Sherlock Holmes and Young Winston - The Jubilee Plot

by Mike Hogan

  Holmes dropped his egg-spoon and newspaper and stood, knocking back his chair. “I have been a fool. Watson, you must look to Churchill.”

  He loped past me into his bedroom and was out again in an instant. He grabbed his hat and stick, slipped his pistol into a frockcoat pocket and made for the door. “When you have seen to the boy, join me at the Diogenes Club. Bring your revolver and your medical bag.”

  He leapt out of the door and clattered down the stairs. The front door opened and slammed shut.

  “Well,” said Mrs Hudson shaking her head. “There he goes again and I’ve kippers paid for cash down seething in milk and as tender as could be. What is it this time, Doctor?”

  I drained my coffee cup.

  “I have not the foggiest idea, Mrs Hudson. Cash down for the kippers, you say? Then I would be a profligate fellow if I refused one. Or perhaps two.”

  After breakfast, I followed Billy upstairs.

  Churchill was in the lumber-room at the top of the house, fast asleep on the old camp bed that I had used on campaign in Afghanistan. He had made a nest for himself amid the piles of newspapers, trunks, and odd bits of furniture that had cluttered the sitting room and bedrooms until we put them into store. The old tin despatch box from my Army days stood next to the bed. On it was a charming studio photograph of Lady Randolph with Churchill on one side and his younger brother, Jack, on the other. Next to it was a full-length Vanity Fair drawing of Lord Randolph cut from the magazine and pasted on a piece of card. Pinned to the wall behind the bed were signed postcards of Colonel ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody and the Indian Chief, Red Shirt.

  Churchill was face down on the bed, fully clothed and fast asleep.

  “Why didn’t you help the boy into his pyjamas, Billy?” I said crossly. “He’s still wearing his boots.”

  Billy looked at his toes.

  “I dursn’t Doctor,” said Billy, turning pink. He called me ‘Woomany’ - that’s his name for his nurse, Mrs Everest - and asked for a goodnight kiss.”

  I tried shaking the boy, to no avail. I removed his boots and socks and tickled his toes. I whispered ‘bacon and kidneys’ in his ear. Billy held a plate of kippers under his nose and Churchill snorted, half-opened his eyes, said something unintelligible and went back to sleep. Heroic measures were necessary.

  Thirty minutes later, the same dusty porter as before showed me into the Stranger’s Room of the Diogenes Club in Pall Mall.

  Holmes was at the window, alone. The curtains were drawn against the glare outside; Holmes peered through a chink with a long brass telescope.

  “Ah, Watson. How is Churchill?”

  “Two buckets of cold water poured over him in the backyard brought him around. He is still spluttering with indignation and vowing legal action.”

  “You did not use any of our American ice, I hope. Look and tell me what you see.”

  I took the telescope and focussed on the other side of the street. “I see your brother watering his window box. His nasturtiums are coming along nicely.”

  “Yes, he looked out ten minutes ago. He instantly noticed the drawn curtains here. He is assiduously watering, pruning and keeping an eye out. He will have caught the glint from the telescope lens as you wave it about in your indiscreet way. Look farther up; check Colonel Delacy’s flat.”

  “The windows are closed and curtains drawn. I see no movement.” I returned the telescope to Holmes.

  “I am afraid we are too late; I am a mole not to have seen the signs. I deserve to be kicked up Pall Mall and back again. Kindly open the curtains and wave to Mycroft. He can let us in quietly.

  “What is all this about, Holmes? Mrs Hudson is livid about the kippers.”

  “Good morning, Brother,” Holmes said as we slipped into the lobby of Mycroft’s residence. “Did you sleep well?”

  Mycroft blinked at Holmes. “Sleep? I did indeed, extraordinarily well,” he exclaimed.

  Holmes raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, dear,” said Mycroft. “Up the stairs again, then. It is my knees, Doctor; I am a martyr to my knees. They are the reason that I rarely sleep.”

  Holmes unrolled his burglar kit on the floor outside Colonel Delacy’s door for the second time in less than twelve hours.

