Barry Day - Sherlock Holmes and the Alice in Wonderland Murders

Then he began to speak …

… and as he did, you could feel the collective blood run cold. For the words the man spoke were the ravings of a madman, made all the more frightening by the cold, intelligent, apparently reasoned way he spoke them. He began by castigating the various races, colours and creeds he said were insidiously undermining our country.

“Maggots in the fabric,” I remember him saying. There was a certain amount of tentative nodding and a muffled “Hear! Hear!” from the shires, but soon even that stopped. There was something viciously racist in phrases like “the serpentine Levantine” that reduced that opinionated group to an uncomfortable silence.

Then Steel turned to “the enemy within,” all those who were plotting to sell their own country to “the semite and the barbarian” and others who were “ethnically inferior.”

Now he began to lace his accusations with the names of individuals, many of whom were in this very Chamber. These men were traitors who should not be allowed the luxury of resignation but should be tried and, when found guilty, executed for treason.

By now the shock was wearing off. I had the distinct feeling that for the first part of his speech many of his audience had thought the man must be staging some sort of elaborate and extended joke and that at some point he would let them all in on it. Perhaps he was parodying some admittedly extreme points of view in order to discredit them. But this was now all too obviously not the case. Angry murmurs began to reverberate around the hall.

Steel himself seemed to be losing his icy composure. The voice was louder and the gestures wilder. Parliament should be disbanded, the Monarchy banished. A few men of vision that he had already hand-picked could lead Britain out of the mire of shabby corruption. Yes, there would be sacrifices, cankers would have to be ruthlessly cut out but then a racially pure society, a greater Great Britain would be ready to cross the sea and emulate Henry at Agincourt. Today Britain, tomorrow Europe … then why not the world? As he reached his peroration, he began to throw up one hand in a demented militaristic sort of salute. He was screaming in an effort to be heard above the tumult in the Chamber.

Members on both sides of the House were on their feet, howling and shaking their fists and order papers at Steel in one of the rare moments of unanimity Parliament has ever seen. Several of the more agile Members began to clamber over the Tory benches in an obvious attempt to reach Steel and do him physical harm and it was at that point that I noticed some counter movement at one end of the room. For some time the Speaker had been trying to make himself heard in an effort to ask Steel to withdraw. Realising the effort was futile, he had clearly signalled for the attendants to perform a duty that had hardly ever proved necessary in the history of that august assembly. Now the black garbed attendants were forcing their way through the gesticulating Members of Parliament for the purpose of removing one of them from the seat of government.

It was the saving of Steel, there is no doubt in my mind about that. His harangue had turned a group of civilised and reasonably orderly men into a mob that would not have disgraced the French Revolution. All that was missing were the tumbrils and the guillotine and bare hands looked ready to make good the difference.

As if the whole thing were happening in slow motion, the attendants parted the crowd like the Red Sea, surrounded Steel — who now seemed calm and quite content to be taken into custody — and suddenly they were gone, as if they had never been. The floor of the Chamber below me was left a seething cauldron of emotion and noise, with old enemies for once united in a common — or perhaps I should say, decidedly uncommon — cause.

It was a sight I never expect to see again and an extremely disturbing one, the more I thought about it. What one person and the weapon of words could achieve!

It was clear that there was nothing more to be seen here. I hurried down the stairs to try and see the end of this remarkable affair, in time to see the distinctive police carriage move away from the gate and the black clad attendants begin to file back into the building. Holmes’s criticisms of police efficiency were a little harsh on occasions like this, I thought. Nothing could have been smoother or more expeditious than the way Steel’s exit had been handled. Even the gatekeeper wished me good evening as calmly as if we had both just been witness to an everyday occurrence.

I decided to walk for a while as I tried to sort my thoughts into some kind of order. I had just watched a man commit political suicide. Whether the words he had uttered were those of someone in the grip of some sudden seizure or whether there was some other explanation was irrelevant. Nothing could expunge those vile sentiments from the minds and hearts of those who had heard them — and on the morrow the rest of the world would share that disgust. How could a man whose reputation had been built to so great a degree on the golden opinions of the Press fall into such an obvious trap? And what would this do to Moriarty’s schemes? Was it in some bizarre way part of those schemes? None of it made sense, I concluded and hailed a passing cab.

As I opened the front door of 221B I could hear the murmur of conversation from the room above. I hastened up the familiar stairs. Holmes would be anxious to know how I had fared on my mission.

“Holmes, the most amazing thing …” I said, as I entered the room … to find My croft Holmes ensconced in my chair and Holmes’s place occupied by — Royston Steel.

“You may cease and desist from your celebrated impersonation of a fish, old fellow. And please shut the door. There is an infernal draught in here. I must have a word with Mrs. Hudson.”

It was Steel who spoke — with the voice of Sherlock Holmes!

As if in response, Mycroft rumbled from the depths of his — my chair.

“‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘to talk of many things …’”

“But — but — I saw you, I mean, Steel, in the House only a few minutes ago …”

“No, Watson, you saw but you did not observe …” Holmes was now pulling off the sleek black wig and the face putty that had once again transformed his features and allowed him temporarily to inhabit someone else’s skin. As he towelled his face vigorously with the cloth Mycroft tossed to him, he continued — “You were in Steel’s milieu. You expected to see Steel. Ergo , you saw him. As did everyone else. In the past most of them had taken him for granted, an irrelevant irritant. Tonight they took notice — and they will never forget him.”

Thinking back to the performance I had seen little more than an hour ago, I knew, of course, that he was right. Not for the first time I reflected that when Holmes put on a disguise he did not impersonate, he became his subject. He transformed his appearance, his bearing — even, I suspect, his soul.

I looked at him. He had the contented look I imagine comes over every actor at the conclusion of a performance that has clearly impressed his audience. Finally I managed to say — “But Holmes, you were masterly. You were the man …”

“Thank you, Watson. It’s good to know the skills I picked up in America as a young man have not totally atrophied. Oh, have I never related that part of my pre-Watson existence? Remind me to do so when we have rather more leisure. It may serve to pad out one of your more lurid tales.”

Suddenly a thought struck me.

“But what about the real Steel,” I stammered, “suppose he had walked in while you were impersonating him?”

“I have too much confidence in my brother’s ability to exert his personality when he so chooses,” Holmes replied, looking in that direction. Mycroft acknowledged the compliment with the merest inclination of his head.