The Sherlockian

CHAPTER 23 The Suffragists

November 11,1900

Arthur fastened the top button of his S-bend corset. He sucked in his belly while he affixed the bottom straps to his garters. The trumpet skirt was loose and wrapped easily around his waist. But as he stood up and the folds of his skirt fell delicately over his white stockings, Arthur felt a sharp pain in his chest and back. The corset hurt already, digging into his rib cage and shoulder blades.

“Ow, Bram, is all this really necessary?” he complained. “My God, it is tremendously uncomfortable.” Bram looked up from the more modern, “liberty” bodice around his own belly. Arthur was quite a sight. Clumps of pectoral fat were pressed up by his corset, giving the appearance of a pair of succulent breasts. His skirt, loose in the current style, fit him rather well. The incongruity of Arthur’s bushy mustache made Bram laugh out loud, though once he had shaved it, put a wig on, and applied a little makeup… well, Bram didn’t think Arthur would look half bad.

“You’ll look the image of a proper lady, Arthur, don’t you worry.” Bram couldn’t help smiling as he said it. “Holmes was always putting on some fresh skirts to go undercover in his adventures, wasn’t he? Seems a good time for you to give it a try. I’ve borrowed some stage makeup from Henry’s dressing room, and some wigs from the ladies’. They will not mind, and Henry will not notice.” Bram pointed to a stained porcelain sink in the corner of the room. The two men dressed before great mirrors, which reflected gaslight from a dozen surrounding lamps. They had taken hold of an abandoned dressing room, deep in the belly of the Lyceum Theatre. None of the actors wanted to use it any longer, because it remained the only dressing room still lit by gas. Bram had been forced to pay for the installation of electric lights in Henry’s dressing room shortly after he’d paid for the installation of electric lights onstage. Henry felt that it was inconceivable that he dress by gaslight, if he were to perform by electric light. Shortly thereafter all of the other actors had lodged similar protests, and Bram had the new lights installed throughout the theater, save for this single, faraway dressing room.

“I don’t see why I can’t continue my investigations in a good pair of trousers,” said Arthur. The corset was making him irritable. Even the fastening loops which hung from the back scraped against his skin awkwardly. He would not have a moment’s peace in this awful contraption.

“What else would you have us do?” said Bram. “Attend tonight’s meeting of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in top hats and tails? I believe they’d notice you in particular, the famed author and celebrated antisuffragist Arthur Conan Doyle. They’d eject us before we’d even made it to our seats. And if we dressed as other, less famous men, we’d still attract rather more attention than we need as a pair of gentlemen at a suffragist rally. If we’re to go, and to go unmolested, then we’re to go as women.”

Arthur knew that Bram was right. But he was still displeased.

“If you like,” Bram continued, “I can go to the meeting alone. No one knows who I am. I wouldn’t need any disguise at all to spend an evening with the ladies of the NUWSS.”

Arthur thought he detected a trace of bitterness in Bram’s voice. Just because the man’s literary career wasn’t moving along as he’d hoped, there was no cause for him to take his frustrations out on his more successful fellows.

“No, I need to be there myself. To see Millicent Fawcett and her satin gang. Someone is killing those girls off, and if I’m to protect the rest of them, I’ll need to see precisely what they’re up to.”

“Ever the chivalrous knight, aren’t you?” said Bram.

Arthur drew a thin evening shawl over his shoulders and tied it in front of his neck in a double bow. “Chivalry is the very soul of manhood. It is what separates men from beasts.”

“It is also,” said Bram as he tended to his skirt, “what separates men from women.”

“Indeed! As well it should.” Arthur toyed with the bonnet in his hand, spinning it around to find the proper straps. “Were men to become women and women to become men, why, that would spell the death of our civilization! It would be the fall of England.”

“ I take it, then, that you haven’t reconsidered your position on granting women the right of suffrage? Come. Sit. Allow me to shave your mustache.” Bram led Arthur to a chair by the sink. His tools had already been laid out. Scissors, cream, straight razor. “Unless, of course, you’d like to perform the honors yourself?”

“No,” said Arthur. “I don’t believe I could bear it. I’ve had this mustache since I was six and ten years of age, did you know that? I was the first boy in my class to sprout follicles.” He sat in the chair, facing his friend, and closed his eyes. “And yes,” Arthur continued, “I have certainly reconsidered my position on the topic of women’s suffrage. I have considered it again and again, and each and every time I have found the argument of the suffragists to be wanting.”

Bram prepared the shaving cream in a clay mortar, whipping it quickly with a feathered brush. “And what is it about the argument for the rights of women which still leaves you unsatisfied?” he said. He took a pair of short steel scissors from the sink.

