by Mike Hogan
The older man seemed to fill the room. He had a long face with a wide forehead and a full, dark beard. His eyes were extraordinarily deep-set, and they sparkled with energy and intelligence. He reminded me of the American president who had died two years or so previously, General Ulysses Grant.
He placed his hat, gloves and stick on a side table and sat on our sofa. The younger man stood behind him holding a leather valise.
“Ahem,” I said. “I understand that you wish to see Mr Holmes. He is working on a particular case, that is to say he is not available. If you had written or telegraphed -”
“We do not telegraph our movements,” said the younger man in a cultured Irish accent.
“Quite so. Then perhaps you would care to come back tomorrow at the same time. I can speak to Mr Holmes and telegraph you - ah.”
The two men exchanged amused looks.
“We would prefer to lay the matter before you, Doctor,” said the older man in the faintest of Irish brogues. “If Mr Holmes condescends to act in the matter, we can arrange another meeting.”
“I see,” I said uncertainly. “Well then, may I introduce Master Winston Spencer-Churchill? Churchill, this is Mr Charles Stewart Parnell, MP.”
Mr Parnell stood and held out his hand. Churchill did not move. I gave him a fierce glare. He glowered back at me, but he stepped forward and held out his hand. Parnell shook hands, holding Churchill’s for a long moment and looking into his eyes.
“I know your father,” he said. “He is a man of fine intelligence and wit, and a powerful and persuasive speaker. We talk often. I could not ask for a more worthy adversary. Did you know that my great-grandfather was Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Lord Randolph was? And my mother is also American.”
Churchill blinked in astonishment, coloured and looked down at his feet.
Parnell introduced Mr Campbell as his personal secretary.
“Well,” I said. “Shall we, ah? May I offer any refreshments? Tea or something stronger? We have the American ice.”
“Thank you, no,” said Parnell.
“You do not mind if Churchill takes notes?” I asked. Churchill slipped into his usual seat and pulled out a notebook.
Campbell whispered something in his chief’s ear. Parnell waved him away.
“Not at all.”
Churchill picked up his pencil. “From the beginning, if you please.”
Parnell smiled. “You will know that last year my Irish Nationalist Party held the balance of power in Parliament between the Conservatives, under Lord Salisbury, and the Liberals under Gladstone. Without us, neither party had a majority. Both parties negotiated with us, through secret intermediaries, including your father, young man. They offered various measures of Home Rule for Ireland in exchange for our parliamentary support.
“We backed Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill of last year. When it was defeated in Parliament, a new election brought back the Conservatives. They are now ardent Unionists and they do everything in their power - and work a good deal through discountable intermediaries - to discredit us. They contemplate new and more severe Acts of Coercion that will set Ireland aflame.”
I saw Churchill suppress a dark smile.
“Yes, your father is now among the most fiery Unionists,” said Parnell. “That disappoints me because he knows Ireland well. I believe his is a political, rather than a fervently held personal position, and I am the more disappointed. Oh, Doctor, tea would be welcome in fact.”
I nodded to Churchill. He got up most reluctantly and left the room. I heard him racing down the stairs.
“You had the pleasure of Lord Salisbury’s company earlier in the day,” said Parnell, lighting a cigarette.
I looked at him in astonishment.
“We like to keep abreast of each other’s movements,” he said with a grin, “in case something comes up.”
I heard a rumble of footsteps and Churchill appeared panting at the door. He looked suspiciously from me to Parnell, sat in his chair, retrieved his pencil and raised his eyebrows.
“You will know, as it is all over the newspapers,” Parnell continued, “that factions in Ireland and in America favour a more direct challenge to British rule in Ireland than the peaceful one I mount in Parliament. They see an uprising in Ireland, or a campaign of violence here in Britain, as the way to break us loose from British chains.
