An Ensuing Evil and Others (32 page)

I was frowning, trying to make the connection. “An old adversary? Who could that be?”

Holmes rose abruptly and went to his little Chubb Safe, bent to it, and twiddled with the locking mechanism before extracting a wad of paper.

“This,” he said, turning to me and tapping the paper with the stem of his pipe, “was what I found in my adversary’s apartment when I went to search it after his death. It is a draft of a letter. Whether he sent it or not, I am not sure. Perhaps it does not matter. I believe that it was fortuitous that I found it before the police, who would doubtless have made it public or, worse, it might have fallen into other hands so that the truth might never have been known to me. It is a record of my shortcomings, Watson. I will allow you to see it but no other eyes will do so during my lifetime. You may place it in that bank box of yours with your other scribbling. Perhaps after some suitable time has passed following my death, it can be opened to public scrutiny. That I shall leave to posterity.”

I took the document from him and observed the spidery handwriting that filled its pages.

I regarded Holmes in bewilderment. “What is it?”

“It is the true story of how Cardinal Tosca came by his death. You have had the goodness to claim the case as one of my successes. This will show you how I was totally outwitted. The man responsible wrote it.”

My jaw dropped foolishly. “But I was with you at the time. You solved the case to the satisfaction of Scotland Yard. Who—?”

“Colonel Sebastian Moran, the man who I once told you was the second most dangerous man in London. He was my adversary, and I did not know it. Read it, Watson. Read it and learn how fallible I can be.”

The Conduit Street Club, London W1
May 21, 1891

My dear “Wolf Shield”:

So he is dead! The news is emblazoned on the newspaper billboards at every street corner. His friend, Watson, has apparently given an interview
to reporters in Meiringen, Switzerland, giving the bare details. Holmes and Moriarty have plunged to their deaths together over the Reichenbach Falls. Sherlock Holmes is dead, and in that news I can find no grief for Moriarty, who has dispatched him to the devil! Moriarty, at his age, was no street brawler and should have sent his hirelings to do the physical Work. So Moriarty’s untimely end was his own fault. But that he took that sanctimonious and egocentric meddler to his death is a joy to me.

Holmes was always an irritant to me. I remember our first clash in the Kildare Street Club in Dublin, back in ‘73. He was but a young student then, just gone up to Oxford. He and his brother, Mycroft, who, at the time, was an official at Dublin Castle, were lunching in the club. It chanced that Moriarty and I were also lunching there. It was some paltry misunderstanding over a ridiculous toilet case with that old idiot, the Duke of Cloncurry and Straff an, that Holmes’s meddling caused me to he thrown out of the Club and banned from membership
.

It was not the last time that little pipsqueak irritated me and thwarted my plans. But there is one case where he was not successful in his dealings with me. Now my own ego must lay claim to having got the better of that Dublin jackeen. I proved the better man but, alas, he went to his death without knowing it. I would have given anything that he had plunged to his death knowing that Sebastian Moran of Derrynacleigh had outwitted him while he claimed to be the greatest detective in Europe! But, my dear “Wolf Shield,” let me tell you the full story, although I appreciate that you know the greater part of it. You are the only one that I can tell it to for, of course, you were ultimately responsible for the outcome
.

In November of i8go His Eminence Cardinal Giacomo Tosca, nuncio of Pope Leo XIII, was found dead in bed in the home of a certain member of the British Cabinet in Gay fere Street not far from the Palace of Westminster. The facts, as you doubtless recall, created a furor. You will remember that Lord Salisbury headed a Conservative government that was not well disposed to papal connections at the time. The main reason was the government’s stand against Irish Home Rule summed up in their slogan —“Home Rule is Rome Rule.” That very month Parnell had been reelected leader of the Irish Party in spite of attempts to discredit him
.

The Irish Party controlled four-fifths of all Irish parliamentary seats in Westminster. They were considered a formidable opposition
.

A doctor named Thomson, called in to examine the body of the papal nuncio, caused further speculation by refusing to sign a death certificate, as he told the police that the circumstances of the death were indistinct and suspicious. The doctor was supported in this attitude by the local coroner
.

