6. His People Are Known to Us

Epicurean Schemes

“Watson!”

“Where are you, Holmes?” I called as I struggled through the clouds of steam that enveloped the front of the Boat Train at Victoria. I stumbled in the mist like an alpinist through dense clouds until the friendly hand of young Churchill dragged me to the open door of our carriage just as the whistle blew and the train jolted into movement.

I handed Churchill a Penny Illustrated Paper, and settled in the seat opposite him with my Bicycling News and Tricycling Gazette.

“Let’s see,” said Holmes. “Two hours to Folkestone, then an hour and a half on the boat to Boulogne. We will do our business and take the afternoon train to Paris and be back on English soil tomorrow evening, the day before the procession.”

“Even getting to Boulogne and Paris is costing a pretty penny,” I reminded him. “That’s not counting the hotel, and dinner. I hope the Government is picking up the bill.”

“Mrs Hudson made up some tongue sandwiches, Doctor,” said Churchill, taking a packet from the leather satchel that contained my pistol, the dynamite files and the Parnell correspondence. “Should you like one?”

“Sandwiches!” I took the packet and hurled it out of the open window into the London suburbs. “We are going to France, young man. If there is one thing - perhaps the only thing - that one can absolutely rely on with the French, it is their culinary genius. Holmes often feigns indifference to food, but we will see a different attitude displayed once we are in a restaurant across the Channel. In Boulogne, we will find excellent seafood; in Paris, we will dine in splendour at the Cafe Anglais! It is where the three emperors feasted. I have booked a table. I shall not look at our second quarter accounts until we touch English soil again.”

“Let us make our plans,” said Holmes waving away my Epicurean schemes. “We have a short time in France. We cannot spend a moment longer than is necessary away from the locus of our investigations, the procession route and the Abbey. The Thanksgiving Service is on Tuesday, the day after tomorrow. We have two days, no more. What are our aims?”

“To determine whether there is a danger to the Queen from dynamitards in France,” I said. “That must be uppermost in our thoughts.”

“Hear him,” said Churchill.

I was still worried that we were diluting our strength in pursuing the missing emeralds case. If the object of the conspirators was theft, and that has been achieved, we could scratch them from our list of assassins. We should, I thought, devote all our energies to uncovering the roots of the conspiracy against Her Majesty.

I ticked off the items on my fingers. “Our first task is to warn off this so-called General Morgan in Boulogne and General Trent-Hall and his associates in Paris, and to determine the whereabouts of the tins of explosives rumoured to have been shipped to the consignee, Mr Muller.”

“Agreed,” said Holmes. “Those are our targets for our most important and overriding case. I have wired our consul at Boulogne to meet us at the station with the latest news of General Morgan. We have a most comprehensive dossier on the villain from Mycroft; I am astonished at its completeness. We have exact intelligence of his movements and aliases. We even know that the Fenian Council in New York gave him five hundred dollars to bring on a dynamite plot in London. I have never been better briefed. It is strange that the authorities have not acted more precipitately. The evidence that Morgan is controlling a gang of dynamitards in France is perfectly damning.”

“The Donovan brothers are steeped in innocent blood,” I said.

“Yes,” said Holmes quietly. He glanced across at Churchill sitting sullenly in the corner of the carriage mourning his lost sandwiches. “I may have to recommend the strongest measures against them and Trent-Hall, if they will not come to heel.”

He leaned towards me. “Do not think for a moment that I would devote less than my most ardent attention to any threat to Her Majesty. You should know that I have determined to deal with these villains on their own terms, whatever the consequences.”

He patted his jacket pocket; it sagged with the weight of his revolver.

“I will cut off -”

“We, Holmes.”

“Indeed. We will cut off the head of the snake and leave the body without form or purpose.”

I wrung my good friend’s hand.

“And yet,” he said thoughtfully. “I have a feeling that the emerald theft and our primary task of guarding Her Majesty are not unconnected.”

“A premonition, Holmes?” I asked with a grin. “Intuition?”

He shook his head, an act that seemed to cause him pain.

I offered my brandy flask. “I say, old man -”

“No thank you. No, nothing so airy as a premonition, nothing so unmanly as intuition. On occasions, my brain absorbs data at a rate that runs ahead of even my powers of organisation and analysis. I strive to make sense of connections as ephemeral as dreams. The stakes are so very great. My head aches with the effort to calm a storm of inferences.

‘We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep. Watson, I am vex’d;

Bear with my weakness; my brain is troubled:

Be not disturb’d with my infirmity’.”

I nodded warily. I recalled my friend’s mental aberration at the Hotel Dulong in April, and the black, malevolent spirit that had tortured him for much of the following month.

“Officials from Eiffel et Cie have agreed to meet us,” I said softly, consulting my notebook. “We will have time tomorrow, before we catch our return train. They suggest that we talk with the foremost French expert on aluminium, Monsieur Paul Héroult. They invite us for an early lunch.”

“Very well,” said Holmes, seeming to shake off his malady. “If we can track the material it may lead us to the manufacturer of the ladder, assuming it is a ladder, and to the customer. Good, a busy trip and let us hope a valuable one.” He settled back in his seat.

“There are also the Parnell letters, Holmes. You promised Monsieur Bertillon, the author of the Bertillon system of identifying criminals, that you would consult on them. I have the copies with me, together with a bundle of original envelopes that Mr Parnell’s secretary delivered to us yesterday.”

