Lenore Carroll, gifted in both the mystery and historical western fields (her Annie Chambers is a gritty, moving chronicle of the life of a frontier prostitute), here offers a refreshing new take on our favourite subject, in an autobiographical letter written by Watson to his publishers. Holmes purists may take umbrage at the central revelation, but the Watsonians among us will greet Carroll’s courageous, intelligent physician with open arms.
May 6, 1881
Mr. H. Greenhough Smith
Editor, The Strand Magazine
Burleigh Street, The Strand,
London
Dear Mr. Greenhough Smith:
Many thanks for your kind letter. Your warm response to the story I submitted to your magazine is indeed heartening. I have had two short novels about my detective character published, one in Beeton’s and one in Lippicott’s. But they were by only a very small response, and I feared this “scandalous” orphan might find no home. So I am delighted that you see a series of these stories, and am greatly encouraged to continue.
Let me assure you that the principal characters (aside from the detective and his friend) have no counterparts in real life to my knowledge. I created them by stitching together bits and pieces of real life into a patchwork fiction. I trust the results are seamless.
It is true, however, as you suggest, that there are actual people who inspired the story’s protagonist and his narrator friend. And it is flattering for you to ask how I came to write these tales. I must confess that I, like my narrator, am a trained physician; and at one time I had no thought at all of ever becoming an author. I entered the Army Medical Department after receiving my degree, and eventually found myself in India as an Army surgeon. I had determined to make my career in Her Majesty’s service, and had looked forward to making a good start.
My career was cut short, however, when I was gravely wounded during service in the Afghan war. And when I was invalided out of the Army, I found the rain-soaked greenery of my native island, for which I had longed heartily while residing in the brown desert, only aggravated the wounds I had sustained. An irony to add to the irony of a surgeon sent to heal being hurt in the fray. I had taken one Jezail bullet in the shoulder and another penetrated my leg at the fatal battle of Maiwand.
I began limping about despite the pain, as soon as I was able, thinking that improved circulation of blood to the region would aid its healing. At first I ventured in the immediate vicinity of the hotel where I had taken lodgings. As I regained my health, I roamed further afield to escape the dreary hotel. On the streets of the great metropolis of London I found human beings of every description—prosperous businessmen, ladies of fashion, street Arabs, gin-sodden bawds, stevedores from the docks, Roman clergy like so many ring-necked blackbirds, well-dressed children accompanied by uniformed nannies. When my distress at having my career in India cut short got me in the dumps, I would take to the streets, learning each avenue, lane, and mews as I once learnt the arteries of the body while studying medicine at the University of London. I learnt the textures and humour of the city as I spent day after day stumping the streets, my stout cane in hand. I walked through drizzle and fog, some days from mid-morning until the lamps were lighted at dusk.
My legs and eyes were well occupied and my self-prescribed cure worked very satisfactorily, but I cast about for some similarly healthy occupation for my brain. I am not a person of great imagination, nor am I prone to be in exceedingly high spirits or low, but when left with no occupation, memory returned again and again to the horror of battle. Over and over my thoughts recalled the heathen cries of the attackers, dust obscuring the charge, red blood soaking redcoats, pounding hooves, and the piteous cries of the wounded. I would not have escaped but for the action of my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse and brought me safely to the British lines.
Thus I revived my youthful habit of composing verse in my head. My Bohemian proclivities (which had nearly prevented my taking a degree) came to the surface in aid of my practicality. As I walked, I occupied my mind with rhyme, metre, form, and syntax. Nothing equals verse in its demands on the writer. After several hours I would return to my hotel and transcribe the lines into my journal, another therapeutic aid to maintaining sanity. I passed several months and regained my health to a large extent, although my shaken nerves would not bear disruption or rows.
I continued to walk as if in the streets of my beloved London I would find direction for my future. I had neither kith nor kin in England and no money, my wastrel brother having squandered the little our father had left him. I needed to rouse myself to recommence the practise of medicine, or resign myself to a limited existence on half-pay. But when the weather turned cold and rain poured down daily, the soot-coloured fog seemed to penetrate even my lodgings. I would prop my bad leg on a cushioned chair and sink into a brown study. Although my wound did not prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at the change in the weather. The thoughts that filled those grey days in my rooms were of money—how could a surgeon on half-pay find the capital to buy a London practice? I had proceeded to Netley after taking my degree and went through the course prescribed for Army surgeons. To what use could I put that knowledge in London?
