The Empress of India (40 page)

“And the bright electrical lights helped the illusion,” Moriarty added. “They eliminated shadows. It was a sort of clever stage illusion.”

“Stage illusion!” Margaret put her hand to her mouth. “The professor!”

“I agree,” said Moriarty. “The professor.”

“What professor?” asked Lestrade. “You? Are you admitting—”

“I actually saw him with paint on his sleeve once,” Margaret said. “He said, if I remember correctly, that he was painting a prop.”

“Well, he certainly was,” Moriarty said.

“Professor Demartineu,” Holmes mused, “and his friend Sutrow the magician.”

The Honorable Bergarot swiveled in his chair to look at Holmes, who was passing behind him. “Magician?”

“I see it now,” said Holmes. “The disappearing lady—the disappearing gold bars. Nothing but a clever illusion.”

“An illusion?” Lestrade asked, lacing his hands behind his back and trying to look thoughtful. “Hmmm. An illusion. Go on, Holmes.”

“The illusion was put in place, a
trompe-l’oeil
of the cases of gold. And behind this wood-and-canvas flat, the gold was removed. It could have begun the day we left Calcutta, and it was probably finished weeks ago.”

“How was this done, from a locked and guarded vault room?” Bergarot asked.

“Why?” asked Margaret. “Why create a mystery—an impossible crime?”

“Ah,” said Moriarty. “There’s the crux, you see. The how and why are tied together. The illusion of an impossible crime, created because it had to be an impossible crime.”

“I’m afraid I lost you when the impossible became possible,” said the Honorable Bergarot. “Or was it the other way around?”

“If it wasn’t an impossible crime, you see, then there would have been no mystery as to how it was done,” Holmes said.

“And if there was no mystery as to how it was done,” Moriarty continued, “there would have been no mystery as to who did it.”

“So, in order to conceal the fact that the gold was being stolen—” Holmes began.

“He had to make it appear that the gold was still there,” Moriarty said.

“Who had to—” began Bergarot.

Holmes stopped pacing and wheeled to face the table. “But it had to be removed early so that it could be concealed. That’s obvious.”

“Once you realize that, the rest follows,” Moriarty said. “When the thread is picked up at any point, the skein unravels.”

“The rest of what?” demanded the Honorable Bergarot.

“If I’m supposed to be arresting somebody,” complained Lestrade, “I wish you’d tell me who. If I’m supposed to be recovering the gold, I wish you’d tell me where it is. I’ll await the explanation as to how it got there for a later time.”

“It becomes clear once you realize why the crime had to appear impossible,” Holmes said.

“Elucidate,” said the Honorable Bergarot.

“Assume that we had not been allowed to look through the gated inner
door every day; that the vault door had been closed since we left Calcutta.”

“Yes?”

“And the door was opened this morning, and the gold was gone. Who took it?”

“The captain had the only key,” said Bergarot.

“Exactly!” said Holmes.

“But it was sealed in an envelope,” Margaret protested.

“A heated thin blade under the wax,” said Moriarty. “Opened in an instant, and none the wiser.”

“Amazing!” said Bergarot. “So the only reason the gold was left on display every day was because it actually wasn’t there.”

“Sleight of mind, you might call it,” said Moriarty. “If the gold was there until last night, then the captain couldn’t have taken it because nobody could have. Turn it into an impossible crime, and the list of suspects is as large as your imagination will admit.”

“But how did he get the gold out of the vault?” Lestrade asked. “And what did he do with it? We’ve searched the ship.”

“Looking for gold bars?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“But if they weren’t removed all at once last night, then there’s no reason to assume that the gold is still in the shape of bars,” Moriarty said. “Gold is gold, no matter how it’s stretched, pummeled, or deformed.”

“I’m getting all mixed up, the way you’re telling it,” said Lestrade. “I have no doubt that you’re right: When Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty agree on something, there’s no point in arguing about it. But just what is it you’re right about? What happened to the gold, and how did it happen?”

Holmes and Moriarty looked at each other. Moriarty gave a slight nod, and Holmes took a breath. “Any given detail might be wrong,” he said, “but on the whole, it had to go like this: When Captain Iskansen
decided to take the gold, he enlisted the aid of Professor Demartineu and Mamarum Sutrow, who devised the plan. Or perhaps they came to him, it cannot—”

“Yes, yes,” said Lestrade. “One came to the other. And then?” Holmes shrugged. “Iskansen supplied the key, Demartineu and Sutrow painted the false front, and the gold was removed.”

“How?” asked the director of the Bank of England.

“In the evening, when Captain Iskansen came to close the vault door, there was always a small group of people with him,” said Sherlock Holmes. “One of them presumably stayed behind in the vault overnight, and left with the group who opened the door the next morning.”

“Like Mamarum the Great’s trick with Lady Priscilla,” Margaret suggested.

“Much like that, yes,” Holmes agreed.

“But the room was completely empty when they opened the door this morning,” Margaret said. “What happened to the
trompe-l’oeil
structure?”

“The guards reported hearing a strange whooshing noise in the night,” Moriarty said. “Magicians use a material called flash paper that disappears in a whoosh of flame if a lit cigarette end is applied to it. The paper is put in an aqueous solution of nitric acid and then dried. It’s how they make those wonderful flashes when something appears or disappears.”

“The false front was made of flash paper?”

“Perhaps of something with a bit more structural integrity. Let us call it flash-cotton. And a short fuse was left burning so the structure would vanish with a flash in the middle of the night.”

“And the gold?” asked Bergarot with single-minded interest. “What of the gold?”

