by David Marcum
My Lord of Exeter,
It was my good fortune to obtain an audience with Her Majesty the Queen last week, at the personal recommendation of the American Ambassador. The object of my mission was to record for posterity the voice of one of this century’s most enduring figureheads - a woman who has been an inspiration to millions in both the civilized and developing nations. Her Majesty’s interest in scientific development made her an enthusiastic participant, and an excellent reproduction of Her Majesty’s voice was obtained on the phonograph.
Now, my lord, to the point - choosing to walk back to my hotel in Northumberland Avenue and enjoying the mild evening air, I was strolling through St. James’s Park when I was set upon by two men in black, wearing hoods, that at once put me in mind of the dreaded Ku Klux Klan, the curse of the Southern states. I am a Civil War veteran, and memories of Bull Run flashed across my mind as I endeavoured to give them a sound thrashing. But I am no longer in the first flush, and though I saved Mr. Edison’s precious machine, they made off with a box of cylinders that contained the voice of Queen Victoria. I need not tell you, my lord, how serious the consequences would be should this recording fall into the wrong hands - so I alert you as to its theft. There is nothing more I can do, but return to the United States cheated of the greatest prize of my collection, and a disappointed man.
With humility,
Colonel Goriot
Holmes frowned. “The Colonel alludes to serious consequences, but I fail to see, my lord, wherein lies the problem. A recording of Her Majesty cannot in itself present any threat surely, though it may have value as a curio or souvenir, I suppose.”
“Mr. Holmes,” the Prime Minister interrupted, and his face was blanched. “There are certain facts about Her Majesty of which the general public is blissfully unaware. No one could doubt that Her Majesty is the epitome of a constitutional monarch whose every action is designed to benefit Great Britain - but...” And here he hesitated. “Mr. Holmes, I must ask you to excuse what I am about to say in regard to its frankness. Her Majesty is afflicted with the most guttural of German accents - the over-bearing influence of her German mother! It is the reason she never speaks in public. None but the Queen’s inner circle and her Prime Minister are aware of this idiosyncrasy. No one who heard this recording would listen to the contents of Her Majesty’s speech. They would simply hear a foreign monarch - distinctly un-English. We live in times of extreme dissent, Mr. Holmes. Her Majesty choosing to retire from public life since the death of the Prince Consort has led to a great deal of resentment. There were riots in Trafalgar Square only last year, and dynamite outrages in other parts of the capital. There are anarchists among us who wish to destabilize our country. If this recording were to be made public, the damage it would do to the English Crown and its institutions might at this sensitive time be fatal. There are many informed people who believe this country is on the verge of revolution - a German-sounding Queen may just tip the balance.”
“But this is surely a little far-fetched,” I ventured to suggest.
“Sir!” said Lord Exeter in a Parliamentary tone designed to quell any opposition, “the improbable has become the probable.” From the inside pocket in his frockcoat, he produced a folded handbill. “Received at No. 10 yesterday,” he barked. It read as follows:
IN THE INTERESTS OF DEMOCRACY!
THE SHOCKING TRUTH TO BE REVEALED AT LAST!
Your mother-tongue is mutilated by the
Nation’s mother-figure. Your Queen
Victoria is a house-frau, a German, a Kraut
So, where do her interests lie?
Not this side of the channel.
She favors foreigners.
HEAR HER FOR YOURSELF!
Hear her mechanically reproduced on a talking-machine.
YOUR EARS WILL NOT LIE!
Don’t be the subject of a foreign power.
IT’S TIME TO BE FREE!!!
“Political propaganda of the crudest sort” snorted Holmes. “But I see your dilemma,” he continued in a more serious vein. “To ignore this threat could prove fatal to national security.”
“Her Majesty’s government requires you to find that cylinder, Mr. Holmes, and destroy it before these socialists or anarchists can loosen the ties of democracy.”
“And yet there is no indication in this handbill as to the location or date of this public demonstration.”
Lord Exeter drew from yet another pocket a small square of card. “My secretary found this, thrust by hand into this morning’s post.”
