‘Holmes,’ I began, laying down my napkin with a smile. ‘Surely you cannot be bored so soon? The greatest figures of our time welcome you to their tables. Only a fortnight has passed since you solved the case I shall title The Adventure of the Tall Man. How you deduced the imprints below the window were from stilts and not the legs of a ladder still escapes me.’
‘Watson, I value your effort to console me with my notoriety but I insist that every morning one must win a victory and every evening we must fight the good fight to retain our place. The crisis once over, the actors pass for ever out of our lives. For the moment the future seems more than unusually uncertain.’
To cheer him I responded, ‘Who knows when the next knock at our door or telegram will come, summoning us to the scene of another baffling crime?’
A small tureen sitting apart from the magnificent silverware on our table came to Holmes’s attention. We summoned the waiter. With the utmost earnestness he said he knew nothing about it. I pulled the tureen towards me and lifted the cover. Inside lay an envelope marked ‘Sherlock Holmes, Esq.’. It contained a sheet of pink-tinted note-paper upon which, in a scribbled hand, were inscribed the words: ‘I shall come to your premises at five o’ clock on matters of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated.’
I passed the note to Holmes. ‘Our recent successes have made us incautious,’ he remarked ruefully. ‘That tureen could as easily have served up a parboiled swamp adder.’ In a satisfied tone, he added, ‘Yet I deduce that the man who sent it is an opportunist, not an enemy with threats on our person in mind. To judge by the peremptory message he is accustomed to having his own way. And this note-paper. He is a man of some means. Such paper could not be bought under half a crown a packet.’
He returned the page to me. ‘See how peculiarly strong and stiff it is. Look at the watermark,’ he continued. ‘It is not an English paper at all. Your encouraging words may be coming true.’
Chapter II
IN WHICH WE MEET A ROYAL PERSONAGE
BACK at our Baker Street lodgings, having dined, wined, and conversed at Simpson’s to a most heart-warming degree, I went to my bed leaving Holmes stooping over a retort and a test-tube. I fell at once into a peaceful sleep. It seemed hardly a minute passed before I awoke to a tapping at my door. Holmes was calling to me in a low urgent tone.
‘Watson, if you can spare the time I should be very glad of your company.’
It was pitch black. Only very gradually my misty brain took the words in.
I peered in the direction of the voice. ‘Holmes,’ I balked, ‘are we on fire?’ I struck a match and looked at my watch. ‘Heavens, my dear fellow, it’s half past four in the morning!’
‘Join me at our windows in ten minutes,’ came the reply. ‘I remind you our prospective client promised to arrive at five o’ clock.’
‘Whoever left the letter for us surely meant the more civilised hour of five in the afternoon!’ I protested.
‘My friend,’ came the amused reply, ‘no-one who commands Ariel to deliver his messages would come to our lodgings at five in the afternoon! At that hour half the world is out and about on Baker Street. A vital wish for privacy must bring our client here under the cover of a moonless night.’
I had hardly joined my fellow-lodger by a newly-lighted fire before his hand shot up. He glanced at me like a Baluchi hound. ‘Hark! If I am not mistaken, our man arrives early. L’exactitude est la politesse des rois. A motorised barouche is about to halt at our door.’
Galvanised, we hurried to a window and parted the blinds. A taxi, a Panhard-Levassor landaulet, approached the kerb, the folding top raised against a blustery shower. Even before the vehicle came to a stop the kerb-side door swung open. A remarkable apparition emerged.
It was not the man’s height, though considerable, which caught my immediate attention but his extraordinary attire. A black vizard mask concealed the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones. Heavy bands of black astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of a double-breasted coat. An Egyptian-blue cloak lined with flame-coloured silk was thrown over his shoulders. Boots extended halfway up his calves, trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completing a deliberate impression of barbaric opulence.
Readers may be familiar with A Scandal in Bohemia, the first of our cases published in the Strand, where a Royal personage clad in identical fashion sprang upon us in our modest lodgings like a puma launching from a Brazil Nut tree in the Mato Grosso.
A Scandal In Bohemia remains a cherished memory. I am reminded of the chronicle by the occasional glimpse of a magnificent snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in the centre of the lid, presented to Holmes by the King.
‘Holmes,’ I exclaimed. ‘The Hereditary King of Bohemia has returned!’
My companion took his eyes from the Panhard-Levassor landaulet and gave a mocking laugh. ‘Watson, how well this story festers in the back of your cerebellum! While he is undoubtedly tall, our present visitor cannot be more than six feet one inch in height, whereas the King of Bohemia was hardly less than six feet six inches, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. Clearly our visitor is acquainted with your chronicles. I suspect he has more on his mind than this masquerade if he has persisted in coming to our door in an April storm.’
While Holmes spoke, a short exchange was taking place between our startled landlady and the visitor. We fell back into our chairs by the fire.
Mrs. Hudson’s familiar knock was followed by the door flying open. The apparition strode in, the cloak secured at the neck with a cameo habille, the carved woman’s neck adorned by a tiny diamond necklace. To Mrs. Hudson’s discomfit, with a quick placement of a hand the stranger turned her quickly around, pressing the door shut behind her.
I sprang out of my chair.
‘Why, Holmes,’ I gasped, pointing towards our visitor in mock surprise, ‘I do declare it is none other than the Hereditary King of Bohemia who honours us once again.’
Our visitor tore off the mask, waving aside my offer of brandy. Beneath fair, wavy hair in perfect order and fine, high brows, another notable feature delineated his face: a majestic pair of mustachios, extravagant in their length and curl. He looked down at the still-seated Holmes through narrow eyes.
‘Not quite the King of Bohemia, Dr. Watson,’ our visitor returned. ‘No, not the dear Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, as I see our Mr. Holmes has already deduced,’ he continued, ‘or surely he would have rushed to greet an old client.’
The voice, though nasal, was decisive.
He continued, ‘Yet the matter is so delicate that like the King of Bohemia I dare not confide it to an agent without putting myself in the man’s power. I have come incognito from Sofia for the purpose of consulting you. I am Ferdinand, Prince Regnant of Bulgaria. I require your services. I require them immediately. It concerns a matter of the utmost discretion and importance.’
‘Bulgaria?’ I enquired.
‘Yes, Dr. Watson. Surely you have heard of Bulgaria, the tinderbox of Europe? A land of mystery, mosques and minarets, all the faces of mankind - Kurds, Druze, Jews, Ismailis - wonderfully mixed?’
He paused, staring at me quizzically.
I remained silent. He added, ‘Men in fezzes and baggy knickerbockers who carry old-fashioned firearms and curved knives stuck in their belts? My Capital Sofia throngs with stout Persian merchants, wild Turcomans, Parsees from Bombay and Hebrew rabbis by the dozen, even children of the Land of the Dragon. Your public must thirst to know of such strange and mountainous lands. Look how the English feast on such things: