by June Thomson
‘Dowe? I know no one of that name.’
‘Then perhaps you are more familiar with the word “brigandine”?’ Holmes asked with a teasing air. ‘Or the term “jack” may mean something to you?’ Seeing my bewildered expression, he burst out laughing. ‘Obviously not! Then, my dear fellow, you must wait as patiently as you can for Wednesday week when all shall be explained to you.’
‘I find nothing at all amusing in the situation,’ I retorted sharply, for I was exasperated as well as alarmed by his foolhardiness.
I wanted to add that by the following Wednesday evening, he might very well be dead. But the prospect of such an eventuality was so appalling even to contemplate that I dared not voice my fear out loud in case, by doing so, I might unwittingly bring about its actual occurrence.
Meanwhile Holmes, as if aware of these dark thoughts of mine, had turned the conversation to pleasanter matters, in this case the career of the French soprano Céline Lefranc, on which topic he expounded so engagingly that I almost forgot my apprehension over his safety.
I was reminded of it, however, on our arrival at Baker Street. As I alighted from the cab, Holmes remained seated.
‘You go on alone, Watson,’ said he. ‘I have one or two small matters to attend to first.’
‘What matters?’ I asked.
‘I must send a telegram to Inspector MacDonald, asking him to call this evening at eight o’clock,’ he replied, in a careless manner, as he tapped with his stick on the roof of the hansom to tell the driver to move on.
But as it drew away from the kerb, I heard him call up through the little trap door, ‘The Tower of London, cabby!’
I was left standing alone on the pavement to ponder why Holmes had chosen of all places that unlikely destination unless, for some inexplicable reason, it was connected with Huret, the Boulevard Assassin, and Holmes’ dangerous mission to bring about his arrest.
II
Whatever mysterious errand had taken my old friend to the Tower of London, it occupied him for several hours for it was nearly a quarter to eight before he returned, shortly before the arrival of Inspector MacDonald.
Despite my curiosity, I hesitated to question Holmes. There was a preoccupied air about him which inhibited any conversation and I busied myself with reading the evening paper, leaving him to sit, brooding and silent in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, until Billy,* the pageboy, ushered Inspector Alex MacDonald into the room.
At the sight of MacDonald’s tall, bony figure, Holmes’ face immediately lit up and, jumping to his feet, he shook him warmly by the hand. Although, in the past, Holmes’ attitude to the police had tended to be critical, the dour, sandy-haired Aberdonian had won his respect, not least because of the man’s intelligence and his frank admiration of Holmes’ superior detective skills, even though he himself was not without talent in that direction.
Inviting MacDonald to sit down, Holmes immediately plunged into an account of his meeting with his brother Mycroft, his own suggestions as to how Huret might be lured to Covent Garden and the part he himself intended to play in bringing about the assassin’s arrest.
‘If I am correct,’ he concluded, ‘the attack will come soon after I have alighted outside the theatre. I therefore suggest that at least a dozen police officers in plain-clothes are placed in the immediate vicinity of the opera house with instructions to look out for any vehicle which follows immediately behind mine. It will probably be a cab although that is by no means certain. Once my carriage has moved off, Huret’s accomplice will urge his own horses forward to take its place outside the theatre, as if dropping off a passenger.
‘It is at this precise moment that your men must act. Some of them will rush forward to compel the driver to stop while others will force open the door of the vehicle and arrest whoever is inside.’
Inspector MacDonald, who had been listening to this account with increasing unease, now spoke up for the first time.
‘That is all very well, Mr Holmes,’ said he, in his Scots accent, ‘but I dare not risk it. You would not only be putting your own life in danger; there are also my own officers to consider. And what of the general public? Why, man, think of the outcry if some quite innocent bystander were killed by a stray bullet! No, no! I canna countenance such a dangerous scheme.’
