Sherlock Holmes and The Case of The Bulgarian Codex

Chapter XX IN WHICH THE SWORD STICK IS TO PUT TO USE

THE Prince responded quickly to our request for a photographic session with Colonel Kalchoff. We were to return to the Palace at sun-up on the morrow with the bellows camera. Everything would be ready. Two Palace staff would meet us at the Red Staircase to carry the heavy photographic equipment to a suitable studio.

This time we were led down a long stone-flagged passage hung with orange and lemon-coloured tapestries to a small out-of-the-way monk-like cell at the back of the building, half-hidden by rhododendrons and creepers. The walls were busy with aquarelles of flowers and inset with fragments of Roman bas-reliefs. Above a profusion of bouquets of dried flowers in vases, there hung a large picture, clearly recently painted: a view of the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, Saint Sophia, and the great wall of Constantinople. Floating in the glow of an apocalyptic sky was a splendid horseman, Ferdinand.

More prosaically dressed in a smock, the real Ferdinand stood at an easel by the window. He had surrounded himself with varnishing pots scattered across a beautiful Aubusson rug, a paint-brush in one hand, the Marquess of Salisbury’s sword stick in the other. At our entry he stabbed the brush into a jar of cleaning fluid and turned to greet us. As he did so the doors behind us were flung open. Colonel Kalchoff strode in, dressed in the precise attire he had worn as Sherlock Holmes No. V, the fine mustachios gleaming, the Egyptian-blue cloak and its silk lining ablaze with colour. Words of greeting began to cross his lips.

‘Konstantin,’ the Prince interrupted in a business-like manner, ‘while Dr. Watson is setting up the camera, I believe there is the small matter Mr. Holmes wishes to discuss with you.’

The Prince’s tone turned to one of shocked indignation. ‘An assassination - is that not so, Mr. Holmes?’

‘I don’t see - ’ Kalchoff began, a chill of fear springing to his eyes.

My companion stepped forward, his face dark. He stood in front of the War Minister with that quick, fierce gleam of his deep-set eyes before which many a criminal had cowered. He held up the wedding photograph.

‘Colonel,’ Holmes ordered, ‘may I ask you to examine Captain Barrington’s fine mustachios in this photograph?’

A deep silence ensued.

‘But I see you do not need to examine them,’ my comrade continued coldly. ‘You are fully aware they are the very ones you are wearing.’

Without taking his eyes from the War Minister, Holmes addressed the Prince. ‘Your Highness, they are identical in the minutest degree to this wedding photograph and to the Sargent painting which you commissioned a year later, so identical it is impossible they are not the same false pair. The only way the War Minister could have obtained them is straight from the cheeks of the young woman he murdered in the forest the morning of the Sherlock Holmes competition in the belief he was killing Captain Barrington.’

My companion went on in a harsh voice, ‘In a desperate effort to save herself, the young woman pressed through the powerful hands gripping her throat and ripped the mustachios from her cheeks. By exposing her sex she hoped her killer would have mercy on her, but to no avail. The Colonel chose not to spare her life for fear of arrest and disgrace.’

With a violent movement Kalchoff swung away from Holmes. He darted a fearsome look at his master, his eyes as savage as a cornered wild beast.

In German he began, ‘Ferdinand, you have allowed me to be tricked! Do they know I did it with your - ’

Although Colonel Kalchoff was to live for another seven minutes these were to be the last words he ever spoke.

The Prince’s hand swung up. ‘Konstantin, my dearest friend,’ he returned in English, slipping the blade of the sword stick from its sheath, ‘I have yet to show you the gift Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson brought from the Prime Minister of England!’

As he uttered the word ‘England’, with the precision of a matador delivering the estocada, the Prince thrust the blade deep into Kalchoff’s throat. The Minister’s head jerked back. A terrible convulsion passed over his face. He gagged violently. One hand came up to drag at the sword. Blood sprang from almost-severed fingers, spattering the flame-coloured lining of the cloak. His mouth burst open like a laughing skull, spurting out a further torrent of blood. His good hand dropped to fumble beneath the cloak.