And what girl, or rather, woman, would ever condescend to share my life under these circumstances? What woman could look upon my wounds, though fading from scarlet to a politer pink, without repugnance? I was still in my twenties, and while I counted myself not bad looking in a sandy, freckled way with my imposing new moustache, I could not rely on charm or dash to carry my suit. Rather, common sense, respectability, and application were my virtues. I had no fear that my Bohemian penchant would interfere with married life. My mentor at university, Dr. Averill, described it as a response to boredom. Loyalty and not so many brains as to be likely to get myself in trouble was his estimation of me.
It was on one of my rambles near the Thames that I made the acquaintance of Budger.
I was negotiating the cobblestones outside the saloon bar of the George & Dragon when my cane slipped on the muddy surface. My bad leg gave way when the unexpected weight of my body fell upon it. I lay on the stones for a moment to catch my breath and ensure no serious damage had been done. Before I could right myself, however, I felt a helping hand reach over my shoulder and help me up.
“This ain’t Afghanistan, Doc,” said a man’s voice as he heaved me to my feet. I turned to thank him and beheld a miniscule Cockney, whose strength belied his size, a bowler tilted to a raffish angle and hands already back in his pockets.
“How did you know I was a doctor?” I asked.
“Are ye, now? What a lucky guess, I’m certain.” (I will not try to set down his Cockney dialect exactly. The transliteration is tedious for the writer and even more tiresome for the reader to decipher. I will try only to capture some slight indication of his colourful manner of speaking.)
I rummaged in my now-muddy trousers for a coin with which to reward him.
“No charge, Doc, glad to oblige.”
“Would you do me the favor of sharing a pint with me?” I indicated the George which I had just quitted.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he replied, and took my elbow as if he feared I might come a cropper again. He steered me into the public bar and I ordered our pints. We introduced ourselves and he told me his name was Budger.
Again I asked, “How did you know I was a doctor? And that I had been in Afghanistan? Do you refer to everyone as Doc? Surely a lucky guess would not have been so accurate.”
“To tell yer the truth, Doc, I know what I know, but damme if I can learn how I know it. Fer instance, take that man at the window table. He’s a railroad worker, probably a ticket agent, who works at Waterloo. He’s stopped in here for a pint afore he goes home. He’s got to stop and pick up sothin’ fer dinner and take it home to the missus.”
I gaped in astonishment.
“Now it wouldn’t do, would it, Doc, to disturb the man’s privacy and ask if it was true, but we can follow him out and after he runs his errand, ask him for directions and say he looks like a ticket agent of our acquaintance from Waterloo. Are ye game, Doc?”
“Yes, certainly. But try to think of how you knew I was a physician.”
“There’s yer mustardy-colour complexion, if you’ll fergive my mentionin’ it. That says you’ve been in Hindia or Afghanistan or one of them places probably, most likely with the Army, as you don’t have the look of the sugar merchant about you. More military-like in the way you walk, despite yer limp. Now if you was a gentleman, you would be exercising on horseback; if you was a foot soldier, you’d rather be drawn and quartered than walk. Since yer neither fish nor fowl, I’d taken you for an Army doctor. With yer limp and the faded look of yer skin I’d say yer were invalided out three months ago, give er take a week. ’Ow’s that?”
“That’s remarkable!” I exclaimed. “You guessed within a week of how long I had been back.”
“Well, now, I can study as to how I know these things,” he said with a touch of surprised pride.
At that moment, the man arose from the window table and left the George. We followed him from a slight distance and, true to Budger’s prophecy, saw him stop at a green grocer and come out in a few minutes with a parcel. “He’s getting on fer ’ome,” said Budger after a few blocks. We picked up our pace and overtook him at the next corner.
“Pardon me, guv’nor,” said Budger, in his engagingly cheeky manner. “Is this the way to Nelson Square?”
“Why no,” our quarry responded. “You must go in the opposite direction to find it.”
“Sir, you put me in mind of an agent I’ve boughten tickets off of,” said Budger.
