Sherlock Holmes and the Dance of the Tiger (29 page)

“The maid she was in ze room not ten seconds before she began screaming!” Lieutenant Dubuque retorted.
 
“C’est
impossible
to have killed someone in that time.”

“Absolutely untrue,” Sherlock murmured.
 
“I wish to speak to the maid.”

“Let me remind you, Monsieur, that this is not your case.
 
This is
mon
.”

“Also not true.” Mycroft suddenly appeared, entering the room, “you are both on the case.
 
I have it on a high authority.”

“And who says zis?” Dubuque sputtered.

“A Monsieur Alphonse Bertillon,” Mycroft replied without ceremony.

“
Sacre Bleu!
”
 
Dubuque dropped his jaw.
 
“L’Inspecteur of le Forensic Identification Département Français?”

“The very same.
 
Inspector Bertillon holds my brother in some regard for a paper he wrote on the use of fingerprinting as a method of identifying criminals,” murmured Mycroft, waving a telegram about.
 
“And if that is not sufficient for you, Lieutenant, there is the Queen of my beloved homeland who sends her regards.”

“Ouch!”

“Careful, don’t flinch!” Mirabella pulled hard.

“Oooooh!” Ashanti bellowed.

“Be still!
 
It’s almost done.”
 
Mirabella took her hand, attempting to console her.

The bandages came off.
 
And there before Mirabella was one of the most beautiful women she had ever beheld.

And her skin was as black as ebony.

Another startling revelation was that, now that the bandages were removed, one could not miss that there were extremely fine diamonds in Ashanti’s ear lobes.
 
Large, beautiful diamonds.
 
So dazzling were the jewels that, despite the young woman’s beauty, it was difficult to tear one’s eyes from them.

They must be worth a fortune.
 
Anyone who had diamonds like that did not have to work, much less work in a circus facing life-threatening predators.
 
In fact, it was likely more dangerous to be out in public with the human predators with something that valuable visible.

Mirabella felt her mouth open wide, even as she attempted speech.

“Why do you look at me so?
 
At what are you staring?” Ashanti demanded.

“I thought you s-s-said you were
Dutch
. . .” Mirabella swallowed hard.

“Do you mean hair blonde, eyes blue, Dutch?”

Mirabella nodded involuntarily.

“You could see my eyes were not the blue.”

“No, but I never dreamed, I never imagined . . .”

“You never imagined that I was not
like you
?”
 
Ashanti raised her chin.

“Y-y-yes.
 
I mean, no!”
 

“I am still girl like you.
 
I am same as ever I was.
 
What is it you do not like?
 
My color?”

“There is nothing I do not like about you, Ashanti!” Mirabella pleaded with her.
 
“You’re quite beautiful.
 
Just not what I expected with the name of Ashanti Van Horn.”

“Ashanti is Afrikanische name.
 
Van Horn is the name of Boer family I served after was captured.
 
It was easiest.”
 
Ashanti looked down at the ground momentarily.

“
Captured?
 
Whatever do you mean?” Mirabella demanded, somehow finding the presence of mind to place the robe lightly around her friend, motioning her to sit on the bed that she might sponge her clean and apply the lotion.

“I am daughter of Cetshwayo
.
”
 
Ashanti raised her chin as she sat down.
 

“The Zulu king Cetshwayo?” Mirabella managed to stutter.

“The last king of an independent Zulu nation.”
 
Ashanti rolled her eyes at her, as if to say, ‘
Who else?’.

“
You are a Zulu Princess
?”
 
Mirabella put her hand on her mouth.
 

“As I said.”
 
Ashanti put her hands on her hips, clearly exasperated, but did so too forcefully.
 
“Ouch!”

“Then why . . . why are you
here
?
 
In the
circus
?”
 
Mirabella attempted to regain her composure, the sponge in her hand.

“When the English they killed my father, I was to be given to John Dunn as one of forty-eight Zulu wives.”

“How perfectly horrid!” Mirabella exclaimed, placing the sponge in the basin full of warm soapy water which had been set by the bed.
 
She began gingerly sponging the royal princess of the Zulu nation.

“As thought I.
 
For all I know, Dunn he has never noticed that he only has forty-seven wives.”

Mirabella giggled before she grew somber.
 
“But
why
?” asked Mirabella, looking up momentarily.
 
“Why were the Zulu attacked?
 
The slave trade was abolished in Britain since 1807, and slavery has been abolished since 1833.”

“I don’t know your English laws and dates.
 
I know that I was taken captive.
 
Why?
 
It is for glistening rocks . . . the
diamonds
. . . ”
 
She touched her earlobes.
 
“Europeans they value them over all—above life even.”

“People killed over
diamonds
?” Mirabella exclaimed, pausing to close her eyes momentarily, the sponge in her hand in mid-air.

“They said the war was over the many wives,” Ashanti shrugged.
 
“But it was really for the diamonds.”

“Do you mean . . . polygamy?” Mirabella asked.
 
“I doubt if you are a great supporter of polygamy yourself, Ashanti.”

She shook her head.
 
“No.
 
But even less do I support those who kill my family.
 
All I know is, except for missionaries, the white man he was not in Africa before the diamonds.
 
Polygamy, it was there always.
 
Polygamy bother the white man all the sudden when the diamonds discovered.” Ashanti added, “And I know also that most of my family—the royal family—is now dead and our nation destroyed.
 
Because we are the
black savage
.”

“Oh, Ashanti, I am so sorry.”
 
Here before Mirabella was a beautiful, talented and gifted woman.
 
A princess.
 
Royalty
.
 

Tears welled up in her eyes.
 
