by Mike Hogan
From newspaper reports of such Fenian dens, I had expected a filthy, low-ceilinged, sawdust-floored room. I expected to see a pack of thick-necked men in greasy caps and jackets and their ugly, ragged trollops slumped across beer-slopped tables, smoking rank tobacco and singing Fenian anthems to the squeak of a tin-whistle and the jarring screak of an Irish fiddle.
In reality, the bar was brightly lit by numerous gas burners and oil lamps. Every surface was bound in gleaming brass or gilt, and mirrored or ornamented in glittering, coloured glass. A dozen round tables stood against the walls. Two or three well-dressed customers, male and female, sat at each table chatting and drinking dark stout or whiskey. A young man at a well-tuned piano played an air from The Mikado.
A gentleman detached himself from a group at the bar and strolled across to me. He wore a tailored, black frock coat and a grey waistcoat. He had a pale face with a thin moustache and a goatee beard. He viewed me with a friendly smile. I could not place why, but he had a familiar air.
“Good evening, Doctor,” he said in a quiet, serious voice with a slight Irish lilt. “This way, if you please.”
He turned and, assuming my compliance, led the way across the room to a mirrored glass door on the left side of the bar. I followed: I could not think what else to do. He held the door open for me and I walked through before him, my neck stiff, expecting a blow. He stepped past me and let the way up a steep, worn staircase. Weak gaslights on each landing lit our progress.
We stomped up two flights of creaking stairs and turned into a narrow corridor.
“We have engaged a meeting room,” he said, stopping outside a black-painted door. He knocked a complicated secret knock and a thickset suspicious man opened the door. The pale faced man stood back to let me through. As I passed him, I smelled a hint of something - ether! I staggered to the wall and my hand went to my pocket: they intended to chloroform me.
“Would you leave your pistol with Liam here, Doctor,” said the pale man with a puzzled frown. “I assure you, you’ll have it straight back when you leave.”
I looked around the room in desperation. A square table covered in green baize stood in the centre, surrounded by chairs. On it were a bright oil lamp, packs of playing cards, a box of betting tokens and several hats, including Holmes’ brown bowler.
I slowly pulled my revolver from my pocket, and as I did so, I noticed a top hat on the table. The tip of a stethoscope was visible inside.
The pale man followed my gaze and smiled. He held out his hand. “May I introduce myself, Doctor? I am Francis Egan, general practitioner.”
I gave my revolver, my hat and stick to the bruiser and shook the pale man’s hand.
“John Watson,” I said. “How do you do, Doctor?”
I followed Doctor Egan across the room to another door. He knocked - again a complicated signal - opened the door and ushered me through. I was in a small brightly-lit room, but in such a fug of cigar smoke that I spluttered and coughed and could see nothing for a moment. When my sight cleared, I saw two men sitting at a table, again covered in green baize. I squinted through the smoke and saw Holmes beckoning me to a seat next to him. Doctor Egan took the fourth seat.
I saw that Holmes had shed most of his ludicrous disguise; the red wig and yellow teeth sat on the table before him.
“I assume Churchill is with you,” he murmured. “What are his instructions?”
“Fetch the police if a fight, or after ten minutes,” I answered. “He is with George’s cab in the Mews.”
“Another page of your notebook, if you please.”
I handed him my small notebook. He scribbled on a page and tore it out. “Mr Davitt, would you be so good as to have this given to a boy in a hansom in Wardour Mews? Thank you.”
The note was passed outside to the bruiser.
“Doctor,” said Holmes. “I see that you have met Doctor Egan. Let me introduce Mr Davitt, sometime gun-runner, suborner of the British Army in Dublin, and chief of the Republican sect, Clan-na-Gael in Great Britain.”
“You do me too much honour, Mr Holmes,” said Mr Davitt nodding to me and leaning forward into the lamp light to lay his cigar on the ashtray. He had a thin face with a high brow, deep-set eyes and a neatly-trimmed moustache and beard. He stood and held out his left hand.
