Read Online The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan by Ben Stevens - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ben Stevens
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to be priceless.
‘And as for you , who did all the work…?’
‘For me, there remains the promise of another cup of sake , and perhaps a bite to go with it,’ returned Holmes. ‘You’d care to join me, Yoshida- sensei ?
‘I am technically on holiday, after all…’
With that this remarkable foreigner stretched out one thin hand, to ring the bell and summon the woman serving us.
Sherlock Holmes and the Bare-knuckle Brawler
The following account of the case concerning the so-called ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’ is taken from the journal of Charles Bradley, the physician resident on Leaving Island. It was later translated by Sherlock Holmes himself into Japanese for me; I was in any case present for much of the proceedings. (Indeed, Holmes’s fabled powers of deduction saved an innocent man from quite possibly being hanged.)
But in describing the habits and language of the gaijin , the foreigners who inhabit Leaving Island, the English doctor Bradley is obviously at an advantage to me…
Bad feeling had existed between the two men for several months. Ever since James Plummer had arrived upon Leaving Island, in fact, he and Robert Figg (the so-called ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’) thus clapping eyes upon one another.
Was it merely a case of two men taking an instant dislike to each other, with no other obvious reason or cause? Although we would eventually find out exactly what the reason for this animosity was, at the time it seemed a mystery.
For a good while the two men would stare hard at one another when they passed, but otherwise they made apparent efforts to stay apart. They would sit at opposite ends of the dinner-hall, for example, and had no reason to consort with one another either at work or during their leisure-time.
But ‘Leaving Island’ (a loose translation of the Chinese characters the Japanese use to describe this island, created by digging a canal through a small peninsula and covering an area of barely one hectare) is hardly the largest of places.
Thus the ‘powderkeg’, as it were, of Plummer and Figg’s mysterious but still-obvious resentment was certain to explode, sooner or later…
On the day that it did, we happened to have none other than the famous English detective Sherlock Holmes as a visitor upon Leaving Island. He’d been invited here by the Chief Official, Captain Harold Spillard, as a sort of honored guest, being fed a quintessentially English roast dinner, before being given a guided tour of the island.
This tour could hardly have been of the greatest interest to the detective, given that Leaving Island consists primarily of drab warehouses, above which are the living quarters of the traders, sailors and so on who comprise the island’s inhabitants.
Most of these men (there are no women, save for those yujo , or Japanese ‘pleasure women’, who frequently steal across the bridge and onto the island at night, knowing that they will always find ‘business’ here) are English. There are also a few Portuguese and Dutchmen, although they tend to stay for a shorter period of time.
Holmes was accompanied by his friend, Yoshida- sensei , a sturdy-looking fellow who, I believe, works as a doctor, and also writes up Holmes’s cases within Japan from time-to-time. (A striking coincidence, obviously, given the similarities here to Holmes’s well-known friend John Watson in London…)
To this man, Holmes spoke in fluent Japanese; although he has been in the country only a few months, such is his remarkable intelligence that he can already speak, read and write this bewildering language fluently.
But I digress. I intended to describe the altercation which suddenly erupted one afternoon, between the ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’ Robert Figg and James Plummer. The two men appeared to have encountered each other, by chance, outside one of the stone-built warehouses; and finally their long-standing animosity bubbled over.
‘… think I’ve
‘And as for you , who did all the work…?’
‘For me, there remains the promise of another cup of sake , and perhaps a bite to go with it,’ returned Holmes. ‘You’d care to join me, Yoshida- sensei ?
‘I am technically on holiday, after all…’
With that this remarkable foreigner stretched out one thin hand, to ring the bell and summon the woman serving us.
Sherlock Holmes and the Bare-knuckle Brawler
The following account of the case concerning the so-called ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’ is taken from the journal of Charles Bradley, the physician resident on Leaving Island. It was later translated by Sherlock Holmes himself into Japanese for me; I was in any case present for much of the proceedings. (Indeed, Holmes’s fabled powers of deduction saved an innocent man from quite possibly being hanged.)
But in describing the habits and language of the gaijin , the foreigners who inhabit Leaving Island, the English doctor Bradley is obviously at an advantage to me…
Bad feeling had existed between the two men for several months. Ever since James Plummer had arrived upon Leaving Island, in fact, he and Robert Figg (the so-called ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’) thus clapping eyes upon one another.
Was it merely a case of two men taking an instant dislike to each other, with no other obvious reason or cause? Although we would eventually find out exactly what the reason for this animosity was, at the time it seemed a mystery.
For a good while the two men would stare hard at one another when they passed, but otherwise they made apparent efforts to stay apart. They would sit at opposite ends of the dinner-hall, for example, and had no reason to consort with one another either at work or during their leisure-time.
But ‘Leaving Island’ (a loose translation of the Chinese characters the Japanese use to describe this island, created by digging a canal through a small peninsula and covering an area of barely one hectare) is hardly the largest of places.
Thus the ‘powderkeg’, as it were, of Plummer and Figg’s mysterious but still-obvious resentment was certain to explode, sooner or later…
On the day that it did, we happened to have none other than the famous English detective Sherlock Holmes as a visitor upon Leaving Island. He’d been invited here by the Chief Official, Captain Harold Spillard, as a sort of honored guest, being fed a quintessentially English roast dinner, before being given a guided tour of the island.
This tour could hardly have been of the greatest interest to the detective, given that Leaving Island consists primarily of drab warehouses, above which are the living quarters of the traders, sailors and so on who comprise the island’s inhabitants.
Most of these men (there are no women, save for those yujo , or Japanese ‘pleasure women’, who frequently steal across the bridge and onto the island at night, knowing that they will always find ‘business’ here) are English. There are also a few Portuguese and Dutchmen, although they tend to stay for a shorter period of time.
Holmes was accompanied by his friend, Yoshida- sensei , a sturdy-looking fellow who, I believe, works as a doctor, and also writes up Holmes’s cases within Japan from time-to-time. (A striking coincidence, obviously, given the similarities here to Holmes’s well-known friend John Watson in London…)
To this man, Holmes spoke in fluent Japanese; although he has been in the country only a few months, such is his remarkable intelligence that he can already speak, read and write this bewildering language fluently.
But I digress. I intended to describe the altercation which suddenly erupted one afternoon, between the ‘Bare-knuckle Brawler’ Robert Figg and James Plummer. The two men appeared to have encountered each other, by chance, outside one of the stone-built warehouses; and finally their long-standing animosity bubbled over.
‘… think I’ve
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