The Italian Secretary Read online

  ‘This seems an unnecessarily melancholy consideration, Holmes,’ I said, pulling my friend onward. ‘Especially in so far as Miss Mackenzie is concerned. For, if we are looking about for new hands to implicate in this bloodshed, we need not concern ourselves with affairs of state, but can look at once to the brother, this Robert, who the girl seemed to have felt was so much her protector.’

  ‘And he may have been, Watson,’ Holmes replied, his voice quickening with his steps, ‘to the extent that her protection did not conflict with the goals of their criminal consortium. There are those who delight in deceiving and destroying young women – Baron Gruner was one of the worst, of our common acquaintance – and then there are those criminals who only destroy reluctantly, to preserve the safety and integrity of their operations – but who destroy, nonetheless. And, in my heart, I confess to an even deeper loathing, in certain ways, for the second type. Let us by all means try to understand the criminal mind, Watson – but let us end these attempts to rationalise criminal behaviour, whether that behaviour be manifested by high statesmen or by low confidence tricksters, who make women their pawns! Let us have no more solicitors and barristers who come before judges and declare, “M’lud, I do acknowledge that my client despoiled and later strangled Miss So-and-so, but I ask you to consider that he showed her great tenderness until that day, and that he only murdered her, with great reluctance, because she threatened his livelihood.” For what is all that supposed tenderness, save a trap – a reason for the poor female to believe she may trust that the man in question will honour her interests, come what may, when he knows full well the limits of his honour. No, Watson! I say, let justice fall equally hard on both of these brothers, if both be implicated – and on any of their other confederates, even if they be nobly born!’

  ‘My dear Holmes,’ I said impatiently (for the true meaning of his last words was as yet unsuspected by me), ‘your interest in arguing such matters, when you know perfectly well that I have no argument with you, remains one of the great mysteries of our acquaintance. I made my remark simply out of concern for Miss Mackenzie, who will doubtless be further crushed when she discovers not only that the man to whom she entrusted her heart is a vicious miscreant, but that his brother, who, at least, she felt safe in thinking a friend, is ultimately no better.’

  ‘Oh. That.’ Holmes passed a hand impatiently through the air. ‘That cannot be helped,’ he pronounced simply, once again displaying how brutally shallow his understanding of the feminine mind could sometimes be – save for the most devious feminine minds, of course. ‘Ah! And here we are,’ he continued in the same tone, upon spying the pub: as if the little that had been left of a perfectly decent young woman’s happiness and faith in humanity had not been disposed of in the most short-handed manner.

  The Fife and Drum was a cramped, ancient den, carved, literally, into the stone of Castle Rock, and facing onto one of the maze of very small streets that ran up the promontory’s face at several points. The place thus appeared not so much separate from as a part of the great, prehistoric mountain of stone: Its walls were composed of the bared insides of the Rock, and the leaded panes that interrupted the walls in only a few spots had sagged with age, whilst simultaneously growing clouded by years of grease and nicotine-staining, so much so that they no longer merited the title of windows. The thick door, planks held together with iron banding, gave way to my push with a loud squeal that made any additional bell quite unnecessary; and having been thus announced, we entered, making no plan for what we should do if we were faced with hostility from the moment of that entrance.

  Fortunately, the scene that we discovered inside was not unlike many of the better garrison bar-rooms I had frequented in my life. If the appointments were as squalid and poorly maintained as the exterior of the place, the loud laughter of honest soldiers glad of a few hours’ break from boredom and drill more than made up for the lack, and gave the middling-sized, low-ceilinged room a cheery air. I had and have seen my share of ugly occurrences in such places, of course, for there are more than a few bottled passions that soldiers seek to uncork when the pressure of army life becomes too great; but far more often one will find that the opportunity to enjoy unfettered joviality with comrades and a few female companions produces a wholesome effect, first upon the men and then, in turn, upon their visitors.

