Authors: Donald Thomas
Tags: #Private investigators, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #General, #Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious character), #Detective, #Mystery, #Detective and mystery stories; English, #England, #Suspense, #Private investigators - England, #Fiction - Mystery, #Watson; John H. (Fictitious character), #Mystery fiction, #Traditional British, #Short Stories, #Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, #Mystery & Detective - Short Stories
Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective (6 page)
BOOK: Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective
5.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
A Gothic door whose architraves were filled by plain glass admitted us to a world which mingled Plantagenet architecture with the comforts of a gentleman’s club. Pale stone arches formed sprays of fan vaulting above the tracery of Norman windows. Long murals in Pre-Raphaelite pastel showed the deposed King James II throwing the Great Seal of the realm into the Thames in 1688 and the new King William finding it again in 1689. King Charles I bowed before the headsman’s axe on a cold January morning in Whitehall.
As we made our way towards the Strangers Gallery of the Commons, the floor tiles were diamonds of blue and yellow and brown, patterned with clubs, spades and hearts. The officials in their red livery and buckled shoes might have been kings and knaves in a pack of cards. The brass-furnished oak door of each room bore a title which powerfully suggested the nonsense logic of
Alice in Wonderland.
One was the home of “Motions” and another of “Questions.” On our right was “The Court Post-master” and to our left “The Table Office.” I half expected to turn the corner of a corridor and meet a white rabbit in Tudor jacket and tights.
Alice in Wonderland.
One was the home of “Motions” and another of “Questions.” On our right was “The Court Post-master” and to our left “The Table Office.” I half expected to turn the corner of a corridor and meet a white rabbit in Tudor jacket and tights.
We made our way up the steps and into the Strangers Gallery, where every seat was taken for the contentious debate on the legal liabilities of fortune-tellers. Lord Blagdon looked round and inclined his head as we took our places.
The House of Commons was much smaller than I had expected, not unlike the nave of a medieval parish church with rows of benches in green leather facing one another on either side. At the far end, upon his dais, Mr Speaker faced us in his wig and gown. Behind him rose the Press Gallery and above that the Ladies Gallery, whose occupants were concealed by a lattice screen, as though this were a Turkish harem. In front of him was the table with its clerks and the two despatch-boxes at which members addressed the House.
The debate had already begun. Joseph Keighley, the Member for Manchester South, had brought forward the motion standing in his name and was addressing the House from the despatch-box on our left. Tall and spare, his black swallow-tail coat falling open, his grey hair sparse and windswept, his spectacles glinting, he looked every inch a rationalist in argument and agnostic in matters of belief. We heard the story of the widow whom only the Chancery Division and the High Court had saved from being cheated out of her property by a fraudulent fortune-teller.
Mr Keighley glowed with indignation and demanded protection by parliament and new legislation against robbery in the guise of superstition.
He was answered on the other side by a Junior Minister from the Home Office. This functionary was as placid and mellifluous as Mr Keighley had been indignant and hectoring. Was it really suggested that the inoffensive fortune-telling tent at every village fair or church fete should be made subject in all particulars to the criminal law? As for black magic, said to have been worked on the poor old lady in this case, the art and its practitioners had always been punishable at common law without the need for new legislation. On the advice of the learned Solicitor-General, they remained so to the present day.
There was much more of this sort of thing and, before long, I confess that my eyelids were heavy. I had not realised before, when reading the report of an interesting parliamentary debate, how much of the proceedings are omitted by the press. In their entirety I found them insupportable. I heard the junior minister refer jocularly to the reading of palms as “the harmless pastime of the tea-party and the fairground tent.” Then I knew no more until Holmes dug me sharply in the ribs.
A younger member was on his feet, demanding to know on what grounds the minister was entitled to judge whether such arts were a harmless pastime or not. I screwed my eyes up and peered forward. I needed no one to tell me that the young man, who had risen among the benches and was wearing the black silk hat which entitled him to speak, was a blood relation of Lord Blagdon. The points of resemblance in the face, the dark curls and the patrician stoop were plain. This, then was Lord Arthur Savile. After a career of parliamentary silence, something had goaded him into eloquence.
I listened to his words and wondered if I was still dreaming. He demanded angrily how it could be said by the government’s Junior Minister that there was no harm in the “fun” of fortune-telling? Examples of its harm might be seen on every side. He began to list examples. I stared at the young man and thought that surely he was now speaking on the wrong side—in support of criminalising fortune-telling rather than permitting it! What had changed his mind so suddenly and so dramatically?
