Mrs. Hudson and the Irish Invincibles

S Brown Barry

Description

Moira Keegan is certain that someone is trying to kill her father. She tries to recruit Sherlock Holmes to save his life, but all at 221B Street are certain that there is no basis for Moira's fears. When, a short time later, they read of the man's death in a sleazy waterfront inn, the members of London's premier consulting detective agency have a new client and a singular purpose. Their investigation will place them at odds with Scotland Yard's Special Branch, Irish revolutionaries, religious zealots, and even staff of the London Times. Only Lestrade remains an ally, and he dare only participate covertly with his frequent colleagues. Before all can be brought right, the Baker Street trio will have to call on the assistance of Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and his mistress Katharine O'Shea.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 12 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781787053595
• Langue: English

Extrait

Mrs. Hudson
and the
Irish Invincibles
Mrs. Hudson of Baker Street
Book 2
Barry S Brown




2018 digital version converted and published by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2011, 2018 Barry S Brown
The right of Barry S Brown to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious or used fictitiously. Except for certain historical personages, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of MX Publishing.
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Cover design by Brian Belanger



Dedication
Ira Brown, Toaru Ishiyama, and Charles Radford Lawrence II
I stand on the shoulders of giants. The unsteadiness is mine alone.



Acknowledgement
I am indebted to Arlyne and Marvin Snyder for their careful review of this work and their many helpful suggestions and corrections.



Disclaimer
While grounded in the turbulent history of the effort to obtain Irish Home Rule, and including individuals and organizations that are a part of that history, the events described in the pages that follow are drawn entirely from the author’s fevered brow.



Preface
Even less well known than Mrs. Hudson’s achievements as director of the first of its kind consulting detective agency is her life before allying with Holmes and Watson. Now, all that is changed. Materials recently acquired from the Embassy of Bulgaria shed welcome light on that earlier history. Journals belonging to Mrs. Hudson’s first employer, Lady Cynthia Stanhope, were discovered by Embassy officials during renovations made to the Stanhope’s Belgravia mansion shortly after its acquisition by the Bulgarian government. In the Cold War spirit dominating diplomatic relations at the time, the journals were viewed as the prattle of an English reactionary from a bygone imperialist era and consigned to a distant part of the mansion’s attic. When the building passed from Bulgarian hands to become again a private residence, Embassy officials made Lady Stanhope’s journals available to the British Museum and we have finally become privy to the contents of those diaries. Unfortunately, many pages are missing, and others are substantially water damaged. Moreover, Lady Stanhope appears to have written sparingly about her servants. Nonetheless, whatever their deficiencies the journals are able to illuminate an area left far too long in shadows.
In an entry dated May 28, 1848, after first recounting her satisfaction with a shopping expedition to Paris, Lady Stanhope reports: “Mrs. Cavitt [her housekeeper] has recommended a girl to replace the housemaid who disappeared from service two weeks ago. Mrs. Cavitt tells me the staff is most sorely taxed and urges me to adopt the girl for service immediately. I feel I must trust Mrs. Cavitt’s judgment in these things, but admit to some reservations about this girl. I am informed she comes from most trying circumstances. Her mother is a seamstress and her father’s whereabouts are simply unknown. Not an unusual circumstance to be sure, but not a good omen. She is 14 and so is an appropriate age for service, and she reports having completed four years of schooling which speaks well for her diligence. I am told she is hard-working and honest, but is cursed with the fearful accent common to those from the city’s eastern area. I will defer to Mrs. Cavitt’s judgment, and hope she proves suitable to her position.”
There is a second entry fully two years later in which Lady Stanhope again yields to her housekeeper’s judgment and reports: “I must admit the housemaid I brought into service with some reluctance is not entirely lacking in intelligence and makes a generally favorable impression. I will take Mrs. Cavitt’s recommendation and promote her to parlor maid. She still speaks without awareness that the letters g and h are included in the English alphabet; however, I will simply hope she has little occasion to engage in conversation with any of my guests.”
The last entry in Lady Stanhope’s journal of significance to us is dated September 18, 1851 and reads: “My parlor maid has given notice that she will be leaving service to marry one, Tobius (sic) Hudson, who is, of all things, the constable patrolling this area. I understand they will be taking a flat in Lambeth. Why the girl should give up her present position for a flat in Lambeth is quite beyond me. The girl’s leaving will greatly inconvenience me, and Mrs. Cavitt, and I have no intention of favoring her with a good notice for the position she will doubtless require in future.”
We already know somewhat more of the rest of Mrs. Hudson’s life. We know from Constable Hudson’s gravestone that she and the policeman were married until his death nearly 30 years later. We believe there were no children from that union. There are records as well of “a lease to property suitable for the provision of lodgings located at 221B Baker” entered in the name of Tobias Hudson. There is, however, no information to resolve the last great mystery surrounding Mrs. Hudson. That of determining the woman’s given name.
Registry Office records of the housekeeper’s birth and marriage were destroyed by fire and it is unclear which of the several Mrs. Hudsons for whom death records appear is our Mrs. Hudson. And then there is the further mystery of Mrs. Hudson’s burial place, denying us even the opportunity of learning her name from its gravestone. There are, admittedly, those who confuse Mrs. Hudson with the servant, given the name Martha, inserted by Holmes into the Van Bork household as reported by Dr. Watson in His Last Bow . However, the connection seems to hang on the slender thread that Martha (if that was truly the woman’s name) was an older woman, and in service. In fact, in the case in point, Mrs. Hudson remained in London, confidently waiting the return of her two protégés and their report of the success of her plan to root out the Kaiser’s secret agent. At age 80, though still quick-witted, she left the rigors of field work to others.
Thus, we have no choice but to adopt Dr. Watson’s custom of identifying the great lady solely by her last name, even as we reject all other limitations he and others improperly impose on the true sage of Baker Street.
- Barry S Brown