“Give,” said Holmes. I took the package from Churchill’s satchel and passed it to him. He pulled out his magnifying glass and held the envelopes up to the sunlight streaming through our carriage windows. I watched his mental focus narrow until it encompassed only the words, phrases, daubs of ink and watermarks on the letters. He was totally absorbed for an hour or more of our journey.

“We will drop the copies off at the Sûreté,” he said at last, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. “They will forward them to Monsieur Bertillon. Believe me, Watson, you do not want to become entangled with the formidable author of the système anthropométrique bertillon.”

He laughed ruefully.

“He lectured at the Yard last year and I went out of curiosity. His system consists of postcards on which the measurements of an arrested criminal are noted: the usual height, weight and so on. He adds length of nose and foot, distance between eyes and ears, and dozens of other measurements, all in appallingly Continental detail. If a person of a certain height commits a crime, the police consult the cards and eliminate shorter or taller suspects. It is moderately useful, and simple enough. A child of ten with a blackboard could explain it in ten minutes. Bertillon is one of those slow-thinking, saturnine Frenchmen, the sort you would find as the mayor of a deeply conservative town in the Ardennes, or the Champagne; the lugubrious sort that savours every word and repeats himself with every second phrase. He speaks no English, and his interpreter was clearly ready to shoot himself, or Bertillon, by the end of the second hour. Him, we must avoid at all costs.”

He picked up his Times.

“Very well, Holmes, I’ll leave Bertillon to you. Cheer up, Churchill. Think of dinner at the Café Anglais. I had to pull strings to get a reservation. I had to, as the vulgar say, drop names.”

Holmes snapped his newspaper with a crack and turned the page with a complacent gesture. “I dare say that my name was sufficient.”

“I meant that I booked in the name of Lord Randolph Churchill, Holmes.”

He hid behind his paper and became very quiet. I am afraid that Churchill and I exchanged looks of quiet satisfaction.

Our train shrieked, and clanked to a halt at Folkestone just at lunchtime.

I had been in two minds whether to suggest that we take luncheon there, or wait until we landed on the shores of France. I was peckish, and Churchill was pale with hunger, so I asked a porter for directions to the nearest restaurant. He told me that the ferry was leaving immediately, and that luncheon would be taken in Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The crossing was uneventful. I read my medical journals while Holmes and Churchill played two-handed Bezique. We disembarked at Boulogne and, after passing through Customs and fending off the attentions of the rapacious porters that are a blot on the escutcheon of that great port, we stopped at the gate of the station and looked for the British consul who had promised to meet us.

Holmes stiffened. “Oh dear,” he muttered in my ear. “I am afraid that we have caught a Tartar.”

A slight figure with a full beard and pointed moustache advanced towards us at the pace of a slow-marching marionette.

Holmes handed me his bag and darted forward to meet the man.

“Monsieur Bertillon!» he cried. «C’est une si agréable surprise de vous rencontrer ici.»

Churchill and I watched in fascination as Holmes very, very nearly kissed the man on both cheeks.

“Puis-je me permettre de vous présenter mon collègue et excellent ami, le docteur John Watson ainsi que notre élève, monsieur Winston Churchill ?» Taking the gentleman’s assent for granted, Holmes took Bertillon by the arm and propelled him towards Churchill and myself.

«Messieurs,” Holmes cried, throwing his arms in the air in an alarmingly Continental manner. “J’ai le grand honneur de vous faire rencontrer le fameux Alphonse Bertillon, fléau du grand banditisme, inventeur du système anthropométrique dit le bertillonage !»

Churchill bowed and held out his hand. “Enchanté de faire votre connaissance, cher monsieur,» he said.

Bertillon scrutinised the proffered hand with the enthusiasm of a suspicious tortoise peering at a mouldy lettuce leaf. He clasped Churchill’s hand with two fingers and muttered something slow and unintelligible. He turned to me, his dark eyes registering not a glimmer of interest.

«Enchanté, monsieur,” I murmured.

“Bertillon,” he said. “Happy.” We bowed distantly.

Holmes instantly released a deluge of rapid French, of which I could make nothing. Monsieur Bertillon listened impassively, occasionally acknowledging a point with a doleful nod, or a pursing of his lips in disapproval or disapprobation. Churchill nodded with him, smiling brightly or looking grave to order.

I had not seen Holmes in such a full flow of his grandmother’s native language. With his grand gestures and eloquent facial expressions, he seemed far more French to me than the lugubrious anthropometrician Bertillon: Mercury to his Saturn. Bertillon’s feeble efforts to expound his position on whatever they were discussing were borne down in a storm of praises, apologies and excuses.

I looked around and spotted, just across the street, a promising-looking little cafe that offered, according to an advertisement plastered across its windows, a gourmet seafood lunch for five francs and fifty centimes, wine not included. I was in the middle of my mental arithmetic, turning francs to sterling, when I noticed that Holmes had gone quiet and had turned to me. Bertillon puffed and mumbled unhappily beside him.

“Monsieur Bertillon has kindly arranged a demonstration of his method of criminal identification,” Holmes explained with a bright and artificial smile. “I have expressed my profound regret that I have an immediate appointment with the British consul: one of the persons over there by the clock might be he.” He nodded to a man and lady in English-cut clothes that stood below the station clock; they were watching our party with interest.

“Monsieur Bertillon has most reluctantly and generously agreed that, as you, Watson, are our little agency’s expert on investigative techniques, he will impart his considerable store of technical knowledge to you. He has engaged the use of a nearby schoolroom.”

