The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (38 page)

Holmes rose once again from his seat and began to pace to and fro. “How wrong I was, Watson, in the basic details of the story. I had merely established a possible thread between pieces of evidence, its only virtue being that it led me to the true version.”

As soon as she had finished her story, Holmes decided on a course of action. He asked that the woman remain there in her room until he returned. She agreed. He then went directly to police headquarters, and again to Pushkar Samsher, the chief inspector, in whose hands Lachman’s case had fallen. He told him that it was most urgent that he listen to the version of the events that had just transpired. The chief inspector listened attentively to all that Holmes had to say.

“Mr. Holmes,” said Shamsher, “it seems to me that you have cast sufficient doubt on the evidence adduced to convict young Lachman, and therefore I shall release him. As to the young woman, whom you have described to me, I believe that in her case justice has already been done. There are,” he said with a smile, “cases from which we police should remove ourselves.”

The inspector shook Holmes’s hand and asked that he deliver the money box to the young woman. This he did. He learned before he left India that she had fled Bombay for good. Lachman and his wife were happily reunited, and Holmes heard from time to time that their lives were happy and uneventful since the events recounted here.

My friend sat back in his chair and looked for a time in my direction but without seeing me.

“And so, my dear doctor, “he said, “there were a series of interpretations of the evidence: Inspector Shamsher’s, Lachman’s, and mine. And finally, there was the real version. Or so we might think . . .”

THE SINGULAR TRAGEDY

AT TRINCOMALEE

R
ARELY DOES THE HEAT IN LONDON BECOME SO
strong that one longs for the cold dreary winters that regularly afflict it. Thus it was, however, in the closing days of June, 1897. It was the year of the sixtieth anniversary of Her Majesty’s coronation and the very week of celebration throughout Britain. The festivities had brought hordes of celebrants from the countryside into the city, and the loud din of the revelers in the street below our open windows had stolen away the easy comfort to which Holmes and I had grown accustomed.

“Impossible, Watson,” said he, with uncharacteristic exasperation in his voice as he wiped his brow with his handkerchief. He had been lying on the couch attempting unsuccessfully to read the morning papers. “We should leave London to the rabble and retire to some tranquil place in the country.”

“A most welcome thought, Holmes, but a trip to the country would be unpleasant in itself. The trains are off schedule, and the cars are filled with the crowds that one wishes to avoid. And where is there to go? Where is there a tranquil corner on this sceptered isle? The celebrations are everywhere.”

“You are quite right, Watson. Let us not sit here moaning in discomfort, however. It is only eleven and already the heat is unbearable. There is a quiet refuge close by—the Diogenes Club. My brother Mycroft will admit us, and we shall spend the day peacefully in its quiet rooms. If I am not mistaken, the Indian coolers recently installed there will reduce the temperature by at least twenty degrees. Come, Mycroft and a gin and lemon await us.”

I applauded the notion, for I had spent many restful hours in Mycroft’s club during Holmes’s absence from London.

“Excellent,” I said. “Let us be off.”

As we left, Holmes turned and said, “You know, Watson, the heat and its attendant humid quality remind me of my days in Ceylon. Serendipitously enough, there is a tale, one which you have not yet heard, which relates to this week’s festivities. Mycroft put the whole affair into motion, and it will be good for you to hear his part in it directly. If the heat has not sapped the last of his energies, he may be willing to relate how he came to be involved in the case.”

“Splendid,” said I. It was often in this incidental way that Holmes introduced his adventures abroad, and I suddenly forgot the heat in anticipation of what was to come.

The crowds were thick on Baker Street, and Holmes suggested that we leave our quarters by the back entrance. Once outside, his encyclopaedic knowledge of London’s streets and alleys took us first through a series of narrow cobblestone mews of which I was previously unaware. We then found ourselves on Baring Street, from where we walked to Eaton Square. Here Holmes unexpectedly stopped in front of one of the more elegant houses, pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, and opened the door.