The Junior Minister made a jovial riposte to this outburst, brushing aside the “intemperate remarks of the noble member for Chalcote.” The government would not intervene to criminalise the practice of fortune-telling. This ministerial spokesman rambled on but I was no longer listening. Like the Earl of Blagdon, I assumed that Lord Arthur would attend the debate to vote against any change in the law which might persecute fortune-tellers. Now he had changed sides and was supporting the amendment. I glanced at Holmes but if he was surprised by this
volte-face,
there was no sign of it on his face.
volte-face,
there was no sign of it on his face.
Only then did I notice a man sitting in the row ahead of me and to one side. He was fat, to put it plainly, with a face that might have been yellowed by jaundice and was deeply lined. His lightweight summer suit, of thin brown cotton, fitted his corpulent form no better than a bag. When Lord Arthur stood up and put his question this man had emitted a sharp exhalation of breath. Having heard the question answered and dismissed by the Junior Minister, he now turned round to us all with a beam of mingled triumph and relief on his sickly features. It was as if he was inviting us to share his amusement at Lord Arthur’s failure.
At last a division was called—and a vote was taken, though the House was by no means full. About a quarter of its members now divided. The “Ayes” who supported the new law against fortune-tellers filed into the lobby on the left and the “Noes” into the lobby on the right. To judge from the numbers crowding into the right-hand lobby those who thought fortune-telling a harmless occupation were going to win hands-down. But Lord Arthur Savile was not among them. I switched my gaze to the left and saw only two or three dozen members voting in support of a law against such practices. At the tail of the queue was Lord Arthur.
The members returned to their seats and the tellers brought their totals to Mr Speaker. The result was as I expected.
“There have voted. The Ayes to the left, thirty-one. The Noes to the right, ninety-five. There were no abstentions. I therefore declare that the motion is defeated by sixty-four votes. The House will proceed to the third reading of the Stockbreeders and Poulterers (Hygiene) Bill.
“How very singular,” said Sherlock Holmes.
7
L
ord Arthur had returned to his seat on the government benches for the very good reason that he was to act as teller for the Ayes at the end of the stockbreeders debate which now began. We knew where he would be until that debate ended or was adjourned. Lord Blagdon led us to his room beyond the House of Lords with its fine view of the Houses of Parliament terrace running above the Thames. He stood at his desk, pouring whisky from a decanter into three glasses. Then he straightened up and handed us each a glass.
ord Arthur had returned to his seat on the government benches for the very good reason that he was to act as teller for the Ayes at the end of the stockbreeders debate which now began. We knew where he would be until that debate ended or was adjourned. Lord Blagdon led us to his room beyond the House of Lords with its fine view of the Houses of Parliament terrace running above the Thames. He stood at his desk, pouring whisky from a decanter into three glasses. Then he straightened up and handed us each a glass.
“Why did he ask his foolish question? Why did he vote in support of the very law which he had condemned in my hearing as an abuse of freedom and a mere expression of prejudice against the enlightened?”
“Blackmail,” said Holmes simply.
“Blackmail! How could he be blackmailed?”
“With great respect, my lord, has it not occurred to you that the so-called cheiromancer or palmist foretold something which, if true, would have made Lord Arthur liable to the criminal law or exposed him to public disgrace?”
“But what?”
“Nothing less than murder, I think.”
“But my cousin has murdered no one!”
“Possibly not. Not yet.”
Lord Blagdon had left instructions that the door-keeper should warn him as soon as a vote was called in the present House of Commons debate. Lord Arthur, as teller, could not leave until the result was announced. We should be alerted in good time to pick up his trail as he left the Houses of Parliament. Or so we thought.
I realised too late that something had gone wrong with Lord Blagdon’s arrangement. We had received no message of Lord Arthur preparing to leave the building when I heard a familiar call echoing through the corridors outside. It is the cry that ends every day’s business in the Palace of Westminster, calling like a watchman through the streets of a city.
“Who goes home? Who goes home?”
We looked at one another. Where was he? Holmes and I could scarcely go and search for him. Much of the building was forbidden territory to us and we should hardly know where to begin.
“Wait here, if you please,” said Lord Blagdon peremptorily, “I will go and find him. If the door-keeper sees him preparing to leave, he will get word to you. Lord Arthur must still be somewhere in the building.”
