Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Doctor Moreau

CHAPTER TEN

We avoided the unnecessarily ostentatious route of Holmes’ bedroom window and instead left Baker Street by the front door. I could tell he was far from content about it, but I made it clear that I had no intention of breaking my legs before we’d even begun. From there it was a long walk to the river. Holmes insisted that one didn’t go to all the effort of disguising oneself only to then alight from a taxi-cab at one’s destination. I could see his logic but felt we could have at least travelled in comfort halfway there. But then, Holmes was not a man to do things by halves.

He also liked to walk through the city, to remind himself of the beating heart of it; of the twists of its streets and back alleys; the little dramas that played out on each corner. Holmes was not always the most empathetic of men, but it was a failing he was aware of and it was during moments like this that he did his best to compensate. He noted everything about people, not just the usual analysis—reading their personality and environment from traces on their person—but also how they interacted with each other. That was where the real mysteries lay, something he knew only too well. “If only the rest of the world was as logical as me,” he once said, “I could solve any crime in a matter of moments. It would be a matter of arithmetic, the inarguable sum of its composite parts. But, no—nothing muddies the waters as much as the human mind.” Everybody was different and that, for a detective, is where the hard work comes in.

We couldn’t have asked for more variety during that walk. We began in the rarefied air of Mayfair, where the gentlemen experienced fresh air only in brief snatches, moving between the velvet-lined wombs of their carriages and the smoky interiors of their clubs. When Holmes had talked of looking as if we belonged he had not expected us to succeed in that aim here; in fact, we were looked upon with nothing less than open hostility by a number of the doormen and the few passers-by who deigned to waste shoe-leather.

“Move along there,” cried one old soldier, stitched up in his serge and braid, swapping the uniform of a foreign field for that of the Mummerset Club, where he could live out his years still tugging a forelock to the ranks above him. “We don’t like your sort around here.”

The fact that, as an ex-serviceman of sufficient rank, I was perfectly entitled to step through the club’s doors was something I chose not to mention. He would never believe me. In fact I had more right to step into its bar than he; with my service record I would have a brandy in my hand within moments whereas he would be out on his ear as an upstart pushing beyond his station in life. What ridiculous games we play and how little it all means in the end! Holmes gave him a theatrical salute and moved along the pavement, chuckling in a decidedly drunken manner. So much for not drawing attention to yourself, I thought, as we crossed into the theatre district. Here at least we could claim to belong, two strolling players heading towards their chosen stage.

It was the time of evening when many of the performances were ejecting their audiences back out into the world and the streets were busy with happy patrons and those who took advantage of the fact. We were far from being the only people on the street who seemed a long way from home. The crowds were studded with down-at-heel, grimy faces either calling on the generosity of the passers-by or simply helping themselves from unguarded pockets. As we moved past a small group of toughs, loitering by the Adelphi, I became conscious of allowing my hands to loiter near my coat pockets, ready to snatch at any intruding fingers. It took me a moment to realise that, looking as I did, I was hardly likely to present much of a target. As far as these street Arabs were concerned I was one of them, not a potential victim. It was a strange feeling, to be so removed from one’s usual sense of self.

From The Strand it was only a short walk to the river and the next available steamboat.

Pressed hard against the rail, I looked out at our smoky city as we made our way along the Thames. It seemed that no matter how long I lived here, I would never stop finding a different angle from which to view it. It was a city of so many faces, and it showed a different one to each and every one of its citizens. To the gentry it was an austere collection of ancient architecture; to the clerk a place of commerce and bustle; to the lower classes it was a dark and unforgiving mother, a place of soot and death that nonetheless gathered its shadowy skirts around the poor and disenfranchised if they begged hard enough.

Now it was a coastal city, an island of noise and light just out of reach across the choppy waters of the river that had always kept it alive.

“She’s a dark and ruinous place,” I said, unaware I had spoken aloud until Holmes fixed me with a curious stare.

After a moment he nodded. “On my low days, when it seems that nothing will rise from above the commonplace to engage my attention, I remember where it is we live.” He watched the towering factories pass us by. “In this city you are never far away from the extraordinary.” He thought for a moment. “Or the terrifying.”