Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess
Page 1
CONTENTS
Front piece
Praise for Suzette Hollingsworth’s novels
Copy right
Dedication
Chapter One - 1
Chapter Two - 2
Chapter Three - 3
Chapter Four - 4
Chapter Five - 5
Chapter Six - 6
Chapter Seven - 7
Chapter Eight - 8
Chapter Nine - 9
Chapter Ten - 10
Chapter Eleven - 11
Chapter Twelve - 12
Chapter Thirteen - 13
Chapter Fourteen - 14
Chapter Fifteen - 15
Chapter Sixteen - 16
Chapter Seventeen - 17
Chapter Eighteen - 18
Chapter Nineteen - 19
Chapter Twenty - 20
Chapter Twenty-One - 21
Chapter Twenty-Two - 22
Chapter Twenty-Three - 23
Chapter Twenty-Four - 24
Chapter Twenty-Five - 25
Chapter Twenty-Six - 26
Chapter Twenty-Seven - 27
Chapter Twenty-Eight - 28
Chapter Twenty-Nine - 29
Chapter Thirty - 30
Chapter Thirty-One - 31
Chapter Thirty-Two - 32
Chapter Thirty-Three - 33
Chapter Thirty-Four - 34
Thank you
Acknowledgments
Author’s Notes
Author Bio
Praise for Suzette Hollingsworth’s novels
“This is an excellent, gifted writer, with a true future ahead of her.” –
CHARLOTTE CARTER
“This is a very fascinating novel. All the characters are very vibrant and come to life while reading them.” -- Coffee Time Romance & More
“The wonderful way she writes I felt engaged in the travels and emotions provided through a very talented writer!” – RenaK, Amazon reader
“Her humor is refreshing, I laughed out-loud on a few occasions, shed a few tears, and sat on the edge of my seat for most of it.” -- AnaMaree, Amazon reader
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess was a finalist in the 2014 Pages From the Heart Contest
Sherlock Holmes
and the Case of the Sword Princess
The Great Detective In Love #1
Sherlock Holmes solves the most perplexing mystery of his life—
unlocking the human heart.
Copyright (C) 2015 by Suzette Hollingsworth
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. That would be an ecumenical matter. I like this ship. It’s exciting.
Published by Icicle Ridge Graphics. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the following website address
http://suzettehollingsworth.com/
ISBN: 978-0-9909952-4-1
Cover design by Fiona Jayde Media
Interior illustrations by Clint Hollingsworth
Dedication
To the Girls of SHS ’75
Sword Princesses and Beach Babes all
Connie, Charlsie, Jill, Julie, Kem, Lisa,
Margaret MH, Margaret SW, Michelle, Pam, SueAnn,
Sheri, Sandra, and Valerie
CHAPTER ONE
1
221B Baker Street, Westminster
London
1881
“Blast! Mrs. Hudson, how can I get any work done with dirty lab jars?” blared Sherlock Holmes from the laboratory of his second-floor flat on Baker Street.
“I’m sure I don’t know, and I’m sure it isn’t anything to do with me!” Mrs. Hudson retorted to the prominent detective, smoothing the white apron on her finely tailored blue and white striped pleated dress. “I’m paid to fix your meals and to keep your clothes washed and pressed—which is naw a job fit for a lady and no easy feat considerin’ the vermin you associate with!”
“Mrs. Hudson, may we return to the matter at hand if it would not trouble you too much?” Sherlock sighed without looking up, shuffling through stacks of papers on his desk next to the laboratory table. He balanced himself precariously on a stool with the muscular control of an amateur boxer, his feet not touching the ground even while his hands flew wildly in a frantic search.
“And what might that be? I won’t be putting my hand in your chemicals, I’ll ‘ave you know—I ‘ave no intention of losing an arm! I’ve already lost me mind or I wouldn’t be livin’ in the same building with you!”
“Look! Look!” Holmes exclaimed as he flapped a letter in front of her nose. “This is a commission from King Nicholas I of Montenegro as regards his daughter, Princess Elena Petrović-Njegoš! What if I had lost this—or worse, never knew of its existence? What would happen to the princess then, I ask you, Mrs. Hudson?” He threw the letter on a nearby pile of papers, which quickly swallowed the letter, even as he continued his vigorous search.
Mrs. Hudson pulled at her white apron as she battled with an obvious desire to assist. “Are you looking for yer commitment papers to the London Asylum for the Insane? Or mine?”
“No, I’m looking for . . . Aha!” Underneath the papers he retrieved a Persian slipper, filled with his favorite tobacco, which he proceeded to place into his pipe. He lit the pipe and languidly indulged in a long puff before returning his attention to his landlady. “You know how I hate to repeat myself, Mrs. Hudson; lost forever are the discoveries which might have been made when one is doing so.”
“Me sympathies ‘re with ye, Mr. ‘Olmes. I hate it meself when you repeat yerself,” retorted Mrs. Hudson, tapping her shoe on the wooden floor.