Arthur flinched. He gritted his teeth but kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to witness the extirpation of his own facial hair.

“It has nothing to do with rights, man,” he said quietly, barely moving his lips so that Bram could do his work. “It is about duty. Men have their duties to society, and women have their own. It is thus that the sexes are able to cohabitate happily. Can you imagine what would happen were wives to start voting alongside their husbands? It’s no secret that the Conservative Party finds far greater support among the women of England than the men.”

“Gladstone said as much when he sank the Reform Bill.” Having trimmed Arthur’s mustache down to a taut stump, Bram began applying cream with the aid of his brush.

“Quite so,” said Arthur. “You’ve a good memory for politics. The Liberals kicked the legs out from under the suffragists for their own electoral reasons. My larger point remains. Let us say the bill had passed and the society women of England had begun to vote. A young couple, freshly married, goes off together to the polls. The husband votes for, in this case, Gladstone. The wife votes for Cecil, the most honorable marquess of Salisbury. Why, the fights they would have! What a strain it would place on their marriage were the wife to suddenly commence telling her husband how to vote! Or how to tariff this year’s French grain! It would be as if men started telling their wives how to keep a soufflé from falling. The rate of divorce in this country would explode.”

When Arthur had finished speaking, Bram slid the razor cleanly across his upper lip in a dozen short strokes. Inch by inch, Arthur’s mustache was scraped from his face. Bram handed him a hot towel, which he’d taken great care to prepare.

Arthur opened his eyes. He examined his visage in the mirror. He looked so… nude.

“All right then,” said Bram. “Let’s get some eye shadow on you. A dab or two of powder to your cheeks and we’ll be off.”

“How did you come to know so much about ladies’ makeup?” asked Arthur as he accompanied Bram to the latter’s powder box.

“I work in the theater, Arthur,” Bram replied. “And I’m sure I’ve many talents of which you’re most likely unaware.”

Arthur held up a pouch of white powder. It looked just like flour, or unmelted cocaine.

“The powder will whiten you out, and then this”-here Bram displayed a razor-thin charcoal pencil-“will darken the lines around your eyes. Now sit, and let’s be quick. The lecture begins at eight. Who knows? Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

When Arthur and Bram arrived at Caxton Hall in Westminster, they found a mob already assembled. Their brougham joined a column of others along Palmer Street, as each cab deposited a suffragist at the curb. From his window Arthur could see a line of black bonnets stretching north for blocks. The bonnets bobbed up and down like apples in a water bucket as the ladies underneath stopped to greet one another. While Arthur stared, Bram paid their driver, who seemed eager to move along. Arthur was careful, at Bram’s urging, to grasp the folds of his skirt as he stepped out of the carriage. He hadn’t gone through all the trouble to become a woman only to botch it up by strutting about like a man.

As they approached the ticket booth, Arthur became nervous. This would be the first test of his disguise. So far none of the women who surrounded him had looked at him twice, but when he reached the front of the ticketing queue, he’d be but inches from the face of the young woman behind the glass. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years of age, Arthur noticed. She smiled to each customer merrily, just like a child.

Bram had attempted to enter the queue ahead of Arthur, but he was rebuffed. Arthur would go first. If his disguise were to be found out, it was better that it be done right away.

As he neared the front of the queue, it occurred to Arthur that he would actually have to speak to this woman. He had not prepared himself for that. Without moving his mouth, he began to contract his throat, trying to soundlessly practice forming a high and womanly voice. He hadn’t the foggiest notion as to whether this would be effective.

Finally he came to the front and stared directly into the eyes of the ticket girl. She beamed at him.

“How many tickets for you this evening?” she said perkily.

Arthur swallowed.

“Two, please,” he said, in the highest voice he could muster. Hearing his words out loud, he did not think that he sounded even remotely like a woman, but rather more like a boy of twelve. The ticket girl, however, simply smiled in response.

“That’ll be fourpence, ma’am,” she said.

Oh, thank goodness, thought Arthur. Without another word, he paid the girl for two tickets, and she passed them to him through a slot beneath the glass. Arthur handed one to Bram, who followed him through the great double doors of Caxton Hall.

Though it was still a quarter to eight, the hall was already full inside. Lines of stiff wooden chairs had been assembled in rows. Each chair squeaked and rattled as the lady upon it shifted back and forth to address her friends. Arthur and Bram spent five minutes searching for empty seats, which they eventually acquired along the far right edge of the audience, most of the way to the rear.

