Sherlock Holmes and The Sword of Osman

We Meet The Khan Of Khans

Inside the great gate we were approached by the Second Black Eunuch, Nadir Aga. He led us towards our destination, the elaborately decorated Mabeyn Pavilion, the most important building of the Palace. Columns of porphyry, white-mottled verd-antique and stones stood in the most unlikely places surmounted with capitals appropriated from the fallen churches and tombs of Constantine and his descendants.

Holmes whispered, ‘Watson, I’ll be most obliged if you’ll fix in your mind each detail of our journey through the Palace. It may come in useful.’

We padded behind the Second Black Eunuch, along corridors and up and down hidden stairways, through rooms with walls decorated with flintlock holster pistols. Kapıcı (doorkeepers) at every entrance hurriedly performed their duties as we approached. We passed through workshops manufacturing heavy silks with exotic names to match - kemha, kadife, çatma - lighter silks such as taffeta and seraser, a precious silk fabric woven with threads of gold and silver. In the gathering heat it felt a long walk to our destination. We glimpsed fretted fountains and gilded kiosks, scarlet, blue, yellow, brilliant lilac and mauve mingling in the wildest ways, the love of colour quite Indian. On we strode, past shade trees, bowers with ivy and wisterias, and lion statues, water pouring like near-silent roars from their mouths. I inhaled the soft perfume of honeysuckles and jessamines wafting from nearby parterres.

The Second Black Eunuch’s pace slowed. We were nearing the Mabeyn Pavilion. Uncertain which of us was which, he addressed us together.

‘Milords, the Sultan has provided a test. Mr. Holmes must prove beyond doubt he is the real Sherlock Holmes, Europe’s greatest detective, and not a look-alike bent on His Imperial Majesty’s destruction. It will be better for you both if Mr. Holmes passes the test by making the correct choice.’

We stepped through the Pavilion doorway like Alice following the White Rabbit. A window like a balcony jutted into the Royal Garden. A drugget covered the centre of the waxed oak floor. Four fair slaves moved around the room perfuming the air. The walls were arrayed with landscape paintings, interspersed by tiles put together to make whole murals of calligraphy. In a wall niche stood a painted grey pottery figure of an official of the Northern Wei Dynasty, brought from faraway Cathay, hands hidden within the sleeves rested atop a sheathed sword.

It was not the magnificence of the furnishings nor the beguiling female slaves which transfixed me. It was the three men seated on separate identical thrones. Each was an exact copy of each other, not only in their gorgeous attire and the jewelled orders on their breasts but in height, shape of nose, jaw and forehead, and colouration of eye. The trio peered back at us with a curiosity equal to our own. Each held a lance topped by a gold-plated brass ball with nine tails of yak or horse-hair suspended from it. Each wore an identical turban placed neatly above the ears, a straight cylinder of pasteboard about two feet high covered with muslin and then red fabric, and decorated with feathers and a band of gold. A bejewelled Turkish water-pipe, a nargileh, stood beside each man. At their waists were identical daggers with three pear-shaped emeralds.

We waited, staring at the trio until the slaves had filled the room with the scent of aloes-wood and amber. The silence was broken only by the continuous and gentle sounds of water tumbling from basin to basin of a white marble wall-fountain.

After a profound obeisance, the Second Black Eunuch bade us move forward to a place of honour in the corner of the room. As we did so, he whispered in my ear, ‘Do not be surprised at the sight of three identical sultans before you. His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan us-Salatin, has fifteen doubles.’

As Nadir Aga ended this explanation the three sultans’ hands rose in greeting. The Second Black Eunuch called out in a magniloquent voice, ‘Whichever of you is Mr. Holmes must prove you are the world’s most famous consulting detective with powers of observation far beyond the ordinary run of men. This is your test. You are required to identify which of those seated before you is the true Redresser of Wrongs, the Khan of Khans.’

