The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes by June Thomson

Author:June Thomson [June Thomson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780749016524
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

THE CASE OF THE NOTORIOUS CANARY-TRAINER

In ‘The Adventure of Black Peter’ I referred in passing to the other cases which engaged Holmes’ attention in the year ’95,* among them that of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer whose arrest ‘removed a plague-spot from the East End of London’.

In the same account, I also remarked on my old friend’s capriciousness in refusing to help the powerful and wealthy where a problem failed to engage his sympathies, preferring to devote his time and effort to the affairs of some more humble client whose case appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity.

Although these two references may appear to be unconnected except in the most general way, there is, in fact, a direct link between them which will be apparent only to those who were involved in the investigation.

As for the case itself, Holmes and I have spent many hours discussing the merits and demerits of publishing a full account of the facts.

On the one hand, it would bring to public attention a most unsavoury aspect of life in the great metropolis of London – and no doubt other cities, too – as well as serving as an awful warning to the young and gullible on whom such abominable creatures as Wilson and his accomplices have preyed.

On the other, we are most anxious not to offend the sensibilities of our readers, most particularly the fair sex and those gentlemen of a refined and sheltered upbringing to whom such revelations would be an all too shocking exposure of some of the worst aspects of our society.

After much earnest debate, Holmes and I have concluded that the present-day moral climate is not yet ready for the publication of the truth. However, I have my old friend’s permission to make a record of the case which I shall preserve among my papers in the hope that, at some future date, a more robust readership will be prepared to accept in print the full and unexpurgated account of the case of Wilson, the notorious canary-trainer.

The adventure began prosaically enough one evening in January of ’95 with the arrival at Holmes’ rooms at 221B Baker Street of Mrs Annie Hare. I use the word ‘prosaically’ quite deliberately for there was nothing about either Mrs Hare herself or her story which suggested that the case she laid before us was anything more than a commonplace affair concerning a missing daughter, a misfortune which had, no doubt, happened to many other mothers in Mrs Hare’s position.

In appearance, Mrs Hare herself was unremarkable. She was a small, slight woman, with worn features, shabbily dressed in black and with nothing more than an old red shawl over her shoulders, an inadequate covering for such a bleak winter’s evening. Even as Mrs Hudson showed her into the sitting-room, Holmes and I, seated on either side of a blazing fire, could hear the wind rattling the window-frame and flinging handfuls of hard raindrops, like scatterings of gravel, against the panes.

I shall summarise her story as she

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