Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Chapter VI THE MEETING AT THE IRON GATES

BY the second evening our train had entered mountainous territories. Hills, rocks and mountains piled one upon the other. The great fir forests stretched downwards to the very verges of cultivated fields in the lower valleys. We breathed the keen air and the balsamic odour of the pine trees. Green softened into sfumato. High peaks towered above us, etched by deep, fast-flowing rivers and avalanche-threatened passes that seemed uncrossable even as we wended our way through them. At one point ice-melt roared over a curving precipice into a vast cauldron, recalling the infamous Reichenbach Falls from whose black depths endless clouds of vapour rise. We looked out on the dainty green of the fresh spring spreading through the mountain meadows, and for contrast to the virgin white of the lingering winter above, the peaks now turning red with the light of a sun long dipped on us in our gorge below. The Continental spring had warmed the granite beneath the thin soil. Patches of colour were springing into being, like exotic quilts laid between moss-covered rocks - corn speedwell, rusty-red columbine, hart’s tongue, wild primula, violets, Lady’s Smock. A further profusion of white clover clothed the banks of glittering streams.

Another night went by. With a jolting of carriages we arrived at the river port of Orşova. The Orient Express leg of our journey was at an end.

Our boxes waited on board while the railway staff unloaded a live Cossack bear and several enormous panels of St. Petersburg. The station master approached us enquiring if we were ‘Milords anglais’. He handed over a message from Sir Penderel Moon. The British Legate was in the vicinity and wondered if we might find time to meet him within the hour. He would await us at nearby cataracts on the River Danube known as the Iron Gates. I went in search of a fly while Holmes ordered porters to transport our luggage to the harbour offices of the Austrian Danube steamship company.

Some thirty minutes later, the carriage deposited us at the fabled Iron Gates, as formidable a creation of Nature as the Reichenbach Falls. The waters rush through the narrow granite defile in sheets of glass-like transparency, the sound coming to us like a distant piano playing a repetitive but pleasant melody in the key of G. Spray rolled up like the smoke from a burning house. Incongruous in the forbidding setting, a small picnic party of men, elegant in Eton jackets, panama hats and pearl-grey gloves leapt across the spray-damp rocks like the wild goats of the Khyber Pass. Two or three of them carried telescopes. Their voices came to us on the slight breeze, unsettling cries of the profoundly deaf.

An isolated figure sat on a promontory staring down at the gleam of the boiling waters. He caught sight of us and clambered across the boulders towards us with the uncertain leaps of a male in middle age.

‘Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, I presume,’ he said with a pleasing smile.

‘Your Excellency the British Legate, we presume?’ I replied on our behalf.

He held out his hand. ‘Yes. I apologise for interrupting your journey. I wanted to meet you before you travel on to Sofia. I understand you are undertaking a commission at the request of Prince Ferdinand.’

His voice dropped. ‘In the hope of recovering a certain missing treasure, I believe?’

I inclined my head with considerable misgiving. It would not help our investigation if the detail was already seeping through the Diplomatic Corps.

The Legate threw me an enquiring glance. ‘May I ask if you have brought your famous service pistol, Dr. Watson?’

‘I have, Sir Penderel,’ I responded, ‘but, as you appear to have heard, we are here to recover the Codex Zographensis, not to engage in shoot-outs.’

‘You might well assume that searching for an ancient manuscript is hardly a death-defying act, but you are entering the Balkans,’ the Legate replied. ‘The weaponry used by assassins in the Balkans may be highly valued among archaeologists and the British Museum but it can inflict savage wounds or death. Just over there,’ he pointed across the river to the Bulgarian frontier, ‘a deadly game is being played out. The Prince is at all times exposed to injury or death at the hands of a well-known Russian-backed assassin. You will be travelling at his side into the most remote plains and mountains of the whole of Europe.’

‘The Prince did tell us that - ’ I began.

‘And you took it as a little joke?’ Sir Penderel enquired gravely. ‘I beg you not to. The peril is a very real one. Assassinations are in fashion right across Europe - here a Russian Tsar, there a French President. Why not a Bulgarian Knyaz?’

