The Memoirs of Irene Adler: The Irene Adler Trilogy (12 page)

‘I don’t believe the professor trained you to resist
this
,’ I said. There is no response. I augment his torment by dropping another pinch inside his trousers. I leave him there wriggling like a worm and move on to let Noah benefit from the same experience. I go back to the tall one
and flick some more stuff through his shirt sleeve towards his armpits. Barnaby begins hopping up and down and contorting about, his body bent in impossible shapes. Tears are now streaking down his cheeks and we begin to fear that our chair is in danger of losing its backrest. My own fingers begin to itch and I have to wash the powder off. The
Club
are unable to stop laughing and this adds to the torment of the kidnappers. They are still not ready to surrender.

‘Where is your Chrithtian charity?’ entreats Noah. ‘Untie my hand... pleeeease, let me scratch myself, pleeeeease...’

‘This is un-English,’ says Barnaby. ‘You’ve got to play by the rules.’

‘Thiss isth below the belt.’

Once they start moaning, the breach we had hoped to dig in their defence walls appear and we have a foothold.

‘Is the baby safe?’ I ask. ‘Just answer that and I’ll give you the use of one hand.’ They both nod and we do what we promised. The moment they have one free hand, instead of using it to scratch their own itches, they manage, by dint of heaving and hoisting, juggling and jiggling, to get their chairs in a position which permitted them to scratch
each other’s
backs. We knew that you had to be of above average intelligence to work for Moriarty, and there was the definite proof. When they have gained sufficient relief, they collapse on the floor against a wall, still tied to their chair.

‘Will you really arrange for us to leave the country?’ Barnaby asks.

‘You are in no position to ask for anything now,’ Armande says.

‘We’ll deliver you to the police,’ Algernon threatens. I am shocked to note that this prospect seems to hold no terror for the men. If Minahan was right, the police poses no threat to villains with friends in high places.

‘Just tell us about the kidnapping,’ I ask imperiously.

They swore that they had no idea of the final destination of the stolen baby, but revealed that Moriarty had given them instructions to deliver her to a woman in Kensington. No, they did not know her name, they were only given the address. As the perambulator was cumbersome, they had thrown it in the Thames, had proceeded to Campden Street and found the house with the blue door as instructed. The lady was expecting them and took possession of the bundle without inviting them in.

‘Describe her.’

She was a genteel woman with brown eyes and black hair, perhaps a schoolmarm or a nurse. She had a small nose, a large forehead and a mole on her chin, was on the plump side and rather below average height.

We wasted no time. Bartola, the Bishop and I were knocking on the blue door within the hour. A woman fitting the description given by the two villains opened the door. The moment she saw us, all the blood was drained from her face. We left her with no option but to let us come inside. She hadn’t thought she was doing anything wrong. All she did was to collect a baby and hand her over to her sister.

‘Who’s your sister? Where is she?’

‘She lives in Derby,’ the woman said, ‘at Plantagenet House—’

‘You mean the seat of the Home Secretary?’ I asked, and the woman with the mole nodded.

When we told Algernon he angrily confronted the kidnappers with the intelligence. At first they denied that they knew any more than what they had told us, but when I threatened to start the itching game all over, they signified their willingness to tell us
everything
.

The story which unfolded needs to be told in connection with another strand. Loulou, or Lewis was Sir William’s firstborn. His mother had died in his infancy. Nowhere in the land, has it been said, would you find a father and son who were so devoted to each other. Sir William had waited thirteen years, looking after his boy with complete dedication before marrying the widow of an American civil war casualty, the daughter of an American historian, Elizabeth. She was a highly strung woman many years his junior. She disliked London and politics and chose to move permanently to the peaceful and rural Plantagenet House in Derby, where she devoted her time to horticultural delights and rarely ventured into London.

Sir William Harcourt himself was a radical politician, Gladstone’s right hand man, a scholar and a reformer at heart, but once he set himself an aim, he had to achieve it by any means, often unscrupulous ones. He had accumulated power and wealth and this intimated to him that he was above the law. In any case he was in the position where
he
was the law.
We had heard from Minahan how he protected evildoers like Mrs Jeffries. Our Irish friend further claimed that his own fall from grace was due to Harcourt committing perjury. He had declared under oath that he had studied his file very carefully and dismissed his sworn statements as fabrication. Minahan had proof that he had never even asked to see them. Further Stead had provided us with a full account of how he had presided over the corruption of the Metropolitan police without lifting a finger.

It had been the dearest hope of the couple to have a child, but for many years their efforts proved fruitless. After almost eight years Elizabeth unexpectedly found herself in the family way, and the joy of the couple knew no bounds. Sir William made sure that the best gynaecologist, Dr Charters-Connolly, and the most reputed midwives and nurses would attend to his wife. However, in spite of all the care in the world, the baby girl died in childbirth. Lady Elizabeth, unaware of anything went into a coma, and was only kept alive by the latest miraculous inventions of medical science. Sir William and the whole household were deeply aggrieved, but Loulou had come up with an idea.

The servants were sworn to secrecy and given a rise in wages. Dr Charters-Connolly was promised a knighthood and the news of the baby’s fate was kept secret.

Loulou, spoiled and indulged, had developed into a roistering rake known all over London for his excesses. He had friends in unsavoury circles, and one of them was Professor Moriarty. Need more be said? The woman in the blue house in Kensington, Henrietta Bewlish, to whom the baby was to be handed over was the sister of Nurse Clarissa Bewlish who was employed by Plantagenet House.

A more obvious strategy would have been substituting the dead baby by a foundling. God knows thousands of them are deposited outside churches round the country every year, but Loulou had been against introducing into his family someone of dubious blood. Their family’s pedigree had to be kept pure.

