Free M by Andrew Cook Page B

four months in office, the Liberal Government split over Home Rule. An election was called, and a coalition of Tories and Liberal Unionists took its place. Lord Salisbury returned as Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and for the first time a Roman Catholic, Henry Matthews, became the Home Secretary.
    As for relevant information from overseas, in September of 1886 Monro was complaining that he seen not a single item of consular intelligence in a year. 21 Relevant documents from consulates went to the FO and thence to Jenkinson. But this is not to say Scotland Yard received no information from overseas. Some embassy intelligence certainly reached Monro, such as this hair-raising note on 10 July from the Secretary at the British Embassy in Paris:
    A man came to me this morning and said that he was convinced that some dynamite plot was being prepared by the Irish Americans who frequent Reynolds’ Bar… He has overheard phrases like ‘we shall have another earthquake ready soon’… He has twice seen suspicious looking bags at the Bar, which are taken charge of by the proprietor. My informant had an opportunity of touching one: he found it very heavy, and heard a ticking noise coming from it. He thinks it contains dynamite, which comes from Havre. 22
    The informant was sent direct to Scotland Yard and told Monro, in answer to questioning, that an Englishman had been seen hanging around Reynolds’ Bar. Monro saw a means to expose one of Jenkinson’s unacknowledged ‘threads’. He knew that the man who ran the private agency off Piccadilly was called Winter, alias Dawson. He had long ago put the information before Childers and Jenkinson. Jenkinson tipped the man off; he fled to Paris; and it was he who was lurking around Reynolds’ Bar. As Winter was a bigamist, Monro sent a man (either Melville or Moser) to Paris who arrested him and Monro asked Matthews to ask the Foreign Office for extradition. But Matthews agreed with Jenkinson that there was no need for that. The smoking gun – Monro’s proof that Jenkinson was running a private detective outfit in London in parallel with the police – remained just out of sight.
    The information about Reynolds’ Bar had been followed by a tight-lipped little note from HM Consul Bernal in Le Havre itself on 26 July.
    I do not suppose the explosion of nearly two tons of dynamite which occurred here on Friday night, from which my house somewhat suffered, is of sufficient importance to Sir Julian Pauncefote, GCMG, to report officially, but I think it as well to mention that when the sloop came ashore she had on board 23 tons of dynamite from the factory at Ablon, near Honfleur; two and a half tons of gunpowder sent out to her from this port; &c. She was bound to St Petersburg, and the cargo was, I learn from one of the officials, for the Russian Government. 23
    Melville must have reported this event to London as well, for the following day the Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, wrote to the Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office that ‘I have reason to believe that explosives may be brought to this country by steamers plying between Russia and here’ and asking for consular reports to be sent to him; for Port Police at Gravesend to be warned; and for crew lists to be obtained wherever possible. Known Irish dynamitards had visited St Petersburg that summer. This information was not of immediate concern to the police in charge of London, but it would have been useful background; even more useful had they known that plots involving Russia and Ireland were being cooked up by Jenkinson’s men, apparently with Foreign Office connivance. 24
    Melville, conveniently located as he was, probably knew more about the provenance of dynamite than the Assistant Commissioner. Jenkinson was routinely holding onto key information from overseas which should go to the London police.
    The Consul at Le Havre at least suspected that no one was