39. THE CASE OF THE SCOTSMAN’S KILT

Even a disguise can let Holmes down...

“This is to be one of my more important cases, Watson,” Holmes said to me, “and in order to achieve success I must attempt a rather complex disguise.”

“You often do, Holmes,” was all I said, trying not to display too much curiosity. At this time of year my own practice is busy and I can ill afford too much time away from my patients.

“And you must accompany me,” he added, eyeing me with a slight smile. “I will be a stranger to you … at least that’s the impression we must give. I believe that Lestrade has all but given up chasing the fellow but I’m more tenacious. I will get him!”

“Who?” I asked, trying not to affect a yawn.

“Have you heard of McCrabbie?” he asked.

“Jock McCrabbie? Of course I have! Hasn’t everyone since he made the front page of just about all the papers. The blackmailer with evidence that would cause many a high-born lady to falter. It’s a filthy crime, Holmes. Really filthy. Did he try to blackmail the King, do you think?”

“I believe he did,” muttered Holmes. “The evidence is irrefutable. He always did like to keep an eye on things that might benefit him financially in the future, and he kept his eye on a pile of letters foolishly written by Lady Fosdyke to the king when she was, shall we said, less discreet than a lady ought to be and he was a bachelor gay..”

“But she wasn’t Lady Fosdyke then, Holmes, and therefore I suppose she was free to be escorted by any man who pleased her, even a prince if she was so inclined.”

“It wasn’t the escorting, apparently, but other things that Lord Fosdyke would most certainly not want to hear about what his wife got up to,” said Holmes. “It may have been a long time ago and Lady Fosdyke, the dear lady, would most certainly not want to do anything of the sort with His Majesty now, but things happened. Serious things. Nocturnal things. Carnal things...”

“I say, Holmes, that’s enough!” I ejaculated.

“And she wrote them down,” sighed Holmes, “in letters to the prince. She wrote them down, and they were taken and passed on to McCrabbie who knows what they might be worth. If they became public Lady Fosdyke would spend he last few years with the shadow of her past hanging over her and shaming her. Now Jock McCrabbie is hiding in his so-called castle in Scotland and beyond Lestrade’s reach. So Shylock MacWall is off to the North, visiting a maiden aunt, and he is the very essence of the honourable Scot. And he will retrieve the lady’s letters, Watson, for he is the most able of Scotsmen in a kilt and can find his way where few others dare even try!”

“In a kilt, Holmes?” I almost sniggered. I have seen Sherlock in most disguises, many of them difficult to penetrate even though I know it’s him, but wearing a kilt? There is something at the back of my mind that suggests that true Scotsmen wear nothing under their kilts, which may be awkward on a windy day…

“And I will be the truest of Scotsmen, Watson,” he grinned, obviously reading my mind. “But to business. Tomorrow we catch the fast train North, and it would be handy if we shared a compartment for the journey as strangers.”

“I can’t be away from my medical practice for too long, Holmes,” I stressed. “There are several old ladies who believe that the only reason they still walk this lovely land is as a consequence of their doctor’s skill!”

“Then they will have to be patient,” he said.

The next day a bearded Scotsman in a yellow and blue tartan kilt was to be seen striding with the aid of a gnarled walking pole down Baker Street and towards the railway station. His brown and grey stranded beard, extravagant and extreme, almost flowed behind him as he stomped along, and the pole was audible for half the length of the street as he slammed it onto the ground with every determined step. And that kilt … it may have been new when Holmes bought it, but in the intervening period he had successfully aged it, creating an image that might be best described as “lived in”.

I left 221b a few minutes after Holmes, and followed him to the station, carrying my medical bag with me … just in case. When I arrived there he was having a loud and very aggressive argument with the poor fellow who issued tickets, and then, bristling, stormed towards the platform. It was all part of his assumed persona, but it did make the railway employee sadly shake his head.

“He dinna ken ya naw!” Holmes exclaimed to me when we were standing close together, waiting for the train, six syllables that conveyed nothing but meaningless aggression to me.

“Quite,” I said back to him.

When the train pulled into the station I watched as he climbed into a compartment and felt relieved when it was obvious that his antics discouraged others from following him into the same one. I, however, had no such worries and we ended up in the same compartment of a corridor carriage, with no other seats taken.

“Ruddy sassenachs!” he grumbled, “It’s a braw… och aye the noo!”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” I informed him, grinning broadly, “You’ll have to hone your Scots vocabulary before we get to the land of the brave!”

“Just in case we get overheard I intend to get forty winks, which will excuse me from conversation Watson,” he said, nodding. “Nobody can hear us unless the door is opened, but if it is it would be a certain give-away if we changed from English to pidgin-Scots in a breath.”

“We, Holmes?” I asked.

“Alright. Me,” he growled, and remained silent as we began our long journey North.

“You are aware that I’m a medical man?” I asked him after a while.

He nodded, choosing not to desert his character, his eyebrows raised quizzically.

“Well, this medical man is in a first class place to be able to judge what one particular Scotsman wears under his kilt,” I said, somewhat uncomfortably.

“Watson!” he snapped, and he pulled the folds of his kilt closer to his legs, “I researched this thoroughly and a gruff wise old Scotsman keep his nether regions free of any covering under his kilt,” he said evenly. “It is well known and hence expected.”

“Then just learn to sit modestly, Holmes,” I said, and added, “and just be grateful that it’s me who spied your delicate parts and not a blackmailing stranger.”

“This has put me quite out of sorts,” moaned Holmes, “I am embarrassed, to tell the truth, Watson, and to that end I am going to leave this train at the next station and pursue my investigation another day when I am wearing trousers. A disguise has to satisfy me that it is thorough, and I can’t have a collection of unsightly objects bursting into display spoiling everything.”

“It was you who called the unsightly,” I pointed out.

“We’ll resume another day,” insisted Holmes, “in trousers,” he added.

“And hope the blackmailer waits for you to be decent and forgets to blackmail?” I asked.

“A day or two shouldn’t make a penn’orth of difference,” he growled. “There’s a week before the lady’s time is up.”

We alighted the train at Rugby, and the first thing we saw was a placard by the new-stand that read Jock McCrabbie arrested. Blackmailer behind bars. Correspondence destroyed.”

Holmes picked up a copy and read the first paragraph aloud. It went Scotland Yard detectives have arrested the blackmailer McCrabbie and his ring of thugs has been broken. Letters held by him as blackmailing threats have been taken and destroyed. It is expected that McCrabbie will spend several years behind bars regretting his criminal deeds.

“Seems Lestrade was on the case after all, Holmes,” I said, “pity we had to waste our journey.”

“It wasn’t completely wasted, Watson,” he said, “at least I have learned a meaningful lesson about kilts and what to wear with them.”

“And under them,” I pointed out as we bought tickets for a journey back to London, Baker Street and trousers.

© Peter Rogerson 30.08.17