“That may be true,” said our anonymous friend, “I have a cage at Waterloo, although I hope I shan’t offend you if I say I do not recognize you.”
“Notter tall, sir,” said Budger, “and thankee for the directions.” He winked as he rejoined me, pleased with his success. We waited until the ticket agent had turned down the street, then I besought Budger to explain his “lucky guess” this time.
“Well, got a whiff of him as we came in and he ’ad the smell of the coke they use for steam engines. If you spend much time at a train station, it gets into yer clothes and hair. There were a worn place on the front of his waistcoat where he must rub against the edge of the counter and red stamp-pad ink on his fingers from stamping the tickets.” He cocked his head to see if I followed his drift. I nodded him to continue. “Then Waterloo was a guess. Victoria’s on the other side of the river and if he lives hereabouts, why the George is halfway between it and where he’s headed ’ome, and handy fer a nip. He was scowling at a piece of paper, probably a note from the missus. What should it be but sothin’ he fergot she wants him to fetch and he ain’t too happy, neither.”
I gaped at him, astonished. Truly, he knew better than he could explain.
When weather permitted, I found myself drawn by curiosity to the George, where Budger could usually be found at midday for tiffin and a pint. He continued to announce his speculations on his fellow tipplers with surprising accuracy, occasionally winning a bet from doubting persons not yet familiar with his peculiar gift.
We became friends in a way. I sadly lack a firm sense of class consciousness. I frequently wonder who I am and who I presume to be, and to which class I would most familiarly fit. I am a physician by training and inclination, but the rigid restrictions of my time and place frequently weigh heavy on me. Often I wish for the camaraderie of the officers’ mess, the openly sensuous women of the East who are not bound by convention, as exemplified by our beloved sovereign. Every woman I saw in London was encased in that cage of whalebone which symbolized these conventions. It was deemed necessary for beauty, but was nearly disastrous for muscle tone and adequate breathing (although it did aid some back disorders and those of posture). The frequency of fainting could probably be laid at the door of the corsets necessary for fashion.
Budger, with the delightful cheerfulness of his rank and class, was also a maverick, in his own way. He treated me like an old chum from the docks rather than as a proper professional man. My rather shabby though genteel clothes and penchant for unconventional experiences gave him leave to take what liberties he might.
Budger seemed always to have enough money to while away his afternoons at the George. If my powers of observation had been as acute as his, I would have made note of his coming and going there. He moved from his own table and talked briefly first to this man, then another. So expert was his sleight of hand, scarcely ever did I note money and information changing hands.
One brisk day as the winter sun endeavoured to pierce the yellow pall of fog that hung over Bankside where we strolled, I put it to him.
“How,” I asked, “do you make your living, Budger? Now tell me straight. We’ve known each other for several months and I have yet to see you short of funds, yet you are daily at the George. No common labourer, office clerk, or delivery man could spend his time so freely. Tell me, what is it you do to support yourself?”
We had stopped and Budger gave me a sharp look from under the rim of his bowler. He was so short and I so tall that it was better to converse while sitting. He had once remarked as we strolled out of the George together that he looked like my pet that I was walking off the lead, so vast was the difference in our respective sizes. He did not answer at once, but turned his glance from me and began strolling again. “Well, Doc,” he said at length, “I know there’s no malice in yer intention, but it’s for the best yer don’t know too much. Wotcher don’t know can’t hurt ye, don’t yer know.”
“But surely you have some visible means of support,” I remonstrated.
“Doc, ye must take this much and not worry me fer more: I’m in the way of being a private accountant. I hold money while my foolish friends bet, taking a percentage for my profit. I’m apt to run errands for solicitors and other toffs who don’t wish to be seen digging for information for their cases among the low life. If a gentleman is looking for a coachman, likely I can find an out-of-work chap who’s fill the bill. I do a bit o’ this and a bit o’ that, and one way and another I make enough to stay ahead of me creditors. If you must, call me a private agent, but an agent of what, I couldn’t say.”
I mused over this information for a bit, and then commented, “You are putting to use your remarkable gifts of judging people.”
“Coo! I guess I am,” he replied in amazement. “I never thought it like that, Doc. It must be good for sothin’.”
We turned away from London Bridge and retraced our steps to the George, and after a bit I ventured, “It occurs to me that you could make yourself wealthy, putting this gift to great use.”
