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 Ormstein 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 coffee house 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 DRYDOCK 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.
He looked at us quizzically over his wire-rim glasses. “Certainly, gentlemen,” he said. “To what effect?”
“We are going to ask Her Majesty’s government to supply us with a battleship,” Holmes said, and paused, waiting for the reaction.
It was not what one might have expected. “There are no British battleships visiting the port right now,” Aubrey said, folding his hands over his ample stomach and leaning back in his chair. “Will a cruiser do?”
Holmes leaned over the desk. “We are in earnest,” he said, his intense eyes glowering over his thin, ascetic nose, “and this is not a jest. To the contrairy, it is of the utmost importance and urgency.”
“I have no doubt,” replied Aubrey, looking up mildly. “My offer was sincere. If a cruiser will suffice, I am ready to put one at your disposal. It’s all that’s available. There are some four or five Royal Navy torpedo gunboats working with the Italian Navy engaged in the suppression of smugglers and pirates in the Mediterranean, but I can’t predict when one of them will come to port.”
“But you’re prepared to put a cruiser at, er, our disposal?” I asked
“I am,” said Aubrey, nodding. “That is, I have no direct authority to do so, but the authority has been passed on to me from Whitehall. I received a cable this morning directing me to do all I could to assist you, were you to show up. I must say I’ve never been given an instruction like that before in eighteen years in the Foreign Service. From the P.M. himself, don’t you know. Along with a screed from the Admiralty”
Holmes straightened up. “Mycroft!” he said.
“Undoubtedly,” I agreed.
“Her Majesty’s Ship Agamemnon is in port,” said Aubrey, “and I have passed on the request of the Admiralty to Captain Preisner that he keep steam up and to await further instructions. Now, if you could tell me what this is all about, perhaps I could be of some further assistance.”
“Let us head to the docks immediately,” Holmes said. “We will explain on the way.”
Aubrey reached for the bell pull behind his desk. “Call up my carriage,” he told the man who appeared in answer to his summons. “And fetch my greatcoat, there’s a chill in the air.”
Consul Aubrey gave instructions, and soon we were racing through the streets of Trieste heading toward the municipal docks, where a waiting launch would take us to the Agamemnon. “In case something goes wrong,” Holmes told the Consul, “and there’s every chance it will, you’ll have to prepare.”
“Prepare for what?” Aubrey asked. “In what way?”
Holmes and I took it in turns to tell him what we knew and what we surmised. “We may not have all the details correct,” I said, “but if events do not unfold much as we have described, I will be greatly surprised.”
“But this is incredible!” Aubrey said. “How did you figure all this out?”
“No time now,” Holmes declared as the carriage pulled to a stop. “We must hurry.”
“Good luck,” Aubrey said. “I shall return to the consulate and prepare for your success or failure, whichever comes from this madness.”
“It must sound mad,” I agreed. “But it is not our madness, but that of our antagonist.”
“Come,” said Holmes. “Let us board the launch.”
We leapt aboard the steam launch. The boatswain saluted us as we raced past him down the gangway and then blew on his whistle twice, and we were off. The harbor was thick with shipping, and we weaved and dodged between vessels of all sorts and sizes, making our way to the great, looming bulk of the three-stack cruiser of modern design that was our destination.
When we reached the Agamemnon a ladder was lowered from the deck of the cruiser to receive us. The sea was calm in the harbor, but transferring from the rolling deck of the steam launch to the pitching ladder at the cruiser’s side, even in those gentle swells, was more of an effort than a sedate unadventuresome man of my years found enjoyable.
Captain Preisner’s flag officer met us as we stepped onto the deck, and led he way to the bridge of the Agammenon, where Preisner, a thin man with a bony face and a short, pointed gray beard, greeted us warily. “Mr. Holmes, he said, with a stiff nod of his head, “Professor Moriarty. Welcome, I think, to the Agamemnon.”
“Captain,” I acknowledged.
Preisner flapped a sheet of yellow paper at us. “I am requested and required by the Admiralty to give you whatever assistance you require, without asking questions. Or, at least, without demanding answers. Which, I must say are the oddest instructions I have ever received.”
“This may be the oddest mission you will ever engage in,” Holmes told him.
Captain Preisner sighed. “And somehow I have the feeling that it will not bring accolades to me or my crew,” he said.
“You will probably be requested not to mention it in your official report,” I told him. “And, were I you, I would not enter the details in my log until I had time to think deeply on it.”
“It was ever thus,” Preisner said. “What am I to do?”
I pointed to the south. “Somewhere out there, not too far away, is a destroyer flying the Union Jack, or possibly the Red Ensign. We have to stop it and board it. Or, if that proves impossible, sink it.”
Preisner looked at me, speechless. And then he looked at Holmes, who nodded. “Sink a British warship?” he
