Sherlock Holmes and The Sword of Osman (8 page)

‘Gentlemen, the Surgeon Lieutenant and I thank you for an excellent repast. We must take our leave. Commodore, would you give orders for an inconspicuous boat to ferry us ashore in the morning?'

Holmes withdrew a page from his pocket and scribbled on it.

‘We would appreciate it if you can arrange for this coded signal to be sent at once to our dragoman.'

Outside, Holmes gripped my arm.

‘My dear fellow...' I began, embarrassed at our abrupt exit.

I was cut short.

‘Watson, the jewellery attached to Saliha Naciye's hair in the garden...'

‘Just for that you tore us away from excellent company?' I chided. ‘Couldn't this have waited while we played a few hands of...'

He propelled me swiftly across the deck to one of the immense guns, now silent and sinister in the light of the stars, the barrel pointing to the horizon.

‘My friend,' came the savage reply, ‘do you suppose I would drag you away from your gambling if it was not of the utmost importance? I repeat, the jewels, what flowers did they depict? It's imperative you remember precisely!'

I cast my mind back to the still figure standing outside the window.

I replied, ‘To the best of my recollection there were variegated buds, roses, jasmines, and jonquils. And ferns.'

‘Excellent, Watson,' Holmes exclaimed. ‘And the jewels themselves?'

‘If we start at the buds, they were made from saltwater pearls, then the rubies...'

‘The colours, Watson, the colours! I believe you have the better of me in colour recall.'

‘The pearls...blue, champagne and green. And purple.'

‘As you say,' Holmes breathed. ‘And the rubies? Again, the colour?'

‘Raspberry. And pink. And Pigeon's-blood red. I would guess from Macedonia.'

‘You come into your own, Watson!

‘Next... jonquils...'

‘Yellow, if I'm not mistaken?' Holmes broke in.

‘And something orange. I remember thinking it was the colour of a rare topaz. Finally, ferns. From peridots.'

Shelmerdine had told us the Sultan's peridots were sourced from meteorites which plunged into the great Anatolian Desert.

‘Peridots. So they were!' Holmes exclaimed.

I looked at him expectantly.

‘Surely you noticed?' he pressed on. ‘The colours you described in her hair matched exactly in colour and order the garden flowers in the nosegay she held when we first glimpsed her outside the window.'

‘I confess I didn't, Holmes,' I responded. ‘Even if I had, what should I have made of it?'

‘That the jewels in her hair were a gift from the Sultan - they express a message of love. She matches them in the selection of flowers for the nosegay whenever she expects her Lord and Master to notice her - as when we observed her outside the window.'

My brow furrowed.

‘Aren't you making rather a meal of it? Given they've been married only two years and she has born him an heir...'

‘I make a meal of it for a reason which you might find of some interest,' my comrade retorted icily, ‘which is that shortly after we left the Sultan's presence she lay in wait for us with a nosegay to take to the bazaar, isn't that so?'

‘She did,' I agreed. ‘So?'

‘That bouquet, the one she begged us to deliver, naturally you noticed the sequence of flowers was entirely different from the one you've just described. Yet she couldn't have plucked fresh flowers and settled their arrangement in so short a time.'

Flustered, I asked, ‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning, my friend,' he returned darkly, ‘it wasn't just a simple tussie-mussie. She prepared the bouquet ahead of our arrival.'

‘For what purpose?'

‘To transmit a message. Unknowingly we delivered a secret message. One which may have been pivotal in this matter.'

‘A message slipped into the nosegay?' I exclaimed. ‘Who'd ever have thought...?'

‘...that she'd risk writing a note? No-one. She didn't. Any one of the Palace retinue could have intercepted us before we left Yildiz.'

‘If it wasn't a note tucked in the nosegay how else could she have sent it through us?'

‘The flowers were the message, how else! It could equally well have been a trug of fruit such as we saw on the Commodore's table. Baron Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall published
Sur Le Langage des Fleurs
over a hundred years ago. He described a secret language known to the Greek and Armenian women with the same access to the harems as the Jewess Chiarezza.'

‘Holmes,' I said dismissively, ‘even so, the Sultan's wife could merely have been asking for the latest hat from Paris.'