“Wadder yer mean, Doc?”
“Why, you could go upon the musical comedy stage and astound the audience with your divinations, or, with a little backing, go into a business where your knowledge of human nature could be turned to profit.”
“Aye, yer on the track, Doc. But there’s sich a thing as telling people more than they want to hear, isn’t there? A little bit of it now and again is fun, and people says ‘How amazing!’ and ‘Wadder yer know!’ But tell a man he’s ’ad a fight with his missus that morning, that he must have got dressed in a real rush because his socks don’t match, and his boots ain’t been cleaned nor his hat brushed, and he won’t thankee for it.” We walked in silence for a bit as I slowly recognized the truth of what he had said, and then he continued: “Tell a lady she takes belladonna at night, laces her stays too tight because her figger ain’t wot it uster be and uses powder to cover the circles under her eyes, and she won’t thankee. Lucky you’ll be if she doesn’t throw a ’ysterical fit and pretend to faint. Add to that that she not only knows what a mattress is for but has enjoyed the time spent there, and she’ll fall into a brain fever and take three month to recover. Too much o’ the truth is frightenin’ to folks.”
“I fear you are correct, Budger, and my suggestion was ill-put. I was only trying to find recompense in measure equal to your gifts.”
“I know that, Doc, and think the world o’ ye fer it.”
“I dare say you could have told me more about myself that first day you hauled me from the kerb, had you less diplomacy. Of course, I feel an open book to you now.”
“Yes, Doc, I could. I could’ve told ye yer were in a bad way for occupation, and getting low on money.”
“Really, now!”
“’Tis true, ’tisn’t it?”
“Yes, I must admit you are accurate as usual. I do not like to burden my acquaintances with my own troubles, but rather to deal with my problems in private. I do not wish to appear a weeping sister to my friends,” I replied, somewhat stiffly.
“Come offen it, Doc. Yer livin’ on half-pay and there’s not a situation in sight. Yer leg’s ’most healed, as well as it ever will, and ye haven’t had a woman since ye left Hindia.”
I started to draw myself up and remonstrate Budger for his liberties. But I knew in my heart that he read me accurately and that any objections on my part would only further prove his statement that people didn’t want too much truth. “Alas, Budger, you are correct,” I replied. “Now, pray tell me, what am I to do about my circumstances? And don’t tell me any more about myself for the time; I’ve heard as much as I can bear.”
“Doc, I can only indicate. It’s yer life to lead and I’d like to give you a leg up, if I could. Yer going back to doctorin’, I suppose?” He raised his voice to indicate there might be some doubt, but it was a statement of fact, not a question. Yes, I would return to work as a physician, by some means or another. But I told him that I lacked the capital at present to buy a practice in London, and hesitated to ask for a situation at a hospital where the staff physicians worked long days for little remuneration.
“Wotcher need is an old doc who’s getting on in years and thinkin’ about retiring. One who’s got a good practice now, hasn’t let it slip too much, and who’s got a little put by for a rainy day.”
I admitted that that was the kind of situation I should like to acquire.
“Then I’ll keep my eyes peeled, won’t I now?” he said.
“But now . . . where . . . can you . . . ?” I sputtered.
“Never you mind, Doc, just leave me at it,” he said with a wink, and we parted company for the day.
Inclement weather kept me indoors for several days. When next I sought the George, I found Budger fairly bursting with excitement. After a hasty pint, he led me out and we repaired immediately to Harley Street.
“I think I’ve found ye a likely situation,” he boasted, as we hurried along the street.
“Surely I could be counted on to know that all the best doctors reside in Harley Street,” I answered with impatience.
“Just yer wait, Doc, and we’ll see what we’ll see, won’t we now?”
Budger drew to a halt in front of a prosperous residence-cum-surgery. A brass plate with the name Morestone was reflecting the midday sun.
“There she is, Doc,” he said proudly.
“There what is? Now, see here, Budger, what is this all about? Why drag me along here to see another doctor’s prosperity? Have I not enough to plague me?”
“Now, now, Doctor, take it easy. First, I said to myself, we needs to find a older doc, one that’s taken kindly to some assistance (that’s you). So’s I spent a little time hereabouts chattin’ up the drivers and butlers and some of the prettiest parlourmaids in London. This bloke”—he indicated Morestone—“seems the likeliest prospect.”