I smiled. Patently the Palace had arranged to play an amusing trick. We had passed close by the ruler and his entourage on their way to HMS Dreadnought. Even now we could hear the distant rat-tat-tat of the 12lb anti-torpedo craft guns and the occasional thunder of the battleship’s heavy guns as she waged mock battle against her sister ships for the Sultan’s entertainment. It would be at least two hours before they could return to the Palace.

Noting my expression the Second Black Eunuch murmured, ‘I can assure you the real Sultan rarely leaves Yildiz. He is here, now, in this room. One of the three before you is God’s Promise on Earth. Two of them - like the surrogate who at this moment stands on the bridge of the English battleship - are not.’

Without a second’s hesitation Holmes indicated the figure on the right.

With a wave of the genuine Sultan’s hand the two doppelgänger left, carrying their glittering water-pipes. We were now alone with the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, the 99th caliph of Islam, ruler of a vast Asiatic empire. Our inability to speak Turkish or Persian was absolute and would require an interpreter. I wondered how we would communicate when in French as fluent as Holmes’s mastery of that rigorous and beautiful language the Sultan said, ‘Welcome, Messieurs. The air of Stamboul is the sweeter for your presence’.

This was followed by the droll explanation, ‘I shall no more declare war on the English language than I would on the English King.’

‘And how is London?’ the Sultan added affably.

Holmes replied, ‘From the point of view of the criminal expert, since the extinction of Professor Moriarty, the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe, London is a singularly uninteresting city. When Moriarty was in the field, at every breakfast time my gazette presented infinite possibilities.’

I recorded the abominable Moriarty’s much-deserved end at the Bernese Reichenbach Falls in The Adventure of the Final Problem. For those who have not read my previous annals, I should explain that Professor James Moriarty’s criminal network stretched from the Bentinck Street corner of London’s Welbeck Street to the Daubensee above the Gemmi Pass in the Swiss Alps. Holmes once described Moriarty without a hint of hyperbole as ‘the organizer of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker.’

‘Are you are certain the Arch-criminal is dead?’ came the Sultan’s query. ‘They speak of a resident of Bavaria by the name of Gustav von Seyffertitz who bears a remarkable resemblance. You say you disposed of him down the Reichenbach Falls but perhaps...?’

It was clear the Ruler of the Ottoman Empire maintained an extensive and flattering interest in our cases.

‘Moriarty is gone forever, unless you believe in reincarnation,’ my companion confirmed.

‘Can you oblige me with a description of his end?’ asked the Sultan, leaning forward.

Holmes recounted, ‘We met at a fearful Alpine place where a torrent pours over a curving precipice into a huge cauldron from whose black depths rises a cloud of vapour. We fought. We tottered together at some eight hundred feet above the cataracts. I escaped his long reach. Moriarty gave a horrible scream. He kicked madly for a few seconds, clawing the air with both hands, gawking over his shoulder at the rushing waters. At his doom. For all his efforts he could not recover his balance.’

‘You could have saved him?’ the Sultan enquired.

Holmes shrugged.

‘Yes, but I had no intention of doing so. The moment I released myself from his grasp I had manipulated my opponent’s force against himself to ensure he fell a long way before striking a rock. His mouth opened and shut but his screams were obscured by the roar of the falls. His body bounded off a sharp outcrop, dropped hard on another many feet below, and then another, until at last he splashed into the water, vanquished.’

While Holmes engaged the Sultan’s attention so deeply, I was able to take stock of the slight figure before us, the Emperor of The Three Cities of Constantinople, Adrianople and Bursa, and of Damascus and Cairo and an endless list of other townships and islands. Hardly a month went by without his sly, moustachioed face being featured in the latest Punch cartoon. The predominant feature, a great scimitar-shaped nose, shadowed a contemptuous mouth but he was by no means devoid of charm.

At his full height the Ruler of the Ottoman Empire could not have been more than 5 feet 6 inches. His pale forehead was lightly tinged with brown. The decades of constant strain had robbed him of the last vestiges of youth. I estimated he was over sixty years of age. His hair and beard would have been already grey except for the constant ministrations of his thirteenth wife. To comply with the Koranic law forbidding a head of state and its religion to show signs of ageing it was said she plied his hair with a special concoction of coffee, gall-nuts and henna used to dye the tails of horses.

