Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years

by Michael Kurland

  “Well,” I said, hearing the tramp of boots on the ladder, “it will have to do.”

  We retreated to the far side of the curtains and twitched them closed scant seconds before I heard the door being opened and two—no, three—sets of footsteps entering the room.

  “The lamp must have gone out,” one of them said in German. “I’ll light it.”

  “No need,” another replied in the same language, the sound of authority in his voice. “All we need from here is the chest. Shine your light over there—there. Yes, there it is. You two, pick it up.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Take it down and onto the launch right away,” the imperious voice said. “This must accompany us on the train to Trieste.”

  “Right away, Your Grace.” And, with a minor cacophony of thumps, bumps and groans, the chest was lifted and carried out the door. After a few seconds it was clear that His Grace had left with the chest, and we were once again alone in the room.

  “Well,” I said, stepping out from behind the curtain. “Trieste. Now if we only knew—”

  Holmes held his hand up to silence me. He was peering out of the window with a concentrated fury, glaring down at our recent guests as they went on deck through the downstairs door.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “One moment,” he said.

  For a second “His Grace” turned his head, and his profile was illuminated by the lantern carried by one of the crew. Holmes staggered backward and clapped his hand to his forehead. “I was not wrong!” he said. “I knew I recognized that voice!”

  “Who, His Grace?” I asked.

  “He!” he said. “It is he!”

  “Who?”

  “His name is Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein,” Holmes told me. “Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and Hereditary King of Bohemia.”

  “Is he indeed?” I asked. “And how do you know His Grace?”

  “He employed me once,” Holmes said. “I will not speak of it further.”

  “The case had nothing to do with our current, er, problem?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he assured me.

  “Then I, also, shall not speak of it again.” Whatever it was, it must have affected Holmes greatly, but it was not the time to pick at old wounds. “I take it he has little use for the English?” I asked.

  “He has little regard for anything British,” Holmes affirmed. “And I believe that he has no fondness for anyone except himself, and possibly members of his immediate family.”

  “Truly a prince,” I said.

  The last of our visitors boarded the steam launch, and it cast off and pulled away from the barge. “I wonder what prompted the midnight visit,” I said.

  “Nothing good,” Holmes opined.

  There was a crumping sound, as of a distant belching beneath the water, then another, and the barge listed toward the starboard side with a great creaking and a series of snaps.

  “There’s your answer,” Holmes said, as we both grabbed for the nearest support in order to remain upright. “Those were explosions. They’re scuttling this craft. She’ll be under in ten minutes, unless she breaks apart first. Then it will be faster. Much faster.”

  “Perhaps we should make our exit,” I suggested.

  “Perhaps,” he agreed.

  We hurried down the ladder and onto the deck.

  “Hilfe! Hilfen sie mir, bitte!”

  The faint cry for help came from somewhere forward. “We’re coming!” I called into the dark. “Wir kommen! Wo sind Sie?”

  “Ich weiss nicht. In einem dunklen Raum,” came the reply.

  “‘In a dark place’ doesn’t help,” Holmes groused. “It couldn’t be any darker than it is out here.”

  The barge picked that moment to lurch and sag farther to starboard.

  “Hilfe!”

  We struggled our way to the forward deckhouse. The cry for help was coming from somewhere to the left of the door. I felt my way along the wall until I came to a porthole. “Hello!” I called inside, knocking on the glass.

  “Oh, thank God,” cried the man in German. “You have found me! You must, for the love of God, untie me before this wretched vessel sinks.”

  Holmes and I went in through the door and down a short length of corridor until we came to a left-hand turn.

  “Ow!” said Holmes.

  “What?”

  I heard a scraping sound. “Wait a second,” Holmes said. “I’ve just banged my head.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “No need,” he told me. “I’ve just banged my head on a lantern hanging from the ceiling. Give me a second, and I’ll have it lit.”

  He took a small waterproof case of wax matches from his pocket and in a few seconds had the lantern glowing. “Onward!” he said.

