by Ted Riccardi
Once outside, Holmes hailed a cab and we were on our way, he said, to the village of Marsico Vetere. It was in this remote village that the Rouxmonts had decided to receive the great treasure removed the night before from the site of Sybaris, and it was in this remote corner of Italy that Holmes had spent his absence from Sussex.
The dirt road went east, and in about twenty minutes we arrived at the edge of the village where our coach could go no further. The village of Marsico sat on a low hill. The walk was steep, however, and as we approached I saw that much of the town was in ruins. Holmes indicated to me that a strong earthquake had struck a few months before. It was empty now of its inhabitants. The central piazza and the church were rubble and only the low buildings remained standing. Holmes took me to what had been his abode for the last few months, a small stone house indistinguishable from the others except for the garden of flowers at its front.
“Watch that you do not step on the flowers, Watson, they are my pride and joy.”
The house was totally empty except for a few chairs and a small table. As I closed the door behind us, I caught a glimpse of our elegant friend, Grimaldi.
“They are on their way, Holmes. They have hidden the treasure in the next house. They are on schedule and hope to be in Lecce by early tomorrow morning when they set sail for Tunis. We have to stop them—either here or in Lecce.”
“We are three against their five.”
“Reinforcements should be here within the hour,” said Grimaldi.
“Then let me change into the peasant clothes I borrowed from the owner of this house. This disguise won’t fool them for very long, but I will not need much time if all goes as planned.”
Holmes went out and sat on an old bench and lit his Italian pipe. Grimaldi and I sat waiting as the first signs of dusk hit the village. It was just at sunset when we heard the sound of horses and the wheels of a large coach. They had arrived.
Grimaldi and I peered through the window. Holmes had not moved. He was still sitting on the bench, staring intently at the trail that we had ascended.
Three men dismounted from their horses. One of them opened the door to the coach. The odd couple jumped out and quickly examined their surroundings, like two wild animals sniffing the air after too long a confinement. They climbed the hill together. By now we could hear their voices.
“Where have you put it all?” asked René.
“There, in the largest house,” said his henchman, “the one next to where the farmer is sitting. He is known as old man Battaglia, the only resident who has returned after the earthquake. He’s no trouble. We have kept him happy with a few liras.”
“Peters, you are far more of a fool than I thought you were,” said Jeanne, “but we have come prepared.”
She turned and addressed the old man.
“Hello, Holmes,” she said, “we expected more of you than a mere ambush. Call off your men, including anyone in the house. You have your men and their guns, but we have this, enough to kill all of us.”
She reached into her purse and produced a large white envelope and tore it open.
“Come now, my dear Jeanne. We are only three against your five. If released in the air, the powder will kill you and your gang as well. I venture to say the obvious,” said Holmes, taking the pipe from his mouth, “that you have hardly come to this remote part of the world to commit suicide. As in all of your plans, you have left a few loose ends to make your lives more interesting: a little risk to prove your criminal courage, your master criminality, shall we say? Even you have to justify your existence. Killing me and Watson would destroy that last opportunity to test your invincibility with opponents you deem worthy. Come, let me show you your booty. It is all there, in good order, every artifact, every last piece of pottery. Your henchmen have done a commendable job.”
The two walked over to the other house, opened the door, squealed with delight at what they saw, and returned to Holmes.
“Thank you for guarding the treasure. And you who are still in Signor Battaglia’s house, please join us.”
Grimaldi and I came out of the house and stood near Holmes. Jeanne Rouxmont moved not at all as she spoke. She was speaking to three men whom she considered to be already dead.
“’Tis a pity, dear Sherlock, that we cannot take you and your friends with us. But you are on the wrong side. There is nothing to be done.”
“Perhaps not, dear René et Jeanne, one never knows what will happen in this unpredictable world of ours.”
As he spoke, Holmes suddenly began to jump up and down furiously on his flowers, destroying the neat beds that he had planted with infinite care. René pointed his gun at Holmes, but it was too late.
“Quick, inside both of you,” cried Holmes.
