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Authors: N. M. Scott
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of morbid sightseers, descending on the Wimborne as though for a show of carnage at the Roman Coliseum. Word had got out that Philip Troy, responsible for writing the lyrics to the latest smash musical
The Giant Rats of Sumatra
, had been murdered back stage. I was glad to be quitting the West End for it seemed to me under the gas lamps that people looked as ghoulish and hungry as marauding vampires, eager to be somehow part of this event, to be involved and able to say, ‘Look at me – I was there.’ No, I confess I was glad to get out. No doubt Inspector Lestrade would be leading an investigation into the matter. Good luck to him. Holmes and myself had bigger fish to fry for Doctor Wu Xing represented a breakthrough. How I longed to hear what he had to relate concerning his controversial patient.
‘A monster,’ the Chinaman murmured, smoking an exotic, perfumed cigarette from an ivory holder carved with writhing black bears locked in combat. As our four-wheeler rattled along Drury Lane towards High Holborn, we were at last able to gain speed once we extricated ourselves from the jam of omnibuses and carriages along by the Theatre Royal.
‘Pardon me?’ said I, peering out as the dun-coloured fog, less persistent, lifted in places so that I could see we were approaching Long Acre upon our left.
‘A monster smash, Doctor Watson. Nothing shall stop the publicity machine now. Demand for tickets shall be phenomenal.’
‘Indeed,’ remarked Holmes, puffing on his pipe as our cab clattered through foggy London, onwards towards Oxford Street.
16
Doctor Wu Explains
Once indoors in the familiar surroundings of our diggings in Baker Street, blinds drawn, lamps lit, cosily aglow, a good fire raging in the grate, Holmes poured us each a glass of whisky. He charged his long cherry-wood pipe with the strongest shag from the Persian slipper attached to the corner of our mantelpiece and, once he was sat cross-legged in his favourite armchair beside the hearth, gently began to probe the clever if conceited mind of the Chinese doctor of alternative medicine.
‘You have a clinic, I believe?’
‘Yes, in Mayfair – in a brick and stucco terrace off Regent Street.’
‘Plagiarism – stolen ideas – that’s where part of the problem of this confounded multi-faceted puzzle of murder and bodily rejuvenation lies, is it not Doctor Wu Xing?’
‘You are of course correct, Mr Holmes. The original idea for the light opera that I am sure both of you enjoyed this evening at the Wimborne, came from Ethby Sands. Perhaps you noticed a Japanned upright piano he keeps in the bay in his sitting room at Albany. It possesses pleasant memories for him and has a very impressive history. When he first visited my clinic he told me how, as a young man, he was a passable pianist. He could play Chopin or a ragtime tune for friends at a supper party. He was not of a professional standard and was entirely self-taught.
‘One winter’s afternoon he claimed to me he saw the face of his long dead mother in the gilt mirror and was instantly moved to sit on the stool and randomly play at scales. He swears, gentlemen, that in under ten minutes he composed a catchy hymn tune, that at first he was convinced he must have heard before at a concert or choral gathering, or at a church. He wrote down the music upon the back of a cigarette packet and thought no more of it until, when entertaining some fellow residents in Albany he played it to the conductor Lonsdale Chymes, who instantly said he had a smash. The rest, as they say, is music publishing history. The Americans loved it, church choirs loved it, orchestras performed the piece, and even today it remains a popular tune played in front rooms throughout the land. Boosey & Hawkes have so far sold thirty million copies of the sheet music and counting. The title ‘Take Thy Tiny Hand in Mine’ was likewise Ethby’s, who of course wrote both words and music to his ‘little ditty’ as he fondly
The Giant Rats of Sumatra
, had been murdered back stage. I was glad to be quitting the West End for it seemed to me under the gas lamps that people looked as ghoulish and hungry as marauding vampires, eager to be somehow part of this event, to be involved and able to say, ‘Look at me – I was there.’ No, I confess I was glad to get out. No doubt Inspector Lestrade would be leading an investigation into the matter. Good luck to him. Holmes and myself had bigger fish to fry for Doctor Wu Xing represented a breakthrough. How I longed to hear what he had to relate concerning his controversial patient.
‘A monster,’ the Chinaman murmured, smoking an exotic, perfumed cigarette from an ivory holder carved with writhing black bears locked in combat. As our four-wheeler rattled along Drury Lane towards High Holborn, we were at last able to gain speed once we extricated ourselves from the jam of omnibuses and carriages along by the Theatre Royal.
‘Pardon me?’ said I, peering out as the dun-coloured fog, less persistent, lifted in places so that I could see we were approaching Long Acre upon our left.
‘A monster smash, Doctor Watson. Nothing shall stop the publicity machine now. Demand for tickets shall be phenomenal.’
‘Indeed,’ remarked Holmes, puffing on his pipe as our cab clattered through foggy London, onwards towards Oxford Street.
16
Doctor Wu Explains
Once indoors in the familiar surroundings of our diggings in Baker Street, blinds drawn, lamps lit, cosily aglow, a good fire raging in the grate, Holmes poured us each a glass of whisky. He charged his long cherry-wood pipe with the strongest shag from the Persian slipper attached to the corner of our mantelpiece and, once he was sat cross-legged in his favourite armchair beside the hearth, gently began to probe the clever if conceited mind of the Chinese doctor of alternative medicine.
‘You have a clinic, I believe?’
‘Yes, in Mayfair – in a brick and stucco terrace off Regent Street.’
‘Plagiarism – stolen ideas – that’s where part of the problem of this confounded multi-faceted puzzle of murder and bodily rejuvenation lies, is it not Doctor Wu Xing?’
‘You are of course correct, Mr Holmes. The original idea for the light opera that I am sure both of you enjoyed this evening at the Wimborne, came from Ethby Sands. Perhaps you noticed a Japanned upright piano he keeps in the bay in his sitting room at Albany. It possesses pleasant memories for him and has a very impressive history. When he first visited my clinic he told me how, as a young man, he was a passable pianist. He could play Chopin or a ragtime tune for friends at a supper party. He was not of a professional standard and was entirely self-taught.
‘One winter’s afternoon he claimed to me he saw the face of his long dead mother in the gilt mirror and was instantly moved to sit on the stool and randomly play at scales. He swears, gentlemen, that in under ten minutes he composed a catchy hymn tune, that at first he was convinced he must have heard before at a concert or choral gathering, or at a church. He wrote down the music upon the back of a cigarette packet and thought no more of it until, when entertaining some fellow residents in Albany he played it to the conductor Lonsdale Chymes, who instantly said he had a smash. The rest, as they say, is music publishing history. The Americans loved it, church choirs loved it, orchestras performed the piece, and even today it remains a popular tune played in front rooms throughout the land. Boosey & Hawkes have so far sold thirty million copies of the sheet music and counting. The title ‘Take Thy Tiny Hand in Mine’ was likewise Ethby’s, who of course wrote both words and music to his ‘little ditty’ as he fondly
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