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Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Infernal Paperclip

One night I was returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I approached the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers.

My passage was made difficult by the large number of paparazzi encamped by the doorway of 221B. Flashbulbs popped like firecrackers as I came close, and it was only after some determined shoulder contact that I made it through to the door and up the stairs.

"I say, Holmes, what on Earth has brought so many of the devils to your doorstep?"

Holmes, as was so often the case, did not come to the point immediately.

"Devils indeed, Watson, an entire mischief of them crowing at my door. Their attention has made my life a distinctly miserable one. I can barely set foot outside my abode. Part the blind a morsel and you will see even more of them on the far side of the road, from which vantage point they are pointing their monstrous lenses directly into my lodgings. What has the world come to when a man must close his blinds before he can inject himself with his drug of choice?"

While I had berated my friend for his cocaine use many times in the past, now was not a suitable occasion. I noted that at present he appeared free of chemical stimulation and in a fine mood, despite his depiction of self-imprisonment and misery.

"But why should they pick on you, my dear Holmes?"

He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out.

"See here, Watson. There are widespread rumours that I am to appear in a certain popular television show. Big Brother, I believe it is called."

"Good Lord, Holmes. Is it true?"

"Tell me Watson, do I appear to you as a loquacious fool in need of publicity?"

Holmes could take on a scathing turn of expression when the mood took him. I declined to mention that the programme was one of my personal favourites.

"And yet despite the difficulty of your circumstances, you seem entirely without vexation," I ventured.

"After my first few days of captivity, Watson, it occurred to me that rather than run the gauntlet and find my portrait in ink on a daily basis, I should be wise to work from home. I shall conduct my cases from this very location here in Baker Street. Teleworking, I believe it is called."

No doubt my eyebrows were raised. Holmes expanded, drawing my attention to the peculiar equipment on his writing desk:

"Voila. A home computer, delivered to my door this very afternoon. With this machinery I have access to all the wisdom of the world and the ability to make contact with its farthest corners."

"Pray, may I have a demonstration?"

"Patience, Watson, patience. At this moment the machinery does not work entirely as intended. Indeed, I am having some problems with my broadband connection, and with collecting email, and for that matter with simple web browsing, but these problems, or issues as I believe they are called, will soon be behind me."

"Are you quite sure?"

Holmes waved a dismissive hand. "My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. I crave for mental exaltation. Take yourself as an example, Watson. How do I know that you have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless servant girl?"

"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you

deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out."

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.

"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavery.

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."

"And with due attention to process," said he, "I am naturally confident that I shall have this fine piece of equipment working within the hour."

He pressed one of the many buttons on the new machine. "I should also mention," he added, with equal enthusiasm, "that my new purchase comes complete with a new assistant. Look at this, Watson, on the screen, a paperclip with friendly eyes and a happy smiling face! What more companionship could a man possibly hope for?"

--------------

Days passed and I heard nothing more of Holmes, apart from his image appearing with great regularity in the red-tops, along with wholly fabricated tales of his preparations for the television programme. It disturbed me that Holmes had failed to invite me for a demonstration of his new item of electronic wizardry. I began to wonder if my place in the great detective's life had been appropriated by the screen image of a grinning paperclip. And so I resolved to press the issue and called in once again at Baker Street, bullying my way through the mass of coarse and unmannered photographers on the doorstep.

I found Holmes in a poor frame of mind, pacing the room swiftly yet at the same time with great lethargy, as if the spirit had gone from within him.

"Good Lord, Watson, what a pleasure it is to hear a friendly voice. I am quite beside myself, as you can no doubt ascertain. For three days I have pitched my intellect against this humdrum item of machinery, and to no avail, I tell you. My logic, my great powers of deduction, all cast aside and defeated by the stubbornness of the contraption."

"My dear Holmes, did the machine not come with a manual? I believe they are all so equipped."

"Indeed it did, Watson, and manuals for the many items of software therein. And in each of them thousands of recognisable words, but not joined together in any way that imparts meaning. In my desperation I have spent over six hours and a few dozen guineas on the telephone support line, attempting to accomplish the initial stage of a gaining a functioning broadband connection, but the situation is hopeless, my friend, believe me, quite hopeless."

Looking pale and worn, he walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.

"You are hungry," I remarked.

"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since Monday."

"But what of the telephone support Johnnies? Were they unable to help you?"

"Watson, I fear they know little more than I do. Each time I call I am obliged to listen to ten minutes of Vivaldi's Quattro Stagioni, which whilst being a fine piece of music is hardly helpful in diagnosing computer problems. After which I face a barrage of questions about my identity. I tell them my name is Sherlock Holmes and immediately they return with: 'And can you be spelling that, please?' With exactly the intonation I gave the phrase, Watson, as if my call had been redirected to the Indian subcontinent.

'H O L M E S,' I tell them. 'Hotel Oscar Lima Mike Echo Sierra.' And do you know what they say, Watson?"

"No? Pray tell me."

