Chapter Five

It is the king of words - Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power.

- Jack London, The Iron Heel

Sherlock Holmes may not have been stirred into action by the murder of Charles Morton-Watt, but I was. At the very least, someone had to protect Brother Mycroft.

Like Holmes, I too tended not to believe in coincidences - at least, not those that trivialised questions of life and death. But regarding the Assassination Bureau, I now perceived too many connections among a number of murders - both past and predicted - to ignore. Holmes would consider me paranoiac; but given the possible attacks on human lives that I might be able to prevent, his was a condemnation I was willing to suffer.

Besides, there was also the Coroner’s report from the Morton-Watt autopsy. Inspector Mackinnon had sent me the results, which substantiated my view of the affair: three shots, two shooters. Confirmation that Wainwright had a confederate may not have proved to Sherlock Holmes the existence of an international conspiracy, but the official findings were enough for me.

It was time to take some sort of action. In spite of Holmes’ scepticism, I vowed to do my utmost to protect those who had been threatened. However high-minded the leaders of the Assassination Bureau might consider themselves, no independent organisation could be allowed to wield the power of life or death with impunity. Though Holmes and the police showed little interest, I would do whatever I could to uncover evidence of their nefarious plots.

To that end, I constructed a plan. First, I would locate Shinwell Johnson, Holmes’ one-time informant, whose criminal history allowed him access to London’s underworld - the same Shinwell Johnson I’ve already mentioned in connection with helping Holmes solve the case of “The Illustrious Client” many years before. Johnson could be counted on, I knew, as long as it was understood that he remain in the background. To reveal his true role in the criminal conviction of a wrongdoer would place his life in danger.

“Stand me up to testify at the Old Bailey,” said he on a visit to Baker Street, “and that’s the end of Porky Shinwell.”

Not that the man had any inhibitions about being seen in public. On the contrary, I remembered that he had a favourite table in the Northumberland Arms, a public house on Northumberland Street.

“The Northumberland’s easy to find,” he had told Holmes and me one day in Baker Street.

It goes without saying that both of us were well acquainted with the territory. The pub stood adjacent to the narrow walkway called Craven Passage, which lay between the Northumberland and Nevill’s, the Turkish baths where Holmes and I had discussed the meeting with Sir James Damery on the day I first met Jack London. Faithful readers may also recall that it was in the hotel above the Northumberland that Sir Henry Baskerville discovered his boots had been stolen.

In spite of our familiarity with the area, the informant added with an ironical note that I am sure was unintended, “The Northumberland’s close enough to Scotland Yard to spit on.”

Suffice it to say, that on the trail of Shinwell Johnson I journeyed by cab to Northumberland Street one silent, moonless night in late spring. Nearby, the tower of Westminster rose up, a large black mass save for the round, electrically-lit face of the clock. The hands showed 9.00 whilst Big Ben, the great bell housed within the tower, sounded its chimes in confirmation. Once the final tones died away, all was quiet again.

No sooner did I enter the Northumberland Arms, however, than a cacophony of loud voices and raucous laughter crashed over me; and it was through a tangle of red and sweaty faces, waving arms, and hoisted tankards that I was forced to scan for the visage belonging to Johnson. Yet I could not spot my prey and had to enquire of a young barmaid for the man.

Now it has always interested me that women can exude a kind of fetching beauty when they are in the midst of hard work, and attraction must be farthest from their minds. So it was with this barmaid. The night might have been chilly, but a patina of perspiration shone on her forehead, and a thin line of moisture appeared just above her upper lip. Still, her bouncing ringlets of raven-black hair, parted wet lips of ruby-red, and low-scooped white blouse exposing an ample swell of décolletage made this old man’s heart race. But I digress.

“Shinwell Johnson,” she parroted with a decided cockney lilt. Then she broke into a grin and gave me a little poke. “Oh, luv, you mean Porky Shinwell.”

“P-Porky,” I stammered, “the very one.”

“‘E’s at ‘is table. It’s in the back, innit?” And she nodded vaguely in a direction to the rear of the bar.

I elbowed my way through the boisterous patrons; but Johnson spotted me before I saw him. I was about to approach his table when he flicked his head in a manner, which I took to mean, “We’ll meet outside.”

Turning round, I found myself pushing back through the same crowd I had only just disrupted, facing fewer smiling faces among those whom I had already edged out of the way. But make it I did; and after exiting, I veered left into the dimly-lit passage between the pub and Nevill’s.

Shinwell Johnson appeared a few minutes later, his long coat failing to conceal his growing girth, his salt-and-pepper hair askew. Clearly, even years after his work for Sherlock Holmes had ended, Johnson feared calling attention to his relationship with the “authorities” - which, I should imagine, now included me. He looked up and down the walkway; and when he spoke, his voice was almost a whisper.

