been disturbed in the night. I found it curious that her concerns were not shared by anyone in this house.”
“But I have already told you that only the butler lives on the lower floor,” pointed out Sir Gibson, “and Hogan has not complained of any such noises. Have you, Hogan?”
The man shook his head morosely.
“Well,” went on Holmes obliviously, “our conspirators, for that is what they are, had enticed their victim from France on the pretense that he was wanted to mediate in some negotiations between this government and members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The idea appealed to Cardinal Tosca’s vanity, and he came here obeying the conspirators’ exhortation not to tell anyone else. He was killed and the body brought through this underground system.”
“But for what purpose?” demanded Glassford. “Why was he killed and placed in my house?”
“The purpose was to achieve exactly what this has nearly achieved. An attempt to discredit you as a member of government, and to stir up antagonism against any movement by the Irish Tarty to press forward again with its political campaign in parliament.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What group of people would best benefit by discrediting both a government pledged to the Unionist cause and to those who seek only Home Rule within the United Kingdom? Both those objectives would receive an irrevocable blow by the involvement of a Tory Minister in the murder of a cardinal and the suspicion of some conspiracy between them. Where would sympathy go to?”
“I presume the more extreme Irish Nationalists — the Republicans.”
“Watson, your revolver!” cried Holmes suddenly.
It was too late. Hogan had pulled his own revolver. “Everyone stay where they are!” he shouted.
“Don’t be a fool, Hogan,” snapped Gallagher, moving forward, but Hogan waved his weapon threateningly.
“I am not a fool,” the butler cried. “I can see where this is leading, and I shall not suffer alone.”
“You’ll not escape,” cried Holmes. “The police have already surrounded this place.”
Hogan simply ignored them.
He stepped swiftly back, removing the key from the lock of the study door. Then he slammed the door shut, turned the key, and they heard him exiting the house.
When Gallagher threw his weight against the door, Holmes ordered him to desist.
“He’ll not get far.”
In fact, Hogan hardly reached the corner of the street before members of the Special Branch called him to stop and surrender. When he opened fire, he was shot and died immediately. Which was, from my viewpoint, my dear “Wolf Shield,”just as well.
Holmes had reseated himself with that supercilious look of the type he assumed when he thought he had tied up all the loose ends.
“Hogan was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenians. He had ingratiated himself into your employ, Sir Gibson, and was told to wait for orders. The diabolical plot ivas to use the murder of His Eminence to bring about the fall of your government.”
“And we know the name of the man who lured the cardinal here,” Watson intervened importantly, speaking almost for the first time in the entire investigation. “We should be able to track him down and arrest him.”
Holmes looked at his acolyte with pity. “Do we know his name, Watson?”
“Why, indeed! He overlooked the fact that he left his card behind. T. W. Tone. Remember?”
“T. W Tone — Theobald Wolfe Tone is the name of the man who led the Irish uprising of 1798,” Sir Gibson intervened in a hollow voice. Watson’s face was red with chagrin. Sir Gibson glanced at Holmes. “Can we find out who the others were in this plot, Mr. Holmes?”
“That will be up to the Special Branch,” Holmes replied, almost in a dismissive fashion. “I fear, however, that they will not have much success. I suspect those who were involved in this matter are already out of the country by now.”
“Why did Hogan remain?”
“I presume that he thought himself safe or that he remained to report firsthand on the effects of the plot.”
Glassford crossed to Holmes with an outstretched hand.
“My dear sir,” he said, “my dear, dear sir. I… the country… owe you a great debt.”
Holmes’s deprecating manner was quite nauseating. Gallagher told me that he found his false modesty was truly revolting.
It is true that when the government released the facts of the plot, as Holmes had given it to them, the case of the death of Cardinal Tosca became a cause celebre. Holmes was even offered a small pension by the government, and he refused, perhaps more on account of its smallness than any modesty on his part. He even declined a papal knighthood from the grateful Bishop of Rome.
Sickening, my dear “Wolf Shield.” It was all quite sickening.
But, as you well know, the truth was that Holmes did not come near to resolving this matter. Oh, I grant you that he was able to work out the method by which I killed Cardinal Tosca. I admit that I had thought it rather an ingenious method. I had stumbled on it while attending a lecture in my youth at Trinity College. It was given by Dr. Robert MacDonnell, who had begun the first blood transfusions in 1865. MacDonnell had given up the use of the syringe because of the dangers of embolism or the air bubble which causes fatality when introduced into the bloodstream. My method in the dispatch of the cardinal was simple, first a whiff of chloroform to prevent struggle and then the injection.
My men were waiting, and we transferred the body in the method Holmes described. Yes, I’ll give him credit as to method and means. He forced Hogan to disclose himself. Hogan was one of my best agents. He met his death bravely. But Holmes achieved little else…. We know the reason, my dear “Wolf Shield,” don’t we?
Well, now that Holmes has gone to his death over the Reichenbach Falls, I would imagine that you might think that there is little chance of the truth emerging? I have thought a great deal about that. Indeed, this is why I am writing this full account in the form of this letter to you. The original I shall deposit in a safe place. You see, I need some insurance to prevent any misfortune befalling me. As well you know, it would be scandalous should the real truth be known of who was behind the death of Cardinal Tosca and why it was done.
With that bumptious irritant Sherlock Holmes out of the way, I hope to lead a healthy and long life. Believe me-
Sebastian Moran (Colonel)
Having read this extraordinary document I questioned Holmes about whether he had any doubts as to its authenticity.
“Oh, there is no doubt that it is in Moran’s hand and in his style of writing. You observe that I still have two of his books on my shelves? Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas and Three Months in the Jungle.”
I remembered that Holmes had purchased these volumes soon after the affair of “The Empty House.”
“Moran was many things, but he was no coward. He might even have been a patriot in a peculiar and perverted way. His family came from Conamara and had become Anglicans after the Williamite Conquest of Ireland. His father was, in fact, Sir Augustus Moran, Commander of the Bath, once British Minister to Persia. Young Moran went through Eton, Trinity College, Dublin, and Oxford. The family estate was at Derrynacleigh. All this you