Prior to the Zulu wars, Mirabella had read in the British newspapers that Shaka Zulu, Cetshwayo’s uncle and a former king of the Zulu, was as psychotic and vicious a murderer as any man who had ever lived, even killing his own mother.
 
Also in the papers were the stories of polygamy.
 

Because of these newspaper articles, Mirabella herself had thought the black Afrikaners to be devils.
 
So must have the British troops.
 
Mirabella’s curate father, a good and righteous man, so progressive he had educated his own daughters along with his sons, had been appalled by the reports.

The British citizen had been given a picture of the Zulu, an image to be despised and loathed.
 
The white soldier had stood before the black warrior, repulsed, thinking him a demon, and wishing to eradicate him from the face of the earth.

Mirabella felt her heart breaking at the destroyed life before her.
 
It was not the Zulu who had done this to her friend, but her own people.
 

“Was Shaka Zulu as bad as they say?” Mirabella asked.

“He was very bad man.”
 
Ashanti began to choke on her own words, fighting the tears.
 
“But not my father, Cetshwayo.
 
He was man of honor.”

And who has the diamonds?
 
Someone had spun a story—with some basis in truth—so that the British solder and the Zulu warrior would die on the fighting field—while someone else absconded with the diamonds.
 

Under the tutelage of Sherlock Holmes, Mirabella reflected that she was beginning to question her well-meaning upbringing and everything she had been taught.
 

Who benefits?
 
She began to ask herself, when someone spins a tale of hate to the masses?

Mirabella swallowed hard, somehow finding her voice.
 
“You must come and live with me, Ashanti.
 
We can share my room.
 
I am sure my Aunt Martha –”

“I belong here.
 
With the tigers.
 
They are only family I have now
.”

“Ashanti, the tigers cannot be your family.” Mirabella put her arm gently around her friend who flinched.
 
Mirabella removed her hand and forced herself to begin applying the lotion that they might finish.
 
Ashanti must be very cold, though one would never know it from her stoic composure.
 
“They are not safe.
 
They would as soon kill you as not.”

“The man—he is same as the tiger—a cold-blooded killer.
 
But he pretends to be something else.
 
The tiger, he never pretends.
 
He would never lie to me.”

“And your people?” Mirabella asked warily.
 
“Do the Zulu pretend?”

“No.”
 
Ashanti shook her head.
 
“We speak the truth.
 
We are
like the tiger
.”

“Ashanti, I must ask you, why do you wear such valuable jewels in your ears where everyone can see them?”

“They are for tigers.
 
I want to build bigger cages for them.”

“Why not put the jewels somewhere safe?”

Ashanti laughed.
 
“I have not anywhere I can put them.
 
This is safest place.
 
To get them, someone will have to kill me.”

They may do just that
.
 
“Why not sell the diamonds and put the proceeds in a bank?”

“In the bank of the white man?”
 
Ashanti laughed again, but there was no amusement in her eyes.
 
“White man would take my money and say I have not give to him.”

“Oh, no, they couldn’t—“ but Mirabella saw in Ashanti’s eyes that she would never be able to explain the rules of her people.
 
It was acceptable to kill the Zulu and to steal their diamonds, provided that they were of a different religion, but there were laws and a code of honor within the white man’s institutions.

From a distance Mirabella heard the tiger’s scream.
 
Mirabella glanced at the bandages lying all about them on the floor, the remnants of an accident that had almost cost Ashanti her life.

And Ashanti trusted the slayer who had almost killed her more than she trusted man.

Once in Miss Janvier’s room, Sherlock studied the body without any regard for the police, much to the Lieutenant Dubuque’s annoyance.
 
“What is your diagnosis, Watson?”

Dr. Watson raised her eyelids after examining the body for some minutes.
 
“Ruptured capillaries,” he murmured before pronouncing, “Indicative of asphyxiation.”

“It would be difficult to strangle such an accomplished athlete with one’s bare hands,” Sherlock stated, glancing about the small but opulent surroundings.
 
“And no rope visible in the room . . .”

Dubuque’s eyes rested on Watson, his expression one of suspicion.
 
“The killer he took the rope with him.”

“Ah, yes.”
 
Sherlock raised his eyebrows.
 
“When the killer left the room without going through the door.
 
May I remind you, Lieutenant, that you searched Dr. Watson yourself and found no weapon?”

“
Attention!
”
 
The lieutenant commanded.
 
“The doctor he disposed of the rope between the time he left the room and before he reached you, Monsieur Holmes.”

“I presume your men have searched that small area which comprises the hallway traversed and found nothing?” Sherlock asked.

“Not as yet, Monsieur!”

“Precisely,” Sherlock muttered as he continued to study the body.

“What do you see, Holmes?” asked Watson anxiously.

“Nothing.
 
That is what is so interesting.”
 
Sherlock examined the neck more closely.

“Nothing?
 
What do you mean by that?” demanded Lieutenant Dubuque.

“There are only the slightest marks on her neck,” considered Sherlock.
 
“She died by asphyxiation.
 
But the marks are almost invisible.”

Watson glanced at the body with an expression of perplexity.
 
He murmured, “I noticed.”

“A rope or a chord would have left clear marks,” Sherlock stated.
 
“The murder weapon was not a rope.”

“The doctor, he did it with his bare hands, then,” Lieutenant Dubuque stated, pursing his lips.

“Not likely.”
 
Watson shook his head.
 
“It would have still left marks—and not the strange marks we are seeing here.
 
The marks would be deeper than those here—which don’t look at all like the imprints made by human hands.”
 

“Why do you say this?” Dubuque asked moving closer.