The wildest rumours abounded about him. At the age of 25 Abd-ul-Hamid visited Louis Napoleon at the Tuileries during the final halcyon days of the French Second Empire. Rather than the reality of a short, thickset man in a simple scarlet fez and a plain blue frockcoat, Le Tout-Paris credited him with retinues of elephants and lions led by Kushite slaves laden with golden chains. They said he drove through their ranks from the Gare de Lyon like a Caliph of the Arabian Nights, in a golden carriage drawn by vassal princes, green-turbaned sheikhs and Albanian chieftains gleaming with jewelled yataghans and gold embroidery. It was said Abd-ul-Hamid’s shoes were filled with sand from the Marmara Sea so his feet would not be defiled by treading on Christian soil. Alongside the dinner service of solid gold encrusted with precious stones ordered from a Parisian goldsmith, rumour added a crystal chandelier four tons in weight, and solid silver candelabra, each with the mystic number of three hundred and thirty-three. The gossips across the French Capital claimed that on his departure from Paris, the Sultan emptied all the pretty girls from the Variétés for the Imperial Harem, creating a shortage.

I became aware Holmes had stopped talking. He was staring out at the Imperial Garden. A young woman in a velvet jacket and loose entari with an emerald-studded belt stood there, silent and watchful. A rich purple Cat’s Eye dangled on a lengthy chain from her neck. Small hands blazed with jewels, diamond rings of great lustre on each of her thumbs. Attached to her long black hair was a large bouquet of jewels made like natural flowers. She held a colourful posy of fresh flowers to her nostrils. Flowers were essential to domestic life in Stamboul. Their sweet smells masked foul body odours and the stench of human excreta. It was clear that satins, velvets, and wools were never washed. Plumbing seemed non-existent, bathing infrequent. At many a spot on our walk through the Palace the stale odour of human sweat assaulted our senses. Even the presence of phenomenally large honey-suckles in full bloom failed to provide a sufficient remedy.

Our host caught our glance.

‘Saliha Naciye,’ he said, in an affectionate tone. ‘My thirteenth wife. With a soul as sweet as blood red jam. She’s an Abkhazian. Ah, youth! So impetuous. So...volcanic.’

He turned back to us. ‘Saliha Naciye is the most assiduous of all my spies. My day is never complete unless she approaches me with news of some connivance against me.’

I wondered how someone so sequestered, observed night and day by the ever-watchful ‘Lord of the Door’, would be able to garner information from the outside world. My expression must have changed slightly. Reading my thoughts, our host exclaimed, ‘I agree, Dr. Watson. How she manages to be so well-informed about the outside world is a mystery to us all’.

He turned his gaze toward my companion, ‘If you can solve that puzzle, Mr. Holmes, you’d relieve my mind tremendously.’

The Sultan reached inside his coat and pulled The Return of Sherlock Holmes from a hidden pocket. He raised it into the air.

‘Gentlemen, this arrived before you. Please tell your King his gift is much appreciated. When I lie awake consumed with all my cares, I shall command my Chamberlain to read these cases to me.’

Even while he spoke, the Sultan’s eyes continually wandered around the room as if seeking a hidden foe. The slightest sound from outside the room, such as the snap of a dry twig, was enough to make him shy backwards as though it were the crack of a Mauser rifle. His gloved hand darted towards a gold and ivory automatic on the table before falling back once more to his lap.

‘Does the Sultan’s thirteenth wife take an interest in my friend Watson’s tales?’ Holmes asked.

The Sultan’s face twisted into a smile.

In his excellent French he said, ‘She is familiar with one or two but she and the Ikbals prefer Parisian gossip from the Jardin Mabil or the Café chantant and the romances of Paul de Kock - all those grizettes, guinguettes and cabarets.’

He tapped ‘The Return’ and said, ‘But I assure you, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson’s chronicles will be translated into Turkish one by one, and they will be read to me one each night. I shall relate them to her word for word.’

