We related our meetings, his appearance and professed heritage, and finally the message we tracked to the German Embassy, and its ominous reply.
“I believe the man you are dealing with is Herr Graff,” the real Wilkins informed us, “though that is not his real name either. As part of my portfolio, I am responsible for advising Mr. Gladstone on foreign affairs. As he is still an influential man, he is often invited to official functions.”
The terrier reemerged briefly as Wilkins waved his finger at us sternly, “My employer has no desire to undermine the long-range goals of Her Majesty’s government, whatever party may hold the reins for the moment, so I am regularly briefed by staff from the Foreign Office before attending such functions with him. I receive a short biography of all foreign dignitaries and what they may hope to accomplish in their dealings with us.”
Wilkins sniffed disdainfully. “I have met Herr Graff on more than one occasion; regarding his heritage, he has lied to you in two instances. His mother is, in fact, English, and his father is not Prussian, either, though I prefer not to specify his exact origins. Suffice to say he is heir to a noble house within Germany. You physicians will surely understand the significance that a brother of his died in childhood after a fall that was complicated by hemophilia.”
At that comment he looked at us with raised eyebrows. Hemophilia is a disease of coagulation associated with one particular bloodline: Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s. Herr Graff was a grandchild of our monarch.
I swallowed hard at the revelation of the man’s heritage; any accusation against him without the most damning evidence would be futile, and liable to place the accuser at considerable risk of prosecution for slander.
“Graff is an alias adopted for his current assignment at the embassy. Officially he was assigned here as a minor functionary to ‘learn statecraft’ in preparation for his ascension to the throne. Unofficially, I was told he was sent to England to allow a scandal to cool regarding his former nanny. I do not know the details, but if you believe this man to be the Ripper, I can only guess it wasn’t pleasant.
“He will be a difficult quarry to bring to justice,” Wilkins continued, “for, despite his minor post, due to his nobility he is accountable only to the ambassador, who is currently in Germany for consultations with Herr Bismarck. The police cannot touch him unless apprehended at the scene of a crime. Mr. Gladstone has a great sympathy for these unfortunates, as you well know, so I can assure you he would applaud whatever you can do to stop these killings, but we are unable to help you in any way.”
“What you have told us is most helpful,” answered Bell. “As we are acting in an unofficial capacity, our freedom of action is greater than that of the police. It is our only advantage, as it appears Herr Graff holds all the other cards. Thank you for your insight, Mr. Wilkins. We shall have to consider our next move carefully.”
“Good hunting to you, gentlemen,” replied Wilkins. “I wish we still placed the heads of malefactors on the London Bridge. His would make a splendid trophy! Good day.”
After the genuine Wilkins left, I turned to Bell and asked, “What did you mean, you should have foreseen this turn of events?”
Bell smiled thinly. “Think, Doyle. Who do you think sent the real Wilkins the anonymous letter that stripped away any assistance from the police?”
“Graff,” said Margaret, who had been silent until now. “Of course,” she continued. “There was no longer any advantage to him in maintaining the deception. Exposing us in this way destroyed our credibility with Abberline. We knew the man was ruthless. We forget his cunning at great peril.”
“Just so,” replied the professor. “Knowing he intends to murder Mr. Clemens, do we use him as bait, or do we warn him and provide him with what protection we can?”
“Good God, man!” I answered, “I cannot in good conscience allow the man to be dangled before this fiend like a goat tethered for a tiger. I could never live with myself should he come to harm by such callousness.”
“Nor I,” replied Margaret. “Many innocents have died already. I want to stop this killing as much as anyone, but we must find another way.”
Bell nodded. “I agree. Then we must find a way to warn Mr. Clemens, and protect him to the best of our ability. Our killer is sly, but until now he has had things entirely his way. He is no doubt gloating even now on how he has turned the police against us. I feel our greatest hope is that in his pride he shall grow careless. He wants to confront us, or rather you, Doyle, though on his terms. We must do all we can to change the odds in our favor before that moment arrives.”
