‘So you want me to recover the document?’
‘As soon as you can.’
‘I am reluctant, my Lord, to take on the task because I do not agree with your administration’s opposition to Home Rule. I consider it a pointless attitude. Nevertheless, I will set aside my political objections because I appreciate the seriousness of the problem with which you are faced. Therefore I am going to have to take on what may prove to be a most daunting of tasks. However, I absolutely insist that my name must under no circumstances become associated with the investigation. It is most important that I maintain my independence from political affairs.’
‘Certainly, Mr Holmes, I understand.’
‘Sir, have you any idea where the document might be?’ asked Holmes.
‘As I explained, I did not discover it had been taken for some time and that Powall had somehow acquired it. Since his death, his widow Frances, as I understand, has kept all his correspondence and papers. That is the first place to look. I am not certain what use he might have made of my words. As I explained, if the Fenians were to get their hands on it they could cause even more trouble. Irrespective of who has or has not got the document, it remains a petard with a short fuse already burning. It must be found, and quickly, before it literally explodes relationships between Ireland, the government and the opposition, and particularly with those who advocate Home Rule. I am relying on you, Mr Holmes.’
A few days later I was aroused from my reverie among the mountains of Afghanistan by the appearance of a bowed and scholarly figure at my side. Once again my friend was adopting a disguise in order to penetrate a problem.
‘I’m off to visit the widow Powall. She has invited me, Patrick Flyn, to research among her late husband’s papers. I am writing a book about the more important Irish politicians. She is ready to help anyone, such as myself posing as a scholar, who could show, from a study of her late husband’s papers, that he had no direct involvement with the Fenians, nor had he anything to do with the murder of Cavendish and Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin. What of my brogue?’
‘It will just about pass. Can I help?’
‘Thank you, not at the moment, Watson.’
Within four days the ‘scholar’ arrived back. With a triumphant gesture, Holmes produced a sealed envelope.
‘Are you going to open it?’
‘No. What it contains, I am sure, is not for our eyes.’
He then recounted all that had happened.
‘When I arrived at the house in Godalming, Mrs Powall was obviously most anxious to help me in my research task. She let me work in her late husband’s study amidst his books. I suggested that if there were diaries then they would be the first place to start. She agreed and opened a small safe in which the diaries were kept. Each day when I had finished with the diaries, she locked them back in the safe. To my surprise, she even allowed me to read the more intimate letters that had passed between them. Eventually I came across one particular letter that Powall had written to her. When I read it I realized that it was one I should not have seen. What I considered to be a significant part was where he had written that if anything should happen to him, then she should remember the “Double Seal” that he had entrusted to her for safekeeping with “Athlone”. Should anyone approach her and ask for it, they would say “Kilmainham” as their authority to let them have it. In turn she had to say to them that the key was in the Dark Pool. They would understand. Under no circumstances was she to let the Fenians have it.
‘The words “Double Seal” and “Athlone” exercised my brain for some time. Who was Athlone? Was he a friend of the family? It was not until the next time the safe was opened by Mrs Powell that I realized that an envelope with a double wax seal lying with the diaries could be the one I was seeking. The remaining problem was that of taking it. I had, obviously, to try and find the numbers for the combination lock on the safe. As you know, Watson, for the benefit of thieves, the owners of safes often disguise the sequence of numbers in the form of alphabetical characters. “Athlone” might be such a code.
‘I waited until I heard Mrs Powall leave the house and, trusting that none of the servants was likely to disturb me, I tried the numbers revealed by the code word. I was frustrated. The safe would not give up its secret. Then, after further thought, I tried another common subterfuge of safe owners. I reversed the numbers, and the safe opened.
‘It was at that point that I realized that if I went off with the envelope its absence would be quickly noticed. I sat at the desk, looking round the room, seeking inspiration. And then before my eyes on the desk alongside the stick of sealing wax was Powall’s gold signet ring. Quickly I took an empty envelope and applied a double seal and put it in the safe. Thus, the real and the counterfeit were exchanged.
‘The next morning I said farewell to the widow who, unwittingly, had been so helpful with my quest. I confess to a feeling of great guilt that I had deceived her. However, I had been charged with a task in which there was no room for human feelings. Here is the copy I made of part of the letter which led me to the location of the document. See what you can understand of its intended meaning.’
I read the extract from the letter two or three times before giving it back to Holmes.
‘Well, Watson, what are we to make of the mention of Kilmainham and Dark Pool?’
‘I’ve no idea other than they are, possibly, the most important words in the letter.’
The document remained sealed until we were once again in Lord Marsham’s study.
‘I trust, my Lord, this is the document?’ asked Holmes.
The Prime Minister slid a paper knife under the seals, opened the envelope and took out a sheet of foolscap.
‘What’s this?’ he exclaimed. ‘This is not it!’
‘May we see?’
The Prime Minister handed it to us to examine. Written across the paper was the following line of characters:
GTACAFSSDFNODZAYCTHGYZ
‘What do you make of it, Mr Holmes?’
