Tragedy at Hutton Hall and Other Stories by Mike Hogan

Author:Mike Hogan [Hogan, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781096893592
Publisher: Kaleidoscope Productions
Published: 2019-02-13T05:00:00+00:00

THE TRANQUILITY OF THE MORNING

I stood at the open window of our sitting room in Baker Street one crisp, clear Sunday morning, smoking a fine cigar and sipping an excellent cup of pre-breakfast coffee.

The street below me was busy in the dry, chill weather that had followed days of rain, and pedestrians strolled under streetlamps still draped with the remains of the victor’s laurels honouring the exploits of our victorious Army.

Even in the wan sunlight, Baker Street presented a busy, festive appearance. The strains of a military band playing martial airs wafted from the Park in the intervals between sprightly music-hall tunes played by a hugely bearded hurdy-gurdy man who had made his pitch outside our door. A flock of children in their Sunday clothes surrounded him, petting his monkey companion and clamouring for their favourite tunes.

I leaned out of the window, called for ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir’, and threw down a penny, which the monkey caught with an athletic leap in the air.

The door of Holmes’s bedroom opened, and he strode across the room, reached past me and slammed the window shut.

“Do have a care, my dear fellow, the sash pulleys are original,” I said, somewhat sharply.

Holmes grabbed his Times from the table, slumped into his chair before the fireplace, wrapped himself in his disreputable shawl and jabbed tobacco into his morning cherrywood pipe with his thumb. “How can I think in this cacophony?”

I went to the door and called down to Billy, skulking in the hall, for fresh coffee. I turned back to Holmes. “Shall I order breakfast now, or do you want your coffee first?”

Holmes flapped his newspaper and grunted a reply which long exposure to early-morning, under-employed Holmes allowed me to interpret, and I called again to Billy to bring breakfast immediately.

“I will be glad when this ridiculous fuss is over and we can settle down to pleasant, quiet mornings again,” Holmes remarked from behind his paper. “Our so-called war with the Kingdom of Burma was a purely commercial venture, a military excess akin to a rampaging elephant stamping on a delicate orchid. It is accompanied by assurances of Burmese independence that are outright lies.”

My companion had been cranky and argumentative during the Christmas and New Year festivities, doubtless due to the paucity of clients over the holidays and what he considered was the vacant, simple-minded merriment of the populace, and I had no intention of provoking another row over the Army’s victories in Upper Burma. I changed the subject.

“Celebrations in the street are less noisy, and far less destructive than riots,” I suggested. “I am astonished at reports the agitator John Burns has been released without charge.”

Holmes flicked down a corner of his paper and frowned.

“The man who led the mob along Pall Mall, smashing the windows of the gentlemen’s clubs, attacking members and passers-by and shouting Socialist slogans (disgraceful behaviour).”

“He with the red flag? I did not know his name.” Holmes went back to his newspaper, and I threw a shovelful of coal into the grate, poking our recalcitrant fire into a semblance of flickering life.

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