“He will not find me unwilling,” I vowed. “I cannot face him soon enough. I am tired of boxing at shadows.”
Bell and Margaret looked at me as though seeing me anew. I had gone into this affair halfheartedly at best. No longer. I was fixed upon my target, and I would bring Graff to justice or know the reason why. We exchanged looks, and I knew the same fire burned within their breasts. Miss Kelly would be avenged. The Three Musketeers would see to it.
“It is now approaching noon,” I said. “I propose we find where Mr. Clemens is lodging,” then indicating Margaret, “and have you request an interview. If you can achieve an audience, we can use that opportunity to warn him. Neither Bell nor I can provide a plausible excuse to meet with him before his performance tonight; you are our best hope.”
“I shall conjure up my most enticing persona.” Margaret mimed a coquette, batting her eyes, which I found rather unsettling as she was still in male attire. “But first we must find his hotel, and I must lay the stalwart Mr. Pennyworth aside for the moment. I will need some cosmetics to aid my cause.”
Mr. Clemens’s performance was scheduled to run from eight o’clock until ten that evening. Assuming he would arrive at least thirty minutes beforehand, and it was now noon, that gave us seven hours to locate and warn him.
I hired a cab to take Margaret directly home, with the understanding we would come for her as soon as we knew where Mr. Clemens was staying. Bell and I hailed a second one to return us to the club, and our indispensable doorkeeper was tasked to gather all the local papers while we dressed for the theater.
Mark Twain was known as an entertaining speaker. I hoped fervently his performance tonight would end in laughter, not tears.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
A MUSKETEER, TRANSFORMED
Saturday, November 10, cont.
I soon found a notice of Twain’s arrival from America mentioning he was lodging at the Great Western Railway Hotel, part of the Paddington Station complex.
On Vine Street, I had to pay our driver an additional shilling to wait for us, and I remained aboard while Bell brought Margaret down, as I feared the driver would abandon us otherwise. Bell, therefore, was the first to witness her transformation, and with a mischievous grin awaited my reaction when they emerged. Truthfully, I only recognized the woman joining me because she was with the professor.
Margaret’s cheeks were rouged, her lips tinted, and she was in a black satin dress that boldly declared her femininity as surely as her Pennyworth attire obscured it. The bodice was tight-fitting, and the neckline extended two inches below the collarbones, the limit of modesty at the time, with a ruby pendant that pointed downward like a signpost toward her breasts. She glowed with an air of confidence I found even more entrancing than her wardrobe as she seated herself opposite and faced me.
“Your mouth is open, Porthos,” she remarked, not unkindly, pleased by the effect her appearance had on me. “If this doesn’t get me an interview, then I am sustaining a tight corset for no good reason, and I shall be quite cross.”
Bell meanwhile continued to smile with obvious enjoyment at my discomfiture. Ignoring Bell’s delight for the moment, I gave the driver the hotel’s address, and he drove his horses smartly forward.
We arrived just before three o’clock, three hours before Mr. Clemens would commence preparations for his performance.
Margaret produced her card, id
entifying herself as Margaret Harkness, Independent Journalist and Author, and upon handing it to the concierge requested he send it to Mr. Clemens’s room and inquire if he was available for a brief interview.
He snapped his heels like a sergeant-major on parade, then delegated a young bellboy to serve as messenger.
Margaret ensured the young man got a good look at her, and once he had, apparently impressed given his lingering gaze, he reluctantly left for his appointed mission.
“Now we wait,” said Margaret, her arched eyebrows hinting at her satisfaction with her effect upon the bellboy.
The bellboy’s forehead was moist when he returned. He reported that Mr. Clemens would be unavailable for the next hour, as he was in the midst of a nap and anxious to go back to it as quickly as possible. If Miss Harkness could wait until then, he would see her in one of the private meeting rooms connected to the lobby, and he could give her a half hour of his time.
