A storm in the channel had halted all boat travel. We spent a morning of frustration pacing the quay, and eventually found a French fisherman crazy enough to risk the crossing.
It did not take us long to doubt the wisdom of our decision. The tiny boat was tossed around like a cork by the massive waves. It seemed that the Stelé would end its days at the bottom of the Channel, for the fisherman began to talk of throwing our luggage overboard.
‘If it becomes necessary,’ Holmes told him, ‘you will go into the sea, but the luggage stays on board!’
He was wise enough to recognise determination when he saw it, and we heard no more of the matter.
The sight of Dover had never been more welcome than it was that day. Less than a hundred miles now stood between us and our destination, and an express was just leaving. We clambered on board just as it was pulling out of the station. We would reach London in plenty of time to deliver the Stelé to Wallis.
For the first time in many days we began to relax and talk. Holmes spoke of his admiration for the tribes who had helped him at Edfu.
‘They knew of, and feared, “The Old One”, but were prepared to put aside their own differences and fight together to put an end to him. It seems to me, Watson, that the Arab peoples, brought together in a common cause and led by a suitably charismatic leader, could be a military force to be reckoned with. I must mention the point to Mycroft.’
We had begun to discuss the more difficult matter of ‘The Old One’s’ end, and what we had witnessed in the courtyard at Edfu, when we realised that the train was drawing to a halt. The reason soon became all too clear. The storm that had caused such havoc in the Channel had blown down trees and blocked the line!
By frantic questioning we learned that trains were still running from a small country station five miles to the west. After a long, hot trudge we managed to hire a pony and trap. When we made it clear that we wished to reach the station as soon as possible, a mad gleam came into the farmer’s eye.
Within minutes I found myself wishing that we were back in the Channel. The man had clearly been waiting all his life for such an opportunity, and drove like a lunatic along the winding country lanes. Clinging for dear life until my knuckles were white, I pondered the Stelé’s first journey to England, the terrible episodes that had accompanied it, and wondered if Wallis had been right when he talked of a curse. Our own journey from Egypt had been plagued by disaster and danger. However, we survived the ride, and reached the station just in time to miss a London train. Another precious thirty minutes ticked away before we were able to settle down in a carriage and watch the last few miles slip by.
To my amazement, we pulled into London without further mishap, but it was after six o’clock in the evening, and the Stelé was due to be unveiled before the gathered dignitaries at seven.
A cab ride across London left us with but a few minutes before the unveiling. Holmes left me at the entrance to guard the Stelé and went to look for Dr Wallis. In minutes he was back, his face set hard.
‘Our troubles are not yet over, Watson. I have just seen two men in the crowd who are known assassins. The diplomatic initiative is still in danger, even now. If it should fail through an outrage committed tonight, the matter of the Stelé will be trivial indeed.
‘I can deal with one of them, but you must apprehend the other. He is easily identifiable. Look for a man with a full red beard, and wearing a bright blue sash. Get him out of the building by any means. I will do the rest.’
I left the Stelé in a safe place and entered the great hall of the museum. An attempt was made to check my invitation, but I pushed past and made for the individual Holmes had described. He put up quite a struggle, but I had him under control by the time two police officers arrived.
To my absolute amazement they ignored the assassin and grabbed me! I explained that the man was a known killer, and was met with a gale of laughter. Then Sherlock Holmes stepped through the crowd and addressed the red-bearded man.
‘Please forgive Dr Watson, Count Metterling. As you can see, he has suffered a wound to the head, and the excitement of the occasion has proved too much for him. Calm down, old fellow, and take a seat. Dr Wallis, you may proceed with the unveiling.’
He nodded meaningfully at Wallis as he said this, and the old scholar brightened visibly. He crossed to a case shrouded in velvet, and nodded to young Dorothy Edney, who was standing by in a splendid party dress. She pulled aside the curtain to reveal the Metterling Stelé.
Mycroft appeared at our side accompanied by Crossland.
‘Well done, Sherlock,’ said Mycroft, ‘although you did rather cut things a little fine. It is good to know, however, that those hours spent with your conjuring set were not wasted.’
