The Happiest Place in Scotland
“So Addy, explain to me again how Sherlock Holmes is connected to the Loch Ness Monster.”
I suppose I hadn’t done a very good job of describing the letter I’d received that day. My girlfriend Zabel was justifiably confused. Admittedly, I was talking a bit fast. I was rather excited about the prospect of going to Loch Ness. I’d always wanted to see it, but I’d never gotten around to making the journey. “Perhaps I’d better show this to you.”
She accepted the letter I pulled from my coat pocket and unfolded it. As part of my work, I receive a lot of odd items in the post. It’s all part of the job when you’re Sherlock’s Secretary.
That’s not my official title, but it’s what I tell people I do for a living. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries, the great detective lived at 221B Baker Street until he retired and moved to Sussex to raise honeybees. In real life, there’s no private residence at that address in London, but instead, there’s a bank. For decades, people have been sending letters to 221B Baker Street addressed to Sherlock Holmes, and the post has delivered them to the bank.
There are multiple ways of dealing with this situation. The bank could write “Not known at this address” and return them to the Royal Mail. Alternatively, the letters could be tossed in the bin unopened. But people who write to Sherlock Holmes are often in dire situations, and they’re desperate for help. You can’t just ignore them. So the bank realized that somebody had to reply to the letter-writers. There’ve been several people who’ve filled the position over the decades, and not long ago, I was hired for the job.
I should point out that it’s not one of my responsibilities to actually solve people’s problems. If someone writes with a crime to solve or something like that, I don’t pop a deerstalker hat on my head, pick up a magnifying glass, and go out and investigate. At least, not most of the time. I am not a licensed inquiry agent. The best I can do is refer them to actual private investigators or Scotland Yard. Of course, not everybody writes regarding a mystery. Some people just want Sherlock Holmes’ autograph, or a signed photo of one of the actors who’s played the part. I can send the latter requests along to the actors’ personal assistants, though in some cases, such as if it’s a young child who wants Sherlock Holmes to be a pen pal, I assume Holmes’ persona and reply.
It’s an enjoyable job, especially for a fan of mysteries like myself, and it was all pretty low-stress until several months ago, when a couple of bank robbers broke into my office and stole some letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes. I met Zabel in the wake of that burglary. She makes her living as an independent true crime reporter. When the police weren’t that interested in pursuing the case, the two of us started digging around and eventually found out the reason for the theft. We wound up telling the story on social media, and I even wrote a book about the case, and it made us minor celebrities in the true crime world. It led to me getting a lot more mail at the bank, including the following letter:
Dear Mr. Zhuang,
Hello! I’m writing to you from Inverness, Scotland. As a fan of Sherlock Holmes, you are no doubt familiar with the Inverness Cape, and also how the most famous body of water in the general vicinity, Loch Ness, is connected to the 1970 Billy Wilder movie “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.” Assuming you’ve seen that movie, you know that a critical plot point focuses on the Loch Ness Monster and a government secret. When Wilder was filming the movie, he made a change to the design of the Loch Ness Monster prop, which led to it sinking to the bottom of the Loch. The long-lost prop was recently rediscovered several years ago, but for a while now, some people have tried to have the “head” of the “Loch Ness Monster” raised from the bottom of the deep. Last week, a couple of young enthusiasts attempted to retrieve the head, but they both disappeared mysteriously. We’re not sure what happened to them, but we don’t believe that they drowned, as no empty boat was found on the water, and all of their diving equipment was left in their hotel room. The local authorities have found some notes in their room connected to the film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes,” but their journals have a ton of references that only a Sherlock Holmes expert would be able to understand. As a fan of Miss Carvalho’s videos, I thought of you, and I hope that you can come here to help us with our questions, please. Thank you!
Sincerely,
Senior Constable Pherson Waldroup
I followed Zabel’s eyes as she read the letter twice, and as she handed it back to me, I could see the familiar glow in her face as the first twinges of excitement over the start of a new investigation.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I’m willing to take a trip to Loch Ness if you are! Will the bank give you time off?”