“Oh, and another thing,” the bellboy said in parting, “he’ll only meet with you, Miss Harkness. When I mentioned the two gentlemen with you, he said he hadn’t time to be charming for three people. They’ll have to wait outside.”
We had returned to our conversation when I noticed a police constable talking to the concierge, handing him a note, and then departing after glancing in our direction. The concierge nodded and summoned the same young man, who accepted it and slipped it into his pocket.
Something about the constable seemed familiar to me, even from across the expansive lobby, but I had been in the company of so many constables over the past few weeks that it would have been more remarkable if I did not start recognizing some of them. I put it out of my mind and returned my attention to my companions.
When Mr. Clemens entered the lobby, he was dressed in his trademark white linen coat and trousers. His shock of white hair, bushy eyebrows, and thick white mustache made him immediately recognizable. The bellboy pointed Margaret out to him, and Mr. Clemens brightened considerably when he saw her. Before the American could come forward, however, the bellboy handed him the note presumably delivered by the constable. Mr. Clemens read the note, looked puzzled, then shook his head and returned it to the bellboy before advancing.
I was still a relative unknown at the time, and I’m sure Clemens hadn’t read anything I’d written, or even heard my name. His renown was, and still is, worldwide. I had devoured all his major works and several of his short stories. I looked at him and saw the epitome of success a writer could ever aspire to. One which seemed unreachable to me.
To be in the presence of the creator of Huckleberry Finn and the Celebrated Jumping Frog was humbling. Fame has a cost, as I was later to learn, and some bear it better than others. It fitted Mr. Clemens as comfortably as his white linen suit, for the deference others paid him he neither expected nor demanded. I could easily see the spark of mischief in his eyes, an adult version of Tom Sawyer, I fancied.
“Good afternoon, lady and gents,” he said. “No need for introductions. I read Miss Harkness’s card, you all know who I am, and regretfully I shall not have time to speak with you gentlemen.”
He bowed to Margaret with a courtly flourish, his abundant eyebrows rising as he viewed her up close. “Miss Harkness, I can give you a half-hour, then I will need to make myself pretty for the unwashed masses. It is always a pleasure to meet with a fellow author, for we belong to a guild of explorers . . . travelers to worlds of whimsy. I look forward to learning where your whimsies have taken you. There is a small meeting room off the lobby where we can speak undisturbed. Shall we?”
He nodded amiably and escorted the now blushing Margaret to the private conference room as smoothly as a dancer on the stage. The entire time with him may have lasted thirty seconds, yet his presence and the glint in his eyes were not to be forgotten. Without ever raising his voice, he had taken complete command of the situation. I have often wished for his gift in subsequent meetings with the press.
I admit to being jealous of the way Margaret had blithely floated off with Clemens, leaving Bell and me to cool our heels in the lobby, but we had brought her to speak with him, and it appeared we had succeeded. Perhaps too well, my inner voice suggested.
Finally they emerged, and Mr. Clemens bowed slightly, kissed Margaret’s hand, and left for his room.
Margaret was plainly taken with the American, for she stood stock still for a moment to watch him depart. Then she stirred herself and turned to us, a slight flush on her cheeks telling us more than perhaps she would have liked.
“I trust the interview went well?” inquired Bell, with a faint smile and twinkle in his eye. “You seem to have rather enjoyed yourself.”
“It was marvelous!” she said enthusiastically. “I may, in fact, have enough for the interview to be published under my name in the Star. I had wanted to inform him of the threat immediately, but you saw how he manages a conversation. He seemed interested in my work and was very sympathetic to the plight of the matchgirls, whom I have helped organize. I was as much the interviewee as the interviewer. He was never the least bit patronizing, but treated me as an equal despite my femininity and lesser body of work.” She sighed. “The time flew by.”
“All well and good,” I huffed, “but the threat? Did you inform him of the danger?”
“Oh yes,” she replied, as though it was of no more import than the weather. “When I told him, he said that during his time as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi he had come across ‘some pretty ornery cusses,’ and was not overly concerned.