“It is generally assumed that these aggressive factions concluded that while my party was in a position to achieve Irish independence through parliamentary, that is to say, constitutional means, the violence would be held in check. I do not say that as a fact. I say that this view was widely reported in the Press on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Also widely reported is the suspicion that my party and those favouring violence are in close collusion; we are ‘in cahoots’, as the Americans say. In other words, my search for a peaceful constitutional solution to Irish Home Rule is a fraud. Letters published in The Times earlier in the year have buttressed these suspicions. Perhaps you saw them?”
Campbell opened his valise, slid out several back issues of The Times and put them on the table. I glanced at them.
“I read them at the time of publication,” I said. “The letters are mostly in Mr Campbell’s handwriting, but signed by you. They show that you and several MPs in your party were deeply involved in numerous plots against the Crown and at least one dastardly murder.”
“They do, Doctor,” said Parnell. “They are damning, and they are forgeries. Ah, here is tea.”
A stony-faced Mrs Hudson set the table for tea. Billy stood at the door with his hands behind his back. I imagined Bessie at the bottom of the stairs ready to spring a police rattle if her colleagues failed to return. There was much clinking of China: our second best. Mrs Hudson placed a large round tin in the centre of the table. As Churchill poured the tea, she prised off the lid and displayed the coloured illustration of the crowned Queen that adorned it.
She looked down her nose at Mr Parnell and held the lid up with the air of Boudicca with her shield. “A Jubilee cake from Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly,” she said in an icy tone. “For those who wish to partake of it.”
“I would be happy to have a slice of Jubilee cake,” said Parnell. “It is an excellent Dundee. Her Majesty sent me a tin earlier this year. I returned the compliment on St Patrick’s Day with a set of Irish linen napkins embroidered with the tiniest of shamrocks.”
Billy covered Mrs Hudson’s hasty retreat. The door closed.
“Mr Holmes is an expert on forged documents,” said Parnell as Churchill handed out tea and cake.
“Holmes has expertise in many disciplines,” I said warily. “I understand The Times employed the services of a most eminent handwriting expert to authenticate the published letters.”
“They engaged Mr George Smith Inglis, facimilist, of 8 Red Lion Court in Holborn,” said Parnell’s secretary. “He pronounced the letters genuine.”
I pursed my lips and helped hand tea and cakes to Parnell and his minion. The Times, I thought, had taken every precaution. They had used the latest scientific methods to prove that the Parnell letters were genuine, and therefore Parnell’s hands, and those of his followers, were steeped in innocent British blood.
“We wish Mr Holmes to make a judgement on the authenticity of the documents,” said Parnell. “If he thinks them genuine, we would not hinder publication of that fact. If he declares them bogus, we would like to know who forged them and why.”
“Are you suggesting that we should find the forger so your assassins can murder him?” I cried.
“If we wanted the man dead -” began Campbell.
“Why would we want him dead?” Parnell interrupted sternly. “We do not want him or anyone else dead. We will need him to testify to the forgery in open court at my libel trial against The Times.
”
“You want the headline, ‘Sherlock Holmes pronounces letters to be forgeries’,” I said.
“Exactly. Yes, that is exactly what I want. Why would I not?”
Parnell pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his face. “I hope you will pardon my vehemence, Doctor.”
Campbell rested a hand on his shoulder. Parnell smiled up at him. “It has been a rather trying summer.”
He recovered himself and nodded to his secretary; Campbell placed a buff envelope on the table between us.
“I know who perpetrated the fraud,” said Parnell. “His name was published in the American Press. I will say no more on that. Should Mr Holmes gratify my request to act in the matter, I would prefer that he made his own enquiries. I have made copies of several authentic letters that contain similar phrases to those used in the forgeries. I have included examples of Mr Campbell’s writing and my signatures. The Times paid a fiver each for authenticated Parnell signatures earlier in the year. I sent them a bundle, but I did not receive a cheque in return.”
He smiled a tight smile. “It is a strange thing, Doctor, to see your signature on documents that you did not sign, professing policies and beliefs that are not your own, particularly when they are in the public Press.”