‘At present, sir, nothing. Please allow me time in which to study the letters and see if I can solve its meaning. All we can say at the present is that we are dealing with some type of code.’
With that we returned to Baker Street. As the train took us up to Euston, we debated what the alphabetical characters could mean. Suddenly I had one of those flashes of inspiration that at times come to all of us.
‘I have it, Holmes! The string of characters might be, I say might be, a method of encryption using a five by five matrix. A fellow officer in India and I used to pass the time away, whilst we waited for the next attack by the hill tribes, by devising numerical puzzles and codes. If we make a five by five matrix and insert a key word to fill up the matrix starting at the top left, and then the remaining letters of the alphabet in order fill the rest of the matrix, you can encrypt a message. We could try it on this string of letters, except that without the key word we cannot get any further.’
‘Is it possible then that the key is Kilmainham or Dark Pool, in the Powall letter?’
‘Of the two words the latter is more likely the key because it is the shorter of the two.’
Once back in Holmes’ rooms, we attacked the cryptic message.
‘What we first have to do is divide the string of letters into pairs and then take each pair in turn and find its companion pair. I’ll show you how.’
I explained the method I had been taught in India, although I was not too certain that my memory of the principle was very sound. I recalled that the rules were very complicated.
We set DARK POOL into the matrix and within a few minutes we had a message. It read:
SUONDGTTOUVFPVKWIYIMVW
‘However we divide up the letters,’ I said, ‘we can’t form enough meaningful words. DARK POOL is not the key. We will have to think again.’
‘In these circumstances, Watson, I recommend we close our minds to the problem and concentrate on something else.’
Inwardly I groaned as
he took up his violin. I admit that he was most accomplished with that instrument. However, the solo violin is not to my musical taste. I prefer it en masse as part of an orchestra. To divert my ears and mind from the sound of the violin, I decided to look up the activities of the Fenians. I noted that their campaign of 1883 included bombs at government offices in Whitehall, on the Inner Circle near Praed Street, and between Westminster and Charing Cross stations on the Metropolitan District, and explosives found on the line in the Primrose Hill tunnels of the LNWR. In February 1884 a luggage office at Victoria station was blown up. The campaign continued until January 1885 and included blowing up a Metropolitan train near Gower Street station as well as bombs at Scotland Yard, the Palace of Westminster and the Tower of London.
I turned my thoughts away from Irish activities and looked round the sitting room, and at the now-familiar pictures on the walls. As Holmes would have observed, my thoughts wandered from the picture of Gordon of Khartoum to my years in the army. As I recalled the periods of utter boredom, interrupted now and then by moments of great danger and excitement, I remembered being attached to the Dublin Fusiliers. A singular coincidence, to be thinking about that regiment and its name, when at the time Holmes and I were involved with matters concerning Ireland. At one time the regiment was in barracks at Beggar’s Bush outside Dublin. With that particular remembrance, the name Dark Pool came to mind.
I looked over at my companion. ‘The key, Holmes. The key. I think it could be DUBLIN. You see Dark Pool is the translation of the Gaelic word for Dublin.’
‘Excellent, Watson. An inspired idea.’
We formed a matrix of twenty-five squares, five by five. DUBLI was arranged across the top line with the N on the second line. Within a few minutes we had the message. It read:
PO IN NE RR IN GF IV EW FR OM WX
It did not take us long to see the message: PO INNER RING FIVE W FROM WX.
‘What are we to make of that? One clue has led to another and then onto yet another. This is going to require a great deal of careful thought. I wonder if Frances Powall was aware that what she assumed was the important document itself was only a clue to its whereabouts? All the time she has been guarding just a sheet of foolscap on which was printed a string of letters.’
‘As you say, Holmes, we need to think very hard. I am sure she knew nothing of the contents of the envelope.’
‘Are you sure you have worked out the message correctly? It does not seem to make much sense.’
‘I agree. We need to consider it first. I suggest we start with the words “inner ring”.’
We spent the afternoon trying to understand the message. By one of those fortunate chances or coincidences, I stooped to retrieve from the floor a screwed-up sheet of paper. As I was about to put it in the waste-paper basket, I saw that lying at the bottom of the basket was an uncollected underground ticket bearing the inscription ‘Inner Circle’.
‘Holmes, could the words “inner ring” refer to the inner circle of the Metropolitan and District?’
‘Ah, yes, indeed, you may have broken into the secret message. Now if it does mean the inner circle, then can we deduce that “five W” indicates five stations west from “WX”?’
‘The X may stand for cross. As in Charing Cross for example,’ I responded.
‘However, we have a W not a C. Ah, of course, as you explained, an X was often included to make up the twenty-five letters. So if we ignore it we are left with just W. Let us assume that Powall, as a member of parliament, had in mind the station with which he was most familiar and that is Westminster. If so, then five stations from Westminster brings us to Gloucester Road. And the letters P and O may indicate the parcels office at the station.’