“Holmes,” I cried, appalled. “Monsieur Bertillon speaks no English, and my French is hardly adequate for me to conduct a technical discussion on criminology with him.”

“You do yourself an injustice, Watson,” said Holmes with a patently insincere laugh. “Your vocabulary may be limited, but your accent is of a singular perfection. Should any small misunderstanding arise, you can instantly switch to that most valuable lingua franca of the medical and forensic fraternities: Latin.”

He pulled me close and murmured.

“He is obsessed with ears. I have autographed a copy of my monograph on the subject. It is in the folder with Parnell’s papers. Get a firm opinion on the Parnell signatures and the secretary’s handwriting. Meet us at the Hotel de Poilly at 13 rue Amiral Bruix by three at the latest.”

Holmes bowed to Monsieur Bertillon and strode off towards the group under the clock. Churchill scrambled behind him with our bags.

I looked longingly at the seafood cafe, sighed, and faced Monsieur Bertillon.

“Alors, je comprends que vous avez un intérêt singulier dans les oreilles, mon cher monsieur,» I suggested tentatively.

He looked blankly back at me.

L’heure Verte

“I have listened to three hours of lugubrious French, Holmes, of which I understood not a thing.”

I had arrived at the Hotel de Poilly a few moments before, limping, in a foul mood and an hour late. “The man slowed his speech so much that every syllable took an age. He was not saturnine, he was sepulchral.”

Monsieur Bertillon had assured me that the hotel was close by, and I had decided to walk there, partly to avoid his offer of a lift in his carriage, but mostly because I needed fresh air. I found Holmes and Churchill at a table by the window drinking red wine.

“It took him a minute and a half for him to pronounce the words signalement anthropométrique and three full hours to describe them. He barely glanced at the Parnell materials. For luncheon, not wanting to lose any time from his exposition, he provided black bread smeared with a scrape of garlic and olive oil, and water to wash it down. I am famished, Holmes, and we are in France!”

“I’m sorry old friend. Let me order you a glass of this excellent Bordeaux,” said Holmes. “And we will see what the hotel can provide at short notice. I assumed that you would take luncheon with Bertillon at one of the many fine cafes near the Port. Churchill and I visited an excellent little restaurant in the rue de la Lampe at the invitation of Monsieur Surplice, our local consul. It would be hard to over-estimate our French neighbours’ understanding of seafood. We had a superb -”

“Holmes.”

“Oh, I am sorry old fellow. It would be invidious to particularise, as Fortnum’s put it, but I would do my host Monsieur Surplice no justice were I not to mention our most noble turbot, that king of fish. No English egg sauce for him, ha! Surplice suggested a charming wine to accompany him, a Condrieu from an estate near Saint-Michel-sur-Rhône. I intend to order a dozen.”

I gave him a steely look as my wine arrived.

He patted me on the back in an annoying Continental fashion, spoke to the waiter, and turned back to me.

“The garçon says that he is almost sure that they could arrange a cheese, or even a ham sandwich, although it is after the luncheon hour and before dinner. You just have time. I sent Morgan a note and put back our appointment; we have eleven minutes.”

“Please petition the waiter to make haste,” I pleaded.

“Now,” said Holmes in a confidential murmur. “I should tell you that the government has made a move at last. Monsieur Surplice was yesterday instructed by the Government to ask the French authorities for their assistance in trailing Morgan and determining his part in any dynamite plot against the Queen.”

“About time, Holmes.”

He nodded. “There are several watchers already on his trail. Two joined us for our excellent luncheon. They are a retired police inspector named Thompson and his estimable wife; she is sadly plagued with gout. They stay in this hotel with Morgan and his wife, and claim to be fast friends of the couple. Which faction in the Home Office sent them to dog the Morgans, I have been unable to discover.

“They report that another policeman, a retired chief constable no less, appeared at the hotel a week ago. The Thompsons say they have no idea who sent him. This ex-officer, Chief Constable Williamson, warned Morgan of dire consequences if he did not disclose his plots and immediately abandon any dynamite plans in Britain. The old gentleman told the Thompsons that he gave Morgan ‘a good wigging’. Morgan, it seems, did not admit or deny that he is planning an outrage.”

“And what of the case of explosives consigned at Havre for Mr Mullen alias Morgan?”

“It has disappeared; if it ever existed.”

Holmes sipped his wine. “The local police have agreed to mount a surveillance of this hotel and follow Morgan when he travels. Ah, here I think is our man. He is a little before his time. Wake Churchill.”

A man in his sixties in a dark suit of American cut entered the lobby. He looked around as he lit a cigar. He spotted us, and walked directly to our table. We stood.

“Morgan, I presume,” said Holmes, coldly.

“Brigadier-general of artillery, Frederick Morgan,” he answered in American-accented English. His face was mottled in red. Its most prominent feature was a large blotchy nose, indicative of the serious drinker. His wavy hair was greying; his walrus moustache was mostly white. I remembered from Morgan’s dossier that he was in his mid-fifties; he looked much older. He carried a heavy stick in one hand and a felt hat in the other.

“Follow me to the writing room, gentlemen. It is always free in the afternoon and it is where I am usually interrogated by British detectives.”

“Churchill,” said Holmes. “You will wait here and guard our luggage while we interview Morgan. Look, the boy is asleep again. Really Watson, without you there to correct him, he ate far too much - oh, I’m sorry old man.”

