The Death of Cardinal Tosca (The Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD)

by Ashton, Hugh

  Despite myself, I shivered. “Does any man deserve a death such as that?” I could not prevent myself from ejaculating.

  “Most certainly not,” the Spaniard agreed. “Though I had no love for Mahoney, I pray for his soul after such a terrible fate has befallen him. His killers were unable to find the letter they sought, as you are no doubt aware. Though they had emptied the house of all his effects, and had searched diligently, it had proved impossible to locate it. They were convinced, however, that it was here in this building, believing that Mahoney would never have abandoned it or let it out of his possession. It was their intention to enter the house tonight or tomorrow night, and remove Mahoney from his hiding place while renewing their search for the missing paper.”

  “You raise an interesting point there,” said Holmes. “Why did they conceal the body of Mahoney in this way? Why did they not dispose of it in another way? The River Thames is not that far distant.”

  “As I understood from what I heard, a kind of superstitious horror came over these men as they came to a full realisation of what they had done. The idea of taking the body out of the house was repugnant to them, and they determined to conceal the body, empty the house of all personal effects, and come back later to dispose of the evidence.

  “However, much to their surprise, the agent was uncommonly quick at re-letting the house, and they were unable to gain access to the house which they had previously assumed would remain empty for some time. They disguised themselves as tramps at the start of the new lease, in an attempt to find their way inside, but their attempts were rebuffed. The so-called ‘agency’ of Edwards & Lowe then sent girls to seek non-existent positions. I have no doubt that these were the wives or the mistresses of the conspirators, who would be instructed to search for the missing document, and present it to them.”

  “And you, too, are in search of the missing letter, I may assume?” said Holmes. “This is no doubt the reason for your being here?”

  The other smiled. “Quite the contrary, my dear sir,” he said, reaching inside his coat, and drawing out another envelope, which he handed to Holmes, who took it, opened it and examined the contents with a thunderstruck air.

  “I think that you owe us an explanation of all of this, Señor,” he said to the Spaniard.

  “Very well. As I say in this message, which I was intending to leave for the Fenians who no doubt will be paying a visit in the near future, the letter from your Royal Catholic is no longer in existence.”

  “What?” both Hopkins and I exclaimed as one.

  “Yes, indeed. When Lord Ledbury sent me upstairs to find the letter, as I described to you earlier, I swiftly invented a reason why I should not give the letter to him immediately upon his return from London. In truth, since this was the evening of the Cardinal’s death, I was overcome by emotion, and I found it impossible to think coherently.

  “I spent the night with the fatal letter tucked under my pillow, hardly sleeping, though I was exhausted by the events of the evening and their consequences. In the morning, though, I knew what I had to do. Since the Cardinal was dead, the letter had little more use. I could not trust myself to give it to Lord Ledbury, as he is too honest a man to keep it hidden. He would have felt duty-bound to give it to a member of the British government, or even worse, return it to a representative of the Church. Either of these alternatives could be a cause of friction or worse, which I had no wish to see.

  Equally distressing to me was the state in which the body of Tosca had been left. Your brother, Mr. Holmes, had given orders that the body was to be left untouched, and the room sealed until a detective—by which I may assume that he meant you—arrived to take charge. This was repugnant to me in the extreme. I mentioned that His Eminence was more than a name to me. He had been a good and trusted friend, and I was disturbed by the thought of his body sitting in its gore in the dining-room.

  “Suddenly, it occurred to me that it was possible for me to kill two birds with one stone. I could dispose of the letter and respect my friend’s memory at the same time. I knew that it would be useless for me to attempt to enter the room from the hallway, but the French windows could be forced from the garden with the aid of a flat-bladed knife.

  “At midday, therefore, when all the other servants were eating their meal, I slipped outside, and made my way into the dining-room. With some difficulty, as he was a large man, I assisted my late friend to be comfortable and dignified in death. I did not remove the dagger, though.”

  “Why not?” asked Sherlock Holmes, who had hardly moved a muscle during this remarkable narrative.

  “Because it was I who had given it to him many years before when he left Toledo. He had often expressed his admiration for the famous products of my hometown—the Toledo blades—and expressed his whimsical disappointment that as a prelate of the Church, he was not permitted to enjoy the ownership of one. I therefore had this made. Perhaps you noted the arms emblazoned on the hilt? No? I am disappointed there. If you had noted them, you would have seen that the arms to which Tosca was entitled as a prince of the Church were present.”

  “The heraldry of the Roman Catholic Church is one of the few subjects with which I am not intimately acquainted,” remarked Holmes, drily.

  “Well, be that as it may. In any event, I had an aversion to withdrawing the dagger from the corpse. Once my friend was arranged with some decency, and his eyes had been closed, I took the letter and secreted it under his clothes. I was confident that it would not be discovered for some time, if at all. As you know, when I entered the room to talk with you and saw that you had moved His Eminence, I was concerned lest you had discovered the letter at that time.”

  “But Lord Ledbury informed us that you had presented the letter to him, and he had put it in his safe, whence it later disappeared,” I pointed out.