‘Then perhaps you can suggest an alternative,’ Holmes said coolly, ‘for Huret must be arrested. While he remains at large in London, he and his accomplice may decide to take the opportunity to murder our own Prime Minister or a member of his cabinet.* Think of the outcry if that were to happen, Mr Mac! And then there is your own reputation to consider. As the officer in charge of the Huret case, you would be held directly responsible by the Home Office.’
It was a shrewd and, I thought, unkind thrust which evidently went home for I saw the big Scotsman’s jaw tighten and his sandy eyebrows draw together in a bushy frown.
‘Aye, I take your point, Mr Holmes,’ he said drily as he rose from his chair. ‘Leave the matter with me. I shall come up with an answer before Wednesday. You may rely on me.’
Holmes waited until he heard the street door downstairs close behind MacDonald before he burst out laughing.
‘I fall to see the joke,’ I said a little stiffly. ‘Surely you could have helped the man with the problem rather than reminding him in that manner of his responsibilities should he fail? It is a very serious situation, Holmes, and MacDonald was right to point out the dangers.’
‘Oh, tush, my dear fellow!’ Holmes retorted. ‘The good Inspector is far from stupid and, once he learns to use his imagination as well as his undoubted intelligence, he will make a very fine detective officer. All I did was give him a touch of the spur to force him over the jump. I do not doubt for a moment that he will find a solution. What amused me was the thought of what that solution will be. If I were, like you, a betting man,* I would lay odds of ten to one on his answer.’
‘And what will it be?’
‘The same as mine, of course. He will arrange to have the pavement at either end of Bow Street on the opera house side dug up and cordoned off, thereby forcing the passers-by to cross the road. By this means, he will restrict the number of pedestrians outside the theatre when Huret makes his assassination attempt. I suggest he will also introduce a number of his plain-clothes officers to cover that particular section of the street. At least, that would be my solution to the problem. If I am not mistaken, and I believe I have taken MacDonald’s measure correctly, his will be exactly the same.’ He gave a chuckle before adding, ‘You realise, of course, Watson, that Bow Street police station is almost directly opposite the opera house? Should the need arise, Mr Mac will not have far to go to find recruits!’*
I saw little of Holmes over the next few days. He left the house soon after breakfast, not returning for several hours, on some occasions not until the late evening. From our brief conversations, I understood his time was taken up by official meetings, with Mycroft at the Diogenes Club, with senior officers at Scotland Yard and even more exalted personages at the Home Office and the French Embassy. He did, however, inform me that, at his specific request, I had been given permission to be present at the coming confrontation with Huret, a decision for which I was most grateful, having feared I might be excluded from their plans.
‘And you will be pleased to know,’ Holmes added with a smile, ‘that our friend MacDonald has come forward with the very same scheme I suggested for ensuring the general public’s safety. I should have wagered a guinea, Watson; I should be a richer man today if I had.’
Once Monsieur Auriel had arrived in London, Holmes spent several evenings at the Earl of Evesham’s residence in Park Lane, dining in his company and that of the French Minister of Overseas Affairs.
Holmes returned from these dinner engagements in a more loquacious frame of mind than from his professional appointments, laying great emphasis, for my sake but also, I felt, for his own, on the positive aspects of the assignment. The Earl, he decl
ared, was most co-operative and had agreed to place his own carriage at Holmes’ disposal. As for Monsieur Auriel, he was charming and also very appreciative of what was being done to ensure Huret’s arrest. There would be no difficulty either in the matter of disguise. Monsieur Auriel had agreed to lend Holmes a set of his evening clothes for he was about Holmes’ height, although much broader in build, a physical difference which could easily be disguised with a little judicious padding.
I assumed the French Minister of Overseas Affairs also walked a little stiffly with his chin thrust well forward for several times during the next few days, on entering the sitting room unexpectedly, I found Holmes pacing up and down in this particular manner as if familiarising himself with the gait.
It was not so easy, however, to judge my old friend’s mood. Outwardly, he appeared busy and cheerful, if a little abstracted at times. But underneath that apparent composure, I detected a growing tension as of a watch spring being wound tighter and tighter, especially after the report appeared in newspapers of Monsieur Auriel’s proposed visit to the opera on the coming Wednesday evening.
