The Redacted Sherlock Holmes - Volume 3

Family

Dr Anstruther’s Practice

My reader may well consider the events described under the title The Stockbroker’s Clerk to have been concluded definitively. That story started on a Saturday morning with Holmes picking me up from my newly opened medical practice in Paddington and the narrative then switched location to Birmingham. It ended that same evening with the apprehension in London of the case’s main criminal by the police, and with the apprehension of his main accomplice in Birmingham by Holmes and me posing as an accountant and a clerk.

The main events of the day had reached their end by seven o’clock, but by the time the police had been summoned and statements taken, it was nearly midnight. Our petitioner, the stockbroker’s clerk Mr Hall Pycroft, had hotel accommodation in Birmingham and elected to return to it. I was anxious to return to my wife after my unexpected day-long absence and to spend the Sunday attending to the matters that inevitably arise when one has just opened a new business. Holmes also wished to return to London at the earliest opportunity and, accordingly, he and I boarded the train that trundles slowly through the night between Birmingham and London, just as Mr Pycroft had done the night before.

I was exhausted after the long and event-filled day, but perhaps due to the swift resolution of the case, Holmes seemed more alert than ever. We were the only passengers in our compartment and, while I stretched out on the seats, Holmes sat lost in thought. I could see something was still troubling him and I knew that any interjection from me would be unwelcome.

At last he too stretched out and said, It’s no good Watson, it won’t come to me. There remains something - some observation that I made today - that I am still unable to account for.

Really, Holmes? You seem to me to have solved the Pycroft case as completely as can be imagined.

Oh, that! The case for which I have dragged you from London to Birmingham this morning was a matter of such superficiality and my role in it so modest, I was going to suggest you withhold it from publication. The only reason why you may wish to place it before the public is to advertise your services as a doctor and to demonstrate your skill in reviving a man who was seeking to hang himself - for all that you may merely have postponed his appointment with the gallows.

I could see that Holmes had more to say and waited for him to continue. As I waited, I turned over in my head whether the matter which Holmes proposed I should advertise would help or hinder the development of my practice.

There is some trifling matter, went on Holmes at last, his brow still furrowed and his flow of words slow, some small thing of which I took note, which in the helter-skelter of solving this Birmingham case I failed to investigate. But it will not now occur to me what it is.

He drew on his pipe and sat back with his eyelids drawn three-quarters of the way over his eyes. There was a silence. I forbore to interrupt my friend’s concentration as he struggled to recall the matter to which he had referred.

The night train from Birmingham to London proceeds slowly and stays off the main routes to avoid arriving in London too early. This may be why it pitched and rocked far more than one might normally expect in these times of fast, comfortable and convenient rail travel. It was as the train swayed over a particularly bumpy set of points that Holmes suddenly sat upright:

By Jove, yes! The uneven stairs!

The stairs! What stairs? I asked, puzzled as to their relevance to the mystery to which we had addressed ourselves that day.

The stairs of your house and of your neighbour’s house.

I ran my practice from a house next door to another house occupied by a medical practitioner. Both practices had opened at the same time thirty years previously and that morning Holmes had deduced that I had the better of the two because the steps leading up from the street to my front-door were more worn than those of my neighbour. I waited for my friend to continue.

You said this morning that the revenue from your practice last year amounted to little more than three hundred pounds. This must mean that your neighbour is making much less.

My practice was in decline when I bought it, Holmes, I said a little defensively, because my predecessor became ill. It had previously turned over far more than three hundred pounds.

Nevertheless, from the state of the stairs, your neighbour must earn considerably less in fee income than yours.

That may be so. What of it? I said, slightly nettled by my friend’s sudden interest in my financial affairs and those of my neighbour.

Yet this accommodating neighbour of yours can afford to neglect his practice to the extent that he can ask you to mind it in his absence. Moreover, he actually takes more days away than you do, for when I ask you to join me in an investigation he is in your debt in terms of days worked.

I had no comment to make to this and waited for Holmes to continue.

