Read Online The Autobiography of Sherlock Holmes by Sherlock Holmes, Don Libey - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sherlock Holmes, Don Libey
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those of an automaton. A new fact stimulated a file of older facts and aligned them into new relevancies with other facts about other people pigeon-holed in perfect reason and deduction. Pike and I were equals operating in different disciplines, but using the same powers of observation, knowledge and synthesis.
Pike was born in London in 1855 to a wealthy family of long establishment in the law of admiralty, the insuring of vessels, and sole owners of a large shipping fleet. Through being the lawyers and the insurers, as well as the ships owners, their cases never went against themselves and, regardless of the verdict, the Pikes claimed either the reward or the fee. In consequence, the family amassed a fortune and ranked in the upper strata of London society.
Young Langdale went up to Cambridge where he studied the arts of the dilettante. His knowledge of fine art, porcelain, literature, music and theatre was sufficiently broad to equip him as a highly accomplished raconteur and favoured dinner quest. After coming down with an Ordinary in Humanities, Langdale took to spending his days at Swithin’s, his club in St. James Street, lunching at the St. James Hotel where he daily sampled liberally the prize French wines in the hotel’s extensive underground vaults, and returning to sit in Swithin’s bow window to observe the to and fro movements of his specimens and be available to all who curried his favour by informing him of the latest gossip above and below stairs in the great homes of London society. Pike was created to be precisely what he was: a handsome mannequin, an arbiter of taste, and the repository of all of society’s most intimate secrets. He was invaluable to me as a source of information, and I was invaluable to him as a source of hints and directions as to where to turn his energies.
Now, three years since his death, it is possible to accord Langdale Pike his proper place in history. London’s most accomplished dilettante and gadfly was, in reality, Great Britain’s most important intelligence officer from 1875 through his last years in the early 1920s. For nearly forty-five years, Pike filtered the endless river of gossip and innuendo that came his way daily and sieved from it those national and international bits and bobs that signalled threats to the monarchy, the government, and the people of Great Britain, passing them on to his one contact in Whitehall: Mycroft.
During the Great War, Pike was the human dial upon the surface of war. He alone was privy to the sacrifices and heroisms of the British upper class, as well as their perfidies, acts of treason and war profiteering. Masterfully inhabiting his well-developed role as social gadfly, Pike was instrumental in successfully forestalling forty-seven national threats to my certain knowledge and there may well be numerous others of which I am unaware. Only Mycroft knew for sure, and Mycroft was a closed book.
My intersections with Pike notably occurred in the business of the Bruce-Partington plans, and that of the naval treaty, the Greek interpreter, the red circle, Mrs Mary Maberly and, of course, the matter concerning Baron Von Herling. Not once in all the years was Pike ever wrong in his analyses or conclusions.
Langdale Pike was an example of what can emerge when privilege, wealth, education and class combine to benefit society. Just as easily, he could have been exactly what he seemed to be, but he wasn’t. In many ways, like me, the Langdale Pike known to the world was partially a figment. Only through the successes of his work did we catch a glimpse of the real man.
14
Many of my cases were associated with America or had American connexions. I do not prefer Americans as their lack of education makes them difficult to penetrate. One has to work so hard to get to the truth with Americans and, then, it is often not to be relied upon. I admit to my having a definite prejudice for things British. Consequently, I was annoyed with Watson’s
Pike was born in London in 1855 to a wealthy family of long establishment in the law of admiralty, the insuring of vessels, and sole owners of a large shipping fleet. Through being the lawyers and the insurers, as well as the ships owners, their cases never went against themselves and, regardless of the verdict, the Pikes claimed either the reward or the fee. In consequence, the family amassed a fortune and ranked in the upper strata of London society.
Young Langdale went up to Cambridge where he studied the arts of the dilettante. His knowledge of fine art, porcelain, literature, music and theatre was sufficiently broad to equip him as a highly accomplished raconteur and favoured dinner quest. After coming down with an Ordinary in Humanities, Langdale took to spending his days at Swithin’s, his club in St. James Street, lunching at the St. James Hotel where he daily sampled liberally the prize French wines in the hotel’s extensive underground vaults, and returning to sit in Swithin’s bow window to observe the to and fro movements of his specimens and be available to all who curried his favour by informing him of the latest gossip above and below stairs in the great homes of London society. Pike was created to be precisely what he was: a handsome mannequin, an arbiter of taste, and the repository of all of society’s most intimate secrets. He was invaluable to me as a source of information, and I was invaluable to him as a source of hints and directions as to where to turn his energies.
Now, three years since his death, it is possible to accord Langdale Pike his proper place in history. London’s most accomplished dilettante and gadfly was, in reality, Great Britain’s most important intelligence officer from 1875 through his last years in the early 1920s. For nearly forty-five years, Pike filtered the endless river of gossip and innuendo that came his way daily and sieved from it those national and international bits and bobs that signalled threats to the monarchy, the government, and the people of Great Britain, passing them on to his one contact in Whitehall: Mycroft.
During the Great War, Pike was the human dial upon the surface of war. He alone was privy to the sacrifices and heroisms of the British upper class, as well as their perfidies, acts of treason and war profiteering. Masterfully inhabiting his well-developed role as social gadfly, Pike was instrumental in successfully forestalling forty-seven national threats to my certain knowledge and there may well be numerous others of which I am unaware. Only Mycroft knew for sure, and Mycroft was a closed book.
My intersections with Pike notably occurred in the business of the Bruce-Partington plans, and that of the naval treaty, the Greek interpreter, the red circle, Mrs Mary Maberly and, of course, the matter concerning Baron Von Herling. Not once in all the years was Pike ever wrong in his analyses or conclusions.
Langdale Pike was an example of what can emerge when privilege, wealth, education and class combine to benefit society. Just as easily, he could have been exactly what he seemed to be, but he wasn’t. In many ways, like me, the Langdale Pike known to the world was partially a figment. Only through the successes of his work did we catch a glimpse of the real man.
14
Many of my cases were associated with America or had American connexions. I do not prefer Americans as their lack of education makes them difficult to penetrate. One has to work so hard to get to the truth with Americans and, then, it is often not to be relied upon. I admit to my having a definite prejudice for things British. Consequently, I was annoyed with Watson’s
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