“Yes,” I said neutrally, earning a scowl from Churchill. “I can see that it would be galling.”
Mr Parnell stood and held out his hand.
“I cannot guarantee that Mr Holmes will act in the case,” I said shaking his hand. “There may be some degree of reluctance due to certain other matters under investigation -”
“The Jubilee Plots. Believe me or not, as you will gentlemen, but I would take no pleasure in any disruption of the celebrations. I would be happy to travel with Her Majesty in the coach to Westminster Abbey on Tuesday morning. I am sure that we would find subjects of mutual interest on which to converse. My great-grandmother was a Tudor. Good day to you, Doctor, and to you Master Spencer-Churchill.”
I convoyed Mr Parnell and his secretary downstairs and out to their carriage to protect them from Mrs Hudson and her men-at-arms.
“What an extraordinary turn of events, Churchill,” I said, returning to our sitting room. I rubbed my hands in glee. “Holmes will have a fit! Here we are, charged by the Marquis of Salisbury, Prime Minister of the realm, to prevent dastardly Fenian attacks on Her Majesty, and the leader of the Fenians wants to engage us to clear his name. It is unheard of!”
“We cannot take the case, Doctor,” Churchill said with fierce resolution. “Mr Parnell is a fiend in human form.”
“Well,” I said mildly, “let us see what Holmes has to say. No more cake for you young man. You must guard against over-indulgence.”
I helped myself to a second slice.
“A healthy padding is one thing, corpulence another. If you are aiming for a military career, you must take into account not just the cost of larger uniforms and heavy horses, but also the sort of target you might make. The Afghans delighted in shooting our more rotund officers.”
“Why?”
I considered. “They are an easier mark, of course. I imagine that it was partly for fun and partly because they thought fatness a sign of seniority, which it generally is. I read a poem recently about sniping by a young fellow in India. Pass me down that slim red book next to my Bible. My soldier servant Murray, late of the 66th, sent it me from India to mark his promotion to sergeant. He saved my bacon at Maiwand. Here it is:
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.”
I passed the book to Churchill. “It is on the edge of parody, but this Kipling fellow catches the moment.”
“What is a jezail, Doctor?”
“It is a long musket. The Afghan marksman is a jezailchi. You must never let a wounded man fall into their hands, Churchill. The Afghan women are creatures of darkness: a pistol shot through the temple is a kindness. The medical officer at Maiwand shot sixteen of our wounded. Let that be your lesson for today, my boy.”
2. Infernal Machines
A Lesion of the Will
Holmes was at breakfast with Churchill when I entered the sitting room the next morning.
“We waited supper until ten,” I said.
He waved a languid hand. “A tiresome business, Watson; I got home after two in the morning. They drove me half across London and back again, then ushered me into what Lestrade called a safe house: a dreary Mayfair mansion filled with dustsheet-covered furniture. Its location would have been more secret if portraits of Lord Carnarvon’s mother had not lined the walls. On a long dining-room table were piles of uninformative despatches from Dublin Castle and the British consulates at New York, Chicago, Paris, even Tokyo. I went through a mound of Scotland Yard and Secret Service Fenian files. They were in a deplorable state. It is difficult to believe that officers charged with the defence of the Union are so utterly disunited. I have seen more energy and strength of purpose at a nursery tea party. Pass the coffee.”
“What are your plans?”
Churchill poured coffee for Holmes and gave me The Times.
“We must visit Mycroft. I have already telegraphed. Before that, Assistant Commissioner Monro invites us to a demonstration of infernal machines at the Woolwich Arsenal. What did you discover about assassination attempts on the Queen?”
I nodded to Churchill.
“We have had seven, or perhaps eight attempts against Her Majesty since 1840. The first one -”
“Summarise,” said Holmes waving his egg spoon.
