‘However, City has agreed with our assistant commissioner that this business of Grunwalski should be left to the Metropolitan Police, and I want Sergeant Knollys to accompany a special detail provided by Southwark Division, who are going to secrete themselves in the first boiler room of the Tower Bridge. The information gathered by “J” reveals that the attempt to blow up the bridge will be made by the placing of an infernal device in the boiler room nearest to the Surrey end of the bridge approach. Knollys will be there to render any assistance necessary. As soon as you’ve left me this morning, I’ll make the necessary arrangements.’
‘And me, sir?’
‘Well, Box, I want you to take up a position on the roof of Carmody’s Wool Depot at the end of Pickled Herring Street, tomorrow, and survey as much of the scene as possible. Take some powerful field-glasses with you. From that height you should be able to see all the southern approaches to the bridge, and a good part of the bridge itself. Keep a watching brief, and stay alert for anything suspicious. You may see this Anders Grunwalski approach the scene, or you may spot an accomplice. Be up there on Carmody’s roof by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, and leave as soon as the Royal personages leave. I think that’s all, Box. It’s not a great affair, but it would be no bad thing if Scotland Yard were involved.’
‘If that’s all, sir,’ said Box, ‘I’ll go downstairs and tell Sergeant Knollys about it.’
‘I’ve already told him,’ Mackharness replied. There was a slight smirk of satisfaction on his face as he added, ‘Sergeant Knollys was here on the dot of seven-forty-five.’
Arnold Box rose to go. The guvnor was entitled to his little victory. As he turned towards the door, Mackharness put out a hand to stop him.
‘Don’t go yet, Box,’ he said. ‘Sit down there for a while longer. I shall be there tomorrow, you know, as a guest of my friend Lord Maurice Vale Rose. We shall be sitting in the northern pavilion that they’ve put up, running up from Tower Hill to the north end of the bridge. I’ll be there with Lord Maurice at about ten thirty.’
The superintendent stopped speaking, and rested his chin on his hand. Box saw an expression of wistful sadness fall like a shadow across his superior’s face. He sat in silence, content to wait for Mackharness to speak. The old floorboards creaked and settled, and Box could hear the muffled footsteps of other police officers treading the many corridors and passageways of King James’s Rents.
‘I can’t help thinking, Box, of ten years ago,’ said the superintendent at length. ‘The thirtieth of May, 1884, when we had the Fenian dynamite outrage just over the way in Great Scotland Yard. It was a little after nine o’clock in the evening when the bomb exploded, blowing out the front wall of the police station. I was there at the time, calling upon Inspector Robson of the CID. The noise of that explosion reminded me of the cannon in the Crimea….
‘There were other explosions and alarms that night, Box, which make the whole outrage stay in my memory. I don’t usually reminisce, as you know, but this news of an attempt on the bridge tomorrow – well, it brings it all back to me. These people can only destroy, never create….
‘Well, there it is. Get down there tomorrow, Box, and keep a weather eye out for villainy on the bridge. For the rest, we can leave everything to the City of London Police.’
Arnold Box walked thoughtfully down the stairs and pushed open the swing doors of his front office. He was assailed by the smell of stale toast and coffee, which mingled none too subtly with the pervading odour of inefficiently burnt gas from the rickety mantle suspended from the ceiling. The gaslight burned night and day throughout the year in Box’s office, because full daylight never penetrated beyond the vestibule of the old building. The office was always cold, which was why a small fire was burning in the grate, even though it was the end of June.
Sergeant Knollys, who had been attacking the fire with a poker, looked up as Box entered, and treated him to a deferentially mocking smile.
‘Nice to see you, sir,’ said Knollys. ‘It was very pleasant weather earlier on!’
‘You cheeky man,’ Box replied, sinking gratefully into his chair at the cluttered office table. ‘I’ve greeted the rising sun, Sergeant, more times than you’ve had hot breakfasts. There’s a smell of toast in here. Is there anything to eat?’
Jack Knollys, thought Box, was looking even more gigantic than usual that morning. Smartly dressed, as always, with close-cropped yellow hair and an engagingly ugly face, he was an intimidating man at the best of times, his appearance rendered even more fearsome by the livid scar that ran across his face from below the right eye to the left corner of his mouth.