  He looked up at me. “Ten hours and forty minutes to be exact. Be prepared for anything, Watson. We may be up against a desperate crew.”

  “Is this wise, Holmes?” I remonstrated. “The Colonel may not be as hospitable as on our first visit. There is the matter of the Isfahan carpet. And there is the blunderbuss; he aimed a wide-bore elephant gun at me not ten hours and forty-one minutes ago.”

  Holmes put his finger to his lips. He bent over the lock.

  “I slept like a baby,” said Mycroft turning to me. “I haven’t slept so well in decades. Yet, I do not feel refreshed. I have tried any number of remedies. Do you know Crosby’s Vitalized Phosphites, Doctor? No? An American remedy. I was advised to take them against brain hunger in the night, but they do not answer. I have made the philosophy of sleep my study. Is it not odd that a man will never admit that he was asleep? In a railway compartment, for example, a fellow absolutely snoring like a rhino will say, ‘Oh, I was thinking of something’ or ‘I closed my eyes for a moment’, as if sleeping were a sin. What is so moral about being awake?”

  “Ssshh,” said Holmes. I heard a soft click. Holmes opened the door and we crept through the hall to the sitting room. He cocked his pistol, and I my service piece. He slowly turned the door handle and opened the door.

  The scene was as we had left it the evening before. The gas was still lit and the cake plates and port glasses had not been cleared away. Colonel Delacy was asleep in his armchair. The shotgun was not in sight. The room was tremendously hot and stuffy. I opened the curtains, turned off the gas, and flung the windows wide.

  “See to the Colonel,” said Holmes as he disappeared through a side door.

  I made my weapon safe and attempted to wake the Colonel. I loosened his tie, took off his stiff collar, and shook his arm, but he slumbered on. I was loath to use smelling salts to wake him as there was no medical emergency that I could discern; he snored gently. Mycroft took a seat on the sofa and regarded him with envy.

  Holmes peeked around the door. “Come and look, Watson.”

  I followed him into a short corridor that led to a small kitchen.

  “Can you not wake him?” Holmes asked.

  “He is sleeping peacefully. I can hardly strip him, carry him down to the street, put him in a tin bath and pour two buckets of water over his head as I did with Churchill. He is a retired colonel of Indian infantry.”

  “Look,” said Holmes pointing at the kitchen ceiling.

  I looked up and saw square hatch that led to the roof space. It was closed. Holmes crouched to examine the linoleum floor covering.

  “Do you see?”

  “What?”

  All I could see were some faint indentations about a foot apart, and several slight scratches in the linoleum.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned. Holmes nodded towards the kitchen door; he put his finger to his lips once more and slipped through doorway into what might be the larder. I pulled out my revolver and took a position behind the door.

  I heard footsteps as someone stumbled along the corridor and then an almighty yawn. I came out of my hiding place.

  “I say, Doctor,” said Churchill yawning again. “You were mean to go off without me. Can I borrow one-and-six for the cab?”

  Holmes darted back into the room and pulled the kitchen table to a position below the ceiling hatch. I helped manoeuvre it to his satisfaction.

  “Mind the evidence,” he cautioned, pointing to the linoleum. He sprang on to the table. I passed him my stick and he carefully lifted a corner of the hatch while he and I covered it
with our guns. Churchill reappeared behind me.

  “Up you go,” said Holmes. “See what you can see.”

  “I say, Holmes,” I remonstrated.

  Churchill jumped up, climbed on Holmes’ shoulders and disappeared through the hatch.

  “Holmes, we are chasing dangerous miscreants. Is it wise to send the Duke of Marlborough’s nephew to scout the roof space?”

  A head popped down through the hatch. “All clear, come on up.”

  Churchill reached an arm down, grabbed Holmes’ wrist and helped him scramble up and through the hole. Holmes and Churchill pulled me up through the hatch - a narrow squeeze - and I followed them across lines of wooden beams to a small iron door set in the brickwork. It opened easily.

  “Recently oiled,” said Holmes with a smile. “We are on their track.”

