by Dan Simmons
Holmes only nodded slowly, as if not in full agreement yet on the seriousness of his infraction to honor, trust, friendship . . . and it just made Henry James all the more angry. “Professor Moriarty is a fiend in human form, Holmes! I saw him! I heard him! He was planning and coordinating the deaths of hundreds of people—the unwitting police in a dozen cities, the President and Vice-President of the United States, God knows how many innocent bystanders—as coolly as a businessman might announce a new sales campaign to his staff.”
“That’s rather well put, James,” Holmes said with another twitch of an approving smile. “Well said, indeed.”
James only grunted. He was in no mood to receive Mr. Sherlock Holmes’s approval.
“Continue with your story of Saturday afternoon’s encounter,” said Holmes.
Later, James was surprised to see from Holmes’s watch that it had taken him another half hour to tell the whole story. He was blushing slightly, since the part about concealing himself while the mob members took turns firing shotguns and rifles at the “rat” was more florid and less likely than any fiction he’d ever produced.
James readied himself for a long cross-examination, an interrogation, from the slightly frowning detective, but all Holmes said was, “How did you feel?”
“How did I feel?” James realized that he had almost shouted the words, glanced apprehensively toward the compartment’s closed doors, and moderated his tone. “All that information for you—times of the assassination, plans for mob uprising and anarchists’ murders across the United States, in London and in Europe, and you want to know how I felt?”
“Yes,” said Holmes. “For instance, when you thought they were shooting at you and the shotgun blast shook the entire beam you were hiding on. How did you feel, James?”
The author had to pause a moment. He knew that the question really did not deserve an answer—there were far too many important questions he could and should have answered about the assembly of thugs and Professor Moriarty’s plans—but he also realized that he’d quietly been asking himself the same question for the last two days. How had he felt during this, the most out-of-all-context almost absurdly unreal-feeling event of his lifetime. Frightened? Yes, but that was not the primary sensation.
“Alive,” he said at last. “I felt very much . . . alive.”
Holmes grinned his full grin, patted James’s knee as if the master author were a retriever dog who’d brought back the pheasant unchewed, and said, “That being the case, I think you are going to enjoy the next couple of weeks.”
FIVE
Wednesday, April 12, 8:05 a.m.
Holmes arrived in Haymarket Square and immediately spotted Inspector Bonfield standing across the street near the alley. Carriage and cargo traffic was heavy on Desplaines Street as was pedestrian traffic. Holmes waited for a break in the traffic and jogged across the street, accepting the inspector’s eager handshake almost before Holmes had come to a stop.
“It’s very good to see you again, Mr. Holmes,” said Inspector Bonfield.
“And you, Inspector. Congratulations on your various promotions.” Holmes had been here in May and June of 1886, gathering evidence for the trial of the anarchists who’d been behind the Haymarket riot where 8 policemen and 3 civilians had died. Bonfield had been a Captain then but the information he’d brought to the prosecution in the trial of the 8 anarchists had quickly earned him “Inspector” status and the supervision of the Chicago Police Department’s Detective Bureau. Bonfield had also been detached to the Columbian Exposition to train and supervise the 200 or so plainclothes detectives who, among them, knew the face and modus operandi of every pickpocket, thief, and con artist in a seven-state region. The so-called “Columbian Guard”, all decked out in baby-blue uniforms and, on occasion, their red and yellow capes, carried a cute little ornamental sword. Bonfield’s plainclothes boys carried a heavy sap, a pair of brass knuckles, and a loaded pistol in their suit pockets.
“The promotions were aimed poorly,” said Bonfield, who still seemed as quiet, reserved, and competent as Holmes had found him seven years earlier. “All accolades should have gone to you, Mr. Holmes.”
The detective waved that away. “I see you have a statue commemorating that May fourth,” said Holmes. “And a uniformed police officer to guard it.”