‘Didn’t you have any breakfast, sir?’ asked Knollys.
‘No, I didn’t. I got up late, by reason of having been out at that raid on the Bolt brothers’ den at Highgate. I was there till after three. That’s why I got up late. I fair ran all the way up Fleet Street, and stopped for a cup of coffee at a stall on the corner of Lancaster Place. “’Ere, guvnor”, said the man, “you’ll scald yer stummick if you drink it orf like that!” “There are worse things than a scalded stomach, my man”, I replied. Meaning Old Growler, you know. And sure enough, he was lying in wait for me on the landing, as usual.’
Knollys lifted a battered coffee pot from the hob, and poured what coffee remained into a chipped enamel mug. He set it down in front of Box, and pushed a biscuit tin across the table.
‘That’s the best I can do, sir,’ he said. ‘Did Mr Mackharness tell you about tomorrow?’
‘He did, Jack, so sit down for a minute, and let’s talk about this business of the mysterious bomber. Mr Mackharness tells me that you’re to go with a detail from Southwark to lie in wait for this madman, Anders Grunwalski.’
Box removed the photograph from his pocket, and put it on the table.
‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, Sergeant,’ Box continued, ‘that picture was taken by Detective Inspector Fitzgerald of “J”. He shares my interest in the use of photography in the solution of crimes. It was he who unearthed this Anders Grunwalski.’
Jack Knollys stirred uneasily in his chair, but said nothing.
‘Ah, so you’ve heard about Bobby Fitz,’ said Box. ‘He’s a renowned expert on the doings of the Fenians, with a sideline in anarchists. He doesn’t often stir from his patch in Bethnal Green, but he knows all kinds of things. The trouble with Mr Fitzgerald, though, is that he has his own ways of obtaining information, some of which could get him into trouble, to put it mildly.’
‘I’ve heard about that, sir,’ Knollys replied. ‘Apparently it’s something that everybody knows, but that nobody speaks about.’
‘That’s right, and I’m only mentioning it to you because we’re alone here in the office, and there’s no one at present next door in the drill hall. But if Bobby Fitz has winkled out this man Grunwalski, then Grunwalski’s a genuine menace. I’ve never heard of him, and neither has the guvnor, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. He looks mild enough, doesn’t he? But you can’t go by looks. So when you’re on duty tomorrow in that boiler room under the bridge, watch out for yourself as well as for him. I want you back here in the afternoon, Sergeant, in one piece.’
Saturday, 30 June, 1894, presented the thronging people of London with a cloudless sky and a hot summer sun. Arnold Box left his lodgings in Cardinal Court, Fleet Street, at eight o’clock, having breakfasted on bacon and egg, buttered toast, and generous spoonfuls of Crosse & Blackwell’s orange marmalade. Mrs Peach, his motherly landlady, had made sure that there was to be no scalding coffee tossed down at a stall in the street that morning.
As Box walked briskly along Fleet Street in the direction of St Paul’s, he recalled the detailed plans that Superintendent Mackharness had put out for display in Room 6 at the Rents. Really, the guvnor was first-rate at that kind of thing.
The day’s great celebratory pageant would begin soon after eleven o’clock, when five semi-State carriages would set out from Marlborough House, just off Pall Ma
ll. Four of the carriages were to contain a whole panoply of equerries, lords-in-waiting, chamberlains, various court ladies, and Princess Maud of Wales. The Prince and Princess of Wales would be in the fifth carriage, with the Duke of York and Princess Victoria of Wales.
Their route would take them along Duncannon Street and so into the Strand, whence they would all progress in stately fashion along Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, Cheapside, and so to the Mansion House. From there they would journey along King William Street, Eastcheap and Trinity Square, ending up at Tower Hill.
The streets were already crowded with spectators, and the first-floor fronts of many shops and offices were covered in flags, bunting, and coloured heraldic shields. When Box reached the Mansion House, he saw that the vast open space fronting the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London was filled with a cheerfully noisy crowd waiting to see the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs join the Royal procession.
