by C.P. Woods
The stories that never can be told, the impossible dreams that have no conclusion; there are great examples of these in literature. Frank Stockton's The Lady and the Tiger, a deliberate puzzle which occasioned long and fruitless discussions several generations ago, or Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which led to many able or inept attempts to provide satisfactory endings to a mystery forever unsolved because of the author's death are among them.
All this is well and good, but nothing equals in this context the awful frustration in the matter of the numerous fantastic cases involving Sherlock Holmes, all cases with great and wondrous titles, but no body. We can but wonder at them. To select at random, let us mention the case of Vanberry the wine merchant, the singular affair of the aluminum crutch, the case of Ricoletti of the club-foot and his abominable wife, the problem of the Grosvenor Square furniture van, the Netherland-Sumatra Company and the colossal schemes of Baron Maupertuis, the singular adventures of the Grice Pattersons in the island of Uffa, the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, the repulsive story of the red leech and the terrible death of Crosby the banker, his famous investigation of the death of Cardinal Tosca, the story of the "Matilda Briggs" which was associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, or the case of the two Coptic patriarchs.
These are all, indeed, great puzzles. But are any quite as perplexing, as curious, as the matter of Holmes and Charles Augustus Milverton's housemaid?
Said Holmes: "I am a plumber with a rising business, Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have talked with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I wanted. I know Milverton's house as I know the palm of my hand."
You will remember Holmes was planning to burgle Milverton's house.
"But the girl, Holmes?" asked the conscientious Watson. To which Holmes justifies misleading the young lady by explaining, "I rejoice to say that I have a hated rival, who will certainly cut me out the instant that my back is turned."
"I have walked out with her each evening." Please consider this and the curious question it brings forth. How did Holmes entertain the young lady? By what devious conversational stratagems did he succeed, on those occasions, in extracting from the girl complete details of the entire floor plan of Milverton's house? Wouldn't the young lady quite rapidly realize that her new suitor had rather unusual ideas in chatting, wouldn't she have wondered a bit about her new friend's idea of entertainment--nothing but talk about the arrangement of Milverton's house. Surely Holmes would be astute enough to know that there should be something else on the program. But where would he, in his feminine- free life, have picked up a pattern, as he said, walking out with a young lady? Consider this, that in a matter of what could have been only a comparatively few days, Holmes, as Escott the plumber, supplanted a rival for the housemaid's affections, even to the extent of becoming engaged. In modern parlance he was nothing less than a "fast worker," indeed. Where did he acquire this skill as a gallant? Watson is the only source that comes to mind. But Watson, although acknowledged as somewhat of a ladies' man, did not, one is sure, consort with housemaids. This may be said without in the least demeaning the merits of honest toil, as exemplified in house work.
And it would require a very flexible imagination indeed to conceive of brother Mycroft being of any assistance whatsoever in a matter of this nature.
What did Homes do to steal her regard from his so-called rival, who, we may assume, was well qualified in dealing with young ladies of her social station.
Did he regale her with feasts of fish and chips, or even lowly eels and cider? We think not, because even as accomplished an actor as Holmes would hardly stoop that low in establishing a character. Did he take her to a pub or tavern? Wouldn't the girl have thought it strange they never met friends of her new escort?
Left to his own devices Homes would well have opted for Simpson's in the Strand, or possibly Rules, but the young housemaid would surely have been out of her depth there. Perhaps, as a rising young plumber, he would have taken her for high tea to a Lyons restaurant, a step up in her life, and thereby shown her a treat that the hated rival would not have thought of. Then, perhaps, to a music hall, where at least she would get away from that boring discussion of the Milverton house floor plan. Perhaps he took her to the Windmill theatre, which would be well within her taste.
But disregarding all this, what did they talk about, and where would Sherlock have acquired the knowledge of what a young housemaid would find it jolly to discuss? As all the evidence shows, he had no background whatsoever, and certainly no foreground, in such matters either from a personal or professional standpoint, and one cannot believe that in his spare time he would read rather low caste popular romances.
And at last, how, we may well ask, did Sherlock, as the plumber Escott, succeed in breaking his engagement without being confronted by an angry father, a weeping mother or a battling brother complete with formidable fists.?
Who can answer these questions? No one, Echo answers, as no one can answer the question of the Lady or the Tiger, or what happened to Edwin Drood, or assertain the details of the unwritten accounts of Sherlock's untold but wonderfully titled cases.
Or, indeed, what the hapless housemaid truly thought of Escott, the persuasive but peculiar plumber?