The bank would and it had. The moment after I asked my supervisor for a few days of paid leave, he responded with a hearty approval, and even offered me a modest– actually spartan– per diem to cover expenses, at least partially. Ever since our successful resolution of the bank robbery case, my work answering Sherlock’s Holmes’ mail had brought a lot of positive attention to the bank, leading to a lot of new customers depositing their savings there. Apparently linking your institution with Sherlock Holmes can earn you a lot of good will and positive press. Before my big adventure several months earlier, I had spent my entire working day in my office, rarely seeing anybody else except for the occasional tourist who heard about my work and wanted to see my collection of Holmes-related memorabilia. But even on a busy day, there’s rarely enough letters in the post to take up more than a few hours of writing, leaving me plenty of time to read and work on my own writing projects. But sometimes notoriety brings unexpected responsibilities, and my boss has gotten into the habit of sending me out to give presentations on Sherlock Holmes at libraries and schools, and perhaps the odd literary conference, all to drum up more publicity for the bank.
All my boss asked in return was for me to write a bunch of blog posts on my adventures for the bank’s website. Despite the fact that he used a generous amount of terminology and buzzwords that I didn’t understand, I could follow enough of his train of thought to realize that the response to my Sherlock Holmes-related work had been positive. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how getting likes on social media benefited a financial institution, but as I was getting what I wanted, I figured my best course of action was to smile and take the win.
Zabel’s her own boss, so she didn’t have to ask anybody else for permission to take a trip up to Scotland. We booked a couple of rooms at a little hotel in Inverness, filled up the tank of Zabel’s car, and prepared for our newest adventure.
The next morning, I was packed and ready for the trip, and waiting for Zabel. I live in a nice little flat in London that I can only afford because I share it with my two best friends from university. Sanna Mahabir is a solicitor, and as she never stops reminding us, she’s the only one in our small circle of friends with a traditional, responsible job. Jasper, in contrast, is a YouTuber who talks ad nauseum about popular culture trends that annoy him. Amazingly, he manages to make more money than me and Sanna combined, much to Sanna’s blind rage. How it works I couldn’t tell you, but hats off to him to find a way to make a decent living without ever having to leave the flat.
“How long will you be gone?” Sanna asked.
“I don’t know for sure. It takes about a day to get up there and a day to get back, so let’s say at least three days. Not more than five. Are you going to be O.K. being alone with Jasper for that long?”
“I haven’t seen much of him lately. He’s been hosting all of those livestreams lately with his friends from all over the world, ranting about how superhero movies aren’t as super as they used to be, and why Hollywood executives don’t have a clue about how to write male heroes anymore. I can’t believe that people watch them talk for four hours and drop cash into his digital tip jar.”
“Speaking of work, how’s yours going?”
“There’s a potential storm on the horizon. I can’t go into details, but I suspect that one of our biggest clients may not be on the up-and-up. If I’m right, I’ll be sifting through files non-stop. If I’m mistaken in my suspicions, if I pace myself, I might be about to have a bit of a holiday myself this week. I may try that new curried ice cream shop on the corner. Catch a film or two.”
“Sounds like fun. Let’s hope you’re wrong about that client. Any plans for meals now that I’m not going to be around to cook?”
“Darn it, it’s too early in the morning for me to plan any meal more complex than pouring puffed rice in a bowl and adding milk. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Jasper’s book. The man survives on delivered pizzas and kebabs.”
As I glanced out the window, I saw Zabel driving up in front of the building, so I said a quick goodbye, grabbed my suitcase, and hurried downstairs. We didn’t talk much until we had cleared the London traffic, but once we reached the open roads of the countryside, Zabel relaxed and was once again ready for conversation.
“So Addy, I was going to do a little Internet research last night, but I got caught up with packing and forgot. What is this The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes movie that was mentioned in the letter?”
“All right. Are you familiar with the films of Billy Wilder?”
“Mmm…”
“The Lost Weekend? The Apartment? Both of those won the Best Picture Oscar, in the mid-1940s and early 1960s, respectively.”
She sighed. “Don’t look down on me for this, but I really haven’t seen that many movies from before I was born. I’m not proud of it. It’s not that I have a problem with old movies, not like my youngest sister, who won’t stop sniping about how she refuses to watch black and white films. Again, that’s not how I feel – ” Zabel must’ve read my face, and she responded so hurriedly I wondered if she was worried I was going to break up with her due to incompatible taste in entertainment. Trust me, that would never happen, but it’s nice to think that was a fleeting concern, especially because, as Sanna never tires of reminding me, at least in conventional terms of physical attractiveness, Zabel is way out of my league.
