Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Chapter XIII THE GREAT SHERLOCK HOLMES COMPETITION

IT was time to go to the Palace for the first International Sherlock Holmes competition. A carriage took us along city streets. Arriving at the Palace we were led through bustling corridors. The swishing of silk and buzz of voices grew louder as we approached our destination. A footman pulled open the large doors. What a sight met our eyes! The room was filled to every corner with the coloured whirl of uniforms. Folding Pocket Kodak cameras lay on almost every table. We saw military officers and officers of the household in full uniform, ladies parading in the latest fashions expertly copied from the great Parisian Houses along the Rue de la Paix, resplendent with blazing cabochon opals and otter cloaks and monkey fur boleros. Reds, greens, royal blues, violets. Not a tint was left on the colourist’s palette. Gorgeously-clad attendants swirled around tables, waiting on Bulgaria’s aristocracy. As the sun dominates the astronomical objects bound by gravitation in orbit around it, Ferdinand stood out, resplendent and absurd in a Bulgarian general’s uniform and golden spurs. An outer ring of planets bustled with attachés, equerries and chancellors of orders and decorations. Elegant ladies in satins and taffetas, trimmed with tulle and lace, circled among marshals, grand almoners, chamberlains, and commandants of the Palace. Rustling skirts over high, wrinkled morocco boots swept the waxed parquet. By red-curtained windows stood more women guests, in colourful clusters of furs and ostrich feathers - each wearing a yellow beryl of the kind sourced only from the Ural Mountains, in homage to Holmes’s great success in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.

We were led to Sir Penderel’s table. He stood up to greet us. Jocularly I enquired, ‘In our brief absence how many bloated corpses of the Prince’s enemies have been discovered floating down the River Iskar with their throats slashed?’ to which the Legate replied ‘Unusually, not one!’

A warm-up act much in vogue was reaching its climax on the small stage. Iannes the Occultist stood beside a young woman seated under a sheet. The woman conversed with the audience until the very second the magician whisked away the sheet. She had vanished without a trace.

My comrade-in-arms left us to join the four Bulgarian finalists. The Prince Regnant was fully up to date with our cases. The winning Holmes would receive an exact copy of the plaster busts of Bonaparte in The Six Napoleons, placed in a prime position on the podium. Several of the Bulgarian contestants wore deer-stalkers and puffed dramatically on Meerschaums. The real Holmes had opted for his ear-flapped travelling cap, a loaded hunting crop (his favourite weapon) and the briar-root pipe, the one he preferred before breakfast, composed of all the plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day before, carefully dried and collected.

The Sherlock Holmes from Burgas sported a single eyeglass. The contestant from the ancient Capital Turnovo wore a facsimile of Holmes’s award from the Nayeb-Saltaneh of Persia: the green ribbon of the Order of the Lion and the Sun. The entry representing the Capital was of the same height as Holmes at just over six feet. In one respect his attire exactly matched that of our client on his arrival at Baker Street that morning - a cyan cloak thrown over the shoulders, secured at the neck with a brooch. A fine pair of silken black mustachios emphasised the glittering black of his eyes.

The five-piece Gypsy band struck up the Bulgarian national anthem followed by a rousing version of the first six bars of God Save The Queen in honour of the land of Holmes’s birth. The Prince made a short, elegant speech, referring to his deceased wife and how the money raised from the evening’s donations would go to the charitable school she had founded for the Blind.

The band tuned up for a polka in two-four step. In time to the beat, the five Sherlock Holmeses trotted up the short flight of stairs to the platform. They arranged themselves in order, each holding a placard with a number from 1 to 5 in Roman numerals. The monocled No. III stood on one side of the real Holmes, the lavishly mustachioed No. V on the other, puffing hard at a remarkable skull-and-eagle meerschaum pipe. Each was obliged to address the audience in English, the language of the genuine Sherlock Holmes.

No. I was a small man representing Plovdiv. He wore a voluminous trench coat and carried a very large 10-power, silver and chrome magnifying-glass. He leapt from the platform and scurried around the nearest tables peering closely at the diners, grunting a succession of By Joves! and Humphs! and Tut-tuts! and Halloas!, his left eye grotesquely magnified into something both comical and sinister. He received hearty applause from the audience, but only a sprinkling of votes.

Next came the turn of the Sherlock Holmes from Sozopol boasting the green ribbon of the Order of the Lion and the Sun. In the fashion of the American actor William Gillette playing Holmes for the stage, he wore a long grey cape. From behind a curtain he brought out a penny-farthing velocipede with moustache handlebars and rode it unsteadily among the tables. He too received warm applause, and a small sympathy vote.

