The Memoirs of Irene Adler: The Irene Adler Trilogy (9 page)

‘Now twelve-year-olds are not enough for zose... zose
dégénérées
! Now they nidd bebbies to satisfy zeir animul leust!
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, c’est pas possible. C’est des cochons...’

‘Maybe it’s a kidnapping for ransom,’ I suggested, not that I believed it.

‘But you ’av monnaie,’ Armande challenged Lord Clarihoe, ‘
we
can get monnnaie’. He shook his head wearily.

‘We’ll send Anatole to Deauville and he’ll win us a fortune, he’s been dying to test his new skim,’ suggested the Frenchwoman.

‘Tell us exactly how it happened,’ I asked.

Lord Clarihoe had rushed back to Festing Road the moment he left Water Lane and had found everybody there in a state of shock. Emilia was speechless with sadness but Aunt Cordelia was able to give him an account of the abduction.

Every afternoon when the baby wakes up from her afternoon nap and had had her feed, Tess takes her out for some fresh air on the bank of the Thames in Putney.

‘Who is Tess?’ I asked. Clarihoe blushed as he told us that he had urged the young couple to employ a nursemaid for the child.

‘And if I know anysing about anysing, it’s
ce cher
Aljèrnonne himself who pez her wedges out of ’is own pocket,’ chipped in Armande.

This young lady, a vicar’s daughter, Theresa, or Tess as they called her, regularly took the child out for a walk near the riverside at Putney in Leader’s Gardens. On Thursday she came back home minus the perambulator, distraught, unable to speak for the state of shock she was in. Amid sobs she told of how earlier on, she had spotted two men who seemed to be following her. One was short and dumpy and the other tall and well-built but with a hardly perceptible limp, making an incongruous pair. At first she had told herself off for being silly. Who would follow a frail, ungainly frump like herself walking a baby, but when she noticed that every time she turned a corner, the men did the same, she began to fear that something sinister was afoot. She thought the best thing would be to make for the less secluded river bank as the woods in the Gardens would make it easier for the malfeasants to carry out their mischief if that was their intention. Before she was able to reach the embankment the two men had swooped upon her from behind. The smaller one took her by the waist with one hand and put the other on her mouth to stop her screaming whilst the other grabbed her arm in a deathly grip.
Suddenly she noticed that the perambulator which she had been forced to relinquish was beginning to roll away. With the thug’s hand on her mouth stopping her from breathing let alone making any sound, she was unable to scream or do anything except watch in horror as it made its descent towards the river. In alarm, the man with his hand on her mouth shouted, ‘the thsing ith ssliding towardth the river!’ He let go of her and flung himself at it, saving it from taking the plunge just in time. Then he came back, said, ‘thorry misth, I don’t like hitting a lady—’ and smote her in the face. She reeled and fell on her back, stunned, and before she realised what was happening, her two attackers had disappeared into the bushes with Alice in the pram.

The first thing that Algernon had done was to go see Assistant Commissioner Labalmondière who assured him that the Metropolitan was doing everything in its power to find the baby and promised that before sunset she would be safely returned to her parents.

He then sought the advice of Mr W.T. Stead, the editor of
The Pall Mall Gazette
, and a good friend. The latter had a very jaundiced view of Labalmondière and expressed doubt over his ability or intention to do anything useful. The man, he said, had become Assistant Commissioner because Sir William Harcourt—the Home Secretary— thought that a Lieutenant Colonel was well-qualified to take up that post. Why, he asked, didn’t people understand that his progression in the army was only because of his Eton and Sandhurst connections, which, in turn, he owes to his father’s exploitation of slaves in the Caribbean. ‘And the division chiefs,’ Stead added, ‘would never embark on any initiative unless they felt certain that the boss would approve.’ It was also Algernon’s friend’s belief that the Lieutenant Colonel thought that the main duty of the police was to see that no matter what they may be up to, no mud sticks on the ruling class.

‘No, I am afraid the police won’t do anything for your poor cousin, my dear Algernon.’