A strange noise, of countless transparent wings, filled my ears. As I peered through the window I saw that the odd couple and their three henchmen were covered with dark swarms of the great wasp that lives in the soil of Lucania. The huge wasps brought them screaming first to their knees and then to the ground.
I looked in terror at the unmoving bodies among the flowers.
“Holmes,” I cried, “they are all dead.”
“Unfortunately, Watson, they are dead, for which I am truly sorry. My plan for them worked out in every particular. It is the angry riposte of a very tired bee keeper. These bees are a rare Australian species that have survived in the remote areas of Lucania. The breed emits a deadly acid that destroys the skin. I should dub it Vespe Lucaniane, a poor joke, no doubt. Grimaldi, I trust that your men are on their way and can dispose of—ah, our coachman has waited for us. Come, Watson old boy, I feel the need to return to England, where we shall find, perhaps, that things are a bit easier.”
Holmes and I returned to Matera that night. In the morning we were well on our way back to Rome. Holmes barely spoke until we arrived in London. It was there that I heard him utter quietly as if to himself the immortal words of the great poet:
Così si fa il contrapasso.
THE DEATH OF MYCROFT HOLMES
IN THE FATEFUL SUMMER OF 1914, MYCROFT HOLMES, the brother of my friend Sherlock Holmes, older than he by almost eight years, passed away quietly at the Diogenes Club in London, the eccentric institution which had been his tranquil abode for over thirty years. He was in his seventy-third year and had shown no sign of illness. There was little doubt, however, in the minds of those who knew him that his extreme corpulence had contributed to his untimely end.
The news of his death was conveyed by the heartbroken Sidgwick, Mycroft’s lifelong assistant and confidant. Sidgwick had found him lifeless in his chair, facing towards the window. His clear blue eyes were fully open, and Sidgwick proffered that their intense gaze recorded the deep concentration in which he had been immersed for days. To him at least, Mycroft, under the great strain of an intractable problem, appeared to have died of a sudden massive stroke, for he had uttered neither a word for help nor a cry of pain.
“A great loss, Watson,” said Holmes as we left for the club. “Mycroft’s role in the affairs of our Government will never be told in full now that he is gone, but I can assure you that it was great, so great that we shall soon see in coming days the inevitable deterioration of Government, particularly of the Foreign Office.”
Holmes spoke in a matter-of-fact way. He had as yet displayed no emotion with regard to his brother’s death. Only his eyes occasionally showed the fraternal sorrow that he concealed beneath a cloak of calm and resignation.
Once we arrived, Holmes quickly identified the body and notified those few who had been Mycroft’s friends of the quiet funeral that would follow. Mycroft had stipulated the most modest of services in his will, one to take place in Yorkshire, far from the Government in London. So esteemed was he in Whitehall, however, that the crowd of ministers and diplomats that came to pay its respects not only filled the small church but also mobbed the narrow village lanes on that humid rainy day.
In the fortnight immediately following the
funeral, as executor of his brother’s small estate, Holmes took possession of Mycroft’s papers. These were few, for Mycroft did not keep extensive records. His brain was far too large for that. He simply committed to memory what he wished to preserve and burned the rest. The long story of his role in the British Government and his negotiations with foreign powers, therefore, died with him.
Mycroft had often told Holmes that his disdain for note keeping was part of his physical laziness.
“On some days, my dear Sherlock, I lack even the energy to pull open a drawer in my desk. The brain, however, remains active. What better solution, then, could there be than to commit to memory the papers to which I must refer in the future?”
Holmes smiled as he recalled his brother’s words. “There was one inconsistency in my brother’s habits, however,” he said.
“And what was that?” I asked.
“He kept a day book of his thoughts on current problems, often speculating in it on possible solutions. When the book was full, he destroyed it after committing to memory what he wished. Sometimes he procrastinated indefinitely before he burned it. He left the latest one on his desk untouched. It contains, amidst a jumble of thoughts and scribblings, a rather disquieting note: ‘Branko Vrukonovic Die Tote Stadt in London. Extreme danger to us. Must warn Sherlock of impending catastrophe. . . .’ Here the writing grows weak and turns into an old man’s illegible scribble.”