“The pied-à-terre of a most appreciative client,” he announced, “one who has kindly granted me free access. It is one of a number of safe houses I have throughout the city. This is one is among the best. If memory serves, the Duke of Wellington resided here for some days after his return from Egypt.”

As we entered, I saw three men huddled around a small table in the sitting room to the left. They looked up as we passed, and Holmes nodded perfunctorily in response. Without pausing to converse, we walked through, quickly descending to the ground floor, where we exited into a small well-tended garden. A gardener’s ladder enabled us to scale the back wall and, jumping gently to the ground on the other side, we found ourselves again in one of London’s many alleys. I followed, a little breathless now, behind Holmes’s rapid strides. He stopped in front of a large black door and rang the bell.

“This is the back entrance to the club,” he said smiling, “one that I often find convenient, particularly if I have to disappear quickly.”

A butler opened and, recognising Holmes immediately, took us directly to the large room in which the club’s rules of strict silence were relaxed and one was permitted to converse softly. The room contained far more people than I had noted on previous visits, but, despite the small crowd, it was still far cooler than our sweltering quarters on Baker Street. Mycroft Holmes was seated alone in his accustomed place at the end of a very large table. He greeted us with a broad smile, but without rising.

“Hello, my dear Sherlock, and dear Dr. Watson. Allow me to remain seated, for the heat is most unpleasant and unforgiving for someone of my bulk. I am about to indulge in something cool. Do join me. By the way, Sherlock, what do you make of the dark-skinned gentleman at the bar?”

Mycroft was perspiring greatly, and in weather such as this his corpulence must have been particularly trying. The great jowls hung from his face like soft pink pillows, and his enormous girth inevitably forced him to remain a fair distance from the table. But his grey eyes had their usual sparkle, and he grinned as he tested his younger brother.

“You mean the Ethiopian polo player?” Holmes asked

“Yes, indeed, formerly a patriarch of the Coptic Church,” replied Mycroft.

“Yes, and left because of his love of sport. Horses are in his blood,” said Holmes.

“Probably of the royal family in Addis,” said Mycroft.

“No, I think not, more likely a Galla tribesman. Note the thin nose, Mycroft. He has had a troubled morning . . .”

“An argument with his son . . .”

“True. The last match went badly, and he has not recovered from his defeat. He will leave shortly to make amends.”

I looked over to the bar as they spoke, noting only a rather small slender man standing there in conversation with several other people. That he was from East Africa I might have guessed from his fine features, but how Holmes and his brother arrived at the rest I could not fathom in the least.

“Too much too quickly for me to follow,” I said.

“No matter, Watson. You merely lack practise, and the courage to make the necessary deductions. And besides, this is our usual fraternal form of amusement, one with which we are well acquainted. The inferences are of no lasting consequence, however. Halloo,” said Holmes interrupting himself, “I see that the rules of the club have been further diluted. A woman in the Diogenes Club! Perhaps a first, my dear Mycroft.”

A woman of regal bearing, dressed in the loveliest of Indian attire, had entered and begun speaking with our Ethiopian. She was covered with jewels, the most valuable of which were the diamonds and sapphires embedded in a gold tiara which she wore with the confidence of a queen. She appeared to be of the highest breeding, and was, most probably, of royal descent.

“Just as we occasionally allow a break in the rules of silence, so in this case we have relaxed the strict misogynous rules that govern the Club. This occasional relaxation insures us against the dangers of fanaticism. The woman is a princess of Rajpootana, descended in part, so it is claimed, from French adventurers of the fifteenth century. In England, she goes by the name of Marie de Borbon. Her family, alas, has recently come on hard times. She remains a favourite of the Queen, however, and I suggested that we give her and her retinue lodging here at the Club during these crowded weeks. Her Majesty has already expressed her sincere gratitude.”

Holmes looked serious for a moment as Mycroft spoke. He took a quick look round the room as if to make sure that no person or thing unfriendly to him was to be seen.

“Most interesting, Mycroft, but I promised dear Watson a story with which you had some connection.”

Mycroft beamed and sipped his gin. “You mean—”

“The adventure that we have referred to in the past as the singular tragedy at Trincomalee.”

