The Coming Storm

“A trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so.”

—Dr. John H. Watson, “The Man with the Twisted Lip.”

Tuesday the fifth of June the headlines in the morning’s news:

“Sherlock Holmes a Suffragette?”

“Alfie Davis Condemns Violence!”

The clients who appeared at our door were not much better than the loungers of before. I did my best to take the simple cases, but there were so many Holmes was required to attend to them also. The commonplace repetition was irksome to his specially trained mind. Yet, we had solved the dilemmas of many Londoners and our practice was in the black.

Suffragists were out again in force. Many were arrested, and Lestrade was surprised to find Miss Rachel in his lock-up. He called Holmes in to release her. She didn’t want to leave her friends. He visited her in her cell, he spoke quietly, she trumpeted.

She stood defiant. “You’re asking me to be disloyal to my friends! I won’t!”

Holmes sternly reminded her, “Child, you can fight for them better on this side of the law.”

“Being arrested is a political act! I suppose you’re going to say, my poor little reputation will suffer shipwreck!”

“It is not your reputation I am thinking of, but your future. Think, Rachel, you have friends who can be of inestimable benefit. Follow your mind not your heart.”

“I don’t care what I’m following! The police are in the wrong and I and my friends have been arrested illegally.”

Quietly, soberly he took her hand and said, “Child, this isn’t like you. I am afraid you are walking away from me and disappearing somewhere I cannot follow. Rachel, there are many ways to fight injustice. Surely, you, Doctor Watson and myself might at least discuss alternative means to benefit your friends. Come home with me, child.”

After a bath, a change of clothes and a meal she cabbed to meet with Mrs. Broome with an idea for a story. Isabella jumped at the chance and it was front page on the stands the next day:—

JUDY Magazine

Wake up England!

ISABELLA BROOME

“We live in a time of important social change. Women, English women, are demanding their rights as British citizens and it’s about time. This is how history is made! A women’s revolution equal to the Americans’ and it will not go away by arresting or beating suffragists. Sunday’s arrest of a group of school girls is the final straw! Are women not citizens? Are we not protected by the laws of England? The treatment suffragists have received at the hands of our constabularies and Scotland Yard is torture plain and simple. Why are our beautiful, intelligent, young women being arrested and thrown into damp, dirty, cramped cells?

“I implore my readers to write in the strongest possible terms about this breach of the rights of English citizens. This behaviour from our police force, whose job it is to protect these women from those in its lock-up, only strengthens the suffragist cause of equality with men under the law. More converts will result from this horrendous treatment.

“Wake up England! As Mrs. Fawcett said, ‘The real protection women need is the power to protect themselves.’ Like the abolition of slavery and the spread of democracy, Women’s Suffrage is global. In America they are already reaching some agreement. In some western states, women have won the vote. New Zealand as a whole adopted women’s suffrage September of last year. It’s only a matter of time. Will our esteemed Scotland Yard become an ogre in this for all time?

Instead, why not allow the thoroughly legal marches to go on peacefully as Mrs. Fawcett professes and use constables to get in-between the suffragists and hecklers? This will allow both to express their views safely. That way there may even be less volatile press! Wake up England!”

As a result, bushels of letters flooded the Yard in protest of their ill treatment of suffragists. Outside the impenetrable walls, vocal citizens demanded the release of the women.

Back at Baker Street, our practice hours were over. Rachel and I concocted a plan of action. When I entered our sitting room, Holmes had thrown down his violin in disgust, from what I’d heard, his scrapings were not tuneful.

“I’ve got it Holmes they all have measles! No one at Scotland Yard would want to be exposed to it. It’s easy to mimic. Miss Rachel, you may pass the information along to your friends,” I said. “At this time of day most of the regulars are with their families which should keep us from being suspected conspirators.”

Holmes inhaled his cigarette, spoke with irascible sarcasm, “Interesting choice of words, Doctor. Rachel discovers her ill friends and calls you in and you pronounce on their illness. Then Scotland Yard disassembles before your very eyes. Be careful Watson, you’re playing with fire. The ashes of your good reputation may follow.”

“Doctor Watson, a very good plan,” said Miss Rachel.

“The symptoms of measles is the message you will carry, Miss Rachel: Fever, tiredness, skin itch, red eyes, cough, and dripping nose. They are to rub their eyes to create redness.”

“When do we go?” she said.

“Go now, yourself! Call Watson from the Yard. Bring your gun! Keep it safely!” Holmes said in a voice that startled Miss Rachel. She put her derringer in her coat pocket. “Don’t take the first or second cab!” he ordered, as she ran out the door.

I packed my Gladstone bag, added stethoscope and revolver. Brushed off lunch crumbs and ashes, coaxed my hair to respectability, hailed a cab, asked him to wait, and climbed back upstairs. “Holmes, Miss Rachel is capable of this, and she will well carry it off.”

