‘I already have,’ said Lonsdale. ‘He was dismissed from The Echo because he spied for a rival paper, so I persuaded Ingram to take him on the staff of The Illustrated London News. Ingram won’t know what’s hit him!’
‘Have you heard from your family at all, Lady Gertrude?’ fished Hulda.
‘Only to say they won’t be returning to the city for the foreseeable future. Agatha and the girls will stay in Woking, while Gervais has taken a post with the 24th Punjabi Infantry Regiment, which will keep him looking over his shoulder in a very unsettled Kandahar. I don’t anticipate meeting him again. He’s lucky Inspector Peters looked the other way while he boarded a ship, because he did shoot a man in cold blood.’
‘And he aided and abetted a killer,’ said Lonsdale. ‘Maybe not knowingly, but he should’ve asked why Fleetwood-Pelham wanted a murder enquiry suppressed.’
‘That would have required original thought,’ said Gertrude smugly. ‘And Gervais isn’t very good at that.’
‘Poor Em,’ sighed Jack, who had recovered even more quickly than Lonsdale from his broken engagement and had already noticed that one of his legal colleagues had a very pretty daughter. ‘She must be devastated. Anne, too. They looked up to Humbage.’
Hulda grinned wickedly. ‘At least they dropped you before Christmas, which spared you from the need to provide them with expensive gifts.’
‘Lord!’ muttered Lonsdale. ‘I’d forgotten all about that. I got you something, though.’
The box of pens was produced and admired, and Lonsdale found himself thinking that perhaps Anne was no great loss after all. Next to Hulda, she was staid and colourless, and although Hulda could be exasperating and irritating, she was never dull. Eventually, the discussion turned back to the Watchers.
‘It was not some dark and dangerous plot after all,’ said Hulda. ‘Just one man irked that he was rejected from a secret society while someone he deemed inferior was elected. It was all rather banal.’
‘Fleetwood-Pelham murdered seven good men,’ said Jack soberly. ‘London will be the poorer without them, although Carlingford and Burnside have vowed to continue what they started.’
‘Dear old Carly,’ said Gertrude. ‘He’s a curmudgeonly old devil, but there’s a heart of gold under all that angry bluster. And I like young Burnside, although I hope he realizes that his heroics at the Garraway still won’t win him a royal commission. Carly never rewards anyone for doing what he considers to be his duty.’
Hulda winced. ‘I misjudged Burnside. And Roth.’
Lonsdale agreed. ‘I had a letter from Roth yesterday, sent from Southampton before they sailed. His Khoikhoi friends are delighted to be going home. Ingram is storing Dickerson’s collections until Roth comes back – he looked inside some of the boxes and tells me that the Natural History Museum will inherit many fabulous artefacts.’
‘Speaking of the museum, did you ever hand over that claw?’ asked Hulda.
Lonsdale nodded. ‘It’ll go on display in the spring, as part of a massive new dinosaur exhibition. Owen says dead dinosaurs are a lot safer than live cannibals.’
‘Not according to The Echo,’ chuckled Jack. ‘Voules’s final story was that the museum released a herd of Megalosaurus on Hampstead Heath.’
‘The Echo!’ spat Hulda in distaste. ‘It created panic about Maclean’s escape and blamed innocent Khoikhoi for the murders. It’s an irresponsible rag and should be closed down.’
‘Fleetwood-Pelham arranged for all that to be published,’ said Lonsdale, ‘to draw attention away from his own crimes. And Maclean never did escape, of course.’
‘He didn’t?’ asked Jack, startled.
‘He was safely in Broadmoor the whole time,’ explained Lonsdale. ‘Peters told us. Fleetwood-Pelham promised to give Orange’s job to Norris if Maclean “escaped”. So Norris put Maclean in a solitary-confinement cell, minded by guards in his pay, and told the world that he was on the loose.’
‘Eventually, Norris planned to “catch” Maclean himself – the final nail in Orange’s coffin,’ finished Hulda. ‘Instead, he’ll be charged with kidnapping and perverting the course of justice. I don’t know if he’ll go to prison, but he’ll certainly never run one.’
‘And there was nothing suspicious in the fact that Tait and Dickerson went to Broadmoor shortly before Maclean’s escape,’ said Lonsdale. ‘Mr Morley was right – Tait went because he had an interest in prison reform, while Dickerson went to assess Ashe’s Ashanti spears – and took the opportunity to make helpful suggestions to Orange while he was there.’
‘There was something suspicious in the fact that Voules went there, though,’ said Hulda. ‘It was actually Wells, visiting to connive with Norris.’
‘So there we are,’ said Gertrude, sitting back in her chair. ‘Fleetwood-Pelham is dead, and all those who helped him are punished in one way or another, whether by gaol, disgrace or banishment. And the time is one minute to midnight. It’s nearly eighteen eighty-three.’
‘I wonder what the new year will bring,’ mused Hulda, and smiled at Lonsdale. ‘Something good, I hope.’
Lonsdale reached out to take her hand in his. ‘I’m sure of it.’
HISTORICAL NOTE
In 1882, The Pall Mall Gazette was a small but influential London newspaper. Its editor was John Morley (1838–1923), a much-respected intellectual and political commentator, called ‘the last of the great nineteenth-century Liberals’. Morley left The PMG in 1883 after being elected to Parliament. He later served twice in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary for Ireland, having drily informed Prime Minister Gladstone that if he could manage Stead, then he could manage Ireland; he was also twice Secretary of State for India, and was created Viscount Morley in 1908, after which he became Lord President of the Council.
