“My dear fellow, I see that you are unfamiliar with the field of graphology! I need hardly be surprised, however; from the empirical perspective it is considered a highly hypothetical discipline. Nevertheless, despite being reproached for its unscientific method, it has many proponents.”
“I am not qualified to judge,” I said, shaking my head. “I only have the most superficial knowledge of it.”
“Well then, you know that graphology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the study of handwriting and its relationship to human behaviour. It is based on the assumption that it is impossible to find any two people who have exactly the same handwriting. Handwriting is unique, and according to graphologists, expresses the human personality.”
As a doctor, this naturally interested me. Until then I had assumed that graphology was simply a method for determining the authenticity of signatures. I had no idea it could conceal such information.
“The size of the letters corresponds to the author’s status and self-confidence,” said Holmes, explaining that the foundations of the theory had been laid by Aristotle himself. “Larger letters belong to important authors, smaller ones to those who are cautious. Very small letters are written by people who are timid and have low self-confidence. Larger letters, about four millimetres, belong to people who have a sense of detail. They are critical, practical and realistic. Large letters are used by those who are dynamic and have a healthy sense of self-confidence; they tend to be optimistic and magnanimous. Our man has a tendency to be wasteful and one-dimensional. Overly large letters testify to a loss of self-control. But as you yourself can certainly concede, these are not very demonstrable conclusions.”
“Nevertheless, it is fascinating what just a few letters can suggest!” I said.
“Indeed,” the detective nodded. “Except that a larger sample is required for a truly precise evaluation; we would need at least a page of written text. One examines the overall structure of the written text, the pressure of the pen, the size of the letters, their width, slant, spaces between words, distance and direction of the lines and many other factors. The age and gender of the writer also play a role as does whether he is right- or left-handed. From what I have available and from our cursory meeting with this person, I can gather only very little. In my opinion, we are dealing with a maniac.”
Thus Holmes closed the investigation for the evening and went to his room. Barlow, the mysterious guest, the failed murder attempt and Mycroft’s letter would all have to wait until the morning.
The fresh wind from the Thames welcomed us to London with its embrace shortly after Big Ben struck noon. Holmes and I stood on the northern embankment in front of Westminster Palace[11] at the entrance of peers, he in his disguise and I in my best suit. After all, it was not every day that I visited Great Britain’s house of parliament, and I regarded Mycroft’s invitation as a great honour.
I had always had an odd and somewhat personal relationship to the parliament building. After the tragic fire on October 16, 1834, when most of the palace had been destroyed, my uncle had become a member of the committee in charge of its reconstruction. Only Westminster Hall, the Jewel Tower, and the crypt in the chapel of St. Stephen were spared. The committee then selected from among some hundred designs, and the foundation stone for the reconstruction of the palace in the neo-gothic style was placed in 1840, on the day when my parents met.
Mycroft’s office was in this building. Although I never learned exactly what position he occupied in the government hierarchy, it must have been very important and in some way connected with state security. Holmes once even mentioned something about the secret service.
We did not wait for him long; Mycroft met us at the entrance exactly at the agreed time. He greeted us quickly with a nod of his head, and as was his habit, did not waste time with common pleasantries. He immediately led us into the palace, where we were searched by an officer of the metropolitan police. Neither I nor Holmes protested; it had long been an obligation of every British citizen who entered the building.
The most famous attempt to disrupt the palace was the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, in which Catholic extremists attempted to detonate a charge of gunpowder during the opening ceremonies of the sitting of parliament. The conspiracy was uncovered after one of the Catholic nobles received an anonymous warning not to participate in the celebrations. The palace administration launched a search and discovered the charge and one of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes. The participants in the conspiracy were sentenced to death in Westminster Hall.
The original palace was also the site of an attempt on the life of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812. When he left the members´ lobby of the Lower House, he was attacked and shot by John Bellingham. Perceval is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated.
All of this was running through my head as the parliament staff dressed in knee breeches, stockings and coats with starched collars were graciously dismissed from Mycroft’s personal security and we walked to his office on the top floor.
We made our way though corridors lined with enormous bookshelves and paintings of famous figures, passed through rooms in which history was being written and ascended staircases, of which there were perhaps a hundred in the whole gigantic palace. Indeed, the building has more than a thousand rooms and several kilometres of hallways!
Finally we arrived in the third floor office, where Mycroft bade us sit on a comfortable leather sofa, poured us sherry and offered us cigars.
“Not for me, the last one almost killed me,” said Holmes.
Mycroft snapped shut the mahogany case and transferred his burly frame to the desk.
“Gentlemen, allow me to get straight to the matter,” he said dramatically.
Long introductions were not among his habits. He was a man of action.
“I have called you here on a matter of utmost national importance!”
“I would not expect you to rouse me from the grave for anything less,” said Holmes.
“Yes, I know that you are officially dead and are engaged in the pursuit of your killer,” said Mycroft. “It is indeed this fact that can ensure the necessary discretion in this sensitive matter, and perhaps even has something in common with your case.”
The official opened a drawer in his desk, took out a thick paper envelope and placed it on the writing pad. For a moment he played with its edges indecisively, but then he opened it, not for the first time judging from its broken seal, and took out a letter written on handmade paper and passed it across the desk to Holmes.
“This letter was waiting for me when I returned from Fulworth three days ago.”
The detective began devouring the lines, but the contents for now remained hidden from me. The only thing that I noticed with astonishment was the personal seal of King George![12]
“Was it written by who I think?” I asked.
Mycroft did not reply. He only lit a cigar and silently released clouds of pungent smoke to the ceiling while Holmes read.
“Fascinating,” said Holmes when he had finished reading the mysterious letter.
His misanthropic elder brother nodded seriously and fell to thinking.
It vexed me that I was the only one in the room who still did not know what was afoot. I coughed with embarrassment and shot an inquisitive glance at my friend.
“Excuse me, doctor,” said Mycroft, “we do not want to keep you in the dark. We first have to clarify what precisely is going on. The letter is indeed from His Majesty. It is a request to the secret service for help. He wants to find his nephew, Lord Bollinger, who recently vanished without a trace.”
11
Westminster Palace, now the seat of the Parliament of Great Britain, dates from the year 1097 and is the oldest preserved part of Westminster Hall. The palace served until the 16th century as the residence of the monarch. Most of the present building dates from the 19th century, when the palace was reconstructed after a devastating fire.
12
George V (1865-1936), who ruled from 1910-1936. He continued the anti-German stance of his father Edward VII. Although under his reign Great Britain won the First World War, the Empire emerged greatly weakened.