As we followed Morgan across the lobby, I noticed an elderly Englishman in a floppy hat and a light suit with an orchid in his buttonhole seated by the door. He watched us intently over his Times.

Morgan led us into a tiny, windowless room furnished with a desk, four chairs and writing materials. He sat behind the desk and we took seats facing him. He had not offered to shake hands, and I was immediately suspicious that he might have a pocket pistol ready in his palm. I glanced at Holmes, but he was concentrated on the man opposite him.

Morgan spread his arms and sighed. He looked exhausted. “How can I help you, gentlemen?”

“You claim that you were promoted to general in Mexico by Juárez in the 60s,” said Holmes in a flat monotone. “That was in the war against the French. You joined the Fenian Brotherhood in Mexico and since that date you have lost no opportunity to conspire against the British Empire with whoever will listen: Boers, Zulus, Afghans, Russians, Irish rebels and the French. You are not particular.”

Morgan sat impassive for some moments. “You have something for me?” he asked at last.

Holmes handed him a sealed envelope. Morgan read the enclosed letter carefully.

“Davitt warns me to be careful with you, Mr Holmes. He says that you like to play the simple man, but that your webs are intricate and dangerous.”

Holmes smiled. “I am a man of simple loyalties, Morgan. I was born, like you, a subject of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. I owe duty and fealty to the Crown. You took the Queen’s shilling. You fought in the British Army in the Crimea.”

Morgan sighed again. “A long time ago. I would prefer, if you will not use my military title, that you call me Mr Morgan.”

“Or should I call you Mr Muller?” asked Holmes. “You came to France from New York on the SS Gascogne of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, landing at Le Havre on the eighteenth of April. You travelled as Mr Muller. You reported to another so-called general in Paris, an American named Charles Trent-Hall. He is the principal agent of the Fenian Brotherhood in Europe. You presented a commission from the Fenian Council in New York. It was to celebrate Mrs Brown’s good health. That would presumably be with fireworks, would it not?”

“Fiend,” I cried, starting from my chair and brandishing my cane.

“Calm, Watson,” said Holmes grasping my wrist. “Morgan is beginning to realise that his plans are in our hands, his people are known to us, and his movements are dogged by Scotland Yard.”

Morgan seemed unperturbed by his accusations. He smoked his cigar and gazed at Holmes with bloodshot eyes under hooded lids.

“The following month, a large package was consigned from New York on a French steamer to a Mr Muller in Paris. It contained twenty-four tins of Atlas Class A dynamite,” said Holmes. He waited for a reply.

“What is it you want from me, sir?” Morgan asked in a weary tone. “I have already been rapped on the knuckles by the old gentleman from Scotland Yard. He sang from the same hymn sheet.”

“Nothing,” said Holmes shortly. “Any assurances you might give me, given your record, would be worthless. I merely wish to pledge to you that, should any untoward incident occur during the Jubilee Year - or for that matter during the reign of Queen Victoria - in which I conclude that you are an active or passive partner, I will come for you. Unlike my friends in Scotland Yard, I am not constrained by law or jurisdiction; I care not if it is a noose or a garrotte that brings about the end of a foul traitor.”

“Your bombs have already killed a seven-year-old boy and many innocent men, and sent women screaming to the madhouse,” I exclaimed.

Morgan looked across at Holmes with his half-closed eyes. He seemed about to say something when there was a knock at the door and a waiter entered and placed three glasses of green liqueur, a bowl of lump sugar, and a jug of iced water in front of him.

“It is l’heure verte,” said Morgan, brightening. “The Green Hour, or as near as makes no matter.”

He placed a flat, slotted, silver spoon over one of the glasses and put a sugar lump on it. He dribbled iced water over the spoon; the liqueur in the glass immediately clouded and a strong odour of anise filled the tiny room. Morgan repeated the process with the second glass, and turned to the third.

Holmes glanced at his pocket watch, stood and left the room. I made to follow him. I stopped at the door.

“I’ll tell you something, if you’d like, Morgan,” I said.

Morgan took a sip of absinthe and looked up at me with a smile.

“Continue at your present level of alcohol consumption, and your liver will fail within a year, two at the very most. I speak as a medical man.” I picked up a glass of the milky liqueur. “Cheers, sir, to your continued good health.” I gulped the absinthe, put down the glass and grasped the doorknob.

“May I ask you something, Doctor?”

I turned.

“Is Sherlock Holmes the brother of Mycroft?” Morgan asked in a soft voice.

“Yes,” I answered, stiffening.

Morgan began to laugh. I walked out and closed the door behind me. I could still hear him cackling as I followed Holmes back to our table. Churchill lolled back in his seat asleep. An empty plate sat in front of him. I shook him awake.

“Did you eat that sandwich?”

“Mmm, thank you Doctor. The bread was stale, but the cheese was delicious.”

“Never mind,” said Holmes in a solicitous voice, again patting me on the shoulder in his infuriating, foreign way. He consulted a printed slip.

“The next train to Paris leaves in precisely fifteen minutes, I am assured by the British Consul that it has a dining car - similar to the Pullman system. I am sure that they will offer an excellent service. Ah, there is a cab. We will pick up our train at Boulogne Central.”

Outrage in Baker Street

An ancient brougham pulled by a bony, smelly nag carried us to the station.

I sat in silence attempting to master my hunger pangs. The glass of absinthe had been a very, very bad idea. My stomach rumbled ominously.

