I commented while reading The Times. He looked up briefly from his malodorous chemical experiment.
“Indeed Watson. what are the details?” He asked.
“It says here that a young man by the name of Zephaniah McLeod, of Selly Oak, Birmingham has been arrested for the murder of one Jacob Billingham, twenty-three, and of the attempted murder of another seven people, three of whom are still in hospital, all seem to be in their twenties.”
“What was the method?” Said Holmes, not looking up from his test tube.
“Stabbing.” I replied. “He seems to have run amok in the city centre last Saturday night, well, Sunday morning really. For some while apparently”
Holmes put down the test tube and fixed me with that gaze that always put me in mind of a keen hunting dog. “Go on.” He urged. “More details, there must be more details.”
“Few enough Holmes. From his picture Mr McLeod seems to be of West Indian extraction. The picture of one of the crime scenes indicates it was one of those places frequented by, well, you know, chaps who like chaps…”
“You mean homosexuals. Really Watson, you are a doctor, do try to be dispassionate. Do the paladins of Fleet Street speculate as to a motive?”
I affirmed that no motive, or possible motive was inferred.
“Ah, then I have a theory, just a theory mind. I may well be wrong, how old exactly was the ‘young’ Mr McLeod?” Holmes asked, the chemistry now quite forgotten.
“It says here twenty-seven Holmes. Surely even you cannot pronounce on this with so little evidence?”
My companion sat back, putting a match to his churchwarden pipe, and drawing on it deeply. His next words came from a cloud of dense blue smoke.
“I do not pronounce, but I do suggest this theory based upon some few similar cases in the last years. The accused is quite old enough to have spent some time at Her Majesty’s pleasure, sadly too often the case with lads of Caribbean background in our bigger cities. His name suggests he was brought up a Christian; but is not at all uncommon for chaps like him to fall under quite a different spell while in gaol. We have been introduced to him as Zephaniah, he may well call himself something quite different now. When young lads do fall under this powerful spell, they can sometimes be moved to commit the most extreme acts, especially against homosexuals and anyone they perceive to embody ‘decadent western ways’.”
“But surely Holmes, the press would mention that?” I objected. My friend was sailing into dangerous waters.
“Possibly they do not yet know, possibly they know but do not wish to ‘incite hate’. It will, no doubt, come out at the trial, but by then the great mass of the public will have moved on.” He observed languidly.
“Really Holmes, you are impossibly cynical at times!” I retorted.
“Am I? I merely observe that when that young Libyan man stabbed and killed three homosexuals in Reading a few weeks ago his brief flirtation with Christianity was in all the early reports and the fact that he shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as he attacked only appeared in the reports of the court proceedings.” Holmes sat back, puffing his pipe. “They do society a great disservice when they hide the truth, as the great Sir Francis Bacon said ‘There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little’.”
“Yes, well, jolly tough job reporting. No doubt we will read the truth in time.” I folded the paper and reached for my own pipe.
“No by Jove!” I dropped my pipe as Holmes exclaimed, springing from his chair, “Not this time! Make a long arm for the Bradshaw Watson, find the time of the very next Birmingham train. Let us visit the locus in quo and find out for ourselves. What is it our American cousins say? Shall we believe what the press see fit to tell us, or ‘our own lyin’ eyes’?”.
2 replies on ““Nasty business in Birmingham Holmes…””
As a Holmes fan, I enjoyed this very much. 🙂
Well done, sir!