‘So what did he advise?’

‘Jeremiah Minahan,’ Stead said. ‘Go and see him. He is a dogged and resourceful investigator.’ And he had talked at some length about the man.

‘Or again, try Sherlock Holmes. He is an eccentric, but he is astute and one hundred percent trustworthy.’ Clarihoe, who was aware of the reputation of the latter, had then taken a cab to Baker Street where Mr Holmes received him with courteous formality. He suspected that the detective knew of, and disapproved of his homophile tendency, but he listened carefully all the same. His view was that there was one obvious cause for a kidnapping: ransom.

‘I am sorry to disappoint you, Lord Clarihoe,’ Holmes added, ‘I’d visit Putney and interview the hapless nurse and your cousins if there was any point, but I can’t see that this would help locate the stolen child. It’s like trying to locate a cricket which had lost its song in a wheat field. Well-nigh impossible.’

‘So you can’t help?’ Algernon had said hardly disguising his contempt.

‘I didn’t say that,’ said Holmes taking no offence. He had then elaborated. When the parents receive the ransom note - and he believed that they would - he wanted to see it immediately. If he was outside London Dr Watson should be contacted. He would send him a telegram and he would come back post-haste.

‘I vouchsafe that I would get both of them.’

‘Beg your pardon, Mr Holmes, there’s only one baby,’ Algernon had said rather foolishly, but the man was suffering from sleep deprivation and shock.

‘The baby and the villain.’ The detective said. Algernon had been most heartened. Indubitably that was going to be the likeliest outcome, but recalling what Armande had said he had started losing his composure.

‘We must go see Minahan,’ he told us with great determination.

Stead had said that the man was a thorn in Labalmondière’s side. He was something of a zealot, a deeply religious and fearless man. His one obsession in life was bringing to justice those evil men and women who stole children to commit immoral acts on them.

‘I am going to visit him.’

‘Oh but you must take Irene with you, two ’eads are better zan one, you know.’ Algernon looked at me blandly, then with admiration at Armande.

‘Armande, you’re right, it’s not just apple tarts you’re good at.’ Then he looked at me opening his eyes wide.

‘Yes sure, I’d like that. If I can assist in any way.’

‘I’ll leave now and will arrange it.’

This was to be the start of a harmonious working partnership.

‘Ebenezer the coachman is waiting outside, be ready as soon as you can,’ Algernon said as soon as he came in next morning. I went to get ready.

‘Uverdale Road,’ he instructed Ebenezer the moustachioed cocher who, for years, had been Armande’s first choice for transportation.

‘Uverdale Road Chelsea or Enfield, my lord?’ Ebenezer enquired, and Algernon pointed in a northwesterly direction indicative of Chelsea muttering number two. The coachman nodded gravely.

I have always loved travelling by hansom and as I leaned against the backrest and pressed my shoulder blades against two rounded features, a sensual feeling of well-being began rising in my body.

Algernon began filling me up on W.T. Stead and
The Pall Mall Gazette
. I remembered the tabloid newspaper’s impassioned campaign against the living conditions of the London poor. The
Gazette
had been scathing in its exposure of the exploitation of underage girls for the sexual gratification of the upper classes. Minahan’s troubles started because Labalmondière did not like it when the man had had the temerity to call Mrs Jeffries’ house a bordello for the nobility. Algernon had been very impressed by the man who steered that newspaper on its course for social justice, had sought out the fellow traveller, and they had become friends.

The house was on a new state at the western end of the Chelsea embankment, past the wharfs and King’s Road. It was a genteel area with four-storey brick buildings enclosed by black railings. When he rang the bell the tallest man I have ever come face to face with opened the door with an unsmiling face. He was nearer seven feet than six. A smiling woman was a couple of steps behind him and he introduced her to us as his wife Barbara. She turned round and left with a smile and a curtsey.
Anyone would have thought that she had rushed to rescue her boiling milk
in extremis
. Minahan prayed that we come in and ushered us into his modest parlour.