“But how do you know?” said I, ever the naïf where the machinations of Budger’s mind were concerned.
“First, there’s his steps. The stoops hereabouts was laid when the houses was built, but this one is more worn than many another. Tells me he does a thrivin’ practice. He keeps a brougham and a driver, three maids, a butler, a cook, a scullery maid, and a page, all just for him and his daughter, Mary. Not bad at all!”
“And just how did you learn all this, this . . . intelligence?”
“Same way I pick up stuff for the solicitor toffs. Hanging about, liftin’ a few at the nearest pubs, keeping me eyes open and puttin’ two an’ two together. You know better’n I how I do it. You studied it; I just do it.”
Lest he think me unappreciative of his efforts, I murmured, “Carry on.”
“Morestone’s got rheumatiz pritty bad. And he don’t do much surgery no more, on account of his ’ands is all crippled up. His brain’s as sharp as ever, but the old machine is wearin’ out. He looks like a man who could use a rest, but he’s probably giving a thought to his daughter, isn’t he? He needs to stay active until she’s taken care of, married or provided for, one way or another . . . One more but I found out, Doc,” said Budger, his pale eyes dancing with secret amusement. “He put in some time as an Army surgeon when he was a young ’un. He might take a shine to ye.”
I told Budger that I appreciated his efforts on my behalf, and despite his disappointment, I hurried away from Harley Street determined to forget his presumptuous arrangements for me.
However, my resolution did not withstand my curiosity. After a day or so, I began casual inquiries of my own and discovered Budger had made an excellent choice, by his lights. I repaired to the George and apologised for my brusque treatment of him. He took it well and allowed as how people didn’t like to have their lives arranged for them by an outsider. I did, however, have a question for him. Assuming I decided the situation was desirable, how was I to go about ingratiating myself to Dr. Morestone? This put Budger at a loss, but he said to leave it to him, he’d think of something, hadn’t he always?
In the meantime, I arranged a proper introduction to Dr. Morestone through my former mentor, Dr. Averill. It was at a reception for the new director of Lambeth Hospital, with the cream of London medical society present. I doubt I impressed him very strongly as there were many young doctors there, ready to make themselves agreeable in hopes of future notice by their betters.
One morning as I sat over a cooling pot of breakfast tea, I received a note from Budger. His writing was not educated, but the message was clear: I was to meet him at Dr. Morestone’s address in Harley Street at 12:20 promptly.
I wondered what adventure was afoot, as I dressed with more than usual care.
I appeared at the corner at 12:15 and started towards the doctor’s address. Budger’s bowler-topped head appeared from behind the steps of the house opposite and he waved me back. I stopped at the corner and looked around for a few minutes, wondering what Budger wanted of me. I checked my watch, and found that the appointed hour had arrived. I looked up as I slid it into my waistcoat pocket to see Budger’s arm motion me forward. As I started towards the address, a young lady came down Morestone’s steps and entered a brougham which had been waiting apparently for her. My brief glance had told me the woman was comely and well dressed. I assumed her to be one of Dr. Morestone’s patients.
No sooner had the carriage pulled into the street than I noticed Budger’s signal again from the corner of my eye. I looked about me wondering what I was supposed to do, when a boy with a handcart darted in front of the brougham. The driver reined in the horses to avoid collision and the horses shied. The urchin escaped, but a loud noise from across the street alarmed the horses further and they began galloping in my direction. The driver could not control them and they were gaining speed as they approached me. I limped desperately towards the horses, grabbed the harness of the one nearest me, and pulled with all my weight. With the aid of the driver we stopped the animals and brought the brougham to a halt.
My next thought was for the lovely occupant. I pulled open the door and found her sitting bolt upright, her face pale and her hands gripping the seat so that the knuckles showed white from the strain. She took one look at me and her eyes slid up as she fainted. I hoped it was from the shock and not my appearance. I propped her up in the seat and called to the driver that I was a doctor, that she had fainted, and that I wished to take her home. He answered that she was Miss Morestone and that she had just come from her residence. Rather than wait until he had turned the vehicle around, I swept her into my arms and carried her down the street to her father’s house.