The British Legate leaned closer. ‘A year ago, while the Prince attended a funeral service for a Bulgarian general - who had himself been assassinated - an infernal machine concealed in the roof exploded. More recently, a Palace chef put typhus germs into the royal soup, which made Ferdinand extremely ill. To greet the Prince’s return to Sofia this month, the Chief of the Russian Secret Police sent him an infernal machine disguised as a box of the finest cigars. The Prince thanked him profusely and used the device to assassinate one of his own enemies.’

‘And the remedy?’ asked Holmes.

‘The Prince must ensure the succession. He must remarry. Ferdinand needs a wife who will succour the Crown Prince and curry public favour through charitable endeavours. Above all, she must stand in for him at public occasions where his life might be most at risk.’

Sir Penderel smiled at a separate recollection. ‘Prince Ferdinand once asked me whether I thought it feasible that he could gain the hand of one of our dear departed Queen’s granddaughters. “Think of it,” he said. “A grand-daughter of the Queen-Empress of England! Granddaughter of the Tsar-liberator! Cousin of the German Kaiser! A future Tsarina of All the Bulgars!”.’

‘And how did you respond?’ I asked.

‘In the finest traditions of the Foreign Office. I prevaricated. The cure would be worse than the ill. Whichever Royal House agreed to give him their daughter’s hand would immediately encounter the overwhelming force of St. Petersburg’s enmity.’

In the same serious tone he continued, ‘The outside world considers Bulgaria a suitable subject for light operetta, a tiny State between the Danube and the Balkans, where the diplomatic activity of the Capitals of the Powers reaches its ruler muffled as by a deep blanket of snow. The reality is otherwise. The Russians present a most imminent and pressing danger. The Tsar aspires to place one of his Grand Dukes in the Palace of Sofia and make Bulgaria a Russian cats-paw where not a mouse would stir in the Balkans without his permission.’

He added, ‘The Power most interested in checking Russian expansion is England. Mr. Holmes, if by the aid of the powers which you are said to possess you can find the Codex you will have deserved well of your country. As Her Majesty’s Legate, I see a European Prince and future Bulgarian Tsar whose survival affords us the best chance of preventing a terrible calamity, a great war which could stretch from Moscow to the Pyrenees, from the North Sea to Palermo, a war in which tens of millions might die. I could not imagine a greater misfortune for the world than that this affair should end in your failure.’

In the distance a large ferry-boat chugged heavily towards us from the Bulgarian shore.

We turned and began to move towards the waiting coach. Sir Penderel brought us to a halt some yards short of our conveyance with the words, ‘I would appreciate it if you will join me in a few days’ time for a Royal Command performance of Salomé at the Royal Alhambra. I’m told it will be the first-ever performance in English. As it’s Oscar Wilde, no doubt it will shock - but our louche Prince rarely misses the chance to be shocking.’

The diplomat reached out and shook our hands. ‘A last word on Ferdinand. Like all opportunists he is inspired solely by regard for his personal interests. He pursues the politique de bascule. He coquettes with one Power, then another. You will find in him a great actor. He reinvents himself every time he jumps out of bed. He changes masks on the instant. He can be the polite, generous, debonair, sarcastic homme du monde, all smiles and amiability. That is his face to you. Or he can turn into a wily politician, his face to me. Or he may manifest himself as the near-tragic tyrant of a mysterious country, the easily offended ruler whose every susceptibility must be respected. That is his face to the Capitals of Europe.’

He added, ‘There is one thing which unites all these princely faces - ’

‘Which is?’ I asked.

‘A complete lack of sincerity.’

We clambered into the carriage. Sir Penderel stepped back. ‘Rooms have been reserved for you at the Hotel Panachoff,’ he called out. ‘When you set off in search of the Codex you will leave behind a Capital in fear. Each time the Prince journeys out of Sofia someone has their throat cut. Speculation is rife over which of the Prince’s enemies will be murdered this time. A final request: when we are introduced at the Palace please act as though we were meeting for the first time.’

‘You may rely on us,’ I responded at once.