Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword

'Followed the trail that led you to it,' was Holmes's glib response. 'No difficulty there, but I will admit that the golden tablets and the great store you placed in them threw me off a bit. However, a remark by my associate, Watson, brought me back on target.'

'How much do you actually know?' Chu's query was delivered without any show of emotion. Centuries of Oriental stoicism had taken charge, and his face was now as impassive as a sheet of burnished bronze. I also suspected that for the first time he was actually considering the possibility of defeat.

'I don't know,' said Holmes, 'how long you have nurtured this scheme, nor is it important. You took a series of facts and had the imagination to fuse them into a unity—your plan being to rewrite history. Events dealt you a nice set of cards. First, you had a basic truth. This Nile Valley is the origin of recorded history, and no one will deny it. There are myths and folklore about other civilizations, but they left no mark of their passage nor monuments of their greatness that can predate this birthplace of civilization. All that comes from ancient Egypt is marked first in the book of man. That was the base of the power pyramid that you strove to create.'

'The next fact you seized upon was the pharaoh Akhenaten's attempt to establish a Utopia at Tell el-Amarna built round a one-god religion, long before Christianity, of course. Possibly that is what sparked the idea in your mind.'

Chu San Fu gave no indication one way or another but simply gestured for Holmes to continue. I could not decipher his emotions at this point.

'Many knew or suspected that the Sacred Sword had been placed in the hands of Captain Spaulding as a safeguard against a fanatical religious uprising, and you decided to secure it as your opening gun. By spreading the word throughout the Mohammedan world that you will appear with the fabled sword, you have drawn an audience of religious leaders, but the sword is only the beginning.'

'It was the decoding of the secret writings by Howard Andrade that opened the road to authenticity. It gave you the cloak to conceal the mark of the charlatan. No one but Andrade has been able to decipher those obscure symbols. You have two of the golden tablets, and it is known that they provide examples of the writings, another fact that you planned to use to your advantage.'

'You planted Memory Max with the Englishman, depending on his photographic memory to record the key to Andrade's discovery. Then you spirited Max here with the tablets to remove the original hieroglyphics and forge a new message upon them. Little is known of the pharaoh Akhenaten. The Egyptians attempted to obliterate him from their written history. But you plan to write that history to suit your purpose. In your version, duly forged on the golden tablets, the god Aton, espoused by Akhenaten, will bear a striking resemblance to the Allah of Mohammed. Akhenaten will be recorded as the first prophet, making Mohammed the second, and it will be foretold that the third prophet will come from the east, bearing the sword of he who preceded him.'

'You hope to shake a widespread religion to its core. Especially since the golden tablets will be found within the only unrifled tomb of a pharaoh as yet discovered. Your thought was to plant them within the tomb, of course, then have the royal grave covered and its location revealed by you in a vision before the gathering of Moslems in the mosque. Once the tomb is found and the tablets discovered, the world of archaeology will see to it that Andrade is summoned to translate them, which he will eagerly do, being an unsuspecting tool. The whole fabrication will defy doubt—the tablets being genuine, the tomb as well, and the message of the coming of the third prophet being revealed by an unimpeachable source. Really, the detail of the plot is admirable. However, it won't work now.'

Chu San Fu had been watching Holmes with unmoving eyes. Several times there had been a restless shifting among his followers, who formed the mute audience for Holmes's re-creation, but the Oriental had halted them with a slight gesture of one of his thin and bony hands. Now he replied in a businesslike voice, much more chilling to me than an emotional outburst, since it indicated that his first-class brain was still working efficiently and had not given way to panic or frustration.

'You have blunted my capabilities, Holmes, but not destroyed them. The tomb idea was a major part of my plan, but it can be abandoned. The golden tablets can be discovered in some other manner, though not as convincingly, that I'll admit.'

Holmes was shaking his head. 'Come now, you intend to appear as the rumored messiah. You cannot pass yourself off as anything but Chinese. Mohammedanism spread as far as India but no further east, so that is one mark against you immediately.'

'Holmes, you are thinking hopefully, not rationally. Prophets spring from faith, not countries. The man who has the Sacred Sword is the one who will grasp their attention. When I appear and it is verified that I have the authentic sword of Mohammed, then all the various sects of the Islamic religion will be prepared to listen and to accept.'

'I must agree,' was Holmes's surprising response. 'I suspected some time ago that the sword was vital to your plans, though I had but a dim idea of what you were up to. Therefore, Watson and I were observers the night your men stole it from the Mayswood farm.'

Chu San Fu's restored confidence received a jarring blow from this revelation.

'Doctor Watson was within the house, that I know, but you were not there.'

'Correction. I was. You used four men. They came in over the balcony to the secret room they already knew about. They placed the sword aboard the early freight to London and from there it was taken to the hold of the Hishouri Kamu to be transported here.'

Each statement from Holmes was like a body blow to the Oriental. His calmness was a departed thing, and his jaw hung loosely.

'If you knew all that—'

'Now it is beginning to dawn, is it not? Do you think I would have let you take that sword and the commanding position that it would bring to you? Two nights before you raided the Mayswood Farm, my men performed the same function. They took the real relic and left a duplicate in its place.'

I believe I was as astonished as the Chinaman. Chu sprang to his feet, crossing to a small table adjacent to his chair on which was a teak case fully five feet long. As he feverishly opened it, I realized why Slim Gilligan and Slippery Styles had been down country before my arrival. Holmes had been one step ahead of his adversary all along.

It was Chu San Fu who had been led by the nose and down the path of deception.

Chu was removing a curved weapon, more of a scimitar I would have said, from the teak case. Its hilt was festooned with shiny stones, and it certainly was an impressive object.

'Regard the jewels in the handle,' suggested Holmes. 'It's a nice job, for three deft but dishonest men worked better than twenty-four hours without stop to create it. But the jewels are glass, Chu. The Mohammedans who will inspect that relic are not without knowledge, and they will label it as spurious in short order.'

'No!' cried Chu San Fu, and in his voice was the anguish of a thousand tears. 'It cannot be!'

'Your eye tells you that it is, but your mind refuses to accept it.'

Holmes's voice had that whiplash quality that I remembered from other times. His inexorable flow of facts, one hard on the heels of the other, had worn down his adversary, and it was now the man from Baker Street who held the upper hand.

'Your dreams of a unified Islam stretching from India to the Atlantic with you as its spiritual leader have, like the murky visions induced by an opium pipe, faded into nothingness. But you recoil and demand proof, so I will give it to you. The night is long upon us, but by now a special edition of the newspaper Al-Ahram is on the streets. It has picked up, from the Reuters' wire, a story already well circulated in England and elsewhere. The Sacred Sword of the prophet Mohammed was recently stolen from its hiding place but has been recovered through the efforts of a consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes and is in the hands of the British Government for safekeeping. Right now the story is spreading like wildfire throughout Cairo, and those religious leaders who responded to your siren song are making ready to return to their own lands. The show is over. The theatre is empty, and your drama has failed.'

There was a nervous tick that evidenced itself on one side of Chu San Fu's mouth, and his eyes had a wild and frantic look about them that sent tingles down the short hairs on the back of my neck. Evidently Holmes noticed it too, for his next words were delivered in a calmer manner.

'You know I am right, but you still won't accept it. So be it. Just have one of your men secure a copy of the special edition and you will have proof.'

Chu San Fu was breathing deeply, and by what means he signaled his wishes I could not see, but suddenly Holmes and I were seized by the men surrounding us and placed in two chairs. A dirty-looking Lascar proceeded to