‘Ah, Minahan, so good of you to agree to meet us. Meet my dear wife, Irene. Irene, Inspector Jeremiah Minahan.’ He must trust this Irishman, I mused, to openly admit to him that I was his wife.

‘Ex-inspector,’ said the giant as he sat down. I guessed that he was not yet fifty, but a fitter and stronger man would be hard to find.

‘Mr Stead told me a lot about you but I haven’t yet had the opportunity of imparting the intelligence to... eh... her ladyship.’

‘Ah, the good Mr Stead,’ said our host nodding absently. ‘A worthy ally and a valuable campaigner for justice. Did he tell you I was the one who provided him with proof positive that King Leopold II of Belgium was paying the infamous Mrs Jeffries £800 a month for the provision of underage young scrubbed virgins for the orgies he organises for himself and his degenerate friends on his yacht
Alberta?
Or for shipment to the
maisons closes
of Ostend.’

‘I read about it,’ said Algernon, ‘but knew not about your part in it.’ Minahan shrugged and added almost inaudibly, ‘Which as you no doubt know was why I was dismissed from the force.’

‘So Lord Clarihoe had told me,’ I said needlessly, but I thought I should show him my interest in his work.

‘My wife will bring us tea and cakes,’ he said as he sat down. ‘She is an extraordinary pastry cook, as you will see.’ This was delivered with pride, the faintest of smiles illuminating his face.

At Clarihoe’s bidding, he plunged straightaway into his history and it was a fascinating one too. Although he was from a modest background of tenant farmers, when he crossed the Irish sea he joined the police force and ended up marrying an anglican bishop’s daughter, Barbara Hughes. Through sheer diligence he had risen to the rank of inspector, but as a man of integrity he could not go along with his superior officers giving protection to people like Mary Jeffries and Philip Hammond, he said angrily.

At this juncture Barbara Minahan came back in, this time pushing a trolley laden with teapots cups and plates of scones and fruitcakes.
The red face of her husband immediately changed to a more congenial hue. He pressed his wife to join us, albeit for a few minutes, and with a smile she sat down.

‘My dear wife Barbara,’ Jeremiah Minahan said proudly. ‘A bishop’s daughter who yet married for love an Irish peasant who could not even hold a job in the Metropolitan Police Force.’ She was an attractive woman, if a bit on the plump side, but with poise and self-assurance. She spoke in a refined manner although I was able to detect a fetching Welsh lilt. She reprimanded her husband for his self-deprecating words saying that if anything, his ejection from the force showed his mettle and proved that he was too good for those ungodly men. We partook of her tea which she made with the precision of a Japanese mistress of the rituals, and we found her pastry was indeed as delicious as Jeremiah had promised.

After Mrs Minahan left, our host told us a tale of police brutality and corrupt practices in the Bow Street e: division. After testifying in court against a fellow officer who had viciously attacked a troublesome but otherwise harmless drunk, his superior officer had him removed to Chelsea for disloyalty to a colleague. As an upright man faced by his conscience on the one hand and loyalty to his colleagues on the other, he had seen no alternative to the course of action that he had taken. He had been shocked to find that Chelsea was a cesspool which reflected all that was wrong with society. The number of brothels operating there was positively scandalous, to say nothing of illegal gambling dens and distilleries.

He was much saddened to discover that one of the richest landowners in the area was the infamous Mrs Jeffries. She had started life as a laundress, was married to a domestic servant and together they possessed a dozen valuable properties many in Church Street. They had more in Belgium, operating as
maisons closes
, which must be second only to the Royal Mint in their propensity for making money. Minahan had visited the procuress in his official capacity. She had boasted that with the patrons her girls entertained she had nothing to fear from the law. This had not, however, stopped her offering the Irishman money and free services to ensure his silence. Minahan had been warned by his superior
officer about the danger of shaking that particular hornet’s nest as it was very dear to gentlemen of the highest pedigree, titled people, aristocrats, members of the government and even royalty. He had only allowed his conscience to dictate his action. He was finally sacked from the force altogether, and now made a living as a private investigator.