  If such a welcome was not immediate upon our entrance, it did not seem to me that it would be difficult to prompt. Quickly scanning the sea of faces before me, I recognised only one pair of male patrons – in the corner to the right of us, hard by a stone fireplace and amid a sea of uniforms – whose irregular appearance revealed them as being not in active service: clearly our men. Both were approximately thirty years of age, handsome and so similar in appearance that they could have been nothing but brothers. They were of that dark-haired and rather romantic type that one sometimes finds in the North, as well as Scotland: the type upon whom female novelists have spent more words, perhaps, than sober appreciation would warrant.

  The first of the two, whom I took to be Robert, was a respectable enough specimen, with a good-natured face and an expression in his brown eyes that I could well imagine inspiring trust, especially in a lonely and rather frightened young woman. Had he been standing, I should have thought him to be just better than six feet in height: Holmes had long ago acquainted me with the fundamentals of the esoteric science known as anthropometry, the method of identifying persons by their body type and parts; and a facet of that science (one of the few aspects I had actually remembered, if the truth be known) was the proportional method of taking a man’s measure whilst he was sitting down. This first fellow also bore the rugged stamp of an experienced ghillie, which was perhaps the clearest indication of his identity. The other of the two, meanwhile, was clearly the rogue we had come to engage.

  He seemed to have all of his brother’s physical power; but where his brother’s aspect was amiable, Will Sadler’s every feature might have been hewn, like the pub itself, out of the very rock that surrounded the place. Set against all that darkness and angular strength, however, was a pair of sparkling blue eyes that would have fitted as well in a woman’s face as a man’s, and which doubtless had the power to lower the defences of even the most sceptical among the fair sex. It was a phenomenon I had seen many times, this ability of certain unprincipled men to use some seeming softness about their features – usually, as in this case, the eyes – to disarm women, and I had always despised it; but when I thought of that girl back at the palace, who had been seduced by those eyes and then abandoned by the man who possessed them, my dislike evolved into – well, I can only say that those muscle groups with which one generally inflicts a sound thrashing must have grown involuntarily tense, for Holmes put a hand to my arm, urging me away from the corner in question and towards the bar on our left.

  ‘Steady, Watson,’ he said. ‘We are here to bait the trap, not to spring it. Let us take rather another tack.’

  ‘You have another in mind?’ said I, angrily.

  ‘You possess the military experience,’ said he. ‘Is there not some way of establishing a quick rapport?’

  I gave the matter just a few seconds’ thought. ‘Indeed there is.’ Gaining control of my rage, I asked, ‘Would you suppose that any of these men, or either of our adversaries, knows your face?’

  ‘I cannot think how they would.’

  ‘Good. You know enough of the Afghan campaigns from my reports of them to impersonate a veteran officer – and so, follow where I lead …’

  The barman, a good-natured fellow with a kindly grin and arms like the pistons of a large steam press, approached us.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ he called over the din. ‘What can the Fife and Drum offer you?’

  ‘Whatever whisky you judge your best, sir,’ I replied, my bellicose mood displaced by enforced joviality. I turned to my right and added, in a loud voice, ‘And a large measure of the same for any man who has seen the North-West Frontier – two for any who h
ave, like my comrade and myself, felt the sting of Jezail bullets!’

  As most of the faces in the room were young, I did not expect a mob-like response to my offer – nor did I desire one. Half a dozen career non-commissioned officers, all somewhere between forty and fifty years of age, rose with great enthusiasm and headed towards Holmes and myself, hands already extended. We exchanged unit names and years of service: Holmes became ‘Captain Walker’ of my own regiment (whose thin stature, so at variance with the other men in the room, I explained by saying that he had been afflicted with chronic malaria while in the Sudan – knowing that Holmes could at least provide a first-hand account of that region, if pressed), while I myself assumed the role of ‘Major Murray,’ using the name of my old orderly and keeping to one of my old regiments, the Northumberland Fusiliers, but cautiously failing to include the fact that I had been a surgeon with it – ‘surgeon’ being a word that can produce an even more mixed effect on a group of soldiers than it tends to do on civilians. Our elite little gathering, after another round of whisky, drew some younger hangers-on, those who had never seen action and longed to hear tales of it; and it was nigh on closing time before anyone thought to ask what we were doing in Edinburgh, as well as in the Fife and Drum.