I was about to take Holmes to task over his method of diverting attention, when the Misses Farrell and Edney appeared at our side.
‘Congratulations Mr Holmes,’ said Miss Farrell; ‘and you too, Dr Watson. I do hope your head is not too badly hurt. One day you must tell us all about your adventure. I am sure it will make me quite envious. If only I were a man, as you so rightly pointed out, I might have been able to play a part. Ah, well, that is the lot of we women. And now, I must bid you both goodnight, for tomorrow I begin rehearsals for a new play at Drury Lane.’
‘Florence is an actress,’ explained her young friend proudly.
Miss Farrell smiled, and transformed before our eyes into a young urchin. ‘You go to Sakhara,’ she cried in a high, cracked voice, ‘this horse good horse for you, Mister.’ Then with a wink she turned and was gone.
Holmes stood as though he was paralysed.
‘It was her!’ I gasped. ‘She was in Egypt before us; she was with us every step of the way!’
‘No, Watson, it is worse than that. She was
ahead
of us, for she was waiting in many of the places.’
‘She got back before us too,’ I added, ‘and she saved my life. What a woman, Holmes, what a woman!’
‘If I had not decided to be an Egyptologist,’ said Miss Edney, ‘I think I would like to be the first female consulting detective.’
I thought I saw Holmes shudder imperceptibly. ‘It will surely come, Holmes. Many things are changing.’
‘It seems so, Watson, but there is at least one place where everything can be relied on to remain the same.’
‘Do you mean the Diogenes Club, Holmes?’
‘I mean
Violinland,
Watson. A God of The Bow walks the earth in London tonight, and if we hurry we can make our obeisance in one place where we are sure to encounter no evil: The Temple of Music!
The Sect of the Salamander
‘FROM THE CALLOUSES on the hands alone,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘it is possible to identify no less than forty distinct forms of manual labour. Or perhaps I should say forty distinct types of strain or wear produced by hand-tools and ropes. The hands of a man who has served aboard a ship all his life show a very different kind of wear from those of a time-served carpenter. I say nothing of secondary evidence, such as the effects of salt water on texture of the skin in the one case, or minute splinters and sawdust traces in the other. The position, depth, and extent alone, Watson, tell an eloquent story. That unfortunate fellow had probably never been aboard a ship in his life, or held a tenon saw. The small hard node of skin on the right index finger is an example of the phenomenon known as “Goldsmith’s Segs”. The man was a goldsmith. Our custodians of the law have blundered again.’
Holmes hunched himself over the crackling fire, as if he felt in his bones the dank, February weather that had settled upon London. His face, in the glow of the flames, was grim and drawn.
‘So,’ I said, in an effort to cheer him, ‘you may correct a miscarriage of justice.’
‘Perhaps, Watson; perhaps. Yet it is a dreadfully dull business, picking over the botched cases of Scotland Yard; and the follies and oversights of our constabulary are pitifully easy to expose. Such mundane matters do not kindle the fires of enthusiasm. The spark is not there.’
‘Perhaps the gentleman you are expecting will bring a case of greater interest,’ I suggested.
‘I doubt that, Watson. Something about a burglary, if the garbled message I received is anything to go by. Common robbery, no doubt. Just the kind of matter to which our friend Lestrade should confine himself!’
He took up his pipe and lit it with a coal held in the tongs. Between puffs he said, ‘A Persian philosopher-poet has written that the bowl of the pipe is the sphere of Heaven, the tobacco the benevolence of God. The live coal is His Glory, the smoke the perfume of His Spirit, and’—here he drew deep—‘inhalation the enlightenment of the soul.’
I had heard him recite this conceit before, when a melancholy mood was on him, but said nothing. Better a eulogy on tobacco than recourse to the small case that still lay in a locked drawer close by. A knock at the door roused him sufficiently to look at his pocket watch.
‘At least he is punctual. Come in!’
