as we were left there, about ten minutes, examining one of them minutely.

“Watson, come here!” he hissed, and pointed at the portrait that had attracted his attention. “What do you make of this?”

“A fine gentleman,” I pronounced, “maybe an ancestor of Lord Graymane?”

“What date would you allow him?” asked Holmes, smirking.

“Oh, I don’t know … some time in the seventeenth or maybe eighteenth century by his finery,” I suggested.

“And, perhaps, a couple of centuries before Mappin and Webb sold that watch that he’s wearing?” grinned Holmes.

I looked at the fellow’s wrist, finely painted in convincing flesh tones, and he was wearing a wristwatch very similar to Holmes’ own watch, which he had bought only recently.

“I would say so,” I nodded.

It was at this point that Lord Graymane entered the room, in the company of a somewhat shabby (in comparison) man of a distinctly continental appearance.

“Ah, Mr Holmes! So good of you to come so quickly! Your brother, dear old Mycroft, assured me that you were the man for the job. And it all concerns that picture that you’re looking at! It was painted in the seventeen hundreds, I believe, by Randolf Squires, a fine artist if ever there was one, and master of the paint brush!”

“Mon dieu!” gasped the rotund Belgian, “if that was painted by meester Squires then I am, how do you say, a Dutchman!”

“Now, Holmes, give me your verdict,” asked Lord Graymane.

“You say eighteenth century?” asked Holmes with apparent thoughtfulness, “and by a master of the canvas? What do you say, Monsieur?” he asked the Belgian.

“It ees a fine work, yes, but no so old, not so old...” the Belgian shook his head, “and as Monsieur Squires lived long, long ago and ‘as been dead long since, ‘e can’t have held the brush that painted it! So I will pay you, Lord Graymane, no more than ten pounds for eet.”

“Ten pounds for an old master!” snorted Lord Graymane.

“Where did you obtain it, my lord?” asked Holmes before passing the expected verdict.

“A sale in Woolwich,” nodded Graymane, “and I paid a great deal more than ten pounds for it, I can tell you!”

“Then you were robbed, my Lord,” said Holmes, “and if I were you I’d take the ten pounds on offer and run!”

“What? I thought you, an Englishman...” spluttered the lord.

“Would support you blindly? Well, I’m afraid I can’t. It’s all too obvious,” explained Holmes, “the fellow in the picture is sporting a wristwatch identical in every respect to the one I’m wearing, and that’s no more than five years old!”

Lord Graymane stared at the portrait and then shook his head.

“Well I’ll be blowed...” he spluttered, “are you sure of that, Holmes?”

“Put it like this,” my colleague said, “when I bought this fine watch, not five years ago as I said, I was assured it was the latest model and superior to any pocket watch for the man in a hurry… So take your ten pounds, my lord, if it’s still on offer.”

“That it is not!” snapped the Belgian, “I will be bidding you adieu!”

And he backed out of the room in a fluster.

“Well, talk of continentals!” sighed Graymane, shaking his head, “do you fancy some tea?”

© Peter Rogerson 24.08.17