Free M by Andrew Cook Page A

situation that nobody seemed to be doing anything about. There was a pretty little port called Honfleur set deep into the south side of the Seine estuary, and close to Honfleur was a dynamite factory. Ships laden with the stuff now sailed quite regularly away from Honfleur along the river mouth beyond Le Havre and out into the English Channel whence, it was claimed, they headed for the Baltic, their cargo apparently intended for use in the Russian mining industry. Melville would have been aware that the Irish-American dynamiters used materials bought in Europe. He could have a source of supply here under his nose, a short ferry ride away, and yet he had no intelligence with which to make further enquiries.
    If he pointed this out in a report to his superiors in London, and we have no proof that he did, nothing came of it. Hostilities had re-opened in the New Year over, of all things, a threat to HRH the Prince of Wales. It came in a letter signed ‘Magee’, and under the mistaken impression that Mr Jenkinson was head of the Secret Police, the Prince of Wales passed it on to him. Rather than conveying the letter, or at the very least its contents, to Scotland Yard, Jenkinson organised a ludicrous sting operation.
    He sent a woman for the purpose of entrapping the writer of the threatening letter, entrusting to her a bag of farthings, supposed to represent sovereigns, in payment of the bribe demanded by the writer of the letter. 17
    This masterly ruse not only failed, but emerged into daylight when the Prince passed a subsequent letter directly to Scotland Yard. Dogged detective work by the SIB revealed that the woman had been one of many Irish people employed by a private agency off Piccadilly Circus which was supported by Mr Jenkinson’s Secret Service funds and advertised for assistance in the public press.
    As this case was followed up, the Tories were preparing for a fresh election. By February Gladstone and the other old faces were back. Hugh Childers was Home Secretary. In March Godfrey Lushington, Under-Secretary at the Home Office, declared that the endless squabbles were leading him to favour the loss of Jenkinson over the loss of Monro.
    Unless the case is very carefully handled I believe Mr Monro would resign. And this would be a deplorable loss, very far exceeding any gain from Mr Jenkinson obtaining a free hand, if indeed that were possible. 18
    Nothing could be done to make these two work together. By May, Monro had gone on the offensive. He wanted Jenkinson out, and wrote a long memo listing every instance of the man’s arrogant behaviour and more:
    [and then]... the explosions at the Houses of Parliament and the Tower occurred. While investigating these cases, the manner in which my action as a police officer was interfered with is almost beyond belief. Not only was freedom of action denied to me, but in one instance illegal action was taken by Mr Jenkinson himself and suggestions involving illegal procedure were made to me by Mr Jenkinson which, had they been listened to, would undoubtedly have led to the failure of the case and involved the police in well-merited disgrace. I do not further allude to the matter here, but I am fully prepared to substantiate the accuracy of this statement. 19
    He concluded his note with a cool evaluation of Mr Jenkinson’s usefulness.
    I have already said that all the information regarding dangerous, or supposed dangerous, subjects in London was given to Mr Jenkinson by Scotland Yard... I have furnished to Sir Charles Warren a list of every file of information issued by Mr Jenkinson to me during the past year, and the result qua tangible information is absolutely nil. There have been many vague rumours communicated; the time of police has been frequently wasted on following up the intelligence of an (unintentionally no doubt) misleading character; but of real, practical, valuable information there has been a very decided absence. 20
    InJune 1886, afterjust