"'Lima?' they say. 'Lima. Are you sure?' Every damn time, Watson. It's enough to send a man blind."

In my own career I have had some minor experience of the Indian subcontinent, having passed through Bombay on my way to the Afghan campaign. And I could not imagine it as a prime choice for complicated linguistics of software support. But then I know little of such things.

"I have probably spent three guineas on repeatedly spelling my name," mumbled Holmes. "Plug and Play it says on the instructions. More like Plug and Pay if you ask me."

"And what of the paperclip, Holmes? Has the paperclip not been able to help?"

"The stupid paperclip…" growled Holmes. "The paperclip and I are not on speaking terms."

---------------

An entire week went by and I head not a word from Holmes. The time passed quickly enough as I had undertaken responsibility for my nephew, Jeremy, while his mother spent a week in Holloway for her repeated refusal to pay the Congestion Charge.

Technically Jeremy was not exactly my nephew, he was, I believe, my great great great great nephew, but the concept of my freakish longevity was too difficult to explain to an adult, never mind a nine year old, and so his mother and I conveniently dropped the 'greats' and ignored the issue.

Jeremy was a splendid little chap and I rather suspect I was guilty of spoiling him. One day, after the zoo and lunch at Claridges, I stumbled across the brilliant idea of taking him to see Holmes, as Jeremy could never be parted from his iPod and PlayStation and I rather thought they might be able to compare technical notes.

Holmes, a gaunt figure at the best of times, now looked distinctly emaciated, his pipe and cigarettes having taken the place of three square meals.

"Watson, I'm at my wit's end. Another fifty guineas on telephone support and I'm still no further with the accursed machine. Still no broadband connection. Tell me, are the paparazzi still there? I haven't parted the blinds this past week."

I assured him that they were. He groaned in response.

"Phew, what a stinky room," said Jeremy. "You don't half smoke a lot, Mr Holmes. You'll get lung cancer. Haven't you told him, uncle?"

"I believe I have mentioned the subject, once or twice," I replied, quietly.

Jeremy made a beeline for the chemistry equipment in the far corner of the room, and before I could stop him began to read the labels on the various jars and bottles, including those clearly marked Cocaine and Morphine.

"Got any crack?"

Holmes rubbed the extensive stubble on his chin. "Er, I'm not sure. Let me see now…"

I coughed pointedly and grabbed Jeremy by the shoulder and piloted him across the room to the writing desk, where lay the useless equipment.

"What's wrong with it," asked Jeremy, warily.

"A recalcitrant broadband connection," I replied, not really understanding the term but remembering it well from my friend's repeated mutterings.

Young Jeremy tapped rapidly at the keyboard. "Well I'm not surprised. The network settings are all wrong. You shouldn't have NetBios ticked. You'll never get NetBios on broadband. And you've got the wrong IEEE authentication. No wonder it won't connect."

"I have NOT changed the network settings," said Holmes, rather forcibly.

"Then you've installed some software that changed them. I tell you, it's all wrong." Jeremy tapped a little more. "Here. Try that."

The equipment suddenly came alive, followed a few seconds later by Holmes's face, which until now had remained quite lifeless.

"You've fixed it!" said he. "I can't believe it! You've fixed it." He held the boy's neck so firmly I heard a wince. "And my email - will my email work now?"

"I'll check," squeaked Jeremy. "Uncle?"

"Er, Holmes?" I gestured at the hand on the boy's neck.

"Oh, sorry." Holmes let go. "Just caught up in the excitement of the situation. You know how it is."

A list of received emails began to expand on the screen. Jeremy made a move to escape, but Holmes detained him a moment longer.

"Jeremy, one last item, if you please. When I type a series of hyphens in a Word document, they turn into a solid line, and try as I might I can't remove it. Any ideas?"

"It's not a line, it's the bottom of a border around the paragraph above. You can get rid of it in paragraph formatting."

"Well how the deuce should I know that?" complained Holmes, bitterly.

Jeremy snuck away to a seat by the fireside.

"Young man," said Holmes. "By any chance, would you like to become a detective's assistant?"

"Depends on the detective," replied Jeremy.

"Holmes," said I, "I think you will find the child labour laws have changed considerably."

Holmes sighed. He moved across to Jeremy and handed him a coin. "Here's a florin for your good work, my boy."

The boy held the ten pence and looked up at me, questioningly. I gestured that he should remain calm and untroubled, for his uncle had the situation in hand.

Holmes attended to his emails. I sat opposite Jeremy and opened negotiations. "What would you say to couple of new games for your PlayStation?"

Ninety pounds – a more realistic evaluation of the child's contribution. I was sure Holmes would repay me after some education on the issues of inflation and IT hourly rates.

"On an Xbox" said Jeremy. " Xbox is faster, at least for now. And I haven't got one of those."

Hmm, a hundred and fifty plus. This boy was not destined for poverty.

"Well how about that?" announced Holmes, from his desk. "Over 1000 emails, and to my knowledge I've never given a single soul the address. Though I fail to see why they feel I should be so interested in enhancing my breasts, or my, erm…"

"Viagra?"