‘Then why the urgency?' came the rejoinder. ‘Why should she approach two strangers to smuggle a posy out of Yildiz if it concerned only a hat?'

‘Then what?' I asked.

Holmes shook his head.

‘As yet I've no idea.'

We Meet The Chief Armourer's Widow

Our message to Shelmerdine was met with a swift reply.

‘The Chief Armourer is to be buried tomorrow. He'll be interred at the Eyüp Sultan Mosque near the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari where the Sancak-i Şerif, the banner of the Prophet, is kept. It's on the western reaches of the Golden Horn. Come ashore at 8am.'

The dragoman awaited us a slight distance from the jetty, seated on a cart decorated with high wooden arches hung with thick red woollen tassels. Two large oxen with the lustrous eyes of Brahma the Creator turned to watch us as we approached. Shelmerdine stayed hidden behind the cart's drapes.

‘Cover up your uniforms with these,' he ordered.

He threw each of us a pair of trousers known as şalvar and an outer cloak reaching to the ankles, with a cowl and long sleeves. Aboard the cart I saw we were now attired in exactly the same clothing as the dragoman. With a sombre look, he thrust a copy of the
Journal de Constantinople
into my hand. Shelmerdine had pencilled a translation of the headline in the margin. On the front page beneath a large advertisement in English for tinned Nestlé condensed milk (‘Protect your baby against cholera') were the dramatic words ‘His Majesty's Life in Peril? Who Are These Men? Could they be British Assassins?' followed by ‘Skills of a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of Baker Street Required'.

The centre-piece was a large photograph taken on the morning
Dreadnought
dropped anchor. In the foreground, the Imperial barge was heading towards our battleship. A large arrow superimposed on the photo pointed past the barge to two people in naval uniforms clambering awkwardly into the
Haroony
. We were highlighted by a circle around us.

Shelmerdine handed me a typed translation of the article.

It read, ‘Who are these men? They were transported to our shores aboard the great new British battleship. At first sight they appear to be British Naval Officers. They wear the dress uniform of the British Royal Navy. That's obvious to all. But reliable sources tell us discrepancies show them to be imposters. Look at their Ceremonial Swords. See how each sword rests in its scabbard. How can this be? The British Navy officer always
carries
his sword. Our special correspondent checked with the Naval Attaché in Pera. Whenever getting on or off a barge a genuine officer in the Royal Navy would employ the ‘Senior Officer's Carry' favoured by members of the British Royal Family.'

I sensed Shelmerdine studying our reactions as I read on.

‘Once on our soil these “Naval officers” were observed entering the Yildiz Palace. Why was this pair sneaking their way into the Palace? If they wanted to meet His Imperial Majesty Abd-ul-Hamid II they could have stayed aboard the battleship. The two men claim they are here to collect rare plants for a botanical garden. If so, why do they return to their battleship each night - why not take rooms where all the English milords stay, at the convenient Hotel d'Angleterre? We must question, are they truly here to pluck examples of the Giant Lobelia to take to Windsor Castle for His Majesty King Edward VII? Or are they ‘scouting' the Palace for a convenient spot to carry out an assassination at the orders of the British Government? No doubt the pair has received instruction from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew on which of Turkey's 82 poisonous plants they should select for their evil purposes.'

Finally, pointedly, ‘This correspondent believes it would take the skills of the London poisons specialist Sherlock Holmes and his medical colleague Dr. Watson to carry out such a “pretty little plot”.'

Almost as soon as our feet touched Ottoman soil someone had exposed our identities. There wouldn't be a carter, shop-boy, apprentice tanner collecting dog-dung from the streets or cabman in the whole of Stamboul who didn't know of our presence and believe we were intent on assassination.

I asked, ‘If His Imperial Majesty has control over everything the newspapers publish, why did he permit this?'

‘It was distributed while the Chief Censor was aboard the battleship,' came the reply. ‘No doubt someone's knuckles will be rapped.'

A few minutes later the carriage took us over a rise. Ahead I could see a patch of open land filled with grave-slabs. The high walls were crowded in by the wooden buildings on every side. I looked at Shelmerdine.

‘Is that our cemetery?'

He shook his head.

‘Beit kvarot - the Jewish cemetery. See how the graves lie feet to the south-east... towards Jerusalem,' he explained.

