A Policeman from "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder"

The man seated in our pink Victorian chair, chuckling over The Return of Sherlock Holmes, was built like a house. Not any house. Casa Loma. The White House. Buckingham Palace. General Motors. Whatever big, broad place dominates your landscape.

And he was every inch a policeman. "You can always tell a copper," Wiggins once told me. That alert and steely "What trouble are you up to now?" gaze, even through twinkling eyes. Though I had the right to be in the Room and he did not - the ACD Room is closed Wednesdays - I gulped and backed a step.

He rose to his full six feet thirteen inches, and stood like a soldier 'at ease'. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to startle you."

The Magic Door rattled. The six Napoleon busts shivered and clinked against each other on their shelf above The Strand. The bottles on top of the card index tottered, fell and splintered to pieces.

There was no room in the Room for his voice.

I swallowed hard. "I'm growing used to it, Inspector …?" He looked too young to be Gregson and too old to be Stanley Hopkins. He was not at all like the description of Lestrade.

"Detective Sergeant Alfred Beagle," the man boomed, catching the pipe, Doyle's photograph and the tobacco filled Persian slipper they fell off the mantelpiece. "I was just reading about myself when you came in." He dropped slipper, pipe and picture on the padded chair and, marking the spot with his forefinger, read aloud:

"Now we must see if we can find that witness for you, Lestrade. Might I ask you all to join me in the cry of 'Fire'? Now then, one, two three -- "

"Fire!" we all yelled.

"Thank you. I will trouble you once again."

"Fire!"

"Just once more, gentlemen, and all together."

"Fire!" The shout must have rung over Norwood.

It certainly rang through the Room. Two Napoleons, one Toby jug, the picture of William Gillette as Holmes, the frame surrounding Mr. Cameron Hollyer's shilling and BSI investiture, and the vase in the shape of a lady's high boot smashed upon the floor. The glass doors of the Cabinet imploded. Cracks like pistol shots heralded the domino collapse of bookshelves around the Room.

The Sergeant did not seem to notice the mess he caused. He just chuckled and said, "Inspector Lestrade fair goggled and even Dr. Watson looked taken aback when that little geezer ran out of the wall all smoke grimed with cobwebs stickin' in his hair. No doubt I looked just as dumbstruck; but Mr. Holmes just lounged against the wall with a grin a cat would envy. He was a right showman. Houdini's not in his class at all."

He laughed again. The glass box holding the Reichenbach stone shattered. So did 3 mugs, 6 busts, the clock, the computer screen and a statue of Queen Victoria.

"Sorry about that," he said.

The remaining shelves collapsed, spilling fragile copies of "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of Four" over the previous wreckage, The Captain of the Pole-Star over Sir Nigel and The White Company, Holy Clues over In Bed with Sherlock Holmes, and all five (or is it seven?) fat volumes of The Universal Sherlock Holmes over The New Revelation.

Then the fire bell rang.

"I guess I don't know the full strength of my voice," the sergeant said. Then he disappeared.

I just stood there, stareing at the shattered spines and crumpled pages, hearing the sirens of the fire trucks grow louder and shriller, calculating the lien the Library would put on my salary for the next century. Should I still get a salary. An library assistant's lot is not a happy one.

Three books about the history of the Metropolitan Police

Garforth, John. A Day in the Life of a Victorian Policeman. 363.23094 G13

Dell, Simon. The Victorian Policeman (Shire Booklet no. 428)

Fido, Martin and Keith Skinner. The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard

363.20942 F37 2000