Chronicles of the Lost Years (The Sherlock Holmes Series) (14 page)

The humor was in their blindness. They accepted all Holmes said without a quiver.

Elizabeth finished her glass of sherry, accepted another from Holmes, then engaged in conversation with a young, nervous-looking youth to practice her own abilities at tail-twisting before looking for more fertile ground.

Sometime later she found herself discussing hunting with Edgewater. By now, she had discovered that if she adopted a knowledgeable air she could say just about anything without being revoked.

“So, do you join in at the kill?” Edgewater asked.

“No, for I do not agree with letting the dogs have their way. It would be much simpler to slit the poor animal’s throat,” she replied unthinkingly.

“Oh, really,” Edgewater replied, pouncing on her. “I suppose you would want the master of the hunt to dispatch the quarry. That’s the way with you woman that scream for equality. You want the best of both worlds, but will happily leave all the dirty work to the men.”

Elizabeth looked quickly about her, for his voice had carried and the salon became quiet. She caught Holmes’ eye. He was standing alone by the fireplace, watching her, his eyes narrowed slits of concentration. But there was a half-smile on his face and she felt he had been watching her for a while, appreciating her performance. Over his shoulder she could see the woman grouped in a small, awed audience.

She smiled at Edgewater. “You really shouldn’t assume so much, Lord Edgewater. I wouldn’t be so silly as to become involved in politics. There are far more interesting things to do. And I do happen to believe that woman are quite as capable as men of dirty work. Why, for all you know, I could have been out slitting throats before lunch today.”

There was a shocked collective drawing of breath from the women and a nervous twitter of laughter from the men. Then Edgewater let out a hearty bellow of laughter and thumped her on the shoulder. “Oh, I like you,” he said loudly. “I say, that’s a grand notion, that. Here, have a sherry.”

Elizabeth accepted the glass with a smile and a secretly drawn shaky breath of relief and looked about for Holmes. He was still standing at the ornately carved fireplace, his elbow resting on the mantle. He was quite alone and had been waiting for her eyes to fall on him, for he lifted his glass in a mock salute and communicated his approval with a barely noticeable nod of his head.

Elizabeth’s smile broadened.

•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•

Holmes found her sitting on the divan, watching the moon over the sea and the distant twinkle of stars. It was almost completely dark in the room and the moonlight picked up the sequins on her dress as her breath rose and fell. She was listening to the oddly modulated and weirdly attractive wailing songs floating up to the window from the many mosques about the city.

“Sullah said you had retired. Are you feeling unwell?”

She smiled reassuringly as he sat on the opposite side of the broad divan, facing her. “I couldn’t stand the women’s chatter—not after the fun of the salon. They treated me like a pariah…not that I minded that so much.”

“So you did have fun, after all,” Holmes said quietly. “I thought you enjoyed deflating Lord Edgewater.”

“Thanks to you. You showed me how. I was quite in awe of them all until you pointed their superficiality out to me.”

“That sort of people always find themselves pricked when they come up against ruthless realists.”

“Am I ruthless?” Elizabeth asked.

“Reality is by definition ruthless. It cannot be anything else. Tonight both you and I discovered how far along that trail we have traveled. Whatever doubts I have about the future now, they are all fundamental doubts which nothing but time can answer.”

“They seem quite blinded by their triviality,” Elizabeth said sadly.

“Except Sullah. He was very impressed by you. I believe he would like to marry you if you were not already married…a fact I was greatly relieved to point out to him.”

Elizabeth looked up at his face quickly, but could distinguish nothing but his usual watchfulness.

“And you call me ruthless,” she replied lightly.

“You are. You have carved your way into my heart with the efficiency of a master swordsman and without a single drop of blood spilt.” His voice was casual, but the words caused Elizabeth to become quite motionless, her bosom rising and falling rapidly as her heart pounded.

Holmes reached up to pull at the pins holding her hair and his hands trembled just a little. “You really are quite beautiful tonight. But I prefer your hair loose, like this.” He removed the last pin and let the locks cascade down about her shoulders. “Then I can do this.” His long fingers slid into the copper locks and Elizabeth shivered again.

“Holmes….” she whispered.

“We’ve talked enough,” he said, drawing her to him.

• Chapter Seven •
_________________________

•ï¡÷¡ï•

ELIZABETH WAS STANDING at the fireplace when she reached this point in her narrative. It had taken two days to relate the tale and I had graduated to the sofa, pulled up close to the hearth.

I had maps and atlases spread about me, for I had begun tracing their route through the East, supplementing my own dim memories of the area from my minimal contribution to the Afghan Campaign. But the maps had fallen from my lap and my fingers played with the long golden knife that had spent nearly three years strapped to Elizabeth’s forearm, whilst she spun her tale of life under a foreign sky.

She was a very good story teller, for I could quite clearly see the cosmopolitan city that, for them, became their city. Constantinople with its conflicts and exotic contrasts, suited them perfectly.

Elizabeth fell silent, studying my face. Then she smiled. “As you see, I threw myself at him,” she added, reminding me of my guess. But after such a tale of the extremities of human kind, from murder to love, I could no longer feel embarrassment.

I held up the knife. “There are two gems missing,” I pointed out.

Elizabeth laughed. “You have been fingering that knife for two days, Watson, and you have only just noticed?”

“I believe I only really grew interested in it when I realized just what this knife represented,” I told her.

“You have a gruesome turn of mind. The gems are not missing, John.”

“Then where are they?”

“If you think logically, you will know where they are.” Despite more questions she refused to tell me where they were. Instead she asked Mrs. Hudson for a pot of coffee and set about making me more comfortable. The knife was hidden away again, and she picked up all the maps and neatened them.