Like Holmes, I put on a cheerful countenance in order to hide from him my growing anxiety for his safety as the date of the Covent Garden mission grew nearer.
On the morning of that Wednesday, Holmes again left early, announcing he would be back by noon. After he had gone, I found the silence and the emptiness of the sitting-room quite intolerable and, unable to settle to any task to fill the intervening hours until his return, I, too, left the house, calling first at my club in the hope that Thurston might be there and we could play a game or two of billiards to pass the time.* But I drew a blank. Thurston, I was told by another member, had gone down to the country to visit his married daughter. Emerging from the club just as a hansom was approaching, I hailed it and, on the spur of the moment, ordered the driver to take me to Covent Garden.
Even now, I am not sure exactly why I made this decision. Perhaps it was partly a need to see in daylight the setting where, later that evening, the momentous and perilous confrontation between Holmes and Huret, the notorious assassin, was to take place and, on a purely practical level, to reconnoitre the ground. I confess there was also a less rational motive, a superstitious urge to seek out some sign to suggest that the portents were favourable, although heaven above knows what I was hoping to find.
I alighted a short distance from Covent Garden and spent half an hour or so in the market itself which backs on to Bow Street, wandering aimlessly about under the great arched roof of glass and wrought iron, assailed on every side by the colours, sounds and odours of its busy confusion.† Here stall-keepers shouted out their wares, there porters carrying piles of baskets on their heads jostled a path through the crowds and everywhere there were urchins, scampering about like busy mice, running errands, pushing handcarts or simply gathering up any fallen fruit or vegetables which lay upon the ground. The savours of the place were as pervasive. Piles of oranges gave off their tangy scent, boxes of apples their sweeter fragrance, potatoes the homely aroma of country soil while from the litter of discarded cabbage leaves, bruised and trampled by hundreds of passing feet, rose a pungent green odour.
Eventually, tiring of this constant buffeting of my senses, I escaped outside and, having picked my way between the massed ranks of drays and wagons which crowded the cobbled forecourt, I emerged at last into the comparative peace and quiet of Bow Street.
I was reassured, as well as a little amused, when, having turned out of Floral Street, I saw that Inspector MacDonald’s plan to ensure public safety was already being put into effect. At both ends of Bow Street on the opera house side, small gangs of workmen were digging up sections of the flagstones behind wooden barriers which effectively closed off that part of the pavement. Like all the other pedestrians, I was forced to cross over to the opposite side where I stopped to examine the imposing façade of the theatre with its six tall Corinthian pillars supporting the huge stone cornice and pediment.
At the sight of it, my amusement was immediately superseded by grave misgivings. It was in front of this building that the encounter between Holmes and Huret would be played out, and I was considerably alarmed to see how narrow the stretch of pavement was between the kerb, where my old friend would soon be alighting from the Earl of Evesham’s carriage, and the safety of the theatre’s entrance. In a mere few yards, and in as short a space of time, the outcome of that encounter, whether for good or ill, would be decided.
I was in the act of turning away, sick at heart with apprehension, when I heard a voice at my elbow ask in a hoarse, wheedling tone, ‘Buy some ’eather, sir? Lucky white ’eather only tuppence a bunch?’
Looking down, I saw a thin-faced young woman in a worn red dress, a basket on one arm and a small child clutching at her skirts, who was standing in the gutter and holding out towards me a small sprig of the so-called lucky flower.
Although Holmes has sometimes teased me for my sentimentality, I pride myself on my common sense which, under normal circumstances, does not lend itself to superstition. However, on this occasion, touched by the woman’s plight and, I must confess, by the apparently propitious chance of meeting her when I was half hoping for some sign of good fortune, I took it as a favourable omen and, giving her a shilling, I tucked the sprig of white heather into my buttonhole. I confess that I was also prompted by a more negative impulse, fearful that, if I spurned the offer, the outcome of that evening’s events might be adversely affected by my refusal, absurd though that may seem.
