The Sherlockian

CHAPTER 29 Arthur Returns to Scotland Yard

November 13, 1900

The New Scotland Yard hummed along pleasantly in the morning, like a gigantic scientific experiment. Identically uniformed constables streamed in and out of the front gate and up into the five-story as if they were tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide in a great bunsen burner. Arthur entered past the wrought-iron fence just at the foot of Big Ben. The clock above his head announced a quarter to eleven.

He found his way without much difficulty to the office of Inspector Miller. The door was already open, and Arthur walked in without a knock. The inspector looked up from his papers, and Arthur again noticed how youthful he appeared behind his thick beard.

“Dr. Doyle!” he exclaimed, setting a few papers aside on his cluttered desk. “I wasn’t expecting a visit from you today.”

“That’s because I hadn’t the time to telegraph my intention to visit,” said Arthur defiantly.

Inspector Miller paused. He had the air of a man who’d been caught doing something very naughty.

“Right so, then,” said the inspector. “It is a pleasure to see you nonetheless.” He gestured toward the open chair before his desk. Arthur sat, taking the same position he had when he was last here. Had that been only two weeks past? What speed at which a man’s life might be irrevocably altered!

“How goes your… er… your investigation?” said Inspector Miller, feigning curiosity.

“I have found the criminal who attempted to murder me by way of a letter bomb,” said Arthur.

Inspector Miller gave a look of surprise. “You have?”

“Yes. I have-”

“Pardon me,” came a voice from the doorway. “Do you have a minute, sir?”

Arthur turned in his chair to see a teenage constable at the door. His hat fit him awkwardly, and his messy hair popped loose beneath the brim. The constable paid Arthur no mind.

“I am conducting an interview at the moment,” replied the inspector. “I’ll be sure to attend to you when it has concluded.”

“Yes, well then, right. Very good. Except, you see, it was the chief inspector who sent me down. He said to see if you were busy, and, if not, to send you out on a fresh one. It’s just come in.”

“As I am quite busy, I’ll see to it when I’ve finished my interview. Thank you, Constable.” Inspector Miller turned back to Arthur and gave him a look of understanding weariness. These new recruits, said the inspector’s face. Look what I am forced to put up with!

Yet the young man hung idly in the doorway. There seemed to be some sentiment caught in his throat which he found himself unable to express.

“May I continue?” asked Arthur of Inspector Miller, with more than a trace of sarcasm.

“Please,” said the inspector.

“I’ve caught you a murderer. Or an attempted one, at least. And now I am prepared to reveal her identity.”

“Her?” said the inspector.

“Yes. Her. It was a woman who built my letter bomb. She is quite insane, though evidently quite intelligent as well.”

Inspector Miller regarded Arthur blankly. “This is Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle,” he said to the constable, by way of an explanation.

“Oh!” said the constable. “I see!” He seemed even more embarrassed to have intruded upon this meeting, and yet he still did not turn to leave.

“… So, if you’ve no objection,” said Inspector Miller, “we wouldn’t mind getting back to our business. Dr. Doyle and I have much to discuss, you understand.”

“Of course! Yes, of course, sir!” The young constable turned to Arthur. “So very pleased to meet you, sir. I’m a great admirer… Well, we all are, aren’t we? I don’t think I’d be on the force if it wasn’t for those stories, you know. Read them when I was but a simple boy from the North Country, and now look at me!”

Arthur looked at him but felt it would be impolite to share his opinion of how far the lad had come.

“It’s just that,” the boy continued, now addressing Inspector Miller, “I rather got the sense that the chief inspector wanted you to get down there right away.”

“Constable!” said Inspector Miller. “I am in the middle of an interview. With Dr. Doyle. I am sure that within the hour I will have the time to-”

“The assistant commissioner CID is already on his way to the scene, sir.” After this abrupt outburst, the constable flinched, as if he’d just taken his first shot with a musket and was afraid to see where it had landed.

Arthur could not believe the dysfunction of the Yard. Wasn’t this ramshackle conglomeration of incompetents supposed to be a military division? He would love to have seen Lord Kitchener at the helm of this motley lot.

“ Damn it!” said Inspector Miller. “Mr. Henry has already left? You stupid fool, why didn’t you say so straightaway? I’ve lost valuable minutes thanks to your mealy-mouthed sputterings!” The inspector shot up from his desk and yanked hold of a coat and hat that had been hung on a set of corner hooks.

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” said Arthur. “Inspector, I’m sure you have duties to attend to, but this is unbecoming!”

“Dreadfully sorry, Dr. Doyle, it pains me to have to run out in this manner. But you don’t know Edward Henry. He’s new to the Yard, just come back from India. Straightaway the commissioner has promoted him to the CID, as assistant no less. Some sort of trial run to see how Henry takes to London. I’ll tell you how London takes to him, I will. The man’s been putting darkies in darbies for ten years, and now he thinks he knows how to handle the British criminal classes. A lot for him to learn, a bloody lot. He wants to reorganize the whole unit, shift the priorities, install a bunch of gadgets in the office to replace honest investigation. Rules and regulations, that’s what he’s been on about. Waste of bloody time. Do you know what a detective’s best tool is, Dr. Doyle?” The inspector tapped at his shiny, knee-high boots. “Boots on the ground, that’s what solves a case.”

Arthur stood and followed the two of them out into the main corridors of Scotland Yard.

“There is a young girl out there with a mind for bomb making,” he said. “I strongly suggest that you arrest her forthwith.”

As he walked, Inspector Miller gestured toward the constable. “Certainly. I can have Constable Billings here pick up anyone you like,” he said.

“You’ll find all the evidence you need in her flat. March in there and you’ll catch her red-handed.”

“Excellent,” said the inspector as he took the building’s central staircase in long strides, his boots clopping down two steps at a time. “We’d be happy to pick up anyone you say on your word alone. Whom would you like Constable Billings to arrest?”

Arthur felt suddenly powerful. He knew that the Yard would never care about his ideas or his abilities as a sleuth. And yet he could see how they were nevertheless captive to his name. This entire structure bent at the first gust of the winds of reputation.

“Her name is Emily Davison,” said Arthur. “Clerkenwell.” He provided the young constable with her address.

“Right on it, sir,” said the constable with a pleased deference.

“Now,” said Inspector Miller, “to where am I headed?”

Billings produced a folded sheet of paper, which Arthur only then noticed had been in the boy’s hand for the duration of their conversation. The constable handed the paper to Inspector Miller, who read its contents as he marched double time to the doors of Scotland Yard.

But then, with his outstretched hand mere inches from the front door, Inspector Miller halted. A perverse look spread across his face.

“Dr. Doyle,” said the inspector slowly, his eyes stuck on the paper, “would you mind coming with us to the scene of this fresh crime? I think we may be in need of some assistance, of a sort you may be particularly suited to provide.”

Arthur was quite confused by the man’s request, but he quickly assented with a nod.

“Of course,” he said. “But might I ask why you think I will be able to help?”

“Because,” said Inspector Miller as he looked up into Arthur’s face, “I’ve been assigned to investigate the apparent murder of one Emily Davison. Late of Clerkenwell.”

Of all the thoughts and sensations which flooded into Arthur’s mind at that moment, the one that most consumed him was an awareness of his odd positioning in the lobby of Scotland Yard. A hundred detectives gushed past him on their way out, bumping shoulder to shoulder, while another hundred pushed past him on their way in. Two hundred detectives on two hundred cases, and here was Arthur frozen between them, one middle-aged author fallen into a mystery just deep enough to drown in.