Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Chapter X THE MYSTERIOUS RETURN OF THE CODEX

WE were now on the last leg of the journey to the setting of the crime. Through each tiny habitation, children ran alongside the steamer throwing capacious handfuls of sweet-smelling pink rose petals. If we stopped within the confines of a village - even for an instant - out popped the Mayor pressing small glass flagons of attar on us and rose-leaf jam to eat.

Once we left the Valley of Roses, the attar was replaced with bouquets of rare local flowers. In one village, our host was offered a cockerel which had grown a pair of horns. Eager for such curiosities, the Prince paid handsomely and had it loaded on the vehicle’s roof.

The track now ran through the increasingly narrow valley cut by a river my Baedeker showed as the Rilska, made turbulent by numberless springs rising in the surrounding beech and pine. In the distance we made out a troop of wood-cutters beginning their business of cutting down the trees. The trees would be sorted into logs for the salt-mines or cut up for fuel, or to be converted into charcoal for the smelting and forging of iron. At the Reichenbach Falls, had Holmes died amongst those grim rocks rather than the fiendish criminal ex-Professor Moriarty alone, the world would have called upon the wood-cutters of Meiringen to bring him back for burial, let down by ropes to a great depth from the lofty overhanging and perpendicular rocks.

Ahead of us lay a landscape sodden with recent rain. Recklessly, the Prince ran the great vehicle onward, the front tyres throwing up ever-higher walls of muddy water, the steering wheel twisting wildly in his hands. Abruptly we slewed to one side and came to a dead stop. The Prince’s efforts to drive us out of the mud by excessive use of the accelerator completed our misfortune. We were bogged down beyond the capacity of the Lifu to pull itself out. I stood by the wagonette’s side looking anxiously ahead. The broken cliffs and beetling crags were worrisomely reminiscent of the time I was lost for a week with a half-section of infantry.

With the sun at its zenith I would normally have made use of the fine Panama presented by our host - certainly such fine headgear would complement my tropical suit - but I discovered on discreet enquiry that Panamas were among our client’s favourite hats. I had placed mine under the seat, not wishing to mislead any sharp-shooter. We were well within shot of a Henri Martini.

The Prince gave up any attempt to drive out from the mire. He launched himself from the driver’s seat and went over to a man in peasant garb quietly observing our misfortune from a short distance. Given orders and a gold coin by the Prince he hastened off. After some twenty minutes of awkward silence, a fiacre splashed towards us, drawn by long-tailed chestnuts two-abreast. The Prince gesticulated impatiently from the chestnuts to the depth of mud and water. Further orders were given. We engaged in another fifteen minutes of intermittent conversation before two white oxen hove into view; their forelocks dyed a bright orange to ward off evil. With a few heaves of their huge shoulders, the Lifu steamer was hauled on to drier land. We took our seats. The journey recommenced.

The limestone cliffs jutting up from tangled forest began to tower over us, every cranny and shoulder clearly visible through the telescope. If assassins lurked up there, we would be ground-bait. I was stirred as if I had been transported back half a lifetime to my Afghan days. As in other rocky deserts, there was no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but silence. Holmes too stared ahead, shading his eyes.

The vehicle could approach our destination no further. Our host stepped from the Lifu. He pulled down the three apple-tree branches from the roof-rack and handed one to each of us, holding on to the third. With this he waved us forward.

We entered a truly ancient world by a small, almost indiscernible opening in the rock-face. The Cave Monastery had been dug centuries earlier by Orthodox monks brooding over the mutilated records of the past. We went ever deeper into the cliff, through monastic cells, common rooms and chapels dedicated to the Archangel Michael. Murals stared out at us. One depicted in gruesome detail the suicide of Judas. On we went, through the St. Theodore Church and into the Gospodev Dol Chapel decorated with portraits of the saints Vlassius, Soridon and Modestus.

Finally the Prince pointed at a small stone marker sign set into the ground. ‘There,’ he said in an excited tone - ‘that points the way to the High Altar. Come, I shall show you. Relics have been stored there for safe-keeping since times gone by.’

At the stone altar the Prince placed his apple branch on the ground and leaned forward, pressing hard on an engraved consecration cross. Slowly the side opposite slid open.

‘You see, gentlemen,’ he began, beckoning us, ‘this is where the manuscript - .’

The Prince’s expression changed abruptly. He reeled back, staring wide-eyed at an open ornate circular box. Holmes and I leaned forward, following his gaze. Before us lay a bulky manuscript beautifully bound in buckram linen and silk.

‘The Codex,’ the Prince croaked. ‘They have returned the Codex Zographensis! Mr. Holmes, despite all my efforts, word of your presence in my country must have leaked out and spread panic among the thieves.’

He stared down into the cavity in silence for some while, as though overcome. Presently he said, his voice deep with emotion, ‘Thanks to you, the dark clouds which have surrounded my pathway are beginning to lift. This calls for the firing of a feu de joie.’