Between the Thames and the Tiber

Padre Giovanni, was on good terms with the proprietor, Signor Barca, and served as the family priest, performing baptisms and other sacraments for the family. Signora Barca went out of her way to prepare his favorite foods.

The priest seemed troubled this evening. Signor Barca brought him a liter of his favorite wine. The priest sipped it slowly, but none of his humour or affability came forward. He smiled wanly and sat as if waiting.

Holmes and I were the next to enter. Holmes looked at the priest, smiled at him, and we took our seats at an appropriate distance. Except for the two of us and the priest the osteria was empty, for it was still an early hour to sup by Roman standards.

The priest paid little attention to us but stood up as a woman entered. He greeted her warmly. They smiled at each other and began speaking in German. They ate quickly and left.

Holmes and I followed them discreetly and watched as they stopped at a door near the Porta d’Ottavia. As they prepared to enter, Holmes approached them.

“Scusi,” said Holmes, “I would like a word with you.”

“Dica,” said the priest.

“Cardinal Corelli, the Pope has asked me to ascertain your whereabouts and your safety. My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend, Dr. Watson.”

Visibly taken aback, the Cardinal motioned us through the door.

“I know who you are. I knew that you would eventually find me. This is my long-lost sister, Maria Teresa,” said the priest.

We climbed to the first floor, where we entered a small flat which, judging by its sparse furniture and general shabbiness, looked more like a way station than a residence.

“These have been my quarters since I left the Vatican on Good Friday. Tell me, Mr. Holmes, I have heard recent rumours of my death and the discovery of my body floating in the Tiber. Is it so? All arranged by Spontini, of course, as a warning to me not to return.”

“Quite right, Your Excellency. I can assure you, however, that Spontini is well taken care of. The Pope has removed him from the Cardinalate and assigned him to work in a poor house in Isernia, a fitting coda to a misspent career in the Church. But tell me, how did you come to this decision to leave the Vatican, as if you left the Church itself?”

The Cardinal’s sister spoke.

“I am to blame,” she said in English, “for much of the disturbance to my brother. I am his older sister and in that terrible earthquake in which we lost our parents and two other brothers, I was also presumed to be dead. I was found wandering in a daze and brought to an orphanage in Benevento, where I was raised. I had no idea that my brother had survived nor he that I had. When I was thirteen, I was traced by relatives and brought to Vienna, where they had moved from Italy. I was raised there in good circumstances but always hopeful that, as I had, one or more of my brothers had survived. Then not long ago, I saw a picture of Cardinal Corelli in a Viennese newspaper. His resemblance to my youngest brother was astonishing. I thought long and hard about trying to see him. You see, we were a Jewish family, and he a prince of the Church. I decided, however, that I had to know the truth. I came to Rome and went to St. Paul’s to offer my confession to the Cardinal. It was the only place where I could meet him secretly. I entered as any parishioner, frightened but hopeful of what I might learn. In a few minutes, we had established our relationship beyond a doubt. You can imagine with what joy we discovered each other after so many years. My brother accompanied me to this place and returned to the Vatican. It was Ash Wednesday.”

“There,” said the Cardinal, “as I was about to turn the Virgin’s picture to the wall, an action which I had done without thinking all my life, Suor Angelica entered. She was distraught, and I knew it was over my sister, about whom she had made erroneous assumptions. I tried to calm her without telling her anything, for I was afraid Spontini would learn of my Jewish ancestry and use it against me.

“On Good Friday, I returned to my room after hearing confessions to find that my quarters had been entered. The Christ with the vermilion face had been hung above my bed. Its message was not lost on me. I became angered. I threw my ring onto the table, tried to crush it in my hand, and tore my rosary in pieces. My missal had been opened to the lines from an Easter hymn of praise to the Lord, but they had been tampered with so that they brought to mind Satan and his chewing of Judas Iscariot, the great Jewish betrayer. I left in anger and did not know whether I would ever return. I knew I could not fight Spontini, for he had his evil ambitions that drove him forward. I chose to live here in the ghetto with my sister. Free from the cares of the Church for the first time in my life, I began to debate whether or not I should leave. I still have not decided.”

“The Pope was gratified to learn that you were alive and well,” said Holmes.

“I shall speak to him in the morning,” said the Cardinal.

We took our leave and returned to our quarters.

“Well, Holmes, what do you think he will do?”I asked.

“I do not speculate, Watson. Either way, it is a difficult decision.”

A few days later, it was announced that Cardinal Corelli had decided to remain in his position in the Church. The news was greeted with joy by the people of Rome.

Not long after, Pope Leo XIII succumbed to old age and ill health. The world waited for the wisp of white smoke from the Vatican that would indicate that a new pope had been chosen. It came after three days. The new Pope greeted the crowds in St. Peter’s Square.

To his great relief, Cardinal Corelli was not elected.

THE CASE OF ISADORA PERSANO

“YOU ARE QUITE RIGHT, DEAR WATSON, IT IS AN absurd doctrine.”

As he had so many times in the past, Holmes had read my inner thoughts as I sat relaxed in my chair. He did this so regularly now that I was no longer taken by surprise. At times I thought I had begun to comprehend how he did it. In this case, however, I was taken aback, for he had appeared to be sound asleep on the couch.

“As usual, Holmes, you are quite apropos. But how did you deduce my thoughts this time? I thought that you were asleep.”

He lay there motionless, his eyes closed, as if he were still well into his nap. He sat up, and lit a cigarette.

“I was, Watson, at least until a few minutes ago. Again, it is child’s play if one pays attention to details. If I recall, two nights ago you were reading Bishop Berkeley’s famous essay on tar water and its benefits, correct?”

“Indeed, I was.”

“The volume which you were reading also contains, if I am not mistaken, Berkeley’s essay on perception. Since the volume is arranged chronologically, I noted before my nap that you had reached this essay by where you had placed your bookmark. I was certain that you were then reading the good bishop’s remarks on the notion that ‘to be is to be perceived,’ ‘esse est percipi’ in Latin, and the old weary problem of whether or not something exists if no one perceives it.”

“Quite right. He makes a convincing case for it.”

“Berkeley is quite clever. You awakened me, however, with your sigh of frustration when you loudly opened and closed your desk drawer repeatedly, hoping to catch a change in its contents, perhaps something amiss not only in your drawer but in the universe. Your sigh of frustration only underlined to me your lack of belief in the notion. The bishop had raised a clever but silly point, clever because it is difficult to refute outright, silly because it matters not in the least.”

“I am not totally convinced that he is wrong.”

“My dear doctor, what the good bishop is talking about is not whether someone removed an object or it fell into a dark corner, but that the object simply dropped out of existence because there was no perceiver. But the world of nature, Watson, has two characteristics that the good bishop may have forgotten: it does not forget, and it does not forgive. A miscalculation in favour of the good bishop’s theory could prove disastrous. And so, dear Watson, you may rest assured that whatever is in your desk drawer right now will be there all night, tomorrow, and perhaps forever, if we can fathom such a term, whether or not you or I or a third person observes it.”

We continued our conversation that evening through a late supper, branching off into Holmes’s ideas of perception, hallucinations, mirages, and what inevitably makes the ordinary person quite gullible, willing to believe