The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

  The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

  The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle

  Timothy Miller

  Published 2021 by Seventh Street Books®

  The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle. Copyright © 2021 by Timothy Miller. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Cover design by Jennifer Do

  Cover design © Start Science Fiction

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Inquiries should be addressed to Start Science Fiction 221 River Street 9th Floor Hoboken, New Jersey 07030 PHONE: 212-431-5454 WWW.SEVENTHSTREETBOOKS.COM

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  978-1-64506-021-5 (paperback)

  978-1-64506-028-4 (Ebook)

  For Sanna

  Chapter One

  I have perhaps left the impression among my readers (such stalwarts as remain!) that, when Sherlock Holmes retired to his villa in Sussex to pursue his avocation as a beekeeper, his extraordinary career as the world’s first consulting detective came to a lamentable end. This was true in the main. But there were some few instances of such importance to the Crown that Holmes felt obliged to assist, even in his waning years. And there were certain cases, no more than a handful, of such bizarre aspect and puckered logic that he simply could not resist the temptation to wade back into the black cesspools of London’s vast criminal underworld. I have hesitated to record, much less publish, any accounts of these latter-day adventures. My friend has begged privacy, and earned it. Yet there was one case so singular, so wholly outside the pale of human understanding, that even after all these years I feel compelled to set down at least a précis of the matter. Whether it will ever see the light of day, I cannot hazard to predict. When I have finished it, I shall place it among my personal papers, and leave instructions with my publishers in case accident should befall.

  The story begins with my old comrade from Afghanistan, Colonel Hugh Pickering. And a very odd place it is to begin such an odd story, for there was never anything in the least bit odd about old Pickering. There were those among his associates who swore that his uncanny gift for languages was the result of a compact with the infernal, but that was only japery, or jealousy, more like. In all other respects, he was a paragon of conventionality, with the mildest disposition of any man I ever met. Then again, were it not for that peculiar linguistic facility, he would never have met Miss Eliza Doolittle. Nor would Sherlock Holmes and I.

  In the year 1912, it had been more than a decade since I had corresponded with Pickering. When last I had news of him, he was still traipsing about the subcontinent, ostensibly collecting scraps for a grammar of Sanskrit he was always threatening to publish. I thought it more likely a cover for his role in British intelligence. Pickering’s reports, idiosyncratic though they were, were always widely disseminated at the Foreign Office, although of course his contributions were never officially acknowledged.

  So I was both surprised and delighted that mild September evening when my housekeeper announced a visitor, and laid a card upon my table that read simply, “Colonel Pickering. 27A Wimpole St.” Colonel! He had been a lowly subaltern when first we met in Kandahar. And a Wimpole Street address to go with the title. Pickering had evidently done well for himself.

  As for myself, I was once again dwelling and practicing medicine in the flat in Queen Anne Street which I had taken after the death of my dear wife all those years ago. I had decorated the sitting room in a muted style meant to soothe the most anxious patient, with a portrait of Victoria Regina over the mantel and a marble bust of Admiral Nelson on a plinth by the door. The chairs were a compromise between Victorian rigor and modern indulgence: a patient might sit back in them, but never wallow. The articulated human skeleton hanging in the surgery gave some ladies palpitations, but it had been a gift from Holmes upon his retirement. I would not part with it.

  It was evident when Pickering appeared on the threshold that he had not haunted Wimpole Street for any great length of time. (My years with Sherlock Holmes have taught me some few things about reading people.) He was still brown as a walnut from his years in the southern sun. He still sported an erect regimental bearing. Yet there was also that mild diffidence about him that westerners sometimes pick up from the Hindoo native, a certain philosophical equanimity.

  “Wobbly!” he cried upon seeing me. “Pixie!” I returned—our old regimental nicknames, which I had long since forgotten, leapt unbidden to my mind. We shook hands warmly. I offered him a chair, a cigar, and a brandy, in that order, and soon we were knee-deep in misremembrance of our gallant youth. There was a great deal of “Remember old what’s-his-name?” and “When was it that droll thing happened?” but we pushed on through the gaps with the best will possible.

  Eventually we ran out of halcyon days to memorialize. Pickering’s brow clouded over. He set down his brandy and extinguished his cigar. “I’m looking for a fellow, Wobbly, a sort of human bloodhound, I’ve been told he is. And more, I’ve been told he’s your particular friend.”

  The allusion was obvious. “You mean Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Sherlock Holmes! That’s just the fellow! You do know him, then?”

  Here lay further proof that Pickering had not long been stranded upon the shores of Albion. He was barely familiar with the name of Sherlock Holmes, and wholly ignorant of my role in chronicling the great detective’s exploits.

  “You’re not in any sort of trouble, are you, Pixie?” I asked.

  “Oh, bless me, no!” The corners of his mouth dipped. “At least, I don’t think so. But I’ve come up against a sort of a puzzle, or enigma, or whatever. Damnedest thing. Could you introduce me to this fellow Holmes, do you think?”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Holmes has long since retired from detective work.”

  Pickering’s face creased in disappointment.

