17. THE CASE OF THE OLD TRAMP

True in every age, the way nations fail to care for their heroes.

“Penny for the Guy, Mr ‘Olmes!” chirruped a crude juvenile voice, and we were joined by an urchin as we made our way down Baker Street towards the tobacconist’s shop where Holmes was to buy the shag he loved to smoke.

“I suppose I might have,” murmured Holmes, “and I’ll tell you what, Charlie, I’ll make it twelve pennies if you run a little errand for me.”

“Cor, Mr ‘Olmes! A whole shillin’!” exclaimed he Holmes had called Charlie. “What is it, guv?”

“I want you to go to Scotland Yard and get this message to Inspector Lestrade,” said Holmes, and he slid a folded sheet of paper into the rascal’s hand. “Here are six pennies, and when you hand it over to Lestrade he will give you another six.”

“Cor! Coppers from a copper!” hooted Charlie, and he pocketed the coins given him by Holmes and ran off like a dusty, grubby and slightly aromatic wind.

“What was that all about, Holmes,” I asked once the air had cleared.

“I want Lestrade to look into something for me,” sniffed Holmes. “It’s his job and he’s paid to do it! But I am deeply concerned about the gentleman following us.”

I stood stock still and looked around. Baker street was, as usual, a mix of large-skirted matrons and weedy bowler-hatted gentlemen going about their various businesses. The road was being constantly churned by iron-rimmed wheels and the more delicate rubber of the odd motor vehicle, but both sprayed dust into the air. A seedy-looking pauper was crouched on the curb, begging openly and a woman passed him buy, dropping a small low-value coin into his upturned hat. One thing was not obvious to me and that was the possibility that we were being followed.

“I see no one, Holmes,” I muttered.

“Then you are not looking properly, Watson,” he said as if he was reprimanding a young child for carelessness.

“Well, I couldn’t see the cove,” I said, moodily, and traipsed on.

“You will have observed the vagabond,” murmured Holmes, “the gentleman of the road, as it were, the individual in a torn coat and with trousers that have surely seen better days? Sitting on the curbside, weeping?”

I looked again. The seedy-looking tramp was surely not weeping! But when I stared I was suddenly aware that he was. There was more than poverty distressing him, for paupers rarely weep because they are poor. There was something else, and it must have struck Holmes as being worthy of investigation, hence his message to Lestrade.

“I shouldn’t think there’s much we can do for the fellow,” I said, sounding more sympathetic than I felt.

“I would ordinarily agree with you, Watson,” he replied, “but don’t you recognise the man?”

“I’m hardly likely to! I don’t frequent bars like his kind do!” I protested, “As you know I enjoy a small drink occasionally in a hostelry where people of his class never go! I’ll wager he’s weeping for lack of gin rather than something properly emotional, like the passing of a loved one beyond this veil of tears.”

“So speaks a medical man! Just take another look, Watson: glance merely, don’t stare!”

I looked again, this time allowing my eyes to pass over the fellow as if I was looking at something important that was beyond him, maybe at the other end of the street.

“There is something a little familiar about him,” I murmured.

“Watson, be more careful and less circumspect! Why, man, you were shot in your duties to his mother!”

“I was nothing of the sort!” I protested, “True, I was shot in the Afghan war when I was a surgeon hacking off shattered limbs, but so far British bullets have completely evaded me!”

“It was the Afghan bullet I meant, Watson. Be a good fellow and take a third look.”

This time when I looked the tramp was staring directly at me and for an impossible moment, underneath the grime and whiskers, I thought I saw a familiar face.

“Prince Arthur?” I whispered to Holmes, “He has the likeness of Prince Arthur, brother of His Majesty and son of the late blessed Queen!”

“But what of his appearance, Watson? What do you make of that?”

“He has the likeness of a royal prince but the cut of an urchin,” I said. “There are surely many who share that likeness, men blessed by chance with almost royal features. After all, the male face has a limited number of attributes and quite often like must coincide with like!”

“I would agree with you but for one thing, Watson,” said Holmes, “and that one thing is that man sitting there in the gutter actually is Prince Arthur.”

“Impossible, Holmes!” I ejaculated. “Dressed like that, and weeping openly!”

“I had a message from Mycroft,” said Holmes, pulling me along so as not to draw unwarranted attention to us, “and he informed my that Prince Arthur has intentionally disguised himself as the lowest of the low in order to see how the lower orders survive in this age of plenty.”

“They survive in music halls and gin palaces!” I told him.

“No, Watson, not those. They have meagre coin for their entertainment and to help them towards oblivion, but they do have the coin. No, I believe the royal Prince wants to comprehend the hardships of the very lowest classes.”

“But he’s a military man, Holmes, and no military man, surely, would sink that low!”

We entered the tobacconist’s shop and Holmes bought an ounce or two of dark shag for his pipe.

“You are wrong in every perception Watson,” he said as we left the shop. “The streets are thronged with beggars who fought for Queen or King and country! It is the one shame that soils the name of our greatness as a nation, that we send young men, fit though often undernourished, into battle so that our rulers can have ever broader lands to reign over and riches to bring home, and on their return we offer most of them nothing but poverty, starvation and death. It has long been so, and it is a blight on our national name!”

“And we have a Royal Prince enquiring by imitation?” I asked.

“Lestrade will be along shortly and he will arrest the Prince, will take him off the street for his investigation is surely over and has learned first hand the fate of soldiers.”

“Arrest him, Holmes?” I almost exploded, “arrest a Prince?”

“It is one way of removing him secretly from the streets, Watson. There is no sign saying here weeps a prince! Every day his kind are taken, often drunk or with minds warped by narcotics, by the forces of law and order and locked away in cells until they are fit to rejoin the humdrum of life. There was a time, thankfully past, when they were hanged for appeasing their hunger with stolen bread, for goodness’ sake! But the Prince, being a military man himself, wanted to see what became of those who bled in battle on their return home, and see for himself. Look!”

A police wagon had drawn up to the tramp-like Prince as we spoke, and he was hauled, almost cruelly, behind its bars and driven off.

Nobody looked. Nobody muttered about it being a sad scene for a noble warrior to live by, just a dirty old tramp being taken out of their way so that the air they breathed was once again untainted by his stench.

“And that was why he was weeping, Holmes?” I asked.

“He was weeping for those who returned to their kin with pieces missing, legs or arms that you yourself may have amputated in a blood-stained field hospital in faroff battles. He was weeping for the way our nation cares for those who make sacrifices so that they rest of us can eat beef on Sundays and smoke our pipes in peace.”

“It’s an eye-opener, Holmes,” I breathed, “it truly is.”

“And yes, Watson, you and I, we can open our eyes and we can hope to see!” said Holmes thoughtfully. “There are some who can’t.”

The police wagon, polished and with shiny brass hinges, pulled away, and through its small grilled window I saw a pale face looking out. The grime of the day had already been washed or wiped away.

© Peter Rogerson 03.08.17