“You may leave the journal with me,” said Lansdowne. “The War Department will take custody of the two Germans. We may have some difficulty arranging for them to contact their embassy.” He added, with a studied casualness, “This is excellent work, Inspector Lestrade. You need not write up a report.”
Harriet held up her hands in mocking submission. “Well, I suppose you have captured me too, gentlemen. Now, I feel inclined to write out a full confession. If you let me write it out here in this room, I shall do so. That silver pen of mine is in my purse.”
“And if we do not?” asked Holmes.
“If you deny me, I shall enter a plea of not guilty and demand a public trial. I will provide the court and the jury and all in attendance with a full report of Lord Lansdowne’s wicked, secret dealings and the Prince’s scandalous infidelities.”
“Put the handcuffs on her, Inspector Lestrade. If you please,” said Lucy.
“And retain her purse,” said Holmes. “The silver pen will have a double reservoir. The second reservoir will contain cyanide and strychnine.” He spoke as calmly as if he were discussing the ingredients in a plum pudding. “It is the weapon she used to kill Lord Kerren.”
Lestrade manacled Harriet’s wrists. She stood proudly, nonetheless, glaring at Holmes. “When I get out, I will kill you.”
“Others before you have said as much,” said Holmes.
As Harriet turned to go, Arkwright cried out her name, straining in the grip of the two burly officers as he tried in vain to reach her. His eyes shone with an earnest passion that I had never expected from a man so worldly and cynical. “I still have friends in high places,” he said. “We shall prevail. And our love will always be clean and brave.”
“Your face is ugly now. And you failed,” said Harriet.
She turned away, head held high, clenching her manacled hands into fists and pressing them tight against her waist.
Lestrade led her from the room.
53. A CURIOUS INCIDENT
On the Thursday afternoon that followed, Holmes was feeling much stronger. He and I took the opportunity to see Lucy in a matinee performance of Iolanthe at the Savoy. Carte had continued to use Tesla’s electrical equipment for the staged lightning effects. It blazed impressively. There were no sinister incidents. The airy frivolity of the production went precisely as planned. Immediately following the performance, I waited for Lucy at the stage door while Holmes went on ahead. Lord Lansdowne was coming to visit at 221B Baker Street, and Holmes wanted to be punctual. I did not know what the Secretary of War intended to discuss when he arrived.
Lucy and I made our way to Baker Street through the fog. We had just stopped on the pavement before our home and were about to mount our steps when a shabbily dressed old woman bumped into Lucy from behind, causing us both to stumble momentarily.
“Oh, beg pardon, I’m sure,” the woman said. “Watchin’ me own two feet, I was. It’s deathly afeared of fallin’ I am, at my age. Are you quite all right?”
We both assured her that we were, and then we followed her progress for a few moments as she continued on her hunched, shuffling way.
Mrs. Hudson met us as we entered our lower hall. “You’ve just missed Lord Lansdowne,” she said, “and the Prime Minister himself was just here too, with his great flowing curly black beard and all. They only stayed a short while.”
When we reached our upstairs landing, the door opened from within. Holmes was holding a folded newspaper in his hand. He stepped back to allow us to enter. I noticed that the movement also forestalled the possibility of a hug from Lucy, though I do not know whether this was intentional on Holmes’s part.
“Did they bring you a medal?” Lucy asked.
He gestured vaguely towards our table, whereon lay an elegantly slim silver box, opened to reveal a white silk lining, a red and blue satin ribbon, and a brightly shining golden disc.
We both offered our congratulations, but Holmes only shrugged. “The Secretary and the Prime Minister did bring some news of interest. Arkwright’s trial was a swift, military one in closed chambers. Investigation of his past revealed that ten years ago his sister had committed suicide. She was bitterly disappointed after a brief liaison with the Prince had ended unhappily for her and also for her reputation. Arkwright is now in the brig of an Admiralty battleship bound for the Andaman Islands. His two German accomplices, Dietrich and Richter, are prisoners on the same vessel. Lansdowne wants them out of reach if their government attempts to silence them. He believes that they may yield some useful information if their interrogation is continued over a protracted period. Von Bülow has made an official inquiry as to their whereabouts, but our government categorically denies any knowledge of their presence.”
“Was Arkwright the masked man with them on our steps that Sunday morning?” asked Lucy.
“He admitted that he was. Harriet Radnar had telephoned him from Dover, when she learned that her stepmother had induced Lansdowne to send for me.”
“What will be done with Harriet?”
“She was sent to Newgate Prison to await trial. Lansdowne said something about poetic justice. I did not press him for details. In a moment I will show you why.”
“Did Lansdowne tell you what is to become of the electrical weapon?”
“It will be placed into storage at the garrison. A commission will decide what to do with it, if anything. Wilhelm will not bring the German copy to Dover—assuming, of course, that there is indeed a German copy. The Prince has withdrawn the invitation.”