The alarums that followed this announcement were extraordinary. The popular press demanded to know whether this meant the papal nuncio was murdered. More important, both Tory and Liberal newspapers were demanding a statement from government on whether the nuncio had been an intermediary in some political deal being negotiated with Ireland’s Catholics
.

What was Cardinal Tosca doing in the house of the Conservative government Minister Sir Gibson Glassford? More speculation was thrown on the fire of rumor and scandal when it was revealed that Glassford was a cousin, albeit distant, of the Earl of Zetland, the Viceroy in Dublin. Moreover, Glassford was known to represent the moderate wing of the Tories and not unsympathetic to the cause of Irish Home Rule
.

Was there some Tory plot to give the Irish self-government in spite of all their assurances of support for the Unionists? All the Tory leaders, Lord Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Lord Hartington, and Joseph Chamberlain among them, had sworn themselves to the Union and made many visits to Ireland declaring that Union would never be severed. Yet here was a cardinal found dead in the house of a Tory minister known to have connections with Ireland. It came as a tremendous shock to the political world
.

Catholic bishops in England denied any knowledge of Cardinal Tosca being in the country. The Vatican responded by telegraph also denying that they knew that Cardinal Tosca was in England. Such denials merely fueled more speculation of clandestine negotiations
.

As for Sir Gibson Glassford himself—what had he to say to all this? Well this was the truly amusing and bizarre part of the story
.

Glassford denied all knowledge of the presence of Cardinal Tosca in his house. Not only the press but also the police found this hard to believe
.

In fact, the Liberal press greeted the minister’s statement with derision, and editorials claimed that the government was covering up some dark secret. There were calls for Glassford to resign immediately. Lord Salisbury began to distance himself from his junior minister
.

Glassford stated that he and his household had retired to bed at their usual hour in the evening. The household consisted of Glassford himself, his wife, two young children, a nanny, a butler called Hogan, a cook, and two housemaids. They all swore that there had been no guests staying in the house that night and certainly not His Eminence
.

In the morning, one of the housemaids, descending from her room in the attic, noticed the door of the guest’s room ajar and the glow of a lamp still burning. An attention to her duties prompted her to enter to extinguish the light, and then she saw Cardinal Tosca. His clothes were neatly folded at the foot of the bed, his boots placed carefully under the dressing table chair. He lay in the bed clad in his nightshirt. His face was pale and his eyes wide open
.

The maid was about to apologize and leave the room, thinking this was a guest whose late arrival was unknown to her, when she perceived the unnatural stillness of the body and the glazed stare of the eyes. She turned from the room and raised the butler, Hogan, who, ascertaining the man was dead, informed his master, after which the police were called
.

It was not long before the clothing and a pocketbook led to the identification of His Eminence
.

The household was questioned strenuously, but no one admitted ever seeing Cardinal Tosca on the previous night or on any other night; no one had admitted him into the house. Glassford was adamant that he and his wife had never met the cardinal, or even heard of him, let alone extended an invitation to him to be entertained as a guest in their house
.

Inquiries into the Catholic community in London discovered that Cardinal Tosca had arrived in the city incognito two days before and was staying with Father Michael, one of the priests at St. Patrick’s Church in Soho Square. This was the first public Catholic Church to be opened in England since the Reformation. It had been consecrated in
1792.
But Father Michael maintained that he did not know the purpose of Cardinal Tosca’s visit. The Cardinal had simply told him that he had arrived from Paris by the boat train at Victoria and intended to spend two days in important meetings. He exhorted Father Michael not to mention his presence to anyone, not even to his own bishop
.

Now, and this was the point that troubled the police the most, according to Father Michael, the cardinal had retired to his room in the presbytery, that is the priest’s house, in Sutton Street, Soho, at ten o’clock in the evening. Father Michael had looked in on His Eminence because the cardinal had left his missal in the library and the priest thought he might like to have it before retiring. So he saw the cardinal in bed in his night attire and he was looking well and fit. At seven o’clock the next morning, Cardinal Tosca was found dead by the housemaid a mile and a half away in Sir Gibson Glassford’s house in Gayfere Street, Westminster
.