  “Perhaps I can be of help?” I suggested. “I worked with Holmes hand in glove for many long years. I don’t claim to share his natural gifts, but I’m as familiar with his methods as any man on earth.”

  Pickering brightened. “I’ll be glad to tell you the story, old fellow. If you can squeeze anything out of it, you’re a marvel.”

  Storytelling is thirsty work, and so is listening. I poured us both another bumper of brandy. He launched into his story, the tale of a distinguished phonetician, a girl of the streets, and a singular wager. It was indeed one of the strangest problems I have ever encountered, and I will admit without compunction that I could make nothing of it at all. I confessed it unabashedly.

  Pickering put on a stoic face. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, Wobbly. It’s a preposterous tale on the face of it.”

  “It is indeed, my friend. So much so that I would have called the fellow who told it me a fabulist or a madman, were it not solid old Pickering. But in its very absurdity is its allure. I think even the great Sherlock Holmes would agree with that assessment.”

  “You mean you’ll take my problem to him? By Jove, that’s capital.”

  Pickering’s excitement was infectious. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll take you down to meet him and let you plead your case in perso
n.”

  Pickering clapped his hands upon his thighs. “Better still. Where can we find the fellow?”

  “He has a villa down in Sussex, near Eastbourne. We can take the train from Victoria tomorrow. I’ll wire him to let him know we’re coming.” I had surrendered to the demands of the modern age a few years ago, and had a telephone installed. Holmes had not.

  Pickering left beaming, humming one of the old marches from our Kandahar days. My own spirits were considerably lifted in his wake, if only temporarily. But an hour of somber reflection left me in doubt that Sherlock Holmes would indeed take an interest in this case or any other. Pickering had described him as a human bloodhound; it had once been an apt description, but nowadays the old hound was as likely to be found lolling in the sun or stretched before a fire, dreaming of former glories. I had in my possession a whole dispatch box of cases meant for examination by Sherlock Holmes, clipped from a dozen newspapers—crimes that had baffled Scotland Yard, tangled mysteries and bizarre occurrences that would appeal to his yen for the baroque. I had never summoned the temerity to post a single one to him. Under scrutiny, none seemed really worthy of the great man’s attention. I didn’t know whether he even took the London papers anymore. He had been wont to pore over them like a Baptist with his Bible. Now perhaps they would only dredge up memories of a life deliberately abandoned. This was after all the same man who had ignored the French government’s pleas for help when the Mona Lisa was stolen. His exodus from public life had been abrupt and was still unexplained.

  I had even tried to soldier on without him, attempting to solve some of those cases myself, sitting in my armchair on Sunday mornings, applying his methods, mumbling his old aphorisms to myself. I had never got anywhere with a single one. Perhaps Pickering’s mystery would prove to be another such disappointment. But even if the affair provided no more than an excuse to introduce two of my dearest friends to one another, I told myself, it would suffice. Had I any idea of the events which were about to be set in motion, I would have quailed at the thought.

  Chapter Two

  Sherlock Holmes’s tumbledown old villa on the Sussex downs was the very sine qua non of a country squire. That squire was not Sherlock Holmes, who had made little alteration to the place since inheriting it from some distant relation. There was a quiet courtyard in front, undisturbed by visitors, and an overgrown garden in the back, red and white with clover, enjoyed only by the bees. There were rooms that Holmes swore he had never entered, for lack of any good reason to do so. Whether his housekeeper kept those rooms neat as a pin or whether they had become infested with field mice and black beetles was all one to him. His chief contribution had been to refit the old stable as an apiary. The drone of bees about the place seemed menacing at first impression, but gave way over time to a pleasantly soporific feeling.

  The sitting room I was ensconced in with Holmes and Pickering was reminiscent of our old digs in Baker Street, where so many of our adventures had begun, save that the catalogues and scientific instruments which littered shelves and tabletops were now all devoted to the art and science of beekeeping rather than crime. But it was an airier chamber, with a high timbered ceiling, and the tall windows looked out not on the parade of unwashed humanity in Baker Street but on the wide green expanse of the southern downs, with white cliffs and a blue sea shimmering in the distance.

  “So this is the great Mr. Holmes? All of London rings with your praises, sir,” said Pickering, shaking Holmes’s hand like a village water-pump.

  “You do me too much honor.” Holmes always pretended that compliments did not move him, though he basked in their glow as much as any man. “Please do be seated, gentlemen. Watson, I see the new chef at Simpson’s meets with your approval.” I blushed. He had noticed the weight I had put on since last we had met. Simpson’s had always been one of our favorite haunts.

  As soon as we were comfortably settled, Holmes’s housekeeper shot forth from the kitchen with a pot of tea on a tray and some marvelous seedcake. The housekeeper was herself round and plummy as a Christmas pudding. She was obviously devoted to her baking, and nearly burst with pride when she saw how avidly we wolfed down everything she put in front of us. Holmes was an indifferent epicure himself; he accepted the tea with an air of noblesse oblige, but abstained from the seedcake. “Mrs. Plymouth used to cook for my brother, Mycroft, before his death. She has never adjusted,” he said reproachfully.