“But Kerren’s machine may be workable,” said Lucy. “After all, it never received a conclusive test. The power was never turned on after the insulating rubber pads were placed beneath the metal wheels. And the week before, we did see that military balloon go up in flames.”
“We also saw that broken tree and the burning artillery vehicle at the Kurpark,” I said.
“Those demonstrations may have been genuine, but they could just as easily have been false,” Holmes replied. “A simple bomb with a timing device could have detonated the balloon. The core of the tree could have been drilled, packed with gunpowder, and then detonated. The armoured vehicle could have been soaked with petrol and lit just after the electrical generator at the Schloss had been temporarily slowed. You will note that we were kept at some distance from all three of these events.” He shrugged. “However, Lansdowne promised that I could witness any future tests of the machine.”
Then Holmes spread out the newspaper, that afternoon’s edition of the Times, covering the medal. He had drawn a thick black circle with one of his wax pencils around an article on the second page. The heading read:
WOMAN KILLED IN PRISON. FELLOW INMATES SUSPECTED.
The article read as follows:
Florence Hapgood, a London inmate of Newgate Prison, was found this morning beaten to death in her cell, her injuries so extensive as to render her face unrecognizable. The unfortunate woman had been jailed for nearly a week for failing to comply with the terms of her bond and was awaiting trial on her original offence of soliciting, as well as a more recent arrest for public intoxication. None of her fellow prisoners would admit to seeing Miss Hapgood’s attackers. One, however, noted that the woman was deranged, thinking herself to be an aristocratic lady, the heiress to a well-known estate in Kent that will not be named here. Another prisoner said the woman claimed to have knowledge of scandalous crimes committed by personages at the highest levels of the British and German governments. Proof of the impossibility of Miss Hapgood’s assertions has been obtained by the Times, which has verified that the well-born woman she claimed to be had been buried in Dover several days before Miss Hapgood was incarcerated. Prison officials have promised a full investigation of the attack. A solicitor for the victim’s family says they will seek compensation.
Neither Holmes nor Lucy spoke.
“No doubt she antagonized her cellmates with her superior airs and her unfeeling nature,” I said.
Neither Holmes no
r Lucy replied.
“It is a sad thing,” I continued, “that a woman with all the personal and social advantages that Miss Radnar possessed could become so cold and destructive. I suppose we must take into account that at a relatively young age she lost her mother.”
“We must also take into account that such an outcome is not inevitable,” said Holmes. His eyes were on Lucy.
Lucy’s thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. As if something had just occurred to her, she said, “There has been a curious incident. Just a few minutes ago, there was an old woman. She bumped into me on the pavement.”
We watched as Lucy reached into the pockets of her coat. From the right-hand pocket she pulled out a folded square of paper. “And here is a note. I did not have it in my pocket when I left the theatre.”
The notepaper was thick, cream coloured, and of good quality. Within the note was a neatly cut-out copy of the Times story that we had just been reading.
Pasted on the notepaper were these eight words, each clipped from a newspaper:
Ihre Vater darf nicht wieder stören.
von Bülow
“‘Your father must not interfere again,’” Lucy said. “My, my. It seems that Mr. von Bülow knows who we are.” From her casual tone, she might have been talking about a change in the weather.
Your father.
For a moment I felt as if I were falling into a dark void. I realized that Olfrig’s interrogation had drawn from me information far more important than the treacherous behaviour of Mr. Gruen. I had unwillingly betrayed the one secret that both Holmes and Lucy needed me to keep. The room seemed to swirl. I put my hand on the edge of the table to steady myself. “Holmes,” I said, “I ought to have told you—”
“That you might have revealed Lucy’s identity?” Holmes gave one of his brief smiles. “There was no need. I knew of the possibility from the moment you mentioned Olfrig’s name, that evening on the plaza. Do not blame yourself, old friend. The great conflicts between nations have been with us for millennia, and human nature is unlikely to change during our generation or the next. We shall continue to play our small role in the cause of justice, for as long as we are able. This clumsy bit of theatricality will not deter us.”
He turned to Lucy. “I believe you knew of the possibility as well. I see you remain unafraid.”
She had crumpled the note. Now she threw it into the fire.
“I wonder what else they are planning,” she said.
The three of us watched the little ball of paper ignite. It blazed brightly for a few moments. Then the flames turned to ash and disappeared amongst the glowing coals.
HISTORICAL NOTES
This is a work of fiction, and the author makes no claim that any of the historical locations or historical figures appearing in this story had even the remotest connection with the adventures recounted herein.
However . . .
