My Sherlock Holmes Part 27

Gallagher reluctantly carried out Holmes's orders after consulting with Chief Inspector Littlechild, who checked with the Commissioner.

Holmes met Gallagher at the door of Gla.s.sford's house and immediately took him down into the cellar. The first thing that Gallagher noticed was an aperture to the south side of the cellar that had previously been covered by the piles of old furniture Beyond this hole was a tunnel of some ten feet in length, dug through the London clay. But within ten feet it met a well-constructed brick-lined tunnel. It was of arched brickwork some four and a half feet in height and four feet wide and a small-gauge railway line ran through it. Gallagher was puzzled, for this was certainly not a tunnel connected with the rail system. Holmes ordered a policeman to be stationed as a guard at this point and then invited Gallagher to join him in Sir Gibson Gla.s.sford's study Holmes had gathered everyone in Gla.s.sford's study. There was the Minister himself, his wife, and all the servants, nanny, cook, housemaids, and the butler, Hogan. The Great Detective was looking pleased as punch with himself and Gallagher reported that the spectacle was repulsive in the extreme.

"The case was simple," exclaimed Holmes in his usual pedantic style. "I drew your attention to the bruising and puncture mark over the vein in the Cardinal's neck. To most people who have dealt with the administration of narcotics, the puncture mark was the sign of a hypodermic syringe. Usually, this is the method by which a medication or drugs is introduced under the skin of the patient by means ..."

"I think we know the method, Holmes," muttered Gallagher. "Dr. Thomson did not agree with you. Indeed, he conducted tests which showed no sign of any foreign substance, let alone narcotics or poison, being introduced into the body of the Cardinal which would cause death."

"There was no need to introduce such foreign matter," Holmes went on, looking like a cat that has devoured cream. "The hypodermic contained no substance whatsoever."

"But how ... ?" began Sir Gibson.

"It contained nothing but air," went on Holmes. "It caused an air embolism-a bubble of air-to be introduced into the bloodstream. That was fatal. Cardinal Tosca was murdered."

Gallagher sighed deeply.

"We already suspected that ... ," he protested.

"I have now demonstrated your suspicion to be a fact," replied Holmes scornfully. "Now that we know the method, the next question is how was the body transported here?"

"You have been at pains to prove your theory that there is a pa.s.sage through the underground sewers from Soho Square to here," muttered Gallagher.

Holmes smiled condescendingly.

"As you have now observed, it is no theory. It was obvious that the body had to be removed from Soho Square to Gayfere Place. Hardly through the streets in full view, I think, eh, Watson?" Holmes chuckled at his own humor. "It was clear to me that the body had been removed through a dank, smelly sewer. A tunnel where the clothes the body was being transported in, in this case, his nights.h.i.+rt, had come into contact with the excretions running from the walls. The odors were still apparent after some days in police storage There was no odor on the Cardinal's other clothing Those transporting the body had carried them wrapped separately in a bag or some other casing, which protected them. The only question was-through what manner of tunneling was this achieved?"

He paused, presumably to bask in their admiration of his logic. He met only bemuserment "The body was transported not through the sewers as it happened, Gallagher. In 1861 the Pneumatic Dispatch Company built an underground rail system. The plan was to transport only mail. However, two years later the Post Office opened its own system and this, coupled with the fact that the Pneumatic system had begun to develop mechanical faults and air leakage, caused the plans to extend it to be shelved. Ten years ago that entire system was abandoned and was also forgotten."

Holmes paused, waiting like a conjuror about to pull a rabbit from a hat.

"Except by Mr. Small," pointed out Gallagher, not wis.h.i.+ng Holmes to claim the approbation.

"And by the group of people intent on mischief. The body of the Cardinal was carried, with his clothing, from his bedroom in the presbytery down to the cellar. In spite of a.s.surances that the door had not been opened in ten year, I observed scuff marks showing that it had been opened recently. The body was removed into the new crypt where workman had, in their excavations, made contact with the old Pneumatic tunnel The tunnel came directly towards Westminster. In preparation for this ghastly event, which had been well planned, a tunnel had been excavated in advance into the cellar of Sir Gibson's house. I was alerted by the complaints that had been made to the local sewerage company by the old lady opposite who had been disturbed by it. I subsequently found out that, being elderly, she had removed her bedroom to a lower floor, near ground level. That was how she had been disturbed in the night. I found it curious that her concerns were not shared by anyone in this house."