As it proved, Lord Arthur Savile was in the precincts of Parliament but he was no longer in the building. Left to ourselves, Holmes and I stood at the latticed window. It looked down across the terrace and the river which ran at the base of its wall. By the lights of the far bank we could see cabs moving along the Albert Embankment. A tugboat pulling a string of three lighters was proceeding down the river towards the wharves of Battersea or Lambeth.
“I do not understand it,” I said, not for the first time.
“Possibly not,” said Holmes patiently, “Have the goodness, however, to keep quite still and watch the river. I would rather not be noticed.”
I was surveying the river terrace which extends from New Palace Yard almost the entire length of parliament. There was a man walking by the wall, his back to the river. He was pacing up and down as if in expectation, wearing a black silk hat and smoking a cigar.
“That is the fellow who was sitting in the Strangers Gallery,” I said at once, for there was no mistaking his bulk and the material of his bag-like summer suit, “The man who turned round and smiled at us, after Lord Arthur had made his
faux pas
by interrupting the Junior Minister.”
faux pas
by interrupting the Junior Minister.”
“Just so,” said Holmes quietly, “If it will help your understanding a little further, I was able to read the card which he was holding and which admitted him. He is the correspondent of the
Psychical Research Quarterly.
Had it been a more exalted publication he might no doubt have claimed a seat in the Press Gallery.”
Psychical Research Quarterly.
Had it been a more exalted publication he might no doubt have claimed a seat in the Press Gallery.”
“What is he doing out there?”
“Wait! Give your attention to the facts and the events. Nothing else. From his presence in the gallery and the title of the publication, we may deduce that this is Mr Septimus Podgers and that his reading of palms at the Lancaster House spring party is probably responsible for Lord Arthur Savile’s curious change of mind this evening. His sudden antipathy to fortune-telling.”
“And the wearing of gloves to conceal his hands?”
“To conceal his palms, Watson. He cared nothing about the backs of his hands when he played the piano. I think you will find that it was the Line of Life on his left palm which promised murder, according to Mr Podgers.”
“You cannot believe that, Holmes!”
“It is enough that simple-minded Lord Arthur believed it. You follow his reasoning? If he was doomed to murder, as his belief persuaded him, let it be someone whose life was of little account and with whom he would not be connected. Imagine Lady Clementina Beauchamp—despatched by aconite in a chocolate taken from the bonbon box and eaten with her coffee after dinner. Who would look for a sinister event in the death of one so frail? Who would suspect Lord Arthur, a thousand miles away in Venice and with no motive for murder? Only when he heard of her death by natural causes did he take fright. He must, at all costs, inspect the interior of the bonbonnière and remove whatever chocolates chanced still to be there. But there were none. With luck, he must have thought, the smear of chocolate on the porcelain base was no more than a smear of chocolate.”
“And Archdeacon Percy?”
“I confess that gave me a little more trouble. The reason that there is no clock-maker at 199 Greek Street is that there is no such address at all. The numbers stop before 199. The clock’s explosive mechanism was put together most inefficiently by an amateur elsewhere in London. The first percussion cap evidently detonated only a small part of the gunpowder at noon. I suspect that it merely ignited a brief trail of it, which had leaked in the post and now burnt without any significant explosive force. It was only when the hands met again at twelve midnight that the remaining percussion caps were struck and the main detonation took place.”
“Lord Arthur was the bomb-maker?”
Holmes shook his head.
“I think not. It was a botched job but even that would have been beyond him. Let us say he commissioned it. As for the timepiece, clocks of this model were made after 1871 in France to celebrate the advent of the Third Republic. They are a rarity in England, merely a curiosity. We have no taste for these revolutions. Through the agency of Inspector Lestrade and the records of Customs and Excise, I have established that no more than half a dozen have been imported into England in the past twelve months. One of these was addressed to Mr Elivas Ruhtra in the care of the Serbian News Agency in Lisle Street.”
BOOK: Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective
5.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Other books
The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes by Barry Grant
Another Little Secret by Jade Archer
When the Killing's Done by Boyle, T.C.
Obsidian Ridge by Lebow, Jess
Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale
Private Novelist by Nell Zink
In Plain View by Olivia Newport
The Unquiet Bones by Mel Starr
Unbound by Kay Danella
