change of clothes. In the upper inside pocket of his tweed jacket he carried photographs of three men, one much younger than the other two. In his right trouser pocket, Holmes carried a French-made, spring-opening knife with a 6-inch blade that had a cutting edge so sharp that one could remove all the hairs on one’s arm with it without feeling the slightest touch of contact.
* * *
Holmes had two objectives for his day of “exploring” in Washington: the first was a mere local errand that might end up a tad expensive; the second was a longer voyage by foot into areas that would almost certainly be dangerous. He looked forward to the second task.
Now as he ambled along, seemingly oblivious to the threatening weather or even the city around him, he took in—as was his training and habit—almost everything around him.
Holmes saw that no one was following him.
Holmes noticed that while the homes were rather nice here near Lafayette Square and the Executive Mansion—what Americans would come to call the White House—they were mostly of the flat-fronted, old Federalist design with their modest stoops opening directly onto the sidewalks. The exception to this traditional flavor had been the Hays’ and Adamses’ towering twin piles of red brick in the Richardsonian design. Even as he’d walked away, Holmes had noticed that the bricks of Hay’s mansion facing Sixteenth Street had been architect-unique: longer, wider, and deeper than any standard building brick. He hadn’t yet taken time to study the front of Henry Adams’s house next door on H Street, but he hoped to see that home soon enough.
The trees in bloom along the not-very-wide sidewalks were relatively young and short. Only in the parks had some of the chestnut and elm trees reached their mature height. Washington, D.C., although almost a hundred years old and despite its gleaming-white Roman civic architecture and few great monuments, had the feel of a new and rather sleepy city.
The boulevards were broad but not very busy even in late morning; by London or Paris standards, they were all but empty. On the busier cross-streets, Holmes caught glimpses of small, hooded gigs—what the Americans called “buggies”—as well as fashionable cabriolets and chaises, commercial coaches and canvas-sided “floats” filled with milk churns or stacked marble, the occasional stylish four-in-hand dashing through traffic, some dog carts (usually with young people at the reins), quite a few gleaming black broughams of the quality Hay had sent to the rail station the night before, a plodding assortment of wagons, wagonettes, and vans hauling goods, a few men on horseback, and even a very few gleaming and belching brass and red-leather horseless carriages being guided by men in dusters and goggles at the tillers.
Even though he had to pass the Executive Mansion, Holmes’s glance did not linger on the miniature white palace housing President Cleveland. The detective had last been to the White House in November of 1881—during the trial of President Garfield’s assassin, the pathetic and more-or-less insane Charles Guiteau. Holmes had been pressed into the service by his older brother Mycroft at Whitehall and by Mycroft’s superior in the intelligence services at the time, Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming.
In 1881—as now in 1893—the formal British Secret Service had not yet formally come into being (it will be founded in 1909), much less branched into its domestic intelligence service (MI5) and its foreign intelligence service (MI6), but Prime Minister Disraeli had established a “Joint Information and Research Unit” that was actually an oversight and political-liaison committee between the prime minister’s office, Whitehall, and the hodge-podge of intelligence services run by the Army Intelligence Service, Royal Navy Intelligence, and half a dozen other military agencies.
Mycroft Holmes, only 34 years old at the time but already indispensable at
* * *
Holmes had two objectives for his day of “exploring” in Washington: the first was a mere local errand that might end up a tad expensive; the second was a longer voyage by foot into areas that would almost certainly be dangerous. He looked forward to the second task.
Now as he ambled along, seemingly oblivious to the threatening weather or even the city around him, he took in—as was his training and habit—almost everything around him.
Holmes saw that no one was following him.
Holmes noticed that while the homes were rather nice here near Lafayette Square and the Executive Mansion—what Americans would come to call the White House—they were mostly of the flat-fronted, old Federalist design with their modest stoops opening directly onto the sidewalks. The exception to this traditional flavor had been the Hays’ and Adamses’ towering twin piles of red brick in the Richardsonian design. Even as he’d walked away, Holmes had noticed that the bricks of Hay’s mansion facing Sixteenth Street had been architect-unique: longer, wider, and deeper than any standard building brick. He hadn’t yet taken time to study the front of Henry Adams’s house next door on H Street, but he hoped to see that home soon enough.
The trees in bloom along the not-very-wide sidewalks were relatively young and short. Only in the parks had some of the chestnut and elm trees reached their mature height. Washington, D.C., although almost a hundred years old and despite its gleaming-white Roman civic architecture and few great monuments, had the feel of a new and rather sleepy city.
The boulevards were broad but not very busy even in late morning; by London or Paris standards, they were all but empty. On the busier cross-streets, Holmes caught glimpses of small, hooded gigs—what the Americans called “buggies”—as well as fashionable cabriolets and chaises, commercial coaches and canvas-sided “floats” filled with milk churns or stacked marble, the occasional stylish four-in-hand dashing through traffic, some dog carts (usually with young people at the reins), quite a few gleaming black broughams of the quality Hay had sent to the rail station the night before, a plodding assortment of wagons, wagonettes, and vans hauling goods, a few men on horseback, and even a very few gleaming and belching brass and red-leather horseless carriages being guided by men in dusters and goggles at the tillers.
Even though he had to pass the Executive Mansion, Holmes’s glance did not linger on the miniature white palace housing President Cleveland. The detective had last been to the White House in November of 1881—during the trial of President Garfield’s assassin, the pathetic and more-or-less insane Charles Guiteau. Holmes had been pressed into the service by his older brother Mycroft at Whitehall and by Mycroft’s superior in the intelligence services at the time, Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming.
In 1881—as now in 1893—the formal British Secret Service had not yet formally come into being (it will be founded in 1909), much less branched into its domestic intelligence service (MI5) and its foreign intelligence service (MI6), but Prime Minister Disraeli had established a “Joint Information and Research Unit” that was actually an oversight and political-liaison committee between the prime minister’s office, Whitehall, and the hodge-podge of intelligence services run by the Army Intelligence Service, Royal Navy Intelligence, and half a dozen other military agencies.
Mycroft Holmes, only 34 years old at the time but already indispensable at
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