Chapter 7

Over the next several weeks, more dead swans appeared and Sherlock continued to interrogate half the Queen’s household. The pernicious effects of the fog lingered still longer, so I continued to treat patients, including the mystery lady who said her name was Penelope Potash, a name I was certain was false because of the way she’d stumbled over it. She came only for the ‘female treatments,’ as she called them, and claimed her bronchial issues were better, but she was still reed thin and coughed a great deal. I spoke to her about going to a sanitorium or seeking a specialist’s help, but she would have none of it. “I don’t have Her Majesty’s income,” she would always reply.

Often as I made my way to and from my office to home, Regent’s Park was enshrouded, as if fixed by some supernatural influence. The prodigiously large volume of the deathly mist that floated from every chimney and factory in and near London was held in a kind of thralldom by oleaginous ingredients.

The worst day of all was 26 January, when a thick, slow moving fog draped over the city. Over the next three days, almost twelve thousand lives were lost. In the seven weeks that followed, according to Uncle’s friend Dr. Mitchell, the number of fatalities due to the fog was astounding: 1754, 1780, 1900, 2200, 3376, 2495, and 2106.

As I was busy with patients and Sherlock was busy with swans - and, I was about to discover, many other things - I did not see Sherlock again until the end of March when he asked me to have lunch with him. Though the fog had abated to some degree, it was still a struggle to keep the soot from one’s clothes. The grime, the obstinate black mixture saturated everything. Uncle had even covered the keyholes of the house with metal plates in an attempt to keep it out.

I did not want to be late, so I set out a bit early to make my way through the pea soup to Simpsons Grand Divan Tavern where I’d agreed to meet Sherlock.

Formerly, it was Simpsons-in-the-Strand, and Sherlock had a penchant for the place these days, because it was well-known as a chess club and coffee house. It had transitioned to the continental preference for haute cuisine, and now boasted lavish décor and a host of waiters. But remnants of its humble beginnings and a plethora of chess memorabilia remained. Master Cook Thomas Davey delighted the customers with his bill of fare, especially wheeling a roast beef to the patrons. In the early days, I’d have been out of place, for this had been a place for gentlemen to smoke cigars with their coffee, browse the daily journals, indulge in long conversations about politics, and sit on the establishment’s comfortable divans while they played. Chess matches were played against other coffee houses in the Metropolis and top-hatted runners carried the news of each move. Sherlock called Simpson’s a ‘poor-man’s version” of the Diogenes Club, the private gentleman’s club where his brother Mycroft spent much of his time. Mycroft Holmes was the supreme and indispensable brain-trust of the British government, full of government secrets, and we were well aware that the Diogenes was likely some kind of façade at which government officials shared intelligence with those, and only those, in Mycroft’s inner circle.

“Not so poor,” I’d told him once, referencing the many important people who frequented Simpson’s. Charles Dickens used to go there, as did Disraeli, our prime minister, and Gladstone, whose political campaign and series of speeches were bringing him back into political power. It occurred to me, as I took a seat across from Sherlock, that he may have suggested lunch at the restaurant not to enjoy the food or the atmosphere of chess but to try to speak with the politicians to find out what they knew about the Royal Swan caper.

Sherlock ordered coffee and a roast beef sandwich, but he wandered away to watch some players engaged in a game. When he came back to the table, he said, “It is a nice set they have there. The pieces on the board are made of rosewood. But it’s not a Staunton. Like your Christmas present, the queen has a ball on top without a crown, and the pawns have a button top.”

I looked at him, puzzled. “Wait, what is a Staunton?”

“People from all over the world have come to play at this club, Poppy, including Howard Staunton, the world champion. He died just a few years ago. A man named Nathaniel Cooke improved the design of the chess set and called it the Staunton after Howard Staunton.

“I thought you did not care for trivia.”

“Oh, not trivial at all, Poppy. The new design is actually based on scientific principles and calculations. Pieces like the ones you have in your set are too tall, easily tip and are cumbersome during play. Some pieces are spindly or top heavy and fall over easily, and because they were so uniform, an initiate to the game, someone unfamiliar with the pieces, can make tragic errors. You see, most chess sets before the Staunton design were confusing because the pieces looked too similar, and that inevitably created mistakes during play, particularly for novices. So, pieces that are universally recognized are important. The Staunton pattern elevates the conventional form. The bases are larger, more stable, and more easily distinguished. The Staunton sets have been around since before I was born. Your chess set is obviously an antique and not nearly as practical to the players. You’ve really never heard of Staunton?”

“I am not an avid chess player, Sherlock. Just a beginner. As I thought you were.”

“Actually, I used to play often with my brothers. Brother Mycroft is quite good - and he never lets me forget it. In fact, although his rails are firmly set in Westminster and he rarely goes anywhere but the Diogenes Club, it wouldn’t surprise me if he came round to see the tournaments here. Anyway, some say that the knight in a Staunton set is patterned after the horses of the Elgin Marbles.”

“The Elgin Marbles in the British Museum?”