  “That is very true. I presented Lord Ledbury with the envelope, which bore the Royal coat of arms on the outside, and into which I had previously inserted a sheet of thick paper. I trusted to his sense of gentlemanly conduct and fair play that he would never open the envelope.”

  “He might have passed it to the government or handed it back to the Church,” objected Holmes.

  “Indeed he might, but in that case, who would be at fault? Not I, surely. As it turned out, this was no problem. Mahoney used the key that had been stolen on his behalf from the Whitehall office and abstracted the envelope.”

  Hopkins spoke for almost the first time during this narrative. “That must have been a shock to him,” he chuckled.

  “I am sure it was, and I confess to feeling some pride at having foiled his tricks in this way. The other papers on which my late friend and Mahoney had been working, by the way, I removed from the dining-room, and returned to the room which had been assigned for use as a sitting-room by His Eminence and Mahoney.”

  “That would explain why papers I would have regarded as being confidential were to be found on the table in that room, when I would have expected them to be locked away in the boxes. These were all the papers that you took from the dining-room, other than the one you hid on the Cardinal’s body?” The other nodded. “Were you aware, by the way,” added Holmes, “of the existence of a document, signed and sealed by His Holiness, ready for the signature and seal of the British Royal personage?”

  The Spaniard’s eyes went wide with horror. “No, on my life! His Eminence never said anything about this to me. I had no idea that matters had progressed to that stage.”

  “Neither, apparently, had any other person,” said my friend. “Since the paper was found at the bottom of the box, it is likely that Monsignor Mahoney was also unaware of its existence.”

  “Where is that document now?”

  “I am not at liberty to disclose its precise whereabouts, but I can assure you that it is now in a place where it can do no damage,” replied Holmes.

  “Be that as it may,” interrupted Hopkins. “All of this is most interesting, and I may well believe that you are not respon
sible for the death of Mahoney, but I would like to know exactly why you are here this evening.”

  “I think I can explain a little of that,” said Sherlock Holmes. “The paper that I have been handed is addressed to whom it may concern. It explains that the letter that the addressees—presumably the Fenians—are seeking is no longer to be found in this country.”

  “I can explain this. Following His Eminence’s death, you will recall that his body was removed to the local undertaker’s while it was decided what further steps should be taken, and where he was to be interred. Many messages on this subject passed between London and Rome, I believe, while His Eminence lay unburied. I lit candles and prayed for his soul, but it was a source of considerable concern to me that he had not received Christian burial and the rites of Mother Church.”

  “The body was preserved, I take it?”

  “Indeed it was. It was decided that it would be refrigerated, rather than embalmed. Only a month ago, it was decided that the body would be returned to Rome for interment in the crypt of one of the churches there. Accordingly, it was transported from England, and I received word this morning that the funeral rites were conducted two days ago. We can be sure that the letter was buried with him, since I placed it inside his garments in such a way that it would not be discovered.”

  “I understand that the letter has now been laid to rest, but what I fail to understand is your reason for coming here and delivering this extraordinary message to the gang of Fenians.”

  “From what I overheard in my hiding-place, it appeared to me that the gang would make their move on this house either tonight or tomorrow night. They planned to overcome their superstitious dread, and to remove Mahoney’s body and search it. Should the current tenants interfere, they were to be killed.”

  “Are these men armed, then?” asked Hopkins.

  “Indeed they are. Not only do they possess weapons, but it seems to me that they are prepared to use them.”

  On hearing this, Hopkins gave orders in a low voice to one of the constables flanking Alvarez, who left the room. “I have just told my men to be prepared for this,” Hopkins explained to us.

  “In any case, I made my way here, and determined to wait for a suitable opportunity. If the present tenants were at home, I was going to explain that they were in danger, and persuade them to accept this letter to present to the gang on their appearance. My hope was that the contents of this letter would persuade them to abandon their scheme.

  “As I was approaching the house, I noticed the tenants and a girl who is presumably their servant being escorted into a carriage by a man who was almost unquestionably a police officer. I therefore concluded that the official forces had, by some means unknown to me, arrived at a similar conclusion to myself. I was therefore expecting to be apprehended by your men, sir,” to Hopkins, “when I made my way into the house.”

  “Well, you have certainly been a busy man,” chuckled Hopkins, “but I think you were playing an overly dangerous game. You would have done much better to come to us, or even to Mr. Holmes here, with your suspicions and your knowledge.”

  “Maybe that is true,” the other shrugged. “However, I was not sure—indeed, I am still unsure—of my position as regards the law here.”

  “If the information you have provided to me here,” Hopkins said to him, tapping the sheet of paper he had been given earlier, “allows us to capture these rebellious Irishmen, you have nothing to fear in that regard.”

  “And the actors appear on cue,” said Holmes, a curious half-smile on his lips. “Hark!”

  We listened carefully, and could hear a noise at the rear of the house. Hopkins whispered to the remaining constable, who swiftly and silently left us. “Come,” Hopkins said to us, almost inaudibly. “Are you armed?”