The police were heavily supplemented by detachments of regular soldiers and militia, who were already taking up positions at key points along the route. All this formidable security, presented as so much colourful spectacle, would ensure that there could be no threat to the Royal personages here in the City. No; it would be on the bridge that deadly danger would lurk, if this man Grunwalski was to triumph that day.
Forsaking the crowds and their keepers, Arnold Box made his way down Garlick Hill, negotiated the heavy morning traffic in Upper Thames Street, and crossed to the Surrey side by way of Southwark Bridge.
*
From his vantage point on the roof of Carmody’s Wool Depot at the far end of Pickled Herring Street, Box looked down through his field-glasses at the southern abutment of the new Tower Bridge, its steel framework clad in Portland stone, rising, solid and sturdy, towards the clear June sky.
For the last week Box had been combing the popular newspapers for facts and figures about the new bridge. Beneath that stone cladding there were 12,000 tons of steel. Each of the piers carrying the main towers weighed 70,000 tons. Surely no little bomb could bring that massive creation tumbling down into the river?
He scanned the five wide arches containing the doors to the engine rooms. From right to left, they consisted of the first and second boiler rooms, the fuel store, which also housed two of the four hydraulic accumulators in a tower above, and then the two chambers containing the massive steam-driven pumping engines. The malevolent Fenian, or anarchist, or whatever he was, had chosen the first of the two boiler rooms to carry out his act of terrorism.
Those boiler rooms could be seen as the heart of the enterprise. The boilers heated the water, which produced the steam to drive the pumps operating the hydraulic system. A bomb, exploded down there, would empty the system of its power, leaving the two drawbridges that carried the roadway locked together, helpless. But how would the explosion affect the Royal personages crossing the bridge? They’d be shocked and shaken, no doubt, but that would be all. Did this man Grunwalski know that?
Away to the left, Box could see the magnificent baronial Gothic towers of the bridge, and the dual footways, 142 feet above high water level. It was a breath-taking sight, that seemed to be glowing with its own sun-like brilliance. Box felt that he could have stretched out a hand and touched it, it seemed so near.
Box’s eyes were suddenly dazzled by a brilliant flash of light from somewhere to his right, in the direction of Queen Elizabeth Street, one of the tangle of roads and alleys crowding down to the river. Here, rows of stands were packed with children from the local schools, in the charge of their teachers. The flash was gone in an instant, but not before Box identified it as a momentary reflection from a telescope. Had somebody seen him there, standing on the roof of Carmody’s Wool Depot? Well, two could play at the game of I-spy.
Box was careful not to let the sun glance from his own powerful binoculars as he trained them tentatively in the direction of Queen Elizabeth Street. In seconds he had located the source of the flash. At the point where the road began to merge into Tooley Street, a handsome landau, drawn by a beribboned black horse, had drawn up to the pavement near a public house, which Box, who was no stranger to that part of the Surrey shore, knew to be The Tanner’s Arms. A man in capes, evidently the landau’s driver, was standing on the pavement, adjusting the horse’s bridle.
Sitting in the landau, a telescope across his knees, was a tall gentleman in a fashionable black morning suit and shining silk hat. In startling contrast to his sober attire, the man sported a massive mane of blond hair, which hung down over his collar. His hair was supplemented by a great bushy golden beard. A gaggle of excited children carrying Union flags ran past the carriage, and the man smiled and waved at them.
A little breeze suddenly ruffled both beard and hair, and Box was reminded of a picture he had once seen of a Viking warrior standing at the prow of his ship, a sword raised above his head. The Viking effect of the man in the landau was rather spoiled, Box thought, by the gold-rimmed monocle that he wore in his right eye, its black cord disappearing somewhere in the region of his double-breasted waistcoat.
The Viking suddenly stood up in the carriage, and once again applied his telescope to his monocled eye. Box realized that he was looking intently at the entrance to the boiler room under the southern abutment.
Or so it seemed! Many people would be out that day with fields-glasses and telescopes to get closer views of the Royal processions. It was a prime error to jump to facile conclusions. But it was an odd vantage point to choose, a bleak street some way from the bridge, on the faded skirts of Bermondsey….
