The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

'Ten years ago this month, Watson, there was another occasion of equal importance to Lady X yet nothing was heard of this letter then. Does that not suggest that the writer of the letter is no ordinary sneaksman, but plays for large stakes and to whom, since time appears no object, the game is of more importance than the outcome? A dangerous opponent, Watson. Ten years ago – correct me if I err, Mr Mannering – the leader of the European power who now casts envious eyes on Britain's prosperity, had not yet succeeded his father on the throne, and moreover his country had a great and wise Chancellor to guide it. Today, however, the son rules alone, and through jealousy, his relations with England are currently so bad that he would stop at nothing to mar the additional prestige that this summer will undoubtedly bring to Lady X and the British Empire.'

'I fear you are right, Mr Holmes,' Robert Mannering said heavily, 'and that this affair will by no means be a straightforward financial transaction.'

'What then?' I asked, as no one spoke.

'There will be other bidders, Watson,' Holmes replied. 'It remains to be seen whether we shall be permitted to be one of them.'

'But Sir George's letter – '

'The game, Watson, the game.'

Readers of my chronicles may recall the name which was now to be mentioned, and whose dramatic introduction to my friend I stated that I might some day recount. I am now able to do so, for Sir George said briskly: 'All the more reason that the world must not know that you are involved, Mr Holmes. I have already taken the liberty of arranging for you to visit Dr Moore Agar of Harley Street who will issue instructions to you to surrender all your cases and take a complete rest, lest you suffer a breakdown of health. The newspapers will be informed of this. Dr Agar is well accustomed to such confidential work on our behalf.'

Holmes, who prided himself, despite his addiction to the notorious drug, on his strong constitution, reluctantly concurred.

In order to maintain the fiction we hailed a cab even for the short distance from Harley Street to our Baker Street rooms. No sooner had we entered than he flew to his index of biographies.

After a mere ten minutes he exclaimed, 'I have it. The chief player in our game, Watson.'

'Who is he, Holmes?'

'What man would play such a game for its own sake? I sought a woman.You may have wondered what I found informative about the handwriting. Why, nothing, save that its use told me that the writer did not fear discovery. It followed that we dealt with no common criminal but with someone well acquainted with the highest circles in the land and who gambled that the identity of the thief would be nothing compared with the need to recover the letter. It also follows that the thief is unlikely to be British with a social position to be maintained at all costs. The Baroness Pilski is most certainly our thief.' He brandished the heavy volume in the air. 'A redoubtable lady, Watson, deserving of our respect. Her late husband fled to England after the failed uprising of the Poles in 'sixty-three and, of an emigre family herself, she married him in 'seventy-nine at the age of twenty-three. For some years a lady-in- waiting to Lady X, she resigned the position ten years ago and has since employed her skills to wreak damage to whom and where she chose.You may recall I crossed swords with the lady in the curious incident of the Limping Jarvy.'

'Cannot Lestrade arrest her?'

'Tut, tut, our friend will be prepared for such a move. It is the letter we seek, Watson. No, we must wait upon events.'

We did not have long to do so. Three days later, at breakfast, Holmes, deep in his study of The Times, startled me with a glad cry. 'By Jove, I have it!' His long forefinger pointed to a notice in the personal column.

'The butler is a reptile who sleeps in the shadows until summoned by Zeus,' I read. 'A cipher, Holmes?'

'I think not, Watson. Until summoned bears no hint of the cipher about it. The butler of course refers to our faithful retainer, Zeus the Thunderer to The Times, and the reptile – well, that is surely obvious.' He had sprung to his feet and seized a timetable from the shelves.

'The Reptile House of the Zoological Gardens.' I rose eagerly, ready to depart at once.

'Pray resume your seat, my dear fellow. See, our express train departs at eleven forty-five and that is time enough for you to consume Mrs Hudson's excellent muffin in its entirety.'

'But where are we going?'

'Why, to Cornwall.'

He would say no more, and shortly before midnight we were established in a tolerably comfortable inn after a drive from the small country railway station of St Erth. On our way I had glanced at a signpost, dimly lit by the cab's lamp: 'The Lizard'.

'The reptile, of course,' I exclaimed.

'It is always 'of course' after my explanations, Watson, never before, I note.'

It was unusual for my friend to speak so sharply and a measure of the anxiety that preyed upon him.

Next day we found ourselves a small cottage on a grassy headland near Poldhu Bay, in order to further the fiction of complete rest for my friend. Rest? I have seldom known my friend so restless during the weeks that followed. As day followed day, and bluebells replaced the primroses, daffodils and violets in the tall grassy banks that bordered the quiet lanes, and still nothing appeared in the newspaper, I became concerned once more about his health. The ancient Cornish language, as I recounted in an earlier chronicle, did indeed arrest his attention at this time, convinced as he became that it was rooted in the Chaldean, but it could not sufficiently occupy that great mind. Had it not been for the horrible affair of the Devil's Foot which so unexpectedly cropped up in the nearby hamlet ofTredannick Wollas, I should indeed have prescribed the rest Dr Agar had supposedly ordered. After the case was solved, however, he relapsed into the same silent preoccupation, with such feverish eyes that made me wonder if the Devil's Foot root we had both imbibed in his quest for experimentation had not had lasting effects.

However I awoke one morning to a grey spring day, promising yet more of that soft and gentle rain with which Cornwall is so plentifully endowed, and Sherlock Holmes was standing by my bedside. Gone were the signs of feverishness, replaced now with the vital strength I had come to know so well.

'If ever I am presumptuous enough to place my services at the disposal of the nation, Watson, pray remind me of the faithful retainer. We return to London today, and by heaven I trust we are not too late.' He spoke gravely.

'For what reason, Holmes?' I struggled from my bed.

'Why, to study the Chaldean language, my dear fellow.' But the words were kindly spoken, not with the mocking sharpness of the last few weeks.

In a jolting restaurant carriage on the Great Western Railway I ventured to press for an explanation of our sudden departure. Even The Times had remained unread today.

'Come, Watson, surely with this excellent sole before us you can adopt Mr Auguste Didier's methods, even if mine remain unfathomable to you?'

'Isn't he that cook fellow at Plum's Club for Gentlemen who solved one or two cases?'

'Indeed he is I was curious enough to pay him a visit in `ninety-six after the remarkable affair at Plum's. I cannot approve all his methods, since he will have it that detection is not purely a science, whereas I maintain that it is entirely a process of logical deduction. He holds that cookery is akin to detection in the assembling of ingredients and their selection, and fashioning into a palatable dish requires a measure of creativity. I doubt if Mrs Hudson would agree. However, consider, Watson, the ingredients in the puzzle before us.'

'The letter, the Baroness – '

'And other bidders, Watson. That is deduction, not creativity. We may also deduce that the Baroness would assume that this affair is too important for my services not to be called upon. It follows, if the Baroness acknowledges this, then so do the other bidders. I have been an ass, Watson.' His bantering tone returned to its former anxiety.

'I assumed,' he continued, 'that the message which sent us scurrying so precipitately to Cornwall was from the Baroness. It was not. It was placed in order to throw me off the scent, no doubt by another bidder, and it succeeded.'

'But nothing has appeared in The Times.'

Holmes replied sombrely: 'How do we know the summons will be in The Times? The