“I beg you to keep your mind on the problem at hand, Mrs. Hudson.”
“Aye, I’m lookin’ straight at it, Mr. ‘Olmes.”
“The matter at hand, as you are fully aware,” he raised his eyebrow at her, “is that of maintaining some cleanliness and order in my laboratory.”
“Auch now, that’s too bad, so it is. Well then, why don’t you take care of it instead of wasting yer time talking to me, Mister Sherlock ‘Olmes? Ye’re an able-bodied man so far as I can see: your insanity should not interfere with yer ability to clean.” Her eyes moved past the filthy bearskin rug to the letters stuck to the mantelpiece with a jackknife.
“I hope you have no qualms with the lives of murdered young women on your conscience, Mrs. Hudson, because that’s precisely what you do have. If my train of thought is sufficiently broken—and it is, I might add—the case might go unsolved, leaving this mad killer on the loose.”
“And that’s me fault? Because your jars ain’t washed?”
“Precisely.” Seating himself on his stool, he blew a smoke ring from his pipe, glancing at one of the jars on his laboratory table which had tipped over, a substance with an unusually pungent stench oozing from the jar.
“Well, glory be. I ahnt no world famous detective—and even I see that’s flim-flammery.” Mrs. Hudson tapped her foot.
“And yet—it is the reality of things,” Sherlock concluded smugly while puffing on his pipe. “If it describes reality, then it must be logical, mustn’t it? Truth can be nothing else.”
“That’s rubbish, that is. You, Mr. ‘Olmes, ‘ave naw the sli
ghtest acquaintance with reality. And if you was ever to be introduced, she would run screamin’ off a cliff.” Her eyes momentarily rested on handcuffs shuffled amongst Sherlock’s papers. Surveying the wall above his desk, she observed a photograph, hung with uncharacteristic care, of a Miss Irene Adler.
“I beg to differ, my dear Mrs. Hudson. The reality of the situation is that I must be allowed to work and I must have no distractions when my mind is in its place of genius—which is most of the time. And if the environment is not conducive, and only Inspector LeStrade is available to solve the mystery . . . well, there you see the problem.”
“Here’s a mystery for ye, Mister ‘Olmes: You need help in the laboratory, I ain’t going to do it, so it is. What are you going to do?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Direct my excellent landlady to find someone to assist me, of course.”
CHAPTER TWO
2
“Wait for me, Elena!” Prince Danilo rode beside her, galloping his horse and still having a great deal of difficulty keeping pace with the beautiful Arabian princess. They rode outside Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro bordering the Adriatic Sea, amongst a plain surrounded by limestone mountains. From their mounts they could see Mt. Lovćen, the Black Mountain, ever sinister and foreshadowing.
“I wait for no one, brother, when there is a prize,” replied the princess of Montenegro. True to her word, she did not let up on the speed of her favorite stallion.
His sister might be reserved, even listless and bored in social functions, but give her a spirited horse, the hunting hounds, and a quarry, and her eyes were suddenly aglow.
Make no mistake: the blood of their hunting ancestors flowed through the veins of Princess Elena Petrović-Njegoš. Suddenly she jolted the horse to a stop, still somehow maintaining her saddle, aimed her rifle and fired.
BANG! Once the bullet reached the heart of her prey, she jumped off the stallion to claim her quarry, pulling her Shamshir sword from its holder strapped to her left leg. She held tightly to the weapon’s rhino horn hilt, the blade engraved in silver cross bar overlaid with a scrolling vine of wild roses.
Prince Danilo was an accomplished huntsman himself, but he was exerting a great deal of effort and yet was unable to keep pace with Elena. He glanced back to see the servants, who would dress the animal for the evening tribal celebration outside the palace, at least a kilometer behind him.
Prince Danilo chuckled to himself as he rode towards Elena. No other European royal family would think to celebrate in the city square with their people eating a deer their princess had killed.
Naturally, as the heir to the throne, Prince Danilo had been educated in Europe and had seen the world, understanding now the difference in other royal children’s homes and upbringing from his own.
And the difference in himself. Montenegro had gained much status since he was a boy, only having just won Her independence from the Ottoman Empire in a fierce war of survival. But the danger was far from over. Without strong allies, the small country bordering Serbia, Turkey, and Bosnia was fair game to anyone.
They had to be a fierce people—and his soft-spoken, beautiful sister was no exception.
“Let the servants do that, Elena.” He glanced at his sister tying up the deer. She continued her work without looking up.
“I won!” Elena smiled at him.
“You did, Elena. But I will win next time.”
“I do not think so!”
He smiled in anticipation of the evening’s festivities, to which no European ball could compare. There would be dancing and drinking around a great bonfire with a spit for roasting the deer. There would be a pig as well. The chiefs would wear crimson kappas and shining scabbards, and the maidens would wear red caps to which coins had been sewn as they danced round the fire.
The maidens. Prince Danilo smiled. He might find his own beautiful maiden.