He stretched an arm towards a small stone hut in a far corner.

‘That isn't used much these days but in olden times that's where the corpses were circumcised.'

‘Corpses circumcised!' I blurted.

‘During the time of the Spanish Inquisition many Jews never got circumcised until they were dead,' Shelmerdine replied, ‘in case while they were alive they had to deny their Hebrew origins. That carried on for a very long time.'

***

Cemeteries are places where people can linger without gathering suspicion. It would verge on bad manners - an intrusion into another's private deliberations - to pay more than passing attention to anyone else. We felt sufficiently anonymous in the overdress, the monk-like hoods pulled down over our foreheads.

Imperial princes and Ottoman grandees had paid handsomely to make the fashionable part of the cemetery their final home, attracted by the Eyüp Sultan Mosque and its funerary kiosks built by Mehmet the Conqueror. The cheaper graves were located further up the slope or on the periphery.

On the facade of the mosque charming little houses provided refuge to birds, protection from storms, rain, mud and the burning sun. A stand of plane trees reminiscent of Regent's Park shaded the outer courtyard. Their branches supported nests of grey herons. ‘Graveyard' cypress trees, some as ancient as the mosque itself, stood as guardians over the silent tombs. Beggars were doing a trade in wax vestas and lemons or a few nails. A small boy with black crape on his sleeve offered narcissi and religious trinkets for sale. Around the mosque several open graves were awaiting occupation.

A man acting as a tourist guide ran his finger along beautiful calligraphy written in white marble letters on a ground of verde antique. ‘The first Surah of the Kuran,' Shelmerdine whispered at my enquiry. ‘By the calligrapher Yayha Sufi.'

Keeping his voice low Shelmerdine explained the burial ritual. The deceased Mehmed's body was first being washed with scented water at the family home, the ears, nose and mouth stopped with cotton wool.

‘It won't be long now,' he assured us.

Headstones leaned in attitudes of gentle abandon, some with replicas of turbans, like old men reflecting. Cemeteries are repositories of stories, remembrances of human beings who have done their time on earth and gone on to the Great Beyond. One headstone inscribed with intricate Ta'lik calligraphy caught my eye. I passed my binoculars and note-book to our interpreter and asked him to translate it. Rather than a Koranic quotation, it was a poem:

‘Well did he know the end of this life, for he had been familiar with its beauties; thinking his appointed time yet another gazelle-eyed one, he said “My dark-eyed love” and followed it.'

The combination of hot sun and cemetery took my thoughts back to my military days. Cemeteries in India kept half-a-dozen outlying graves permanently open for contingencies and incidental wear and tear. In the Hills many of these pre-prepared graves were pathetically small, readied for European children arriving weakened from the Plains who succumbed to the effects of the Rains or from pneumonia attributed to ayahs taking them through damp pine-woods after sunset.

Twenty minutes passed. A strikingly handsome wood-pigeon walked busily and bulkily about the sparse grass, its nocturnal home a nearby cherry-tree grown from a mourner's discarded stone. I reached for a handkerchief. Offensive smells from decaying newly-buried corpses were now overpowering the scent from evaporating tree resins.

The sun rose higher in the sky. Swaddled as we were, the temperature was becoming intense.

‘They should be here any minute,' Shelmerdine repeated reassuringly.

To pass the time Holmes questioned our guide on the tradition surrounding the Sword of Osman.

‘The ceremonial girding of the scimitar takes place between five and fifteen days after a Sultan's accession,' came the explanation. ‘After that the Sword returns to its resting place and remains under constant guard until the next Sultan is enthroned.'

‘Who has the right to approach it?' my companion enquired.

‘The Sharif of Konya perhaps. The Sultan of course. And the Chief Armourer to check the blade's condition. No-one else.'

‘No-one at all?' I persisted.

‘No-one,' the dragoman replied.

‘Not even the Sultan's wives?' I heard Holmes ask.

‘Certainly no woman, however high her rank.'

