Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Chapter XVIII SALOMÉ GIVES HOLMES THE CLUE

OUTSIDE the theatre, we searched for a public conveyance. Almost invisible in the confusion of ostlers rubbing down matched carriage-horses were two conveyances on offer, the one a jolting Droshky, the other a tall chaise à porteurs, two tunnels of yellow light spilling out from its side lanterns. Holmes led me into the chaise, drew up the windows against the cold night air, tapped on the wood-work, and with a flick of their heels, the porters whirled us away through the darkness. Soon we were trotting into an endless succession of covered bridges and melancholy, deserted streets, silent and lifeless as some city in a dream. Not even the clatter of a piano resounded through the night.

‘Holmes,’ I begged. ‘Please let me know what we are up to!’

‘We are going to Vasil Levski Boulevard.’

His hand shot up. ‘Before you ask the inevitable, my dear Watson, we must keep Mycroft’s words in mind.’

‘Which in particular?’ I asked.

‘“Nothing you take for granted in England will offer you any sort of blueprint for your stay”.’

My companion gave a short laugh. ‘He might well have quoted Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad”.’

I took up the familiar refrain. ‘“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice’.’

To which Holmes ad-libbed, ‘We must all be, or we wouldn’t be here.’

I stared out at the dark streets. ‘Why are we heading for Vasil Levski Boulevard?’ I demanded at last.

‘That’s where the body of the murdered woman lies, at the Coburg Mortuary Chapel.’

‘Why would you want to examine her again?’ I asked, unsettled by this development.

‘Other than a pair of reading-glasses, nothing affords a finer field for inference than a cadaver.’

‘You say Salomé has supplied the answer we’ve been seeking? How so?’

‘Do you remember when she drew the severed head of John the Baptist to her own?’

‘Shall I ever forget it!’ I exclaimed. ‘Why, nothing among the Timurids - ’

‘And when the Baptist’s grisly black hair pressed against her young face?’

‘Indeed. The blood trickling through the beard! I nearly retched.’

‘That triggered nothing in your mind, Watson? Come, think hard! When Salomé tore the head away and we could see her bare face again - ?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, Holmes, I am at a complete loss.’

After my reply, despite my importunate enquiry, he would only say, ‘We need to glance a little more closely into details. It is imperative to examine the body one last time,’ adding quietly, ‘There lacks one final proof before we confront the killer and reveal the solution to the world.’

Following this dramatic pronouncement Holmes fell into an obdurate silence. I gave it over in despair and turned my attention to the outside world. Above us, a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds spreading away from the volcanic peak of Mount Vitosh.

In the night, the city seemed to possess a peculiar acoustic property. Each sound was magnified, even the clink of our human horses’ shoes. A solitary passing carriage sounded like the parade-ground drill of a brigade of cavalry.

Some fifteen minutes later we crossed a murky, sluggish river and came to a large square. The air was pungent with the smell of stables and rotting vegetables. Despite the elegance and spacious nature of the habitations of iron and copper mine-proprietors to every side, and those built by merchants exporting flax, linseed, honey and tallow, the atmosphere was desolate. In Sofia it seemed nearly everyone except the street-sweepers collecting up piles of horse-droppings was in bed by ten.

Unwilling to approach the Mausoleum in the gloom, the porters halted in the centre at an obelisk remarkably like the milestone in London’s St. George’s Circus. This one honoured the Prince’s predecessor, Alexander. By it stood a small, silent coffee-stall, grey-hooded and with a pale lamp. We crossed the square on foot. The edifice was entirely surrounded by halberdiers. An officer in charge held a lantern to our faces and gave us permission to enter. My senses were already heightened by the sight of Salomé pressing her mouth to the severed head of John the Baptist. Inside they were further assaulted by the hot-house temperature, the massed flowers, the burning candles, the overpowering incense, all contained and compressed within Imperial porphyry walls.

Holmes gave a satisfied grunt. ‘Ah, she is still here,’ he whispered.

A single shaft of moonlight from an upper window fell upon the young woman’s cadaver. Her face was mask-like. A winding-cloth covered her up to her neck. A ruche of black gauze disguised as far as possible the strikingly vivid strangulation marks. By her side lay a pair of gloves and a fan. In the candlelight her lips shone in a crimson ellipse, shaped and coloured by the art of the undertaker with cochineal dye and beeswax. No longer utterly pallid, the cheeks were now too red.

A custodian lay asleep on the floor, wearing a shabby dark brown suit of the native tweed, the black-cloth collar shiny with grease. He awoke at our entry. Noting our attire, he rose respectfully. Holmes signed to him, ‘We have come to pay our respects to the dear departed’, adding aloud, ‘In our country, our custom is to show the utmost respect for the dead by a kiss.’

Startled, I began, ‘But, Holmes - ’

I was silenced by his urgent whisper: ‘Not now, Watson, I beg you.’ Louder, he continued to address me, ‘Doctor, you may pay your respects to the dear departed in your turn, in your own way, as I must in mine.’

The man took hold of the shroud as though to throw it back to reveal a hand. ‘On the lips,’ Holmes repeated, illustrating his words by tapping a forefinger to his own. Reaching into his pocket as he spoke my companion brought out a gold hundred-leva coin. It glistered even in the dim light.

Overwhelmed by Holmes’s superb assurance, the man took the gratuity with a slight, if uncertain nod, and moved across the marble floor to withdraw the rope between us and the catafalque. He pointed wordlessly to a small jewelled casket containing a chrismaria of holy oils before turning away to permit us the moment’s privacy.

Holmes stepped forward. He bent over the dead woman. For a moment his face hovered over hers like a bird of prey, a gap of a mere inch between his nose and hers. In the dim light he looked more Iroquois Indian than Celt. Suddenly his head dropped down. His face pressed voraciously into the swathe of bright red colouring. His thin lips swept from side to side across her mouth like a bison wiping away snow to reach the vegetation below. That the first kiss I had ever seen delivered by the most perfect reasoning and observing machine the world has ever known should be delivered to a woman’s corpse shocked me to my very essence. My legs went weak with the horror of it.

For perhaps six seconds Holmes’s lips remained locked to hers before he detached himself and straightened up. He dipped a finger in the chrism and touched a small amount of the sweetened olive oil at the point the woman’s nose met her forehead. The scent of balsam lifted into the heated air of the Mausoleum.

A further long minute passed. My comrade stepped away from the catafalque and turned to thank the custodian. The man’s eyes widened. He gave a shriek the like of which I had never before heard from a human-being. It vibrated with a frenzy of terror in the small space enclosed by the red marble walls, reverberating across the Mausoleum until it ran together into one long unearthly scream.

Holmes turned swiftly to me. The same thrill of horror which sent the custodian fleeing suffused me. My comrade’s close-set grey eyes and sharp, hawk-like nose were now conjoined with a ghastly slash of crimson which extended his mouth more than an inch to either side. He looked as if he had feasted ravenously on the dead woman’s blood, as though he was now a member of the brotherhood of vampires.

These many years later I retain a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’ triumphant expression, the ring of his voice, his proclamation, ‘The matter grows in interest. Watson, I have seen and done everything that I need to. Pay your respects if you wish and we must leave.’

Still reeling from the horror of his face, I reached down and gave a swift pull at the shroud to access the woman’s hand. With the winding-cloth withdrawn, a ship’s chain holding fast to her wrists and ankles became visible. The hand I intended to bring to my lips fell away with a loud clank. The authorities had made sure this unclaimed corpse was firmly pinned down by the dead weight of cast-iron. The victim of a vampire would never rise up from the dead to pursue a frightened populace.