He put the chronicles down.

‘I must thank Sir Edward for sending you to my country to enquire into some presumed conspiracy against my throne. Nevertheless, the idea the Sword of Osman can be stolen is quite preposterous, as you will discover when you meet my Chief Armourer Mehmed. His men guard it with their life. I hope you have a very pleasant week here in Stamboul before returning to your country.’

‘Your Majesty,’ Holmes asked, ‘to assist our endeavours I wonder if you could supply us with a plan of this remarkable palace?’

The Sultan replied, ‘I can do better than that, Mr. Holmes!’

He gave a signal. Nadir Aga brought over a large album from a side-table. It contained photographs showing the many pavilions and the cultivated gardens and pathways that make up the Yildiz.

‘An American visited us. He was an expert on photography from the air,’ the Sultan explained. ‘He sent a camera skyward aboard a silk-string kite from a ship in the Golden Harbour.’

The Sultan pointed out places of interest including the gate where we were to meet the Head Gardener after our audience, and the Harem garden, the Prince Garden and the Sultan gardens. The American’s visit must have been in spring. The pathways were edged with a profusion of crocuses and daffodils. Sycamores, olives and lilacs, limes, elms, hackberries, laurels, the cercis, were picked out in sharp detail.

In addition to the aerial views, photographs of the interior of the Palace had been shot at ground level - exquisite rooms with apple green walls, friezes tender rose in colour, the background of the medallions light blue and lilac or rose.

The Sultan gave another order. The Second Black Eunuch returned carrying the most beautiful object I had yet set eyes on, a gift from fellow Sultan Abdul Aziz of Morocco upon our host’s marriage to Saliha Naciye. It was an Adams quarter-plate De Luxe with red-leather covered body and 18 carat gold fittings. ‘The most expensively produced hand camera in the world,’ the Sultan informed us gleefully. ‘It contains 130 ounces of the purest gold. See - each fitting, every screw and plate sheath is hallmarked.’

Observing our host’s delight in his photographic apparatus, I was relieved I had asked Shelmerdine to take my precious new camera with him.

The Sultan rose from his throne and beckoned us to observe the fine view over the three seas surrounding the Sarayburnu peninsular. A telescope was brought into the room and erected near the window. We could see the powerful British fleet amid a dozen or more Turkish ironclads dating from the past Century and the swarm of smaller craft. Several miles out I recognised the obsolete HMS Devastation. On the principle of the tortoise and the hare she must have plodded on while we engaged in gunnery and torpedo practice during the many sea miles from Gibraltar.

A grandfather clock chimed the hour. The Sultan looked at the hands of the clock and pointed to HMS Devastation, remarking ‘Her crew has been taken off’.

As he spoke one of Dreadnought’s heaviest guns roared. Every window shook. An immense shell soared upwards, dropping down towards the hapless ironclad, hitting the water just beyond her. This was followed a minute later by a simultaneous salvo of three followed by another ranging shot, and a salvo of four separated by 16 seconds. The gunnery crews had got the range. A mighty explosion threw debris and water high into the air. When it settled, Devastation was no longer to be seen. To the watching eyes of the world’s ambassadors in Pera and the Kaiser’s spies aboard the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst, it was a deliberate reminder of the length and destructive power of England’s arm.

The Sultan pointed at the Dolma Baghchech Palace below.

‘I shall purchase several of your 12-inch guns and put them above Yildiz. I moved up here because that palace was within range of the guns of even a third-rate Naval Power.’

An ever-lengthening line of supplicants and diplomats had developed outside the kiosk. We were on the point of being dismissed. The Sultan switched to English, less fluent than his French but perfectly acceptable.

‘Mr. Holmes, may I ask how you pointed me out from my look-alikes with such certainty? Both are as identical to me as it’s possible for one man to be to another.’

A smile flickered across my comrade’s face.

‘There were two clues which would have been conspicuous to anyone with even elementary powers of observation. They are so obvious I hardly dare point them out.’

The Sultan’s curiosity intensified.