I saw Holmes’s brow contract as he scrutinized it. “Poor quality cardboard, a tuppeny post-card in fact, cut in half. Cramped hand, sloping to the left, possibly in an attempt to disguise the writer’s genuine hand - unusual colour ink - mauve. Now for its contents...”
Be one of the first
To see a Queen reversed.
X.E.
“You are now in possession of all the facts, sir,” said the Prime Minister brusquely. “While there is still a House of Commons extant, and a tottering throne that needs my support, I am compelled to leave you.” Lord Exeter bustled out of our rooms, only pausing momentarily to add: “I need hardly say, you may name your price, Mr. Holmes.” And was gone before Holmes had a chance to reply.
When the dust had settled, so to speak, Holmes threw himself into his habitual armchair, reached for the Persian slipper, and filled his mid-morning briar. “My inclination,” he said when it was ignited, “is to let these anarchists, if that indeed is what they are, go about their lawful business. This is a democracy, and ridicule of a public figure, even if it is the Queen of England, is an essential component of freedom of speech, whatever the consequences may be.”
“But Holmes...” I interjected, appalled at these frankly Socialist sentiments.
“Down, Rover,” Holmes laughed, “you need not fear, I know my duty, so let’s examine this scrap of card once again for any clues:
Be one of the first
To see a Queen reversed.
X.E.
“‘To see a Queen reversed.’ Curious choice of word Watson - ‘reversed’.”
“What on earth is the significance of the X and the E at the end?” I asked. “Surely they are not the anarchist’s initials?”
“No,” Holmes smiled, “though the X might stand for Xavier - a good name for a South American revolutionary. I think it is part of the writer’s conundrum to tell us where and when the planned outrage will take place. It is indeed so simple that he seems to desperately want us to find him. X is the 24th letter of the alphabet and E the fifth - thus the demonstration is planned for the 24th day of the fifth month... that is May 24th... by Jove that’s today!”
“And significantly, Her Majesty’s birthday...” I added.
“The demonstration must be planned for tonight. But where? Make a long arm and hand me down the Baedeker, Watson, I think I am beginning to see where our anarchist would lead us.”
As Holmes leafed through the guide-book, I waited patiently for a glimmer of information to come my way, but to no avail.
It was hardly a three-pipe problem - approximately a pipe-and-a-half I would say had been smoked - before Holmes sprang from his chair. “Come, Watson, if you have nothing better to do. The game’s afoot!”
Before we left Baker Street, Holmes insisted that we change our appearance. He emerged from his bedroom in a pair of dusty old moleskin trousers, a collarless shirt, a waistcoat with holes in it, and to hide his features a large unkempt walrus moustache. His skill as an actor enabled him to assume a first-rate Cockney accent, and there stood before me an East End costermonger to the very life. I wore a shabby tweed jacket and a ratting cap pulled down over my brows, so as to blend in in the area towards which we were soon travelling, namely Hoxton, East London. “Why Hoxton?” I asked my friend, who h
ad not revealed to me his train of thought.
“Because, my dear Watson,” he replied, “our anarchist requires our attendance tonight at the Britannia Theatre.” I looked puzzled, and I saw a flicker of irritation cross Holmes’s face at my obtuseness. “My dear fellow, this is child’s play - the last line of the verse on the card revealed our destination - “to see a Queen reversed” - take a coin of the realm, bearing the Queen’s head of course, reverse it and what do you have, the figure of Britannia. A look at Baedeker’s Guide to London revealed that Britannia is the name of a theatre in Hoxton, an eminently suitable venue for a demonstration.” As always, Holmes made it sound so very simple.
Hoxton is one of the poorest areas of the metropolis. Poor and violent, so I carried a stout walking stick just in case. The cab dropped us on the edge of Hoxton High Street, and before long we were in sight of the Britannia. It had long had a reputation for its dramas, performed in a robust and lively style infinitely more suited to the East End than the West. The evenings were long, from 6:15 to midnight, and as it was close to 8:30 when we arrived, the bill was nearly half-way through. I noted that a travesty of Hamlet had opened the evening, followed by comic songs, and now there seemed to be a farcical sketch in progress - a tall young man dressed in a moleskin waistcoat and pepper-and-salt trousers far too small for him - was being berated by a small woman, who every few moments walloped him with a frying pan. I couldn’t make any sense of it, but the audience, which seemed to consist of young men in clothes too small for them, accompanied by their small female partners, evidently recognized the situation and roared with laughter.
