Sherlock Holmes and the lost tiger (3)

You would think, given that St Paul’s cathedral had been swallowed whole by a tiger, that Holmes would rush to the scene of the crime as quickly as possible, but instead he remained steeped in ganja smoke, lost in his own thoughts.

 

“Holmes,” Lestrade pleaded, “This is a national emergency. You have to come. You’re the only person who can stop the tiger.”

 

“Really Lestrade, I have priorities. Watson will come with you and can feed back his findings to me.”

Lestrade practically begged for Holmes to help him, but reluctantly accepted the next best thing, my good self, with a promise to report back in detail to Holmes.

 

Mrs Hudson was outside the door waiting for us with hats and coats, as if she’d been listening in and knew we were about to leave.

 

London was in turmoil as we stepped outside, people were fleeing the city in panic. Lestrade had a cab outside waiting, but it was of little benefit, as the crowd of traffic meant that we could hardly progress. All over London could be heard the cries of news-vendors, ‘St Pauls swallowed by tiger’.

Eventually we reached our destination. I was pleasantly surprised to see St Pauls, still standing.

 

“This whole thing is a hoax,” I said, amazed. Though the Times is far from perfect, I had never known it to invent a story from nothing. England will cease to be England if there should come a time when the Times of London cannot be trusted to portray the facts.

 

Lestrade beckoned over a police constable and demanded a full account of events. They spoke for some minutes before the officer was sent away.

 

“There’s a hole,” said Lestrade, “Just in front of the cathedral, but the building’s still standing as you can see. There’s a bit of brickwork missing, but it hasn’t done much damage to the cathedral itself. I’m afraid the story’s become a bit exaggerated in the telling.”

 

We made our way to the front of the cathedral, where there was indeed a gaping hole in the ground, some two football pitches in length. “No deaths, amazing,” said Lestrade. Just a few people injured. A few hundred yards and it would indeed have swallowed up the whole of St Paul’s.”

 

I inspected the hole in the ground in great detail, though I could make out no discernible cause. Certainly there was no smell of explosives. It was as if the ground had been eaten up by a giant tiger, though of course I rejected this as a credible explanation.

 

“We’ll have to close off St Paul’s for the time being,” Lestrade was saying, “It could collapse into the hole at any moment. We’ll have to get road builders in as soon as we can to fill in the hole, which means we don’t have long to inspect it. It worries me that Holmes isn’t here, he has the habit of spotting things everyone else misses.”

 

This was a rare confession from Lestrade, but I could tell he was overwhelmed by the task in front of him.

 

I spent a few hours at the hole, measuring it accurately so as to report back to Holmes, and sought in vain for a cause, but found nothing of consequence, nothing to connect the hole to either the tiger or the square-toed man responsible for the tiger’s escape. I decided to return straight home, rather than go via Baker Street, as in light of the panic running through London Mary would be worried by my continued absence.

 

I had a few patients to attend to the next morning, escaped tigers and swallowed-up cathedrals don’t get in the way of a medic doing his duty, so it wasn’t until the afternoon that I arrived at Baker Street to report back on my trip to St Paul’s.

 

Holmes was not alone, he was with a fashionable young lady with whom he was sharing his ganja pipe.

 

At first I assumed she was a client, but it soon became apparent that no business of any consequence was being discussed and, indeed, the friendly nature of their discussion suggested an intimacy I had never known him to have with any man bar myself, let alone a woman. I had always assumed Holmes to be without friends during my absence, but this assumption was now robustly challenged.

 

“Ah Watson, it’s you. Not eaten by a tiger then?  Allow me to introduce Lady Carlisle Chivers, doubtless you know of her. She’s a regular feature in the society pages, a must for every fashionable party and friends with everyone of any importance in London, including intimate friends with the king himself.”

 

“Very intimate,” Lady Chivers said with a giggle, induced no doubt by the cannabis she was smoking, whose intoxicant effects are particularly notable in the fairer sex.

 

I waited for Holmes to ask me about my visit to St Paul’s, but Holmes showed no interest in my exploits of the previous day, indeed after his initial introductions he barely acknowledge my presence. I played no part in the intermitting conversation, which focused on nothing more meritous that the quality of the ganja weed they were smoking, a blend of the drug apparently known as Tiger’s Paw, and mindless tittle-tattle and gossip about every playboy, gadabout and bon vivant in London.

 

Eventually I gave up waiting for Holmes to show any interest and instead interjected at one of the many lulls in the conversation when Holmes and Lady Chivers exchanged the pipe of Tiger’s Paw.

“I should tell you about St Paul’s Holmes,” I said. “You’ve no doubt heard that the building itself is still standing.”

 

“Yes Watson, it would appear I sent you on a wild goose chase.”

 

“Not at all Holmes, I was able to inspect the hole. There was no sign of gunpower or any other explosive, nor I should add was there any tiger tooth marks,” I paused, anticipating one of Lady Chivers’ giggles, but for once there was silence from her corner. “The hole itself measured 186 yards north to south by 228 yards east to west, and was roughly circular in shape.”

 

“Thank you Watson. As ever you have taken great care to note every irrelevant detail. I take it you found nothing to prove the tiger’s involvement in the hole?”

 

“There was nothing Holmes.”

 

“You found nothing Watson, which is a different thing. Frankly if I hadn’t been so busy here I would have been better going myself.”

 

“Well I’m sorry you’re too busy for this case,” I said, hurt by his comments, and by his general lack of interest in my presence, “I shall leave you to your important business.”

 

I stormed out of the rooms I had shared with Holmes for so many years, to find Mrs Hudson waiting with my hat and coat.

 

“Have you seen the news Dr Watson?” she asked me.

 

“News?” I said. “Not another tiger attack.”

 

“No Dr Watson,” Mrs Hudson said, “It’s the government, they’re fighting back. They’re clearing the streets of vagrants.”

 

“Clearing the streets of vagrants. How on earth?”

 

She passed me a copy of the evening edition, which was headlined ‘London Fights back’. Reading the passage, it transpired that the fightback consisted of nothing more than emergency measures to empower the police to arrest and move on vagrants, who, the paper claimed, were providing the tiger with an easy source of prey. It was hoped that by removing beggars and vagrants from the city streets the tiger would go hungry and leave the city.

 

“What nonsense,” I said, but Mrs Hudson disagreed with me, stating that any measure to combat the tiger was fine with her. “You think more of vagrants and than you do of normal, honest citizens,” she said.

 

Whether it was the government’s clear-up, or the fact that people were staying indoors, the streets were almost empty as I travelled home. Al through the journey I was deep in thought. London was being changed overnight, no longer the free-spirited city I had known all my life, it was suddenly a city of terror, where reasonable people such as Mrs Hudson suddenly acquired unchristian views and the newspapers were turning facts on their head.

 

And through all this Sherlock Holmes, a man I respected and admired more than any other in the world, was nowhere to be seen, in his rooms with a giggling socialite, three sheets to the wind on Tiger’s Paw.