I most reluctantly and awkwardly stood and shook his hand. His right sleeve, I now noticed, was empty and pinned to his jacket.
He sat and retrieved his cigar. “I hold no office in the Clan-na-Gael or any other organisation,” he said. “I have taken it upon myself to look into some little matters connected with what your newspapers call ‘The Irish Question’ and what we call ‘England’s Shame’. You might call me a detective, of sorts.”
He turned to me. “Mr Holmes contacted us with a note addressed to the head of the Clan,” Davitt said with a smile. “It came care of this public house. I can tell you that it caused a mixture of indignation, consternation and merriment when I read it to the regulars this afternoon.”
Holmes frowned. He slid a packet of cigars across the table to me.
There was a knock at the door. Doctor Egan opened it, had a whispered conversation with the bruiser and returned to his seat.
“Mr Holmes said that his colleagues were on the way,” continued Davitt. “That would be you, Doctor?”
“And Winston Churchill,” I said stiffly.
Doctor Egan murmured something in Davitt’s ear.
“The boy is asleep in the cab,” said Davitt. “We gave the note to the cabby.”
I did not deign to reply.
“In his letter to us,” Davitt continued. “Mr Holmes confided that he and his followers had been engaged by the government to act against instigators of plots aimed at the person of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.”
“God bless her,” said Egan with a smile.
“Indeed,” said Davitt. “He gave us fair warning that our infamous designs were known and would come to naught.”
“That part was well written,” said Egan. “We shook in our boots, we did indeed.”
“If you harm, or try to harm the Queen,” said Holmes calmly, “you will set your cause back fifty or a hundred years. It is that simple.”
“I’ve heard that said,” Davitt replied evenly. “And yet, would it? The best argument I have ever heard for violence in England leading to freedom for Ireland, came from your own Mr Gladstone. In 1869, he disestablished the Protestant Church in Ireland in direct response to the intensity of Fenian violence, or potential violence. And Lord Salisbury is the best publicist for our cause that we have ever had. He goes further in statements about revolution than I would ever do, at least in public. When he called the Irish people Hottentots in a speech last year, membership of Republican organisations soared.”
“An attack on the Queen will turn every hand in England against the Irish in the country, guilty or innocent,” I exclaimed. “The streets would be bloody conduits of terror.”
The two Irishmen smiled.
“Don’t worry your head,” said Egan with an impertinent grin. “We have no plans against Mrs Brown, that dear lady, at least for now.”
I lunged from my chair. “I say -”
Holmes held my arm and pulled back down. “Do you speak for all the Fenian groups?” he asked
“That I do not,” said Davitt, chuckling. “I do not believe that an individual exists who can. Irish nationalists could erect a new Tower of Babel by public subscription and bay for a second. I can speak only for the Movement here in England. We have no authority over the Americans, whether across the Atlantic, in London, in Dublin or on the Continent. Our brethren in France go their bucolic way. As I have said, I will be happy to give you an introduction to General Morgan in Boulogne, and to Mick and Joe Donovan at the Shamrock Bar in Paris.”
He nodded at the
ginger wig. “As an English detective, of course, not an Irish stable hand.”
He grinned and turned to me. “Don’t get me wrong, now, Doctor. I am a practical man with a firm purpose. I expect the British government to see reason and let Ireland forge its destiny among the nations of the world. Ha, there I go waxing poetic when I mean that Britain should get out and stay out of Ireland, as having done enough harm. We will be free whether it costs you a bridge, or a politician or two.”
Holmes stood. “My brother may be stalked.”
Davitt looked across to Doctor Egan. “Mr Mycroft Holmes is a legitimate target,” said Egan. “He has been involved in decisions that have hurt our cause, but he is not on our list. The people watching him are not ours. Would you like us to have a word with them?”
“That will not be necessary,” I said, jumping up. “Mr Sherlock Holmes will deal with the matter.”