Albert, Prince of Wales, went on to become King Edward VII, and ruled from January 22, 1901, until just before midnight May 6, 1910. With the exception of the Second Boer War, there was peace during the years of his reign, which has come to be known as the Edwardian era. He played an active role in affairs of foreign policy and defense, although behind the scenes, his chilly relationship with Wilhelm—and England’s with Germany—never improved during his lifetime. He died after suffering several heart attacks during his last morning and continuing to work throughout the day, refusing to go to bed. In 1914 Wilhelm blamed him for the outbreak of military conflict in Europe that came to be known as World War I.
In 1934, Nikola Tesla began speaking to the press about his work on a weapon to end war that he had begun in the late 1890s. The press promptly dubbed the weapon a “death-beam.” Tesla lived until age eighty-six, dying alone in his room at the Hotel New Yorker in January 1943. A week later the FBI ordered his entire estate to be seized by the US Office of Alien Property. His papers have not been made public.
Progress has been made in electrical weaponry. Research on a particle-beam weapon based on copies of Tesla’s papers was begun in 1945 at Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The results were not published, and the papers have disappeared. In 1983 under President Ronald Reagan, space- and ground-based nuclear X-ray lasers and subatomic particle beams were part of the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed “Star Wars” after the hit film series of the same period. Today the US Army has a portable laser that can shoot down a drone aircraft from two miles away. The US Navy has a more powerful laser weapon that can stop an oncoming speedboat. The latter weapon uses a technology that causes several laser beams to converge when they reach the target.
Progress has also been made in electrical medical equipment, with curative devices of all sorts now commonly available, even at Walmart. “Cold laser” treatment is readily available for healing and pain management in both humans and animals.
Kaiser Wilhelm II felt animosity towards England throughout his lifetime. Historians have linked this attitude to a pathological need for personal aggrandizement, possibly rooted in his oversensitivity concerning his withered left arm, a result of his bungled childbirth at the hands of his mother’s English doctors. His antagonistic relationship with the Prince of Wales began at the Prince’s wedding, when the four-year-old Wilhelm refused to be quiet during the ceremony, biting one of his British relations on the leg and throwing his toy dagger into the cathedral aisle. His resentment towards England is widely viewed as one of the causes of World War I. Two days prior to the German surrender in 1918, Wilhelm abdicated and fled in exile to the Netherlands. He died there in 1941 at age eighty-two.
Bernhard von Bülow was named German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1897, and then Chancellor of the German Empire in 1900. In 1905 he was given the title of Prince (Fürst) von Bülow. He served as Chancellor until 1909, after which he spent much of his time in affluent leisure at his villa in Rome, enjoying a prominent position in literary society. He died there in 1929 at the age of eighty.
In 1909 the British War Office and Admiralty created the Secret Service Bureau. By then Lord Lansdowne had left the administration and was serving in a leadership role in the House of Lords.
The historical model for Radnar House in this book is the Granville, a fashionable holiday destination situated on a cliff overlooking St. Margaret’s Bay near Dover for more than one hundred years. Twentieth-century luminaries such as Noel Coward and Ian Fleming frequented the Granville, and Fleming’s fictional James Bond used the hotel for a spot of R & R with his lady friend in the novel Moonraker. The building was demolished in 1996, to be replaced by several elegant residential homes.
Wilhelm’s eccentric manner of culling trees from the Kurpark in Bad Homburg is recorded in The Lost World of the Great Spas by Joseph Wechsberg. The towns of Bad Homburg and Baden-Baden continue to flourish. Their buildings and parks described in this book can be seen and enjoyed today.
The words to the song in Chapter 24 are from Poem #XVIII in A Shropshire Lad, by A. E. Housman, first published in 1896.
It is possible that Sherlock Holmes may have assisted in the testing of a functioning electrical cannon shortly after the events recorded here. However, the author cannot confirm a rumor that NASA astronauts, exploring near the Sea of Tranquility in 1969, discovered laser burns in the moon’s dust. Nor can the author confirm that those laser burns form the initials “V. R.”
Lucy James will return. Watch for her further adventures with Sherlock Holmes in The Lucy James Mysteries, narrated in her own voice, and in The Jubilee Problem, her next adventure narrated by Dr. Watson.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book owes a great deal to the editorial wisdom and guidance of Jacquelyn BenZekry and her team at Thomas & Mercer, as well as to Anna Elliott and my wonderful wife, Pamela Veley. I’m also grateful for the support and encouragement of Garner Simmons and Dan Matos, and my friend and college classmate Douglas Quelch, who gave me the benefit of his experience in proofreading and naval history. I’m also indebte
d to Edward Petherbridge and Malcolm Blackmoor for their insights into British theatre in the Victorian era, and to Edward for his brilliant reading of the audio version of this book as well as its predecessor. Both are available on Audible.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charles Veley is the author of The Last Moriarty, the first installment in this series of fresh Sherlock Holmes adventures. His other books include Children of the Dark, Play to Live, Night Whispers, and Catching Up. An avid fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, Veley wrote The Pirates of Finance, a new musical in the Gilbert and Sullivan tradition that won an award at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2013.
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