The press redoubled their calk for Glassford to resign, and the Liberal press started to call on Lord Salisbury’s entire government to offer their resignation. Riots had burst out in Belfast instigated by Unionists, and various factions of the Orange Order, the sectarian Unionist movement, were on the march, and the thundering of their intimidating lambeg drums was resounding through the streets of the Catholic ghettoes
.

The police confessed that they had no clue at all. They did, however, treat the butler, poor Hogan, to a very vigorous scrutiny and interrogation, and it was discovered that he had some tenuous links to the Irish Party, having some cousin in membership of the party. Glassford, a man of principle, felt he should stand by his butler and so added to the fuel of speculation
.

The police admitted that they were unsure of how the cardinal came by his death, let alone why, and were unable to charge anyone with having a hand in it
.

Because of the suspicion of an Irish connection, which was mere prejudice on the part of the authorities due to the Catholic connection, the case was handed over to the Special Irish Branch, which is now more popularly referred to as the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. The Police Commissioner James Monro had formed this ten years before to fight the Irish Republican terrorism. The head of the Special Branch was Chief Inspector John G. Littlechild. And it was through the private reports of Detective Inspector Gallagher that I was able to observe, in some comfort, the events that now unfolded
.

It was some seven days after the revelation of Cardinal Tosca’s death that Chief Inspector Littlechild received a visit from Mycroft Holmes. This was a singular event, as Mycroft Holmes, being a senior government official in Whitehall, was not given to making calls on his juniors. With Mycroft Holmes came his insufferable younger brother, Sherlock. My friend Gallagher, who had the information as to what had transpired directly from Littlechild himself told me about this meeting. Littlechild had been handed an embossed envelope bearing a crest. No word was said. He opened it and found a letter entirely in Latin, a language of which he had no knowledge. It showed the arrogance of the Holmes Brothers that they did not offer a translation until the Chief Inspector made the request for one
.

It was a letter from none other than Gioacchino Pecci, who for thirteen years had sat on the papal throne in Rome as Leo XIII. The letter requested that the police allow Sherlock Holmes to investigate the circumstances of the death of the papal nuncio and provide whatever support was required. Mycroft Holmes added that the prime minister had himself sanctioned the request, presenting a note from Lord Salisbury to that effect
.

I was told that Littlechild had an intense dislike of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had not endeared himself to Littlechild, because he had often insulted some of Scotland Yard’s best men—Inspector Lestrade, for example. Inspector Tobias Gregson and Inspector Stanley Hopkins had also been held up to public ridicule by Holmes’s caustic tongue. But what could Littlechild do in such circumstances but accept Holmes’s involvement with as good a grace as he could muster?

Holmes and his insufferable and bumbling companion, Watson, were to have carte blanche to question Sir Gibson Glassford’s household and make any other inquiries he liked. Littlechild had thankfully made one condition, which was to come in handy for me. Detective Inspector Gallagher was to accompany Holmes at all times so that the matter would remain an official Scotland Yard inquiry. Thus it was that I was kept in touch with everything that the so-called Great Detective was doing while he was entirely unaware of my part in the game
.

This is the part of the story that my friend Gallagher narrated to me
.

The first thing that Holmes informed Gallagher of was that he had telegraphed Cardinal Tosca’s secretary in Paris. The secretary confirmed that Cardinal Tosca had caught the boat train to London, promising to return within forty-eight hours. The journey had been prompted by the arrival of a stranger at Cardinal Tosca’s residence in Paris late one night. The secretary had the impression that the visitor was an American by the way he spoke English with an accent. When asked his business, the man presented a small pasteboard that had a name and a symbol on it. The secretary could not remember the name but was sure that the device was harp-shaped. The man spent a few minutes with the cardinal, and the next morning the cardinal caught the boat train. Moreover, the cardinal insisted on traveling alone, which was highly unusual
.