A Study in Sherlock

“Righto,” he shouted, and I heard him exit the cab and saw him fully for the first time as he came round to where I was still lying on the cold concrete. I slowly got to my feet, holding on to the side of the taxi for balance, and bent down and after a little scrambling around managed to retrieve my tweed cap, my walking stick, and my shoulder bag. As I brushed myself down, the cabby shook his head in sympathy. “You took a right tumble, but as long as you’re alright?” I nodded and waved a hand as if to wipe away the whole incident. “Very good, sir. I’ll get this garment bag of yours stowed up front. Need help getting in? Only, I’ve got a ramp I can pull out if you can’t manage the step?”

I shook my head, thanked him profusely for his concern, opened the passenger door, and climbed gingerly into the back of the taxi. The cabby nodded and returned to the driver’s seat. I have to admit I was a little shaken by the incident and I took no small comfort in hearing the door-locks engage as the cab drove off, up towards Praed Street. And I settled back in my seat, let out an audible sigh of relief, and then reached for my mobile telephone.

“Stop! Please stop! Please pull over,” I called out. “I think I dropped my phone, back there, when I fell over. If I can possibly get out and take a look?”

“Blimey. Righto. Hold on.”

The taxi skidded to a halt and the moment I heard the doors unlock I grabbed the door handle and was out and onto the pavement and off like the proverbial rabbit. “Thank you,” I called over my shoulder. But I hadn’t gone ten feet when I stopped dead and spun slowly around. “No, no, wait a minute. Fool me.” I returned to the taxi and bent down to be at eye-level with the driver. He lowered the window. “Sorry to be such a bother, but could you open up so I can take a quick look inside my garment bag before I go scuttling off like an idiot? As now I come to think of it, I’m sure I put the damn thing in one of the pockets.”

The cabby smiled, but I noticed his eyes were a tad wary, out of long habit, no doubt, but he nodded and opened the door to the front luggage area. I pulled the door fully open, nodded my thanks, and began feverishly unzipping the outer pockets of my garment bag, in my haste all but upending it and sending everything flying again: paperback, Moleskine notebook, spectacles case, tin of peppermints, ballpoint pen; there seemed no end to the contents of those deep pockets, but alas there was no mobile phone. I stuffed everything back, without regard to order or placement, zipping up the pockets and refastening the straps as fast as I could, although I’m sure I must’ve still appeared unduly clumsy. “I was so certain I put it in here,” I said. “Not at all my usual place for it, though; silly of me really.” Then I had a sudden thought and felt along an upper seam of the bag and pulled open the hidden pocket. “Here it is, of course, in the so-called handy secret pocket. Thank heaven for that; I’d so hate to have lost another iPhone. Don’t seem to know where my head is these days.”

The cabby nodded in seeming sympathy and gave me another look. “Right then, sir, now we’ve got that … er … sorted, Baker Street, you said?”

“Ah, no, look, on second thought, I think I better head straight over to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Giltspur Street.”

“Barts? Right you are, sir.” He paused, and I’d swear that for a brief moment a shadow flickered across his face. “That new Cancer Centre, is it, sir?”

I shook my head and gave him a reassuring smile. “No, no, nothing so serious; just a visit to the museum, the north wing; the Henry VIII gate will do.”

“With the one-way, I’d best drop you on West Smithfield Road, if that’d be okay?” I nodded. “Right you are, then, sir. If you’d just hop back in.”

So off we set again, my mobile phone now safely in my hand, my canvas shoulder bag by my side. London sped by at what a good and dear friend of mine had deduced was no faster than ever it’d been in the time of horse-drawn hansom cabs. I shook my head. Times and tides, indeed. I have to admit I felt not a little silly about the whole wretched incident and I could only imagine what the cab driver must’ve thought about it all. I took more deep breaths to help calm myself and looked around the interior of the cab. It was bright, airy, and clean, everything one expects of a London taxi, but there was something else besides.

“Excuse me, is this one of those new-style London cabs?” I asked, in a voice loud enough to attract the taxi driver’s attention.

“Yes, very well spotted,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Haven’t had it long, coming up on three or four weeks, now; the LTX4, top of the line, all mod cons, lovely little job; still got that lovely new cab smell.”

“Can’t quite put my finger on it,” I offered, by way of observation, “but it seems so much nicer, all round, somehow.”