Bonfield nodded. “That’s a twenty-four-hour guard, Mr. Holmes. Vandals—either the anarchists or those countless thousands who’ve come to look at the anarchist-killers as social heroes—have beaten the statue apart with sledgehammers, scribbled obscene graffiti on it, painted it green—very disrespectful. So now we keep a man here all day and all night.”
Holmes pulled out his pipe and began tamping in tobacco. Henry James had convinced him, for the sake of his American friends if for no other reason, to use a more expensive and less shockingly aromatic brand of tobacco while he was here in the States.
“You will never guess what is scheduled for Waldheim Cemetery for the day of May fourth,” said Bonfield, showing more anger in his expression than Holmes had ever before seen in that stable younger man.
“Waldheim,” repeated Holmes, puffing his pipe to life and setting away in his trouser pocket—next to the .38-caliber lemon-squeezer pistol—the unique lighter. “That’s where the four hanged anarchists were buried, was it not?”
“It was,” said Bonfield. “Now it’s a shrine to the ‘brave union organizers’ who ambushed my men and me here seven years ago. They’re unveiling a monument to the killers—or martyrs, to the popular press’s point of view—and the monument is said to be taller than this twenty-foot statue memorializing the eight police who died that day. Early estimates suggest that there may be eight thousand or more people turning out in Waldheim Cemetery for the radical ceremony. We wouldn’t get a dozen citizens if we held a memorial service here for the policemen who died.”
“History is a perverse mechanism,” said Holmes between puffs. “It demands the blood of martyrs—real or invented—the way a machine requires oil.”
Inspector Bonfield grunted, checked the brief gap in the traffic, and stepped out onto the street, motioning for Holmes to follow. “This has been paved over by hot top since the riot and trial,” said Bonfield, “but you’ll remember that it was about here”—the Inspector’s polished shoe came down on an unremarkable spot—“that you showed me the egg-shaped indentation in the cedar-block paving of that time, where the heavy bomb had first struck and . . .” Bonfield stepped further out into the street. “It was here where you noticed the smooth, oval crater where the bomb had actually exploded. By lining up the small impact dent with the actual crater—using red string in the model you provided us—we were able to show that the bomb had been thrown from the alley, not from somewhere south of the advancing police as the defense would have had the jury to believe.”
Inspector Bonfield was so immersed in the memory that he failed to notice a large dray wagon with four huge horses bearing down on him. Holmes gathered the police detective by the elbow and moved him safely to the curb opposite the alley.
“The bomb went off right beneath Patrolman Mathias Degan,” continued Bonfield, speaking as if from a mesmeric trance. “Degan was a friend of mine. The shrapnel that killed him was no bigger than your thumbnail, Mr. Holmes. The doctor gave it to me and I have it, in my bureau. But it severed Mathias’s femoral artery and he bled to death, right there on where the cedar paving blocks used to be. And in my arms.”
“We proved that six of the eight policemen who had been shot—rather than those wounded by bomb shrapnel—had been shot at a downward angle,” said Holmes. “Someone firing a rifle from that window up there, next to the alley.” He pointed at the window of the corner shop facing Desplaines Street.
“The prosecution made that case but the jury made nothing of it,” said Inspector Bonfield. “But your evidence, Mr. Holmes, did prove that the carpenter Rudolph Schnaubelt was the man who threw the bomb from that alley right at the cluster of police.”
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“Showed it beyond a doubt,” agreed Holmes. “But you’ve never apprehended or arrested him.”
Inspector Bonfield held his hands out. “How can we arrest him if we can’t find him, Mr. Holmes? We’ve tracked down leads saying Schnaubelt was in Pittsburgh, in Santo Domingo, that he’d died in California, that he was begging in the streets of Honduras, that he was living in wealth in Mexico. That socialist rag—the Arbeiter-Zeitung—published a letter reportedly from Schnaubelt and the letter had been postmarked from Christiania, Norway. The man is a phantom, Mr. Holmes.”
“The man—Schnaubelt—has been making a good living as a manufacturer of farm machinery in Buenos Aires,” said Holmes. “He arrived in Argentina a month after the Haymarket Square riot and has lived and prospered there ever since.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this?”