“Pardon me,” I said.

“Oh,” said Churchill, “I thought it was the horse.”

“Who says that the French are not to their time?” said Holmes brightly as our cab stopped by the platform to Paris. “There is our train. Pay the cab, Watson.”

“Might I implore you to stop for a moment, so that I can get a sandwich, a roll, anything?” I asked.

The train whistled. I handed the cab driver whatever coins I had handy and stumbled after Holmes and Churchill. We jumped into a carriage just as the train started to move.

“There now,” said Holmes. “Despite the delays caused by Monsieur Bertillon’s well-intentioned efforts, we are back on schedule. Let us settle ourselves for a moment, and then we can find our assigned carriage and seats. While Churchill guards our bags, I will conduct you to the dining car and watch, over a glass of fine wine, while you make up for lost gustatory opportunities. Watson, are you listening?”

“No, Holmes,” I said in an icy tone. “I am not listening.”

Holmes looked at me in astonishment.

“I think,” Churchill said softly, “that Doctor Watson has noticed that we are in a standard second-class carriage.”

“Eh?”

“We are in the wrong part of the train. We cannot get to the restaurant car: there is no corridor.”

“Oh dear,” said Holmes. “Never mind, we can change carriages at Amiens.”

“This is a through train,” said Churchill. “Doctor Watson checked the timetable in his Baedeker.”

“I see. Well, are there no humbugs left?”

“Morgan was bored, Watson. I saw no revolutionary fervour.” Holmes said as our train rattled through the countryside.

“Could he be organizing atrocities for pay?” I asked. “Is he a mercenary?”

“Morgan is no general. I do not think that he could organise a church fête at Frinton. Things are not as they seem. He sits in Boulogne doing nothing. I do not understand why Assistant Commissioner Monro is so obsessed with him. And Morgan’s daughters are still in London, doing even less than he does. It makes no sense, unless he is a blind for the real conspirators in Paris. That must be where the American dynamite was destined. He may be a front for Trent-Hall and the Donovan brothers.”

“He mentioned the ‘Green Hour’,” I said. “Could that have some Irish revolutionary meaning?”

“It means the sun is over the yardarm and it’s time for absinthe.”

“It is horrible stuff, Holmes. I feel quite unwell.”

As we arrived at the Gare du Nord in Paris, I extracted a solemn promise from Holmes and Churchill that our next stop would be the station restaurant.

We staggered out onto the platform, fended off the attentions of rapacious porters, and walked along the line of carriages to the exit.

“There Holmes,” I said as I spotted a bright restaurant sign. He took my arm and shook his head. My heart fell when I saw a grey-suited man and three uniformed gendarmes running along the platform towards us.

“Inspector Dubugue,” said Holmes. “How good of you -”

The Inspector bore him down with a torrent of French. Holmes blanched white as he listened. He turned to me.

“Watson, there has been an outrage in Baker Street. Our home has been attacked with an infernal machine.”

In my weakened state, I almost fainted. I grasped Churchill’s shoulder for support.

“There are no details. The bombing took place less than an hour ago.”

He held up his hand as I started to form a question. “I do not know whether anyone was hurt. The news came over the wire to the Sûreté from Scotland Yard twenty minutes ago. Monsieur Dubugue telegraphed to Boulogne and was told that we were on the train.”

The Inspector spoke again in rapid French.

“They are holding the last Boat Train from Calais to London for us on another platform,” Holmes translated. He checked his watch. “It was due to leave two minutes ago. If we take it, we can be in London by six tomorrow morning.”

I looked from Holmes to Churchill and shook my head. “No, Holmes. Please thank the Inspector, but it will not do. We must go on with our investigation. We must face these blackguards and confound their purposes. The timing of this attack is not without significance. They want to send us scurrying back to London while they continue their preparations unmolested. We must go and face them down. We have a duty to Her Majesty.”

Holmes translated and the Inspector wrung my hand, sharply saluted and unleashed another barrage of French.

“The Inspector says that he expected no less,” said Holmes. “A fast carriage is at our disposal. The authorities will hold the last ferry from Calais to Dover for us.”

Holmes took the Inspector aside and gave instructions. The three gendarmes raced off in different directions.

“What of Mrs Hudson and Billy, and Bessie?” asked Churchill on the edge of tears.

“We shall engage a special train, Winston.” I smiled down at him. “And a special boat if necessary. We will be in London tomorrow morning if we have to charter a balloon. You may trust me on that.”

A closed two-horse police van carried us at a spanking pace across Paris, south-west towards the Seine. Holmes kept up a rapid conversation with Inspector Dubugue. I sat with my arm around Churchill’s shoulders.

The Inspector passed Holmes a folded newspaper. He glanced at it and handed it to me. “Friday’s Morning Advertiser from London; an interview with Michael Donovan, the man we are to meet. He speaks of trouble on the Afghan border fomented by Irishmen of known ability.”

I read the article in the light of the swinging oil lamp. “Braggardry and bounce,” I said throwing down the paper. “Ineffable twaddle.”

“He also speaks of dynamite,” said Holmes quietly. “He says there will be something coming off, and soon.”

Inspector Dubugue leaned across the carriage and handed me a heavy revolver.

“The Inspector begs you to accept this,” said Holmes translating his remarks. “And he begs that you will not use it to shoot anyone as the pistol is registered to him, and any discharge results in reams of paperwork. Inspector Dubugue hates paperwork. However, it may be brandished in appropriate circumstances, and accidents do happen, even in police work.”

