The West End Horror (20 page)

*[
For
years
this exchange was erroneously attributed to Shaw and Winston Churchill.]

Holmes and I returned to Baker Street later that day, feeling as though we’d just come back from the moon, so long had we been gone and so singular had been our experiences while away. The last few days seemed like aeons.

For a day or so we sat around our rooms like automatons, unable, I think, to fully digest the terrible events in which we had taken part. And then, bit by bit, we fell into our old ways. Another storm blew silently outside our windows, and Holmes found himself again immersed in his chemical experiments. Finally his notes on ancient English charters were once more in his hands.

It was a month later when he threw down the paper at breakfast one morning and looked at me across the table. “We must definitely go to Cambridge, Watson, or I shall not accomplish anything constructive with my research. *[For details of Holmes’s Cambridge experience the reader is urged to consult the case labeled by Watson
The Adventure of the Three Students.
According to Baring-Gould’s chronology, this case began on April 5,
1895,
almost immediately after the news about Wilde appeared in the papers. This significant jibing of dates goes a long way–in my opinion–towards certifying the
authenticity
of
The West End Horror,
added to which fact, Holmes’s work in Cambridge is not generally conceded to be his best, which also makes
sense
if
we consider
that he was operating under something of an emotional strain.] How does tomorrow strike you?"

He stalked into his bedroom, leaving me to the coffee and paper, where I discovered his motive for leaving town so abruptly.

Speculation was rife that Oscar Wilde would shortly be charged with offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.*[Wilde was charged on April 6, 1895. His first trial ended in a hung jury on May
1.
On May 20 a second trial was held, and on May 25, 1895, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor.] The subject of Wilde brought back memories of our adventure the previous month.

I followed Holmes into his room, the paper in my hand and on my lips a question that had never occurred to me. “Holmes, there is something that puzzles me about Dr. Benjamin Eccles.”

“A great deal, I shouldn’t wonder. He was a complicated individual. As I have said before, Watson, a doctor is the first of criminals, He has brains, and he has knowledge; should he care to pervert either, there is great potential for mischief. Will you hand me that brown tie? Thank you.”

“Why, then, did he allow himself to die?” I asked. “Had he taken his own antidote with the zeal he pressed it on others, he might have survived.”

My companion paused before replying, taking a coal from the fire and lighting his pipe with it. ‘We shall probably never know the truth. It may be that he had taken the potion before and in so doing had exhausted its curative properties. Or it may be that he had no wish to live. Some people are not only murderers but judges, juries, and their own executioners, as well, and in those capacities they mete out punishments far more severe than their fellow creatures could devise.” He rose from a bootlace. “Do you think it too early in the day for a glass of sherry and a biscuit?”

It is again time to pay off a happy debt and thank a number of people for their help, inspiration, encouragement, and critical acumen in preparing the manuscript of
The West End Horror.

First and foremost, this book could not have been thought of but for the genius of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Without his immortal creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, nothing in the way of this story could have been written. It is a tribute to the enormous popularity of Doyle’s characters that people are interested in reading stories about them even though their creator is not around to keep supplying them.

After Doyle, I must acknowledge the help and inspiration I found in the works of W. S. Baring-Gould, whose Holmesian chronology I freely accept and whose theories I continue to find charming and provocative.

Probably the foremost living authority on Sherlock Holmes

and his world is Mr. Michael Harrison, whose books on the subject I have pored over to advantage, and whom I had the great privilege of meeting. In addition to the use of his books,
Mr.
Harrison generously allowed me to pick his brain by offering to inspect the manuscript itself and tell me when I was going either astray or too far, two predilections of mine. He made innumerable comments and suggestions, all of great assistance in achieving literary and historical authenticity, and most of which I adopted without hesitation. Where my book remains inaccurate, the blame must fall not upon Mr. Harrison but on my own stubborn insistence on some point or other. Also, I am indebted to Mr. Michael Holroyd for drawing my attention to several crucial questions in the text.

After these four gentlemen, a host of friends and critics crowd the list, some of them Sherlockian enthusiasts, others merely literate. In no particular order I extend my thanks to Craig Fisher, Michael and Constance Pressman, Bob Bookman, Leni Kreitman, Brooke Hopper, Ulu Grossbard, Michael Scheff, Jon Brauer, and Miss Julie Leff, who put up with a great deal of nonsense. My father, of course, has put up with it much longer, and he deserves thanks here, too.

In addition to those who provided literary assistance, I wish to thank Herb Ross, my collaborator on the film version of
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,
who managed to keep my interest in things Holmesian alive for many months longer than I thought possible; my lawyers, Tom Pollock, Andy Rigrod, and Jake Bloom, whose contributions to the book are not to be underestimated; and my editor, Juris Jurjevics, who is such a good audience.