“You’re not going to leave me there, are you?” I asked.

Elizabeth studied me, her head to one side. “Haven’t you had your fill of death and blood yet?”

“There is more?”

“Oh, yes, there is more. You do not travel around the remoter parts of Asia without it.” She stood, the maps in her hand and surveyed my face. “You’re not trying to turn me into Scheherazade, are you?”

I am afraid I had to ask her what her reference was and she told me the ancient Arabian story of the princess who kept herself alive by enthralling the king with stories, which every night she would leave unfinished until the morrow. Then Elizabeth added: “I thought I had given you your answer.”

I was quick to assure her that she had and that I had well satisfied my curiosity. “It’s just that…he is not at all the man I thought he was.” And then I added, “And looking at you standing there, it is hard to see you in a burnoose….”

Mrs. Hudson chose that moment to appear with the coffee pot and I fell silent, waiting for her to go. When she had left, Elizabeth poured a coffee and handed me the cup.

She sat on the hassock in front of me. “I suspected that was it. Well, John, you are right. He has changed. Fundamentally he is barely the same man you once knew. Just as I am not the woman that you remember from Switzerland. If we keep the same appearances and characteristics it is merely habit and the comfort of not showing weaknesses.” Her eyes lost their focus for a minute. “You cannot kill a man—or two men—and not remain unchanged.”

Then she smiled at me. “Had you been in Mashhad when we arrived, you would not have recognized him. The further east we traveled the more he seemed to cast aside his cloak of remoteness and unfold. He was spreading his wings, John, just as he always wanted to. And he was tasting a life that just might possibly hold the answers he was looking for.”

•ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï• •ï¡÷¡ï•

They remained in Constantinople for ten more days and those were days of revelations for them both.

Sullah had quickly discarded all English affectations after the dinner party. “I have entertained my clients and received much money from them. Goods were exchanged. I am much like you–their adherence to the forms to the exclusion of original thinking irritates me.” He laughed. “You both have courage. You have it in here—” and he thumped his chest. “I thought to begin, well yes, it is very nice, the English Ma’am can kill. But what is really in her mind when she kills?”

Elizabeth writhed under this frank discussion, but Holmes answered off-handedly, “That’s the last thing you have to worry about, Sullah. You merely need be thankful that she can and did when you required it.”

Sullah smiled. “Yes, but I believe I know now. I, too, listened when you were talking to Lord Edgewater, Elizabeth. I have always thought him a fool, but you thought so and told him so, and he was too stupid to understand it.” He laughed, one of his great shouts of laughter. “So much for the lord who is in trade. When you are next in a bad temper, I shall tiptoe around you. I hope you never mistake me for an enemy.”

The reference was a reminder of Al-Sahib square, for Sullah had been informed of Elizabeth’s mistaken identification. Although he had not openly admitted it, Sullah had vaguely indicated he had been on possibly illicit business of his own and the Arabs had somehow marked him as easy prey and acted accordingly.

Holmes had formed his own theory on Sullah’s allusions. “There is a fairly heavy tariff for goods taken over the Imperial borders,” he told Elizabeth. “Sullah is carting caravans of goods every year or so. It would profit him to find a way of selling his wares without paying the duties.”

“Smuggling,” Elizabeth concluded, with a smile.

Holmes shrugged. “I shall be careful not to inquire too closely.”

The dinner party had been the last in a round of engagements with Sullah’s western business associates. Normally he packed up and moved out within a week of their departure. The palace that he rented for the season he was in the city was a concession to the western fallacy that all men in Persia were princes that lived in silk-lined tents and kept well stocked harems of beautiful women.

Some of the more obscure corners of the palace were very nearly in ruins and Sullah rented it chiefly for its ornate throne room, which was an excellent show room for his beautiful carpets.

“They like it if they think they have bought carpets from the son of Ali Baba,” Sullah told them frankly. “And the more silk and swags and slave girls I show them, the more money they give me. It is a pleasurable business in some ways.”

On the third day after the party, Sullah invited them to coffee, a Muslim way of opening a business discussion.

Holmes and Elizabeth had learnt a few lessons about Muslim customs by that time, so they dressed according to the customs acceptable to Sullah. Holmes wore the burnoose and a closely shrouded head cloth, which was a sign of respect. Elizabeth wore a head veil and kept well back behind Holmes as was expected of women.

But even as she began to make her obeisance, Sullah caught her joined hands in his and lifted her back to her feet. “No, I will not have it,” he said. “You have proved your right to stand at the same height as I.” He deftly unhooked her face veil. “Sit, sit. I have business to discuss with both of you.” He pointed to Holmes’ head wear. “I would much rather see your face than your respect,” he told him.

They joined Sullah at the low table and waited politely until he had poured the first cup of very strong Turkish coffee for each of them.

“I am leaving in a week,” he told them gravely. “I will be heading back for my home beneath the Elburz Mountains.” He passed a cup to Holmes, then Elizabeth. “I do not like to leave this city without all my debts and credits balanced nicely, for it is a year and sometimes two, before I return. These modern times have speeded up, for often when I return the faces are not the same.”

They politely agreed with him.

“However, with you, Elizabeth, I owe the life debt and that is a heavy debt to pay.”

Elizabeth hesitated. It had been her first intention to pass over it lightly but she realized that to do so would be to cheapen the quality of Sullah’s life. Instead she nodded politely. “Indeed it was a happy day for me when I did save your life for now I have a friend.”

Sullah looked pleased at her response. “Exactly. Exactly. So I have been thinking carefully about what I can do to repay this debt, but nothing appropriate comes to mind. It is a little difficult, because I have never had to concern myself with what a woman considers important before now.”