Mr Keighley glowed with indignation and demanded protection by parliament and new legislation against robbery in the guise of superstition.
He was answered on the other side by a Junior Minister from the Home Office. This functionary was as placid and mellifluous as Mr Keighley had been indignant and hectoring. Was it really suggested that the inoffensive fortune-telling tent at every village fair or church fete should be made subject in all particulars to the criminal law? As for black magic, said to have been worked on the poor old lady in this case, the art and its practitioners had always been punishable at common law without the need for new legislation. On the advice of the learned Solicitor-General, they remained so to the present day.
There was much more of this sort of thing and, before long, I confess that my eyelids were heavy. I had not realised before, when reading the report of an interesting parliamentary debate, how much of the proceedings are omitted by the press. In their entirety I found them insupportable. I heard the junior minister refer jocularly to the reading of palms as “the harmless pastime of the tea-party and the fairground tent.” Then I knew no more until Holmes dug me sharply in the ribs.
A younger member was on his feet, demanding to know on what grounds the minister was entitled to judge whether such arts were a harmless pastime or not. I screwed my eyes up and peered forward. I needed no one to tell me that the young man, who had risen among the benches and was wearing the black silk hat which entitled him to speak, was a blood relation of Lord Blagdon. The points of resemblance in the face, the dark curls and the patrician stoop were plain. This, then was Lord Arthur Savile. After a career of parliamentary silence, something had goaded him into eloquence.
I listened to his words and wondered if I was still dreaming. He demanded angrily how it could be said by the government’s Junior Minister that there was no harm in the “fun” of fortune-telling? Examples of its harm might be seen on every side. He began to list examples. I stared at the young man and thought that surely he was now speaking on the wrong side-in support of criminalising fortune-telling rather than permitting it! What had changed his mind so suddenly and so dramatically?
The Junior Minister made a jovial riposte to this outburst, brushing aside the “intemperate remarks of the noble member for Chalcote.” The government would not intervene to criminalise the practice of fortune-telling. This ministerial spokesman rambled on but I was no longer listening. Like the Earl of Blagdon, I assumed that Lord Arthur would attend the debate to vote against any change in the law which might persecute fortune-tellers. Now he had changed sides and was supporting the amendment. I glanced at Holmes but if he was surprised by this volte-face, there was no sign of it on his face.
Only then did I notice a man sitting in the row ahead of me and to one side. He was fat, to put it plainly, with a face that might have been yellowed by jaundice and was deeply lined. His lightweight summer suit, of thin brown cotton, fitted his corpulent form no better than a bag. When Lord Arthur stood up and put his question this man had emitted a sharp exhalation of breath. Having heard the question answered and dismissed by the Junior Minister, he now turned round to us all with a beam of mingled triumph and relief on his sickly features. It was as if he was inviting us to share his amusement at Lord Arthur’s failure.
At last a division was called-and a vote was taken, though the House was by no means full. About a quarter of its members now divided. The “Ayes” who supported the new law against fortune-tellers filed into the lobby on the left and the “Noes” into the lobby on the right. To judge from the numbers crowding into the right-hand lobby those who thought fortune-telling a harmless occupation were going to win hands-down. But Lord Arthur Savile was not among them. I switched my gaze to the left and saw only two or three dozen members voting in support of a law against such practices. At the tail of the queue was Lord Arthur.
The members returned to their seats and the tellers brought their totals to Mr Speaker. The result was as I expected.
“There have voted. The Ayes to the left, thirty-one. The Noes to the right, ninety-five. There were no abstentions. I therefore declare that the motion is defeated by sixty-four votes. The House will proceed to the third reading of the Stockbreeders and Poulterers (Hygiene) Bill.
“How very singular,” said Sherlock Holmes.
7
Lord Arthur had returned to his seat on the government benches for the very good reason that he was to act as teller for the Ayes at the end of the stockbreeders debate which now began. We knew where he would be until that debate ended or was adjourned. Lord Blagdon led us to his room beyond the House of Lords with its fine view of the Houses of Parliament terrace running above the Thames. He stood at his desk, pouring whisky from a decanter into three glasses. Then he straightened up and handed us each a glass.
“Why did he ask his foolish question? Why did he vote in support of the very law which he had condemned in my hearing as an abuse of freedom and a mere expression of prejudice against the enlightened?”
“Blackmail,” said Holmes simply.
“Blackmail! How could he be blackmailed?”
“With great respect, my lord, has it not occurred to you that the so-called cheiromancer or palmist foretold something which, if true, would have made Lord Arthur liable to the criminal law or exposed him to public disgrace?”
“But what?”
“Nothing less than murder, I think.”
“But my cousin has murdered no one!”
“Possibly not. Not yet.”
Lord Blagdon had left instructions that the door-keeper should warn him as soon as a vote was called in the present House of Commons debate. Lord Arthur, as teller, could not leave until the result was announced. We should be alerted in good time to pick up his trail as he left the Houses of Parliament. Or so we thought.
I realised too late that something had gone wrong with Lord Blagdon’s arrangement. We had received no message of Lord Arthur preparing to leave the building when I heard a familiar call echoing through the corridors outside. It is the cry that ends every day’s business in the Palace of Westminster, calling like a watchman through the streets of a city.
“Who goes home? Who goes home?”
We looked at one another. Where was he? Holmes and I could scarcely go and search for him. Much of the building was forbidden territory to us and we should hardly know where to begin.
“Wait here, if you please,” said Lord Blagdon peremptorily, “I will go and find him. If the door-keeper sees him preparing to leave, he will get word to you. Lord Arthur must still be somewhere in the building.”
As it proved, Lord Arthur Savile was in the precincts of Parliament but he was no longer in the building. Left to ourselves, Holmes and I stood at the latticed window. It looked down across the terrace and the river which ran at the base of its wall. By the lights of the far bank we could see cabs moving along the Albert Embankment. A tugboat pulling a string of three lighters was proceeding down the river towards the wharves of Battersea or Lambeth.
“I do not understand it,” I said, not for the first time.
“Possibly not,” said Holmes patiently, “Have the goodness, however, to keep quite still and watch the river. I would rather not be noticed.”
I was surveying the river terrace which extends from New Palace Yard almost the entire length of parliament. There was a man walking by the wall, his back to the river. He was pacing up and down as if in expectation, wearing a black silk hat and smoking a cigar.
“That is the fellow who was sitting in the Strangers Gallery,” I said at once, for there was no mistaking his bulk and the material of his bag-like summer suit, “The man who turned round and smiled at us, after Lord Arthur had made his faux pas by interrupting the Junior Minister.”