Authors: Dan Simmons
Sherlock Holmes:
Only four of the guilty men were hanged, sir . . . Engel, Spies, Parsons, and Fischer. Lingg, the bomb-maker, took his own life by biting into a blasting cap that he’d hidden in his cell. It blew his face off. Yet it still took him some hours to die.
Former Metropolitan Police Major and Superintendent Brock:
Yet Governor Altgeld and many, many other people are saying now, seven years later, that these men were heroes of the working class.
Sherlock Holmes:
These eight men were murderers and conspirators to murder. I proved this to the satisfaction of the Chicago police and to the courts. Not the least by breaking their code in the anarchist paper the
Arbeiter-Zeitung
. . . a code which coordinated the making of the bombs, the arming of the anarchists, and their ambush of the police that May Day at Haymarket Square.
Secret Service Chief Drummond:
But no one ever caught the man who was said to have actually thrown the bomb . . . Schnaubelt.
Sherlock Holmes:
Rudolph Schnaubelt.
Secret Service Chief Drummond:
Yes. Schnaubelt just disappeared. Vanished. Probably forever.
Sherlock Holmes:
Not forever, Chief Drummond. I found Rudolph Schnaubelt in France five years ago this May.
(The room again fills with gabble until Vice-President Stevenson raises his hand. When silence descends, the vice-president opens his palm to the Major and Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Force.)
Metropolitan Police Major and Superintendent Moore:
I heard nothing about Schnaubelt’s apprehension.
Sherlock Holmes:
I am afraid that Mr. Schnaubelt died before he could be taken into proper custody. He threw himself through a glass window and drowned in the fast-running Swiss river below. But not before he admitted to—boasted of, I should say—his part in the conspiracy
and
his act of throwing the bomb at the police from the Chicago alley opening onto Haymarket Square on May fourth, eighteen eighty-six.
Former Metropolitan Police Major and Superintendent Brock:
So, Mr. Holmes, we have only your word of Rudolph Schnaubelt’s . . . confession.
Sherlock Holmes:
My word and the word of two rather extraordinary law-enforcement officers who were with me when Schnaubelt made his boasts and then tried to escape.
Secret Service Chief Drummond:
Can you tell us the names of these men, Mr. Holmes?
Sherlock Holmes:
Certainly. The first fellow detective present was Inspector Lépine of whom I spoke earlier, and the second police officer there to hear Schnaubelt’s confession—and to help us pull his dead body from the river—was a young and very promising new member of the Brussels police force, an inspector junior-grade by the name of Hercule Poirot. But enough of old cases. What are you gentlemen going to do in the next four weeks—or less—to save the life of President Grover Cleveland?
* * *
Holmes stepped out of the circle and set his back against a bookcase filled with steamboat boiler regulations and specifications.
Vice-President Stevenson stepped forward and faced the other men in the room. “The president,” said Stevenson, “has directed that this group—and anyone else we might find it necessary to invite—meet biweekly on this problem of executive protection. I believe Sunday mornings, ten until noon, shall suffice.”
“Sundays!” cried Brock. “Now I am to give up my Sundays and attending divine services with my family because of this . . . shadow of a phantasm of a threat? Besides, I no longer have any official capacity in law enforcement. There is no reason for me to be here.”
“The president wished you to be part of this first assembly,” Vice-President Stevenson said softly.
“For what possible reason?” demanded the haggard former major and superintendent of police.
“Your Bureau of Detectives was deeply corrupt when you resigned,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You left, many of them remained and are in positions of higher authority today. Detectives on the payroll of the gangs or anarchists could be fatal to our plans. Your expertise in that area is required. In other words, sir, the President of the United States has commanded you to be what I believe American criminals call . . . a rat.”
Brock made blustering noises but had nothing discernible to say.
“Fine, let us move on,” said Stevenson, as if some minor motion had been passed in the Senate. “Major and Superintendent Moore, please explain to us your department’s role in protecting the president.”