“The same. Some, as I said, believe that the Staunton knight represents the powerful ideas associated with the horses of the Elgin Marbles. Staunton was a Freemason. The sun-god’s chariot of On-Helios, as depicted in the Elgin Marbles, is linked to the Egyptian god of resurrection and rebirth, and this is of tantamount importance in Freemasonry.”

“So then there’s all sorts of Freemason imagery in a chess set?” I asked.

“Yes. For example, the compass on the board reminds us to circumscribe our desires and keep our passions within due bounds. And that is a very sound strategy for living, I should think.

“Did you know that the Freemasons have a volume of The Sacred Laws - the Bible - and the square and the compass symbolise the Ark of the Covenant, which contains laws made by God and agreed to by Man? These were originally kept in King Solomon’s Temple, which was9.14 meters wide and 27.4 meters feet long, and the Staunton pawn has the exact same proportions.”

“You amaze me, Sherlock. You really do.”

“Why?”

“Because just when I am certain of what you decide to keep and what you decide to purge from that brain of yours, suddenly some trivial fact you have stored comes to the fore.”

“Well, all the hours we spent learning about the Buddha and his teachings helped us to solve the British Museum Murders, did they not? This is just another interesting belief system which may come in handy in a case one day.”

“Sherlock, why can’t you just admit you find the spiritual aspects of Freemasonry and even biblical studies interesting? Why is it that you must always attempt to convince me that you believe in nothing?”

“Not in nothing, Poppy. I believe that it is my duty, like all good citizens, to uphold the law. Sometimes that requires the acquisition of trivial facts. It does clutter the brain. But in any event, my interest in Freemasonry is nothing more than something to store for future cases.”

“You must say that lest you be indicted for heresy, because you really do have a moral compass,” I laughed. “And have you forgotten that you told me that flowers are our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence? That our powers, desires, food, water and air - these are necessary to exist, but the flower, the rose, is an embellishment, something extra from which we have much hope to gain? Is that not why you brought me the flowers at Holme-Next-the Sea?”

“That again,” he scoffed. “A thousand times we could speak of that night in the cottage and still you will not put it into perspective. We were young; we were caught up in our first adventure together; we were inebriated. Yet you persist in it.”

I did not feel that way about our night together at the seaside cottage. It was a very special night to me and always would be. “It irritates you, doesn’t it? Your lapse in judgement. Or that’s how you see it. I suppose I am the thorn, not the rose?”

I was touched by his next gesture. He reached across the table and lightly pressed his fingertips to my wrist. “Never a thorn, Dr. Stamford. But you are, on occasion, as prickly as the thornapple, with its sharp teeth.”

I smiled. “And its rank, heavy, somewhat nauseating odour, I suppose, as well?”

Now he smiled. “You? Nauseating? Never. Narcotic perhaps,” he said, grinning. “And as I recall, a foetid odour arises from the flower only when it is bruised,” he added. “But generally, the flowers are sweet-scented, remember? They produce a stupor if their exhalations are breathed for any length of time.”

I grasped his hand in mine, the fact that we were in public be damned. “And this is why you have always run away from me. Because I do produce some kind of stupor in you. It’s why you fight to escape me, isn’t it?”

He withdrew his hand and lifted his menu. “I was thinking about religion today, that is all. About religion and about all sets of strong beliefs. Actually, deduction is quite necessary in religion. And the important thing is not to stop questioning. Somewhere out there in this vast world, maybe even within this Metropolis, some like-minded person has been born who, through the science of deduction, who, through being unafraid to ask the right questions, will unleash the great powers of the universe. A great mind, a physicist or the like. I do not believe I shall have that kind of impact on the world, but the science of deduction shall.”

I got an eerie feeling. He spoke, just momentarily, as Effie, my dear departed psychic friend, had so many times. She had predicted disasters as well as trivial events. I had never known anyone so prescient. Was Sherlock Holmes being prophetic? Hopeful? Or simply logical?

“Now, we are here to discuss swans,” he said, abruptly. “Not Freemasons or flowers or intoxicating scents. I have continued my investigation, of course.”

He proceeded to bring me up to date. When I said that Sherlock spoke with half of Her Majesty’s Royal Household, I did not exaggerate. He spoke first with the Keeper of the Swans, but he was not helpful. He had fallen ill and was rarely at work or competent to discuss his duties or the case at hand. But Sherlock persevered. By the end of March, he had spoken to over a hundred individuals, including members of the Privy Council; everyone in the Lord Steward’s Department; the Duke of Westminster, who was Master of the Horse; Mr. March, the Paymaster; the Earl of Cork, Master of the Buckhounds; the Duke of St. Albans, the Hereditary Grand Falconer; the pages of Honour at the Royal Mews; everyone in the Department of the Mistress of the Robes and those serving with the Groom of the Robes... even John Brown, Prince Albert’s former ghillie, now the Queen’s servant and trusted friend.

But no one seemed to know who was slaughtering the swans or how or why they did it. Not even Sherlock Holmes.