"But I have already told you that only the butler lives on the lower floor," pointed out Sir Gibson, "and Hogan has not complained of any such noises. Have you, Hogan?"

The man shook his head morosely.

"Well," went on Holmes obliviously, "our conspirators, for that is what they are, had enticed their victim from France on the pretense that he was wanted to mediate in some negotiations between this government and members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The idea appealed to Cardinal Tosca's vanity and he came here obeying the conspirators' exhortation not to tell anyone else. He was killed and the body brought through this underground system."

"But for what purpose?" demanded Gla.s.sford. "Why was he killed and placed in my house?"

"The purpose was to achieve exactly what this has nearly achieved. An attempt to discredit you as a member of government, and to stir up antagonism against any movement by the Irish Party to press forward again with its political campaign in parliament."

"I don't understand"

"What group of people would best benefit by discrediting both a government pledged to the Unionist cause and to those who seek only Home Rule within the United Kingdom? Both those objectives would receive an irrevocable blow by the involvement of a Tory Minister in the murder of a Cardinal and the suspicion of some conspiracy between them? Where would sympathy go to?"

"I presume the more extreme Irish Nationalists-the Republicans."

"Watson, your revolver!" cried Holmes suddenly.

It was too late. Hogan had pulled his own revolver.

"Everyone stay where they are!" he shouted.

"Don't be a fool, Hogan," snapped Gallagher, moving forward, but Hogan waved his weapon threateningly.

"I am not a fool," the butler cried. "I can see where this is leading and I shall not suffer alone."

"You'll not escape," cried Holmes. "The police have already surrounded this place."

Hogan simply ignored them.

He stepped swiftly back, removing the key from the lock of the study door. Then he slammed the door shut, turned the key, and they heard him exiting the house.

When Gallagher threw his weight again the door, Holmes ordered him to desist.

"He'll not get far."

In fact, Hogan hardly reached the corner of the street before members of the Special Branch called him to stop and surrender. When he opened fire, he was shot and died immediately. Which was, from my viewpoint, my dear "Wolf s.h.i.+eld," just as well.

Holmes had reseated himself with that supercilious look of the type he a.s.sumed when he thought he had tied up all the loose ends.

"Hogan was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenians. He had ingratiated himself into your employ, Sir Gibson, and was told to wait for orders. The diabolical plot was to use the murder of His Eminence to bring about the fall of your government."

"And we know the name of the man who lured the Cardinal here," Watson intervened importantly, speaking almost for the first time in the entire investigation. "We should be able to track him down and arrest him."

Holmes looked at his acolyte with pity.

"Do we know his name, Watson?"

"Why, indeed! He overlooked the fact that he left his card behind. T. W. Tone Remember?"

"T. W. Tone-Theobald Wolfe Tone is the name of the man led the Irish uprising of 1798," Sir Gibson intervened in a hollow voice. Watson's was red with chagrin. Sir Gibson glanced at Holmes. "Can we find out who the others were in this plot, Mr. Holmes?"

"That will be up to the Special Branch," Holmes replied, almost in a dismissive fas.h.i.+on. "I fear, however, that they will not have much success I suspect those who were involved in this mutter are already out of the country by now."

"Why did Hogan remain?"

"I presume that he thought himself safe or that he remained to report firsthand on the effects of the plot"

Gla.s.sford crossed to Holmes with an outstretched hand.

"My dear sir," he said, "my dear, dear sir. I ... the country ... owe you a great debt."

Holmes's deprecating manner was quite nauseating. Gallagher told me that he found his false modesty was truly revolting.

It is true that when the government released the facts of the plot, as Holmes had given it to them, the case of the death of Cardinal Tosca became a cause celebre. Holmes was even offered a small pension by the government, and he refused, perhaps more on account of its smallness than any modesty on his part. He even declined a papal knighthood from the grateful Bishop of Rome.

Sickening, my dear "Wolf s.h.i.+eld." It was all quite sickening.

But, as you well know, the truth was that Holmes did not come near to resolving this matter. Oh, I grant you that he was able to work out the method by which I killed Cardinal Tosca I admit that I had thought it rather an ingenious method. I had stumbled on it while attending a lecture in my youth at Trinity College. It was given by Dr. Robert MacDonnell, who had begun the first blood transfusions in 1865. MacDonnell had given up the use of the syringe because of the dangers of embolism or the air bubble which causes fatality when introduced into the bloodstream My method in the dispatch of the Cardinal was simple, first a whiff of chloroform to prevent struggle and then the injection.

