‘Then we need a disguise and a reason for being in the embassy. The former is not a problem for you, Holmes. Yet I have to admit that finding a reason could be. Is there a servants’ entrance?’
‘It’s at the back and well guarded.’
‘They must have to let tradesmen in?’
‘I did keep a watch on that possible means of access, Watson. The staff not only searched the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, I could see that they referred to what I assume was a list of acceptable deliverers of goods and victuals.’
‘There you have it, Holmes. Take the place of one of the delivery men. Surely Lestrade can arrange it.’
‘I have another thought, Watson. I saw that the identical mansion next to the embassy has an agent’s for-sale board fixed to its wall. Let us pose as potential buyers and visit the agent. It could prove most useful.’
The agent was able to give us a copy of the floor plans. On our return to Baker Street we sat down and studied them.
‘Now, Watson, if we assume that there have been no major changes to the order of the rooms, these plans indicate that a servants’ passageway and staircase lead from the scullery to all the principal rooms. If I can just get into the passageway, and if I am able to change my disguise from tradesman to a household servant, I should be reasonably free to explore the house.’
‘I doubt that you will have such freedom, Holmes. You are going to step into the middle of the spider’s web.’
‘I shall rely on the assumption that the occupants of a heavily guarded house are often so satisfied about the security of its outer walls that they are complacent about what happens inside. There is also the fact in my favour that we know the accredited entourage of the ambassador is made up of only six people. Which means, I hope, that only four are on duty at any one time, and that they are outnumbered by the servants. Therefore, I can rely on the good chance that I am not going to be encountered and challenged.’
‘In all the cases with which you have been involved, Holmes, I cannot recall another where you depended so much on chance.’
‘I’ve little choice.’
Choosing a suitable time, Holmes entered the embassy grounds. I waited anxiously outside. There was nothing for me to do. Everything depended on Holmes. When he eventually returned and we were in a cab on our way back to Baker Street, he recounted his adventure.
‘As you know I was disguised as a butcher so that I could bluff my way in, using credentials and meat order documents provided by Lestrade. I did not question where the heavy side of beef slung across my shoulders came from. It was enough to ensure that I was directed to the cold storage room down a passageway off the kitchens. Fortunately, the cooks and others were so busy preparing dinner for the ambassador and his guests that none noticed that the butcher had not returned from the cold room. I was now in the clothes of a servant that I had worn under my butcher’s long white coat and apron.
‘In the laundry room I was able to sweep up a pile of clean linen which I then held high in front of my face. I moved quickly along the passageways and up the stairs. All the activity in the embassy was concentrated on the first-floor dining room. Only after passing a dozen or more rooms did I discern a light shining below the foot of a door. I surmised that whoever was in that room was engaged on business of far greater importance than being sociable at a formal dinner.
‘There was no other course of action open for me. I knew that I had to walk boldly in on the pretence that I had mistaken the room for another. That is if the door was not locked.’
‘You were certainly taking a great chance,’ said I.
‘The door was not locked. I entered, saying, “Oh, excuse me, sir, I thought that this was the linen room.” In one glance I took in the important details. A man crouched over a pile of papers laid on a desk. No one else in the room. Then the hand reaching for the revolver lying on the table. As if lunging with a rapier, I snatched the gun away and at the same time sent the pile of laundry into the face of my opponent. The thought flashed through my mind, Am I right, or have I made a dreadful mistake? Is this the end of my career? Then my concerns were swept away by the sight of pages of messages in cipher.
‘For a moment the pile of linen I hurled confused him. He fell back and I wrestled him to the floor. As I did so I hit my head on the edge of the table. At that he seized me with both hands round my throat. As the effects of the blow to my head subsided, I was able to gain the upper hand, prise his hands off and deliver a heavy blow to his jaw. Before he could recover his senses, I used some of the linen to gag him and to tie him to a chair.’
Despite his languid manner and appearing to spend much of his time sprawled in his chair or on the sofa, Holmes had muscles and sinews of steel.
‘How did you manage to escape?’
‘I returned the way I had come. On passing the dining room a voice behind me said, “Mind giving me a hand? This lot’s too heavy for me.” I turned to find a maidservant carrying four massive silver salvers she was taking back to the kitchen. “Certainly, give me a couple. Go on,” I said. Being in company with one of the servants and carrying some dishes, no one took any notice of me and I eventually found my way out past the guardians of the back gate who, as I had anticipated, were not particularly interested in anyone leaving the embassy.’
His request to see Lord Craneford without delay was granted.
‘My Lord, I have solved the case. It is now most imperative that you inform the ambassador concerned that you know all about the attempts to read your messages,’ said Holmes.
‘My thoughts exactly, Mr Holmes. I shall request that he comes to me without delay, and I shall tell him that one of his staff has indulged in espionage, without his knowledge, and has compromising material. I am sure I can convince the ambassador that Her Majesty’s government, although aware of what has been going on, will, in the interests of good relationships between our two countries, make no demands. The ambassador had advised me, some months ago, that there was a secret society plotting against his country. This group was intent not only on compromising good relations between our two countries but also on destabilizing his own country and even overthrowing the monarchy. I will of course deny that anyone on my staff was involved with such an undiplomatic and despicable act as trespassing on the property of another sovereign nation. However, I am sure he will refrain from making any protest.’