I smiled. “Merci, Inspecteur, mais je, um pense que je ferais - ah, oh dear. Holmes, please say that in my present mood, I’d better not even carry my own firearm, let alone this piece of artillery; you know what I mean to say.»

Holmes answered the Inspector in another kind of French, and the Inspector nodded, smiled and shrugged a Gallic shrug.

It was dusk when the van clattered to a stop and we climbed out onto a pleasant street of what looked like government buildings. The lower floors were mostly shops and restaurants.

«The rue Duras,” said Inspector Dubugue gesturing along the street. “The Elysée Palace is near in the behind from her.”

Our destination was obvious. The door to the Shamrock Bar was wide open, and tall, half-curtained windows glowed with bright gaslight; a flute and drum band played an Irish jig. Holmes nodded to me and led the way. I motioned for Churchill to stay outside with the gendarmes and followed Holmes into the bar.

The public room was long and high ceilinged, with a gleaming bar on one side and groups of tables and chairs on the other. Both walls were mirrored, and the reflections of the rows of bottles and glasses behind the bar were dazzling in the intense gas light.

As the Shamrock Bar was a known haunt of American Fenians, I had expected tweed suits and slouch hats to be the norm, but most customers were dressed in the style of the French bourgeois, in soft shirts and hats; relatively few wore top hats and evening dress. The only odd note, in what was clearly a high-toned establishment, was the strange mix of gentlemen and men in the blue blouses of the ouvrier, the labourer. There were more women than I had expected, and they were well, and soberly dressed.

Holmes marched to an empty stool in the centre of the bar and sat. I sat next to him. I was unsurprised when Churchill slid into the seat beside me. I watched in an angled mirror above the bar as Inspector Dubugue slipped in the door and took a seat at a table next to the entrance. He gave me a discreet nod.

A sturdy, ruddy-faced man in a spotless white apron came out from a side door behind the counter, stood before us and looked grimly at Holmes.

“I run a quiet bar, sirs,” he said in a soft Irish brogue. “I don’t hold with politics myself, and I won’t have any political arguments or trouble in my bar.” He nodded towards the bar entrance. “And I don’t like police in here, neither.”

“I am sorry, landlord,” said Holmes. “I am not here to provoke an altercation. I wish -”

“The lads are in the back. The boy will show you. Mind my words, now and be good gentlemen.”

An unsmiling, pale boy in an apron ducked under the bar counter. He led us through an arched doorway into a wide, smoky, low-ceilinged room with two billiard tables in the centre. A dozen or so men stood around the tables, drinking beer and watching the play. Heavily upholstered banquettes lined the left side of the room. The boy led us to one in which two middle-aged men sat. They stood, and I could see immediately that they were siblings: Joseph and Michael Donovan, I thought, Fenian firebrands of the vilest kind.

Holmes made our introductions and shook their hands. I could not bear to follow his example, so I made a show of sitting down and settling Churchill next to me. The brothers smiled, but they made no direct comment.

“You’ll take a glass of wine, though Doctor,” said Michael, in a pleasant brogue, filling a glass.

“Very well,” I said stiffly. I thought that it might help to quell my hunger pangs, which were getting intense, painful, and embarrassingly noisy. I listened, as if at a distance, as Holmes explained that we had come from Boulogne, where we had interviewed General Morgan. He passed the brothers his letter of introduction from Davitt in London.

“We read your interview in the Morning Advertiser,” said Holmes.

The brothers exchanged amused looks.

“The journalist fellah paid five pounds in solid gold, Mr Holmes,” said Michael. “I had to give him his money’s worth. He could have had a kidnap plot against the Prince of Wales for a tenner, or outright armed insurrection in any Irish county of his choice for fifteen quid cash money.”

“Are you saying that you made the story up?” asked Holmes stiffly.

The two men shook their heads and giggled like a pair of schoolgirls. They were obviously the worse for drink. It was sad, I thought, that a nation known for its poetry and arts should have such a reputation for its inhabitants’ excessive drinking and brutish drunken violence.

“You know why I am here,” said Holmes sternly. “As I told Morgan, I will use all the resources at my command to thwart any outrage during the Jubilee and beyond. Should Her Majesty be targeted by any individual or group, I promise you that I will exact a terrible price from the perpetrators.”

Michael nodded and took a sip of wine as he seemed to consider his answer.

“We are not party to dynamite plots against the Queen,” he said carefully.

His brother laughed.

“Do you know of any attempts? Is Morgan involved in anything?” Holmes persisted, clearly irritated by their levity.

Michael shrugged. “The General has his little operation with his missus down there at the seaside at Boulogne. I would not have a clue what he is up to. Nevertheless, was I Her Imperial Majesty, I’d not be shaking in my glass slippers with the news that the Gentle T has her in his sights. That’s what we call Brigadier-general Morgan around here, the Gentle Torpedo.”

He refilled our glasses.

“Where are the tins of dynamite?” I croaked. The brothers looked at me with astonishment. I felt myself slipping from the banquette before everything went black.

A Point of Honour

“For God’s sake, get the man some tea.” I heard the landlord’s voice from far away.

I opened my eyes and found Holmes bending over me holding a tumbler of brandy under my nose.

“Thank God,” he said softly. He helped me back up into a sitting position.

“I’m sorry, Holmes,” I said. “It was that damned absinthe from that swine Morgan.”