Holmes, who was watching the audience intently and hardly taking notice of the proceedings on the stage, looked puzzled. “There’s something not right about this,” he whispered in my ear. “Nothing on the bill suggests there is going to be a public demonstration of any kind, and the audience is respectable enough: costers and their donahs.”
The little woman on the stage was continuing to hold forth when I suddenly saw Holmes stiffen and cock his head towards the stage. The woman was saying in a far from convincing foreign accent: “Ve are not amused, Albert, as Kveen Wic herself vould say - if she could speak the Kveen’s English!”
The audience was bemused. Some laughed nervously, others looked shocked at this strange diversion in the sketch’s plot. The young man had a foolish grin on his face and opened his mouth to speak... but a crash on the cymbals in the orchestra pit acted as a signal for the curtain to be lowered hastily, whilst the theatre manager ran on to the stage mumbling apologies for such an unprecedented insult to Her Majesty.
“Come, Watson,” said Holmes, “let us take advantage of this distraction.” He grabbed me by the arm and bustled me out of the auditorium and along a maze of corridors until we reached a door that led backstage. A wailing of female tears led us to a dressing-room where the woman who had caused the sensation was lying on a threadbare couch sobbing, I thought rather over-dramatically.
“‘E made me do it,” she wailed, “‘E made me do it!”
I poured her a glass of water, whilst Holmes knelt and took her hand.
“Who made you do what?” he asked calmly. Her little round face stared back at Holmes, wondering who this gentleman could be. I could see her grief was genuine enough, her make-up was scored by rivulets of tears revealing her pale face beneath.
“I’ll get the push - I’ll never work again,” she muttered through her tears.
“I promise you I will speak to the manager,” Holmes said quietly, “if you tell me what occurred.”
“’E made me say those words - the young man in the sketch. I don’t know ’is name. ‘Just call me Shakespeare,’ ’e said. It was new - a try-out. ’E’d written it, ’e said, and the manager wanted to give ’im a chance, and being a regular here, he asked me to play in it. I’m known as ‘The Pocket Termagant’, on account of my size and my line of parts - nagging wives being a spesh of mine. We first performed it yesterday, and it went well - but those words were never in it before. He paid me two guineas just to add them tonight. It’s a lot of money sir, to a turn like me, I didn’t think it would cause any harm, just a bit of fun, ’e said. I meant no harm to Her Majesty - and now I’m ruined!” She dissolved again in tears and I offered her my handkerchief.
“Our bird will already have flown, if I am not much mistaken,” said Holmes as we walked swiftly down the dressing-room corridor. Actors bustled past us as the evening’s performance resumed, but none resembled the tall fair-haired man in the sketch. A dressing-room door was open, and strewn over the floor were the pepper-and-salt trousers, the moleskin waistcoat, and red kerchief that had been the costume of our young man. The gas-lights around the dressing table mirror flickered as we entered, and Holmes’s sharp eyes alighted on something of interest. On the table was a scrap of card.
“The other half of the tuppeny postcard,” sneered Holmes, “and our next clue, I suppose.”
Written upon it in the same garish mauve ink was the following:
“To Mr. Sherlock Holmes - the world’s greatest detective?” - and on the other side, the following curious piece of doggerel:
She came from the West.
But turns in the East,
Of the best she’s the best,
Of the least you’re the least!
P.S. Save the Establishment, Mr. Holmes. Your Queen and Country need you!
“This has been a blind!” said Holmes angrily. “Our man knew we would be here tonight, but the true location of the demonstration is elsewhere. We are being deliberately led on a wild-goose chase, Watson, but for what purpose, and by whom?”
