The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Marvin Kaye Page B

anarchism by its root. It had no root, no organized plan. It was an idea, a belief, a cause. There was no central conspiracy, only individual anarchists who believed in absolute freedom of the individual. They opposed every restraint, and believed as their social philosopher Proudhon did that “property is theft.”
    Building by building, anarchists tried to claim private property for the common ownership of all by blowing it to bits. In the process they murdered, as if by accident, people in the streets. First they dynamited a department store, then a bank, and finally one of their number assassinated the president of France. Over the steamysummer, the violent acts ceased as the wretched malcontents stewed in the torrid heat and made their plans.
    Holmes and I settled into a hotel near the Palais de Justice on that fatal morning. We finished our croissants and café au lait and were longing for Mrs. Hudson’s bacon and tea when we received an American journalist who came to interview Holmes for a new magazine. Normally, Holmes would not have considered granting an interview but this person represented a new type that Holmes thought he should become familiar with. She was an American spinster living in Paris on her own and supporting herself, God knew how, as a free-lance writer.
    Her name was Ida Tarbell and she was from Titusville, Pennsylvania, the capital of America’s oil industry. Holmes assaulted her with questions that she answered, hoping, I suppose, that eventually he would get around to answering hers.
    She was intelligent, and not outwardly a blue-stocking. In fact, she tried to ask her questions in an intelligent manner in that flat, uninflected way Americans have of speaking. Holmes was not at all surprised to learn that Miss Tarbell had studied biology and chemistry and had a sound grasp of scientific methods of investigation. She was about thirty-five years of age, uncommonly tall and uncommonly thin, with dark hair and a complexion browned by riding in the open air atop Parisian omnibuses. She tried to ingratiate Holmes for the sake of her story, and she had a nice open smile. I wondered why she had never married. In short, I liked her. Having been the butt of some of Holmes’s inquiries myself, I had some sympathy for her. When she insisted that The Great Detective figure her out for himself, Holmes did the usual trick of deducing where in Paris she lived—Rue Sommerard on the Left Bank—and the type of person she sat next to on the omnibus that morning.
    â€œYes, but what can you tell about
me
, Mr. Holmes?” she inquired.
    I knew she had made a blunder that would rebound on her. “You have few funds, madame. Probably your editors are not payingwhat they owe you. Obviously, they like your work because interviewing me is a coveted assignment. Normally, that would go only to a reliable, and possibly gifted, journalist. I see you are low on money because your serviceable black dress is fading at the seams. The cut of your clothes shows that you are a woman of taste and would surely go to a dressmaker if you could. You have tried to make this dress seem less worn by colouring its frayed seams with ink.”
    â€œHolmes!” I cried, astonished that even he could behave in such an ungentlemanly manner. I was embarrassed to be privy to such rudeness and to her humiliation, but Miss Tarbell, to her credit, smiled a tight, rueful little smile and confirmed that his deductions were correct. She took notes of his deduction for her readers and regained her composure as she carefully incised every shaming word he had said in her notebook. As Holmes’s official biographer, I know enough about writing to know she knew she was getting a terrific story, even if it was all at her own expense.
    Perhaps the authorities rapped, but I cannot be sure. I know the three of us jumped as the door to the suite flew open and a policeman burst in. The concierge trailed just behind to act