My men were waiting and we transferred the body in the method Holmes described. Yes, I'll give him credit as to method and means. He forced Hogan to disclose himself. Hogan was one of my best agents. He met his death bravely. But Holmes achieved little else ... . We know the reason, my dear "Wolf s.h.i.+eld," don't we?

Well, now that Holmes has gone to his death over the Reichenbach Falls, I would imagine that you might think that there is little chance of the truth emerging? I have thought a great deal about that. Indeed, this is why I am writing this full account in the form of this letter to you. The original I shall deposit in a safe place. You see, I need some insurance to prevent any misfortune he falling me. As well you know, it would be scandalous should the real truth be known of who was behind the death of Cardinal Tosca and why it was done.

With that b.u.mptious irritant Sherlock Holmes out of the way, I hope to lead a healthy and long life Believe me- Sebastian Moran (Colonel) [Extra note attached by Watson.]

Having read this extraordinary doc.u.ment I questioned Holmes whether he had any doubts about its authenticity.

"Oh, there is no doubt that it is in Moran's hand and in his style of writing. You observe that I still have two of his books on my shelves? Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas and Three Months in the Jungle."

I remembered that Holmes had purchased these volumes soon after the affair of "The Empty House"

"Moran was many things, but he was no coward. He might even have been a patriot in a peculiar and perverted way. His family came from Conamara and had become Anglicans after the Williamite Conquest of Ireland. His father was, in fact, Sir Augustus Moran, Commander of the Bath, once Brutish Minister to Persia Young Moran went through Eton, Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford. The family estate was at Derrynacleigh. All this you knew about him at the time of our encounter in the affair of The Empty House.' I do not mean to imply that he was without faults when I said Moran was no coward and a type of patriot. He had a criminal mind. He was a rather impecunious young man, given to gambling, womanizing, petty crime, and the good life.

"He bought himself a commission in the Indian Army and served in the 1st Bengalore Pioneers He fought in several campaigns and was mentioned in dispatches. He spent most of his army career in India and I understand that he had quite a reputation as a big-game hunter. I recall that there was a Bengal tiger mounted in the hall of the Kildare Street Club, before he was expelled from it, which he killed. The story was that he crawled down a drain after it when he had wounded it. That takes iron nerve."

I shook my head in bewilderment.

"You call him a patriot? Do you mean he was working for the Irish Republicans?"

Holmes smiled.

"He was a patriot. I said that Moran had criminal tendencies but was no coward Unfortunately the talents of such people are often used by the State to further their own ends. You have observed that Moran admits that Inspector Gallagher kept him informed of our every move in the case. Unfortunately Gallagher was killed in the course of duty not long after these events, so we are not able to get confirmation from him. I think we may believe Moran, though. So why was Moran kept Informed? Colonel Moran was working for the Secret Service."

I was aghast.

"You don't mean to say that he worked for our own Secret Service? Good Lord, Holmes, this is amazing. Do you mean that our own Secret Service ordered the Cardinal to be killed? That's preposterous. Immoral Our government would not stand for it."

"If indeed, the government knew anything about it. Unfortunately, when you have a Secret Service then it becomes answerable to no one. I believe that even behind the Secret Service there was another organization with which Moran became involved."

"I don't follow, Holmes."

"I believe that Moran and those who ordered him to do this thing were members of some an extreme Orange faction."

"Orange faction? I don't understand." I threw up my hands in mystification.

"The Orange Order was formed in 1796 to maintain the position of the Anglican Ascendancy in Ireland and prevent the union of the Dublin colonial parliament with the parliament of Great Britain. However, the Union took place in 1801 and the Orange Order then lost sup port Its patrons, including Royal Dukes and t.i.tled landowners, quickly accepted the new status quo being either paid off with new t.i.ttles or financial bribes The remaining aristocratic support was withdrawn when the Order was involved in a conspiracy to prevent Victoria inheriting the throne and attempting to place its Imperial Grand Master, His Royal Highness, the Duke of c.u.mberland, on the throne instead. The failure of the coup, Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation 1829, the removal of many of the restrictions placed on members of that religion, as well as the Reform Acts, extending more civil rights to people, all but caused the Orange Order to disappear.

"Those struggling to keep the sectarian movement alive realized it needed to be a more broad-based movement and it opened its members.h.i.+p to all Dissenting Protestants, so that soon its ranks were flooded by Ulster Presbyterians who had previously been excluded from it. Threatened by the idea that in a self-governing Ireland the majority would be Catholic, these Dissenters became more bigoted and extreme.