“Well, well,” said he, “if it ain’t m’ old pal, Dr Watson.

“Shinwell,” I nodded

“How’s our Mr Holmes doing then?” he asked.

“Fine. I’ll tell him you enquired.”

“So what brings you round? You don’t often show up without him. In fact, never.”

“I’ve been asked by officials at Scotland Yard to help in the investigation of the recent shooting death of Charles Morton-Watt.” I may have stretched the timing a bit, but the statement was essentially true.

“I thought the coppers already nicked somebody,” said he. “A bloke named Wainwright - or so I’ve been told.”

My cynical smirk must have betrayed Holmes’ and my suspicions because Johnson immediately responded, “Oh, that’s how it is, is it? More to the thing than just the one shooter.” He paused to look round, as if for spies or eavesdroppers, and then whispered conspiratorially, “-that is, if the poor sod they’ve nabbed done it at all.”

I refused the bait. I wouldn’t reveal our misgivings. “Any word on the street about it?” I asked. Thinking of the barmaid Holmes had in mind, I added, “Anything at all, say, about a woman who might have participated in a shooting?”

Shinwell narrowed his dark eyes and stroked the stubble on his chin. “Well,” said he, “I did hear tell of someone come down from Liverpool ‘bout two months ago. Maybe a Russian. Supposed to be pretty handy with a piece. Could be it was a woman. Nobody said. Not that a woman shooter’s common, mind.”

“What about the gun itself?” I asked. “Anything about a pistol somebody wanted to get rid of in the last day or so?”

Shinwell Johnson let out a slow, ropey laugh that emanated from deep inside his chest. With a thumb, he gestured toward the Thames off in the darkness behind us. “Easiest way to get rid of a gun, Doctor, is to heave it in the river.”

“I’ve always thought there was money to be made from selling a firearm.”

“Aye,” said he, “but if the police’ve already caught the fella they think done it and you’re still saying there might be an unknown shooter on the loose, I’m thinking he - or she - is a professional and more concerned with eliminating the evidence than cashing in on the extra quid or two - if you get my meaning.”

I did get his meaning. I also recalled how Holmes had phrased it in our very first case together: “Political assassins are only too glad to do their work and fly.”

I gave him my card and said I would be much obliged if he let me know as quickly as possible if he heard anything about these matters.

“Aye, Doctor,” said he again, his voice still low. “Don’t be forgetting to give my regards to Mr Holmes.” With those parting words, the big man touched his fingers to his forelock and marched back into the pub.

Now it was my turn to look up and down the dim, narrow walkway. I saw no one stirring. And yet it was night-time; and there were enough darkened doorways, like the ladies’ entrance to Nevill’s, in which some nefarious figure might have listened in on our conversation. Not that there had been anything of great import to learn. In fact, unhappy with my lack of specific results, I waved down a passing cab for the drive back to Queen Anne Street.

Though the ride itself was uneventful that dark night, a strange occurrence took place upon my return home. The cab deposited me across the road from my house, and I happened to notice that the nearest electric street lamp remained unlit. Forced to traverse the road in darkness, I heard my footfalls echoing into the gloom.

Suddenly, the roar of a motor broke the silence, and the glare of bright headlights riveted my attention. No sooner did I step onto the street than a powerful motor-car came hurtling towards me.

Bloody hell! I thought, and only by throwing myself against the kerb did I manage to avoid the car’s menacing fender. An instant later, the car had vanished.

“Blackguard!” I shouted, rising and shaking my fist in its wake.

Did someone just try to run me down? I wondered as I brushed myself off. Had some villain followed me from the Old Bell Tavern with my death in mind? Might a driver with murderous intent have been lurking down the road awaiting my appearance and then taken deliberate aim at me? Could the Assassination Bureau, I inevitably found myself asking, have known all along what I was up to and tried to put a stop to it?

Or might there have been a more innocent explanation? Perhaps the driver had been some thrill-seeker in front of whom I had the misfortune of crossing - or simply someone who had had too much to drink.

None the worse for wear, I unlocked the front door and entered the quiet house. Of only one thing was I certain. In no way would I burden my wife with even the slightest hint that an attempt on her husband’s life might just have occurred outside her curtained window.

* * *

Once safely within the confines of my study, I gave no more thought to my narrow escape. On the contrary, settling myself at my writing desk, I intended to put into motion the second part of the plan I hoped would put an end to the Assassination Bureau. I had already located Shinwell Johnson - though so far, at least, little good had come of it. I needed to do better. With the expectation of learning more than I had at the Northumberland Arms, I sought to make contact with another former acquaintance, Agent Leverton of the Pinkertons, the American detective agency.