Mrs Hudson opened the door to admit a tall gentleman, who was well wrapped against the winter chill. Holmes remained paralysed by boredom, so I saw our guest into a chair, offered him tea, which he refused, and asked him to tell his story. The man was in some distress, but steadied himself with a deep breath and began.
‘This is very difficult. I should explain that I am here on the confidential advice of a police constable, who is at this moment standing guard outside my place of employment.’
Holmes betrayed no interest in this, but I saw him remove the pipe from his mouth and set it aside.
‘He said that you should be informed of this matter as soon as possible.’
‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is this constable’s name?’
‘I do not know. He whispered to me while Inspector Lestrade was examining the body.’
Holmes turned away from the fire and straightened in his chair ‘If you want me to help you,’ he said fiercely, ‘you really must present the facts more clearly. Tell the whole story from the beginning.’
‘My name is Thomas Hodgson. I work for . . . for an eminent man who must remain anonymous. He is a great collector of Renaissance sculpture, and possesses many manuscripts, letters, and incunabula. A substantial part of the collection resides here in Burleigh Square. I am cataloguing his library, and am responsible for the safety of the collection. Indeed, I possess the only key to the room in which it is displayed.’
‘Your employer does not have one then?’ Holmes queried. Hodgson wiped his face with a handkerchief
‘Of course; I’m sorry, he does have one—but he is not in England at present. The lock is specially made, of no less than ten levers, and cannot be picked. Early this morning I found the door wide open, though I know it was locked last night, and the key had not left my possession.’
Holmes was hardly concealing his interest now.
‘What did you find when you entered the room?’ he asked. Hodgson showed fresh signs of distress.
‘A man . . . a man who had been working in the house some days before, repairing a bookcase. He was dead, with his throat cut from ear to ear. That was the most terrible part, Mr Holmes, but the strangest was that only one thing was stolen. The thief, and murderer, had walked past dozens of very valuable Renaissance statuettes of bronze, silver, and gold, only to steal a single page of manuscript.’
‘A document of great value?’ I asked.
‘On the contrary. A document of comparatively little financial value. It is a single page, part of a cache of assorted letters purchased recently at auction. They date from the sixteenth century, sent from Italy to Stansford House. The page in question is significant only in so far as it contains references to a bronze now in the collection and so provides provenance.’
‘Could loss of the document compromise identification of the bronze?’ asked Holmes.
‘The piece is by Cellini. Its authenticity is not to be doubted. Quality is sometimes its own signature. The letter merely adds more information to its history. In any case, why steal the proof of a sculpture’s provenance, yet not steal the piece itself? The thief would have had to walk past it to get to the desk where the letters lay.’
Holmes took up his pipe and craned forward like a hawk.
‘So the thief committed murder and stole a page that referred to the provenance of an object, but made no attempt to steal the object itself!’
‘That is so. It is beyond all understanding.’
‘Let us hope not, Mr Hodgson. All this occurred this morning, you say?’
‘Within the last two hours. The constable said the sooner you were called in, the better. He led me to believe you could be trusted to treat the matter in the utmost confidence.’
‘Oh rest assured, the name of Sir Reginald Thurston will not enter into the matter.’
Hodgson looked stricken.
‘How could you know . . .?’
‘I have some little interest in manuscripts myself. The auction catalogues are a useful source of information, so I keep up with recent sales. Sir Reginald has also published a fine monograph on Italian Renaissance documents, and donated a bronze to one of our great national collections. You mentioned the street where he lives. But this is wasting valuable time. Come, Watson, we shall need your assistance I think!’
The transformation that had come over Holmes was remarkable. He seemed like a resting predator galvanised by a glimpse of prey. In no time we were in a hansom, heading for the scene of the crime.
Burleigh Square was composed of fine Regency houses built around a small private park. We stopped outside a door guarded by a formidably bearded constable, who showed every sign of being a doughty guardian until he recognised us. Holmes and 1, in turn, realised that we had been visited by a remarkable stroke of good fortune in the identity of the officer on duty. His face broke into a wide smile of delight as he called out, ‘Mr Holmes! Dr Watson! Very good to see you, gentlemen.’
