Ted Riccardi - Between the Thames and the Tiber

“That was most beautiful, Holmes. I have never heard you play so well.”

“I thank you for the compliment, my dear Watson, but with all due respect to your extraordinary gifts as a medical practitioner, I am compelled by the rules of elementary honesty to say that your musical judgement is insufficiently developed for me to take any comfort in your generous words of praise, however well intentioned they may be. In truth, the Paganini pieces were fairly disastrous, ein Umstern , as the Germans would say. As to the Mendelssohn, the merest tyro can play it with a bit of concentration. No, Watson, the violin is one of the sources of the black malady that often overwhelms me, not its cure. It is, in fact, one of the reasons why I chose to become a consulting detective.”

Holmes reference to my somewhat inexperienced ear failed to offend me, for I had, after so many years, grown accustomed to his cutting words and had learned to ignore them. I continued to prod him about the violin.

“But surely you could have chosen a career as a musician had you wished.”

“No, Watson. A certain talent is present, no doubt, from the French blood inherited from my maternal ancestors, the Vernets. But I became aware early on that I had just enough of this talent to play well but not, unfortunately, supremely well. It has always been my judgement that one’s life should be devoted to what one can do at the very limits of one’s capabilities, the determination of which should occupy the better part of one’s youth. It was during the early period of my life that I came to know that I could not reach the highest peaks of musicianship, no matter how much a strong inner desire suggested such a possibility. In music, the hands, the brain, the will, all must be at one. My character I judged to be other. Rather than a single talent, mine was a group of talents that, skillfully employed, could be put to a supreme use: the struggle against the criminal. And so, I abandoned any notion of a life of music and devoted myself to the exploitation to the fullest of my greatest talents: observation and deduction. Thus, I created, almost single-handedly, the profession of consulting detective.”

“But surely, Holmes, you could have been mistaken about your musicianship. It is a road not taken, its end unknown. Who knows, had you tried, you might one day have become the greatest of living virtuosi.”

“I make few errors, Watson. In my line of work, I can ill afford them. I will admit, however, that youth can often mistake its path and that judgement of one’s own gifts is at best a difficult one. My original determination, however, may be confirmed once again by experiences in the future. Indeed, our next client may provide us with the occasion.”

“And who might that be?” I asked.

“I am expecting a distinguished guest this morning, Watson, who may need our services. You will recognize him instantly. It is through individuals like him, who have reached the highest rung of artistry possible, that one can evaluate, or re-evaluate one’s talents whatever they might be.”

“Very well, Holmes, I look forward to meeting him. I trust you plan to keep his identity secret until he appears—for drama’s sake no doubt.”

“Precisely, old boy. Now go about your business until Mrs. Hudson announces his arrival.”

It was impossible for me to concentrate on my picayune business matters now that Holmes had alluded to a special visitor. As we waited, I mused for a moment, reviewing mentally those cases that I had shared with him during the early days of our friendship. Our most recent case had come to us a few months earlier from the Andaman Islands, and I entitled it “The Sign of Four” in my chronicles. This adventure also provided for me a wonderful woman, Miss Mary Morstan, who was to become my bride in a few months.

As I stared into space, Holmes’s face broke into my reverie. After my marriage, I thought, we would see far less of each other, since the happiness of my domestic life and a growing medical practise would give me little time to look in upon my dear friend. I would follow his exploits as well as I could through the London press. In that way I would learn of his whereabouts. Sadly, I thought, his adventures would remain quite unknown to me.

“Perhaps, Watson,” he broke in, “in the interest of adding to your already voluminous files about me, you should have an account of my recent journey to France. It was a visit to Montpellier to do research on a host of new poisons that have entered the criminal market. There was no adventure in this, the journey being free of those lurid elements which you continue to relate in your popular accounts of my comings and goings, and it may not serve your purposes. Here, however, are the results of my research, dedicated to you, my dear friend, soon to depart for the land of domestic bliss.”

His voice was free of the usual sarcasm that accompanied his words when he uttered such sentimental thoughts. He leaned forward in his chair and handed me a substantial tome entitled “Poisons and Their Criminal Uses. A Monograph Submitted to the Sûretè of France by Sherlock Holmes.”

I was deeply touched by his gift and he saw my eyes mist over.

“Do not worry, Watson, I shall be here, and I promise you that I shall take no one new into our quarters. You are free therefore to come and go as you please. And I hope you will find the free time to come. I have already told Mrs. Hudson of the arrangement and she concurs. While we await our visitor, perhaps I should explain to you the reasoning that took me to France.”

I wiped my eyes, and muttered a hoarse, “Go on, old boy.”

“Very well, then, here is the case, or rather the reasons for my visit to France. It was to write a book about poisons, the one you hold in your hand.”

He did not move from his chair, but sat motionless. For a moment, and for but a moment, I could almost see his great brain as it scrutinized events and characters, thus bringing forth the detailed observations and deductions that led him to his inevitable conclusions.

“After we disposed of Jonathan Small, you will recall that I had little to occupy my time, and so I decided to spend a month in the south of France. There, in a cottage that belongs to a distant cousin, I continued some of the chemical researches that had been delayed because of my active professional life. My interest was in a number of poisons that I felt must be described in detail if criminal investigations were to be more successful.

“You have recorded already my constant dabblings with poisons and other toxins, and my knowledge of what you have termed sensational literature, by which phrase I assume you meant the history of crime. My historical knowledge, together with the recent results of my many experiments, I finally put down in this monograph published in France through the good offices of a friend in the Sûretè . Written under my name, it caused a bit of an uproar within criminological circles since it pointed to the increasing use of obscure but deadly poisons as a more and more common weapon of inducing death. I chose to publish the work in France, because my historical researches had traced the use of poison in modern Europe back to the late-seventeenth-century Poison Affair at the French court, in which several notables were involved. The poisons used by Marie Madeleine d’Aubray, marquise de Brunvillers, and by Catherine La Voisin, to dispatch many at the court of Louis the Fourteenth, were nearly all new at the time and the more difficult to detect because of their very recent appearance in Europe. The line between medicine and poison is a fine one, Watson, and my monograph showed how murder had been made easier by the recent increase in the number of substances now available from our colonies in India and Africa. The most common of these were of course the various strychnine poisons that were made from the seeds of the strychnos nux vomica, a plant native to India. These and others mimic many diseases and if given over long periods of time produce long suffering and, finally, death.”