Does it not strike you as strange that your neighbour can afford so much time away from his work even though his takings are much lower than yours?

My predecessor in my practice, Farquhar, charged higher fees than Anstruther, his neighbour, I said cautiously, not wishing to answer the question. Farquhar therefore attracted more well-to-do people whereas Anstruther drew people from the local factories, for whom a visit to the doctor represented a substantial expense.

Yet your steps are three inches more worn down than his, so not only does he charge his patients less than your predecessor did, but he has fewer of them.

I remained silent, but Holmes persisted.

You see my point, Watson. Either Anstruther must accept a much lower income than you, or he must have some other means of support. Moreover, you have an additional income from the royalties arising from the somewhat sensational reports you have made of two of our adventures, so his private income must be very substantial if he can afford to be away from his practice more often than you are.

If you must know, Holmes, I said with some acerbity as I was reluctant to enter into discussions with Holmes on my financial situation, I received a one-off payment of £25 for A Study in Scarlet. And the magazine selling the serialisation of The Sign of Four will retail at a shilling a copy, so my share, once all deductions have been made, is likely to be of most use for insertion into the Christmas pudding.

Does Anstruther have private means? pressed Holmes, his interest not deflected by my quip.

Not to my knowledge, although, as you say, he spends more time away from his practice than I do from mine, which makes what you say a permissible inference, I responded cautiously. The matters that Holmes was raising were not ones I wished to discuss with him, so I again sought to divert his focus by providing additional information. Anstruther has a passion for painting, which is why he is often away. He tells me that he favours cloudscapes and skyscapes and often goes to East Anglia to paint them. Maybe he sells them to provide himself with a second income.

So what are the costs of your business? Holmes persisted, as ever responding to the thoughts that were running through my head rather than to my words.

Really, Holmes! I replied after a slight pause as I considered whether to respond at all. This cannot be of concern to you. Pycroft introduced you to the notorious Beddington this evening as an accountant and this has obviously got to your head. For what it is worth, I am paying down the capital on the practice and on the house, which is also my dwelling. I additionally pay a receptionist two pounds a week as a wage and pay six shillings for her into a superannuation fund. This will pay a pension calculated as a percentage of her final salary when she retires. I also have all the outgoings of a normal householder and, to maintain the premium nature of my practice, I need to make sure the house is well maintained.

So your outgoings considerably exceed your income, commented Holmes.

As usual my friend’s speed of thought process and his lack of inhibition in expressing the outcome of it quite took my breath away. He continued: Your receptionist is costing you one hundred and eleven pounds and sixteen shillings per annum while, if you are paying off the cost of your house over twenty-five years with the related interest and meeting the running costs of the house, that will more than exhaust your three hundred pounds of income. This is before the cost of setting up your practice. Maybe I should try and arrange for you to join me on more cases. Royalties negotiated at a more remunerative rate than what you enjoy at present from your romances may be the only way of keeping your head above water.

I stayed silent.

And your neighbour’s practice must be in even worse straits. Anstruther must have a very considerable secondary source of income to enable him to remain in his profession for, although he may have paid down his initial capital outlay, his operating costs will be the same as yours. What do your patients say about him when they have seen him in your absence?

I was far more comfortable talking about my neighbour’s practice than I was about talking to Holmes about either my own finances or those of Dr Anstruther. They say little other than that it is less modern than my newly appointed premises, but he has been running it for many years, so this is not to be wondered at. They have not complained of the treatment. We all have our own quirks in how we administer treatment. I believe in pills and potions, whereas Anstruther believes in injections as it eliminates the delays caused by medication passing through the stomach.

To forestall further questions, I considered asking Holmes whether he was now obliged to make a commercial charge for his services, now that he was bearing the full costs of the rooms at Baker Street on his own, following my marriage. Before I could do so, however, instead of persisting with his line of forensic financial questioning, he settled back in the cushions of our train compartment and commented, Well, we have at least identified a mystery, even if we have no reason at present to seek to solve it.