I had met the man a number of years before while aiding Holmes in the pursuit of an organisation also notorious for its killings, an anarchistic gang called the Red Circle. With tentacles stretching from Europe to America, the Red Circle had prompted Leverton’s journey to England. On the trail of one Giuseppi “Black” Gorgianno, a vicious murderer with possible ties to the old Carbonari, Agent Leverton obviously had experience with the type of twisted souls who comprised the membership of groups bent on political murder. The Pinkertons, after all, had been in the business of protecting American Presidents since the time of Abraham Lincoln.

My intention was to send a cable to Leverton for information regarding the current health and welfare of another of the supposed targets to whom Jack London’s letter had referred, former President Theodore Roosevelt, an unforgettable personage whom I had actually met in New York during our investigation of the Phillips shooting. I hoped that a cable to Leverton about any known groups in the States seeking to harm the “Colonel”, as Roosevelt liked to call himself, might yield worthwhile information about similar organisations operating in England.

In composing the message, I wrote of my concern for Roosevelt in light of rumours I had heard, rumours about a ruthless syndicate seeking to assassinate political figures. With no way of knowing how credible such stories might be, I told him that, whilst I hoped to avoid creating a crisis, I was seeking any information along those lines that might have come his way. I didn’t refer to the Assassination Bureau by name or indicate that Roosevelt himself had been mentioned as a possible target - though I did suggest that Leverton caution the Colonel’s bodyguards to remain particularly alert.

I knew the agent to be a reliable man, but I was none the less surprised by the promptness of his reply. I had sent my message the morning after my visit to the Northumberland Arms, and a uniformed messenger boy appeared at my door late that same day with the cabled response.

The reply read: “Single agent, Frank Hopkins, assigned to Roosevelt. Reports to be sent directly to you from Hopkins.” In addition, Leverton wrote: “In 1903, one major incident regarding TR. Secret Service arrested man with pistol at Sagamore Hill, TR’s home. Suspect planned to kill the President.” That arrest may have been nine years before, but it might well have signalled the start of the Assassination Bureau’s deadly campaign against the Colonel.

Now I hadn’t followed American politics very closely, but I did know that Roosevelt was currently running for President in a progressive political party nicknamed “Bullmoose”. Though I could not cite the details, I recalled that many of Roosevelt’s criticisms seemed aimed at the business community in particular, certainly a stance destined to engender resentment.

But would the political views of a mere candidate - as the former President was now presenting himself - be sufficient to spark a murderous attack upon his person? To what end? Would not someone who wanted to eliminate Roosevelt be wiser to commit the deed only if Roosevelt were actually elected President again? Attempting the murder before the election risked unnecessary exposure. After all, most experts were predicting that the Colonel had little chance of winning (despite the support, I feel compelled to add, of William Gillette, the stage-actor celebrated for his portrayals of Sherlock Holmes).

On the other hand, such a murderous attempt might be the product of the contract begun in ‘03 and yet to be completed. As Jack London had written us, though the Assassination Bureau might work slowly, it could be counted on to work with certainty. One imagines that a ruthless patron would not quibble over the timing as long as the target was ultimately eliminated.

I waited anxiously through the summer of 1912 for any news from Agent Hopkins, but it wasn’t until 28 September that I began receiving a string of cables that documented on-going events. The first read: “Threats to Roosevelt’s life in Los Angeles last week. Attributed by police to labor unions.” The second arrived the next day: “In Atlanta, a Roosevelt supporter punched an agitated man bent on mounting the platform where TR stood.” A week later, Hopkins wrote of a stenographer working for Roosevelt in Saginaw, Michigan, who threw a man into the street for rushing up to the Colonel. It was feared the stranger meant to do harm, though he claimed only to be seeking a handshake. Surely, I thought, with so many disruptions, there was just cause for the people protecting Roosevelt to anticipate additional assaults.

And in fact, the Colonel’s people took precautions that appeared to go beyond the normal. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, for instance, thirty policemen were positioned at the auditorium where Roosevelt was speaking. In Chicago, Illinois, a troop of mounted police escorted the Colonel on his travels. In Racine, Wisconsin, a former soldier and bodyguard, promising to protect the former President, joined Roosevelt’s entourage. For that matter, Roosevelt himself often carried a loaded revolver.

None of this, of course, revealed any proof that additional attacks had been thwarted or that any of these events were in some way tied to one another. As far as I could tell from Hopkins’ reports, there appeared to be no specific evidence of some sinister organisation intent on assassinating a former President of the United States. In short, Theodore Roosevelt seemed as safe as any other politician presenting himself to the public.