The Scottish author’s mouth dropped open with surprise. Apparently, the veteran considered himself a bit of an amateur Sherlock Holmes.
“Yes, I do. How on earth did you know that?”
“I recognize you by your hair oil and cologne. Very top drawer. Very distinctive.”
“Remarkable,” Conan Doyle said, “but tell me, how do you find your way about on these foggy mornings?”
“I taps me way around London,” the veteran explained, demonstrating by tapping his white cane upon the ground. “Day or night, fog or no fog, makes no nevermind to me.”
“Clever… and remarkable. I shall have to use that in one of my detective fictions.” He dug out another coin and dropped it in the veteran’s collection box. “There you go, Sam. That’s well worth another half-crown.”
“Thank ya kindly, sir. Gawd bless ya, and Gawd bless the Queen.”
As Conan Doyle approached the newspaper kiosk, his eye was caught by the hysterical message scrawled upon the reader board: ASSASSINS STRIKE AGAIN! He hurriedly purchased a paper and snapped it open only to be flayed about the face by a giant screaming headline: “HOGG SLAUGHTERED!”
The Scottish author grimaced at the tasteless pun and scanned the subheading: “Bank of England president killed by anarchist bomber.” As he read the words, images of the previous evening swam up in his mind: the hoary figure they had witnessed shambling through the fog and the steam car and its stovepipe-hatted driver seen shortly before that. He stood pondering. If only he could visit the scene of the most recent assassination — a course of action fraught with danger after Commissioner Burke’s blunt threat. He momentarily considered his journalism contacts, but they would likely be fobbed off with an “official” description of events. He needed to somehow slip inside Hogg’s residence and see for himself what had transpired. He needed a type of disguise, a mask, and suddenly realized that he already knew an insider who could help them walk straight through the police guard as if invisible.
The door, which had been a stranger to paint for years, still bore the ghostly silhouette of where a knocker once hung. Conan Doyle was forced to remove his glove and knuckle the fibrous wood. Almost instantly, his knocking roused voices from inside. He caught the light tread of feet and the door was opened by a young woman with a babe balanced on her hip. The mother, barely out of her girlhood years, eyed him quickly up and down and snapped, “If it’s about the rent—”
“Ah, no,” he quickly put in. “I am an acquaintance of your husband’s. My name is Arthur Conan Doyle. I am the author of the Sherlock Ho—”
Abruptly, the woman slammed the door in his face with the force of a cannon blast.
The vehemence of the response rocked him back momentarily. He blinked away his surprise and turned to walk away, but then paused at the sound of raised voices: a man’s and a woman’s, arguing. In the background, the baby’s startled wailing. A moment later, the door snatched open again. This time it was answered by a cowed-looking young man. It took a moment to recognize Detective Blenkinsop so very out of uniform. He was wearing worn trousers gone baggy at the knees and a tea-stained under-vest. His thick dark hair was wildly mussed and it was clear his barber had not enjoyed a visit in days.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “A misunderstandin’. Come in, Doctor Doyle… please.”
Conan Doyle entered a modest room; it was clean, but furnished with a cheap assortment of mismatched furniture clearly on its third or fourth owners. Despite the chill outside, the space was humid and fugged with steam. Evidently, his visit coincided with washday — an iron cauldron bubbled on a hook in the small fireplace; baby nappies and a lady’s unmentionables dangled from a clothes rack winched tight to the ceiling. The young woman who had slammed the door in his face, evidently Blenkinsop’s wife, kept her back resolutely turned, bouncing the squalling baby in her arms as she glared out a window that offered only a view of a brick wall two feet opposite.
“My apologies,” Blenkinsop muttered in a low voice, “but the missus is a bit miffed—”
Overhearing his words, the young wife turned upon them, her pretty face ugly with rage. “Miffed? You nearly got him chucked off the force!”
“I’m just suspended,” Blenkinsop quickly countered.
“Suspended with no pay! No pay and us with a new babe!”
“Enough, Fanny,” Blenkinsop said. “It ain’t the gentleman’s fault—”
“I am sorry, I had no idea.” Conan Doyle reached into his pocket and drew out a clutch of banknotes, holding them out to Blenkinsop.
The detective looked at the notes hungrily, but shook his head. “I can’t take no charity—”
“This is not charity. I am here to interrupt your leisure. I wish to hire you.”
“Hire me? I don’t— What for?”
“I am still pursuing the Lord Howell case. Albeit…” He lowered his voice. “… in an unofficial capacity. I require the assistance of a professional detective. I could wish for no better than yourself.”
Blenkinsop and his wife exchanged a look freighted with meaning. Conan Doyle could almost see her visibly willing him to take the money. For the second time, the young detective eyeballed the banknotes.
“That’s too much,” he said.
“You do not yet know what I’m hiring you to do.”
“Nothing illegal, right? I’m just suspended from the force. I ain’t been booted yet.”
The hand holding the money did not waver. “I cannot share anything until you are officially in my employ.”
With a commingling of reluctance and relief, Blenkinsop took the banknotes, glanced at them, and then crossed the room and handed them to his wife saying, “Here ya go, girl. Mebbe you can pop to the shops and buy the babe some milk and a rusk, and something for our tea.”
The young woman snatched up a shawl and wrapped it about her and the babe in arms. “I’ll be off, then,” she said, and moments later the two men were alone in the room and able to speak freely.
“What’s going on, Doctor Doyle?”
“Nothing short of a coup d’état.”
“A coo—? You mean the Frenchies are about to invade?”
Conan Doyle chuckled. “Not exactly, but our nation is in crisis. The murder of Lord Howell is part of a plot of programmed assassinations aimed at key politicians and magnates of industry. But that is only the beginning. The plot will culminate in the assassination of the queen and the overthrow of the government.”
“Lumme! What can I do, Doctor Doyle?”
“I have needs of your sleuthing skills.”
A smile cracked Blenkinsop’s face for the first time. “You can count on me, sir. It’ll be good to be back in harness and out from underfoot with the wife and little-un.”
“There is one thing, Detective.”
“Tom. You’d best call me Tom. I’m suspended, remember?”
“Ah, yes. Very well then, Tom. I must stress, there will be danger involved. Possibly, great danger.”
Blenkinsop sniffed at the possibility. “No different from me regular day job then, is it? I’m your man, sir. Like you say in your Sherlock Holmes stories, the game’s afoot, eh?”
Conan Doyle clapped the detective on the shoulder and smiled. “Indeed, Tom, the game is very much afoot!”
When Conan Doyle and Detective Blenkinsop alighted from the cab, they found a cordon of blue uniformed constables surrounding Tarquin Hogg’s house. Three hearses and a black Mariah were already drawn up at the curbside.
“Blimey,” Blenkinsop said. “How do we get past that lot? Sneak in the back way?”
Conan Doyle thought a moment and said, “I say we sneak in the front way. You still have your detective’s badge, I take it?”