All the same, as I walked away, I could not help smiling wryly at my own foolishness and at the thought that, if anyone was in need of good fortune, it was not I but my old friend.
III
Holmes returned to our lodgings not long after my own arrival, bringing with him a large parcel wrapped in brown paper, the collection of which I assumed had been the purpose of his absence that morning. Whatever it contained was evidently heavy and also bulky but, when I inquired what it was, Holmes merely smiled enigmatically and replied, ‘All in good time, Watson. You will see the purpose of it later.’
By ‘later,’ I assumed he meant that evening outside the opera house.
It was the only reference he made to that coming event over the next few hours. Instead, we discussed a variety of topics, in particular the case of the aluminium crutch, a most curious investigation which he had undertaken during his early days in Montague Street before I met him.* He seemed in a reminiscent mood and, for the first time, gave me a full account of the inquiry, including the part played in it by Meadows, the notorious jewel thief, who for months had eluded arrest by disguising himself as Holmes.
At the end of his account, Holmes remarked with a chuckle, ‘I may one day allow you to chronicle the adventure in your own inimitable style, my dear fellow, once our old friend Lestrade has retired from Scotland Yard. Until then, I fear the publication of the full facts would cause him too much professional embarrassment.’
Glancing at his watch, he rose to his feet, announcing in what I thought was too casual a tone, ‘It is time I left, Watson, I told the Earl I would arrive no later than five o’clock.’
I, too, got up from my chair and for what seemed to me to be an eternity but was in fact no more than a few seconds, we stood facing one another in silence.
He was smiling but I thought I discerned under that debonair exterior the tension from which he was suffering, apparent in the over-bright eyes and the tautness of his jaw.
We shook hands without speaking. It was only when he was about to turn away that he remarked in a light-hearted fashion, ‘Wish me luck, my dear fellow.’
Before I could reply, he had gone, taking with him the large brown paper parcel and a smaller packet containing a grey wig and a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez, fitted with plain glass, which were his own contributions to his disguise as Monsieur Auriel. Moments later, I heard his footsteps descending the stairs and the slam of the street door behind him, followed by the sound of
his familiar voice, high-pitched and imperious, calling for a cab.
I filled the long hours before my own departure as best I could, trying not to think of the coming events and their possible outcome. But never have I known time pass so slowly. Eventually, dressed in my evening clothes and carrying my stick and silk hat, I came out on to the landing outside my bedroom where, suddenly recalling Holmes’ parting remark, I turned back to collect the sprig of white heather which, on my return earlier to Baker Street, I had hidden away in a drawer in case Holmes might see it and tease me for my foolishness. Retrieving it from its hiding place, I slipped it into my inside pocket before leaving the house to call a hansom.
IV
I had ordered the cabby to put me down in Long Acre from where I walked the short distance to Bow Street. Since my morning visit, the scene had considerably changed its character. Twilight had fallen and the lamps were lit, including those on the opera house which cast their brilliance over its stone façade, giving it the theatrical and unreal appearance of a piece of stage scenery. More prosaically, red lanterns had been hung on the wooden barriers closing off the excavated sections of the pavement to warn pedestrians, most of whom were thronging the opposite footway.
Even so, the area in front of the opera house was not entirely empty. A small group of bystanders had already gathered, quite apart from those individuals who were arriving on foot or by cab and carriage to attend the performance of Aida and who were being hurried inside the building by two uniformed commissionaires – MacDonald’s officers, I suspected.
MacDonald himself, easily recognisable by his height and sandy colouring, and looking remarkably distinguished in a cloak and evening attire, caught my glance and beckoned me to join him.
We shook hands as if the meeting were entirely fortuitous and then he drew me to one side.
‘Now, Dr Watson,’ said he with a twinkle, ‘allow me to put you to a wee test. Look about you. Can you see my men? You will have to search hard for I flatter myself they are well hidden.’
