Chapter 8

Enter The Villains (and a glimpse of Doyle)

Sir William Hutt Curzon-Wyllie adjusted his cuffs with a sigh as the voices in the meeting room swelled. He had lingered outside longer than necessary, hoping some urgent telegram might rescue him. No such luck. Since the Conservatives’ defeat and Lord George Hamilton’s retirement, he’d intended to withdraw gracefully from public life. Instead, duty—or habit—had dragged him back into yet another tiresome meeting.

Opposite him were the current Secretary of State for India and liberal MP for Montrose, Lord John Morley, and Winston Churchill, the under-secretary for the Colonies. When the Liberals came back into power, they had extricated him from a lifetime of fly-fishing for salmon in the Highland rivers,. and into probably the most thankless job - Head of the Secret Police. He didn’t have much of an office, much of a budget, or even many men under him. And he had to tell his wife and friends that he was ‘helping’ Lord Morley with his expertise on India. Which was technically true, but …