36. THE CASE OF THE FAT LANDOWNER

Concerning the greed of a wealthy landowner

Sir John Digworth wasn’t called Blaster for nothing.

There are some men who seem to automatically attach themselves to a nickname that best describes their personality, and Sir John was a blaster if ever there was one. He was one of those men who has propelled himself through life from the cradle with a determination that would be most laudable if it didn’t go against everything that’s decent in humanity.

But Sir John Digworth was far from being decent. He was one of those Englishmen who is totally convinced that he is in the world to be served by it, a Tory of the old sort, wealthy and ignorant. He believed that whatever he saw and whoever he interacted with had been placed where they were for his soul benefit, and if he didn’t like them, well, they could go hang!

And he arrived at 221b Baker Street by appointment one fine August day.

Sir John was a big man with a florid complexion and the air of a man who has spent his life overindulging in what he sees as the good things offered by life to him and him alone. He even gave off the slightest odour of them, the whiff of this or that luxury still fresh on his breath and the impregnation of his last ten course meal still drifting from the fibres of his suit, along with bacon and dripping!

“Ah, Holmes,” he said, addressing me until I had to indicate that I was a medical man and the gentleman sitting near the bay window was Sherlock Holmes, the unbelievably great detective.

“Ah, Holmes,” he began again, this time addressing my friend correctly, “you will have to render assistance, not that assistance is a thing I usually require, but I have need of land and the blighter is obstructing me.”

“Please be more precise,” instructed Holmes in a tone of voice that suggested that he had as much liking for Sir John as I or indeed anyone had.

“As you may be aware,” began the bloated knight, “the Digworth lands stretch from the River Severn along a promontory almost as far as Keyworth. It has long been so, since, I believe, the Norman Conquest when my distant ancestor pleased the King, William by name, and was given the territory as a reward. It has never been disputed until now.”

“Ah,” murmured Holmes, seeing light in the shadows of the man’s words, “so there is some legal document? Some precise and written description of the territory that doesn’t tally with your own written description? Maybe some ancient parchment sealed in crumbling wax that defines your acreage?”

“I care nothing for such technicalities,” he almost exploded, and a sour blob of spittle actually landed on my upper lip. “The truth is I have rights and the other has none!”

“The other?” queried Holmes.

“A rascal! A criminal, and you understand criminals, I believe,” grated Sir John. “He occupies a narrow stretch of worthless land along which the railway company wish to build a railway line, and I will have none of it! My own fields will be at risk as fires spread from the firebox aboard the engines to destroy my land in conflagration after conflagration, and then all the toxins and poisons, not to speak of the wretches aboard the trains, worthless wretches on their way to waste their hours building sandcastles and pissing into the ocean! When they should be working, Mr Holmes, when they should be creating the wealth of our great nation! When they should be ambassadors of Empire in the factories and down the mines!”

“So it’s a railway you disapprove of?” asked Holmes.

“Of course I do! And it’s an Englishman’s right to have clean air in his lungs, not the black poison blasted out by steam engines making useless journeys so that paupers can paddle in the sea!”

“You would call the health of the working classes wasted, Sir John?” I interposed, “I am a medical man and I know for sure that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a few hours at the coast does men and women in every station of life a great deal of good and consequently enhances their productivity?”

“Anyway, Holmes, I want him off my land,” blustered Sir John, ignoring my comments which he no doubt considered to be much too socialist for his liking.

“Ah, so we are making progress,” murmured Holmes, “so there is a trespasser involved, one who is on your land and who you wish to see off your land?”

“There damned well is!” suddenly roared our guest. “He has pigs! Pigs, mark you, unclean beasts who wallow in filth and all manner of disease! That is bad enough, but now I’m told he is going to permit trains to run across the bottom corner and that is intolerable!”

“The bottom corner?” I asked.

“Yes, sir, the bottom corner!” almost spat the Knight, and this time I ducked. “He has his filthy sheds and grubbed up land, and his pigs, blast them, and at the bottom, beyond his hovel, there is a stretch of scrubland that the railway company wishes to run its trains on, and I will see and smell the stink of the smoke from the blasted engines as peasants are taken on their twee little day trips to the sea!”

“So the land isn’t actually yours by deed and document?” asked Holmes.

“Maybe … strictly speaking … it should be! I’m sure that’s what King William meant when he gave a living to my ancestor!” barked Sir John Digworth. “It’s what made our country great, sir,” he added, obliquely.

“Then I will look into it,” said Holmes mildly, “I will come to a decision after consultation with the proper experts and the farmer you seem to dislike with such an intensity.”

“Do that, sir, and you will see that by all that’s just in the world I am right!” was the spittle-infested reply.

I ducked again.

Next day we arrived at his pretentious home, a rambling half-timbered Tudor building surrounded by magnificent gardens and instead of calling made our way along a rural track to the far extremity of his land according to a document acquired by Homes before we set out.

“It’s very pleasant here,” I mentioned to Holmes as we strolled along, it being August and the weather still enjoying the best excesses of summer.

“Do you think that a passing train would ruin it, Watson?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. A passing train at full speed with steam coloured smudge-black by the smoke from its furnace might detract from the sparkling brilliance of nature that surrounded us, but so did the belching of a traction engine toiling on a field not far from where we were.

“It might for one or two minutes every hour,” I suggested, “but we both, of necessity, use the railways in our work. Transport is so important, particularly swift transport, and although I know that wealthy landowners have long objected to progress, progress is nevertheless essential.”

“Precisely, my dear Watson! So let us find the pig farmer and test his opinion.”

I don’t know what we had been expecting, but the pig farmer, Mr Abel Squires, was by no means the varmint we had been led to believe that he might be but a cheery fellow, hard-working and with a delightful wife who insisted on refreshing us with tea and cakes.

“He’s a testy cove,” said farmer Squires when we broached the purpose of our visit. “He and I never did get on and in all truth it was him as caused my old man to fade and die, what with all the arguing and plaguing and general threatening. But I’m made of sterner stuff than was my old man, and he don’t get at me!”

“Threatening?” asked Holmes, suddenly alert.

“There have been one or two fires I put down to old man high-and-mighty Digworth,” explained Squires, “pigs have been burnt to death in their sties, and that ain’t right. The local constable’s in Blaster Digworth’s pocket, so he doesn’t do anything. But when the railway comes, well, my pockets will be deeper and then maybe I’ll be better placed to stand up for myself. It’s just a sliver of my land that they want, not enough to cause any disruption to my main business, which as you know, Mr Holmes, is pigs.”

“And none of the land concerned is on the Digworth estate?” I asked.

“You can check if you like,” replied the pig farmer, “it don’t even go within sight of Blaster’s estate. There’s a stretch of woodland separating the route of the railway from his boundary! No, what’s really motivating him has nothing to do with the railway company but me and mine. He’s always wanted my land. But it’s mine, and that’s the way it’s staying.”

“Come, Watson!” said Holmes when the conversation had come to an end. “We must go to see Sir John and give him our decision.”

“Which is?” asked Abel Squires as we prepared to leave.

“That Scotland Yard is to be informed of criminal threats made against you with the recommendation that the local constable gets transferred as far from here as maybe, and a fresh pair of legs replace him. And that you’ve just doubled the price of your best bacon. I happen to know how fond he is of it! There was a certain distinct aroma when he called on me at Baker Street!”

“You noticed it too?” I asked Holmes, grinning.

“I couldn’t miss it, Watson,” he replied, “it even made me feel like breakfast!”

© Peter Rogerson 26.08.17