Sherlock Holmes and the lost tiger (7)

I gave up on Holmes, who seemed to have lost all reason, with his new high society friends and fancily named cannabis blends. Besides, my practice was enough to fully occupy my time, I was still catching up on a backlog of cases following my recent absence. 

 

It was therefore completely out of the blue that I received a telegram from Holmes directing me to meet him at an address by the docks, which turned out to be a warehouse. I took a cab over immediately and found Holmes waiting outside, smoking a pipe, which I was reassured to recognise as his regular shag. 

 

“Holmes,” I said, “Are you really back on the case or are you planning to steal another child’s toy?”

 

Holmes laughed, the confident laugh I recognised of old.

 

“I have brought you here for something rather more significant than a child’s toy, Watson.” So saying he gave a signal to a group of dockers standing in front of the warehouse. They disappeared inside, then shortly afterwards a cart came out of the warehouse doors. Inside the cart was a cage, and inside the cage was a tiger.

 

“The tiger!” I exclaimed. “You found it. And I thought you’d abandoned the case.”

 

“Watson, Watson, have you ever known me abandon a case? In point of fact Watson I located the tiger three weeks’ ago, in the intermitting period I’ve been busy negotiating.”

 

“Negotiating. But you’ve spent the last few weeks in a drug induced fug, giggling away with that hapless socialite.”

 

“Exactly, Watson, a pretty intense form of negotiation you’ll have to agree. Lady Chivers is perhaps the most important person in the British isles.”

 

“Nonsense Holmes, parliament, the king …”

 

“Lady Chivers has both wrapped around her little finger. Come Watson, join me in the cart. I can explain the case during our journey.”

 

I climbed into the cart alongside Holmes.

 

“Where are we going?” I enquired.

 

“The zoo Watson. Where else would we be going with a tiger?”

 

“So it’s over. You’ve solved the case.”

 

“I solved the case that night after inspecting the tiger’s cage. As you and Lestrade eventually established, the man responsible for stealing the tiger was Wolf Moritz, a notorious burglar, most notorious for blatantly getting away with his crimes. What you and Lestrade didn’t realise was the reason Wolf was immune to justice. It wasn’t luck as Lestrade ridiculously assumed, it was payback.”

 

“Payback, Holmes? From whom.”

 

“From the government, from the king and his entourage, from the powers that govern this fair isle. Moritz applied his skills for their benefit. True, the government would occasionally turn to me to locate missing plans, but only when their whereabouts were unknown. When the skill required was pure burglary, then Moritz was their man. He burgled and copied the papers of every foreign official working in London. So when I realised that Moritz was behind the tiger, I quickly concluded that this was government business, as there was no conceivable criminal benefit.”

 

“But why would the government get Moritz to steal a tiger?”

 

“To instil panic, Watson. Panic on the streets of London.  The reaction of the press and of the government, and the sudden appearance of mysterious holes, alerted me to a wider, greater conspiracy, to use the fear generated by the tiger to introduce emergency legislation, an opportunity for the government to seize greater powers, to carry out policies they would otherwise never have dared attempt.

 

“The clearing of vagrants.”

 

“Exactly Watson, that was the first step. Alas, my negotiations came too late to do anything about that. But I prevented so much more. It was to have been the first step, remove the vagrants, then remove the ‘hovels’, then the working poor, until the only people living in London were millionaires. Why, another day and the slum clearances would have begun, then the anti-union bill. There were even plans to introduce a charge for the right to vote.”

 

“Charing a fee to vote? But that’s extraordinary Holmes, the free vote is a fundamental of democracy.”

 

“It would be justified, Watson, by claims that the charge was necessary to meet the cost of protecting voters from the tiger. Once introduced the fee, a token sum at first, would rise and rise until only the richest could vote.”

 

“I went to Wolf’s house that night, after you left me, but he was already dead. Whoever was behind this didn’t want to leave any loose ends.  However, whoever killed him never found out where Moritz had hidden the tiger, it seems that he’d kept that particular ace up his sleeve. My irregulars found it soon enough through. I paid off the workers he was using to keep the tiger and moved it to my own secret location. Then began my negotiations by striking up a friendship with Lady Chivers.”

 

“But why didn’t you just return the tiger to the zoo, Holmes?”

 

“Because that wouldn’t have worked. London had been inflamed to such a state of groundless fear that merely returning the tiger would have done nothing to end the panic, another cause would have been found for the holes in the ground, terrorists perhaps, foreign spies, trade unions. No Watson, I had to persuade the government that it was time to end the panic.

 

“And Lady Chivers was your route to government.”

 

“Yes. Alas, it proved insufficient, even with Lady Chivers honey-talking the king and members of the cabinet, the conspiracy was not so easily halted. Which is why I needed to steal Sir Hugo’s tiger.”

 

“I don’t understand, Holmes. You mean there was a reason you stole the toy. It wasn’t just a bet?”

 

“That ‘toy’ as you call it was where Sir Hugo stored his most secret papers, including private letters between Sir Hugo and the Prime Minister’s wife.”

 

“They were having an affair?”

 

“They were Watson. Blackmail is a dirty deed, but it was the only way I could secure the support of Sir Hugo. He was able to convince the Prime Minister to end the conspiracy.”

 

“But how?”

 

“Oh, for someone as swift of tongue as Sir Hugo, that’s easy. He cited international trade, concerns about London’s viability as an industrial centre, he probably said that the banks were worried, that always gets the attention of politicians. And, crucially Watson, he said that enough had been achieved already.”

 

Though the streets were empty, word spread quickly as people saw the tiger and people rushed out of their houses to see the sight. Holmes waved his hat at various people, as if to assure them that everything was normal and under control.

 

“Now everything is set for me to return the tiger to a hero’s welcome. The panic will end, the mysterious holes will stop appearing and normality will be restored.”

 

“Except for the homeless.”

 

“Alas, yes Watson, that policy can’t be reversed, no matter how many tigers I steal, how many society ladies I get high on Tiger’s Paw. Don’t think I take it lightly Watson,” he could clearly read my angry expression, “Many of the irregulars were moved away in the clearances, among many other good people. I dread to think what will happen to them.”

 

We pulled up outside London zoo. A crowd was already starting to form and Holmes was being cheered.

 

“So that’s it?” I said. “No more conspiracy, no more lies. You’ve beaten the government.”

 

“For now Watson. I fear there will be another attempt before too long. The government needs money to meet the wild extravagances of the new king and his entourage. They fear the strength of the unions, the rise of women’s suffrage, the power of democracy. I fear there will be another attempt to seize emergency powers before long.”

 

“Another tiger?”

 

“Maybe not a tiger next time Watson. Maybe something even more absurd, maybe even a war.”