‘The police have arrested the young lady telegraphist, my lord,’ said Holmes, ‘and, as you are aware, one of your secretaries. The girl, apparently, had been employed by the post office but was dismissed for some misdemeanour. She resented losing her one-hundred-a-year position, with the result that she was easily persuaded to spend a part of each day in an attic, listening to and writing down your messages as they passed through the Morse apparatus. However, what we have yet to find out is who was the mastermind, or rather, still is the master mind, behind this ingenious scheme.’
‘Well, Mr Holmes, I am extremely grateful to you for stopping this leak, as it were,’ said the Foreign Secretary. ‘Scotland Yard will continue to search for the mastermind. In the meantime, you deserve a well-earned rest and please address your account directly to me. I doubt that our civil servants will immediately accept such a strange bill of events. They would make you wait for your money forever and ever. Good day to you, sir.’
And that was that.
Notes
The post office telegraph system was of the ‘closed’ type requiring a ‘local’ accumulator, as opposed to the American ‘open’ system. Presumably, a high resistance had to be in the ‘tap’ line to avoid unbalancing the circuit. The female operator might have been required to listen to the faint clicks, or observed the movement of a galvanometer needle.
Morse telegraph operators at the time were comparatively well paid.
An ‘earth’ is called a ‘ground’ connection in North America.
Not Cricket
In which a change of field leads back to South Africa.
As I recall it was late August 1900. Events in South Africa filled the newspaper columns. Had I been twenty years younger and had the full use of my limbs, I would have volunteered my services as a doctor.
Holmes sat holding an orange between his long fingers. It was pressed to his nose and I could see the pleasure with which he savoured its aroma. ‘That orange reminds me, Holmes, of your advice that, in the solving of a crime, as few as only two clues are all that is needed. Sometimes just one is sufficient for solving a mystery. An orange, for example.’
‘That is so, Watson. Even those who write fiction involving a mystery avoid cluttering up their tales with too many clues. Wilkie Collins and your friend Tom Hardy, for example.’
‘I agree Tom Hardy is a good example. Although it is some years since I read Collins’ The Woman in White.’
A telegram arrived, as they often did at that time of the day. Holmes started to open it, saying, ‘I expect this is another plea for help with untangling the cords that become twisted between man and wife, or some criminal act to be frustrated. As you are aware, I am inundated with telegrams that begin: “Sir, I beg your help, my husband is acting in a most perverse manner.” This one may be yet another such. Oh, it refers me to another telegram I should have received.’ He sorted through the newspapers, opened letters and telegrams that spread out on the carpet around his chair.
‘Ah, this must be it. Let’s see what it says: “You will receive a plea from Lady Constance Roget-Gascoigne concerning her relationship with her husband. I urge you to take on the case. I hesitated at first to remind you of your promise some time ago, that you would do anything I might ask. You will recall your unfortunate involvement with a member of the ruling house of Ruritania. This matter with Lady Constance is such a deserving case that I must impose on your promise.”’
‘I doubt that you can refuse to honour a debt, Holmes. You do not say who sent the telegram. Can we assume it is someone of importance?’
‘Yes, it is. He writes about one of the Roget-Gascoignes. It concerns a branch of the family whose estate is in the Dorset Winterbornes. It does mean, though, that I must take up the case without delay, and we must be off to Dorset. That is, I presume you are coming, Watson?’
‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘This sounds a very intriguing affair and most surprising that once again we have to visit Dorset. It will give us an excuse to escape the dust, noise and heat of the city.’
‘I am hoping that we are not going to be away for more than one night. Do you mind telegraphing a hotel in Blandford, and determining the quickest way of reaching that remote town?’
Holmes might tolerate a quick sortie out from the Great Wen. However, to stay more than one night away was not his idea of pleasure. I was the one who usually spent nights away on a case, with Holmes making short appearances for just a day.
I realized, at the mention of Blandford, that here was an opportunity to travel on the Somerset and Dorset Joint. It would mean changing from the South Western at Templecombe. The difference in the length of the alternative journey, via Bournemouth, was not so much that it would arouse Holmes’ suspicions about my motives. I decided not to burden Holmes with my acquired knowledge about railway matters. So I did not mention that, a few years earlier, to reach Bournemouth and the connection with the Somerset and Dorset required going round by ‘Castleman’s Corkscrew’, through Ringwood and Wimborne.
We arrived at Blandford after an exhausting ten-hour journey. The railways involved had contrived on that day to allow their trains either to suffer mechanical problems with their locomotives or the wheels to come off the rails. The day continued badly. At Blandford the Crown Hotel had not received my telegram, and we were directed to the Station Hotel. It was a small building close up against the station; more a large public house than hotel. That night my bed was against the window looking directly onto the narrow station platform. The night was stiflingly hot. I was torn between suffocating or, with the window open, being deafened by the snorting of an engine moving cattle trucks in and out of a siding. When I did manage to sleep, my dreams were compounded of bleating sheep, mooing cows and the hisses and clanking noises of an engine. All seemed to be in my bed at the same time.
