Chapter 3

“Let’s get something to eat, Poppy,” Sherlock said, standing and donning his waistcoat.

“You’re going to eat while you are working?”

“This case is a puzzlement, I’ll admit, but it certainly does not require intense intellectual activity.”

“I really should go, Sherlock. You’ve seen what it’s like out there. People are very ill.”

As he shoved his right arm into the sleeve of his coat, he nodded. “Yes, I’ve been studying that aspect of this damn fog as well. I went to the Botanic Gardens in Regent’s Park this morning and measured the barometer. It was unusually high, 30.54 at nine o’clock. A London fog is a complex phenomenon, isn’t it? So different from its country counterparts. I remember from when we stayed at Holme-Next-the-Sea that a country fog can be somewhat pleasant.”

I flinched momentarily, recalling the fog that swirled through the little village, but mostly remembering our night together there.

“Just a puff of white without smell and not all that disagreeable,” Sherlock added. “It does not thicken after sunrise. It is pure, condensed vapour. But this with which we are faced here in the city is more than wind, temperature and vapour. It increases after the sun rises. A white handkerchief like the one you always carry attracts particles of soot like a magnet. It is a black haze that covers criminal activities, a perfect cover for intractable evil.”

“And it endangers the health of our citizens,” I said.

“Yes, yes. It does do damage to health and property because of the smoke and soot in the air. Winter is the worst, isn’t it? On this holiday everyone is celebrating today - the coal being pushed out of private houses - that is what is primarily responsible for this blanket of darkness.

“Do you realize, Poppy, more than a million chimneys are breathing out smoke and soot and sulphurous acid and carbonic acid gas like fire from a dragon? We are in a crater filled with fumes.

“At least,” he prattled on, “when there is some modicum of a breeze, the smoke removes itself to other parts of the atmosphere and no dark fog forms. But when the earth is not sufficiently warmed by the sun during our winter months, and the air near its surface cannot rise, the lowest atmospheric strata gain little heat and the conditions are perfect to produce such a fog. One filled with flakes of soot, particles of carbon... and these cannot evaporate.”

“It’s so sad, really,” I said. “On a hot, breezy summer Sunday when the factories are not in operation, and fires not so much used for cooking, you can actually see the spires of St. Paul’s or Albert Hall. Now it’s all blurred with smoke.”

“Ah, these are dark and murky days, Poppy. I’ll wager that an easterly breeze blowing from the direction of the East India Docks would bring the smoke of ten miles of houses, and at Holloway, a southerly breeze would be filled with the pollution of seven miles or more. The distance to which coal-smoke travels without reaching the ground seems almost infinite. Richmond is just nine miles from here, but views of it are hidden most of the time by the ugly mist. This grey filth reaches to Belgravia and Mayfair now as well.

“Have you ever watched from shore the smoke of steamers passing through the English Channel on a calm day?” he asked.

I nodded.

“The cloud of smoke left behind lies for hours in the same position, like the long, low hand of the Devil. Today, the quantity of smoke is hundreds, perhaps thousands of times greater. There is no escaping it.”

“It would seem so. But while your scientific analysis is all very interesting, Sherlock, the only thing that matters to me is that people are very ill because of it, dying of it, and I must try to help them. So thank you for the invitation to lunch, but I shall be on my way now.”

“But Poppy, what about the swans?”

My voice shrill, I asked, “What about the swans? Or the bees?” I swallowed hard. “I am sorry, Sherlock. I do love the swans and I know you love your bees. But right now people are a bit more important to me.”