“Absinthe, Doctor?” said Joseph Donovan. “That would do it sure enough: the Green Goddess. It’s been my brother’s ruin.”

“And your own,” countered Michael with a grin.

“The doctor hasn’t eaten since breakfast,” said Churchill in a cracked voice. “And that was just toast, as we were in a hurry and we expected a fine luncheon in France. I am ashamed to say that I ate his sandwich in Boulogne.”

I sat up straight and mopped my brow. “I am perfectly fine.”

“Food is it?” asked Michael. “We’ve not much in the way of French food, Doctor. This is an Irish house. The Ambassador could do you a fine plate of Irish rashers, eggs and black pudding with a pot of strong tea, or a glass of porter to wash it down. How does that sound?”

“Wonderful,” said Holmes smiling at me. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

The landlord returned with a welcome pot of tea. Michael ordered my food. A band started up again with a jolly reel and a fine tenor singing the melody.

“Why do you call the landlord the ‘Ambassador’?” I asked to make conversation while I reassembled my faculties.

“He’s a great diplomat,” said Michael. “Politics in prose is forbidden on the premises; we got a grudging dispensation for tonight. You can be as seditious as you please in poetry or song. I would not like to translate the song the lad is singing now in the Public; he would be arrested in Dublin. And the Ambassador was kind to the Maharajah, when most people were laughing at the poor fellow, or angling for his money.”

“Maharajah Duleep Singh,” said Holmes. “How came he to use your name and your British passport when he left for Russia?”

Michael looked down at the table. “He borrowed my passport for a consideration, Mr Holmes. It was a piece of parchment to me, and I didn’t expect to have need for it for a while. Our Maharajah isn’t the bright spark. Trent-Hall convinced him that we would set up a military colony in Afghanistan that would draw thirteen-thousand Irish deserters from the British Army under a famous general. They’d invade the Punjab. Ha, ha.”

“Trent-Hall, the Fenian Brotherhood leader in Europe,” said Holmes.

Michael smiled. “I wouldn’t know what Mr Trent-Hall does for a living, sir. I know he fought for the Pope once. He is a Chevalier of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and holder of the Crimean and Venezuela medals, among many other awards. At least, that’s what he tells us. He is over there playing billiards if you want to have a word, but I wouldn’t bother your head. Compared to him, the Gentle Torpedo is Spring-heeled Jack incarnate. Anyway, you’ll not get any sense out of him after l’heure verte. He’s another in the arms of the Green Goddess. She’s a terrible taskmistress. Ah here is your late breakfast, Doctor.”

The solemn serving boy laid a huge platter of bacon, eggs and black pudding in front of me, with another plate piled high with buttered bread.

I stared at it, and shook my head. “It looks and smells wonderful, but I cannot eat it, Holmes. I cannot touch it. I will not eat with these people. The food would choke me. Excuse me. I mean no personal affront. It is -”

I staggered to my feet.

“Perhaps I could -” began Churchill.

I heard Holmes behind me making our excuses as I weaved my way to the bar to pay the bill.

“No charge, Doctor,” said the Ambassador with a friendly wave.

Inspector Dubugue took my arm and helped me to the van. Holmes and Churchill jumped in beside me, the boy surreptitiously chewing a crust of bread. We raced back to the Gare du Nore. At the station, I flatly refused to delay the special train for a second to buy food. We jumped straight into our carriage and, with a mournful hoot on the train whistle, we set out for Calais at high speed.

I woke with a start as the carriage rattled over a set of points.

I sat up. The compartment was dark; I could see only the glow of Holmes’ pipe opposite me and smell the rich tobacco smoke.

“Here, Watson,” he said softly. “I have filled your pipe with Ship’s. That will set you up again. How do you feel?”

I considered as I fumbled for my matches. “Better than expected. I am surprised that I had such a vehement reaction to the absinthe.”

“It is made with wormwood,” said Holmes’ calm voice. “The Bible tells us that forbidden women are bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.”

I yawned. “I feel uncomfortable about refusing the hospitality of the Ambassador. I could not eat the food.”

“You were thinking of Mrs Hudson bringing us breakfast.”

“Exactly.”

Holmes was silent for a long moment.

“I ordered Billy to stand guard over our papers in the sitting room, Watson. That may have been his death warrant.”

“I hope and pray that he has not been harmed, that they are all unharmed.”

“Amen. Churchill said that in his prayers before he slept.”

Holmes leapt from the train as it coasted gently to a halt at Calais.

As Churchill and I got out, a pair of gendarmes hurried along the platform towards us. Holmes had a short conversation with them and handed one some papers as we joined him under the station clock. “No telegrams from London,” he said. “I had hoped - never mind. They may not know that we have engaged a special train. I requested Dubugue to contact Mycroft directly from the Sûreté on their telegraph line to Scotland Yard. I was sure that he would have made arrangements to have it manned overnight.”

Holmes dismissed the gendarmes. “You noticed Dubugue’s accent: he is a Breton. He claims English ancestry from the time the Britons fled across the Channel to escape the Saxons. He complains that this new French Republic is little more than a howling democracy. Monsieur Dubugue firmly believes that a king, or in our case a queen, is the only true fount of honour. One can rely on such people.”

He looked up at the station clock and consulted his watch.