‘What were they?’ he asked.

Holmes waved at me.

‘I’m sure my friend Dr. Watson...’

‘Carry on, Holmes,’ I said hurriedly, not having the slightest idea.

My comrade pointed at the bejewelled hubbly-bubbly.

‘First, sir, your water-pipe.’

The Sultan looked askance.

‘But I can assure you, Mr. Holmes, the three were made by the same hands and are absolutely identical.’

‘Certainly the crystal bowls and pipes,’ Holmes agreed.

‘Then what gave me away?’ our host pursued.

‘The mouthpieces. The mouthpiece you have in your hand is made from amber and set with precious stones, gold and enamels. Only the true Sultan would use it. Perhaps to avoid the spread of consumption your aide-de-camp ordered the imposters to bring their own. They are by no means men of your immense wealth. Theirs were made of simple clay.’

The Sultan laughed. ‘Now that you explain it... I promise next time no-one shall catch me so easily. And the second clue?’

‘You wear the archer’s ring.’

I too had noted the ring on his thumb sparkling in the late-morning light flooding through the window. Unlike Holmes I had not realised it followed the tradition that even while a Sultan smells a rose he is symbolically ever-prepared for battle.

‘I have further advice if you wish to keep your identity secret in any similar test,’ Holmes continued.

‘And what is that?’ the Sultan demanded.

‘Cut off your ears and those of the other ‘sultans’.’

The Sultan looked shocked.

Holmes continued, ‘In London Dr. Watson and I were shown a painting of three remarkably powerful people deep in conversation. One was our late Queen Victoria, another the late French Emperor Napoleon, and the third...’

Our host’s face lit up.

‘...the third was my father, Sultan Abdul Mejid,’ he interjected. ‘I know that painting well. I presented it to Her Late Majesty when I visited Balmoral Castle.’

‘Then you’ll recall in the painting your father was standing sideways on, looking to the observer’s right?’

‘That’s correct,’ came the puzzled reply.

I adopted a knowing smile as though privy to Holmes’s secret but in reality I was as baffled as our host.

‘You will also recall your father wore his fez above his ears...?’ Holmes carried on.

‘Of course!’ the Sultan tittered. ‘You would not wear a fez down over the ears.’

‘Nor your turban, sir,’ Holmes pursued.

‘As you say. So?’

‘A further question first... you call Sultan Abdul Mejid your father, by which you mean he was your biological father rather than simply a father to you?’

‘He was my natural father, yes,’ came the reply.

He paused warily. Then, jokingly, ‘Unless you have information to the contrary, Mr. Holmes!’

‘I do not, sir.’ Holmes smiled. ‘Indeed, the opposite. Your ears are identical in almost every respect to those of the sultan in the painting. Through the ear the authenticity of the descent can be clearly observed. I’ve written two monographs on the subject. We know there are a number of inherited likenesses - eye colour, freckles, the shape of the chin. The shape of the ear is also passed down - whether oval, round, rectangular or triangular, and perhaps length and width.’

Our audience had come to an end. Next we would meet the Head Gardener to discuss plants to take back to England in the pile of Wardian cases.

‘I should particularly like you to visit the Star Chalet Kiosk to see Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Ceremonial Room,’ the Sultan said. ‘Much of the furniture was made by my own hands. The Head Gardener will arrange a guide to take you there.’

The Second Black Eunuch closed the door of the Mabeyn Pavilion firmly behind us. With the Sultan’s permission to wander unaccompanied, we were by ourselves in the quietude of the Royal Garden, the gaggle of noisy white-fronted geese around our feet. Male and female golden orioles fluttered in the surrounding trees.

I blinked to adjust my eyes to the brilliant overhead sun. Holmes touched my arm.

‘Over there, in the shade’ he murmured. ‘I think she has a request to make. It’s clear she wants to avoid prying eyes.’

It was the Sultan’s thirteenth wife, Saliha Naciye. Hardly more than the outline of her face was visible, small and delicate.

Her words came in a whisper.

‘Might I trouble you to draw a little nearer?’

