“Here is your prisoner,” said Holmes.
“What!” cried Armstrong in surprise.
“There is no mistake,” said Holmes. “Here are the papers he attempted to pass to Princess Zelda. Dr Watson overheard the two of them arranging the plan. Keep these papers safe, Armstrong: the handwriting is good evidence against Norton.”
Without a word, Fitzwarren climbed into the carriage with Armstrong and his men, and in a moment it had rattled away around Belgrave Square.
“Let us walk over to Park Lane and look for a cab there,” said Holmes. “It is not far, and it is good to be out in the fresh night air.”
Our way took us back past the front of the Duchess of Pont’s house once more, and as we reached the gate the duchess herself abruptly emerged, a cloak flung hastily about her shoulders.
“Were you at all successful, gentlemen?” she enquired in an anxious tone.
“Entirely, your Grace,” returned Holmes. “The security of the nation is preserved.”
“Thank goodness!” cried she, an expression of relief upon her features. “And I am thankful,” she added, “that you were able to achieve your ends without creating an incident.”
“The only ‘incident’,” said Holmes to me with a chuckle as we approached Hyde Park Corner, “occurred in her Grace’s kitchens, over a steaming kettle.”
“You steamed open the colonel’s envelope?”
“Precisely, Watson,” said he. “Once I was certain that Fitzwarren was the man we were after, it did not take me long to find the envelope in his overcoat. The duchess’s staff were most helpful to me, and procured me some excellent stationery, with which I filled up the envelope when I had extracted the confidential documents, before replacing it in the traitor’s pocket. In this way, you see, everyone concerned could leave the house peacefully, believing that their treacherous plans had succeeded.”
The snow was falling heavily as we turned into Park Lane.
“All in all,” remarked Holmes in a gay tone, “it has been a very satisfactory night’s work. We have recovered the Army ciphers and unmasked a singularly dangerous traitor.”
I nodded. “And now Princess Zelda will travel on to Venice and meet the foreign agents there, only to discover that she has brought them nothing but a wad of blank paper!”
“Not quite blank,” returned my friend. “I took the liberty, before resealing the envelope, of inscribing upon the top sheet a little message for Zelda and her colleagues which reads, ‘The Compliments of the Season, from all your friends in England!’”
The Mammoth Book of the Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 58