At least two hundred women-and three or four men-sat in the body of the hall. A brass beam ran the length of the stage, separating it from the floor. A squat lectern, no more than a foot high, lay atop a table at the front of the stage. Behind it a line of chairs had been set up facing the audience. A few were occupied by distinguished women of middle age, while others were still empty as ladies walked back and forth greeting one another warmly and pulling one another close for quick, furtive conversations. Banners draped the hall, bearing suffragist slogans. “Thoughts have gone forth whose whispers can sleep no more! Victory! Victory!” read the most prominent of them. In the mezzanine above, at least another hundred women perched along the wooden railing, peering down at the stage. All present were bright-eyed with excitement. The event was soon to begin.

Arthur searched through the crowd for Millicent Fawcett, but he could not find her. He kept his head down as best he could and deliberately avoided eye contact with the woman seated next to him. Though his disguise had fooled the ticket girl, it might not have the same effect on everyone. It was better to be cautious than to be discovered.

Finally one of the women on the stage approached the podium and brought the room to order. She was dressed all in white from head to toe and was one of the very few women in the building who was not sporting a wide-brimmed bonnet. Her brown hair glistened under the stage lights. She slammed a gavel sharply against the podium three times, and the room instantly fell into silence.

When all had taken their seats, Arthur realized that the entire front row of the audience was occupied by men. They rarely looked toward the stage but instead kept their heads buried in tiny notebooks, in which they each scribbled furiously. Reporters, Arthur realized. Here to cover the rally.

The political lecture which followed was both as dreary and monotonous as any Arthur had attended, and at the same time it was bracingly strange in its tone. First, the woman in white thanked them all for their attendance and for their support. She delivered an introduction of such bloodless character that Arthur briefly wondered whether he’d accidentally stumbled into a meeting of some obscure horticulturalist society. It consisted solely of welcomes, and greetings, and let-us-notforget-the-contributions-of-so-and-so’s. This, then, was the timbre of London’s most politically revolutionary organization? The woman in white announced that she would be followed by two speakers. The first would be Millicent Fawcett and the second Arabella Raines. At the mention of the name Fawcett, Arthur became rigid in his seat.

When these two women took the stage, they riled the audience into a frenzy almost from their first words. Arthur had thought of this event as a lecture, but what he found was significantly more like a debate. Or perhaps a match of bare-knuckled boxing. Fawcett and Raines-both in black frocks and cream-colored hats-stood on opposite sides of the lectern. They rarely turned to face one another but instead addressed the audience one after the other in five-minute segments as they debated their positions on suffrage.

Millicent Fawcett spoke first, and she did so calmly. Her voice never rose above the level one would use to say grace at the dining table. Everything about her manner was dignified and discreet but at the same time commanding in its sensibility. Her bright flaxen hair was pulled back in a bun. She had dark, deep-set eyes and a hard nose, which only increased the impression of sober seriousness that she conveyed. And yet, before she had gotten to the end of her first sentence, there were grumbles from the crowd. And then, an instant later, halloos of approval. The woman in white had to return to the lectern several times with her gavel in order to quiet the audience.

Millicent Fawcett’s argument was actually quite Conservative in its principles, Arthur realized. She acknowledged that men and women were different creatures and had different realms of expertise and interest. Indeed, such was the fundamental principle of her argument for women’s suffrage.

“If men and women were exactly alike,” she said, “then a legislature composed entirely of men would adequately represent us. But, rather, because we are not alike, that wherein we differ goes underrepresented in our present political system. In our society men are the champions of our statecraft, while women are the champions of our domestic life. This is just.”

“Bloody Tory!” shouted an angry woman from the mezzanine.

“We have rights!” cried another.

Millicent Fawcett continued as if there had been no interruption.

“In years past, our government concerned itself solely with the affairs of men. But in recent years, the state has seen fit to involve itself in matters of education, in matters of child rearing, and in matters of the home. The preoccupations of women are becoming the preoccupations of society as a whole. As a result, women must have a say in the conduct of their government. Women now seek to involve themselves in the life of their government because their government has involved itself in their lives! To grant women the right of suffrage will not cause them to abandon their societal obligations but rather cause them to more effectively fulfill them!”

It was a good speech, thought Arthur, one well reasoned and well composed. He had never considered the matter in this light before. He would have to think these points over later, at some time when he was not on the heels of a killer.

When it was Arabella Raines’s turn to speak, the crowd was equally rowdy, though for opposite reasons. She was pale and thin, a mere wisp of a woman. She looked like a specter underneath her black clothing. But from her tiny body came a voice so powerful as to cause Arthur to sit up in his chair. Her words carried as if she were on the stage at the Royal Opera House.

She was a student of Mill, clearly, and much more radical, in her Liberal politics, than Millicent Fawcett. Her argument was based solely on the natural rights of women, on their inherent right as human beings to everything that men had. Though she, too, emphasized that there were fundamental differences between the sexes.