“– But I’ve just never gotten around to watching many classic films,” Zabel continued. “I know that’s more your field. Can you give me a little more background on The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes?”
“Sure. First, Billy Wilder is one of the legends of Hollywood. He was nominated for tons of Oscars for directing and screenwriting, winning six times. Lots of actors in his films got Academy Award nominations and wins as well. He worked in a lot of different genres, like film noir. Did you see Double Indemnity?”
“No. Please don’t judge me.”
“I’m not. He also made classic screwball comedies, like Some Like it Hot.”
“That’s the one with cross-dressing, right? With Dustin Hoffman?”
“You’re thinking of Tootsie, Zabel. But yes, that one has Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis on the run from the mob, pretending to be women, and Marilyn Monroe’s in it, too. He also worked in the courtroom drama genre, with Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution – we saw the play at London’s County Hall a couple of months ago.”
“I remember. That was really good.”
“And he also did the classic Hollywood tragedy Sunset Boulevard.”
“I saw the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with my parents years ago. But I get it, he worked in a lot of genres. And he liked Sherlock Holmes, too?”
“Yes. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was one of his last films, which he co-wrote, directed, and co-produced. He’d wanted to make a Sherlock Holmes musical for years, but the studios didn’t like that idea, so he wound up jettisoning the songs and writing this original screenplay, which is not based on any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories. Interestingly, the movie was meant to be a massive epic, filled with mini-mysteries and running nearly three and a half hours long. But the studio acted as the stereotypical Hollywood studio does, and decided it was way too long, so they sliced and diced over an hour of the film, and a lot of the mini-mystery scenes are considered lost – pretty much nothing but the audio remains from those forcibly deleted scenes. A lot of film buffs dream of someday discovering the lost footage, but it’s unlikely it exists anymore.”
“It sounds a lot like our investigation into the BBC’s ‘Great Erasure’ when we first met,” Zabel noted.
“Exactly. Anyway, all that remains is an opening narrative where a Russian ballerina wants Holmes to knock her up and create a superkid with her looks and his brains, and Holmes is only able to get out of it by insinuating that he and Watson are a couple, which mortifies Watson. Most of the movie is devoted to the search for a beautiful woman’s missing husband. The case leads them to Loch Ness, where they actually see the monster, but it turns out that it’s a super-secret submarine in disguise, and it’s all overseen by Holmes’ brother Mycroft as part of his work for the British government. Anyway, by the end, spies are uncovered and Holmes is emotionally wounded. That’s a pretty oversimplified summary, but that puts the meat and potatoes on the plate.”
“That it does. We’ll have to watch it sometime.”
“I brought the DVD with me. We can watch it on my laptop later, if you like.”
“Sure. But what about that sunken Loch Ness Monster replica that was mentioned in the letter?”
“Oh, that. That’s a legendary lost prop. You see, when they were filming the movie, they needed to create a fake Loch Ness Monster head for scenes where the main characters see the supposed creature, seen gliding through the water.”
“Was it motorized?”
“No,” I replied. “I’m pretty sure that it was towed by a boat, though the rope was kept just below the surface of the water, out of sight from the camera. Originally, a portion of Nessie’s body was visible in addition to the head, like a couple of little curves in the body just sticking up out of the water. But for whatever reason, Wilder didn’t like the look of it. So he ordered the curves removed. The production team warned him, saying that smoothing down the body would throw off the balance of the model, but Wilder insisted. So they tried out the new version, and moments after they started testing it, the off-kilter Nessie wobbled, and sank to the bottom of the loch. There’s no record of whether or not the designers told Wilder “We told you so.””
“How big was this Nessie model?”
It took a few moments to dig that information out of the crevasses of my brain. “I think that it was about thirty feet tall. Anyway, it turns out that Loch Ness is not the best place to film on location anyway, as the lighting just wasn’t right. So they wound up building a new, more stable Nessie, and they filmed it in a water tank on a studio set, and that worked.”
“And they didn’t try to pull the sunken model out of Loch Ness?”