"The attempt to destroy the Irish Party seeking Home Rule, which is now supported by the Liberals, was addressed by diehard Unionists in the Tory Party like Lord Randolph Churchill, who advised the party to play the Orange Card.' The support of Churchill and the Tories made the Orange Order respectable again and Ascendancy aristocrats and leading Tories, who had previously disa.s.sociated themselves from the Order, now felt able to rejoin it. The Earl of Enniskillen was installed as Grand Master of the Order two years before these events and, with the aid of the Tories, continued to dedicate the Order to the Union and Protestant supremacy."

"But why would they plan this elaborate charade?" I asked.

"remember what had happened in that November of 1890? The rift in the Irish Party was healing and Parnell had been reelected its leader. Once more they were going to present a united front in Parliament and Lord Salisbury was faced with going to the country soon. Something needed to be done to discredit the moderates within Salisbury's Cabinet to bring them back 'on side' with the Unionists against any plans to give Ireland home rule to help them remain in power."

"But to kill a Cardinal ..."

" ... having enticed him from Paris to this country thinking he was going to meet with members of the Irish Nationalists," interposed Holmes " ... to deliberately kill a Cardinal to cause such alarms and ... why, Holmes, it is diabolical."

"Unfortunately, my dear Watson, this becomes the nature of governments who maintain secret organizations that are not accountable to anyone. I was tried and found wanting, Watson. This case was my biggest singular failure."

"Oh come, Holmes, you could not have known ..."

Holmes gave me a pitying look.

"You must take Moran's gibes and Insults from whence they came. You could do no more," I a.s.sured him.

He looked at me with steely eyes.

"Oh yes I could. I told you about how important it is to pay attention to detail. From the start I committed the most inexcusable inattention to detail. Had I been more vigilant, I could have laid this crime at the right door. It is there in Moran's text, a fact made known to me right from the start and which I ignored."

I pondered over the text but could find no enlightenment.

"The visitor's cards, Watson. The mistake over the visitor's cards presented by the mysterious caller to the Cardinal."

"Mistake? Oh, you mean the name being T. W. Tone, the name of someone long dead? I didn't realize that it was a false name."

"The name was merely to confirm the notion that we were supposed to be dealing with Irish Republicans No, it was not that. It was the harp device, which was also meant to lead us into thinking that it was presented by an Irish nationalist, being the Irish national symbol. The fact was that the harp was surmounted by a crown-that is the symbol of our colonial administration in Ireland. No nationalist could bear the sight of a crown above the harp. I should have realized it."

Holmes sat shaking his head for a while and then he continued.

"Place the case of Cardinal Tosca in your trunk, Watson. I don't want to hear about it ever again."

Even then I hesitated.

"Granted that Moran worked for some superior-have you, in retrospect, come to any conclusion as to who Moran's superior was? Who was the man who gave him the order and to whom he was writing his letter?"

Holmes was very serious as he glanced back at me.

"Yes, I know who he was He died in the same year that Moran was arrested for the murder of Lord Maynooth's son. You recall that Moran died in police custody after his arrest? It was supposed to be a suicide. I realized that should have been questioned. But then I heard of the death of ..." He paused and sighed. "Moran's superior was a brilliant politician but a ruthless one. He, more than most, reawakened the Orange hatreds against the Catholic Irish in order to maintain the Union."

"He was a member of the government?" I cried, aghast.

"He had been until just prior to this event but he was still influential."

"And this code name 'Wolf s.h.i.+eld'? You were able to tell who it was by that?"

"That part was simple. The name, sounding so Anglo-Saxon, I simply translated "Wolf s.h.i.+eld" back into Anglo-Saxon and the man's name became immediately recognizable. But let him now rest where his prejudices cannot lacerate his judgment any more."

In deference to my old friend's wishes, I have kept these papers safely, appending this brief note of how they fell into my hands. It was Holmes, with his biting sense of humor, who suggested I file it as "A Study in Orange," being his way of gentle rebuke for what he deemed as my melodramatic t.i.tle of the first case of his with which I was involved. With this note, I have placed Moran's ma.n.u.script into my traveling box, which is now deposited in my bank at Charing Cross. I have agreed with Holmes's instructions that my executors should not open it until at least fifty years have pa.s.sed from the dates of our demise.

The one thing that I have not placed here is the name of Moran's superior, but that which anyone with knowledge of Anglo-Saxon personal names could reveal.

THE SECOND MRS. WATSON.