In the morning we were received by the worried wife. My first thought on seeing her was, Why would any man forsake such a beautiful woman for another?
Her husband was away until the next morning on some affair of business; otherwise, as she explained, we would not have been invited to the house. She had told her husband and the servants that our visit was to do with a charity, of which she was patron.
Holmes, as usual, came straight to the point. ‘Lady Constance, nothing is to be gained by sparing your blushes. What of your most intimate relationship with your husband? I am sure you understand to what I refer.’
‘In such matters I have to tell you that the husband that came back from South Africa is very different from the one that set out for the war.’
‘I see. Now I must ask about any financial arrangements between yourself and your husband. I understand you inherited a considerable fortune. Does your husband have access to it?’
‘I should explain. When we agreed to marry, Percy was most insistent that any marriage settlement would not involve the transfer of my fortune to him. He did not want people to say that he was marrying me for my money.’
‘Did he have money of his own?’
‘He was reasonably well off when he was a bachelor. However, since he came back from South Africa not only has his manner changed, but he has on a number of occasions asked for large sums of money. When I questioned why, he became morose and behaved in a domineering way. He even said that it was no concern of mine, that we were husband and wife, and what was mine was also his.’
‘An attitude very much in conflict with the marriage settlement,’ commented Holmes.
‘Indeed,’ she replied. ‘Naturally, Mr Holmes, I attributed the changes in him to his experiences in South Africa. He was wounded and was present when his cousin Patrick died from a wound received in the same battle.’ She turned to the table on which there were numerous framed photographs. ‘This one is of Percy and Patrick when they were up at Oxford.’
‘I see that both have the distinctive Roget-Gascoigne features. Indeed they might be twins. Don’t you agree, Watson?’
‘Very much so,’ said I.
Throughout the meeting I observed that Holmes was applying his customary attention to the details of the room. When Holmes had completed his tactful questioning, he said, ‘In the meantime we will observe your husband’s movements without rousing his suspicions. Perhaps I might borrow this photograph? I realize that you are worried that he has become entangled with another woman. Unfortunately, it is the first thing that comes into a wife’s head. Although I have had to deal with only one or two similar cases to yours, none has involved infidelity. A common reason is financial blackmail. Another, and I have to say this, relates to a criminal past. We are staying at the Station Hotel, Blandford should you need us.’
‘The Station Hotel! The Station Hotel! Surely there is something better? In other circumstances you and Doctor Watson would have been most welcome to stay here.’
As we could not face the pewter plates and tankards, and the crude fare offered by the railway hotel, we took supper in the Crown Hotel. Afterwards we sat in the comfortable lounge and discussed the case. My first question to Holmes concerned why he wanted a photograph of Sir Percy.
‘We may need to ask others to follow him,’ was his reply. ‘I may be on a completely false trail, but we must first try and eliminate the involvement of another woman. I understand that Roget-Gascoigne is playing cricket tomorrow afternoon. That will give us the opportunity of observing his behaviour.’
‘A splendid idea. It is just the weather for cricket,’ said I.
The beautiful countryside slumbered under the warm sun. The cries of birds were stilled and the cattle in the adjacent fields stood close and si
lent under the shade of the trees along the river bank.
‘This is idyllic,’ I remarked to Holmes as we sat on canvas chairs in the shade of a splendid oak. His only reply was a grunt. He half reclined with his long fingers touching; his body exhibiting his languid approach to life. The smoke from his charred and discoloured old clay pipe contrasted with the clean air of the countryside. I am sure it was being smoked as a gesture of protest at having been persuaded to stay in such a remote part of the kingdom. All around were the supporters of the two village cricket teams: squire and ploughman, pig man and parson, all together.
Although we avoided meeting Roget-Gascoigne, we kept close to him. We observed that his manner was brusque and he appeared not to be on good terms with other members of the team. As he went in to bat, Holmes said, ‘We can relax for a while. Nudge me when he is given out and I shall be all attention again.’
‘Yes, he has taken his stand at the wicket. We shall now see how good a batsman he is. Ah, wait. They are changing the field. He bats left-handed.’
‘Left-handed, you say. How interesting, Watson,’ was the languid reply as he stifled a yawn.
Holmes took no further interest. I knew that he had played cricket in his youth and was a formidable boxer and swordsman. However, he now viewed sporting activities as a waste of time. He told me of a cricket match played in Peking by the embassy staff, and how the Mandarins watched in silence and gave no indication that they found it of interest. After the match one of them commentated, ‘We are astounded that important British officials should conduct themselves in such an undignified manner. In China we would order our servants to undertake such menial and pointless tasks.’
Sherlock Holmes at the Breakfast Table Page 22