Holmes looked at Moriarty for help. His ratiocination had not taken him that far yet.

“Melted down,” said Moriarty. “A small carbon arc furnace powered from the electrical circuit.”

“And how can you possibly know that?” asked Lestrade.

“It would explain the dimming of the lights,” explained Moriarty.

“Melted into what shape?” pursued Bergarot.

“Square, I believe,” Moriarty told him.

“Square?”

Moriarty nodded. “Sheets a little less than one foot square, and perhaps a quarter to a half inch thick.”

Margaret gave a slight gasp. “The floor!” she said.

“You are a very quick young lady,” Moriarty said approvingly.

“What floor?” asked Bergarot.

“The ballroom floor has been redone this trip,” Margaret told him.

“In solid gold, is my guess,” said Moriarty, “with a surface of oak.”

“The workmen would have to know,” Bergarot objected. “It would have to be a fairly large conspiracy.”

“There’s a lot of gold,” said Moriarty.

They headed out to the ballroom as a group and Moriarty made the experiment, prying up one of the parquet squares. “Suspiciously heavy,” he said. He turned it over.

“I’ll be damned!” said Bergarot.

“I’ll get Captain Iskansen,” Lestrade said, clapping his bowler firmly on his head. “And those two magicians!”

“I doubt it,” said Moriarty. “They’re long gone, I fancy.”

Holmes stood up. “Well, you have your gold,” he said to Director Bergarot. “I think I’ll go home now.”

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
—Robert Louis Stevenson

FROM THE UNPUBLISHED JOURNAL OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.

S
herlock Holmes has returned!

Sherlock Holmes is the most exasperating man on the face of the earth.

I visited 221B yesterday, planning to look through some old case-books to refresh my memory concerning one of Holmes’s early cases—involving the king of a small East European country and a tin of poisoned sardines—and there was a light on in the study window. I dashed upstairs, not knowing what to expect, and there he was—sitting in his confounded armchair in his wretched old red dressing gown, smoking his blasted pipe, with the latest copy of
The Strand Magazine
turned down on the table next to him, gazing out the window. He did have the courtesy to look up as I entered the room.

“Watson, old man,” he said. “I knew it was you by the sound of your boots on the stairs. It’s good to see you again!”

My knees sagged, and I clutched the door frame for support. I’m sure I came as close to fainting as I have ever done. “Holmes,” I gasped, “is it really you?”

He laughed. “Yes, my dear friend, no false identity, no disguise. It is me in the all-too-mortal flesh.”

“Dear friend?” I expostulated. “Dear friend? And you don’t even have the courtesy—the kindness—to tell me you’ve returned?” I staggered over to a chair and sat down heavily.

Holmes jumped up, concern in his eyes, and crossed over to me. “Watson, I am so sorry,” he said. “I did not realize the effect this might have on you. Here,” he continued, turning to the highboard where reposed the tantalus and gasogene. “Let me fix you a brandy and soda. You’ll feel much better after a brandy and soda.”

He poured brandy and squirted soda water into two glasses and handed me one. “As to where I’ve been,” he said, returning to his seat, “I’m afraid that is one adventure that will have to remain untold. As to what I’ve done, I can say that I’ve eliminated one of the world’s greatest villains.”

“Professor Moriarty,” I gasped. “You finally succeeded in—”

“No, no.” Holmes shook his head ruefully. “I’m afraid Professor Moriarty is still with us.”

“Then who?”

“A man calling himself Dr. Pin Dok Low. Perhaps he was Chinese, perhaps not. He believed himself to be evil incarnate, and tried hard to make it so. I can honestly say that he will never be seen in this world again.”

“Ah,” I said. “Then some good has come out of your absence.”

“Yes,” he said, sighing. “Some good.”

It is a flaw
In happiness, to see beyond our bourn,—
It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
It spoils the singing of the nightingale.
—John Keats

T
he ancient, well-marinated, oak-paneled office of the Honorable Eustace Bergarot, up on the third floor of the Bank of England, had just witnessed a rare ceremony: the Bank passing out money. The hoard of gold had been transferred to the vaults, and the directors had decided that, considering all the circumstances, it might be proper to reward some of those involved in preserving it.

“Riches beyond the dreams of avarice,” Peter Collins said as he and Margaret left the room after the event. “Two hundred pounds.”

“Truthfully, I did not expect any reward,” Margaret told him.

“Nor did I,” Peter agreed. “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is not known for her munificence. I shall practice no more equine dentistry.”
He put his hand on Margaret’s arm, and she paused and turned to him. “I have an idea,” he said lightly. “What do you say we combine our fortunes?”

“Really? And just how do you propose we do that?” she asked.

“Well, I thought, you know, ah—” He paused to gather his courage. “If you were to see your way clear to marry me, don’t you know, then we could, you know, that is . . .” His voice faded out.

“Are you proposing to me?” Margaret asked, surprised to note that her own voice was quavering slightly.

“I thought that’s what I was doing,” Peter told her. “But if you object or, you know, would rather not, why then I might very well have been speaking about something else. Fox hunting, perhaps. Although I must say I’ve never been overly fond of fox hunting; always seemed to see it from the fox’s point of view, don’t you know.”

“You’re burbling,” Margaret said.

“Well, d-dash it, will you marry me or not?”

“For two hundred pounds?”

“Well, you know, if we put our rewards together, it would be four hundred.”

“So we’re to live on four hundred pounds and your income from the Indian police? Will we have to move back to India?”

“Well, no,” Peter told her. “I’ve resigned my post. I think I’m going to be working for the Foreign Office, but I can’t say just when I’ll start, or what it will pay.”