The Tarleton Murders

by Breck England

  He then turned his back and mounted the train, leaving me feeling rather empty and rubbing my eyes, which watered all at once. I never saw Sherlock Holmes again.

  Over the years, like everyone else I followed his adventures with Dr. Watson from afar as he became world famous. I was bemused when Holmes gave his biographer a thoroughly misleading description of Moriarty—undoubtedly to protect Watson from too much dangerous knowledge—and gratified to read of Moriarty’s ultimate fall. As for Mrs. Katherine Wells, Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her.

  Our friend James returned home on my assurances that he would not be molested again, and to my best knowledge he enjoyed a long life in the heart of his family. I now hear with satisfaction that his grandson Michael has entered the ministry.

  One day I happened across an item in the newspapers regarding the fate of one Thomas Beaufort in Kentucky. A lawsuit had gone against the Beaufort family, and Thomas calmly walked up to the judge in the case and shot him dead. In the consequent murder trial, Thomas Beaufort was pronounced insane and committed to the state asylum for the remainder of his life.

  My own career wavered for a while—I could not rekindle my enthusiasm for teaching the catechism—and I eventually found myself aging away in a Catholic college in Boston as a professor of theology. So I lived and prayed and took it upon myself to solve the mystery of existence, spying on God, as it were; and in applying my friend’s methods to God’s workings, I have passed my life attempting to discern His cryptic designs … with little success, I must admit.

  But then I am not Sherlock Holmes, and in the end I can only be grateful that for one winter of my youth I was privileged to witness his uncanny powers at work; and more than that, to befriend him, to detest him, and finally to love him—the best and the wisest man I have ever known.

  THE END

  CAMEOS

  “Cameo: an appearance of a known person in a work, typically unnamed or appearing as themselves.”

  For your interest, here is further information on some of the characters, real and fictional, who make cameo appearances in The Tarleton Murders.

  James Calhoun: A character in A. Conan Doyle’s “The Five Orange Pips” (1891). A leader in the Ku Klux Klan and captain of the bark “Lone Star,” he hounds the recipient of the five pips to death for stealing the confidential records of the Klan. Calhoun and his gang are lost at sea before Holmes can engineer their arrest.

  Mary Cassatt (1844-1926): Groundbreaking American artist, associated with the impressionist movement in Paris during the later 19th century. Harshly criticized for her work, she nevertheless persisted. An 1879 impressionist exhibit in Paris marked a turning point for her, and she began to be recognized as an important painter.

  G.K. Chesterton, aka “Gibby” (1874-1936): British philosopher, dramatist, critic, and author of detective fiction (the “Father Brown” series) about a sleuthing Catholic priest, son of Marie-Louise Grosjean and Edward Chesterton. A child prodigy, Chesterton was considered by George Bernard Shaw “a man of colossal genius.”

  Martin Witherspoon Gary (1831-1881): Fire-breathing Confederate general and politician who practiced violent intimidation on freed slaves in the South during Reconstruction. He organized the “Red Shirt” gangs in South Carolina to suppress the black vote, leading to the 1876 victory of the “redeemers,” the anti-Reconstruction party that instituted nearly a century of racial segregation in that state.

  Henry W. Grady (1850-1889): Atlanta journalist and civic leader, part owner of the Atlanta Constitution and booster of the “New South.” An articulate spokesman for the Atlanta Ring, he traveled the United States giving speeches to encourage investment in Southern industry, arguing that the South had re-integrated into the Union, that the racial segregation system was benevolent, and that freed slaves were happy with their new status.

  Marie-Louise Grosjean Chesterton (1844-1933): Mother of G.K. Chesterton (“Gibby”) and one of 23 Grosjean siblings. Perhaps there was a Simon among them… .

  Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908): Journalist for the Atlanta Constitution and folklorist from Georgia, beloved author of the “Uncle Remus” tales, fables about Brer Rabbit, Fox, and Bear and other animal characters who stood for the types of people Harris knew in the South. Harris grew up in poverty among slaves and was sympathetic to them all of his life. Afflicted with a speech impediment, he was intensely shy but highly articulate in his writing. Some scholars view his tales as carefully veiled attacks on the racial inequities he observed all around him during his life.