  We writhed through the doorway and stepped out on to the roof of the building. A stone balustrade guarded the edge. I looked over it into Pall Mall. The street was quiet.

  “Come along, Watson.”

  I jogged along the balustrade behind Holmes. We stopped at the corner.

  “That is the Carlton Club,” said Holmes pointing to the neighbouring building. A three-foot gap and a wall eight or ten feet high separated it from Mycroft’s building. A short wooden ladder was propped against the wall. Churchill had already scrambled across.

  “That’s odd,” said Holmes. “They did not retrieve their ladder when they left.”

  Churchill appeared from behind some chimney pots. “I’ve found something!” he shouted. He waved to us and disappeared again.

  Holmes jumped up on the balustrade, ran up the ladder and followed him.

  “I say, Holmes,” I called. “That is private property.”

  I hesitated and warily eyed the gap between the buildings. The drop was straight down into a tiny yard lined with rubbish bins.

  Holmes peeked from behind the chimney. “They say that it is a wonderful policy never to look down, old friend. Let me give you an arm. Is your wounded leg troubling you?”

  I jumped up and climbed the ladder in a series of jerky, awkward movements. I followed Holmes to the far end of the rooftop where Churchill leaned over and looked down.

  “You are puffing like a grampus,” said Holmes.

  “Nonsense. I am delighting in the cooling breeze. I am drawing in invigorating draughts of oxygen.”

  “Very well. The alley or lane below us is Carlton Gardens,” said Holmes. “The building across from us is the Reform Club.”

  I nodded.

  “How far would you say the gap is, Watson?’

  “The width of the alley? Twenty-five feet or more.”

  “No man can jump that far.”

  “Indeed not,” I agreed. “Although the Pathans on the North-West Frontier can leap surprising distances: ten or fifteen feet is nothing to them. I measured one leap at eighteen feet four inches with a vertical drop of four feet. The man did not survive, however.”

  “The fall?”

  “The bayonet.”

  I sat on the balustrade with Churchill while Holmes closely examined the top and sides of the stonework through his magnifying glass. He grunted with satisfaction several times as he scraped slivers of some substance into small envelopes and pocketed them. He stood. “Someone crossed the gap last night, while you, Churchill and the Colonel slept so well. They used a ladder.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “A ladder? How could they possibly get a thirty-foot ladder up here? They would have to drag it through Colonel Delacy’s flat, manhandle it through the hatch and carry it up the ladder that we ascended. Even in sections, it would be weighty; they would have to double each length so it would not bow or slip. They would require a large crew.”

  I considered. “A bamboo ladder would do it, in sections with metal sleeves perhaps, but bamboo of the requisite length would not be easy to find in London. Wait! I have it! The new bamboo grove at Kew! They must have stacks of bamboo. Should we not contact the curator, Holmes?”

  Holmes pointed to the edge of the roof. “Not bamboo, judging by these scratches. It is something metallic; there are shiny scrapes. Here are traces of green paint. You will remember that three men were repairing the gas lamp outside the Diogenes Club. Their ladders were dark green in the gaslight.”

  “I say, gentlemen,” said Churchill with a smile. “When you are done with your ladder, you might like to know that there is a body on the ground below us.”

  I followed his pointing arm and looked straight down into the alley. A deep trench followed the line of the wall; the earth from the digging formed a long mound about four feet high. Over the lip of the trench, face up, lying half in it and half on the earth mound, was a man in a grey suit. His limbs were twisted at awkward angles, and he was clearly dead.

  “I shall go down,” I said. “Ah, here are the police.”

  Two policemen in uniform followed a civilian around the corner from Pall Mall and into Carlton Gardens alley. I recognised at once, although the figure was ludicrously foreshortened, the angular form of Inspector Lestrade.

  He gave orders, pointing up and down the short street and the police constables hurried to obey him.

  “They never look up,” said Holmes, just as Lestrade looked up.

  “Stay exactly where you are,” the Inspector shouted. “You are surrounded by armed men.”

  “Good morning, Inspector Lestrade. How are you?” called Holmes, waving. “There is a corpse in the trench below us.”

