‘Go and inform your Master about the sword,’ Holmes ordered. ‘Tell His Imperial Majesty we shall seek an audience as soon as we have information to pass to him.’
We stared down at the empty wrappings.
Holmes said, ‘Well, Watson, we are in the midst of a very remarkable enquiry. An effulgent revenant which steals swords is hardly an everyday occurrence, even in Stamboul. What next?’
‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘what next?’ thinking about the shaken man who had stood before us.
I awoke early the following morning to a crew member hammering at my cabin door. The Sultan wanted us back at Yildiz. At once. Under threat of torture the Sword’s guards had admitted fleeing from their posts in fear when a supernatural being, its body aglow, appeared before them. The panic spread to the Sultan himself. He had immediately dispatched the elegant Imperial caique with its retinue of rowers to collect us. We abandoned our plans to leave the battleship in the relative anonymity of the modest cutter Haroony.
Ashore the satin-lined coupé of the deceased Sultan Valide awaited us, the bodywork alive with gold, the curtains closed. Six horses pulled our picturesque equipage up the slope. We clanged along the already-familiar narrow lanes of tinsmiths, candle-makers and sellers of cooked sheep’s heads. The driver eschewed the vast public gate by which we had entered Yildiz the first time, choosing instead the second outer gate. Our opulent vehicle eased in incongruously between a line of service carts bringing in lengthy tree logs for the fires.
Inside the Palace walls we were met by the gargantuan figure of the Kizlar Agha, the Chief Black Eunuch. We knew the Kizlar Agha involved himself in almost every palace intrigue and could gain power over the Sultan and many of the viziers, ministers or other court officials. He was dressed in a pelisse of green material with long sleeves nearly reaching the ground, trimmed with sable and other rare furs. Shelmerdine had gone into considerable detail over what he termed the Sultan’s ‘prime minister’. The eunuch, Head of the Virgins, with the dignity of three tails, controlled the harem and a perfect net of spies in the Black Eunuchs. He led us through the oppressive silence of rooms where no-one dared speak above a soft murmur.
We came into Abd-ul-Hamid’s presence. The Kizlar Agha advanced, bending his immense body almost double in loop upon loop of low salaams, like a great bloated sea-monster raising itself from the ocean deep. But it was Abd-ul-Hamid who captured my attention. He crouched in an enormous golden arm-chair. The black eyes fixed themselves upon us with from under their heavy lids with an expression of the most dreadful terror. The pink, filbert-shaped nails of one of the autocrat’s hands played nervously with the amber beads of a tesbieh. The other hand kept uneasily and restlessly beating up and down, a movement of which I had no doubt he was quite unconscious. The signs of mental distraction convinced me the germ of insanity was seeping out, a trait he and members of his House were reputed to inherit from their ancestor Sultan Ibrahim.
The Sultan sprang to his feet, almost pulling us across to the cascade fountain where the noise of the falling water would cover our conversation from prying ears.
‘Now my enemies are closing in,’ he blazed. ‘Your presence here has unlocked Pandora’s box! I should never have agreed to Sir Edward’s request. Yesterday the theft of the Sword of Osman - and now more terrible news. My Chief Armourer Mehmed, the man you met yesterday, the finest sword-maker in the Empire, is dead. You presence has caused this - now you must save me from them! The Jebeji-bashi is dead!’ he repeated mournfully. ‘I shall miss Mehmed. There was not his equal as armourer in the entire world. His swords develop a vampire’s hunger. Once drawn, every blade he forged has to draw blood before it can be returned to its scabbard.’
‘What was the cause of the Chief Armourer’s death?’ I asked with professional interest.
‘His wife,’ our host shrieked. ‘He died from his wife. At the plotters’ behest she summoned her husband home to kill him. I’ve ordered her arrest. She will confess all. The executioners’ guild has seventy-seven instruments of torture. Better still, my Chief Black Eunuch has a special punishment for women.’
The Sultan scurried back to the golden arm-chair.
‘Remind me,’ he called out to Kizlar Agha, ‘what do we call it?’
‘The Spider.’
‘Ah, yes, the Spider,’ the Sultan repeated. ‘It’s an instrument he chains to a wall. Eight red-hot iron claws sink into the woman’s breasts. When she’s yanked away from the wall, her breasts are ripped off. They stay behind in the claws.’
He giggled.
‘-like a spider that’s eating its prey, you see!’
He thrust a telegram at me.
‘Read!’ he commanded with swelling indignation. ‘Read!’
The telegram had been dispatched from Greece. Oddly it was in English, the text succinct. It ordered the Sultan to abdicate ‘in favour of your son Prince Mehmed Abid or you too will suffer your Chief Armourer’s lot’.
It set a deadline, the seventh of September.
I passed the telegram to Holmes who read it silently.
The Sultan’s voice rose to a shriek.
‘An ultimatum, Messieurs! The whole world speculates on my future. This is proof! Incontrovertible proof! A treasonous plot hatched like murderous hens by those wretched officers garrisoned in Salonika, men I provided with every advantage. I hear the mutinous officers have even selected a villa where I’m to live out the remainder of my days. A villa!’
He thrust his hands into a pile of telegrams at his side.
‘Look! Look at these! Despatched from all over my Empire assuring me of my peoples’ love and respect. Salonika is not a city! It’s populated only by Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, followers of Shabbetai Zevi, Gipsies. Each of these groups keeps well away from each other as though fearing a contagion.’
Holmes and I stood silent.
‘That date, Mr. Holmes,’ the Sultan flared, his breathing harsh, ‘that date - the date the traitors have chosen - is the thirtieth anniversary of my accession. Telegrams will be received here at Yildiz from every corner of my Empire, even from that city of vipery Salonika, congratulating me on my rule, while this...’ - he reached out and snatched the telegram back and shook it savagely - ‘this orders me to pack or meet my doom on that very same day.’
A sudden piteous look overtook the bravado.
‘Their key to success lies in the Sword of Osman. The Sword is their malediction. Unless it’s returned within days - nay hours - I shall be caught like a rat in a trap. I’m certain the cooks and scullions and carpenters and electricians - even my gardeners - are preparing to flee.’
Speaking as though the man was not at his side, the Sultan went on, ‘Even my Chief Black Eunuch will open the doors of the Palace to the assassins to avoid having the noose placed around his neck.’
‘Sir,’ I intervened, deeply attentive to Sir Edward Grey’s wish to keep this creature on his throne, ‘you seem to know who these conspirators are, where they live, how they communicate. Why haven’t you long since accepted the counsel of your advisers - and the admonitions of your thirteenth wife - and rounded up these scallywags? Why haven’t you already put them on trial?’
The distraught figure before us cried with some bitterness, ‘And perhaps bring about the very events I fear most?’
He made a grotesque attempt at a smile.
‘I am like the hen who is asked by the cook, “Dear fowl, would you like to be served up with a sweet sauce or a sour sauce - which do you prefer?” In either case I will be throttled, cooked and eaten.’
His voice dropped to a rasping whisper. ‘They plan to kill me just as they killed my uncle, the late Sultan Abdülaziz. They said the Sultan killed himself! At the Old Seraglio. Can you believe it? Why should a sultan kill himself? When the holy men prepared the body for the tomb they saw a tiny mark above the heart. It could only have been the wound of a stiletto.’