“I cabled all the information—including Schnaubelt’s work and living address—to your major and superintendent of police in early eighteen eighty-seven,” said Holmes. “There was no reply. I sent a second cable with the same information, this time including various aliases Schnaubelt had used. Again . . . I received no response.”
Bonfield had taken off his cap and looked as if he was preparing to rip clumps of his hair out by the roots.
Holmes glanced at his watch and removed his pipe. “It’s getting late, Inspector. You’re my liaison while we follow the carriage route that will carry President Cleveland to the Exposition grounds, and then I am scheduled to receive a quick tour of the White City itself. But we’ll have to trot to get to the Lexington Hotel by their departure time.”
“We’ll let the horse do the trotting,” said Inspector Bonfield. He whistled and a sleek black carriage, driven by a uniformed Chicago P.D. patrolman, glided up. The driver jumped down and opened the carriage door for them.
* * *
There were two carriages waiting for Bonfield and Holmes outside the Lexington Hotel at the intersection of 22nd Street and Michigan Avenue. The first was an oversized canopy-covered surrey with three bench-rows of seats facing forward rather than the usual two, plus a fourth bench seat looking backward. It was filled with uniformed police officers.
The second was an open carriage—much more comfortable looking—and the driver was a big man with bright blue eyes and a trim salt-and-pepper beard that looked a bit like that of former President Ulysses S. Grant. Holmes estimated from the man’s hands that he might be around sixty, but there were no wrinkles, save for a few laugh-lines, on his face. He wore a working man’s comfortable corduroy trousers and well-worn boots, but also a rather expensive-looking wool hacking jacket. Most noticeable was the black slouch hat set back on his head as if he wanted the April sun to turn his winter-pale forehead pink.
Inspector Bonfield said, “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, may I have the honor of introducing you to our mayor-elect, Mr. Carter Henry Harrison.”
The handshake was firm without being bruising. “I’m delighted, absolutely delighted, to meet you, Mr. Holmes!” said Harrison.
“Mayor-elect?” asked Holmes.
“I was elected for a fifth term—not sequential, I’m ashamed to say—on April fourth,” said Harrison. “But I don’t officially take office until the twentieth. But Mayor Washburne was busy sulking and cleaning out his office so I jumped at the chance to show you the route we’ll be taking with President Cleveland.”
One of the police officers was walking back to the mayor’s carriage and the mayor said in a very soft voice to Bonfield, “Uh-oh, here comes McClaughry.”
Holmes could see by the badges McClaughry was the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Force. Mayor Harrison introduced him as such and again there was a handshake, this one even more enthusiastic.
“Mr. Holmes, I have been so looking forward to meeting you!” said Chief McClaughry. “When I was warden of the Illinois State Prison at Joliet, I was responsible for creating America’s first full system of bertillonage. You use that system, I believe.”
“To be honest, I know and respect Monsieur Bertillon and have worked with him in Paris, but I’ve found that many of his categories of identifying criminals—bone length, centimeters of forehead, and all that—are rather unworkable. So these days I concentrate almost exclusively on fingerprints.”
“Ahhh,” said Superintendent McClaughry, seeming a bit cast down by Holmes’s lack of enthusiasm toward the full category of bertillonage. “Yes, well we have fingerprint cards, as well. More than five hundred at present. Do you keep your own cards, sir, or depend upon Scotland Yard’s?”
“I’m sorry to say that Scotland Yard has not yet adopted fingerprinting as a universal practice,” said Holmes. “But I have an assistant who visits the prisons and we make our own cards—photograph of the suspect on front, prints of all fingers and the palm on back. I believe I have about three thousand such cards on file.”
Superintendent McClaughry was visibly startled at this information.
“Bob,” said Mayor-elect Harrison, “it’s time to move out. You’re welcome to ride with us and Bonfield can ride with the patrolmen.”
“No, I shall ride with my men,” McClaughry said stiffly. “It was a great, great pleasure, Mr. Holmes, and I do hope we meet again when we have time to discuss Bertillon’s methods and other forensic matters.” A final handshake and the chief of police marched back to his crowded surrey.