No. III was a Ribston-pippin of a man, no more than five feet in height. He took the monocle from his eye and waved it like a professor, proclaiming in a witty drawl, ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes. As you can deduce, these others are counterfeits and should be arrested by our indefatigable Sofia police’.

Sir Penderel and I jumped to our feet applauding. Despite this show of enthusiasm ours were the only two votes he received.

No. IV, the real Holmes stepped forward. He swished the hunting crop in a deadly manner exactly as I had seen him knock a pistol from John Clay’s hand in The Red-Headed League and drive away the adder in The Adventure of the Speckled Band. This was followed by a gripping account of his deductive methods from The Hound of the Baskervilles, how he had sniffed like a bloodhound at a curious remark in the butler’s statement, that for the first part of his employer’s night-time stroll, the footmarks were those of a man proceeding at a leisurely pace, but from the moment Sir Charles Baskerville left a gate, the observant butler Barrymore said his master seemed to be ‘walking upon his toes’. Only Holmes had interpreted the phrase ‘walking upon his toes’ correctly - “the man was running, running desperately, running for his life, running until he burst his heart and fell dead upon his face”.

It was a tour de force. Despite this excellent account, and despite the ubiquity of Mr. Sidney Paget’s illustrations in the Strand portraying my comrade’s considerable but not outlandish height and prominent, square-set chin, the real Sherlock Holmes was the only Holmes to receive no votes at all.

No. V from Sofia was met with a thunderous round of applause. Rather than a deer-stalker he wore a Girardi at a rakish angle. In excellent English, he at once took his cue from the real Holmes, picking up on another famed example of Holmes’s abductive reasoning, in The Adventure of Silver Blaze. He related how he and I had travelled to Dartmoor, to King’s Pyland, at the express invitation of a baffled Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard. A valuable racehorse had been stolen on the eve of a famous race. Although a dog was kept in the stables, someone had been in and had fetched out a horse without the dog barking enough to arouse two stable-lads in the loft.

Word-perfect he quoted:

‘Inspector Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Inspector Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

By now almost the entire room was quoting my chronicle along with Holmes No. V. As one they called out, “That was the curious incident.”

A clear winner, No. V stepped forward and gave a deep bow. For the first time in his pre-eminent career the real Holmes had been topped on his own territory, and by an impersonator. The Prince called out to the victor, ‘Please reveal yourself and accept your prize!’

No. V swept the Girardi from his head and tossed it to the cheering audience. To even louder cheers and laughter he reached up to the glistening mustachios and peeled them off inch by inch to reveal the grinning face of the War Minister Konstantin Kalchoff. With a dart of a hand he snatched the hunting crop from my comrade, the real Sherlock Holmes. To the consternation of guests unacquainted with The Six Napoleons, he brought it down like a canne de combat on the head of the plaster bust of Napoleon, smashing it to pieces. Reaching into the debris he plucked out a small black gem and held it up. There was a general gasp.

‘My heavens,’ I whispered to Sir Penderel. ‘Unless I am very much mistaken, that is the most famous pearl now existing in the world, the Tahitian pearl once owned by Rodrigo Borgia. It is reputed to bring death to its owner.’

The Sherlock Holmes Dinner commenced. The Gypsy band went into full swing with ‘The Roast Beef of Old England’. Within minutes waiters circulated, clothed and gloved in white. Little Dourga, the Hindoo dancer, had replaced Iannes the Occultist on the stage.

We were into the Shkembe Chorba - tripe soup seasoned with garlic, vinegar, and hot red pepper - when a messenger came to our table and whispered to Sir Penderel. In turn, the British Legate leaned across to us. He said in a low voice, ‘Mr. Holmes, your assistance may be required. A Captain Barrington, an Englishman resident here, has gone missing. He is married to a very beautiful Bulgarian. He left their villa on horseback yesterday on a mysterious mission, saying he would be back by sun-up today but he has failed to return. In case something untoward has happened, would you and Dr. Watson pay Mrs. Barrington a call? I consider them particular friends.’

Holmes nodded his assent. He asked, ‘Would you be good enough to describe Captain Barrington?’

‘He has lived in quiet here in Bulgaria for about two years. In stature rather below his regiment’s average, slim, with a waist that one might almost call pinched. In one respect he is similar to the Prince, his wonderful mustachios. They are as luxuriant as Ferdinand’s own. He’s as skilled as a Parthian in the saddle. I find it difficult to believe he would have fallen from his horse.’