The Irishmen stood and we shook hands again; I more reluctantly than before. Egan led us out into the next room and handed me my hat and stick.
“You might like to study the Glorious Revolution of 1688,” I said. “England threw off the mantle of Catholic oppression with hardly a drop of blood being shed.”
“Ah, there you have it, Doctor,” Davitt replied. “You English have a better eye for the main chance than we do. Throwing out your king and importing a ready-made product from Holland was a sound commercial decision. Us poor Irish live for our honour and our principles, and long to die for them: in glory of course and with a fine song and a poem.”
“You kill defenceless civilians.”
“The dynamite boys target government buildings that are guarded day and night by armed police. They also target ministers of the Crown. Do you not think your ministers a feckless lot? They are running around in a blind panic when the boys have only bagged Cavendish and Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and that was five years ago. A few bombs in Whitehall, the empty Commons and the Tower of London have them in a funk. Do you not think it a pitiful spectacle for the guardians of the Empire, Doctor?”
I felt my choler rise and I clenched my teeth.
“What of Afghanistan and the Russians?” Holmes asked. “What have they to do with your high-flown sensitivities? You ally with them against the Empire; it is entirely pragmatic and unprincipled.”
“My sights are firmly fixed on the Mountains of Mourne and not on the Himalayas,” Davitt answered with a smile. “I would not give an acre of Irish bog for the Khyber and all its passes. I am surprised that you and the Russians are so desirous of them. If you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr Holmes, the English are an acquisitive race.”
He opened the door. “There now, I am in danger of becoming impolite. If you have no more inquiries, let me show you to the door.”
The bruiser handed me back my revolver. Davitt and Egan watched me, smiling, as I put it in my pocket. I felt angry and ridiculous.
“I have to say, I liked your ploy with the Maharajah,” said Davitt. “Getting him to enter Russia with old Mick Donovan’s passport was brilliant. I did not think your fellows at Whitehall Place, Mr Monro and his set, had a sense of humour. The Scotch are not known for their sense of fun.”
Davitt offered Holmes a towel. “I’d wipe off your freckles, Mr Holmes. We’ll go through the public bar and your moleskin waistcoat alone is enough to test the natural politeness of the company.”
We passed through the bar and out into the street without incident. The hurdy-gurdy was gone. The lights were out in the chemist’s opposite, and only the weak glow of the gaslights illuminated the street.
“I envy you France,” said Davitt as we made our farewells on the pavement. “I’m a huge fellow for French cheese. But, be careful over there, gentlemen. You will meet lovers of pleasure on the banks of that rueful stream, the Seine, rather than lovers of God. Wrap up warm.”
Holmes and I crossed the road and made our way towards the Mews. My irritation grew within me. I was not best pleased with myself for losing my temper. I was annoyed with Holmes for his silly charade and poor showing in our discussion; above all, I was angry with the Irishmen for their suave and confident ways. They had laughed up their sleeves at us, and they were no doubt laughing more openly with their cronies in the bar behind us.
“Wrap up warm, Holmes,” I said. “Davitt said that we should wrap up warm in Paris in June? What nonsense. He was playing with us.”
“I agree, Watson. Mr Davitt is playing a deep game.”
We climbed into the waiting hansom. Churchill was fast asleep. I propped him across our knees.
We sat in silence until we arrived at Baker Street. I was strangely exhausted, as if I had done a long day of manual labour. I shook Churchill vigorously, not wanting to carry him upstairs, but I couldn’t wake him. I left him with Billy in the hall and made my weary way up to the sitting room.
Holmes came out of his bedroom in his old dressing gown. He had wiped away the last traces of his stage Irishman.
“I can’t help thinking,” I said tentatively.
“Good show, Watson.”
I frowned.
“You are thinking that my Irish loafer was a farce and that we did not shine in our interview with those wily Irish dynamitards.”
I poured myself a glass of Madeira and said nothing.
