The worst day of all was 26 January, when a thick, slow moving fog draped over the city. Over the next three days, almost twelve thousand lives were lost. In the seven weeks that followed, according to Uncle’s friend Dr. Mitchell, the number of fatalities due to the fog was astounding: 1754, 1780, 1900, 2200, 3376, 2495, and 2106.
As I was busy with patients and Sherlock was busy with swans - and, I was about to discover, many other things - I did not see Sherlock again until the end of March when he asked me to have lunch with him. Though the fog had abated to some degree, it was still a struggle to keep the soot from one’s clothes. The grime, the obstinate black mixture saturated everything. Uncle had even covered the keyholes of the house with metal plates in an attempt to keep it out.
I did not want to be late, so I set out a bit early to make my way through the pea soup to Simpsons Grand Divan Tavern where I’d agreed to meet Sherlock.
Formerly, it was Simpsons-in-the-Strand, and Sherlock had a penchant for the place these days, because it was well-known as a chess club and coffee house. It had transitioned to the continental preference for haute cuisine, and now boasted lavish décor and a host of waiters. But remnants of its humble beginnings and a plethora of chess memorabilia remained. Master Cook Thomas Davey delighted the customers with his bill of fare, especially wheeling a roast beef to the patrons. In the early days, I’d have been out of place, for this had been a place for gentlemen to smoke cigars with their coffee, browse the daily journals, indulge in long conversations about politics, and sit on the establishment’s comfortable divans while they played. Chess matches were played against other coffee houses in the Metropolis and top-hatted runners carried the news of each move. Sherlock called Simpson’s a ‘poor-man’s version” of the Diogenes Club, the private gentleman’s club where his brother Mycroft spent much of his time. Mycroft Holmes was the supreme and indispensable brain-trust of the British government, full of government secrets, and we were well aware that the Diogenes was likely some kind of façade at which government officials shared intelligence with those, and only those, in Mycroft’s inner circle.
“Not so poor,” I’d told him once, referencing the many important people who frequented Simpson’s. Charles Dickens used to go there, as did Disraeli, our prime minister, and Gladstone, whose political campaign and series of speeches were bringing him back into political power. It occurred to me, as I took a seat across from Sherlock, that he may have suggested lunch at the restaurant not to enjoy the food or the atmosphere of chess but to try to speak with the politicians to find out what they knew about the Royal Swan caper.
Sherlock ordered coffee and a roast beef sandwich, but he wandered away to watch some players engaged in a game. When he came back to the table, he said, “It is a nice set they have there. The pieces on the board are made of rosewood. But it’s not a Staunton. Like your Christmas present, the queen has a ball on top without a crown, and the pawns have a button top.”
I looked at him, puzzled. “Wait, what is a Staunton?”
“People from all over the world have come to play at this club, Poppy, including Howard Staunton, the world champion. He died just a few years ago. A man named Nathaniel Cooke improved the design of the chess set and called it the Staunton after Howard Staunton.
“I thought you did not care for trivia.”
“Oh, not trivial at all, Poppy. The new design is actually based on scientific principles and calculations. Pieces like the ones you have in your set are too tall, easily tip and are cumbersome during play. Some pieces are spindly or top heavy and fall over easily, and because they were so uniform, an initiate to the game, someone unfamiliar with the pieces, can make tragic errors. You see, most chess sets before the Staunton design were confusing because the pieces looked too similar, and that inevitably created mistakes during play, particularly for novices. So, pieces that are universally recognized are important. The Staunton pattern elevates the conventional form. The bases are larger, more stable, and more easily distinguished. The Staunton sets have been around since before I was born. Your chess set is obviously an antique and not nearly as practical to the players. You’ve really never heard of Staunton?”
“I am not an avid chess player, Sherlock. Just a beginner. As I thought you were.”
“Actually, I used to play often with my brothers. Brother Mycroft is quite good - and he never lets me forget it. In fact, although his rails are firmly set in Westminster and he rarely goes anywhere but the Diogenes Club, it wouldn’t surprise me if he came round to see the tournaments here. Anyway, some say that the knight in a Staunton set is patterned after the horses of the Elgin Marbles.”
“The Elgin Marbles in the British Museum?”
“The same. Some, as I said, believe that the Staunton knight represents the powerful ideas associated with the horses of the Elgin Marbles. Staunton was a Freemason. The sun-god’s chariot of On-Helios, as depicted in the Elgin Marbles, is linked to the Egyptian god of resurrection and rebirth, and this is of tantamount importance in Freemasonry.”
“So then there’s all sorts of Freemason imagery in a chess set?” I asked.
“Yes. For example, the compass on the board reminds us to circumscribe our desires and keep our passions within due bounds. And that is a very sound strategy for living, I should think.
“Did you know that the Freemasons have a volume of The Sacred Laws - the Bible - and the square and the compass symbolise the Ark of the Covenant, which contains laws