  “Holmes! My condolences!” This was the first I had heard that Mycroft had departed this world.

  Holmes merely waved away the sentiment as if it were of no consequence. His saturnine countenance registered little in the way of emotion. He took a sip of tea, set the cup down on the arm of his chair, and settled back dreamily, his lanky limbs splayed out before him, his feet capped in carpet slippers, scuffed at the heel. His eyelids fluttered. I began to fear that he might doze off.

  Then from those hooded eyes there flashed that quicksilver light that I remembered from so many previous interviews. “Now then, Colonel: the matter,” he said quietly.

  Pickering set down his own teacup. “The doctor has told you everything?”

  “The details may have escaped my memory.”

  In fact, I had told Holmes very little, only enough to whet his curiosity. I had been half afraid that if I wired him all the details he would wire me back with his solution to the mystery and a remark or two disparaging my mental faculties. But I certainly had not expected this foggy-minded memory lapse.

  “Well . . . the long and the short of it, Mr. Holmes, is I believe he’s done away with the girl!”

  There was a beat of wings and a black shadow dropped like a plumb from the rafters. Pickering gave a start as it landed at his feet. The shadow let forth a raucous cry, picked itself up, and sorted itself into the shape of a bird: a large raven with glossy purple wings and an unwavering golden eye.

  Holmes ignored the bird. “That may be the short of it, but it can hardly be the long, Colonel,” he said. “Who is the he you refer to, and who is the girl?”

  Pickering had not heeded a word. His attention was entirely fixed upon the bird of ill omen at his feet. For its part, the creature seemed equally fascinated with him, glaring as if Pickering were a junior officer expected to give an account of himself. It let forth another gravel-throated cry.

  “Moriarty!” Holmes scolded the bird. “He’s not dangerous, Colonel, despite his namesake. I confide in him my thoughts; he does not publish them abroad as some are wont to.”

  He may have meant it as a backhanded reproach to me. I took it as an admission that he was lonely without me.

  Moriarty advanced on Pickering, his eyes hard with suspicion. Pickering shrank back. “Perhaps if you start with your first meeting with Professor Higgins,” I said, hoping to draw Pickering back to the subject at hand.

  He took a handkerchief from his sleeve and dotted at his brow. “Most extraordinary thing! I mean, if it hadn’t been for the downpour . . . but that’s not really where it begins, is it?” he mused.

  “Then pray begin at the beginning,” said Holmes.

  Moriarty paced the carpet back and forth in front of Colonel Pickering with the same nervous energy Holmes himself used to display when listening to the facts of a case. For his part, Holmes slouched back in languid repose.

  “Yes, but what is the beginning, eh? Watson here can tell you that my military career was not made illustrious by bravery or skill, or the mind of a military strategist. But I was useful to the Raj almost from the beginning as a translator.”

  “Not merely useful, but indispensable,” I said.

  Pickering gave me a nod. “Thank you, Wobbs.”

  I cast a sidelong glance at Holmes, praying that he had not heard the name “Wobbs.” He was a man who generally shunned society and had nothing but ridicule for school nicknames, club nicknames, or regimental nicknames. He rarely referred to me by my Christian name, and would have no more called me Wobbly than allow himself to be referred to as Sher
ry.

  “Do continue,” Holmes urged. If he had noticed the nickname, he mercifully let it pass.

  “Oh, yes. After the Afghan campaign wound up I was chivvied about from place to place, all over the subcontinent. I had a natural ear for native dialects and was usually able to pick up a new variant within a few days. But there were so many that I was forced to start taking notes to keep them all from running together in my head. Over the years my notes piled up so thick they could have made a book. Which is exactly what I did.”

  “Spoken Sanskrit” Holmes said quietly.

  Pickering was delighted. “I’m amazed that you’ve heard of it!”

  “Astonishing, Holmes!” I said.

  “Not in the least. There is a copy sticking out of your coat pocket, Colonel.”

  Pickering’s cheeks turned pink. “Oh, yes, of course. One never knows when one might need it, you see.” He looked down at his hands self-consciously, giving his nails a thorough inspection before he could go on. “Well then, a few years ago, I was posted to Bombay. Ever been there?”

  “Some years ago, but only in transit, while journeying to Tibet.”

  Holmes had never mentioned any such journey to me. But then his wanderings between the fateful events at the Reichenbach Falls and his return to London were largely a closed book as far as I was concerned.

  “Glorious city, if you don’t mind the crowds. And the filth. And, well, the filthy crowds. What struck me most forcefully about the place was the amazing variation of dialect and pronunciation from one ward to the next, sometimes even from one street to the next. An absolute hotbed of languages. I thought there could not be another such polyglot city in the world. Then I came across Higgins’s Universal Alphabet. Don’t suppose you’ve read it?”

  “The booksellers here in the country . . .” Holmes made a desultory gesture, as if the philistinism of local merchants was all that came between him and the joys of universal alphabets.