The door opened as I climbed the steps. A maid evidently had seen what had happened and was waiting for us. She showed me into a parlour, and I laid the still insensible Miss Morestone on a horsehair sofa. Her father hurried in, his stethoscope still dangling from his neck. He pushed me aside (I had been beside Miss Morestone, taking her pulse), and examined her for himself. I sat on my heels and waited. He held smelling salts under her nose and presently she came around.
“Oh, Papa,” she said. “The most dreadful thing happened!” She then looked about her and noticed that she was in her own parlour and that I was present. She gasped and said, “This gentleman rescued me when the horses bolted. How did I get home?”
“There, there, now, you’ve had a fright,” the old physician replied. “You’re safe and sound.”
As if to prove his words, Miss Morestone sat upright and looked at me. “And you, sir, is it to you I owe my thanks?”
So abashed was I in the presence of her beauty, I merely nodded my head, not trusting myself to speak normally. I realised that I had held her in my arms in a moment of need, and would never again have that privilege.
“So I, too, have you to thank,” said Dr. Morestone. He extended his hand and we rose (me helping him slightly) and shook. “Who are you, sir? And how did you happen to be in Harley Street today?”
“I, too, am a doctor, and was coming to meet a friend.” In the excitement I had totally forgotten about Budger.
“In that case, perhaps we should not impose any further upon your time,” he responded. But a glance from Miss Morestone told me that she did not wish me to depart.
“My friend had not arrived,” I temporized, “so I am completely at your disposal.”
Tea was ordered and the doctor took a few minutes from his surgery to make my acquaintance again. I mentioned that we had met, and at his urging told him a little about myself. He then left me with Miss Morestone. Our conversation was commonplace—weather, health, and the current debate of Parliament. If eyes could speak, mine would have poured out the entire sonnet series of Shakespeare, so smitten was I with Miss Morestone’s charms. She seemed not immune to whatever charms I may have displayed. Before I left, I had secured an invitation to tea two days hence.
I scarcely remembered leaving and was halfway down the block on my way back to my lodgings when a familiar voice reached my ears. “Dropped yer stick, Doc.” Budger! I had completely put him out of my mind. It was now over an hour past our appointed time!
“Oh, Budger, my friend! I have completely forgotten you in the excitement! Did you see me take the lady into Dr. Morestone’s house? That was Miss Morestone, and a lovelier lady I have yet to meet. What were you doing by those steps? And what happened to the boy with the cart?”
Budger looked up at me quizzically and did not reply. Slowly the realisation came over me! Budger had arranged my “heroic” rescue of Miss Morestone!
“Budger, did you have anything to do with what happened today?”
“Now, how could I have anything to do wif an act of God, like an accident?” he said with a twinkle in his eye. I gave him a hard look and he gave me a cheeky grin and nothing more was said.
My visits to the George became more infrequent in the following weeks. I called on Miss Morestone as often as she would allow. I had progressed to dinner invitations and then to driving out with her (in her father’s brougham, alas). The old doctor took to me, and my fondest wish was granted on the evening he took me into his private study.
“You wish to marry my daughter?” he asked bluntly.
“More than anything in the world,” I replied.
“And what will you live on?”
“I receive half-pay from the Army and hope to find a suitable situation, perhaps with a hospital as a resident physician, so that I can support her.”
“I see. What would you think of coming here as my assistant?”
My mouth fell open and I did not trust myself to reply.
“The hours would be easier and I could use some help,” he continued. “If you’re not completely an idiot, you should be able to take over my practice so I can retire in a few years and enjoy my grandchildren.”
I could think of no suitable reply, but simply grabbed his arthritic hand and shook it until he winced. My problems were solved and my life better arranged than I had dared hope, and all thanks to Budger.
The ensuing months sped by. Miss Morestone and I were soon married, and I moved into the house on Harley Street. I began by taking overflow patients, and after a few months was seeing all but his oldest patients, whom he reserved for himself for old-time’s sake. In a year, I could scarcely remember the trying time when I stamped the streets of London, wondering bleakly what the future would be.
