Famous Lost Words

Why do murder victims in crime stories go all cryptic when they die ?

Take the Sherlock Holmes story The Speckled Band. It would have been so much easier for Julie to have just said 'snake'. No, but she has to get her dying tongue in a twist with " the....speckled..band".

How you'd love the coroner's report to read : "Died from the strain of thinking up a cryptic phrase to build the plot. Death by stupidity. Signed."

By the way, if you haven't read The Speckled Band , don't bother now. It was a snake. My apologies. In my defence , I didn't put it there.

The misadventures of Sherlock Holmes – 7

"This reminds me of that fateful encounter with Prof. Moriarty", said Holmes staring vacantly at his iPad. It was a cold and gloomy morning and we had just concluded breakfast at our 221 B Baker Street lodgings. What had induced this comment was the singular case of the environment-fanatic who had caused much bloody turmoil within the premises of Discovery Channel.

" Yes Watson , the more i think about it ", continued Holmes " the more it . . . " . He let the sentence trail off the better apparently to pursue his own train of thought. He pushed the iPad aside, lit his pipe , closed his eyes - in short , exhibited all the signs of being immersed in deep contemplation.

I knew better. This remarkable - if recently wasted - man had taken to availing himself of rather more than the proverbial forty winks of slumber after Mrs Hudson's excellent ham , eggs and bacon each morning. I suspect the quantities of cocaine he consumed besides , unencumbered now by not having to aid the process of solving some of the most complex detective cases ever presented to man, did not much to help.

" Up , Holmes !" , i cried. For such laxity in matters of personal habit went against the very grain of both my personal belief and professional practice . Besides I had another , more selfish motive. Namely, to gather at last the missing threads that would bind that singular story pertaining to the end of Professor Moriarty's vile career such as Holmes had caused it into a seamless whole.

Such readers as may be advanced enough of years may remember the case which had caused such a public sensation that year. Professor Moriarty - Environment extremist , founder of Greenwar and as dark a black hearted villain as ever existed upon the face of this earth - had finally met his comeuppance at the altar of my friend Holmes' brilliance .

Moriarty had been promulgating a radical agenda pertaining to issues of the Environment , Sustainability and Non-Fossil Fuels- based Renewable Energy through his infamous Greenwar organisation. Most of his demands were of a singularly peculiar nature . To expatiate but a mere handful which springs readily to the mind , these included organic laptops, web browsers entirely green of colour , a blue whale as prime minister presiding over a cabinet comprising assorted fauna from the Amazonian rainforest , SUV's made of palm leaves and helicopters constructed from compost. He and his notorious organisation had wrought incalculable harm upon the civilized world with their many terror campaigns across it, all conducted under the cloak of anonymity.

Then Holmes by dint of deduction remarkable even by his exacting standards of those days traced Moriarty's whereabouts to a cybercafe in Cairo whence after the course of many a harrowing cat-and-mouse battle , the theatre of their war finally shifted to a climax in the Sahara desert. There - deep in the unforgiving desert , amidst the dire dunes ,witnessed by nary a living soul let alone live television - Holmes overpowerd the wretch into mortal submission in a legendary encounter.

But it was to be a legend that only the outlines were known of. Nobody ever received even partial possession of the details. Neither Scotland Yard nor I , his closest friend and confidant, knew them. I perceived this now to be an opportunity to be seized of the facts such as they were.

" Come , come ! It hardly befits a person of your standing to succumb to the temptations of indolence so early in the morning. Up Holmes and pray elaborate , sir , on what ensued in your final encounter with Moriarty. For it is about time the facts emerged from the murky depths of conjecture and up to the clear surface of truth !"

That Holmes awoke from his sedated reverie only after a prolonged interval of time bears but no labouring upon. Nor shall I elaborate upon the considerable quantum of effort i had to expend towards that end. I am sympathetic , dear reader, to the demands our Twitter updates places upon our time. Suffice it to say that I managed at last to produce some semblance of response from Holmes.

" Moriarty lured me to an especially confounded area of the desert" , said Holmes. " I was thirsty , Watson , with such thirst as only the unforgiving desert sun can bring on in man. And having drunk to the last drop what remained in my water bottle , I was in much trouble.