  I shook my head, as did Alvarez, but Holmes silently withdrew his favourite riding-crop from within his coat.

  We started from the room to the conservatory, and were halfway there when a series of confused shouts broke out.

  “Come, there is not a moment to waste!” called out Hopkins, fairly bounding down the passage towards the source of the noise and blowing his whistle with all his might. We followed him, and a scene of chaos met our eyes. Three of the constables who had arrived with Hopkins were outnumbered by their opponents, with whom they were struggling. The unmoving bodies of several of the constables’ comrades lay on the floor. Hopkins and Holmes sprang forward as one, Hopkins brandishing a heavy life-preserver, and Holmes his riding-crop, which they used to strike the constables’ assailants, who soon went down under their blows.

  Alvarez and I were not far behind them, you may be sure, and I used my experience of Rugby football to tackle and bring low one of the other intruders who had escaped the blows of our leaders. Alvarez, for his part, was gamely attempting to overcome another of the Fenians, who was wrestling him to the ground until I stepped in and laid the fellow out with a straight right to the chin.

  As Holmes and Hopkins moved among the fallen cursing Irishmen, pinioning their hands with the handcuffs that Hopkins and his men had brought with them, I bent to provide succour to the fallen policemen. I was relieved to see that other than a few bruises and grazes, they were essentially unharmed. I offered what aid I could while Hopkins dispatched one of his constables to summon transport for the prisoners.

  The growling captives were soon lined up against the wall, and one of them noticed the shallow grave from which Mahoney’s body had been taken. “Where is he?” he asked in a surly tone. “Is the letter with him?”

  “Ah, so you came for the letter, did you?” smiled Holmes. “I have just had word that the paper you are seeking is far away from here, if indeed it still exists, in a place that will never be disturbed. You may seek it if you wish, but I fear that you will be doomed to failure.”

  “And who are you?” asked the Irishman, with a foul oath.

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes,” answered my friend.

  The effect on the other was electric. He staggered visibly, and turned to the others with a look of hopelessness written on his face before turning back to us. “It was you hiding in the cupboard, then, listening to us? We found the bottle in the cupboard and none of us drinks that Spanish vino, so we knew we had visitors. If we had known that we were up against you, we might never have started this game.”

  Alvarez seemed ready to speak, but Holmes moved in front of him swiftly, smiling almost sweetly at the Fenian. “You may believe that if you wish,” he answered. The Irishman seemed ready to retort, but at that moment, the constable who had been sent for the vehicle entered, followed by several more policemen.

  “Take them away,” Hopkins commanded his men, and the prisoners were led away. “We have them in the bag, thanks to you, sir,” bowing slightly to Alvarez, “and naturally to you as well,” to Holmes. “And your assistance has been invaluable, too,” he said, turning to me.

  Mr. Sherlock Holmes – Baker-street, London

  “It has been almost a complete failure on my part, from beginning to end.” These were the words that Sherlock Holmes addressed to me a few days after the last, as we were sitting by the fire at our rooms in Baker-street.

  “My dear fellow,” I expostulated, “I really do not see how you can lay that charge at your own door in that way. A dangerous gang of Fenians is no longer at large, the murderer of Cardinal Tosca is no more, and the English public is happily unaware of the fate that potentially threatened it. Added to which, you have the personal thanks of His Holiness, expressed through Mycroft, and the spirit of brotherly love is once more abroad in the Holmes family.”

  Holmes smiled thinly. “The last is at least true,” he admitted. “The telegram from Rome was as unexpected as it was welcome, and you are correct regarding the relations between myself and Mycroft. Such a state of affairs is welcome, of course.

  “But the fact remains that I was culpably and negligently slow in so many aspects of the original case. I have to say that were it not for your
observation of the dead man’s fingers, it would have taken me considerably longer to determine the true cause of death.”

  “Ah, yes,” I answered, with all the modesty I could muster. “I am most gratified to have been of assistance there. Have you determined, at least to your own satisfaction, exactly why Mahoney killed his master Tosca?”

  Holmes shot me a sharp glance. “Watson, I continue to underestimate you and your talents of perception. You have pinpointed the exact point at which I consider myself to have failed. I can consider several good reasons why the murder may have taken place. The most likely is that the Cardinal’s notorious temper became too much for his secretary to bear. Even a Catholic priest is only human, and Mahoney was obviously a man with a fair proportion of self-love and pride in his makeup.

  “Next, we may consider the possibility that Tosca had become aware of Mahoney’s involvement with the Fenians, and was threatening him with exposure if he were to continue the association. It is not without the bounds of possibility that Mahoney determined to silence this threat to his career.

  “And finally, there is ambition. Despite Mahoney’s somewhat unprepossessing appearance and demeanour, Mycroft received word from the Vatican that he was highly regarded in a number of somewhat influential circles there, and was destined, according to some, to rise in the hierarchy. From what we have heard, though, it would seem that Tosca would use his influence to block such an appointment.”