East of Ealing

18

Sherlock Holmes strode up the Ealing Road, his cigarette billowing smoke about his angular visage. Pooley and Omally plodded behind, and had they chosen to pause a moment and look around they might just have caught sight of the manhole cover which closed upon Soap’s retreating form.

“I merely wish you to be close at hand,” said Sherlock Holmes as he marched along. “Just button your lips and hang loose, got me?”

Pooley, who had recently purchased for the detective an advanced video recorder and the complete series of Basil Rathbone cassettes, thought to detect the hint of an American accent creeping into the Victorian voice. “Oh, gotcha,” he said.

Outside Norman’s corner-shop Holmes drew to a sudden halt. His two followers did likewise and peered without enthusiasm through the spotless plexiglass of the new aluminium-framed door to where Norman stood behind his shining counter. The true shopkeeper was busy in his kitchenette, bent low over a set of indecipherable plans scrawled on to the innards of a cornflake packet. He scarcely heard the shopdoor-bell chime out an electronic fanfare. His double peered up from the countertop computer terminal and surveyed his three potential customers. The Irish one, cowering to the rear, owed, he recalled. Clearing his throat with a curiously mechanical coughing sound, he asked, “How might we serve you, gentlemen?”

“We?” queried Sherlock Holmes.

“The plurality is used in a purely business sense,” the robot replied. “We, the interest, which is Norman Hartnell, corner shop, as a small concern, realize the need to extend a personal welcome to the prospective client in these competitive times.”

“Very precise,” said Sherlock Holmes. “An ounce of Ships, if you please.”

“Certainly, sir.” The robot slipped his hand behind his back and drew out the packet. Omally considered that to be a pretty sneaky move by any reckoning.

“You have redecorated your premises, I see,” said Holmes.

Considering this to be a simple statement of fact which required no reply, the robot offered none.

“And all achieved with the left hand.”

The creation stiffened ever so slightly but retained its composure, although a fleeting look of suspicion crossed its face. Pooley and Omally both stepped back unconsciously.

“I was always given to understand that you were right-handed,” Holmes continued.

“That will be eighteen shillings and sixpence, please, sir.” The robot stretched forward both hands, that he might exhibit no personal preference.

“Put it on my slate, please,” said Sherlock Holmes.

Beneath his breath John Omally began to recite the rosary.

Holmes’ deadly phrase clanged amongst the robot’s network of inner circuitry and fed out the word “Dimac” in any one of a dozen known languages. “Eighteen shillings and sixpence, please,” he said. “The management regret that…”

“So I have been given to understand,” said Holmes. “If it is not inconvenient, I should like a word or two with the management.”

“I am it.” The robot pressed his hands to the countertop and prepared to spring over. “Kindly hand me the eighteen shillings and sixpence.”

“I think not,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Let us not bandy words, please. If the real Norman Hartnell still draws breath then I wish to speak with him. If not, then I am making a citizen’s arrest.”

The robot lunged forward across the counter and made a grab at the detective’s throat. Holmes stepped nimbly beyond range and drew out his revolver. He pointed it at the space between the robot’s eyes, his aim was steady and unshaking. “Hurry now,” he said, “my time is valuable.”

The robot stared at the great detective. Its lips were drawn back from its plasticized teeth which glowed an evil yellow. Its eyes blazed hatred and its hands crooked into cruel claws.

“Hold hard or I fire.”

The pseudo-shopkeeper crouched low upon his knees and suddenly leapt upwards. Holmes’ finger closed about the trigger, but the inhuman reactions of the creation far outmatched his own. The thing leapt upwards, passing clean through the ceiling of the shop, bringing down an avalanche of lathe and plaster and tumbling timber-work. Holmes staggered backwards, shielding his face from the falling debris. Pooley and Omally adopted the now legendary foetal position. A series of further crashes signalled the departure of the robot through the walls of Norman’s back bedroom.

Startled by the sounds of destruction, the shopkeeper burst through his kitchenette door into the now thoroughly ventilated shop. He gazed up at the crude hole yawning above and then down at the faces of the three coughing and spluttering men as they slowly appeared amidst the cloud of dust. “What… who… why…?” Norman’s voice trailed off as Sherlock Holmes rose from the debris, patting plaster from his shoulders, and removing a section of lathing from his hair.