Just when I wondered if the dragoman had got his cemeteries wrong, a turban hove into sight over the gradient. I pointed it out to Holmes with a surreptitious motion of my handkerchief. The turban rose higher and higher until it was in full view, resting on a body wrapped in a white cloth. The bier supporting the corpse became visible, then the men carrying it. Onlookers seemingly going about their day sprang to the alert, jumping in with offers to support the burden on the final steps to the mosque. I brought the binoculars to bear, hiding them under my capacious hood to reduce the reflection. A short yataghan lay by the turban, sinuous as a swallow's wing. The procession passed along a seated line of scribes clutching pen sharpeners and paper scissors and entered the mosque courtyard. The pall bearers lowered the bier on to a stone while a group of men at a chosen spot among the tombs began digging at the hard ground.

‘It's our man,' Shelmerdine muttered in reply to my questing look. ‘Hence the weapon on his chest.'

In a muted voice our guide described the funeral ritual.

‘When the corpse has been submitted to the soil and the last footsteps of the burial party die away, two Examining Angels from heaven named Munkar and Nekir appear at the sepulchre to interrogate the deceased's soul. They ask three questions: “Who is your God?” “Who is your Prophet?” and “What is your religion?”.'

The pit ready, the torso arrayed in a white shroud was lowered into it and turned on its right side to face Mecca. The Imam leant down near the dead man and whispered in his ear the precise replies the deceased should give to the terrible Angels. The mourners threw a few handfuls of soil on the corpse and a large flat stone was lowered over it. A cavity had been carved into the stone, designed to accumulate water for thirsty birds or small animals.

The bearers and mourners dispersed. The three of us were completely alone in the vast burial area. A shudder ran through me, unsettled by the thought of the Examining Angels Munkar and Nekir.

Shelmerdine and I looked at Holmes.

‘What now?' I asked.

‘We wait,' Holmes replied. ‘We may expect the dead man's widow here soon. At the very least she'll want to pray for her husband's soul near his corpse, even at the risk of being captured.'

In the silence peculiar to places inhabited only by the souls of the Dead, I ruminated on my own epitaph. A day or two before the Battle of Maiwand I'd put my papers in order and checked my Last Will and Testament - a small sum to my elder brother, the rest to my regiment. With the pomposity of youth I arranged with the regimental masons for the Urdu words
Sarvatra Izzat O Iqbal
- ‘Everywhere with Honour and Glory' - to be carved into my headstone. In the event a wound from a flintlock bullet followed by enteric fever at Peshawar would hardly qualify as glorious considering we gave out the base hospital address as ‘Café Enterique, Boulevard des Microbes' - and we lost the battle against Ayub Khan's forces. Neither the wound nor the fever did for me.

The words painted on my battered old tin dispatch box - ‘John H. Watson, M.D. Late Indian Army' - would be a less over-ripe epitaph, though my attachment to the Berkshires did not strictly constitute the Indian Army. Perhaps I would copy the Spartans -

WATSON

In War

I pondered how my life, like most people's, had seemed led more by kismet than my own will. Perhaps more apt would be ‘
I only thought to make, I knew not what'
. What I would want buried with me was easier - my watch, whistle, knife, helmet and field-glasses and a memento of my wife Mary's love. And puttees. And possibly one of Holmes's briar pipes for sentiment's sake.

‘So what will it be?' Holmes asked me.

‘What will what be?' I exclaimed, jolting back to the present.

‘The wording of your epitaph?'

‘Why, Holmes...'

His hand came up sharply to silence me. He inclined his head in the direction of a stand of cypresses. Precisely as he predicted, a woman had seated herself there, shaded from the harsh sun. She stared in the direction of the newly-dug grave, tears coursing down her cheeks. It could only be our quarry, Mehmed's widow.

Silently the three of us approached her, expressions intent, garbed like a marauding band of Grim Reapers or the Brethren of the Misericordia. She struggled to her feet, staring at us in abject fear as we herded her deeper into the grove for privacy. She mouthed words in Ottoman Turkish which I took to be begging for mercy or a protest of innocence.

Holmes drew back the heavy hood from his face.

‘Tell her we're not here to do her harm. We come as intermediaries. We believe we can help her.'

Shelmerdine translated Holmes's words. My comrade's blue eyes showed he was a Ferenghi, a foreigner. The petrified woman's gaze switched to us, half-frightened, half-hopeful.

‘Tell her we only wish to know how her husband died,' I ordered.