Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

The following morning, however, I received a telegram from Holmes requesting me to meet him at his bank in Oxford Street at noon "in re the hidden finger." I was, you can be sure, at the appointed place at the appointed hour, and indeed a good few minutes beforehand.

Holmes arrived exactly to time.

"Now, my good fellow," he said, "if you will do me the kindness of walking a few yards along the street with me, I think I can promise you a sight that will answer a good many of the questions which I have no doubt have been buzzing in your head these past few days."

In silence we made our way together, along the busy street. I could not refrain from glancing to left and right at the passers-

by, at the cabs, carriages and vans in the roadway and at the glittering shopfronts in an endeavour to see what it was that Holmes wished to show me. But my efforts were in vain. Nothing that I saw roused the least spark in my mind.

Then abruptly Holmes grasped my arm. I came to a halt. "Well?" my companion demanded.

"My dear fellow, I am not at all clear what it is to which you are directing my attention."

Holmes gave a sigh of frank exasperation.

"The window, Watson. The shop window directly before you." I looked at the window. It was that of a photographer's establishment, the whole crowded with numerous likenesses of persons both known and unknown.

"Well?" Holmes demanded yet more impatiently.

"It is one of these photographs you wish me to see?" I asked. "It is, Watson, it is."

I looked at them again, actors and actresses, the beauties of the day, well-known political figures.

"No," I said, "I cannot see any particular reason for singling out one of these pictures above any of the others. Is that what you wish me to do?"

"Watson, look. In the second row, the third from the left." "The Count Palatine of Illyria," I read on the card below the portrait which Holmes had indicated.

"Yes, yes. And you see nothing there?"

Once more I gave the photograph my full attention. "Nothing," I answered at last.

"Not the very clear likeness between the ruler of that troubled state and a certain Mr Smith at present recovering from illness in Hertfordshire?"

I examined the portrait anew.

"Yes," I agreed eventually. "There is a likeness. The beards have a good deal in common, and perhaps the general cast of the countenances."

"Exactly."

From an inner pocket Holmes now drew a newspaper cutting. "The Times," he said. "Of yesterday's date. Read it carefully." I read, and when I had done so looked up again at Holmes in bewilderment.

"But this is a report of the Count Palatine appearing on the balcony of his palace and being greeted with enthusiasm by a vast crowd," I said. "So, Holmes, how can this man in the photograph be my patient down in Hertfordshire but two days ago?"

"Come, Watson, the explanation is childishly simple."

I felt a little aggrieved and spoke more sharply than I might have done in reply.

"It seems to me, I must say, that the sole explanation is merely that my patient and the Count Palatine of Illyria are not one and the same person."

"Nonsense, Watson. The likeness is clear beyond doubt, and nor is the explanation in any way obscure. It is perfectly plain that the man glimpsed at a distance by the crowd in Illyria is a double for the Count Palatine. The situation there, you know, is decidedly grave. There is the most dangerous unrest. If it were widely known that the Count was not at the helm in his country, the republican element would undoubtedly make an attempt to seize power, an attempt, let me tell you, that would in all likelihood be successful. However, you and I know that the Count is seriously ill and is living in Hertfordshire, under your excellent care, my dear Watson. So the solution is obvious. With the connivance of his close circle the Count has arranged for a substitute to make occasional public appearances in his stead in circumstances under which he will not easily be identified."

"Yes, I suppose you must be right, Holmes," I said. "It certainly seems a complex and extraordinary business though. Yet your account does appear to connect all the various elements."

"It connects them indeed," Holmes replied. "But I think for the time being we can assure ourselves that all is well. Do me the kindness, however, doctor, to let me know as soon as there is any question of the Count becoming fit enough to resume his full powers."

It was, in fact, no later than the following week that I was able to give Holmes the reassuring news he had asked for. I had found my patient very far along the road to recovery, and though, not wishing to let him know that Holmes had penetrated his secret, I had not said to him that quite soon he would be ready to travel, I had left his bedside with that thought in my mind. In consequence I went from the station at Baker Street on my return directly to our old rooms.

"He is distinctly better then?" Holmes asked me.

"Very much so, I am happy to say.The lassitude that originally gave me cause for anxiety has almost completely passed away." "Bad. Very bad, Watson."

"But surely, Holmes…"

"No, Watson, I tell you if the Count's enemies should gain any inkling of the fact that he is likely to be able to return to Illyria in the near future, they will stop at nothing to make sure that he never crosses the Channel."

"But, Holmes, how can they know that he is not in Illyria? You yourself showed me that extract from The Times."

"I dare say,Watson.Yet an illusion of that sort cannot be kept up indefinitely. No doubt the conspirators watch every appearance the supposed Count makes upon the Palace balcony. At any time some small error on the part of the substitute may give the game away. Very possibly that error has been already made and suspicions have been aroused. Remember that I myself was not the only spy you caught down in Hertfordshire a fortnight ago."

"The gipsy, Holmes? But I thought he was no more after all than a passing gipsy."

"Quite possibly he was, Watson. Yet did it not strike you as curious that the fellow was skulking in the grounds of the house?"

"Well, I had supposed that he had in fact never penetrated the garden itself."

"Indeed, Watson? Then it is perhaps as well that I have taken an interest in the matter. We should not wish the Count Palatine to fail to reach his homeland in safety. You have said nothing of his rapid recovery to anybody but myself?"

"Of course not, Holmes. Of course not."

Yet just one week later as, making what I hoped might be my last visit into Hertfordshire, I approached my mysterious patient's residence I was reminded with sudden shame that I had in fact spoken about his recovery outside the house the previous week when I had been talking to the manservant who had driven me back to the station in the dog-cart, and I recalled too that I had spoken in tones deliberately loud and clear so as to make sure that I was understood by this foreigner. I was debating with myself whether those words of mine could perhaps have been overheard then by some lurker, when my eye was caught by just such a person within some fifty yards of the gate of the house itself, an individual who seemed by his dress to be a seaman. But what was a seaman doing here in Hertfordshire, so far from the sea?

I decided that it was my duty now at least to deliver an oblique warning to the Count Palatine's faithful manservant, even though I still did not wish to disclose that I knew through Holmes whom he served. I succeeded, I hope, in giving him some general advice about the dangers of burglars in the neighbourhood, advice which I hoped would alert him without betraying what Holmes and I alone knew. I was relieved, too, when my patient, having declared his intention of visiting a Continental spa now that he felt so much better, asked if his servant could collect from me a supply of a nerve tonic I had prescribed sufficient to last him for a number of weeks. I gladly arranged for the man to come to me next day for the purpose, thinking that I could in this way get the latest tidings before the Count Palatine – if indeed this were the Count Palatine – left our shores.