“And who is Vrukonovic?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” said Holmes. “I have looked through the entire diary and, allowing for Mycroft’s bizarre and often recherché reasoning, I remain puzzled. Die Tote Stadt, if memory serves, is the name of an old anarchist group.”
He interrupted himself to hand me the book.
“Take a look yourself. There is nothing that would illumine the name Vrukonovic, but there are other things perhaps hidden from our gaze at the moment.”
I leafed quickly through the diary. Except for the single entry that Holmes had indicated, there appeared to be little of relevance to my unpractised eye.
“And what other things are there?”
“Look more carefully, Watson, particularly at the second-to-the-last page.”
I did as Holmes directed and saw a thin piece of wire about six inches in length and perhaps an eighth of an inch in width. It had been doubled over and curved so that it looked like a small pair of tongs. I noticed too that the wire had been traced onto the page in pencil.
“But surely, my dear Holmes, this has little to do with anything. It looks as though Mycroft may have been playing with a paper fastener.”
“It is indeed a paper clip, Watson, but I doubt if it is a mere irrelevancy. Mycroft did nothing without a reason. No, the wire and the drawing may be part of an attempt to arrive at a solution to whatever he was investigating. For us, it must remain an indispensable clew. The wire is not of British manufacture. Notice also, Watson, that there are striations at different points scratched onto the surface of the inside. Let us have the glass, Watson.”
I handed him his magnifying glass. He studied the inside of the wire for several minutes and then said: “What I can read, Watson, are numbers and letters but no words. They are quite small, no doubt done by a skilled craftsman, probably a jeweler. Take them down as follows. Reading from the right tong towards the curve: 1G 2J NilR 3C; in the curve RH; and then on the second tong outwards towards its end: 4P 5B NilR 6G 7B.
I handed Holmes what I had written. “A difficult one, Holmes.”
“No doubt, Watson, and a very short message, so cryptic that we may not be able to decipher it. But let us reason it out. Sometimes we may know more than we think. This is a message that may originate with Die Tote Stadt. Let us see what we can find out about them. Watson, please hand me the “D” volume from our criminal indexes.”
I did so, and he quickly leafed through it and read; “Die Tote Stadt: a clandestine group bent on assassination, sabotage, and other anarchist acts. Seven members of mixed nationality forced to leave England. One Gordonov incarcerated. Others still at large; presumably have re-grouped in Europe, probably Italy. Their names: Gabrinowich; Cabez; Jetic; Branko; Vrukonovic; and the leader, Prinzip.”
Holmes paused for a moment. Then glancing at the inside of the wire again he said: “How interesting, Watson. Seven men with seven names. And the first letter of each name corresponds to a letter on the wire.”
The door bell rang, and we could hear Mrs. Hudson open the front door.
“Ah, good,” said Holmes looking at his watch, “it is Sidgwick, if I am not mistaken. I asked him to come at this hour.”
I had never met Sidgwick before. He was a small man, frail, almost entirely grey in color except for his dark eyes which showed certain, if not monumental, intelligence. Despite his thin frame, he resembled Mycroft Holmes in his facial expression. He had been with his master and mentor for many years, and it was quite natural that he had borrowed some of his mannerisms. He sat absolutely still.
“How are you bearing up, dear Sidgwick?” asked Holmes quietly.
“It is most difficult, Mr. Holmes, most difficult. I knew that his health was not the best, but as you know he took no notice . . . only the problem at hand.”
“And what can you tell us of the last problem at hand, if anything?”
“Mycroft kept it to himself. He seemed to relish playing with it, improvising answers, testing hypotheses. I only know this because on occasion I heard him mumble something to himself or shout “no, no, no” when he thought I was out of earshot. I can tell you only that he had mentioned a certain Vrukonovic, asking me to arrange meetings with him.”