“We know his verbal skills would prove useless against Herr Graff, but there’s nothing to worry about for the moment. The bellboy handed Mr. Clemens a note from Inspector Abberline as he entered the lobby; the inspector has decided to send a constable here at seven o’clock to escort Mr. Clemens to and from the performance.”
“Why didn’t you say that at first?” I asked, more forcefully than I had intended.
Margaret gave me a coy smile. “I was getting around to it, Doyle. Don’t fret.”
I decided there were times when I preferred her as Pennyworth, when her actions were more predictable. Still, in this game of chess with Herr Graff, it seemed we had foiled his latest gambit.
“We should go to the theater tonight to hear him speak,” Margaret said. “Just to be sure he’s all right.”
“Of course, Margaret,” I answered. “Just to be sure. Besides, we’re already dressed for the theater.”
Bell gave me a wink when I had replied, “Just to be sure.” Margaret’s motives clearly were not only due to her concern for the American’s safety, but I admitted to myself I was probably as keen as she was to hear him speak. We dined at a fashionable restaurant and proceeded to the Old Vic.
In a moment of extravagance, I purchased a box for the three of us, off stage left, so we could hear and see without distraction from the audience. As we sat and I gazed out at the crowd below us, I had to wonder if I was gazing at the Ripper, hidden in plain sight. I was reassured that Abberline had sent Mr. Clemens an escort.
Mark Twain was an engaging speaker. I believe no one ever gave a better voice to his words than he did himself, for he had the writer’s sensitivity to nuances of words, coupled with the storyteller’s love of performance. He gave readings from Huckleberry Finn and, one of my favorites, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
We laughed and, from time to time, our eyes misted as he spoke of his life and those of his creations along the mighty Mississippi, a river he could bring forth as fully formed as any of his fictional characters.
Clemens told a ghost story halfway through, of the Lady with the Golden Arm, whose spirit goes looking for the man who cut her arm off after death, asking in a ghost-like lament, “Who stole my Golden Arm?” The lights were lowered as he spoke in sepulchral tones of the wandering spirit coming closer and closer to her grave-robbing husband’s bed, as he cowered beneath his blanket, her precious arm beside him. Just as the ghost turned the doorknob, and her vo
ice was at its loudest, the lights flared up as Twain leaped forward, pointing to the audience and shouting, “You did!”
The audience jumped as one, then laughed in embarrassment. As we recovered, Margaret laid her hand lightly upon my arm. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Her hand lifted as the lights came up at the end of his performance, and we applauded vigorously.
Although Twain’s reading was remarkable, in hindsight I believe our enthusiastic applause was also an outpouring of thanksgiving for this “golden” moment together.
As I left the theater, I told myself that the day my words could stir emotions the way his did, I would be a writer indeed.
We took Margaret home by cab. I insisted on seeing her to the door, wanting the moment to last as long as possible. Bell waited to ensure our cabbie did not leave without us, but when we arrived at Margaret’s door, a little before eleven o’clock, it flew open as she inserted the key into the lock.
A flushed Molly rushed out with an envelope in one hand, Margaret’s derringer in the other. Though she was clearly agitated, I noted the hand holding the derringer was steady. The Ripper would not find her easy prey.
“A man came by not ten minutes ago with this for you, Doctor Doyle. I had him slide it under the door, so I can’t say what he looked like.”
“Good for you, Molly,” Margaret said, concerned and relieved at the same time. Johnny came out to greet us, and sensing something was wrong, looked fiercely about for something to attack, growling.
Curious, I examined the envelope. My mind froze when I recognized the handwriting of the man I now knew as Herr Graff. Its very presence told me he had not been idle at all; the final set of our “danse macabre” was about to start.
My Dear Doctor Doyle,
You and your friends seemed to enjoy the performance tonight very much. I admit I have been tasking you rather severely of late, and do not begrudge you a brief entertainment. Our time together is drawing to a close, however, and we’d best conclude our business tonight.
A Knife in the Fog Page 23