“I guess not. Maybe it would have been too expensive or something like that, or they didn’t have the necessary diving equipment. They’d probably have needed a crane to get it out of the water, anyway. So, long story short, when the film crew packed up and left, the Nessie model stayed behind, and it was considered a lost prop for about half a century, until somebody with a waterproof robot started poking around, and eventually found it at the bottom of the loch.”
“Any plans to have it removed?”
“Not as far as I know. You would think some movie memorabilia opportunists might go after it, but as far as I know nobody’s tried to haul it out of the water and put it in their swimming pool or something like that. It’s so big, anyway, it’s not like people can just tuck it in their pockets and slip away, whistling casually.”
My mobile chimed, and I fished it out of my coat pocket and checked it.
“Something wrong?” Zabel asked.
“It’s my Mum. I talked to her last night, and there was something… off about her tone. I had to carry most of the conversation, and when I asked her if there was something on her mind, she prevaricated a little while and told me not to worry. I texted her this morning to check and make sure that all was well, and she just wrote back to assure me that everything is fine, and she has some news for me – all good, nothing to fear – but she can’t tell me for a few more days.”
“Why not?”
“She didn’t say.”
Zabel took her eyes off the road just long enough to assess my expression. “Are you worried?”
“More perplexed than stressed out, really. If something truly horrible were happening, then Mum would let me know. It’s just… odd. She’s being rather secretive, and that’s not like her at all. Normally Mum tells me everything that’s going on, from what she had for breakfast to the latest movie my siblings watched.”
We were silent for a while, and then Zabel made the terrific suggestion that perhaps we ought to listen to music, and that took the place of conversation for the next couple of hours. Zabel gave a reasonably solid performance singing along to most of the songs, and I hummed along whenever I was familiar with the tune. Shortly after noon, we had a quick lunch at a fish and chicken shop, and for the rest of the journey we discussed plans for refining the next three entries in Zabel’s latest video series, a six-part documentary covering the Bravo Poisoning Case of 1876, and we brainstormed over how to present how that crime exemplified problems women faced during that era without coming across as being too preachy.
The discussion absorbed so much of my attention that I completely lost track of time, and just at the meeting of afternoon and evening, I saw a sign informing us that we had arrived in Inverness.
“Did you know that Inverness was ranked as the happiest place in Scotland?” Zabel asked.
“Not until last night, when I did a little background research on the city. I wonder what it is that makes it such an upbeat place.”
“Perhaps there’s something in the waters of Loch Ness that boosts people’s spirits.”
I smiled, as a similar theory had crossed my mind, but Zabel had beaten me to the quip. After putting the return address from Senior Constable Waldroup’s letter into the directions app on my phone, we followed the instructions for ten minutes before arriving at the station.
“I hope we’re not too late. What happens if the senior constable went home for the day?”
I wondered. “Will they give us his home address, or maybe his phone number? Or will we have to come back tomorrow?”
Stifling a yawn, Zabel said, “After all that driving, I’m totally fine with being forced to go to the hotel. I’m probably going to need to go to bed right after a shower and dinner.”
The station was a rather imposing-looking building that made me feel relieved that I was entering as a willing volunteer there to help the authorities, rather than as an accused criminal. After checking with the front desk, it turned out that Senior Constable Waldroup hadn’t gone home for the day yet.
After going the wrong way down the hall twice, we finally found the right door and knocked. The muffled “Come in!” suggested to me that Waldroup’s mouth was full of food, and as I opened the office door and looked inside, a glance at the half-eaten, rather sad-looking fast-food hamburger sitting on a greasy wrapper suggested that my guess was correct.
“Yes?”
“Are you Senior Constable Waldroup?”
“The nameplate on the door isn’t lying. Who are you?”
“I’m Addy Zhuang.” Zabel, who had been standing behind me, stepped around me and walked into the room. “This is Zabel Carvalho.”
I could have sworn I saw him flinch. In an instant, his posture stiffened and his face turned impassive.
“I’m the Sherlock Holmes expert from the bank,” I explained. “I’m here in response to your letter.”
It seemed as if Waldroup were making a few fast mental calculations while trying to maintain a poker face. “What letter?”