  Mycroft Holmes: A character in a number of stories by A. Conan Doyle, among them “The Greek Interpreter” and “The Final Problem.” He is the brother of Sherlock Holmes and a mysterious, dominating presence in the British government. Said by Sherlock to be more intelligent than himself, Mycroft is a heavy, lethargic man who stays in his office or his club and occasionally calls on Sherlock for help when there is a sensitive political issue to be resolved.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889): English classicist and Jesuit, among the most eminent English poets of the Victorian period. Studied philosophy and lectured at Stonyhurst College from 1870 to 1874.

  John Jasper: A character in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), a famous unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. Jasper, a choirmaster and genteel opium addict, is jealous of Edwin Drood, the fiancé of a young woman Jasper apparently loves. Jasper just might be the murderer of Edwin Drood, although Dickens died before revealing “who done it.” Perhaps Sherlock Holmes might someday solve the mystery of Edwin Drood.

  Leo XIII, Pope from 1878-1903: Relatively liberal leader of the Catholic Church known as the “Rosary Pope” due to his veneration for the rosary. He did much to reconcile the Church to modern science and the changing political landscape of the 19th century. Although in 1878 he issued Quod Apostolici Muneris, an encyclical disputing the idea of human equality, he later issued Rerum Novarum, which defended the rights of laboring people against unrestrained capitalism.

  Patrick Neeson Lynch (1817-1882): Roman Catholic bishop of Charleston from 1857. He represented the Confederate government to the Vatican, attempting to get official recognition from Pope Pius IX, who, however, condemned slavery and would not recognize the Confederacy.

  James McCartney (?): Plumber and painter in Liverpool during the 1860s and 1870s. Great-grandfather of Paul McCartney of the Beatles.

  Mrs. Ezra Miller and Randolph Miller: Characters in the novella Daisy Miller (1878) by Henry James. The conventional Mrs. Miller, her daughter Daisy, and son Randolph are expatriates living in Italy when Daisy falls in love with an “unacceptable” Italian and dies of fever. Mrs. Miller returns downcast to the United States. Randolph is an unpleasant, jingoistic youth who dislikes Europe and Europeans.

  Sir Antony Musgrave (1828-1888): Governor of Jamaica, 1877-1883, who did much to advance education and economic development on the island. Was he related to Reginald, Holmes’s friend and client in Doyle’s story “The Musgrave Ritual” (1893)?

  Perdita: A character in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” the daughter of a jealous king and a spurned queen. The king orders his servant Antigonus to leave the baby on the seashore to die of exposure. The servant takes pity on the child and goes to retrieve her, but is attacked and killed by a bear. The child is found and brought up by a shepherd. “Perdita” is “the lost one” in Latin.

  Henry Peters, aka “Shlessinger,” aka “Holy Peters”: A character in A. Conan Doyle’s story “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (1911). An Australian charlatan masquerading as a clergyman. Along with his wife, Peters dupes wealthy women into giving him their valuables ostensibly to benefit a non-existent mission in Brazil.

  Henry B. Plant (1819-1899): American businessman who bought up the Southern coastal railroads and initiated the Florida land rush.

  Princess Puffer: A character in The Mystery of Ed
win Drood (1870) by Charles Dickens. She is the proprietor of a London opium den and highly knowledgeable about the criminal element in the city.

  Mary Robinson, aka “Perdita” (1757-1800): Famous English actress of her time, notorious for affairs with the Prince of Wales and Col. Banastre Tarleton. In 1783 she miscarried Tarleton’s child, according to confidential reports. She was a famous beauty painted by Gainsborough, and in her later years an accomplished poet of Romantic verse. Nicknamed “Perdita” because she played a character by that name in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”

  George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950): Renowned Anglo-Irish playwright, the leading dramatist of his time. In the late 1870s he was an employee of the new Edison Telephone Company in London. When the Bell group bought the company, Shaw left to write plays and essays full time.

  William T. Sherman (1820-1891): Union General in the Civil War who led the famous “March to the Sea,” a scorched-earth campaign in late 1864 intended to demoralize and break the back of the Confederate States. Sherman’s army burned Atlanta in mid-November, thus disrupting the hub of Confederate railroad traffic. Long after the war, in January 1879, Sherman visited the renovated city with his daughters Elizabeth and Eleanor, who had been brought up Catholic by their mother. His reception in Atlanta was cordial. Sherman’s brother, U.S. Senator John Sherman, was the father of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which eventually broke up John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust.