To my amazement, rather than stepping forward to save the hapless Minister, Holmes brought his hunting crop hard down on the man’s lowered hand. A half-cocked Apache pinfire cartridge revolver concealed beneath the cloak clattered to the floor. With no barrel, a set of foldover brass knuckles for a handgrip, and a folding knife mounted right underneath the revolver drum for use as a stabbing weapon, the Apache is probably the nastiest piece of work you can put in your pocket. Indisputably it contained the folding knife which had drained the murdered woman of her life.

The Prince was observing me with a slight smile. He said, ‘Doctor, you’re not looking quite yourself. You seem to be taken aback. You were a little tardy in drawing your service revolver. Your comrade may just have saved all our lives. Konstantin is the finest proponent in all Europe with that pistol, not disregarding even the Parisian underworld.’

‘But your Royal Highness, you can’t just - ’ I castigated, waving towards his dying victim.

The War Minister was staggering backwards towards the door, staring in horror from the Prince to Holmes and me and back to the Prince. The once-glittering black eyes were losing their fire. Death moved across his face.

Ferdinand retorted, ‘Oh but my dear Doctor, I venture to think I can. These are the Balkans. I am a Balkan Prince.’

He turned towards the dying man.

I have it word for word in my note-book that he addressed him as follows: ‘Don’t worry, Konstantin, my old friend, you shall have a state funeral. I shall personally lay a golden wreath at your grave, as I did at Tsar Alexander’s. The same wreath in fact. I retrieved it for occasions like this.’

For a further few long-drawn-out seconds, Kalchoff’s legs emulated a grisly Portuguese two-steps waltz. Then he collapsed. Coolly the Prince stepped towards him and pressed a hand on his heart. Assured he was dead, with one palm he held the corpse’s face down while with the other hand he withdrew the blade and ran it across his smock. He turned to look up at me.

‘Dr. Watson, it seems you are no longer keen to take my Minister’s photograph?’

‘Indeed not,’ I exploded.

‘You appear horrified a monarch should stoop to methods unworthy of the head of a gang of thieves. I ask you to remember the destiny of Europe rests on my shoulders. Were I afforded a greater amount of freedom and fewer grave responsibilities I might have let him live.’ He stood up. ‘It’s a good idea to wear a painter’s smock if you have to stick a sword in someone. Mr. Holmes, do thank the Prime Minister for his gift. Tell him I have already made excellent use of it.’

He turned again to the body and examined the pockets, drawing out the Black Pearl of the Borgias. He held it up to the light. ‘Well I never!’ he exclaimed with an ironic look. ‘Then it’s true. The Borgia pearl does bring bad luck to its owner. I must decide who shall have it next.’

Still badly shaken, I stammered, ‘But I thought the Minister was among your greatest supporters? In our presence you described him to his face as your most loyal and constant friend and ally.’

‘Sovereigns have peculiar responsibilities,’ Ferdinand replied. ‘I learnt at my dear mother’s knee the advice offered to the Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph by his statesman Prince Felix von und zu Schwartzenberg.’

‘Which was?’ I asked.

‘No autocrat can afford to be either grateful or humane. Certainly I know my action would be considered very shocking in one’s private affairs, but it is quite something else in matters of State. The moment the interests of my principality become involved I have to recollect that I am the Prince Regnant of Bulgaria.’

He clapped his hands. A small gaggle of servants ran in. In a silence broken into solely by the sound of the deceased’s scraping heels, the three of us stood staring at Kalchoff’s body as they pulled him away, like mules dragging out a slain bull.

The following morning a copy of the Sofia English-language newspaper was pushed under our door. Holmes picked it up. I left my chair and studied it over his shoulder. Dramatic black strips outlined the front page.

The headline blared: A FURTHER ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE OUR BELOVED RULER FOILED. TRAGIC DEATH OF WAR MINISTER.