Box swung his field glasses away from the Viking, and focused on the approach to the boiler rooms. Four men in stoker’s uniforms, each carrying a wide shovel, were walking rapidly down the slope to the boiler room. One of them had something wrapped in canvas under his arm. Yes! It was the man in the photograph, Anders Grunwalski. It was almost twelve. The man had aimed at planting his bomb just minutes before the arrival of the Royal party.
The door of the boiler room was opened from inside, and the four men passed from view. Down there, Box mused, hidden in various points of vantage, was a special police detail provided by ‘M’, Superintendent Neylan’s stalwarts from Blackman Street, Southwark, and with them, as a representative of Scotland Yard, was Sergeant Knollys. They would let Grunwalski position his bomb, in order to establish his guilt beyond doubt, and then they would quietly arrest him.
Box trained his binoculars once more on the Viking man in his landau. The world as glimpsed through binoculars was a silent world, but Box saw that the gentleman had just said something to his coachman, who leapt up on to the seat, and turned the horse’s head in the direction of Artillery Street. He’s going to cross the river by way of London Bridge, thought Box. Why hadn’t he stayed to watch the arrival of their Royal Highnesses? Or had he been there to witness the appearance of Grunwalski and his infernal machine? Mere supposition….
As Box turned his glasses back on to the southern abutment of the bridge, he saw a police constable emerge discreetly from a doorway some distance away from the boiler room. The man looked up at him, and waved his arm in a gesture that said, ‘All’s well.’
Before Box had turned away from the parapet, the door of the boiler room burst open, and Grunwalski, apparently running for his life, emerged on to the slip road, a pistol in his hand. He was followed by four policemen, two of whom staggered as they ran, blood pouring from head wounds. There was no sign of Knollys. At the same time, a tremendous cheer, sounding high into the air and across to the South Bank, told Box that the Royal carriage had started its progress across Tower Bridge.
2
The Deadly Stoker
AT NINE O’CLOCK that same morning, Detective Sergeant Jack Knollys left his lodgings at Syria Wharf and made his way on foot down to Swan Lane Pier, where one of Thames Division’s steam launches conveyed him under London Bridge and out across the river to a landing-stage below the Anchor Brewery at Shad Thames. By ten o’clock, he was walking rapi
dly down the slip road that would take him to the Number 1 engine room of Tower Bridge.
He gave a low knock on a stout door set in a stone arch below the southern approach to the bridge, and it was opened immediately by a man dressed in the dark blue overalls and glazed peak cap of a naval stoker. Knollys recalled having read somewhere that, in the peculiar way of English institutions, the new bridge had been registered as a ship.
‘Sergeant Knollys?’ said the man in the peaked cap. ‘Come in, and close the door behind you. I’m Inspector Hare, of “M”. The powers-that-be thought it right that this little posse should be made up of officers from Southwark Division, rather than asking City to do the honours. It’s a fine point of etiquette, Sergeant, which we’ll leave others to debate.’
Knollys glanced at Inspector Hare’s lined face, which bore the more or less permanent half smile of a born cynic. This man, he thought, is not taking our anarchist seriously. He probably thinks the whole affair is a pathetic stunt by a washed-out Fenian.
‘Is there any special reason, sir, why you’re dressed as a stoker?’ asked Knollys.
‘It was a whim of Superintendent Neylan’s, Sergeant. It’s supposed to be a disguise. I was obliged to comply. But I’ve got six properly dressed constables here, and there’s a man from the Home Office as well – a man who knows how to defuse bombs and suchlike. Come through into the boiler room.’
There was nothing of the damp crypt about the white-tiled chamber, well lit by glazed half-moon-shaped windows high on the walls. The centre of the room was dominated by two massive cylindrical Lancashire boilers, each thirty feet long, which hissed and bubbled, filling the chamber with an overpowering heat.
An archway to the left of the boilers led into the second boiler room, which, like the first, housed two gigantic Lancashire boilers, and here, Inspector Hare had assembled his posse of constables. They were all in uniform, and stood, tense and expectant, against the inner wall. Just feet away from them a team of stokers continued to fuel the twin fire-boxes of each boiler as though nothing untoward was going to happen.
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