One of Morley’s first moves as editor had been to hire the Liberal firebrand W.T. Stead (1849–1912), from The Northern Echo of Darlington, to serve as his assistant editor. Stead later succeeded Morley as editor. Over the next seven years his ‘New Journalism’ introduced many innovations and demonstrated how the press could be used to influence government policy in the creation of child welfare and social legislation – what Stead called ‘Government by Journalism’. In 1890, he founded and became editor of the monthly Review of Reviews, a position he held until his death; he was one of those who went down on Titanic in 1912.
Under Morley and Stead, the staff of The PMG was one of the most remarkable in the history of the press. Alfred Milner (1854–1925) served as a reporter and then assistant editor, before turning to a career as a politician and colonial administrator. He was High Commissioner for South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony, a member of the War Cabinet during World War I, Secretary of State for War, and Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was knighted in 1895 and created Viscount Milner in 1902.
Hulda Friederichs (1856–1927) initially joined The PMG as Stead’s personal assistant, but then became the first woman journalist in London to be engaged on exactly the same terms as male members of staff. In 1896, she became editor of the Westminster Budget. She later wrote biographies of several important British figures of the time.
The PMG continued publication until 1923, when it was absorbed into the Evening Standard. The Echo, which existed from 1868 to 1905, was London’s first halfpenny evening newspaper; although not considered one of the ‘quality’ newspapers, it was not the sensational rag presented in Watchers of the Dead.
The Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated news magazine, was founded by Herbert Ingram in 1842. His son William (1847–1924) later took control. It appeared weekly until 1971. William Ingram’s sister was named Ada. She married Albert ‘Monkey’ Hornby (1847–1925), one of only two men ever to captain England at both cricket and rugby. Unfortunately, in August 1882, his cricket team had suffered a shocking defeat to Australia, a match that, due to an ‘obituary’ for English cricket published in the Sporting Times, gave birth to what is today known as The Ashes.
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br /> Many of the events mentioned in Watchers of the Dead actually occurred. On 2 March 1882, Roderick Maclean attempted to shoot Queen Victoria. On 19 April that year, a jury found him ‘not guilty, but insane’ after only five minutes deliberation. He was sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he remained until his death in 1921. The verdict prompted Queen Victoria to demand a change in the law so that similar cases could be adjudged ‘guilty, but insane’. The act allowing this was passed the following year.
Contemporary drawings show Maclean as a slight, bowler-hatted man. He really did believe that the colour blue had been created for him and that he had a special relationship with God. It later emerged that he had been deeply offended when the Queen had neglected to show due admiration for a poem he had written for her.
James Burnside was a photographer who helped disarm Maclean, while two Eton boys flailed at the would-be assassin with their umbrellas. Maclean was arrested by Superintendent Hayes of the Windsor Police. Burnside spent the rest of his life demanding recognition for what he had done and grew bitterly resentful when the Palace declined to help his failing business.
The Queen did open the Royal Courts of Justice on 4 December 1882. However, there was no formal ceremony at the Natural History Museum, then known as the British Museum (Natural History) – the doors were just thrown wide and the public walked in. This, though, was in April 1882, not December 1882. The first superintendent of the museum was Richard Owen (1804–92), called ‘director’ in Watchers of the Dead to avoid confusion with other characters who had the title of superintendent. In 1884 Owen was succeeded by Dr (later Sir) William Henry Flower (1831–99).
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe opened on 25 November 1882, as the first work to premier at the Savoy Theatre. Alice Barnett (1846–1901) was the Queen of the Fairies.
Francis Galton (1822–1911) was one of the great gentleman-scientists of his generation. He had travelled in Africa and later achieved prominence for his investigations into heredity and genetics. The originator of the concept of eugenics, he also founded psychometrics and was one of the fathers of fingerprinting.
He and the famed explorer Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) despised each other and had a long-running feud that began after Stanley famously ‘found’ David Livingstone. The British geographical establishment objected to Stanley who, in Galton’s words, was ‘a journalist aiming at producing sensational articles’. Key members of the Royal Geographical Society portrayed Stanley negatively for decades thereafter.
Most of the murder victims were significant individuals in real life. Archibald Campbell Tait, the Archbishop of Canterbury, did die on 3 December 1882 at Addington Palace, although there was no sign of foul play. The barrister and Evangelical newspaper proprietor Alexander Haldane died of natural causes that same year. Sir George Bowyer, the foreman of the grand jury that brought the murder charge against Maclean, was a Member of Parliament, who died peacefully on 7 June 1883, in his bed at King’s Bench Walk. Samuel Gurney (1816–82) was a member of a family of bankers and philanthropists. And Robert Barkley Shaw (1839–79) not only explored the mountainous regions of Central Asia but also served as a British diplomat. Only Dickerson is fictional.
Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue, Baron Carlingford (1823–98), was at the height of his political career in the 1880s, serving as Lord Privy Seal (1881–85), Lord President of the Council (1883–85), and Lord Lieutenant of Essex (1873–92). However, his wife had died in 1879 and, with no children, his titles became extinct upon his death.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Henderson (1821–96) had been Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis since 1869, but by this time his inefficiency meant that he had lost control of his force. He resigned in 1886 after mishandling the infamous Trafalgar Square Riot.
The medical superintendent of Broadmoor was William Orange, who was in charge from 1870 until 1886. The facility’s chaplain in the mid-1880s was Thomas Ashe.
The businesses mentioned – the Aerated Bread Company, Garrard, Liberty, Harrods and John Lewis – were all successful at the time. There was no Garraway Club, but its place on what was then known as Exchange Alley is the same as that of the old Garraway’s Coffee House, which was first opened in the seventeenth century. The houses where Lonsdale, Galton, Stanley, and Milner lived still exist, although Galton’s is much changed after being damaged by a bomb in World War II.
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