“All except one by pistol,” said Churchill reading from his notes. “Some loaded with blanks or unloaded; the perpetrators were mostly lunatics. The first was in 1840. Eighteen-year-old Edward Oxford fired at the Queen’s carriage on Constitution Hill. Either he missed, or the guns were not loaded. His papers showed that he was the sole member of a fantasy society of gun enthusiasts called Young England. He was judged, mostly from the shape of his head, to be suffering from a ‘lesion of the will’. He was incarcerated in lunatic asylums for twenty-seven years and was then sent to Australia.
“In May 1842, the Queen was riding in a carriage along the Mall when John Francis aimed a pistol at her but did not fire. He escaped. Her Majesty was persuaded to drive the same route the following day in an attempt to flush the gunman. As expected, he darted out of the bushes and shot at the Queen. He was seized by plain-clothes policemen, convicted of high treason and sentenced to transportation to a penal colony. I suppose you could count that as one or as two attempts.”
“They used the Queen as bait, Holmes,” I said warmly. “It was monstrous.”
Holmes gestured for Churchill to continue.
“Again in 1842, John William Bean fired a pistol loaded with tobacco at the Queen. He received eighteen months imprisonment. Seven years later - this is the first Irish attempt - William Hamilton fired a blank at her carriage. And in 1850 a mad officer, Robert Cate, struck the Queen with his cane. Again he was sentenced to transportation to a penal colony.”
“The custom of sending our assassins and lunatics to the colonies was extremely short-sighted,” said Holmes, waving a buttered toast soldier. “It does not bode well for the future of Australia and New Zealand. And look at America!”
He nodded to Churchill and attacked his second egg.
“The second Irish attack took place in ‘72. A seventeen-year-old youth, Arthur O’Connor (great-nephew of an Irish MP), waved an unloaded pistol at her open carriage as it drove through the gates of Buckingham Palace. He shouted a demand for the release of Fenian prisoners. The Queen’s ghillie, John Brown, grappled him to the ground. O’Connor was sentenced to transportation and a flogging, or perhaps the other way around; the Queen spared him the
cat as he had already received a hiding from Brown.
“The latest attack was five years ago in March of 1882. A Scottish poet, Roderick Maclean, offended by the Queen’s refusal to accept one of his odes, shot at her carriage as it left Windsor Railway Station. Two schoolboys from Eton College struck him down with their umbrellas. A doctor declared in evidence that Maclean’s narrow head and high, arched skull were commonly associated with idiocy and insanity.”
Churchill looked up with a suspiciously innocent look on his face. I avoided his eyes. Holmes stood and smoothed the hair on his narrow, high-arched head in the mirror.
“When a true genius appears in the world,” he said softly, draining his coffee cup and preening himself in the mirror. “You may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him. Spencer-Churchill?”
Churchill looked blankly at him.
“Jonathan Swift,” I said with some satisfaction.
“He left his fortune to St. Patrick’s Hospital for Imbeciles,” said Holmes. “The feeble-minded in Dublin are thereby catered for; the dim-witted at the Palace of Westminster still wander its halls, unconstrained. Continue.”
“Maclean was found not guilty, insane. The Queen was incensed by that verdict, and the law has been changed to allow a verdict of guilty, but insane.”
“Her Majesty’s only injury in all attempts,” I said, “was from a mad officer who struck her with his cane; she still bears the scar. There is a divinity that hedgeth the Queen, Holmes.”
“Just two Irish assaults and neither pistol loaded; not an impressive show.”
“Remember Dynamite Saturday in ‘85,” I said warmly. “The Fenians attacked the Commons Chamber at Westminster with an infernal machine. And the year before that they blew up Scotland Yard!”
“As I recall, the bomb was placed in a public urinal,” said Holmes with a dismissive sniff.
Holmes and I moved to armchairs and lit our after-breakfast pipes. Churchill leaned against the window frame and looked out on the street. The weather was baking, but there was enough of a breeze coming through our open doors and windows to make the heat endurable, at least to an old campaigner like myself.