“Didn’t you write me a letter a few days ago, asking us to come visit you in connection to the two missing Loch Ness Monster enthusiasts, the sunken Loch Ness Monster prop from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and you needed me, a Sherlock Holmes expert, to come and help?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Zhuang.”
I pulled the letter out of my coat pocket and placed it on his desk. “Are you saying you didn’t send this letter to me?”
Waldroup picked up the letter and stared at it for a few moments. I noticed that his eyes weren’t moving, which gave me the impression that he was trying to figure out what to do with it rather than actually reading it. After an extended silence, I asked, “That is your signature on the bottom, isn’t it?”
“Yes…” I noticed a couple of little droplets of sweat forming on his brow. Why was he so nervous? Why was he denying that he’d sent the letter? Or perhaps he really hadn’t written it? If so, who had? As his face was growing steadily paler, I was sure that there was something else going on, but at the moment my thoughts on the reasons for his anxiety were pure speculation.
“Are you saying you didn’t write this letter?” Zabel asked.
He handed it back to me, now with a couple of oily fingerprints stamped upon the corner. “Why would I ask you to come up here? Wouldn’t it have been easier to ask you any questions I might have had over the phone or through email?”
After reflecting on his comments for a moment, I realized that he had a point. As much as I wanted to see Loch Ness, the journey from London to Inverness was a bit long for my tastes. The lower half of me was not nearly as flexible as it normally was, and while most of the time there are few things that provide me with more pleasure than a comfortable chair, at that moment I didn’t feel like sitting down again for quite some time.
From the way Zabel’s nose was twitching, I could tell that she wasn’t convinced by Waldroup’s denials. “If you didn’t write this, do you have any idea who did?”
“No.” Waldroup shifted to the offensive. “Is this some kind of joke? Or are you just trying to insert yourself into a police investigation? Did you mail this letter to yourself?”
“Absolutely not to all three of your questions.” A bit of inspiration flashed through my mind, and I held the envelope in front of him with my right index finger tapping on the postmark. “We’re from London. This was mailed right here from Inverness. I can provide witnesses to prove that we haven’t left London in the last few days. We couldn’t possibly have sent this to ourselves, and we don’t know anybody who lives here.”
Perhaps it was the logic of my argument, or maybe he could sense the honesty in my demeanor, but Waldroup seemed to soften towards me. “I suppose someone could be having a laugh at all of us. Who exactly are you again and what are you doing here?”
I explained my job to him, and he didn’t make me repeat myself a couple of times like most people do when I explain what I do for a living. Zabel used a lot fewer words than I did, contenting herself with saying only, “I’m an independent true crime reporter.”
“Well look, you two seem like nice people, but you seem to have been brought up here on a wild goose chase,” Waldroup said. “I admit that there is an open missing persons’ case at the moment, but there’s no call for you to get involved. Feel free to stick around and see the sights, but I don’t think we have any need for your Sherlock Holmes knowledge here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. Go take a look at Loch Ness, but then you can go home and work on your videos on Florence Bravo.”
Zabel’s eyes narrowed a bit. “And you had no idea who we were before we introduced ourselves today?”
“No, I didn’t. I’d never heard of you.”
“Then how did you know that I’m currently in the middle of a series of YouTube videos on Florence Bravo, whose husband, Charles, was poisoned with antimony in 1876? I mentioned the project recently in one of my recent reports. If you don’t know who I am, then you’d have no idea what the subject of my videos is.”
This seemed to have a sharp effect on Waldroup, and he started spluttering and actually appeared to be sinking down under his desk. Zabel pressed on, saying, “You do know who we are. You’re familiar with my work, that’s how you know about the Bravo case. The letter says you’re a fan of my videos. Clearly you’ve watched at least one of my recent ones lately. So if that detail in the letter is true, and since you’ve just been caught lying about your knowledge of us to our faces, I think that I’m justified in theorizing that you’re also fibbing about writing the letter. Why you don’t want to admit what you’ve done, I don’t know, but I’d like to find out right now.”
Waldroup gulped down the last of his can of cola, and sagged backwards into his chair. “You caught me.”
“You admit that you wrote that letter?” Zabel asked.
“Yes, and at the time, I wrote it, I was totally sincere. But now things have changed, and…” He looked at us with pleading eyes. “Can you promise not to tell anybody that I asked you to come here? Please?”