It was already past nine o’clock and I could see my friend was troubled by the lack of progress we had made. We sat in a dark corner of a public house by the Britannia’s stage-door, with the second half of the tuppeny post-card laid on the table before us. Holmes scrutinized it closely.
“‘She came from the West’ would seem to indicate our gracious Queen, or at least her voice, as both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are west of Charing Cross. ‘But turns in the East’ - enigmatic phrase, implying that the Queen travelled in an easterly direction, but where exactly - mmm. ‘Of the best she’s the best’ - another reference, ironic I suggest, to Her Majesty’s status. ‘Of the least you’re the least’ - an insult aimed at myself I think, designed to provoke me. The purpose of the message taken as a whole must be to communicate the location of the public display of Her Majesty’s vocal idiosyncrasies.”
I cleared my throat emphatically, but was ignored.
“‘In the East’ could imply the East End, but when and where...?”
After we had consumed a second glass of the abominable porter served by the public-house, I was beginning to feel distinctly inebriated. But it seemed to have the opposite effect on Holmes. His eye was alert and his thin lips were spreading into an enormous grin. “By Jove, Watson, our man has a rare sense of humour. This card does not relate to Her Majesty at all - and I have the ‘Pocket Termagant’ to thank for shining the lime-light on its true meaning. A glance at this paper will I think set us once more on the scent.” He snatched a much-thumbed and dog-eared newspaper from a pile by the bar that bore the title The Era.
“Lord love-a-duck!” cried my friend, playfully assuming his Cockney accent. “It’s as clear as the snout on yer fizz!” He burst out laughing at the undoubted look of consternation on my face. “Come, Watson. We must journey yet further into the East!”
Holmes hailed a cab and we sped through the night to our next destination: Whitechapel.
Our cab dropped us at the entrance to an alley, lit at the far end by one meagre gas-lamp. I gripped my stick the tighter, for despite our disguises, it was a place ripe for assault. Half-way down the alley was a door at which Holmes knocked heavily. With alacrity, it was flung back. A flood of light coupled with the sten
ch of sweat and stale beer greeted our senses. A pall of blue smoke hung over the interior as we paid our two pence and descended the rickety wooden staircase that led to the most primitive of performing spaces, sometimes known colloquially as a “penny gaff”.
In the course of my adventures with Holmes, I have seen many shocking sights, not least the utter degradation of humanity to be found in a London opium den, as chronicled in the case I have called “The Man with Twisted Lip”. But the interior of the “penny gaff” caught my throat and brought tears to my eyes. There were about three-hundred of the poorest souls, crammed into what I could hardly describe as a theatre, for it was nothing more than a deserted warehouse, illuminated by dozens of flickering and guttering candles stuck into beer bottles. At one end of the room, half-a-dozen beer barrels had been roped together and a couple of planks nailed across them. This, for want of a better word, was the stage. On this make-shift platform a tall young woman was singing of her woes in a sweet simple voice charged with poignancy. She sang of lost love and a sweetheart who now lived far beyond the sea. She was, to me, with her golden hair and pink complexion, the very picture of injured maidenhood.
Interesting as her performance was, however, it was the audience that commanded my attention. Two-thirds of those watching, enthralled by the young woman’s song, were children. The young man we had seen at the Britannia would have been easily detectable among them, but there was no sign of him. One or two adults - a chimney-sweep or a coal-man say - could be seen amongst the throng, but the majority were young boys and girls, no older than sixteen, whose faces told of depravity, poverty, and corruption. If the germ of revolution was indeed in our land, as the Prime Minister had suggested, and it needed feeding, here was its raw food. These premises are unlicensed for entertainment, and authority turns a blind eye upon them. The fare on offer is therefore of the most depraved kind: vicious melodramas, sordid songs, crude comedies appealing to a violent audience starved of emotion. For the most part, the entertainment is utterly immoral, and the sweetness of the young girl’s song seemed out of place. Yet the childish faces were held by the sentiments expressed - jaws gaped, and young girls wept copiously as they heard of the wretched abused life of the song’s subject, so nearly akin, I thought, to their own.