Despite his tribal origins, their father, King Nicholas I of Montenegro, was determined to marry his daughters to European royalty, thereby creating strong alliances—and subsequently the continued independence of Montenegro—and even shy Elena was not exempt from the king’s plan. Especially shy, beautiful Princess Elena.
Prince Danilo frowned. He hoped when he was king, it would not be necessary to offer his daughters as sacrifices. He forced himself to interject as much joviality into his voice as he could muster. “I will win because you will be in London in a finishing school for the rich, spoiled brats of European royalty.”
Her face fell, reclaiming the listless expression of unperturbed boredom for which she was famous in European circles, having oft been compared to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Madonna”.
“I don’t understand how you can be so mundane in the parlor and so vicious on the field, Elena.” He laughed at the strange and predictable transformation from sharpened huntress to subdued Madonna, jumping off his horse to join her.
“I am a woman,” she replied with a shrug as she cocked her rifle, moving her eyes along the horizon as she aimed. “We are more versatile than the man.”
“What are you doing now, Elena?”
“I shot a rabbit. We must have enough food for all the people at the celebration tonight. If you were not so lazy, I would not have to do all the work.”
“Elena, look at me.”
She lowered her rifle and stared into her brother’s eyes with affection. “Yes, Danilo?”
“Why do you go if you don’t wish to? You have already been to St. Petersburg.” She had even trained under the Empress of Russia, which had not improved her social shyness. All it seemed she had acquired were excellent skills in watercolor painting and pen and ink drawing. Along with tennis. Naturally Elena excelled at all sports.
She lowered her head in shame, clearly embarrassed that she had shown little improvement in the desired areas.
“Elena, you are so lovely just as you are,” Danilo murmured. “Tell father that you are not going. I will help you.”
“I wish to go. And I will learn what I need to know,” she replied, bestowing upon the crown prince of Montenegro a glowing smile which few people were ever privileged to see.
“Why, Elena?” he asked.
“I am in love,” she replied, her black eyes resolute. “And like the hunt, I will do whatever it takes to get my prize.”
Danilo watched as his wild sister rode toward the rabbit, her stallion straining beneath her. She might be highborn, but she was Diana, goddess of the hunt.
Then suddenly a nightmare encroached upon them. Danilo watched in horror as she rode near a thicket of trees. Four men appeared out of the brush, pulling short swords from their long coats and rushing Elena as she rode by.
But her horse was not a timid beast, and Elena rode right over one of the men who tried to get the animal to throw its rider.
“Zaštiti princeza!” Protect the princess! He yelled to the servants, but they were at least a mile away. There wasn’t time for him to reach her either.
Danilo threw his own rifle to his shoulder and took aim even as one of the bandits drew a pistol and positioned it towards Elena.
Please, God, guide my aim. The Prince, guardedly breathing out so as not to disrupt the overly long shot, carefully squeezed the trigger.
KPOW! The man stood for a moment, seeming to lower his pistol slowly, and then fell over into the grass.
Two men left. Still enough to kill his beloved sister in an instant.
Dear God, don’t make me too late. “Haw!” Danilo kicked his horse into a fast run, even as the remaining men descended upon Elena.
She was pulling her rifle from its scabbard when a third man, cursing in a foreign language Danilo couldn’t quite make out, tried to grab her stirrup. She discouraged his advance with the butt of her rifle adjoined to his head. He fell backward, presumably blacked out.
Almost there.
As Danilo reached Elena, the last attacker lost his nerve and turned on his heels, making a mad dash for the woods. Elena raised the rifle
she had re-loaded.
She fired. Only a side-step from her steed saved the man’s life. Her bullet grazed his leg, causing him to stumble for a moment, but he caught himself and was on his own horse in a matter of seconds, escaping into the forest.
Elena pulled another cartridge from her pouch and ejected the spent shell. She hurried to reload, but the skittish horse slowed her and the remaining assailant had covered some territory before she slammed the bolt home. She started to pursue just as Danilo reached her.
“Elena!” he yelled. “Stay here! The servants and I will catch him.” There might be more of them in the forest, and she was clearly the object of their murderous plan. They didn’t care about him, the crown prince. Perplexing.
“They would have killed me, Danilo,” she replied. “They were serious.”
“The dogs!” he muttered, not letting up the speed of his horse as he pursued the remaining attacker.
As he expected, Elena was right beside him. She understood, as he did, that she was the victim, and yet she would not let him fight alone, even with the servants not far behind at this point.
She raised her rifle even as she rode, aiming for the man.
“Elena!” he cried. “Don’t kill him! I want him alive! We need information—”
“BANG!” The report from her rifle followed his command. Clearly she had no respect for her future king.
Damn! The man fell off his horse. How would they get any answers now? “Elena, I told you not to kill him.”
“I didn’t.” She smiled at her brother. “I missed his heart by at least a centimeter.”
“Bastardo! Mi hai sparato!” the fallen man muttered as he lay on the ground.
Italian. The man spoke Italian. Why would an Italian wish the princess of Montenegro harm?