Free Victorian Villainy by Michael Kurland Page A

having to worry about police spies in their midst.”
    “Unless, of course, they’re Irish,” Mycroft Holmes said bluntly, shifting his bulk forward in his chair. This was met with a complete silence, and he didn’t pursue the thought.
    “What else?” asked Holmes.
    “Newspapers,” said Lord Fotheringham.
    “The editorial pages of newspapers in various European countries; France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, are printing the occasional scurrilous editorial accusing Her Majesty’s government of a secret plan of aggression against the continental powers,” Mycroft explained.
    “How odd,” said Sherlock.
    “We know of three different men in the governments of three different countries who are preparing anti-British legislation of one sort or another,” said Lord Easthope. “Preparing, you will notice, but not submitting. They are waiting for the proper moment. We must assume that they believe that there soon will be a proper moment. If we know of three, presumably there are more.”
    “Do those three men know each other?” Holmes asked.
    “Apparently not,” his brother told him.
    “Then we must also assume there is, somewhere, a hand pulling the strings.”
    “We do so assume,” Mycroft said.
    “Is that all?” Holmes asked.
    “Is that not enough?” asked Easthope.
    “Actually,” said Baron van Durm, “there is one other thing. The House of van Durm, as you might surmise, has agents strategically placed all over Europe. Most of these conduct the bank’s business. Some merely collect information. The success of an international bank rises or falls on the quality of the information it gathers. One of these agents is highly placed in the government of, let us say, a foreign power that has not always been in the best of terms with Great Britain. In the course of his work for us he came across a document which might shed some light on these happenings. It was not addressed to him.”
    “Ah!” said Sherlock Holmes.
    “This is a copy of it, translated into English,” van Durm said, removing a sheet of paper from a folder on the table before him and passing it over to Holmes, who read it carefully twice before passing it on to me:
Thirteen—
Your concise and with information filled report was most welcome. We must continue and increase our efforts to discredit England and all things English. It is simpler to chop down a tree if you have poisoned the roots.
Sixteen has failed us. Worse, he may have betrayed us. He was seen entering the embassy on Prinz Rupert Strasse. He stayed for an hour. He will not do so again.
The day nears. The events unfold. Work and diligence carry great rewards. The Florida is now ours. Inform the brothers that the direction is up and the peak is in view. If we succeed, we will succeed together. Those who fail will fail alone. It is the time for cleverness and impudence. Stories must be told. Incidents must be arranged.
The lion sleeps peacefully. Holmes and Moriarty are watched, as are Lamphier in Paris and Ettin in Berlin. They are not alert.
Proceed to Lindau on the 16 th . The company is assembling. The first place. Three white clothespins. Burn this.
One
    “What do you make of that?” asked van Durm.
    “It was in German originally?” I asked.
    “That is so,” van Durm said.
    “The embassy on Prinz Rupert Strasse?”
    “The British Embassy in Vienna is on Prinz Rupert Strasse,” Lord Easthope said.
    Holmes leaned back in his chair. “Lindau is a German place-name?” He asked.
    “A town on the Bodensee, on the German side of the Austrian border.” Easthope told him.
    “Quite a distance from Florida,” Holmes remarked.
    “That is so,” Easthope agreed. “We have not been able to come up with a plausible explanation of that line. Not even, if it comes to that, a fanciful one.”
    “The whole missive has something of the fanciful about it,” I said. “Addressed to ‘Thirteen’ from ‘One.’ There’s something of the Lewis Carroll about it.”
    “Why