“And the Atkinson brothers,” added Mycroft with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Perhaps for the good doctor you might tell how it all came about, for I was in Java when I received your message.”

“By all means, Sherlock, I should be most happy to. As you are well aware, dear Watson, I am on occasion consulted by Government on a variety of important matters, particularly on those subjects that the Cabinet finds too delicate or difficult of execution. It often requires the aid of intermediaries. In this case, I was seated right here, some four years ago, when a distinguished member of the Cabinet arrived with a matter from the Prime Minister himself. If I recall, Sherlock, it was sometime in the fall of ’ninety-three, in late September to be more precise.”

“Indeed,” said Holmes. “I had just lived through the bizarre events concerning the giant rat of Sumatra, of which I have already given Watson a written account.”

“Yes,” said Mycroft. “The matter presented to me concerned the Prime Minister and his relationship, uneasy at best shall we say, with Her Majesty. It is an open secret, good doctor, that Mr. Gladstone has not enjoyed the full confidence and unalloyed affection of the Queen. To his credit, he has tried on a number of occasions to remedy this, but he has never succeeded in breaking through the rather cold reserve with which she has continued to treat him. It so happened, however, in that September some four years ago that discussions regarding the Queen’s sixtieth jubilee arose in the Cabinet. Mr. Gladstone expressed his keen desire to make sure that the festivities would be a success, not only in Britain, but everywhere. It was his fervent wish that they be a worldwide tribute and a momentous success for her personally. Once again, he expressed his consternation at how successful Lord Beaconsfield had been in the past. What mattered most to him, however, should he be in office at the time of the celebrations, was that they should underscore the strong role that the Queen had indubitably played in the stability and the growth of the Empire. Let it be remembered, he said, that Her Majesty had acceded to the throne in 1837, at a time when it was not certain that the weakened monarchy would survive. Surely no one would have predicted then so long a period of progress and prosperity for England. No monarch in English history had done so much. Her Majesty deserved the very best that Government could conceive in her honour.

“The Colonial Secretary spoke next, saying that the celebrations should indeed be worldwide. Not only in England but in all the great cities of the colonies, the festivities for Her Majesty should be ample and unstinting. A large military tattoo should take place in London, with troops representing every country subject to her.

“The Prime Minister and the Cabinet agreed at once. The Prime Minister, however, stated in addition that he wished to be able to bestow upon Her Majesty some extraordinary gift that would not only please her but also symbolise her great superiority to the other crowned heads of Europe. Had not the clever Disraeli presented the Suez Canal to her as if it were her very own?

“Speaking once again, the Colonial Secretary said that he had just received some news from abroad, as yet unconfirmed, that was most pertinent to the Prime Minister’s last remark. Secret word from our resident in Colombo, Mr. Anthony Vansittart, had just arrived that morning saying that in the recent pearl fisheries in Ceylon, considered to be the best in years, what appeared to be the largest and most perfect pearl ever found anywhere had been discovered. It was said to be a perfect sphere weighing over five hundred grains and possessing the most exquisite luminescence and colour. In size and beauty it far outranked the famous Cinghalese paragon acquired by Napoleon and now in the national collection in France. Why not acquire this jewel for the Queen and present it to her for her anniversary?”

“Mr. Gladstone was overjoyed at the suggestion. Indeed, he went further and asked whether jewels of a similar quality might not be acquired in our gem-producing colonies, all of which could be presented to the Queen set in a new imperial crown symbolising both the power of the Empire and the homage and affection that the native peoples showed her. The new crown would be given to her at a special ceremony and would be hers and hers alone. A new title might accompany it. Perhaps
Regina Mundi et Imperatrix,
Empress and Queen of the World.

“In response, the Colonial Secretary agreed most heartily, and stated that South Africa, India, Ceylon, and Burma were the chief repositories of precious jewels. Given sufficient time, there was no reason why the requisite number could not be acquired. The first step, however, was the immediate acquisition by Government of this greatest of all Cingalese paragons.”