I retained, however, my friendship with Budger. He had declined to be my best man, saying it would not be seemly, and I’m sure Mary was relieved when I sorrowfully told her his admittedly garish checked suit would not stand up with us. He did sit in a place of honour, grinning like a cat who swallowed a complete aviary of canaries, remembering his part in our happiness. We met almost weekly after that at the George for a pint and a “natter,” as he put it. It felt good to escape my stuffy surgery and the busy round of patients for an hour or so. He continued to astound me with his gifts of acute observation. At his suggestion, I wrote some of them down and submitted them to the weekly magazines, but with little luck.
One afternoon, Budger asked what was sticking out of my coat pocket. It happed to be a story returned by an editor with polite regrets. He read it through slowly, then sat staring out of the windows of the George, lost in thought. “Wotcher need,” he said at last, “is some interesting blokes in yer story. You’ve got the action right enough, but the people don’t come through.”
I was astonished that an unlettered Cockney would have the temerity to criticize my literary efforts but as he continued I realised he had a good idea. I borrowed his stub of a pencil and made notes in the margins incorporating his suggestions. He added touches of behaviour that illuminated the characters in a way that I would never have thought of. I put aside my wounded pride as a neophyte author and revised the story along the lines he had suggested. The tale was accepted, and I shared the modest payment with Budger when we met. As time went on, our weekly meetings were spent working on other stories I had written. We had a certain indifferent success, until one fateful day when Budger said: “We’re too smart by half, I fancy.”
“What do you mean, Budger?” I asked.
“Instead of bein’ God and tellin’ all there is to tell, have the dertecktive tell ’em,” he replied. I had observed that Budger had a goodly share of mother wit, and while he was unlettered, in the sense of formal education, he was not unread. “Why, folks don’t want yer to be too subtle wif ’em, do they now?” he continued. I hadn’t been aware that he knew the word.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like sayin’ the man who ruined the girls was handsome. People like their villains to look bad. And the dertecktive studying who done it—you gotter give the readers a little show-off stuff, show ’em how ’is mind works, so’s they can see how ’e does it, not just spring to the answer on the last page.”
“Carry on. I think I see what you’re getting at.”
“Like that jewel thief. He collects art, he dresses well, and the ladies like him. When yer finds out he’s the crook, yer disappointed. Better make him despicable in some way. Or the boxer in t’other story. You’n me know that the bigger the fellow, the gentler he is. A big bruiser knows his strength and isn’t so apt to throw his weight around as some feisty little chump like me. In real life an ugly man can have a heart of gold, but it’s confusing in a story, isn’t it? But people expects the bad ’un to be nasty and pushy.
“And take the lady in the story who lied about the jewels. We both know that people can lie without turnin’ a hair, like the patients who come to yer surgery and don’t tell you everything, but expects yer to cure ’em in spite of what they’re holding back. Best let her give herself away a bit, or the end don’t seem ter hang right.”
I acknowledged the truth of that.
“In a story there’s got ter be sothin’ to give ’em away, so that yer reader feels good when the dertecktive solves the crime. Like me, I can’t tell a body too much about hisself or he’ll be up in arms and I’ll never get anywhere. But give ’em a bit to attract their curiosity, and they’re eatin’ outer my hand.”
I nodded with increasing excitement.
“Can ye fathom my meaning, Doc?”
“That I can, Budger! Let me mull this over, and I’ll bring you a story every editor in London will want to publish!”
True to my word, I returned in a fortnight with a new tale for Budger to look at. We altered some few lines together on my foolscap draft, then pronounced it finished. We drank a pint of mild to celebrate. “Doc, I think yer on the way to bein’ a spellbinder.” Better praise I never earned.
The story was accepted by Beeton’s Christmas Annual, and it opened a new chapter in my life. It began with a brief description of the narrator, then picked up a character Budger and I had put together. He had polish and education and a different physical appearance, but he had Budger’s gift of reading a person from slight clues. A show-off, but in an agreeable way with enough quirks of personality to be interesting. We created him without interest in money or women so as to be incorruptible. The narrator, who somewhat resembled myself, was self-effacing in the extreme and nearly colourless, but the protagonist achieved some popularity.
His first words were similar to the first I heard from Budger: “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”
“How on earth did you know that?” asks the narrator in astonishment, ever the naive but willing foil for the genius with whom fate had cast him.
It was all really elementary.