“Mr Hartnell,” he said, “it is a pleasure to meet you actually in the flesh, as it were.”

Pooley and Omally blinked their eyes towards the gaping ceiling, towards the startled shopkeeper, and finally towards each other. Shaking their dust-covered heads in total disbelief, they followed the detective who was even now ushering the fretful Norman away into his kitchenette. Holmes suggested that Omally might bolt the front door and put up the “Closed For The Day” sign. This the Irishman did with haste, fearing that he might miss anything of what might be yet to come. When he entered the kitchenette he found Norman squatting upon his odd-legged chair in the centre of the room, surrounded by a clutter of bizarre-looking equipment which was obviously the current fruit of his prodigious scientific brain. Holmes perched behind him upon the kitchen table, a tweedy vulture hovering above his carrion lunch. Without warning he suddenly thrust a long bony finger into Norman’s right ear.

“Ooh, ouch, ow, get off me,” squealed the shopkeeper, doubling up.

Holmes examined his fingertip and waggled it beneath his nose. “I pride myself,” said he, “that, given a specimen of earwax, I can state the occupation of the donor with such an accuracy that any suggestion of there being any element of chance involved is absolutely confounded.”

“Really?” said Omally studying the ceiling and kicking his heels upon the new lino of the floor.

“Who’s your friend?” whined the persecuted shopkeeper.

“Don’t ask,” counselled Jim Pooley.

“I will ask the questions, if you don’t mind.” Holmes prodded Norman in the ribs with a patent leather toecap.

“I do, as it happens,” said Norman, flinching anew.

“Be that as it may, I believe that you have much to tell us.”

“Bugger off, will you?” Norman cowered in his seat.

“Language,” said Jim. “Mr H, our companion here, is a house-guest of the Professor’s. He can be trusted absolutely, I assure you.”

“I have nothing to say. What is all this about anyway? Can’t you see I’m busy redecorating?”

“The shop ceiling seems a bit drastic,” said John.

“Blame the wife,” Norman said sarcastically. “She said she wanted two rooms knocked into one.”

“I once heard George Robey tell that joke,” said Holmes. “It was old even then.”

“George Robey?”

“No matter. Now, sir, there are questions that must be answered. How can it be that your duplicate works in your shop yet you still exist? Show me your palms, sir.”

“Show me your palms? Jim, where do you meet these people?” A sudden clout on the back of the head sent the shopkeeper sprawling.

“Here, steady on,” cried Jim. “There’s no need for any of that. Sherlock Holmes never engaged in that kind of practice.”

“Changing times,” the detective pronounced, examining his knuckles.

“Sherlock Holmes?” sneered Norman from the desk. “Is that who he thinks he is?”

“Your servant, sir,” said Holmes, bowing slightly from the waist.

“Oh yes?” Norman cowered in the corner shielding his privy parts. “Well if you’re Sherlock Holmes then tell me, what are the thirty-nine steps?”

“This is where I came in,” said Jim.

Holmes leant forward and waggled his waxy finger towards Norman. “Spill the beans, you,” he cried. “Spill the beans!”

“He’s been watching the Basil Rathbone reruns,” Pooley whispered to Omally.

“If you don’t mind,” said John, “I think Jim and I will take our leave now. We are men of peace, and displays of gratuitous violence trouble our sensitivities. Even in the cause of justice and the quest for truth, we find them upsetting.”

Pooley nodded. “If you are now preparing to wade in with the old rubber truncheon, kindly wait until we have taken our leave.”

“Fellas,” whined the fallen shopkeeper, “fellas, don’t leave me here with this lunatic.”

“Sorry,” said Jim, “but this is none of our business.”

“If you really wish to make a fight of it, your Dimac should be a match for his Barritso.” Omally pointed to the still prominent lump upon his forehead, which bore a silent if painful testimony to his previous encounter with the martial shopman.

“That wasn’t me, John, I swear it.”

“So,” said Sherlock Holmes, “then spill the beans, buddy.”

“All right, all right, but no more hitting.”

“No more hitting,” said Sherlock Holmes.

Buddy prepared himself to spill all the beans.