George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

A shame I never got to meet your brother, and it might be a bigger shame still if you were to have to meet mine.

Billy the Pagefirst appeared in The Valley of Fear , the last of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels. While he didn’t get much attention in the original canon, he was seen more in Doyle’s three plays, and has appeared in a few screen adaptations. Notably, Billy was also Charlie Chaplin’s first stage role, both in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: A Drama in Four Acts and William Gillette’s The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes.

You want to talk about important, right? It’s all well and good to say Dr Watson’s important to Mr Holmes, but he writes the stories, don’t he? Of course he’s going to make himself big talk in his own stories. That Lestrade fella, he shows up a lot. Probably he really is a bit important because he’s a police sort and takes the criminals off to prison once Mr Holmes gets clever and finds ’em.

But none of them’s there every morning, crack of dawn ’til whatever sound dusk makes, making sure Mr Holmes sees the people he needs to see and gets the messages he needs to get. None of these people would even see him if it weren’t for me bringing ’em in, you know.

And eating; three times a day, like actual clockwork, I give a knock to let him know he needs to eat. His brain’s so full of clever things, you see, he’d forget otherwise. One time Mrs Hudson roasted an entire chicken, and you could smell it all the way up in his study, and he still didn’t know supper was on. She said: let him starve, the fool, but that’s not my job, is it?

That’s why he needs me. That’s why he needs Billy. Take away Billy, and what’ve you got? A really canny cove who starves himself and doesn’t know who’s at the door.

Suppose that goes for any Billy, really. Between us? My name’s Humphrey. The one before me? Alfie. But we’re both Billy. And whoever comes after us’ll probably be Billy, too. Easier than remembering new names every few years, I guess.

Wiggins’ll have a go at me whenever he sees me, though. Thinks being a page is too soft a job. Asks me how long it takes to shine all the buttons on my jacket every morning. Talks about what he’s bought with his latest guinea prize from Mr Holmes. Says he got in fistfights with big tough sorts – I don’t believe that or he’d have some proper bruises, right? He’s really awful jumped up, though, is Wiggins. Even more so since Dr Watson started mentioning him by name in his stories.

The other day he says – Wiggins says, I mean, not Dr Watson – the other day he says, “Maybe Holmes just don’t trust you with the important stuff. That’s why he keeps you at home instead of sending you off on actual important jobs.” Which is not the case, thank you – and people might know that if Dr Watson ever decides to write up certain other cases. That Valley of Fear business, maybe. (People’d love that one – just a suggestion.)

Besides, how’s he know? Maybe I am doing big, important jobs. Maybe, just maybe, Mr Holmes gives me the extra important work because he knows I won’t go bragging to every last person in Britain.

Right, so this is just between you and me. I wouldn’t go telling just anyone, because it ain’t proper, but I know you’re cast iron. You won’t go blabbing about this all over the place, will you? Course not. Like I said. Trustworthy. And it’s my job to know people, since I gotta let ’em in to see Mr Holmes every day.

Sometimes I get these letters to deliver that are so secret, so private, even I don’t know what’s in ’em. And I carry ’em! I never look, though. Never. Not even once. You ask Mr Holmes or Dr Watson. They’re sealed, and never have I ever delivered one with a broken seal. Not a one time. Not even when my life was on the line.

You take last Friday. Middle of the afternoon, Mr Holmes calls me in. He’s in the middle of opening the window for some fresh air, and he hands me a letter. “This message contains sensitive information of the utmost importance,” he says, all big and loud and important. “Take it to the usual recipient, and see that you’re not followed. Use whatever back alleyways and shortcuts you need to, but make sure you get it to him at his practice.”

“Back alleyways?” I say. “The usual recipient” is Dr Watson, see, and I’m thinking I could run down the main streets and get it to him twice as quick, maybe even take a cab if Mr Holmes’ll put the money forward.

But, Mr Holmes, he knows what he wants. “You must exercise all stealth,” he says. “I am unconcerned with alacrity. I can’t have you being seen dashing down the main roads, and I certainly cannot have you being followed. You can make your way back here any way you please, but lie low as you go. Make sure no one sees the letter, and definitely make sure no one knows to whom it is headed.”

Lie low as you go. “Yes, sir, Mr Holmes!” And I tuck the letter in my pocket and I’m on my way.

There’s a series of back alleys and a few cuts through back gardens I can take so you’ll never even see my face on the main street. That’s the way I go, just like Mr Holmes asks. Not a soul back there but myself, but even so I’m sticking close to walls and shadows. Because you never know, and I follow my directions to the letter.

I’m coming ’round a corner, quiet as you please, and there’s a man standing in my way. He’s some toff’s servant for sure. Probably a butler from how he’s dressed. But he looks like he’s been stuffed into that suit. There’s no way he’s an actual butler.

“Young Billy, I presume,” he says, and he’s giving me this look like he’s deciding whether or not he’s gonna skin me. “On our way on a mission from Mr Sherlock Holmes?”

I ask how he knows it’s me, and he points at my jacket. “We’ve seen you coming and going from his rooms more than once.”

Drat. That’s stupid of me. I’m not lying low if I’m wearing my uniform, am I? But it’s too late now. I try to sidestep him, but he follows me.

“You seem nervous,” he says, but he’s saying it in this really superior voice like, you know, almost like he’s enjoying being a bother.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’ve got somewhere to be and I’ve got a big lunk standing in my way, course I’m tense.”

I figure he’ll get angry at me for that, and his face does go a little red, but all he does is stick his hand out. “You’re carrying a piece of correspondence. I request that you give it to me immediately.”

“Nah,” I say, “I don’t think I will.”

Now he’s going really red. “Young boy, I fear you do not understand the something-or-other of what you’re carrying.” He said an actual word, but I can’t remember what it was. It was one of those big expensive words like people say when they want you to think they’re more important than you.

And I tell him, “I do and all, though. And I know it’s not for you, so clear off.”

Then he squares himself up all big, which isn’t easy considering he’s not really tall, and he gives me that look again but a lot worse. And he points at the letter in my hand and he says, “That piece of correspondence concerns my employer. You may have heard of her: a Mrs Henrietta Oxford.”

“Never heard of her in my life.”

“I find that hard to believe, as she is a match for your master both professionally and intellectually.”

I laugh because that’s not right. I’ve never even heard of her. There’s no one’s a match for Sherlock Holmes, and if there was we’d all have heard of her by now. But he ignores my laugh and just keeps talking.