  Opening the third door along the corridor revealed a short, portly man in a white shirt and dark, striped trousers and vest, tied to a large wooden chair. His exertions in trying to escape had covered his face with bands of sweat and pulled much of his shirt loose from his waistband, but his thin black tie was still properly and severely in place. “Light!” the man said. “Oh, bless you my friends, whoever you are.”

  We worked at untying him as quickly as possible as the barge gave a series of alarming jerks and kicks under us and tilted ever more drastically. Now, in addition to its list to the starboard, there was a decided tilt aft.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said the plump man, as the rope came off his legs. “They left me here to die. And for what?”

  “For what, indeed?” I replied.

  “It all started …”

  “Let’s wait until we’re off this vessel,” Holmes interjected, “or in a very few moments we’ll be talking underwater.”

  We helped our rotund comrade up, although our feet were not much steadier than his, and with much slipping and sliding we made our way along the deck. An alarming shudder ran through the vessel as we reached the stern, and we quickly lowered our new friend into the rowboat and followed him down. Holmes and I manned the oars and energetically propelled ourselves away from the sinking barge, but we had gone no more than fifteen or twenty yards when the craft gave a mighty gurgle and descended beneath the water, creating a wave that pulled us back to the center of a great vortex, then threw us up into the air like a chip of wood in a waterfall. In a trice we were drenched, and our flimsy craft was waterlogged, but by some miracle we were still in the rowboat, and it was still afloat. Holmes began bailing with his cap, and our guest with his right shoe, while I continued the effort to propel us away from the area.

  I oriented myself by the ever-dependable North Star, and headed toward the southeast. In a little while Holmes added his efforts to my own, and we were rowing across the dark waters with reasonable speed despite our craft still being half-full of water. Our plump shipmate kept bailing until he was exhausted, then spent a few minutes panting and commenced bailing again.

  It was perhaps half an hour before we spied lights in the distance indicating that the shore was somewhere ahead of us. Half an hour more and we had nosed into a beach. A small, steep, rocky beach, but nonetheless a bit of dry land, and we were grateful. The three of us climbed out of the rowboat and fell as one onto the rough sand, where we lay exhausted and immobile. I must have slept, but I have no idea how long. When next I opened my eyes dawn had risen, and Holmes was up and doing exercises by the water’s edge.

  “Come, arise, my friend,” he said—he must have been drunk with exercise to address me thus—“we must make our preparations and be on our way.”

  I sat up. “Where are we off to?” I asked.

  “Surely it should be obvious,” Holmes replied.

  “Humor me,” I said.

  “Trieste,” said Holmes. “Wherever Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein goes, there we shall go. For whatever is happening, he is the leader or one of the leaders.”

  “Is it your dislike of him that speaks?” I asked. “For you have often said
the same of me, and seldom was it so.”

  “Ah, but on occasion …” Holmes said. “But in this case it is my knowledge of the man. He would not be a member of any organization that did not let him be its leader, or at least believe that he is the leader, for he is vain and would be easily led himself.”

  Our rotund friend sat up. “Is that English which you speak?” he asked in German.

  “Ja,” I said, switching to that language. “It is of no importance.”

  “That is what those swine that abducted me spoke when they did not want me to understand,” he said, laboriously raising himself to his knees, then to his feet. “But they kept forgetting—and I understood much.”

  “Good!” I said. “We will all find dry clothing for ourselves, and you shall tell us all about it.”

  He stood up and offered me his hand. “I am Herr Paulus Hansel, and I thank you and your companion for saving my life.”

  “On behalf of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself, Professor James Moriarty, I accept your thanks,” I told him, taking the offered hand and giving it a firm shake.

  “I have clothing at my—oh—I don’t dare go back to my hotel.” Our friend’s hands flew to his mouth. “Supposing they are there waiting for me?”

  “Come now,” Holmes said. “They believe you are dead.”

  “I would not disabuse them of that notion,” he said.