“I see that you have not read your Sun Tzu recently. What held true for the Middle Empire of China in 512 BC is also true for the British Empire in AD1887. Sun Tzu counsels us to speak in humble terms while we continue preparations for the attack. We pretend inferiority and encourage the enemy’s arrogance. The crux of military operations lies in the pretence of accommodating to the designs of the enemy. It is always a good plan to have your adversaries underestimate you, especially ones as cold and devoid of compassion as the Golden Lion Fenians.”
I drank my wine in a better humour than when I had come home. Holmes evidently had a plan.
“Two things must happen for a revolution to be successful from a particular faction’s point of view,” said Holmes as I handed him a whisky and soda and we lit our pipes.
“They advocate acts of violence against their lawful superior, Holmes. That is rebellion, not revolution,” I interjected.
“First,” he said over-riding me, “the chains of oppression must be thrown off. Then your faction must seize control. Mr Davitt is convinced that the first is inevitable: he may be right. His mind is focussed on the second. He is well aware of the cataclysm that the murder of Queen Victoria would unleash. Even if the regicides tore Ireland from the Empire, they could not govern her: they would be international pariahs. Davitt’s focus is on the aftermath of secession. I do not believe that he represents a threat to Her Majesty. An assassination would be directly opposed to his interests.”
The logic of Holmes supposition was sound enough, but I was not convinced of the Irishmen’s docility. Davitt and his partner were indeed playing a deep game. “Who then are the watchers in Pall Mall and the men who tried to bundle Colonel Delacy out of his flat? What is their target? They pass themselves off as Americans. Could they be members of Davitt’s gang intending to attack the Queen and lay the blame on American fanatics? Or were they sent by one of the Fenian groups in America? They are scouting Pall Mall for some fell purpose; if not an attack on the Queen, then what?”
“As usual, my dear friend, you strike directly at the core of the problem. Who these people are, and where they are, will be the focus of our attention from this moment on.”
“You mentioned Mycroft, Holmes. Is he in danger?”
“It is a possibility. We need more data. We will make an early start in the morning. I have summoned the Irregulars. But now, my dear fellow, you must get some sleep.”
I nodded and stood up rather unsteadily. I was extremely tired.
“Like Davitt, we too must take care not to confuse our a
ims,” said Holmes looking up at me from his chair with a smile.
“What are they, Holmes?”
“The Irish may do as they will. I take no position on their wish to change the status of the union of their island and the rest of Great Britain. Our client, whether she knows it or not, is Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.”
He stood. “We shall keep her safe, Watson,” he said quietly, raising his glass.
“Hear him,” I cried gulping my wine and wringing my dear friend’s hand. I yawned. “God save the Queen!”
4. A String of Emeralds
Never Look Down
“Good morning, Watson. I trust you slept well.”
“Like a log, Holmes.” I sat at our breakfast table, cracked my first boiled egg and helped myself to toast soldiers. “What is in the news?”
“The Jubilee preparations go ahead. There is much speculation on the probability of anarchist attacks. One nervous correspondent abhors the erection of wooden benches along the sides of the nave of Westminster Abbey as constituting a boon to fire-bombing anarchists.
The threats of these gentry to destroy, at one fell blow, the heirs apparent of several European dynasties were overheard in a low Soho cabaret by detectives lurking in that notorious quarter.
They are clearly speaking of Lestrade; he lurks very creditably. It is one of the things I admire about him.”
Mrs Hudson bustled in with a tray.
“Devilled kidneys and bacon, gentlemen. Kippers and more toast are on the way, only Billy bent the toast fork again and a batch fell in the fire.”
“Excellent, Mrs Hudson,” I said helping myself to kidneys. “I am surprised that the scent of breakfast bacon has not drawn Churchill from his lair. He ate hardly anything at supper last night.”
“He’s still fast asleep, Doctor. I sent Billy up twice, but Master Winston nodded off again. It’s like that with boys at his age. I remember my nephew, Frankie -”