“I say not that women are the same as men,” she bellowed. “I say that women are equal to men. For a century women have been involved in the affairs of the state. They have founded and served in political organizations of every stripe. There are women who march with the Primrose League, just as there are women who march with the Social Democratic Federation. If women are fit to advise, convince, and persuade voters how to vote, they are surely also fit to vote themselves. But allow me to be clear about the principles behind this call for suffrage. They should rightfully extend, by the grace of God, to all of his creatures. As landed women should vote, so should poor women. So should Indian women. So should Negro and Asian women. Our rights derive not from our government, but from our God.”

“Radical!” came a shout from high in the hall.

“Suffragette!” came another call. At the word “suffragette,” Arabella Raines looked up toward the mezzanine, trying to see who had said it. Her face grew quite stern.

“That is a word used in condescending jest,” she said. “It is a taunt thrown at us by the Americans, and by the shortsighted editors of our own Daily Mail.” Saying this, she gazed down onto the front row and gave a look of extreme chilliness to one of the assembled reporters. “They say we are ‘suffragettes’ because we play at revolution. I say we are not playing at all, and that this is no game. I say, rather, that we are perfectly serious as to our aims, and that we are perfectly serious as to the means required to achieve them.”

At this, the room exploded in a volley of bitter shouts. Unspeakable insults were lobbed back and forth across the hall. The woman in white jumped to the lectern, where she banged her gavel upon the wood again and again, to little use. Millicent Fawcett did not so much as flinch amid all the commotion. She stared out at the crowd, straightbacked and still. Yet Arthur saw something in her eyes, even from as far away as he sat. There was a sadness. Some sense of opportunity lost, perhaps. This was not the meeting for which she had hoped.

Within a few moments, the room had settled down. The two speakers continued their debate, one after the other for an hour. Their points did not change, and their opinions seemed only to have hardened. Though they fought on the same side, as far as Arthur was concerned, the gap between them grew as the hour wore on. Millicent Fawcett remained ever calm and professional, while Arabella Raines allowed herself a greater range of emotions on the stage. Neither granted the other an inch. Only at the very close, in her final statements, did Millicent Fawcett remind the house that despite the barbs flung between them, they were united in their pursuit of women’s suffrage. The crowd seemed united only in their disapproval of her gracious attempt at conciliation.

“The suffragists quarrel like the House of Atreus,” said Arthur after the speakers had finished. Though the event had concluded, few of the attendees seemed eager to leave. They milled about in small packs, sharing their opinions in hushed tones. “Mrs. Fawcett appears to preside over a divided kingdom. But from what the tattooist told us, I’d wager that our girls were in the anti-Fawcett camp. That they were among the more radical suffragettes.”

“I agree,” said Bram. Both men kept their faces close together, so as to avoid submitting their costume disguises to unwanted scrutiny. “Let us follow Mrs. Raines and see where she is headed. For if Sally had compatriots among these ladies, they would certainly have been in Mrs. Raines’s camp.”

Arthur and Bram maneuvered through the crowd toward the stage. A few feet before it, they spied Arabella Raines holding court over a dozen young suffragists. The two huddled by the wall, near Arabella and her associates. They discussed it, and neither felt that engaging a group of real women in conversation was a prudent course of action.

Eventually Arabella Raines, with another girl in tow, headed toward the front door. Without speaking, Bram and Arthur began to pursue the women. They pressed through the crowd after them, which was slow going, as half the women in the hall reached over to shake Arabella’s hand or stopped to give her an approving smile.

Arabella’s friend, who mingled beside her, was quite small. Arthur thought that the crowd threatened to pour over her like a wave. The girl moved about in quick, nervous motions. Her black hair was falling out of her bonnet and over her ears, while her tiny nose seemed to twitch whenever she spoke. She reminded Arthur of a field mouse.

Just before they left the main hall for the lobby, Arabella and her small friend took a sharp left. They opened a door and went inside, closing it behind them. And it wasn’t until Arthur had finally pressed his way up against it that he saw the letters stenciled on the wooden door. “W.C.,” it read. With the addendum “Ladies” printed underneath.

“Oh, dear,” said Arthur. “Perhaps we should-”

“Oh, come off it, Arthur,” said Bram. “Would you like to find your killer or not?” Bram pushed past Arthur and opened the door to the ladies’ powder room. Arthur looked around, instinctively regarding this as an unholy act. When no one gave him the slightest bit of notice, he gulped a deep breath and followed in behind Bram. He felt as he were trespassing upon sacred ground.