"Exactly."

Jeremy sniggered. He was such a forward child.

"Perhaps we might discuss this better at my surgery," I ventured. "Anything else of interest?"

"Yes, now you mention it. A rather interesting opportunity has come up in Nigeria. Apparently the son of the recently-exiled oil minister is in possession of a very large sum of money, which, for a reasonable percentage, he wishes me to process through my…"

"It's a scam," interrupted Jeremy. "Nigerian 419. You get those all the time. You put money in your account to cover the expenses. They take it out. End of story."

"Well, yes," said Holmes, shifting around a great deal in his seat. "That's precisely what I had in mind. An opportunity to… to catch a fraudster or two, wherever they might be. Yes, indeed. To catch a fraudster."

-----------------

I had two more visits to make to Baker Street before the adventure was over. On the first, the day had been a dreary one and a dense drizzly fog lay low upon the great city. Mud-coloured clouds drooped sadly over the slimy streets. The yellow glare from shop-windows streamed out into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw out a murky, shifting radiance.

Holmes was glad to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and poured me a generous measure of Bushmills, placing the glass on a fancy silvered coaster. Then he stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion. He held up volume nine of Encyclopaedia Britannica, a pen, an envelope, and a sheaf of paper. "With these, Watson, I have access to the great majority of knowledge of the world and the ability to make contact with many of its regions."

I looked towards the writing desk. "I see the computer has gone."

"A fascinating machine," said Holmes, "And a gateway into a world of most curious detail. I did not realise, for example, that Roy Wood was once a member of The Beatles."

"I fear, Holmes, that some elements of information on the Internet are less reliable than others. But what of the machine itself?"

Holmes threw his cigarette into the fire, and from a corner of the room produced a large cardboard box with Persil written on the side. Within it were the many elements of metal and plastic that when combined together might form a complete computing machine: a screen, two halves of a keyboard, a rectangular case and various fragments of silicon circuit boards

"What happened?" I asked.

"I could not resist the urge to free the machine from that blasted paperclip. A most objectionable item, forever appearing when I did not need it, yet revealing nothing of consequence when I did. Apparently it could be removed in Settings, but exactly where remains a mystery. Yet I knew without doubt the infernal thing could be found somewhere inside the mechanism, as it showed quite clearly on the screen."

This, I felt, was not the moment to doubt my friend's judgement, despite my scientific misgivings. "And did you find it?"

Holmes shook his head with considerable sadness. "A number of small metal parts pinged past my ear during disassembly. And my landlady, Mrs Turner, vacuumed the next morning, while I was still asleep. I can only assume… Do you think you could you prevail upon your nephew to put the machine back together again?"

I looked at the pieces in the box. It was now time for scientific judgement to override my feelings. "I'm sorry Holmes, but I doubt it. It looks thoroughly... broken."

"I still have most parts of the hard drive. Your whisky glass is currently resting on one of the disks. Though I fear we will need to empty the vacuum cleaner to recover the smallest particles."

I shook my head.

"Entirely Humpy-Dumptied?" asked Holmes.

"I fear so. Quite useless."

Holmes seemed far from unhappy with this announcement. In fact I have to say he looked brighter than I had seen him for some time.

"Not entirely useless, Watson." And so saying, he moved across the room to the blinds and opened them, and likewise the window they revealed. With relatively little effort he heaved the Persil box out of the open window.

I heard screams from the paparazzi below.

"Excellent," said Holmes, looking down. "I got a couple of the blighters."

------------------

My concluding visit to Holmes occurred a mere day later. I called in to congratulate him on his remarkable coverage in the newspapers. I had anticipated some slight trouble over the injured paparazzi, perhaps double page spreads showing photographs of the ambulances speeding away, their blue lights flaring across six columns, but that was not the way events had transpired. I must confess I found the remaining paparazzi on the doorstep more surly than usual, but little more.

Holmes already had the newspapers spread on his writing desk, now empty of machinery.

"Remarkable," he observed. "Look at the headline, 'Holmes Peppers the Paparazzi', with genuine pictures of my disassembled computer flying from the window and hitting the heads below. And very positive words to go with them, extolling my virtues as a likely contestant on Big Brother, and berating the paparazzi for harassing me. But I ask you, Watson, who took these shots? Why, the remaining paparazzi themselves, the ones on the far side of the street with their telephoto lenses. What a complicated world we live in, my dear fellow."

What a complicated world indeed. What could I add to that excellent analysis?

Holmes settled into his fireside chair and leafed through the remainder of the paper, until his eyes came to light on an advertisement.

"I say Watson, extraordinary deals on mobile phones. Two for one. They're almost giving them away."

"Are you sure you really want one, Holmes? Think of all those menus, the small keys, impenetrable manuals, failing batteries?"

Holmes frowned. "Oh no, Watson. You misunderstand me. I would never actually want to use one. But they are moderate in weight and I have a good throwing arm, and from the window I am quite sure I could reach the far side of the street."