  Max Shinburn, aka “Count Schindler” (1840-1917): An ambitious German criminal who joined Adam Worth’s gang in Europe, went by the name of “Baron” or “Count Shindle” or “Schindler.”

  Sergey Stepnyak (1851-1895), Russian revolutionary, mercenary, and assassin, known primarily for killing the head of the Russian secret police in the summer of 1878. He became an expert on guerrilla warfare and assassination while fighting in the Balkans. In 1895 he was killed in London when he stepped (or was pushed) in front of a moving train.

  Banastre Tarleton (1754-1833): A British soldier who fought the colonials in the American Revolution. He was most famous for leading the Waxhaws Massacre (1780) in which 113 American soldiers were killed, by some accounts after raising a flag of surrender. Tarleton’s alleged brutality gave new impetus to the American cause. Tarleton returned to England, and as a member of Parliament championed the slave trade, which was his family business. He carried on an affair with the actress Mary Robinson (“Perdita”) for 15 years, after which he married a nobleman’s daughter.

  Benjamin Tillman (1847-1918): South Carolina governor and U.S. Senator, white supremacist who is said to have murdered African-American voters in the violent election of 1876. He was a principal author of South Carolina’s constitution of 1895, which prohibited blacks from voting for more than 50 years.

  Camille Urso (1840-1902): French concert violinist who settled with her family in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1855. Renowned for her emotional range as a musician, she carried on a successful concert career through the United States and Europe for more than 40 years.

  Adam and Charlotte Verver: Characters in The Golden Bowl (1904) by Henry James. After an impassioned affair with her Italian son-in-law, Charlotte returns to America with her much older husband, an industrialist and art collector, to face a bleak and loveless future.

  Charles Wells, aka “Piano Charley” or Charles Bullard (? – 1891): An American criminal and glamorous rake, said to be a superb safecracker and pianist, partnered with Adam Worth in robberies and gambling operations. He was the husband of Katherine “Kitty” Flynn. On an 1878 trip to Canada, he went to jail for five years for robbery. In 1883, he was captured while robbing a bank in Belgium and sentenced to 17 years. He served seven years and died in prison.

  Katherine Wells, aka Kitty Flynn (1852?-1894): Born Katherine Louise Flynn, Kitty was a Liverpool barmaid when she was courted by Charlie Bullard and Adam Worth. They took her with them to Paris and London. Nominally, she was married to Charlie Bullard, but she might have had two children by Adam Worth. She broke free of the pair and established herself in New York, where she married Wall-Street banker Juan Terry. Kitty, a 1945 film about her life, starred Paulette Goddard. Her grandson Juan Terry Trippe founded Pan-American Airlines.

  Adam Worth (1844-1902): Identified by many Holmes commentaries as the model for Moriarty, Worth was born in Central Europe of a Jewish family. After immigrating to the United States, he became a petty thief, bounty jumper in the Civil War, and a member of the storied Mandelbaum gang in New York. The huge haul from the Boylston Bank robbery enabled him to set up as a gentleman and major criminal organizer in Paris and London, where he went by the name of Henry J. Raymond. Although he became wealthy, even buying a luxury yacht called “The Shamrock,” organizing crime remotely was not enough for him; he liked hands-on crime. For example, he personally stole 700,000 francs in Egyptian and Spanish bonds from the Paris-Calais Express, a half-million dollars in diamonds from South Africa, and the famed Gainsborough portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire—which traveled with him in a special case for years, until he voluntarily turned it over to the Pinkerton Agency in 1901. Worth was eventually caught during a robbery in Belgium and sentenced to seven years in prison. He died in London and is buried in Highgate Cemetery.

  Clym Yeobright: A character in The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (1878) who ruins his wife’s happiness by his bitter dissatisfaction with life and insistent “yearning” for a more meaningful existence.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Breck England juggles writing mysteries with composing classical music, French cooking, ghostwriting for authors such as Stephen R. Covey, and (formerly) singing in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He writes widely, mostly books and articles for business people, and occasionally contributes to social media on subjects ranging from education to politics to religion to French pastry. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah. Breck lives with his wife Valerie in the Rocky Mountains of Utah among nearly innumerable grandchildren.