“Indeed, my dear Sidgwick. The name Vrukonovic is among the few clews we have from Mycroft’s diary. Who is he?”
“It is a long story, my dear Holmes. For years, he was a member of a group known as Die Tote Stadt, or the Dead City, a secret group bent on creating mayhem in London and elsewhere.”
“I knew of them for a time,” said Holmes. “They could have done infinite damage here and in Europe but they seemed to have dissolved . . . seven desperate men from as many countries threatening havoc. Somehow Mycroft penetrated their organization, perhaps through this Vrukonovic.”
“Quite right. Indeed, and I tell you this in all confidence, it was Mycroft who destroyed their horrific plans with the help of members of our secret cadres. Vrukonovic was the key, for he had so come under Mycroft’s spell that he agreed to turn informer. Once that had happened, it was only a matter of time before the gang was chased out of England. It was recently however that Vrukonovic, after a period of absence, perhaps as much as two years, reappeared, claiming that the Dead City had regrouped and was up to new acts of madness, the nature of which they had managed to keep well under cover. He spoke only to Mycroft at first, and appeared only at night. One evening, while Mycroft was asleep, he asked for me and I went to the back door of the Diogenes Club. There he handed me a piece of wire turned and curved in the middle. ‘Give it to Mycroft, he will solve it,’ he said in a frightened voice.”
“When was this?” asked Holmes.
“The night before Mycroft’s demise.”
“Is this the wire?” asked Holmes, removing it from the notebook.
“Quite,” said Sidgwick, “indeed it is. Mycroft was clutching it tightly when I found him. It was I who put it in his diary.”
“And what of Vrukonovic himself? Where is he?”
“Curiously, enough, he came to the funeral service. He handed me a note which said: “Now Mycroft’s brother.”
“Interesting,” said Holmes, “and how do we find this Vrukonovic?”
“Since Mycroft’s death, I have met with him three times in secret. He claims that the gang still does not suspect his role as our agent. He is most insistent that the Dead City is up to some terrible deeds and that he must discuss them with you. In turn, I have told him that I would speak to you first. In the past, his information has been most reliable, but he has told me nothing o
f what he considers to be their latest plans. Provided that it is at night, I can arrange a meeting.”
“Then do so immediately. We must assume that Mycroft’s final ruminations had some real import, and that the word brother in his message to you meant me of course. And we must judge, ourselves, Vrukonovic’s bona fides.”
Sidgwick left, and I sat silently watching as Holmes’s expression became graver.
“You know, Watson, it was unusual for Mycroft to be as concerned about something as dangerous as this without his discussing it with me. He was, of course, a bit of a gambler, and perhaps wished to solve the matter himself, but one must wonder at his wider motives, if there were any. And of course he may have solved the mystery just before his death. Perhaps, just perhaps, he had decided that nothing should be done.”
It was not until the following afternoon that we received word that a meeting had been arranged with Vrukonovic to take place that night. Sidgwick appeared at dusk and we took a cab to Russell Square. There we followed Sidgwick a brief distance on Bedford Street, where he knocked. A wizened hag appeared and directed us to the top floor.
As we climbed the stairs, I heard a key turn above us. A door opened and a middle-aged man of about fifty, dressed in a white undershirt and baggy trousers, appeared in the dim hall light and ushered us into his quarters.
“I am Vrukonovic,” he said in English.
Sidgwick introduced us as our host pointed to some worn and rather filthy armchairs. I glanced around as we exchanged preliminaries. There appeared to be one small room, dusty, filled with warm, stale air trapped by a closed window over which a filthy shade had been drawn. It was quite dark therefore, a small lamp providing the only light. The room was cluttered, and there were a few photographs. Vrukonovic spoke quickly in a soft voice, as if he had spent his entire life trying not to be overheard. He was a short man, but slender and lean, of considerable strength, I judged.
“Forgive my circumstances,” he said, “the vicissitudes of life have brought me to a most difficult moment. I have lived through better. Were it not for Sidgwick and your late esteemed brother I would not have survived at all these last few years.”