Holmes’s remarks on my financial affairs were far more insightful than I had realised. When I subsequently spoke to my own accountant about my finances, he confirmed my friend’s adverse assessment of them, which had escaped me in the whirl of activity to set my practice up.

I assumed you realised that you were incurring losses on your business, Dr Watson, he commented. The fact that you had large liabilities to everyone apart from the taxman should have told you as much. When I suggested to my accountant that the losses I was incurring were something I would have expected him to tell me about, he added, I was focusing on ensuring that you met the onerous reporting requirements of a new business rather than on informing you whether your business was profitable or not.

It was only after these exchanges that I started to focus real attention on making my friend’s activities known to a wider public. My reader may recall the results in the long list of short stories which started with A Scandal in Bohemia, published in July 1891 after I had had the most modest returns referred to above from A Study in Scarlett and The Sign of Four. My stories attracted considerable attention in the national press, and Holmes’s business acumen ensured that royalties were negotiated at a highly remunerative rate. The preparation for the initial publication of these stories also coincided with the climactic events in Holmes’s campaign against Moriarty, which reached their apparently tragic conclusion in May 1891. Perhaps aided by the absence of Holmes, whom I believed to be at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls, I was able to grow my practice rapidly after the events described in The Final Problem, so that it delivered a revenue of over six hundred pounds in 1892.

In mid-1893 my dear Mary was carried away by the influenza and I had no desire to remain in living quarters which were now not only too big for one person but also provided constant reminders of her presence. Accordingly, I moved into modest bachelor accommodation in Church Street in Kensington, but I retained my consulting room in the house, rented out the handsome living quarters, and travelled between my new lodgings and Paddington every day. By early 1894, I had a medical practice which made a handsome profit, a satisfactory level of income from the rental of the Paddington house, and the royalties from my writings. These three sources of income comfortably offset the costs of my Kensington lodgings. Thus I could enjoy a level of pecuniary security I had never previously experienced, although, I need hardly add, my improved financial situation was as naught when set against the grievous loss of my wife. The entirely unexpected return of Holmes in April 1894, which I have related as The Empty House did something to fill the void caused by her death, but I had no intention of abandoning my practice until the grotesque events which I am about to relate.

One morning in May 1894, I was running my surgery. Anstruther had again asked me to minister his patients as he wanted to have a day away. It was therefore a weary look I gave my trusted receptionist when she came into my consulting room to say that two men wanted to see me. I probably brightened when she opened the door to them and I saw that the first was the tawny-bearded Inspector Gregson. The other was a young man with dark features and a beard as florid as Gregson’s. He was introduced to me as Dr Barker.

When Gregson shook my hand, I could see from a white and drawn look on his face that he had an unpleasant commission to carry out, but I had no idea what form it would take. The thickly bearded Dr Barker declined even to respond to my proffered hand.

Dr Watson, Gregson said at last, Dr Barker here is a medical doctor and a member of the Roman Catholic faith. As you know, cremation was legalised in this country about ten years ago. Its legalisation was strongly opposed by Dr Barker’s church and he has been undertaking a study of its impact on the disposal of the bodies of the dead. He has come up with some highly disturbing figures about deaths in the Paddington area and we would like to discuss them with you. We have come to you first among the doctors in Paddington as you are known to us through your work with Mr Holmes.

I am happy to help in any way I can, I said, and was startled to see Gregson avert his gaze before bidding Dr Barker to make his deposition.

Although I am, as Inspector Gregson stated, said Barker, in a high, querulous tone, a medical doctor, I do not in fact practise medicine. I am instead attached to the renowned actuary, the Society for Life Assurances, as their medical adviser. Much of my work is on the statistics relating to mortality and death rates and, over the years, I have used my combination of skills to perform a number of studies of my own.

Pray continue.

"The largest cremation site in the country is in Woking in Surrey. I have examined the records of the people cremated there. Cremations have been carried out on all ages and all classes of people over the last ten years. The human body is