“Hop on up here next to me, Mr. Holmes,” said Harrison. “Bonnie, you get in back with Mr. Drummond. I believe you know Drummond, do you not, Mr. Holmes?”
Holmes nodded at the Secret Service director. “Yes. A pleasure to see you here, sir.”
Drummond smiled and returned the nod.
“All right, it’s time,” said the mayor-elect and touched the two horses gently with his whip.
“I presume that President Cleveland will be staying there at the Lexington Hotel,” said Holmes.
“Yep,” said Harrison. “It’s got the largest suite in town. But if it had been me choosing a hotel for the president, I would have picked one on a paved street.”
Holmes had noticed that this stretch of Michigan Avenue was more yellow dirt than pavement.
“Just so it doesn’t rain on Opening Day, we’ll be okay,” said Harrison. “This was the furthest-south high-quality hotel, built just last year, so I suppose it makes sense. It shouldn’t take more than about twenty, twenty-five minutes to get to the Fair going down Michigan Avenue.”
“Too bad Superintendent McClaughry didn’t choose to ride with us,” said Drummond from his place behind the mayor. “We need to discuss C.P.D. security arrangements as well as the Columbian Guard security.”
Harrison chuckled and adjusted the brim of his black slouch hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. “Chief McClaughry is a good man. And a dedicated reformer. He sent me his letter of resignation on the day I was elected.”
“Why?” said Holmes.
Harrison grinned. “All of the things Bob wants to reform—gambling, kickbacks to party officials, drinking, dallying with the ladies of the night—are more or less the things I most enjoy doing.”
“Mayor Harrison has very strong support amongst the working class,” said Inspector Bonfield from behind Sherlock. “Even among the colored folk.”
Holmes decided that this was all the local politics he needed to hear. More than enough, actually. He said, “How many officers in Chicago’s police force, mayor?”
“A little over three thousand,” said Harrison. “We’ll have mounted officers riding along and ahead when the actual procession from the Lexington gets going, but my guess is that a couple hundred thousand folks will be walking and riding behind us. Joining the parade, so to speak.”
“And there are two thousand–some Columbian Guards inside the Fair,” said Sherlock.
“That number of uniformed officers,” said Bonfield. “Plus about two hundred plainclothes detectives under my supervision on the fairgrounds—both in the White City and along the Midway Plaisance where we expect t
he pickpockets and others to do most of their work.”
“Hand-picked detectives?” asked Holmes.
“Handpicked not just from the C.P.D. but from all over the United States,” said Inspector Bonfield.
“Mr. Drummond, what about your agents?” said Holmes.
Mayor Harrison broke in. “When Mr. Drummond showed up this morning and told me that he was from the Treasury Department, I was sure the jig was up. All my back taxes catching up to me.”
“Someday, Mr. Mayor,” Drummond said softly. “Someday.” To Holmes he said, “I’ll have fifty-five Secret Service agents in place when President Cleveland gets to the Exposition grounds. Eight of them are master marksmen and they’ve been checked out with the newest army sniper rifles. Six are on permanent detail with the president.”
“Tall men, I hope,” said Holmes.
“None under six foot three,” said Drummond. “But, of course, no one can be standing in front of the president when he gives his opening address.”
“How many carriages will be in this procession?” asked Holmes.
Harrison grinned again. “My guess is somewhere between twenty and twenty-five coaches. Mr. Cleveland and his immediate entourage will be in a landau. Very Important Chicagoans keep coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches and they all want to be in President Cleveland’s procession to the Fair. All I know for sure is that I’ll be in the last carriage, whatever number that will be.”
“Why is that?” asked Holmes.
“Because I’m going to get the most applause and happy shouts from the crowd of anyone in the procession,” said Harrison who was obviously just stating a fact rather than bragging. “I wouldn’t want President Cleveland to hear that if I were ahead of him. It might hurt his feelings.”