Wasting no time, she said, ‘Today. The Tuesday bazaar. There’s a Daughter of Abraham by the name of Chiarezza. She will be wearing a lace-trimmed dress beneath a black çarşaf. You would have no difficulty identifying her.’

‘And what should we do when we find her, madam?’ Holmes asked in a low voice, both he and I pretending a great interest in the watch-tower on the wooded slopes above Yildiz.

A nosegay was thrust out of the shadows.

‘I beg you to give this to Chiarezza with my compliments. She will know who sent it. We women are like song-birds in a cage, seldom able to leave Yildiz, never able to speak to outsiders. Yet, you see,’ she added with a sudden tinkle of laugh, ‘we like to be remembered by the outside world.’

I reached for the posy. Saliha Naciye paused as though looking around for watchful eyes and added, ‘Chiarezza sells trinkets and ribbons and lace to the seraglio. And she tells us news of those scandals which keep us amused in our isolation. Please take every precaution not to be followed. It would be bad for her. She’d be sent away.’

We came to the Third Gate, our place of rendezvous. The Head Gardener - the Bostanci başi - stood by an ancient granite column in gardens overlooking the Marmara Sea. He was surrounded by empty cages and Wardian boxes awaiting their cargo of birds and rare plants culled from the deserts and mountains of the Turkish Empire. I presented him with my copy of Hooker’s On the Vegetation of the Galapagos Archipelago and waved an admiring hand at the perfectly-kept formal arrangements of blossoming plants around us. I asked how many men he had at his disposal. He replied ‘Two thousand pairs of hands and eyes’.

‘Two thousand pairs of hands and eyes!’ I repeated in wonder.

He explained the powers of the Bostanci başi extended far beyond the supply of flowers to the rooms. The Head Gardener commanded a corps of the Sultan’s bodyguards. His responsibilities included watchmen and guards at the gates and in the grounds, porters, grooms and bargemen. Under his direction, delinquent officials were interrogated and executed.

‘I look after the flowers and fruits,’ he explained, smiling broadly, ‘and it’s also my job to prune the court of its bad apples.’

A guard arrived to take us to the Star Chalet Kiosk, the Yıldız Şale Köşkü. The 60-room imperial palace of wood and stone was intended as a residence for visiting royalty and heads of state. Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Ceremonial Room was known as the Mother-of-Pearl Salon from the nacre covering much of its surface.

We stepped into yet another wonderland - nine richly decorated rooms with silk carpets on inlaid wood floors, Bohemian crystal chandeliers and Italian marble fireplaces. Here at the heart of the Turkish Empire the style and taste of the last of the Napoleons reigned in the heavy gilt mouldings of the mirror frames and window cornices. Except for ourselves there was no-one else in the entire edifice. The reception room was a vast space with the largest silk Hereke carpet in existence, hand woven by sixty weavers. Shelmerdine told me later that somewhere in its 500 square yards there was one tiny fault, just a knot of white intruding into the ground of another colour, a deliberate mistake to deflect the malice and envy of the Evil Eye - ‘the emptier of palaces and the filler of graves’ - which was otherwise bound to fall on any object of perfection.

With our ceremonial duties over and the horticultural credibility of our mission reinforced, Holmes proposed we deliver the nosegay. We would return in the early evening to view the Sword of Osman. I reflected on the number of watchful pairs of eyes at every part of the Palace. Precisely as the Sultan claimed, it seemed inconceivable a plotter could gain access to the heart of the complex where the magnificent weapon was stored.

We arrived at the bazaar and sent word of our presence to the Jewess Chiarezza. We were quickly approached by a middle-aged woman. Strong, dark eyebrows shaded hard, bird-like eyes. She was dressed exactly as the Sultan’s wife had described, a long loose robe covering her clothing except the sleeves on the lower part of her arm. I explained we were from England and with as gallant a gesture as I could muster handed her the nosegay, whispering its origin. The Jewess took it with a smile of recognition, twisting the posy round and round. Quickly the smile faded. She gave a supernatural shiver. Her hand went to her throat, touching a necklace of beads with the same concentric pattern of dark blue, light blue, white, then again dark blue circles as on the prows of Mediterranean boats in the harbour, safeguarding them from bad luck.