  We walked the three or so miles back to our hotel, booked a room for Herr Hansel, and set about our ablutions and a change of clothes. We gave the concierge the task of supplying suitable garb for our rotund friend, and he treated it as though guests of the Hotel Athenes returned water-soaked and bedraggled every day of the year. Perhaps they did.

  It was a little after eight when we met at the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast. “Now,” Holmes said, spreading orange marmalade on his croissant and turning to Herr Hansel, “I have restrained my curiosity long enough, and you may well be possessed of information useful to us. Start with what you were doing on that barge, if you don’t mind.”

  Herr Hansel drained his oversized cup of hot chocolate, put the cup down with a satisfied sigh, and wiped his mustache. “That is simple,” he said, refilling the cup from the large pitcher on the table. “I was preparing to die. And were you gentlemen not on board, I most assuredly would have done so.”

  “What caused your companions to treat you in so unfriendly a manner?” I asked.

  “They were no companions of mine,” he replied. “I am the proprietor of the Hansel and Hansel Costume Company.” He tapped himself on the chest. “I am the second Hansel, you understand. The first Hansel, my father, retired from the business some years ago and devotes himself to apiculture.”

  “Really?” asked Holmes. “I would like to meet him.”

  “Certainly,” Hansel agreed. “I am sure he would like to thank the man who saved his son’s life.”

  “Yes, there is that,” Holmes agreed. “Go on with your story.”

  “Yes. I delivered yesterday a large order of costumes to a certain Count von Kramm at the Adlerhof.”

  “Hah!” Holmes interjected. We looked at him, but he merely leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed across his chest and murmured, “Continue!”

  “Yes,” said Hansel. “Well, they were naval costumes. Officers and ordinary seamen’s uniforms. From shoes to caps, with insignia and ribbons and everything.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “British Royal Navy uniforms, no doubt.”

  “Why, yes,” Hansel agreed. “And quite enough of them to have costumed the full cast of that Gilbert and Sullivan show—Pinafore.”

  “And the name of the ship you stitched on the caps,” Holmes interjected. “Could it have been the Royal Edgar?”

  “Indeed it was,” Hansel said, looking startled. “How did you …”

  “Much like this one?” Holmes asked, pulling the cap we had found out of his pocket and placing it on the table.

  Hansel picked it up, examined it carefully, crumpled the cloth in his hands and sniffed at it. “Why, yes,” he agreed, “this is one of ours.”

  “Go on,” I said. “How did you get yourself tied up in that cabin?”

  “It was when I asked about the undergarments,” Hansel said. “Count von Kramm seemed to take offense.”

  “Undergarments?”

  Hansel nodded and took a large bite of sausage. “We were asked to supply authentic undergarments, and I went to considerable trouble to comply with his request.”

  “Whatever for?” asked Holmes.

  Hansel shrugged a wide, expressive shrug. “I did not ask,” he said. “I assumed it was for whatever production he was planning to put on. I acquired the requested undergarments from the Naval Stores at Portsmouth, so their authenticity was assured.”

  “You thought it was for a play?” I asked. “Doesn’t that sound like excessive realism?”

  Another shrug. “I have heard that when Untermeyer produces a show at the Königliche Theater he puts loose change in the corners of the couches and stuffed chairs, and all the doors and windows on the set must open and close even if they are not to be used during the performance.”

  “Who are we to question theatrical genius?” Holmes agreed. “If Count Kramm’s theatrical sailors are to wear sailors’ undergarments, why then so be it.”

  “Indeed,” said Hansel. “But why only five sets?”

  Holmes carefully put down his coffee cup. “Five sets only?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And how many sets of, ah, outer garments?”

  “Thirty-five complete uniforms. Twelve officers and the rest common sailors.”

  “How strange,” I said.

  Hansel nodded. “That’s what I said. That’s why I ended up tied up on that chair, or so I suppose.”

  Holmes looked at me. “Count von Kramm,” he said, “or as I know him better, Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and Hereditary King of Bohemia, dislikes being questioned.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “Von Kramm is one of his favorite aliases.”