  ‘Well, sir,’ I said to the leather-skinned colour sergeant who had asked. ‘We came to see the sights, in this fine city, and diligently completed our mission – or thought we had done so. But this afternoon, I was speaking with my friend Walker, here, in the hotel bar of the Roxburghe’ (I deliberately cited one of the city’s oldest and most elegant hotels, on Charlotte Square) ‘or rather, truth to say, I was wearying him with another lecture concerning my lifelong fascination with matters of the world beyond, when the bar steward quietly slid this beneath my nose …’ From my pocket I pulled Holmes’s little pamphlet, which I had never returned to him. ‘The fellow informed me that if I wished to know more, this was where I should come. And so, here we are – although I confess, had we known that such good company was to be had, we should have come long before this, “secret tour” or no!’

  It was a calculated gamble, one that I must admit I enjoyed embarking on without Holmes’s advice or consent. I had speculated that Robert and William Sadler must have been highly discriminating as to their clientele, which was almost certainly made up of wealthy visitors to the city (over-exposure among the citizenry seeming a quick road to ruin). Such visitors would usually be found in Edinburgh’s better hotels; and among the employees of such establishments, no one was more capable of judging a given guest’s capacity for discretion concerning illicit activities than were bar stewards. At least some of these men were likely supplying the Sadlers with appropriately wealthy and tight-lipped customers, in return for a share of their proceeds; and, unless I was very wide of the mark, among this group of secondary players in the elaborate fraud that we had uncovered at the palace was a jovial but rather rakish fellow at the Roxburghe, a barman whose acquaintance I had made almost a year earlier, when I had made a brief trip to Edinburgh to attend a series of lectures at the medical college. The man had at that time made it clear that whatever entertainment one might be looking for, he could arrange it, a claim that I had been given good reason to respect. But as to the assumption that he was involved in the Sadlers’ ambitious and dangerous doings – there, my thinking could have been disastrously wrong, and when my little performance was over, a sense of apprehension seized me for an instant. The instant, however, was brief: So effective had my efforts at ingratiation been, and so apparently correct my assumptions, that the crowd about us only roared with laughter and sent up a rousing cheer. The old colour sergeant turned to face the corner behind us, and set the game fully in motion by bellowing:

  ‘’Ere! Rob – Will! Up you get, here’s more fellows as would like to fill your pockets!’

  The two young men that I had spotted upon entry rose from their seats quickly. ‘Likely Will’ bounded our way with a few quick steps of his long, powerful legs, while his brother followed at a far less enthusiastic pace: I had measured their heights correctly, but their apparent strength was both surprising and a bit disconcerting. The eagerness with which the lead brother moved, however, indicated first that the pair had formed no suspicions about us, and second that this pub was entirely safe territory for them – the latter a fact that bore those same implications about at least some of the other men in the establishment that I had earlier resisted, but which I was now forced to acknowledge as dishearteningly accurate. But, telling myself that the greater number of the soldiers present could not possibly have had any idea as to the full extent of what their civilian friends were about at Holyroodhouse, I pressed on. Holmes, meanwhile, remained for the most part a silent partner – and there was no little satisfaction for me in that fact, as well.

  The colour sergeant made introductions, and from the first, the brothers were so apparently charming as to more than justify their reputations: They evidently fell into that narrow category of men that are almost as ingratiating with their own sex as they are with women. But on further acquaintance, as the ghillie’s full involvement in the schemes at the palace became apparent, one could detect a rather forced air to his joviality. Was this a long shadow being cast by recent events at the palace? One rather hoped so, for Miss Mackenzie had not been wrong: Robert Sadler did seem a genuinely decent fellow, with the apparently solitary flaw of having allowed himself to be led into mischief by a more dynamic brother – hardly a unique failing, but one that, in this case, had proved fatal, for Likely Will Sadler’s dynamism tended towards ruthlessness, his mischief towards murder. But, I told myself, we must not allow congeniality, sympathy, or any other factor to mitigate the severity with which we held the pair responsible for such outrages as we had seen: If these were indeed our men, then in the few but vital moments that we would spend in the pub, it was imperative that we attend to business, first, by ensuring that we not stray an inch from the roles we had created for ourselves, and, second, by establishing enough camaraderie with the men to allow Holmes’s overall plan (whatever it might be) to come to maturity.