1. Moira Keegan Calls
Mrs. Hudson let the breakfast dishes soak a while longer, poured herself another cup of tea, and nodded her satisfaction to the empty room. Two weeks had passed since the successful, and handsomely rewarded, resolution of the murders at Parkerton Manor, and already Mr. Holmes had received two attractive offers for his services. The first had come in a visit from a representative of the Earl of Norwich conveying the Earl’s wish to consult with him on a confidential matter of great delicacy.
There was, in fact, little that was confidential about the matter. It had been described in all its indelicate detail in several of London’s penny papers for the better part of the week preceding the emissary’s visit. The Earl’s youngest son had not only formed an alliance with an actress of virtue reported as somewhere between easy and absent, he had had the bad judgment to express his devotion in letters filled with flowery prose and concrete promise. The Earl was willing to pay a very considerable sum to have Mr. Holmes use his “remarkable skills” to recover both the letters and what he could of the family’s reputation.
The second offer arrived not three days later in a telegram from the Prince of Montenegro indicating His Majesty’s willingness to come to London, or have Holmes travel to his country at the Prince’s expense, to investigate the disappearance of his head groom together with his daughter and two very promising young stallions. The Prince specified his interest in the return of both the stallions and his daughter.
Neither were cases Mrs. Hudson believed appropriate to the work of the foremost consulting detective agency in London, but each would bring in a fair packet and both would maintain them in comfort for at least six months. All in all, the detective agency she had begun with more resolve than resources was succeeding quite well.
Indeed, it was her judgment that Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson had come a long way, under her tutelage of course, to become quite respectable investigators, and she had come close to telling them so on several occasions. Without question, the two of them were doing far better than she had any reason to expect when they first arrived at 221B nearly ten years earlier in response to her advertisement of “rooms to let, good location, applicant should possess an inquiring mind and a curiosity about human behavior.” The consulting detective agency she was ready to found would not only fill the empty days since Tobias had been taken from her, it would stand as a proper tribute to her companion and mentor for 29 years.
Every night, after the supper dishes had been cleared, the two of them would spread the day’s newspaper wide across the kitchen table, open