New Year’s Eve, 1922...

“I am a collector of... oddities,” I smiled as I sat before the log fire, observing the small band of friends and acquaintances who had accepted my invite to spend New Year’s Eve as my guests at a most unusual dinner party, the ladies gracing us with their best evening gowns and the gentlemen resplendent in black tie.

The date was December 31st, 1922. After surviving the horrors of the Great War, little did we know of the horrors that still awaited us as the 20th Century wore on - the Great Depression, another World War, countless dead in the cause of freedom, and the breakdown of Empire as the baton of world-leader was handed to our American cousins across the Atlantic. But that was all for the future. For the here and now, the year 1922 still had a few hours left in it and I intended to employ them profitably.

On a small table to my left lay an intriguing collection; several decks of playing cards, a single pendulum, and two silver finger rings. The silver rings caught the light from the roaring log fire and twinkled most beguilingly. Once I was sure my guests were seated comfortably and my butler George had furnished them with a tipple to chase away the late December chills, I began my narrative...

“We have all heard, I take it, of the great detective Sherlock Holmes? That celebrated denizen of the Strand magazine?” I asked.

There were murmurs of agreement from my guests. I would have been most perturbed if any of my guests had not heard of the Master of Deduction, who, at the time, was perhaps the owner of the most recognisable name in the English speaking world.

“Fictional character isn’t he?” asked the bruff undertaker Jones, as he helped himself to another generous snifter of brandy. It appeared that to Jones, a decanted bottle was not so much a luxury to be savoured as a challenge to be mastered.

“A fictional character? Well, so we are assured,” I acquiesced, “but were you aware that many of his exploits were in fact based on truths? Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle actually based the character of Holmes on his old medical school lecturer, Dr Joseph Bell? A man so observant and skilled in his craft that he could diagnose illnesses and describe in perfect detail the life history of a patient purely on sight, without the need for discussion?”

The room looked on in silence. I appeared to have captured the attention of my guests. I smiled inwardly.

“I have, over the past few years,” I continued, “become quietly fascinated with both the fictional Sherlock Holmes character and also the truths and facts that lie behind his exploits. These meagre few objects,” I pointed at the packs of playing cards, the pendulum, and the finger rings, “are, you could say, souvenirs of this fascination. Each one is, in some way or other, associated with the Great Detective or his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“I say,” interrupted Campbell, the lawyer, leaning forward in his chair and looking around himself, as if searching for something, “are we to be fed tonight? Only my stomach is rumbling something awful!” He laughed mirthlessly and eyed his fellow guests for support.

“All in good time, my dear Campbell,” I smiled. “Food will of course be served. But first I’d like to demonstrate, if I may, one of the peculiarities of my collection.”

I leant to my left and took a packet of playing cards from the table.

“One of the skills that Dr Bell was able to astonish his students with was his ability to instantly memorise any number of objects, words, or images. I believe that the phrase ‘photographic memory’ is starting to be used to describe such extraordinary feats of memory.

“To demonstrate this ability, Dr Bell would use a packet of playing cards. Indeed, he would use this very packet of playing cards, acquired from a somewhat dishonest cleaner-woman at Edinburgh University whose duties, besides purloining items that caught her eye, included the cleaning of Dr Bell’s quarters. Once the cleaner’s ‘light fingered’ exploits were discovered, she was dismissed on the spot but managed to escape from the university compound before the police could arrive to apprehend her.

“Several months later it came to my attention that this female magpie had in her possession a packet of cards stolen from Dr Bell himself. I knew I had to have them and so I set off on something of an adventure to Edinburgh, travelling aboard the famous Flying Scotsman train, to locate the thieving cleaner and her ill-gotten possessions.

“I have several contacts in Scotland Yard, I shan’t bore you with the sordid details of the whys and the hows, but suffice to say that several little birds here in London had words with several little birds on the Edinburgh police force, and before too long I had a name and an address, and I was on my way!”

“All sounds very cloak and dagger,” said Campbell, the lawyer, as he knocked his pipe out into a crystal ashtray.

“Oh I assure you, sir, that the truth is far more ordinary and mundane. A few telephone calls, a few favours returned, that is all,” I smiled. Campbell huffed into his pipe as though he did not think it sounded very ordinary and mundane at all. I paid him no heed and continued.

“The journey from King’s Cross station in London to Waverley station in Edinburgh took a little over eight hours which gave me plenty of time to relax, to read, to eat, and even to get my hair cut at the newly opened barbershop aboard the train!”

“A barbershop aboard a train!” gasped the delightful Miss Carriger, bedecked as she was in a shimmering emerald ball gown, cut in accordance with the latest fashions. “What an age of wonders we live in, truly! And how was Edinburgh? I would dearly love to visit one day.”

“Edinburgh is a fine city,” I said, “and much deserving of the title ‘Empire’s Second City’. But, much like our own beloved London, it has its darker corners, its rookeries and rat-runs, and it was in one such rookery that I located the thieving cleaner and the stolen deck of playing cards. The cleaner-woman was naturally very suspicious of me at first, she wondered if I might not be what people of her class call a ‘copper’. But I reassured her, and when I pressed a few coins into her palm, she soon relaxed and invited me into her modest home.

“When I describe the woman’s home as being ‘modest’, I am of course being polite. Not wanting to upset any of you with the gory details, I will simply say that the place was small, smelt terribly of boiled cabbage, and seated in one corner was the woman’s surly husband, who eyed me menacingly as though deciding whether or not there was any profit in murdering me on the spot.”

“Oh my!” gasped Mrs Hudson, putting a frail hand to her mouth.

“Gosh!” exclaimed Miss Carriger. “How terribly exciting!”

Miss Carriger’s mother tut-tutted her daughter and said, “There is nothing remotely exciting about the lower classes, my dear.”

I held up my hands to apologise for causing the ladies such disquiet, and continued, “Suffice to say that money was exchanged, Dr Bell’s playing cards were handed over, and I beat a hasty retreat from the hovels of Edinburgh. And now, here I am today, brandishing those very same playing cards and ready to demonstrate for you the very same mental feat that Dr Bell would utilise to impress and astound his students. That is,” I paused, “if you would like me to?”

There were general murmurs of agreement, and Miss Carriger, under the ever-observant gaze of her mother, nodded her head enthusiastically.

“Very well,” I said, “then I shall proceed. Please keep in mind the fact that failure is a likely outcome here. What I am about to attempt stretches to breaking point the cognitive abilities of the human brain. But never-the-less, let us try.”