‘Why would he conceal the document at an underground railway station?’
‘I’ve no idea. However, we must go to Brompton and see what we can find.’
‘We can walk up to the underground station and go anti-clockwise round the inner circle to Brompton,’ I suggested.
‘No, a hansom will do. The atmosphere in the underground is not to my liking. I cannot understand why some people having respiratory problems choose to deliberately make a journey down below.’
‘They believe the fumes will be of benefit to them. Although the locomotives used are what I understand to be of the condensing type, in which the exhaust steam is directed into the water tanks, the fumes from the fire still escape from the chimney. Yet, of course, not in the great clouds of smoke we normally see coming from an engine.’
At Brompton station we immediately discovered that the idea that the letters P and O referred to the parcels office was a false lead, because there was no such office at the station. We examined all the likely places in which Powall may have hidden the document. However, because our quest had to be kept secret, we were unable to seek the assistance of the station staff.
‘There are so many cracks and crannies throughout the station,’ said Holmes, ‘that we would need an army of searchers working for a week before every possible hiding place had been inspected. I confess that, for the moment, I am baffled. It’s back to Baker Street and some deep thinking away from the noise of trains and people.’
As we stood outside the station waiting for an empty cab to appear, I noticed a sign indicating that a post and telegraph office was close by.
‘Holmes, what if P and O stands for post office?’
‘Of course. The letter may have been left poste restante. However, we do not have a name which will enable us to collect the letter. Now this is where we have to take a chance. It could be Powall or, perhaps, Francis, or any of a thousand names concerned with Irish affairs. Therefore we have really only two options to start with. I will be Powall and you will be Francis.’
Francis it was.
Suffice to say we had found the document describing Lord Marsham’s dangerous appreciation.
The Prime Minister arranged a most generous payment to Holmes for his success and reluctant involvement in politics. The portion that Holmes passed over to me brought a smile to the otherwise critical features of my bank manager.
‘By the way, Holmes, is or was there any significance in the word Kilmainham?’
‘Now you mention it, of course, it was where Powall and Parnell were imprisoned in 1881 for their activities with the Land League and for inciting violence against landlords. It also gave its name to the agreement of 1881 reached between the Liberal government and Parnell.’
Notes
Watson’s army friend may have anticipated the Playfair matrix that at the end of the nineteenth century came into use with many European armies.
The ‘Ascendancy’ referred to the Anglo Irish who owned much of the land and held the majority of high administrative positions.
The Tiptree Typewriter
In which the aroma of preserves leads to a clue.
My notebooks, from which I construct my accounts of the numerous cases and adventures experienced by my friend Sherlock Holmes, contain many that must remain unpublished. Some because the persons involved might be caused great distress if the facts became public knowledge. Others concern Holmes’ involvement with foreign governments and whose disclosure might engender a diplomatic scandal. There are even some that would betray the nation’s secrets if they were published. However, the passing of time and subsequent events relating to certain cases justify them being brought to the attention of the world at large. The history I am about to recount is just such a one. It involves, unfortunately for me, devices and mechanisms the understanding of whose workings are far beyond the mental abilities of a one-time army doctor and now a general practitioner. Later, I came to understand that the events were played out against the race for naval supremacy between Britain and Germany. Sherlock Holmes became involved when the race had only just started. It was a time when the Royal Navy was making great efforts to advance from the method used to aim Nelson’s cannons to one that would enable a shell to strike a ship five or more miles away, and
even when that ship was moving.
Part One
The Admiralty papers
I recall that it was in the late autumn of ’99 when Holmes became involved with two cases that in the end became one. We had just finished our breakfast. Holmes moved over to his favourite armchair, taking his coffee cup with him. Soon after the table had been cleared, there was the sound of the front door bell and voices in the hallway below.
‘At this time of the morning it is sure to be Superintendent Lestrade,’ said Holmes.
The tall figure of Scotland Yard’s most redoubtable detective entered.
‘Good morning, Mr Holmes. Good morning, Doctor Watson.’
He waved away Mrs Hudson’s proffered cup of coffee. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Hudson. I managed breakfast before I left the Yard.’
‘I see from your appearance, Lestrade, that you may not have slept well,’ observed Holmes.
‘Mr Holmes, I’ve had to spend most of the past two nights struggling with trying to untangle a problem. I am charged on the highest authority to seek your help. Important plans have been removed from the Admiralty.’
‘Important, you say. What sort of plans?’
‘If a foreign agent were to gain sight of them the Royal Navy would lose its present command of the seas. Apparently, there is a device that would enable our ships to aim their guns with deadly precision.’
‘So their lordships want me to help you recover them?’
‘It is not as straightforward as that, Mr Holmes. They were removed from the Admiralty but what is so strange about the whole affair is they were eventually returned. Unfortunately, the officer responsible for their safety cannot be certain about when they were taken or exactly when they were returned.’
Sherlock Holmes at the Breakfast Table Page 18