A second later she recovered her poise and broke into a voluble welcome. We were led into the interior as though in triumphal march, past tanks of water and fire-pumps and sellers of mastic and antimony, and shelves of roots, dyes, seeds and sandalwood. Her stall was piled high with richly trimmed opera cloaks, exchanged or purchased second-hand, she told us, from the ladies of the harem. Assuming we were in search of souvenirs for our wives or mistresses, our hostess offered us pins for head ornaments called Titrek or Zenberekli, depicting tulips, roses, violets, birds, butterflies and bees. She pointed at box upon box of tea gowns, slippers and the finest hosiery sent by the Orient Express or brought by steamer from Marseilles.

‘This is the latest merchandise from Paris,’ she explained. ‘French bodices and tight hip-skirts are replacing gauze chemisettes and sagging Turkish trousers in the harems of wealth Turkish signors. Very popular with Englishmen too,’ she added coquettishly.

On the other side of the stall, open boxes by the dozen were filled with a dizzying collection of articles of ivory, glass, mother-of-pearl, horn, and metals. Many contained charms against the Evil Eye. A gold ring with masonic device and a watch by Barraud of London had found their way here.

My eye was drawn to a large box filled to the brim with ropes of pearls and rings of every description, some encrusted with precious rubies and emeralds, others with semi-precious carnelian, amethyst and jade.

The Jewess followed my glance. She held out the box.

‘How about these for your wives, gentlemen? They are genuine rings discarded by His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan.’

I explained that I was now a widower and the naval commander at my side was wedded more to the oceans of the world than to the better half of humanity.

A solitary ring made of bronze in sharp contrast to the rose-shaped diamond rings caught my attention. I recognised the style from my days in the Far East. The box attached to the bezel could hold perfume or medicines or powdered remains associated with saints. In India such accoutrements were part of the holy relic trade. I wasn’t surprised to see it here, in a city known for its religious fervours. To ward off pestilence every second Stambouli wore a waterproof talisman containing the ninety-nine names of God.

I picked through the rings sadly. If my wife Mary had been alive still, I would have purchased eight of the finest, one for each of her fingers. I recall to this day the moment I set eyes on her when she arrived at our Baker Street lodgings to seek Holmes’s help over her father’s mysterious disappearance. We married in 1887. She was just seven-and-twenty. Seven years later she was dead. I dated events in my life before or after my marriage to her - like BC or AD on the Julian and Gregorian calendars. I still carried her dance card in my pocket, now hardly legible, my initials on every waltz.

Holmes and I were wending our way out of the bazaar when I made a sudden decision. I caught my companion by the arm.

‘Do you mind if I keep you waiting a moment? There’s something I think I’ll purchase from the Jewess.’

Tucked away at my premises in London was a lock of Mary’s blonde hair. I would purchase the reliquary ring and put the lock in it and one of the six pearls from a chaplet of the Agra Treasure she left to me in her Will. The ring would become her shrine, in memory of a time, short and ultimately agonising, when I achieved all the happiness a man can hope for on this earth.

‘Not at all,’ Holmes replied amiably. ‘What is it you...?’

But I was on my way.

I arrived to find the stall deserted. The woman who had been standing there only moments before had gone. A man from a nearby stall came over. He indicated he could help, if I wished to purchase something.

I thanked him and looked down at the overflowing box of rings. I fumbled though the layers of jewellery but my search was fruitless. The box-ring was no longer there.

Holmes was waiting for me with an enquiring smile.

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ he enquired in a companionable manner.

‘No,’ I replied.

‘What had you in mind?’ he pursued.

Holmes had many virtues but sentiment was not among them.

I lied, ‘Nothing of great importance. The gold watch by Barraud caught my eye. Chiarezza must have sold it the minute we left.’

‘Didn’t you ask her?’

‘No.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘By the time I got there she had gone.’