The bank manager peered through his spectacles at a list on his desk.
‘Though as a convenience you might hold a few guineas’ worth of small Swiss notes. An English sovereign will get you 25 francs. I am told a comfortable hotel will charge you four or five francs for bedroom, light and attendance, and perhaps a further twelve francs for all meals, plus small tips for the boots and porter.’
The sound of people engaged in fierce argument burst in on us. Two men locked in each other’s clasp fell through the door, the one an elderly cleric, the other a member of the bank’s staff trying to prevent his entry. High-pitched tones emanated from the priest as he pushed himself into the room past the employee. Under a wrap rascal he wore baggy trousers and white tie, topped by a broad black hat, the exact dress of the Nonconformist clergyman I described in Scandal In Bohemia. He demanded to speak to the bank manager come what may, insisting he needed to open a safe deposit box on the instant, ‘poor as a church mouse as those of my calling may be’.
With a triumphant flourish at having gained entry, the clergyman dropped a heavy pouch on the manager’s desk. It was the very pouch of gold coins given to us by the Prince Regnant of Bulgaria five years before. The purse split with the force of the fall, scattering the glittering coins across the desk and into every corner of the room.
At the sight of the gold coins the bank manager rushed around the desk and waved the staff member away.
‘I am sure Dr. Watson will not mind if we are joined by a clergyman,’ he expostulated. ‘I myself am a son of the manse, with a strict Presbyterian upbringing.’
‘Not at all,’ I responded amiably. ‘The clergyman is most welcome.’
My Heavens, I thought. Holmes has gone a step too far. He will be found out within a matter of minutes. I turned to the bank manager.
‘You say you are a son of the manse?’ I enquired.
‘I am,’ he replied. ‘Every day my aged father proclaims the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ.’
‘Then I am sure our clergyman friend here would enjoy sharing his knowledge of the Sacred Book. A short test, perhaps?’
Embarrassed, the bank manager began to protest. Holmes cut back in.
‘Come now, Sir,’ he told the bank manager, gesturing towards me, ‘as our young friend here demands, you must question me. Test the simple preacher seated before you on his knowledge of the Scriptures.’
The bank manager agreed, immeasurably pleased. ‘The Epistle of Paul to the Church at Philippi,’ he began,’ the book of the Gospel where...’
‘Acts, Sir,’ Holmes broke in, chortling. ‘You shall have to do better than that.’
‘Which book? Ninth, I believe?’ asked the son of the manse.
‘Eleventh,’ Holmes returned.
‘But you agree it was written on St. Paul’s first missionary journey?’
‘Second,’ Holmes parried.
‘Date?’
‘49-51 AD,’ Holmes ended, triumphantly.
‘I too have a question,’ I broke in.
It was a question my Tractarian mother had once posed on my return from Sunday School.
‘Where in the Bible does it refer to ‘Five Golden Emerods’ and ‘five golden mice’? Kings or Chronicles - or Ruth?’ I asked.
‘Very droll, Watson,’ Holmes whispered, followed aloud by ‘Samuel, my dear fellow. 1 Samuel 6:4 if I am not mistaken.’
Heavens, Holmes, I thought admiringly. The stage may have lost a great actor when he took up crime but the Church lost a doughty scholar.
With the rupees and Swiss bank-notes tucked securely under my coat, I left the clergyman and bank manager still discussing matters Biblical and resolved to purchase a copy of William Clark Russell’s latest nautical novel The Mystery of the Ocean Star for the journey to the Swiss Alps.
At Marshall & Snelgrove’s I ordered a suit of pongee silk, white drill, and a Swiss Army officer’s knife Modell 1890. From there I strolled en pleine vue. Whenever I could be lost to sight in the crowded streets I slowed my pace to allow an observer to regain my spoor. At Salmon & Gluckstein of Oxford Street - ‘Largest and Cheapest Tobacconists in the World’ -I purchased a half-dozen tins of J&H Wilson No. 1 Top Mill snuff and a box of Churchwarden clay pipes, proclaiming loudly the latter were presents for the natives. I announced extravagantly how appreciative Holmes and I would be if the Tobacconist supplied us with several boxes of Trichinopoly cigars manufactured from tobacco grown near the town of Dindigul (‘a favourite of yellow-robed Buddhist monks,’ I explained to the small audience around me).
My next stop was Foyle’s bookshop at Cecil Court for The Mystery of the Ocean Star. From there I strolled openly to Watson & Sons in Holborn where I usually purchased my microscope slides. The same photographic suppliers stocked the wide-angle photographic lenses suited to Alpine and no doubt Adam’s Peak vistas. My final call was on B. J. Edwards for Iso plates.
On my return, Holmes was poring over a large survey map brought across Hyde Park from the hallowed vaults of the Royal Geographical Society. A life preserver, a new box of Manstopper bullets ‘for police, civilian and Colonial use’, and a tin of Rangoon Oil sat by the map. A brand-new Webley Metropolitan Police revolver with a lanyard-ring lay beside him. The two-and-a-half inch barrel allowed the weapon to be secreted in the trouser waistband or pocket of an Inverness cloak. I looked dubiously at the hand-gun. Holmes was more than my equal with a rifle but his principal experience with a handgun had been desultory practice many years earlier on a range among sand-dunes near Calais. I glanced over Holmes’s shoulder at the map.
‘Holmes,’ I exclaimed, ‘do I deduce you are studying our choice of tracks to the Reichenbach Falls?’
He put the magnifying glass down. ‘Really, Watson, you excel yourself. Palpably your walk has cleared the brain.’
He folded the map and applied a lightly oiled ramrod to the barrel of the revolver. The oiling complete, he dry-fired the weapon three times and put it back on the table.
‘If our deceit fails and Moran catches up with us on those mountainous slopes, we shall have need of all the fire-power we can muster. Not a word must reach Moran’s ears as to our real enterprise or we are doomed,’ he warned.
‘I can assure you, Holmes, I have extracted the firmest of promises from my publisher,’ I returned. ‘Not a syllable will escape his lips, not to the English newspapers, not even to his wife and children.’
‘I have no worries in a town as busy as Berne,’ Holmes said, ‘but don’t make a reservation for us at our former hotel at the Falls. Old Steiler will surely forgive us. We must take a chance on rooms. We’ll arrive after dark at the Hotel Sauvage, unannounced and using sobriquets.’
The following morning I strolled into our sitting room to find Holmes poring over the silk-panelled map with a magnifying glass. He looked up.
‘Do you still wish to become the asthmatic captain of the Roi des Belges steaming up the Congo River?’ he queried.
‘No, Holmes. On our past adventures you have limited me to a moustache here, a pair of rubbish-collector’s boots there, or for our adventure in the Case of the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle a country-cut coat and low-crowned hat. This time I fancy passing myself off as an Ambassador,’ I responded.
‘While you have a good line in pomposity, Watson,’ Holmes replied, grinning, ‘what if you get carried away and describe the wounds caused by the Long Tom cannon used to pound the Afghan tribesmen? Colonel Moran would detect your Army station in an instant.’