"My good Watson , you have always been kind enough to attribute the faculty of deductive reasoning to my undeserving person. I can not of course deny that Providence has indeed bestowed me with a modicum of this ability. And it is to these deductive powers that I turned now . I reasoned that the clump of coconut trees placed there could well be a source of the precious life saving fluid I was so severely in want of. So i took swift aim with my Colt revolver and fired lustily at them."

"But what astoundingly clever thinking , my dear fellow !" I ejaculated , marvelling again at his genius.

The emotion in Holmes' reply startled me. " It was a mirage , Watson, a mirage !" he cried " In reality there was not an inch of green in those infernal sands. To make matters worse , i had exhausted the last of my revolver bullets .
And then the hellhound accosted me. Moriarty was armed to the teeth with both gun and grenade. And there I was dehydrated and de-armed. It looked like the end was nigh , Watson - I was to be exterminated by a viper and a vermin then. I abjured my pride , sir , and pleaded with him to spare me. 

I pointed out that I too was a part of the planet he so wanted to save. I especially stressed upon my support for his position on global warming. (And what more appropriate a context in which to do so , I said). I swore to reduce my carbon footprint. I gave him my word that I'd switch to recycled products. I promised to be on more friendly terms with whales and dolphins. I professed my love for the endangered tiger. I expressed my deep sympathies with the extinct emu. All to no avail , Watson. 

The fiend was determined to finish me. He fired at me . Luckily , he missed. It is my considered advice now to those set upon going green with their guns to reconsider the use of recycled bullets. Then , he hurled a grenade at me. Again , it did not go off. Why ? My dear Watson , but it was solar powered and - as devices based on unentrenched technology often will - it malfunctioned. So there we were at last , both evenly unarmed. "

" Ah , so you overpowered him in direct body combat !" , i said.

Holmes appeared evasive: " Not precisely Watson , not precisely." He hesitated for a moment. "Truth be told Watson , I took to my heels and fled."

" What !" , i cried. I was stung by this revelation. Had we all got it wrong then ? " How did he die then , Holmes ? Out with it man ! Tell me for the sake of all that is honourable in this world !"

Holmes replied uncertainly : " A cosmic force of nature accounted for him. "

I could brook no further nonsense. " Come come Holmes ! Arrive directly at the point , sir" , I snapped.

A sheepish Holmes returned quietly : " He perished of sunstroke." 

Then he quickly added : " But it took me  not two moments to deduce the cause of his death, Watson "

The misadventures of Sherlock Holmes – 5

(Readers of the Sherlock Holmes books will have noted how Watson good naturedly puts up with the patronizing that Holmes often subjects him to. Strawberry Fields Occasionally came across this unpublished memoir that paints a hitherto unknown picture. Incidentally this appears to be the last of Watson’s memoirs)

It was a cold and gloomy afternoon.

“Watson, will you be so good as to fetch my case”, said Holmes.

“Fetch it yourself, Holmes. I am busy”, said I cold but civil.

“Ah Watson! I see you have been visiting Prof. Moriarty’s website. Tut , tut. This is hardly becoming of you”, returned Holmes with what he hoped was a kindly tone.

It only irritated me.

“But confound it, Holmes! You could not be more wrong. I have scarcely used the internet these last few days if only you were not too self absorbed to notice. I am tired of your smug sense of superiority. After all, you haven’t solved a case in ages and such little deductive prowess as you may have possessed in some distant past is long spent.

“I am finished with you, Holmes, quite as much as I am with these chronicles. They have ceased to be worth bothering about.

"I fully intend, Sir, to share this assessment with Conan Doyle - with a recommendation, if you must know, that he switch from the crime fiction genre altogether and pursue a style more along the lines of , say , a Woody Allen.”

The effect this ejaculation had upon Holmes was profound.

Shaken he muttered – “Have I lost you now to Manhattan Jewry and the vulgarities of the New World, Watson?”

Then suddenly he was kneeling at my feet: “Oh no Watson! For the love of God, Watson! I shan’t be able to endure not being written about. What good is a fictional character that is not written about ! Oh for pity’s sake! I shall do anything you wish me to do. From this moment on, my good Watson, your wish is my dearest command. Allow me to but serve you all my life!”

“In that case, Holmes”, I replied coolly “you might perhaps clean my pipe for it is in dire need of cleaning.”

He did a very good job of it too. I was particularly impressed with how he subjected the pipe to an examination through his magnifying lens with a view to ensuring that the minutest trace of dirt had been removed.

The misadventures of Sherlock Holmes - 4

It was a cold and gloomy afternoon. Holmes and I sat by the warm fireplace of our apartment at 221 B Baker Street and watched “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. Holmes had had not many cases of late and had begun to spend a lot of time watching TV.

As the show wore on, I began to feel increasingly more appalled at Holmes’ evident lack of any general knowledge of note.

For instance, his answer to “What was Coldplay’s first album?” was “Thriller”.

Or take “Where was Jack the Ripper based?” Holmes’ response to that was – “Under my thumb”

“My dear Holmes”, I could not help blurting out, “but frankly this is shocking! Pardon me for asking, dear fellow, but to what level of schooling have you been educated?”

“Only elementary, my dear Watson”, replied Holmes distractedly as he pondered the capital of Papua New Guinea.

The misadventures of Sherlock Holmes - 3

(Readers old enough may recall the case of the Emerald murders and the ripples they caused in the highest , most exalted Diplomatic circles all across Europe in the year 188- . What is not known is the singular role that Holmes played in solving the case. Indeed, the affair was cloaked in such delicate secrecy that many of the principal players themselves were unaware of the fact.)

I recall it was a cold and foggy morning in the summer of 188- and we were at breakfast when a telegram arrived for Holmes. Holmes had been distracted and keeping to himself of late. He was often confined for days on end within his room. At other times he would lie upon the couch gazing vacantly at the ceiling and smoking his pipe. A silent restlessness betrayed his passive demeanor as he frequently enquired after the mail.

A nervous storm was clearly brewing and it was liable to break in any short matter of time. I knew that the precipitation of a fresh case to consume the energies of this remarkable man was imminent.

Little did I know, however, of how significant, grave and fateful a case it would be in deciding the fate of an entire continent

The storm broke with the arrival of the telegram.

Having abandoned all pretence at eating breakfast Holmes hurriedly read through the note. Every word read seemed to add to the weight of its import. A grave and feverish excitement was much in evidence as Holmes leaped to his feet and cried:

“Your bags, my good Watson! Pack your bags at once! For we have such travel to embark upon as brooks no delay. Make haste, my dear Doctor. To Paddington. At once!”

As it happened, I was scheduled to watch a new Quentin Tarantino film that very afternoon; I could not possibly miss it. I had also planned on a tranquil morning of leisure to precede the show and was seized with no great enthusiasm to upset that plan.

“My dear Holmes”, I replied carefully as I speared the excellent bacon “I fear it is not within the orbit of my good fortune to embark upon this journey and partake of the delightful adventures it no doubt has in store for you. I hope that you pardon my absence. I wish you good luck.”

I played no further part in the adventure. Truth be told, I was unable to even follow up. As I recall, a commitment with the Greenpeace movement had taken up much of my time around that period.

And that is why you, dear reader, will not read about the Emerald murders.

The misadventures of Sherlock Holmes - 2

“Ah Ms Bedford, but this case bestows upon me the most hideous disappointment of having to turn it down” said Holmes.

It was on a cold and foggy afternoon that Ms. Bedford had graced our abode at 221B Baker Street. She had come in with a case that had baffled everybody - that being the case Holmes had just turned down.

“But why Mr. Holmes?” enquired a visibly disappointed Ms. Bedford

“I confess, Madam, that I do not believe I possess such ability as is required to solve it”, said Holmes with what perhaps I alone recognized as a trace of sheepishness.

“Oh Mr. Holmes, I must admit to a feeling of disappointment. I had intended to offer you the consideration of 100,000 sterling pounds for the kind favour of solving this case.” said this beautiful daughter of a wealthy baronet.

Holmes’ eyes lit up.

He said: “Perhaps I can offer a violin rendition of Bach’s Partita in D Minor for a quarter of that sum? Or some Haydn perhaps?”

This offer having drawn a vacant stare from its recipient, Holmes added breathlessly, with a touch of desperation almost: “I shall be glad to throw in a deduction or two as to the state of the weather next week. At no extra cost, of course”