The article continued: ‘Yesterday, in the heart of the Palace, in the former boudoir of our dearest departed Princess Marie-Louise, a vile attempt was made on the life of our beloved Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha by a Ruthenian assassin armed with a Russian needle-gun. It took place while the Knyaz and War Minister Kalchoff were saying goodbye to the famous English consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his diarist Dr. Watson. Realising at once the danger to the Prince, the faithful Minister threw himself at the attacker. For his bravery he suffered a mortal wound through the throat. The would-be assassin fled and has so far eluded capture. The Knyaz considers it his duty to render to the eminent deceased those honours which his services have merited: a national funeral.’

Holmes lowered the newspaper. With complete disregard to the dramatic reporting, he said, ‘The note brought to Captain Barrington by the stable-boy arranged a rendezvous in a forest glade near an obrok, ostensibly to engage with the vampire rumoured to have moved into the region from Istria, hence Captain Barrington insisting he would be back before sun-up the next day.’

Holmes looked across at me to be certain I was following his train of thought. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘unless speared in the heart with a wooden stake, vampires retreat to their lair by dawn. Kalchoff waited just short of the rendezvous point. He may have checked the horse’s gallop with a tight rope. While the rider lay winded on the ground, he began to strangle him. If all had gone to plan, a day or two later the body would have been identified, the killing easily explicable as the result of a robbery. The husband’s death would irretrievably weaken Mrs. Barrington’s hold on her estates, lands which Kalchoff yearned to gain for himself. But imagine Kalchoff’s amazement when he found he was murdering a woman.’

After a pause, Holmes added, ‘It was indubitably Kalchoff who lured Captain Barrington to his death in the forest, but it is clear from the Minister’s last words the timing of the murder was Ferdinand’s.’

‘I have a question, Holmes - ’ I began.

My comrade offered me an encouraging look.

‘Namely?’

‘How would Kalchoff be certain that Captain Barrington would carry with him the most important clue of all, the note decoying him to his death? Wasn’t that a great risk? What if Barrington - Julia - had left it behind? The note would inevitably have led to the culprit.’

‘That’s why Kalchoff arranged the rendezvous at the obrok. It is unlikely a foreigner would know the exact location of such a shrine. The note contained precise directions, almost certainly accompanied by a sketch - you recall Mrs. Barrington saying her husband turned it this way and that - ensuring the victim would bring it with him.’

‘I can see why Kalchoff would murder Captain Barrington - but why would the Prince become involved?’

‘Cui prodest? Ferdinand’s mother and the nation press Ferdinand hard to remarry. Several prospects of Royal lineage have said no to his proposals of marriage, aware life in Balkan royal circles is likely to be both brutal and short. If not of his own station, then from Bulgaria’s Upper Crust. The Prince’s unusual gift to Mrs. Barrington - a pair of diamond swallows for her hair, given to him by the Viennese actress Kathi Schratt, and to Schratt by the Emperor Franz Josef- I took it to be a sign of unrequited love. After the killing, Kalchoff could say nothing to prevent his master waiting a while, then marrying Mrs. Barrington and absorbing her vast lands for himself. Ferdinand immediately saw through the request for a photographic session. He understood I was about to unmask the one witness who could implicate the Prince himself. It became imperative to eliminate him.’

‘Pretty gory stuff,’ I said with feeling, ‘thrusting the blade into his throat like that. Better a thrust through the heart - ‘

‘Even those of us who are not medical realise a bodkin in the wind-pipe makes it difficult to finish the sentence,’ Holmes broke in, drily. He looked at me quizzically.

‘Do you recall the Minister telling you the Prince’s favourite saying?’

‘‘Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven’.’

‘I asked Penderel Moon if he had heard the words before.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a quotation from Paradise Lost. Kalchoff knew he was supping with Satan. He would have been wiser to use a longer spoon.’

‘And Sir Penderel?’ I asked. ‘Was he in on the Barringtons’ masquerade?’

‘Most likely,’ came the reply. ‘A man so assiduous in England’s affairs will go far. We must have a word in Mycroft’s ear. I foresee Moon becoming our Ambassador to St. Petersburg, even the Vatican.’