“One cannot rely on the clock above us. French station clocks are deliberately manipulated by the management. We have twelve minutes before the ferry’s regular sailing time. Dubugue has arranged to hold it for us, but we should make haste. We do not want to miss our connection at Dover. The gendarmes tell me that there is a cafe open nearby; it caters to railway and ferry workers as they come off their shift. You wait here on this bench for a moment or two, and I will trot over there and see what we can get.”

“There’s really no need, Holmes,” I protested.

“Nonsense, I am hungry myself and Churchill is famished. Wake up, boy!”

Churchill sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“The boy will run to the kiosk by the exit,” Holmes said. “They are unpacking the English newspapers that came on the Night Mail. Get all the English papers, young man. Give him some money, Watson.”

I walked across to the kiosk with Churchill. My thoughts were all of Baker Street. I had hoped to have time to get a small gift from France for Mrs Hudson, and something for Billy and Bessie too. I decided that it would bring good luck if I went ahead with my plan despite my misgivings. The woman at the kiosk spoke adequate, if heavily accented, English. I put my problem to her, described Mrs Hudson and the staff as best I could, and let her pick out the gifts and deduct the cost, with that of a sheaf of London newspapers, from the French coins that I had in my palm.

Holmes appeared out of a cloud of steam like a stage ghost. He carried a sack from one hand, and he had a bundle of French bread sticks under his arm.

“Come, friends, our ferry awaits,” he said with a smile. He led us towards the dock.

“The lady in the cafe was extremely concerned for you, Doctor. No French person can conceive of being without nourishment for more than an hour, two at the most, except on fast days. She had a pea soup on the hob: it was instantly wrapped in this towel with a clean soup bowl as a lid. You will have to do without a spoon, but you may dip these fine fresh baguettes -”

A small girl screeched up to us crying out in French and holding out a bottle of red wine.

Holmes slapped his forehead. “This creature is from the cafe. I forgot to order wine. Give it a five-franc coin, Watson, and pat it on the head. Allez, messieurs.”

He marched us to the quayside.

“Madame says that the best cure for starvation is a pair of pig’s trotters prepared à la Sainte-Menehould; she is from the valley of the Marne. You will recall that trotters were the undoing of Louis the Sixteenth. He passed through Menehould as he fled before the revolutionaries, and he could not resist stopping for the famous pieds de cochons. He was recognised, brought back to Paris and off went his head. Madame explained that the dish takes two days to prepare. We reluctantly agreed that the ferry, manned as it is by Englishmen with no sense of culture, or cuisine, would probably not wait.”

I could not help feeling that Holmes’ levity was out of place. I did not share his vaunted immunity to sentiment. I could not retreat from emotional attachments and armour myself with the chainmail of cold logic and the breastplate of stony reason. I knew that my fear for Mrs Hudson, Billy and Bessie was debilitating and perhaps unmanly, but I was unashamed.

I placed a consoling hand on Churchill’s shoulder.

“No, no, Watson,” said Holmes, playing his irritating mind game. “We must not allow ourselves the luxury of despair. It is our plain duty to our friends in Baker Street to remain calm. We must face the situation with equanimity and unruffled composure - good Lord.”

He stopped, put down the pot and stared across the harbour. Puffing sedately out of the harbour entrance was the ferry. A loud mournful sound on its whistle covered a string of epithets from Holmes.

“Damn Dubugue! Damn all the French. A more untrustworthy huddle of blackguards - ah.” Holmes strode to an officer standing at the quayside with his back to us watching the ferry leave. He tapped him on the shoulder, and even before the man had turned, subjected him to a bombardment of rapid and emphatic French.

Churchill and I watched as the young officer turned first pink, then red as he tried to stop the flow.

“I say, Doctor,” said Churchill, “surely that is a British naval officer.”

We sat in armchairs in the sumptuously appointed lounge of the Admiralty yacht Enchantress as she sped across the Channel towards London as fast as her whirling paddle wheels would drive her.

The British papers were spread across a long table between us, and a heap of telegraph forms lay before Holmes. The unopened bottle of French red wine stood in the centre of the table with a forlorn bundle of bread sticks.

“I am sorry about the soup, Watson,” said Holmes. “I hope that I may be forgiven in the trying circumstances: the trying circumstances that I thought we were in.”

“Don’t mention it, old chap, I am not very partial to pea soup,” I said with a wan smile.

“I am,” said Churchill, giving Holmes a reproachful look.

“I expect the lady from the cafe will be able to retrieve her pot from the quayside,” I said. “We can send her a message from Dover. What is that to the news that our friends at Baker Street are safe? Read the telegrams again, Holmes.”

He slid two telegraph slips across to Churchill.

“Outrage 221B,” Churchill read. “Outhouse destroyed but all safe. Sending Enchantress. Mycroft.”

“Ha,” cried Holmes. “An imprecise message. He could have saved the ‘but’ and added ‘yacht’ in front of Enchantress. We might have expected a lady magician or a courtesan. I have several bones to pick with Mycroft.”

“Read the one from Mrs Hudson,” I said.

Churchill reached across and took the telegram. “Dynamite attack on us poor souls in Baker Street, dear Mr Holmes and Doctor. That old tin bath is in bits and windows all broke. We are bonny. God save the Queen.”

“Bonny. That’s her Scots ancestry,” said Holmes.

I stood. “I think I shall go out on deck for a last smoke, and then take advantage of Lieutenant Blake’s kind offer of a cabin. I am fagged out.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want something from the galley?” asked Churchill.

I shook my head. “I take it as a point of honour to wait for our return home and Mrs Hudson’s kippers.”