43. THE CASE OF THE SMOKY CELLAR

I wonder ... did a gentleman's club in Edwardian times really invent Karaoke?

“There’s a new entertainment in town, Watson, and I’m thinking of giving it a try,” said Holmes suddenly whilst he was in the middle of consulting his edition of “Who’s Who” in search of a commander from the Boer War who had failed to pay his account.

“What’s that, Holmes?” I asked, curious as to what Homes should feel he needed to do in the field of entertainment, either as an entertainer or the one being entertained. “It’s not like you,” I added, “to feel the need for any kind of entertainment. Are you, perchance, intending to call in a Music Hall in order to see which of the girl dancers can also sing with a pleasing lilt to her voice or has the best looking legs that she is happy to flash in order to satisfy male lusts?”

“Don’t be disgusting, Watson!” he snapped back at me. “The entertainment I have had recommended to me is of a far more cerebral nature! Apparently, in one of the better clubs...”

“You mean the Diogenes?” I asked, being fully aware that the Diogenes club is the one frequented by his brother Mycroft when he wasn’t in his office in Government and that Mycroft had called earlier that day.

“Could be,” he conceded. “Anyway, it would appear that every Wednesday evening before nine they have a session set aside in the back room for inexperienced entertainers with a musical bent to sing for the benefit of their fellows. Mycroft explained what they do. There is a gramophone and a selection of recordings of popular melodies, but with just the accompaniment engraved in the groove. Therefore, when it is wound up and played there is no voice, just a piano or quartet accompanying what amounts to silence. They also have a magic lantern that projects an image of the words of the song that is being accompanied, and members of the audience take it in turns to sing, getting the words, of course, perfectly right because of that magic-lantern projection!”

“Sounds a bit low-brow for the Diogenes,” I commented.

“Maybe, but it fascinates me. It would seem that the magic lantern operator has great skill at casting the words on a screen so that their appearance exactly matches the music being played! Anyway, Watson, I am going there this evening!”

“I’ve a feeling there’s more to this than you have said,” I muttered. “It’s not like to you to lower your tastes to music hall melodies when you’;ve got a perfectly good violin with which to torment the neighbourhood!”

“I find that a tad unfair, Watson,” said Holmes, assuming a wounded expression. “My violin is one of the finest on this planet of ours, and I learned at the school of one of the finest violinists of the Victorian era. I would beg you to be less critical. But you’re right in the essence. I do have what you might call an ulterior motive for attending the Diogenes this evening. Mycroft has warned me that a master criminal from the far east, from Japan in actual fact, will be there with the intention of stealing something of great value.”

“Really? And what might that be?” I asked.

Holmes shook his head. “Mycroft wouldn’t say,” he murmured, “but if he is concerned then it stands to reason we all should be concerned. The Japanese are a cunning lot when they put their mind to it and it is quite possible that some high carat diamond will be on display, maybe encrusted in a cigar case or other manly piece of equipment, and that the Japanese criminal will have his eyes on it, waiting for an opportunity to be off with it.”

“So it’s a case?” I asked.

“Sort of,” he replied airily. “Mycroft asked that I keep my eyes open, that is all. So are you with me, Watson? To the Diogenes club this evening?”

“If I must,” I replied, sounding as reluctant as I felt.

The Diogenes club is a place where no woman has ever stepped, except when it is closed, to clean the debris that gentlemen leave in their wake whilst sitting in comfort and discussing with each other the latest cricket news or political machinations over far too many brandies and a pipe or two. But at all other times a gentleman can feel at ease in the club with not a breath of femininity anywhere near, able to, maybe cast the odd humorous comment about this or that lady with no fear of being misunderstood or his intentions misinterpreted. Not that it is frequented by men of a truly misogynist persuasion, for if that were the case most of the more influential men in the city could be described as misogynist.

We arrived and were escorted into a dingy back room by a waiting servant in tails and wearing a fine top hat, one that, in my opinion, needlessly exaggerated his place within society. The back room that Holmes had mentioned was, in fact a cellar that smelt of a heady mixture of fragranced oils and damp. It was already quite crowded, and besides the aforementioned scent the air was rich with tobacco fumes from both cigars and pipes. In the middle stood a table on which was set a gramophone with the most magnificent brass horn I have ever seen, and next to it a magic lantern that added to the general fume of the place with a trail of oil smoke that found its way out of its polished silvered chimney.

The servant at the table was also dressed in a smart tail suit and wore one of the tallest and shiniest top hats I have ever seen. All in all, the place was almost grotesque.

“Right, gentlemen,” he called as Holmes and I took our seats and were served with brandy by yet another smartly-tailed servant, “Let us commence with a trip to the garden with Maud...”

Then, like a scientist making an exciting demonstration of something out of this world, he turned the handle on the gramophone and wound it up.

Next he set the gramophone turning, carefully placed a new steel needle onto the disc and filled the smoky air with the unmistakable sounds of Come into the Garden, Maud played by what sounded like a string quartet. It was quite magnificent if not, perhaps, the least bit on the fast side, and then he placed a slide into the magic lantern and the famous words of that wonderful song were just about discernible on a white screen.

The time for entertainment had come.

A fat man stood up and forced his way to the side of the room where there was a small raised stage in a position that wasn’t too far from the gramophone and from which he had a good view of the screen, and he started singing the song.

He ruined it, though he didn’t realise that.

The thing about music of all kinds, including the singing of songs, is that a certain amount of ability and expertise is essential, and this portly man had neither. But no matter|: he seemed to satisfy the rest of the audience who would possibly have applauded anything, even maybe silence.

“This is dreadful, Holmes,” I whispered.

“Shush, Watson!” he commanded, and pointed.

A gentleman, dressed as appropriately as everyone else, was sitting just to one side and making careful notes on a pad of paper. He was quite obviously of oriental origin but looked nothing like the criminal I had been expected, for he was small of stature and pleasing of appearance with a ready smile for all who went his way.

“That’s it, Watson,” hissed Holmes, “come, if you find this entertainment beneath you, we xcan go now, the problem is solved,” and he stood up.

I followed him out of the club, grateful to be out of the dense fug of the underground cellar.

We returned to Baker Street on the first cab we could hail, and Mrs Hudson informed us that she’d just brewed a pot of tea.

“We will enjoy that, Mrs Hudson,” said Holmes, and he turned to me.

“What did you make of the evening’s entertainment, Watson?” he asked.

“Not much,” I said, “and I was only too pleased to get out of that dreadfully smoky atmosphere. But what of the Japanese criminal in search of a high carat gemstone?”

“Oh, he was there all right, but not after any kind of gemstone,” smiled Holmes. “You must have seen him taking notes. I fear he will return with those notes to Japan and in the fullness of time the poor inhabitants of that Eastern land will be introduced to a heady mixture of magic lantern script and gramophone music. He wasn’t after anything precious, like gemstones, but an idea! You know how the Japanese are when it comes to adapting and improving the ideas of others. Maybe he will turn the cacophony we were subjected to into silence!”

“It’s a hope,” I murmured.

“Exactly. And when they’ve refined it I wonder what they’ll call it? A fancy oriental name, maybe after the Diogenes club do you think?”

“Or something truly eastern-sounding,” I laughed, “maybe like karaoke, maybe?”

© Peter Rogerson 11.09.17