Although we now had all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, the problem was how to interlock them to make a full picture. We expected that Alice was being taken good care of, so Clarihoe urged patience on Emma and promised that her child was in the process of being returned to her.

The
Club
convened to discuss strategy and to define our objectives in the light of our findings. On top of the list was getting Alice back. Next we had to decide what to do with our two captives Noah and Barnaby. What retribution, if any, should we reserve for the untouchable Sir William? How to deal with Loulou?

We began by organising a surveillance of Loulou. Probert discovered that in one afternoon he visited both Mrs Jeffries’ and Mr Hammond’s Male bordello in Portland Street. That same night the Bishop saw him entering the illegal gambling dens of Wellington Place to which his father’s inspectors had given a clean bill of health. Artémise said that he spent the rest of the night in a Chinese opium den in Soho. Next day, Sunday, Bartola watched him as he went to mass in Westminster Cathedral, for when all’s said and done, he was very devout.

Vissarionovich and the Bishop knew exactly what to do. As Loulou left his London home in Belgravia that night, a hansom cab was waiting outside. The coachman, in a strong French accent and his mate in an Irish one, pointedly asked the young man to join them in their cab, jostling him none too gently to add a little coercion to the invitation. Loulou immediately perceived that he had no choice.

He was blindfolded and brought to us by a circuitous route, a ploy we employed to make it impossible for him to surmise later what our location might be. We kept him in the basement in a room next to where Noah and Barnaby were anxiously awaiting their fate at our hands. In the meantime Clarihoe visited Sherlock Holmes. Noah and Barnaby would tell him everything they knew about Moriarty, but first he would have to get Mycroft to arrange for the two men to be shipped to the Carolinas incognito, to protect them against Moriarty’s choler. Holmes gladly agreed to the bargain and was able to gather precious information which we later found helped him create a full dossier on his arch enemy which indirectly led to his downfall at the Reichenbach Falls. Mycroft was able to help the two villains escape a fate they probably deserved.

What followed contributed to the reputation I acquired as a ruthless woman. I believe that I am as compassionate as anybody, but when a strong action has to be taken, I shut my mind to pity and do what needs must.

The Bishop, Hugh Probert and Vissarionovich accompanied me to the basement, the latter carrying a wood block Armande used for mincing meat (“
my pize are as good as the minceur of my hâchée
”). It was waist- high and its base had been made perfectly horizontal so it could stand upright and firm on the floor of the kitchen. I had a small axe. Loulou who was kept securely tied to a chair, writhed and squirmed as he saw us coming in, in no doubt about our less than friendly intent towards him.

‘Loulou,’ I said, ‘you have acted with great cruelty in arranging for a mother to lose her child. You need to pay dearly for that. If there was any justice in the country you’d go to prison for years for your action. We are sending a message to your father and we need a little incentive.’ He began to blubber and beg. There was really no need for anything drastic as his father would commit treason to the monarchy if that was the price demanded for his safe return, but we agreed that a punishment was called for.

‘Are you left-handed?’ He shook his head.

‘Then we’re going to chop off the little finger off your left hand.’ The stunned young villain opened his mouth. Ivan and the Bishop grabbed his left hand, untied it and placed it on the chopping block whilst Probert held him tight by the shoulders. I wasted no time and brought the raised axe down with force and severed the first falange. I will not dwell upon the blood spurts or his screaming, the reader must use his or her imagination here. Bartola wasted no time applying a tincture to the wound to stop it bleeding and bandaged it. The cut out section was immediately wrapped in cotton, placed in an envelope with the demand carefully written out by Lord Clarihoe. Ebenezer was given precise instructions to deliver it to Belgravia Road. One paragraph of the note was to the effect that more fingers will be chopped off unless Alice was returned forthwith. We knew that there would be no need for more butchery, but there are times when we love to be nasty. That was only step one.

Loulou would only be released, the note continued, after Sir William had appointed an independent commission to review Jeremiah Minahan’s complaints against Labalmondière, to be presided by a figure among three names Algernon had chosen after consulting with W.T. Stead.

As we suspected, the moment the message was given to Sir William, who was in conference with Mr Gladstone, he immediately excused himself, set forth by train to Plantagenet House in Derby, and ordered the immediate return of Alice to Putney. Further, within a day Sir William duly announced that after seriously poring over all the documents concerning Minahan’s complaints, he had instructed Sir Brereton Topcross to head a commission of enquiry into the Irishman’s grievances.

Deeming our conditions to have been met, we blindfolded Loulou, and Vissarionovich took him to Hyde Park shortly after sunset the same day and released him.

We seemed to have struck a blow for justice, but it was only a partial victory. Two weeks later, Sir Brereton submitted his report but before it was made public, the Government Gazette announced that he had been appointed Ambassador to Paraguay and was setting sail in three days. We have yet to decide on a new course of action concerning Minahan’s grievances.

ust be French,’ Lord Clarihoe said almost to himself. It was early autumn one Wednesday evening, and we, the Club, were seated round a nice log fire in the front room in Water Lane, as was our wont, enjoying its glow. Togetherness was a much-valued notion in our circle. Often we needed no words to communicate. We were
au complet
for once. Bartola was playing Solitaire on a neatly varnished mahogany slab that Coleridge had designed and made especially for that purpose, it fitting perfectly over the arms of her plush armchair. Next to her the Bishop was reading the Bible. Having reneged on his faith, his new hobby was finding discrepancies in the holy book. Armande was knitting socks, Christmas presents for her nieces in Nantes (“Don’t you sink that mekkin presents for lurved ones yourself makes more sens than buying
bagatelles et babioles
at Selfridges?”) There were a couple of tables with savouries, bonbons and drinks which we indulged in to our hearts’ content as the evening wore on.