“Of that I am sure, Doctor!” He pointed his cigarette at me. “But don’t forget that freely roaming the streets of London there is a killer gruesomely murdering suffragists. My practice would be easily compromised if he had Rachel or Irene. What ransom would he demand? And what wouldn’t I do for their safe return? Doctor, in this very room, Professor Moriarty urged me to join his criminal organization.” He nodded slowly to me. “If he had them in his power, he’d still be alive and I might have done what he asked. I should have left her sheltered within her family.” He crushed his cigarette out.

I was appalled by his quick plummet into darkness. “Holmes, this killer is a brute and doesn’t have the intelligence you give him.”

“Rachel is involved with a radical and possibly unlawful suffragist group—the young women you plan to rescue today, Doctor. Idiot that I was, it began with my baritsu lessons in New York, my encouragement to study with Susannah, plus her first visit to Scotland Yard. Moriarty couldn’t have planned it better!”

“It’s not your fault, old chap.”

“I don’t know how you can say that, it is completely my fault. I led her to it and now she’s moved beyond where I can go. Today, you are on your own. And I would ask you to consider dropping this involvement in future. I can no longer support it.”

“Would you drop the murder case?”

“I have never before asked a client to proclaim his political affiliations. The possibility of the victim’s suffragist involvement does not concern me.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Holmes—”

He stopped pacing and looked at me, “You and I, Watson, we threw in with each other. We share the love of the hunt, solving the problem, conquering evil with intelligence, and even in the vilest alleyways we usually succeed. Yet, my wife and my daughter are innocents.”

“Holmes, stop this right now! What you are proposing is horrendous.”

He took down his disputatious pipe and began to vigorously clean and then pack it with shag, I was glad it wasn’t his Stradivarius.

“This is a black mood speaking and no time for decisions. If I didn’t know better I might suspect cocaine.”

“Don’t misdiagnose me, Doctor! Your ministrations are holding.”

“Holmes, you are underestimating these two splendid women. Promise me you will not take any action. The ends do not justify the means in this.”

“Black mood or no, this dilemma will not change. But I promise, Doctor!” He lit his pipe, tossed the match into the fireplace and threw himself down on the settee.

“Thank you, my friend. There’s the telephone!” It was Miss Rachel. I jumped into the cab and took off for Scotland Yard. For the moment, Holmes was left with his dark thoughts.

When we returned, Miss Rachel and I were celebrating. It had gone exceedingly well. Once the confirmation of measles had been made, the gaol cells opened, and we had freed the suffragists. I had only to paint spots on two young ladies. Not an altogether disagreeable task.

“Doctor Watson, did you see Lestrade’s face when you gave him your medical opinion?” She laughed as she hung her cap.

“The man is not afraid to face evildoers at gunpoint but fell apart over a diagnosis of measles!” We chuckled our way into the sitting room.

Holmes arrived in a rush and threw his hat and coat on the rack in the hall. He went straight to his chemical table and searched through his slide files.

“Papa, Doctor Watson is a great actor, and an artist. My friend Sarah really looked like she had measles after he painted dots on her neck.”

His fleeting smile graced his lips. He held slides up to the window light as he spoke, “Thank you, Doctor. I can always count on you. Ah!” He took an envelope from his pocket and affixed new threads each to a slide. “You’ll be pleased to hear the energetic Inspector Das arrived soon after you left with the medicine you ordered.” He stood triumphantly with the slide in his hand. “Based on information from Mrs. Broome, he searched each seamstress and today we interviewed a woman who fashions bloomers. The results of his tailor and stationers search may also give us real threads to follow. He has all the qualities of the detective, Watson.” He held up each new slide and compared it with the old one. “Ah ha!” He chose one and placed it beneath his microscope. “Rachel, come here, look at this! It is a thread taken from our victim’s clothing. Can you see it clearly? Now look at this one!”

“They match!”

“Yes, that was given to me by the seamstress today. Knowing from which bolt these bloomers were made may bring us a clue as to our victim’s identity.” He rubbed his hands together. “Ah, this is splendid research!” He wrote out a telegraph form and sent it with Mrs. Hudson.

Holmes stood at the fireplace packing his pipe with my rich Virginia flake and lit it. “Rachel, if you don’t mind my asking, I would be pleased to know what you thought of Alfie Davis’s speech.”

“She really got the whole place cheering.”

“Yes?” He waved her on and then went into his room and washed his hands.

“She spoke very well, and reminded me a bit of Mrs. Stanton, but with a slower burning fire. She spoke against the use of violence and for the reuniting of suffrage groups. I have been hearing talk of violence from friends and it worries me. I think this approach will hurt more than help. I have aligned myself with Millicent Fawcett’s peaceful approach to the vote. You’ll be happy to know it is a much greater organization.”

He towelled, “Thank you, I concur and would appreciate your acquainting me with your progress in this area. I too have decided to leave the better for the best.”

He turned as she entered with dinner. “What do we have here, Mrs. Hudson?”

“This is Aunt Rita’s pasta fagioli, Mr. Holmes.”

Miss Rachel would be traveling to Oxford in the morning to continue her preparatory studies. She exacted a promise from me that I would keep her up to date with the case. Mrs. Holmes’ tour had conquered Florence, and Rome, so it was with great anticipation that her Carmen would arrive at Covent Garden the next week.