  ‘I must tell you right away,’ I announced to the pair, after they had explained how it was that they were connected to the palace, ‘that the ancient crime at Holyroodhouse has always fascinated me – is that not so, Walker?’ Before Holmes could do more than nod, I charged on: ‘Yes, many’s the night on patrol that I have tried poor Walker’s patience’ – and here I shot my old friend a meaningful glance – ‘telling and retelling every detail of the business. But I confess that I knew nothing about this legendary wraith of which your advertisement speaks, and certainly never dreamed of the possibility of seeing evidence of such a phenomenon!’

  ‘We’re just simple working men, sir, and of a mind to keep things quiet,’ said Likely Will Sadler, with a contrived self-effacement that, I was forced to admit, was effective. ‘Too many visitors, and sharing the secret of the palace would no’ be possible. But if we limit the business to those who – like yourselves – are gentlemen of genuine interest and education, we can hope to go on as we are, making this remarkable phenomenon’ – and there was a strange, an almost rehearsed quality about the way in which he said these last words – ‘known to others. As I’m certain you appreciate, my brother and myself are both loyal subjects of the realm, no one more so than Rob, here – the Queen loves him near as much as he is devoted to her. We’ve no wish to present her with any further difficulties. But – well, sir, the truth is, some things belong to all the people of a nation, is how we see it, and this is one of them.’

  ‘Aye – but, as Will says, gentlemen, never let our loyalty to the Queen be doubted.’ Robert Sadler’s urgent tone seemed to me to go beyond play-acting. ‘If sharing the secret were ever to pose a danger to her, or create an uproar such as has been caused of late by the murders of those two poor men – then we’d put a stop to what we’re doing. Aye – in an instant, we would.’

  ‘Well said, well said,’ I replied.
‘Another dram on that, for both of you. And then we will speak no more of it – for it’s a bad business, and I’ve been put in far too convivial a mood for such!’ General agreement to this assertion was voiced, many glasses met in a toast to it, and then I added, most offhandedly, ‘You did not know the unfortunate devils, I trust?’

  Again, a moment of apprehension – would they detect deeper purpose in the query? But our performances, it seemed, had been note-perfect, and neither of the brothers showed even a trace of uncertainty as they protested complete ignorance of almost all particulars of the crimes.

  ‘We’d see them, now and again, of course,’ said Will Sadler. ‘Rob more than myself.’

  ‘And a better pair of Scotsmen this country has never produced,’ Robert pronounced. ‘Sir Alistair was a true gentleman – all condescension and fellowship. And Denny McKay – well, you can do no better than to say that, for a Glasgow lad, he had nary a fault to him. A terrible business …’

  Holmes and I exchanged a quick look: Was this young man, in fact, the master deceiver of the family, rather than Likely Will? For his sorrow seemed utterly genuine.

  ‘And so we shall let it rest,’ said Holmes, perhaps wishing to stay to the business at hand. ‘We shall wish them peace and justice, and then return to our own affairs, as the living must.’

  In a gesture that I thought must, at last, be sure proof of their base infamy, both brothers nodded, raised their glasses, and declared, ‘Peace and justice!’ – as though either Sir Alistair or McKay would ever have needed either, had Fate only steered them clear of these two devils!

  Holmes quickly pressed on to the business of just when we could hope to be taken on our ghostly tour. Will Sadler asked whether the following night might suit us, and Holmes replied that we could easily return to the Roxburghe and arrange an additional night’s stay. Similarly, we could procure the stated and princely fee of fifty guineas at the hotel with little trouble. As to our rendezvous, however, Holmes said that he assumed the brothers did not like to conduct their business in the open glare of a hotel lobby, an assumption that proved sound: It was arranged that we should meet at eleven o’clock, near the gate in the park’s outer fence that was closest to the palace, and that we would proceed from there.