Inside, Arthur’s boots made a heavy clap against the tile floor. Bram hadn’t been able to find a pair of ladies’ shoes that fit his massive feet, so Arthur had worn a dress that touched the floor in order to cover up his men’s boots. But it had never occurred to him that his boots were so much louder than ladies’ flats.

The women’s W.C. in Caxton Hall was the very image of Dutch cleanliness. Three flushing water closets were separated by dark wood along the right wall. The tiles spread from the toilets to a sink on the left. Of all the public restrooms Arthur had been in, this was by far the most sanitary. Even Bram, who managed his own theater and its rest areas, seemed impressed.

At the sink, Arabella had removed her bonnet and adjusted her hair in the mirror. She turned to Arthur and Bram, nodded at them politely, and returned her gaze to the mirror. She seemed not to give either of them another thought.

A flush from one of the water closets signaled the presence of Arabella’s friend. Bram walked into the far closet and shut the door behind him. Arthur was unsure what to do. He wanted to stay close to these women, to hear what they said to one another, and yet he couldn’t just stand there staring, could he?

Arthur found his solution near the sink. Two comfortable chairs had been set out, most likely for ladies who needed a place to sit and collect their breath when their corseting grew too tight. Arthur sank into one of the chairs and gave a dramatic sigh. He fanned himself with the sleeves of his frock. Though he was putting on a bit of a show, he had to admit that this clothing did exhaust the wearer. If the day hadn’t yet convinced him of the merits of women’s suffrage, it had certainly convinced him of the justness of the movement for Rational Dress.

Arabella’s mousy friend exited her water closet and moved toward the sink.

“Oh, Emily,” said Arabella to her friend, “I’m to join Dot and those Manchester girls for a late supper. I do believe they’re plotting something grand for their home town. Care to join us?”

“Thank you, no,” said the mousy girl, now revealed to be named Emily. “I left some work unfinished at home, before I came here. I should return to it.”

“A few stitches of knitting?” said Arabella with a laugh.

“Yes,” said Emily through a grin. “Some knitting.” With that, Emily placed her right foot up on the resting chair next to Arthur’s. She lifted her skirt above her knee. Arthur tried to seem uninterested while she adjusted the straps on her garters. Her stocking was white, and quite thin. Arthur could practically see straight through it. He picked a spot on the wall across from him and held his gaze on it. It wouldn’t do if she saw him staring. She pinched at her stocking, trying to shift it across her beautiful, pale leg. She moved her knee from left to right as she shimmied the stocking, and the motion hiked her skirt farther up her thigh. Arthur was becoming quite distracted.

He lost track of the spot along the far wall and let his eyes drift to Emily’s exposed thigh. He saw her muscles tighten as she leaned her weight into her leg. His eyes traveled down to her dimpled knee, which seemed to pucker out as her leg bent further. His gaze fell to her sleek shin and then around to the long back of her smooth leg and the black splotch upon it. He stared closer. It was a tattoo of a three-headed crow.

Arthur gave a start and almost fell off his chair. Both women immediately turned their heads to him.

“Pardon,” he said in his best female voice. “Dizzy.” He was trying to minimize his word count, so as to lessen their opportunity to detect the masculine undercurrent to his speech.

“I understand,” said Arabella sympathetically. “I used to pass out once a week when I wore corsets like yours. I don’t mean to pry, and you’re free to wear the clothing you choose, but there is a wonderful sale on now at Whiteley’s, on their modern bodices. My very life changed when I switched over myself.”

“Thank you,” said Arthur.

“I don’t see how we’re to win our suffrage if we can’t draw a decent gulp of air into our lungs. Right, Emily?”

“Yes. Right,” said Emily. She regarded Arthur suspiciously. She did not seem so easygoing as Arabella, nor as trusting.

“Well then, I’m off. Do give one of these ‘liberty’ bodices a try, ma’am, I’m sure it would do you wonders,” Arabella said to Arthur. She next turned to Emily. “I’ll see you Thursday next? And please, be careful with your… knitting. I’d hate for there to be any accidents. In your stitch work.” With a gentle bow, she was gone.

By the time Bram flushed and came out of the water closet, Emily had finished adjusting her stocking and replaced her skirt over her leg. She left quickly, without a good-bye to Arthur or even a friendly nod. The very instant she had left the room, Arthur burst up from his chair.

“She has the tattoo!” he cried. “On her right leg! I saw it!”

“Arabella Raines?” said Bram, confused.

“No,” said Arthur. “Her friend Emily. The other one. Quickly, man, we’ve no time to spare!”

Arthur narrowly avoided tripping over his own skirt as he hurried out of the ladies’ powder room in full pursuit.