A Study in Sherlock

The taxi driver threw me a rather disdainful look. “An all too memorable utterance whose very theatricality only serves to misdirect, if not utterly confuse. If only he knew the half of it.” He paused to sip his coffee. “Who else, now? Carlton Hobbs. Douglas Wilmer. Oh, yes, Peter Cushing. He was a very good Holmes, who oddly enough also once played Conan Doyle himself. As for Watsons, we’ve had Robert Stephens and his Watson, Colin Blakely; Christopher Plummer and his Watson, James Mason; and Mr. Jeremy Brett, of course, God bless him, with his two dedicated Dr. Watsons, Messrs. Burke and Hardwicke. We thought Granada Television really nailed it, Brett especially. Tell the truth, we thought we’d nailed him, himself, he was that good. Who else? Well, Dad had Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, but so have I since they’ve been knighted.” I nodded, encouragingly, so as not to distract him. “I’ve had that Yank, Robert Downey Jr., as a fare twice now; in town, for films one and two; mad sod, but pleasant with it; nothing like the real Holmes, of course, but great fun; lots of adrenaline and all that indefinable star power the tabloids are always going on about. That last time, he even had his Watson with him, our very own crumpet catcher, Jude Law. Girls chasing them both down the street, grown women, too, like they were a pop group or something, remarkable to watch, it was. My most recent Holmes was from the Beeb’s Sherlock, their modern take on it all, starring that bloke Benedict Cumberbatch. Odd bloody name for an actor, if you ask me, but it seems to stick in the mind, even if people can’t ever pronounce it properly. I also liked his Watson: Freeman, Martin Freeman; very believable and very down to earth, and a Hobbit now, so they tell me. Anyway, add it all up and there’ve been hundreds and hundreds of films. And dozens and dozens who’ve played Holmes on celluloid and TV, on radio and on the stage. And all over the world, too, even Russia and Japan. It fair boggles the mind, it does.”

“Who would’ve ever thought there’d been so many?” I agreed.

“All roads lead to Rome and all Sherlocks to London,” he said.

If you only knew the half of it, I thought, but I said: “You’re so right, the BBC’s Sherlock series is excellent and produced with real affection, I thought.”

“Yes, very clever, although, as you can well imagine, I didn’t much fancy all that business in the first episode about the barking-mad taxi driver as played by Phil Davis, an otherwise excellent actor. I ask you, why on earth tar the noble fraternal order of London taxicab drivers with such a nasty brush? London cabbies as murderous villains, I should cocoa. Where would visitors to London be, or Londoners themselves for that matter, without the honest, upstanding, supremely knowledgeable London cabby at their constant beck and call? Nowhere, that’s where. They’d have to lump it on the buses and Tube or put up with all the nonsense and malarkey of dealing with all those unlicensed mini-cab drivers, none of whom are required to have an exact knowledge of anything, let alone London. No, that whole rotten business spoiled it for me. I blame the writers, myself: character assassination of a respected hardworking guild, for easy plot gain, showed real lack of imagination on their part.”

Of course, I had to speak to that. “I didn’t at all take it as an ad hominem attack on all London taxi drivers; merely the portrayal of a single, terminally ill individual with a sick and twisted mind who just happened to drive a black cab. I’m sure the writers didn’t intend that it reflect on the entire profession.”

“Nevertheless, the damage is already done, isn’t it? Our reputation’s been scarred. Simply putting the thought in people’s minds is bad enough. And I tell you, it’s not easy being a cab driver; it’s hard work having to recall all twenty-five thousand streets within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross Station. And it’s not just about having an exact knowledge of London, and a green badge to show for it; with me it’s about having an exact knowledge of the Canon, as well.”

“The Canon? You mean, all fifty-six short stories and all four novels of the adventures and exploits of Sherlock Holmes as recorded by Dr. John Watson?”

“Of course, what else could I mean? I’m certainly not referring to all that fake Holmes nonsense that gets cobbled together on a depressingly regular basis by all them would-be authors. No, there’s nothing compares to Conan Doyle’s original stories. ’Ere, I’ll show you. You cop hold of this list of points of interest you want to visit.” He opened the tiny window in the plexiglass partition and pushed my notebook through to me. “Now you just shout out places on your list, in any old order, any which way around.”

“Very well,” I said, sitting back in my seat, “if it’s the complete Canon that you claim to have knowledge of, where does Cannon Street station figure?”