‘Remind me, Watson, what is the exact order of our cases in your latest publication, The Return?’
There was an urgency in his voice.
I responded, ‘First, The Adventure of the Empty House.’
‘Next?’
‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.’
‘Curses!’ shouted Holmes. ‘Just what I feared. We must make our way back to Yildiz at first light or all is lost.’
My comrade refused to say anything further except ‘This is more interesting than it promised to be; quite dramatic, in fact’.
‘Yes,’ I intervened hopefully, ‘it does strike me as being a little out of the common.’
‘Ah, then you have an idea who lies behind this little plot?’
His voice sounded surprised.
‘Not at all,’ I answered. ‘Do you?’
‘I believe I do,’ came the reply. ‘I must admit a case which at first seemed simple is rapidly assuming a very different aspect.’
A rating with a message awaited us at the head of the gangplank. Commodore Bacon would welcome us for an apéritif. We were conducted to his cabin. With hardly a greeting Holmes requested, ‘Commodore, can you kindly provide us with a launch at first light - and a box of smoke grenades too, if you don’t mind?’
The next day the sun was hardly above the horizon when Holmes gave the signal. I tossed the first grenade into the empty Mother-of-Pearl Salon of the Star Chalet Kiosk. The smoke composition ignited. Clouds capable of blanketing a battleship curled through the vast room and poured from the deep windows. I tossed in a second grenade.
‘Yangin!’ I yelled.
‘More grenades, Watson,’ Holmes ordered.
I tossed the remaining grenades in every direction. We began to shout again and again ‘Yangin! Yangin!’
Crowds of eunuchs, concubines, ostlers and servant maids came running out of wooden buildings and joined in a general shriek of ‘yangin, yangin!’ as they ran headlong for open ground downslope. Within thirty seconds the great drums at the top of the watch-towers beat out a warning across the immense palace. Within sixty seconds the rushing figures had gone completely from sight. Not a soul remained. I was on the point of assuming our plan to flush out the culprit had failed when I caught sight of a most extraordinary apparition. A yeti-like figure emerged from the seraglio by some hidden exit. Flames flitted from the creature, magically changing from yellows to oranges. It hastened through rather than away from the gushing smoke. The distinct smell of phosphorescence wafted back to us.
‘Holmes,’ I exclaimed, ‘that’s no diabolical intrusion into the affairs of men...!’
‘As you say, Watson,’ Holmes breathed. ‘If I’m not mistaken it’s wearing the rubberised ghillie suit we brought as a gift for the Sultan, painted with zinc sulphide phosphor doped with copper-magnesium. Remain silent and observe or our plan is dished!’
The figure hurried on, not once looking back. We chased after it, hurrying along narrow alleyways separating the quarters, through ancient panelled wooden gates and on past bastinado boards and the Abus guns.
We were led to an unexpected spot.
‘Of course!’ my companion exclaimed, then, unable to contain his excitement, again, ‘Of course! The Head Nurse’s quarters! Crouch for the moment, Watson!’
With a last furtive backward look, the spectre dashed through the stunted shrubbery of a little garden and into the nursery pavilion. These were the rooms where the bassinets of the Sultan’s numerous progeny were put out for an airing. The newborn princesses and the Sehzades - crown princes - would lie swaddled in gemstone-embellished quilts and blankets, their first view of the world a magnificent panorama, the hyacinth blue Bosphorus straight ahead, to the right the sparkling Marmara.
Holmes whispered, ‘On the count of five...’
We plunged into an attractive room with fine wall tiling and painted cupboards. Staring back at us like the Damned getting their first glimpse of Hell the Sultan’s thirteenth wife, Saliha Naciye, stood with her figure outlined against the flood of light, the still-flickering hood of the ghillie suit flung back, her beautiful features strained by inexpressible fear. Jutting from her quivering fingers was the carved black stone hilt of the Sword of Osman, the blade swaddled in a gemstone quilt. On the bassinet lay a scabbard studded with emeralds, rubies and garnets, the clasps decorated with Arabesque motifs in raised gold filigree.
Every vestige of colour drained from Saliha Naciye’s face. Seldom had I seen a plainer confession of guilt upon a human countenance. With a gasped ‘Do not be my judge, my enemy’, she threw the sword back into the cradle and with amazing celerity swooped between us. I started after her. She dashed down a stone staircase leading into the garden below, like a tigress slipping back into its jungle habitat, unseen until it pounces. Seconds later she was no more than a flickering silhouette between the fish ponds and elegant cypress trees.
‘Let her go, Watson,’ Holmes called after me. ‘We’ve laid the Palace ghost once and for all.’
Holmes picked up the blade. Far from being simply ornamental it was a well-made, agile fighting weapon capable of cleaving deep cavities into the body.
‘Unless I am badly mistaken,’ he added, ‘the mystery has been solved.’
He held the sword up to the light.
‘Or has it!’ he called out sharply. ‘Is one mystery replacing another?’
His tone was urgent.
‘Watson, hand me the dragoman’s snapshot of the sword!’
He snatched at the photograph and placed it next to the sword, staring from one to the other through his powerful magnifying glass.
I watched as he turned the blade over. Finally he drew back.
‘Take the lens, Watson. Look closely. Tell me what you see.’
‘It’s the Sword of Osman,’ I declared triumphantly. ‘Just as in the oil painting. There’s no doubt whatso...’
He silenced me with a curt movement of his hand.
‘I shall be careful in consulting you on matters of health, Doctor, or you’ll prescribe a cure for otalgia instead of kidney stones. Look again at the blade. What do you see etched into it near the cross-guard?’
‘The gold filigree flower motif?’ I enquired. ‘Snarling open-mouthed lions? They are exactly as in the photograph, with rubies for eyes and so on.’
‘What else?’ Holmes asked.
‘The grooves are also the same One, two, three...nine thin grooves. Precisely as in the ...’
‘Good, Watson, excellent! We’re getting somewhere. But at the end of those nine grooves, what do you see?’
‘The gold cartouche.’
‘Among the gold fronds decorating the cartouche, do you see the names of the first four caliphs?’
‘I can see four separate marks in script but whether...’
‘So far so good,’ my companion butted in. ‘They are names to instil sanctity into the blade - Abu Bakh, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. Now look within the cartouche. Come, Watson, we really must hurry! What do you see etched there?’
‘Nothing. There’s nothing etched inside the cartouche,’ I replied.
‘Nothing? Isn’t there an inscription which, if you could read it, would state ‘Assistance from Allah and the victory is close. Bear the glad tidings to the believers, O Muhammad’?’
I peered back at the cartouche.
‘Nothing,’ I repeated.
‘Neither a second inscription which - again, if you could read the Turkish - says, ‘There is no braver young man than Ali and there is no sharper sword but Zulfeqhar’?’
‘Holmes,’ I replied, my brow knitting, ‘there’s absolutely nothing inscribed within the cartouche.’
‘And again I ask you...’
I yelled, ‘Holmes, how plain must I make myself? Where in the entire universe can ‘n-o-t-h-i-n-g’ mean ‘two inscriptions in Turkish’? I assure you there is no inscription of any sort etched inside the cartouche.’