The major and superintendent cleared his throat. “The Metropolitan Police provide security for the president when he makes public appearances in Washington City.”
“Do your officers accompany the president to and from these public venues?” asked Stevenson.
“No, Mr. Vice-President.”
The pale, round face with its faded mustache looked around the room. “Who does travel in the city with the president?”
Silence.
“Who protects the president when he is in the Executive Mansion?” asked Stevenson.
“The White House Police,” said Major and Superintendent Moore.
“Is that a unit under your jurisdiction, Major and Superintendent Moore?”
“Not directly, Mr. Vice-President.” Moore again cleared his throat. “We train the recruits and send them to that unit, but the White House Police Force has its own autonomy.”
“Who is in charge of the White House Police Force?” asked Stevenson.
“Sergeant O’Neil, sir,” answered Major and Superintendent Moore.
“
Sergeant
O’Neil?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many police officers are under your supervision in the entire Metropolitan Police Department, Major and Superintendent Moore?”
“Two hundred, Mr. Vice-President.”
“Not counting the White House Police.”
“No, sir.”
“And how many officers are assigned to the White House Police?”
“There were three until this spring, Mr. Vice-President,” said Major and Superintendent Moore. “But the number and intensity of the death threats that President Cleveland has been receiving has caused that unit to raise its numbers to twenty-seven.”
“Working on three shifts around the clock, one presumes.”
“More or less, Mr. Vice-President.”
“So at any given time, the president has about nine rookie police officers guarding his life.”
“Yes, sir,” said Moore, who was beginning to sound aggrieved. “But that is by far the most any American president has had guarding him, with the exception of President Lincoln who sometimes had an escort of federal cavalry or infantry billeted on the White House grounds.”
“But not that night at Ford’s Theatre,” said Vice-President Stevenson.
“No, sir,” said Moore. “The soldier usually assigned to sit outside the president’s booth at the theater was not present that evening.”
“When President Cleveland goes to Chicago on May first to open the Columbian World Exposition in front of a crowd of a hundred thousand or more people, how many of your Metropolitan Police or the White House Police . . . or the army, for that matter . . . will accompany the president?” asked Stevenson.
There was silence as the men looked at one another.
Finally Major and Superintendent Moore said, “None, Mr. Vice-President. When the chief executive travels to other cities, his protection is the responsibility of the police force of that city.”
Stevenson looked at Major and Superintendent Moore for a long, strangely tense moment. Stevenson’s gaze remained as soft as his voice, but there was some electrical charge in the air. The vice-president turned his gaze toward the tall Secret Service Chief.
“Mr. Drummond,” said Stevenson, “I understand that your department has had some experience in recent months in guarding the president.”
“A small amount, sir,” said Drummond. “We have well-trained and -armed agents, as you know, and from time to time in the past few weeks, the White House Police have asked us to provide some additional protection for President Cleveland.”
“At the White House or when he leaves it?” asked the vice-president.
“When he leaves it to speak or make any public appearance, sir,” said Drummond.
“That is the role of the Metropolitan Police Department,
sir
,” snapped Major and Superintendent Moore. It was obvious that this was the first the major and superintendent was hearing about the Secret Service poaching on the Police Department’s prerogatives.
Drummond nodded. “Yes, Major and Superintendent, we know. But during events such as the president’s address to the large crowds at City Park last Christmas, your department had only three uniformed officers there to guard the president. At the request of the White House Police—presumably because of specific threats received—we sent six of our armed agents in plain clothes.”
“Unnecessary,” snapped Major and Superintendent Moore.
Ignoring the Metropolitan Police Major and Superintendent, Vice-President Stevenson said, “Chief Drummond, has not the Secret Service Department of the Treasury also experimented in accompanying the president during his travels in the city?”
“Oh, yes!” cried former Major and Superintendent Brock, braying a laugh. “Six men in a carriage rumbling after the president’s coach, trying to keep up, getting lost on K Street! What a farce that was! The entire population of Washington, D.C., was amused by the folly.”
