A Study in Sherlock

I nodded. “The regimental tie, of course. He also identified the rod and serpent on the lapel pin. And as for the carefully contrived mufti, the badly scratched Rolex, and the suntan you had me work on these past many weeks, they all proved inspired.”

“So very cooperative of him to have seen what we wanted him to see.”

“Yes, and as you can hear, he’s rather pleased with himself about it. But as you’ve always said, ‘Blood will out.’ ”

My colleague nodded and I opened a second application that brought up a detailed map of London onto the screen. The red dot moving slowly across the display, as if directed by some unseen force, told us that the tiny Hitachi satellite navigation transponder I’d managed to get positioned up under the rear wheel arch was functioning properly. It remained to be seen just how effective the dozen or so specially colour-matched RFID tags of various sizes I’d secreted around the cab would prove to be, especially in conjunction with the Real-Time Location System we’d only recently acquired, but that was work for another day. Meanwhile, our once-friendly cab driver continued to vent his spleen.

“Why on earth the constant need to push Holmes onto an ever-gullible public? You’d have thought everyone would be sick to death of him by now, but there’s a never-ending stream of it and it’s only gotten worse of late. Every damn Tom, Dick, and Harry is dreaming up some new madcap scheme or other to do with Holmes and Watson. There are those dreadful big-budget Hollywood films, the damn TV series, seemingly multiple one-offs; books and audio books and bloody e-books, all coming out of our bloody ears; and that’s not counting those violent bloody video games and all those weird comic books intended for illiterate adults. For the life of me, I can’t imagine what it is everyone hopes to achieve with it all. And I absolutely dread to think where it’s all going to end. They should just bloody well leave well enough alone and stick with the Canon, plain and simple; surely that should be good enough? I know none of it’s still in copyright, but is that any reason for everyone to keep on taking a bite out of the old beekeeping bugger?”

There was a long pause and but for the continued background noise I would’ve thought there’d been a break in transmission. I held my breath, hoping against hope that the “cabby” hadn’t spotted any of the microphones I’d hidden inside his taxi. Thankfully, though, my worries proved groundless, as it soon became very clear he’d simply been gathering his thoughts.

“And you know what really gets my goat, it’s the fact that it’s us who’ve actually done the most to keep his reputation alive. I mean, where would the name of Sherlock Holmes be without your own particular brand of genius? He’d be a mere footnote to detective fiction, nothing more. The plain truth is, whenever his name is mentioned, people always remember you in the same breath; it’s you they remain most in awe of. So if, as they say, a man is truly defined by his enemies, then it’s you that’s most clearly defined him and that should rightfully take the lion’s share of any glory that’s going.”

It was then we heard the voice that once heard can never be forgotten. I glanced over at my companion, who nodded and removed the long cherrywood pipe from his mouth, his eyes suddenly as hard and as black as obsidian.