  “That man is a king?” Hansel asked, a note of alarm in his voice. “There is no place where one can hide from a king.”

  “Do not be alarmed,” Holmes told him. “By now he has forgotten that you ever existed.”

  “Ah, yes,” Hansel said. “There is that about kings.”

  Holmes stood. “I think we must go to Trieste,” he said. “There is devil’s work afoot.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “I need to send a telegram. I’ll have the reply sent to Trieste.”

  “I, I think, must go home,” said Hansel.

  “Yes, of course,” Holmes agreed. He took Hansel’s hand. “You have earned the thanks of another royal person, and I shall see that, in the fullness of time, you are suitably rewarded.”

  “You are g-going to r-r-reward me?” Hansel stammered. “But Your Grace, Your Kingship, I had no idea. I mean …”

  Holmes barked out a short laugh. “No, my good man,” he said. “Not I. A gracious lady on whose shoulders rest the weight of the greatest empire in the world.”

  “Oh,” said Hansel. “Her.”

  The city of Trieste rests on the Gulf of Trieste, which is the northern tip of the Adriatic Sea, and is surrounded by mountains where it isn’t fronting water. The city dates back to Roman times, and its architecture is a potpourri of every period from then to the present. Although it is putatively a part of the Austrian Empire, its citizens mostly speak Italian, and are more concerned with the happenings in Rome and Venice than those in Vienna and Budapest.

  The journey took us two days by the most direct route we could find. But we reconciled ourselves with the thought that von Ormstein and his band of pseudo-English sailors couldn’t have arrived much ahead of us.

  During the journey we discussed what we had found out and worked out a course of action. It was necessarily vague, as although we now had a pretty good idea of what von Orm
stein was planning, we didn’t know what resources we would find available to us to stop him from carrying out his dastardly scheme.

  Before we left Lindau Holmes and I had sent a telegram to Mycroft:

  SEND NAMES AND LOCATIONS OF ALL DESTROYERS OF ROYAL HENRY CLASS REPLY GENERAL PO TRIESTE SHERLOCK

  A reply awaited us when we arrived. We retired to a nearby coffeehouse and perused it over steaming glasses of espresso:

  EIGHT SHIPS IN CLASS ROYAL HENRY ROYAL ELIZABETH AND ROYAL ROBERT WITH ATLANTIC FLEET AT PORTSMOUTH ROYAL STEPHEN IN DRY DOCK BEING REFITTED ROYAL WILLIAM IN BAY OF BENGAL ROYAL EDWARD AND ROYAL EDGAR ON WAY TO AUSTRALIA ROYAL MARY DECOMMISSIONED SOLD TO URUGUAY PRESUMABLY CROSSING ATLANTIC TO MONTEVIDEO WHAT NEWS MYCROFT

  I slapped my hand down on the coffee table. “Uruguay!”

  Holmes looked at me.

  “Uruguay is divided into nineteen departments,” I told him.

  “That is the sort of trivia with which I refuse to burden my mind,” he said. “The study of crime and criminals provides enough intellectual …”

  “Of which one,” I interrupted, “is Florida.”

  He stopped, his mouth open. “Florida?”

  “Just so.”

  “The letter … ‘The Florida is now ours.”’

  “It is common practice to name warships after counties, states, departments, or other subdivisions of a country,” I said. “The British Navy has an Essex, a Sussex, a Kent, and several others, I believe.”

  Holmes thought this over. “The conclusion in inescapable,” he said. “The Florida …”

  “And the undergarments,” I said.

  Holmes nodded. “When you have eliminated the impossible,” he said, “whatever remains, however improbable, stands a good chance of being the truth.”

  I shook my head. “And you have called me the Napoleon of crime,” I said. “Compared to this …”

  “Ah!” said Holmes. “But this isn’t crime, this is politics. International intrigue. A much rougher game. There is no honor among politicians.”

  We walked hurriedly to the British consulate on Avenue San Lucia and identified ourselves to the consul, a white-haired, impeccably dressed statesman named Aubrey, requesting that he send a coded message to Whitehall.