Holmes shook him warmly by the hand.
‘Constable Spare, I might have guessed! This officer, Mr Hodgson, has been of inestimable help to us in the past. How are your family? Your second son . . . the little artist?’
‘Austin, sir? Still won’t be separated from his pencils and paper. Drawing all the time.’
‘This man’s son will hang in the Royal Academy one day,’ I observed to Hodgkins, and meant it. I would never forget how one of our darkest cases had been illuminated a little, on a visit to constable Spare’s house, by his tiny son’s lightning sketch of Holmes in profile.
‘Now Spare,’ said Holmes, ‘may we enter the house?’
Spare shook his head solemnly. ‘I have express orders to admit no one until Inspector Lestrade returns.’ A glint came into his steely eye. ‘But if I was looking down the road, I couldn’t stop someone from slipping in, could I’
Holmes chuckled. ‘Good man, Spare.’
In the entrance hall, Holmes dropped to his knees and scoured the floor with his glass, then arose with sounds of exasperation. Hodgson then led us to the study, which looked to me like an annexe of the British Museum. All the fine furniture in the room had been chosen to show off a magnificent collection of statues and statuettes in bronze, marble, silver, and gold, depicting Classical gods, goddesses, and mythological creatures of all kinds.
The walls were lined with shelves of fine books, and cabinets full of plaquettes, medallions, and coins of antiquity. A single, great chair and a side table stood in one corner, from which spot it would be possible to enjoy a view of the whole room. Angled across another corner was an elegant desk with one drawer open. On the floor between the chair and the desk lay a body, on its back in a large pool of blood, arms thrown out, throat cut wide open.
Holmes peered over my shoulder.
‘A clean, fine cut, running from the right hand side of the body to the left,
our
left to right as we look at it.
‘A left handed man, from behind?’ I suggested.
‘Perhaps, but the angle of the cut looks odd. And the blade has cut deeper in the centre than at the outside edges. As if the blade was travelling in an arc in front the victim.’
He stood a moment lost in thought, then positioned himself some six feet from the body and executed a mime. First he held his clenched fists together at his left side, then drew them apart, as if unsheathing a sword, and swept back-handed with his right hand in a wide arc. Checking the position of his left hand, which had swung out behind him, he turned his attention to a cabinet some three feet away. Falling on his face, he squinted at the bottom edge, gave a grunt of satisfaction and reached underneath. Hopping to his feet, he held aloft a small metal object.
‘I think the man was killed with a swordstick, swiftly unsheathed, and swept backhand across the throat. As the blade was drawn, the stick struck the cabinet here, leaving a graze and pulling the ferrule off the end.
‘It is fine workmanship indeed. Continental, but not imported, I would say. Good as it is, the decoration is—what shall we say—a little too gorgeous for the English gentleman’s taste. Bought abroad, then. There is an embossed maker’s mark in the form of a letter “R” in a circle. It may yield some information pertaining to the man who is so handy with a blade, and who flees the scene of his crime in so careless a fashion. Now, before we are interrupted by Lestrade, let us see how he obtained entry.’
It took no time to establish that all the windows were barred, and intact. Holmes turned to the door and looked at the handles and lock-face.
‘Be so good as to lock me out,’ he said, stepping into the hall. Hodgson did as he was asked. A second later the lock turned and Holmes walked in. Hodgson was a picture.
‘How is that possible?’
‘With my key from 221B. The explanation is simple. Look at the face of the lock and the surrounding wood in the edge of the door. A screwdriver has been used to prise out the lock when the door was open. That cannot be done unless the spindle that joins the handles is removed. To do that one must remove the handles. The shiny slots tell me this was done recently; undoubtedly by our victim during his recent period of work here. If you were to remove this mortice lock and open it up, you would undoubtedly find that most of the levers, perhaps all but one, have been removed and replaced with blank packers, thus rendering your expensive ten lever lock little better than a one lever, cheapjack toy. Your key would continue to open the door. Unfortunately, so would anyone else’s. It could probably be opened by a bent nail.’