CHAPTER 10
Inspector Tennant and Sergeant O’Malley were the first to arrive for the meeting with the home secretary.
Mr. Gathorne-Hardy’s assistant ushered Tennant and O’Malley into a conference room. The bald and bespectacled Mr. Greaves was as starchy as his shirt’s stand-up collar and looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. He pursed his lips, commanding them to wait rather than inviting them to sit.
“Frosty bugger,” the sergeant muttered after the door closed.
Tennant circled the empty room, examining the portraits of past home secretaries. Minutes ticked by, and Greaves opened the door again. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy bustled in, taking the seat at the head of the mahogany table. Sir Lionel Dermott and Sir Richard Mayne followed, nodding to Tennant and O’Malley. Mister Greaves ushered a fourth gentleman to the table and closed the door. The newcomer sported a drooping mustache, lavish side whiskers, and the blue frock coat and red-striped trousers of an officer in the Cold Stream Guards.
The home secretary waved Tennant and O’Malley to chairs and nodded to Sir Lionel.
Dermott made the introductions. “Inspector Tennant, you know everyone except Colonel William Fielding. He’s heading up the Fenian division. Colonel, Patrick O’Malley is the inspector’s sergeant.”
Gathorne-Hardy cleared his throat. “Thank you, Sir Lionel. Our subject is the outrage yesterday morning at Marlborough House. Her Majesty’s government is dismayed by the incident. ‘Dismayed’ is a poor word to describe our reaction to the most recent debacle in a string of Yard failures.”
Sir Richard scowled. “I take exception—”
“But it wasn’texceptional,was it?” Sir Lionel ticked off on his fingers, “A dead Manchester police sergeant, the Irish prisoners he guarded in the wind, and the Clerkenwell Prison blown to bits. Scotland Yard seems singularly out of its depth.”
“The Yard got wind of both those plots from a trusted source,” Colonel Fielding said. “Local police bungling is responsible for the failures on the spot.”
Dermott shrugged. “Contrast that with policing in Ireland, Colonel. Over the past year, Dublin’s coppers thwarted every Irish scheme without a stumble.”
“Talking of plots and blunders,” Tennant said. “What about the stolen rifles shipped from France? Shouldn’t they have turned up by now?”
“It’s too early to assume the worst,” Sir Lionel said with a flicker of a smile. “But point taken, Inspector.”
“These damnable Yankee Irishmen …” Colonel Fielding smacked the tabletop with the flat of his hand. “Why don’t they stay on their side of the Atlantic?”
After a brief silence, O’Malley said, “They’ll not be forgetting the famine and their starving mothers giving them the bread from their mouths. An ocean isn’t wide enough for that.”
The colonel’s drooping mustaches wobbled. “Damn it, man, you’re not in sympathy with these brotherhood bastards, are you?”
The home secretary raised his hands. “Gentleman, let us set history aside and address the present. Colonel, what about this ‘trusted source’ you mentioned?”
“Trusted?” Dermott said. “He warned of phantom attacks on the queen at Balmoral and Osborne but stayed silent about the arson at Marlborough House. Why is that, Colonel?”
Fielding scowled. “I don’t know. Our man has … disappeared. He left his lodgings the night of the fire and hasn’t returned.”
Tennant and O’Malley exchanged glances. The inspector asked, “Is your source a man of average height with broken teeth along his upper left jaw?”
“But how …” Fielding stuttered. “See here, how do you—”
Sir Lionel smiled above tented fingers. “Does that describe the charred victim at Marlborough House?”
“Yes,” Tennant said. “Someone silenced your reliable source. What was his name?”
“Boyle,” Colonel Fielding said. “Daniel Boyle.”
Sir Lionel noted the name. “Kindly send me what you have on the man, Colonel.”
“Inspector, where do we stand?” Gathorne-Hardy asked.
Tennent spent ten minutes reviewing the murder cases and tracing their linkages to the Dowling sisters’ deaths. Colonel Fielding refused to concede the connections.
“A knife wound to a cabdriver’s neck?” The colonel snorted. “That’s your evidence? Surely, it’s commonplace among the ruffians you see in your line of work, Tennant.”
“There is something singular about these throat wounds.”