Drummond bowed his head. “Agents following the president’s carriage in a separate coach has not proved effective, Mr. Vice-President. And President Cleveland and his advisors understandably do not want agents in the presidential coach with them.”
Vice-President Stevenson folded his arms. “Chief Drummond, if Congress were to assign full-time protective duties to the Secret Service—full-time both here in Washington and wherever and whenever the president travels—how long would it be before your agency could assume those duties?”
Drummond blinked. “We would have to hire and train more agents, Mr. Vice-President. Currently we simply do not have enough for full-time protection duties for the president even here in Washington. And these agents would have to be trained . . . bodyguard duties require special skills beyond the usual police officer’s purview.”
“Nonsense,” said Moore.
Drummond turned his cold gaze onto the major and superintendent. “Are Metropolitan Police officers trained to throw themselves in front of the person they are assigned to protect?” he asked in a low, firm voice. “To take the bullet meant for that official?”
“Of course not,” barked Moore. “The very idea is absurd. Police seize the suspect or foil the aim of the would-be assassin before any shot can be fired. They’re not trained in suicide.”
“Effective executive protection agents from the Secret Service will have to be trained in exactly such tactics,” Drummond said flatly. “Stop the assassin if possible. Take the assassin’s bullet in protection of the president if necessary.”
Moore turned away to look out the window.
“How long, Mr. Drummond?” repeated the vice-president.
“By the beginning of the new year, Mr. Vice-President, for full, round-the-clock, traveling anywhere with the president, executive protection. We shall have to open new bureaus in various American cities. Train some agents in the full panoply of advance security work.”
Stevenson nodded almost sadly, as if he had expected that date. “But you can provide some ad hoc protection in the meantime? When called upon?”
“Yes, sir,” said Drummond.
“Arrange to have at least eight of your agents travel with President Cleveland to Chicago in May,” said the vice-president.
“Yes, sir.”
“If I may make a suggestion, gentlemen,” said Sherlock Holmes.
Everyone looked at the consulting detective, who was taking his ease sitting on one corner of the empty desk.
“I would suggest, Chief Drummond, that when you choose those agents who will most closely accompany the president, that they be chosen in part for their height and thickness of torso.”
“The public won’t be able to see the president!” cried former Major and Superintendent Brock.
“That is precisely the idea,” said Holmes. “It is a shame, however, that this tall phalanx of bodyguards cannot surround the president when he is greeting dignitaries or speaking to the crowds. Still, the closer they can press, the safer the president will be.”
Drummond nodded and made a note. “We have such large and tall men amongst our best agents,” he said softly. “I shall see that they shall be closest to the president when he is walking somewhere or standing alone.”
“Preposterous,” said former Major and Superintendent Brock.
Ignoring Brock and nodding slightly to Holmes, Vice-President Adlai E. Stevenson said, “And so we shall continue having meetings here on Sunday, gentlemen, until the details of this transfer of executive protection responsibilities are worked out.” Again he glanced at Holmes and then at Brock and Washington’s current police Major and Superintendent, Moore. “Although not everyone here today may be required in all future meetings.”
“What shall we call this committee, sir?” asked Rockhill from the State Department.
Stevenson smiled slightly. “Since it is the Office of Steamboat Inspection Department’s Supervising Inspector General Dismont, I suggest we refer to our little group as the Steamboat Inspection Committee. Any objections?”
No one spoke.
Before the men began moving toward the doorway, Vice-President Stevenson said, “A final question, gentlemen. Who is in charge of liaison with the Chicago police for the president’s security at the Columbian Exposition on May first?”
The silence was embarrassing.
“I can do that, sir,” Drummond said at last.
“I shall as well,” said Major and Superintendent Moore. “I had always intended to send a telegram or two.”
Sherlock Holmes moved away from where he lounged against the bookcase. “I shall be going to Chicago next week to make arrangements,” he said while tugging his kid gloves tighter. “I would be pleased to work with Chief Drummond and his Secret Service on such liaison with the Chicago P.D.”