  The Gas Men

  “Here’s a rum do, Mr Holmes,” said Lestrade.

  “Indeed so,” he answered.

  We stood in Carlton Gardens next to the corpse. Two uniformed policemen hurried past us towards the garden at the end of the alley.

  I checked the man’s vital signs, more for form’s sake than in the hope that he might be alive. I shook my head. The corpse was that of a middle-aged man. It was splayed over the edge of the trench with the head at an unnatural angle; his neck was broken.

  “Coroner’s on the way, Doctor,” said Lestrade in his nasal twang. “I sent a messenger. No need for you to bother yourself.”

  He tapped the side of his nose and pointed to the Carlton Club. “I had to ask the Coroner himself to come out and have a look. We have to do things right with all them government top-nobs in the club next door. Looks like he fell from the roof; unlucky beggar, if he’d dropped square on the mound of earth he might have survived.”

  A policeman brought the Inspector a black bowler that he had found in the trench. Lestrade tossed it carelessly onto the body. I saw Holmes stiffen like a hunting dog on point.

  “You arrived remarkably quickly, Inspector,” I said, avoiding Holmes’ eyes.

  “I am investigating a burglary at the Travellers Club just along Pall Mall, Doctor. We were about to check the back of the building for evidence of forced entry when I saw the body. I don’t suppose there’s any connection.” Lestrade looked up. “No, no, that’s twenty-five or thirty foot or more between the buildings: you’d need trained gibbons.”

  He crouched like an ape, swung his arms and hooted. “Monkeys, Doctor, ha, ha.”

  He straightened and his face returned to its normal pale, rat-like countenance and sharp, anxious mien. “Not a simple burglary, Mr Holmes,” he said with a sly look. “There is an Imperial aspect to the case.”

  “How awkward for you,” said Holmes. “However, returning for the moment to our corpse; has the body been searched?”

  “Thoroughly,” Lestrade replied. “I found nothing of importance. My feeling is that he is an employee of the Carlton who slipped. They are having some repairs done; that would explain the trench. Accidents will happen.”

  He looked around and bent forward conspiratorially. “Tell you the truth, Mr Holmes, as s
oon as I saw the body, a thought went through my mind. It’s bad enough with the Fenian dynamiters, I thought. Now with Indian princes getting robbed at the Travellers Club, I’ve enough on my plate. I’ll leave bodies dropped from the Carlton Club roof to the local force. The fixed point constable at the Haymarket was first on the scene, so I’ve requested an inspector from C Division to take over.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you a member of the Carlton, Mr Holmes? I didn’t mean any harm talking of top-knobs. What were you doing on the roof?”

  “We need not bother the denizens of the Carlton Club, Inspector. What did you find on the body?”

  Lestrade reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a ring of keys and some papers. “Here is all there was: nothing of interest, except perhaps the White Star envelope.”

  “May I?” asked Holmes. Lestrade passed the items to Holmes. He examined them carefully, holding several up to the sunlight. He moved to the corpse and studied the dead man’s clothing, loosening his shirt and examining the label on the collar. He took off one shoe and subjected it to minute scrutiny through his magnifying glass. He paid special attention to the bowler hat. He nodded to Lestrade.

  “I would be happy to offer my assistance in the matter of the robbery, Inspector.”

  “Very kind of you, I’m sure, Mr Holmes. You’d best come and meet the foreign persons involved in the theft.”

  “Where is Churchill?” I asked, looking around.

  “What’s going on?” cried a voice. A heavily bearded man in a blue uniform came up to us from the garden end of the alley. He carried a lantern and a truncheon. Churchill accompanied him, grinning broadly.

  “What’s it to you?” Lestrade asked with a sniff.

  “This is the Carlton Gardens night watchman,” said Churchill proudly.

  “Oy, look, there’s a dead man in that hole,” the man said.

  “Were you on duty last night?” asked Holmes.

  “Who are you that’s asking?”

  “I am Sherlock Holmes.”

  The man glared at Holmes and said nothing.