Tony Richards - The Astonishing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-First Century

“And you want a ticket? Stand in line.”

“No,” Holmes explained to her calmly. “I wish to be allowed to remain with the exhibit after the museum had closed. Can you make that happen?”

“I …” Mary faltered, sounding mightily confused. “Sure, I guess. If you think it’s the next target, I can have the place staked out.”

“No,” Holmes told her. “I’d like to be there alone.”

He could almost see, in his mind’s eye, the woman’s eyebrows coming up again.

“You don’t think that’s a little dangerous?” she asked him.

But Holmes only smiled.

“Being alive is dangerous, lieutenant. I’ll be fine.”

Then, satisfied that she would do as he had asked, he hung the handset up.

His mind was still buzzing, all the same. And he needed to get a few hours good rest if he was to be at his best and sharpest during the hours of the forthcoming night. Holmes made sure all the drapes in his bedchamber were firmly shut, then phoned down to room service.

The staff there were slightly shocked to be asked to deliver two pina coladas at this hour of the morning. But, politely and efficiently, they brought them to his room.

Occasionally, he could hear the tapping footsteps of the museum’s uniformed security personnel. They would approach the room that he was in, but turn away before they reached it. Every last member of staff had been told that he was there, and been advised to keep their distance.

Otherwise, the Met was practically silent around him.

It was a room near the centre of the building that Holmes was seated in. Once again, there were no windows. Every light had been switched off. He was on a high-backed wooden chair tucked away into one corner, so engulfed in shadow he was certain he would not be spotted. And he did not move. He’d have loved to be able to shift around a little while he waited, but he could not risk it.

The wall behind him shuddered occasionally with the vibration of passing traffic. New York wasn’t only a city that never slept – it was a city that never shut up, not for an instant. Holmes reflected on that ruefully as the time passed, minutes turning gradually to hours. Much though he admired this place, he wasn’t sure that he could live here. He was far more used to the tranquillity that London sometimes offered, and the progressive decades that he’d lived through had not altered his opinion on that.

In front of him was the special exhibition he’d found reference to on his computer. The fabled Pieders Collection, only in New York for one month before it was transferred to Chicago. It consisted of fine and priceless artefacts collected by the family of that name back in the Dutch East India days. Jewelled scimitars and shields. Whole miniature herds of solid gold elephants, with sapphires for their eyes. Similarly, statuettes of tigers, camels, even men. And turbans with massive diamonds and emeralds embedded in their brows.

These had all been gifts from wealthy rajahs to the Pieders family, or else had been confiscated as a means of retribution when those rajahs had rebelled. Almost fifty million dollars’ worth of endowments and plunder. Little wonder the exhibit was not staying long.

In the middle of the room – on a plinth and under glass, just like the last time – was the centrepiece of the collection. The Mazziristan Orb, about half the size again of the Queen’s royal orb back in London, twenty-four carat gold throughout and inlaid with flawless precious jewels of every colour, many of them massive. It had been made common knowledge that half the sum value of this entire collection lay contained in that one single piece.

A thick red web of laser beams surrounded it. A butterfly could not get through without setting something off. The floor around it, once again, had pressure pads below it. There were cameras of course, four of them this time. And there were only two ways in and out of this room – both of them had rows of heavy iron bars lowered across them by this hour.

Holmes risked angling his wrist to take a brief glance at his watch, which had a luminous dial. He had been sitting here for practically three hours, with nothing happening. He’d become extremely stiff – his lower back and thighs had begun aching gently. But he employed a meditation technique that he had learned from those Buddhist monks back in the Laotian jungle. His body relaxed slightly, the pain easing, and he was able to remain in place.

But not for very long, as it turned out. His cell phone went off suddenly, in his pocket. He cursed and fished it out, answering it quickly. He could already see from the screen that it was Mary.

“Yes?” he hissed, frustration welling up in him.

“You’ve got it wrong, Holmes,” came the lieutenant’s voice. “Another diamond store on 47th has just been hit, same M.O. as before.”

“And the name of the store?” Holmes inquired.

“Van Engrim.”

“As I thought,” Holmes muttered. “And might I remind you, there was more than one just robbery last night. I am not in the wrong place. So kindly bother me no further.”

“You’re the great detective,” Mary sighed.

And she hung up.

Another hour passed. And then another one. Even the footsteps of the guards in the remainder of the building became slower and more muted. And Holmes almost came near to dozing off.

He jerked, righting himself. Admonished himself for being so careless. After that, he fixed his attention on the softly glowing orb in front of him, staring at it like a hawk. Such was his mental acuity, he could keep on doing that for the rest of the night, if need be.

The cell phone was still in his hand, from when Mary had called him. It was a new one, and came with several interesting facilities. And a fresh notion had taken shape in the detective’s mind. He waited to see if this thing might be useful.

There was a gentle movement in the corner of his eye. Holmes froze.

A trio of men had stepped into the room. But how? The bars were still in place. And there wasn’t even an entranceway in the direction they’d arrived from.

As they stepped fully into his field of view, Holmes could see they were not solid. They were misty outlines, each of them, a few vague details of the room apparent through them in the darkness. Their bodies appeared to shine very gently, with the same kind of faint lustre that simple marsh gas has. And they were most definitely not – by the way that they were dressed or by the structure of their taut faces – of European origin.

They didn’t seem to have noticed him, their gazes all fixed firmly on the Mazziristan Orb. They crossed over to it as he watched, their footfalls not producing the tiniest echo. And they had to be stepping on the pressure points by now, but no bells started ringing.

And then the reddened laser beams were passing through their dim, cloak-shrouded bodies, with the same lack of result.

Extremely gingerly, Holmes raised his mobile phone. It was capable of taking video footage for a while, and he employed that function now. No human figures appeared on its tiny screen – the room looked empty save for the collection. And when he played the recording back, the result was precisely the same. So cameras were unable to capture images of these three figures.

One of the intruders, the tallest and the eldest, stretched his right arm out. His hand passed directly through the pane of glass shielding the orb. And when the man’s palm closed around the precious artefact, it disappeared from sight.

Holmes was so shocked that he simply couldn’t help himself. He sprang to his feet, and the three men noticed that. Their ancient gazes swivelled round. Their lined mouths tightened with surprise. But their wrinkled faces were impassive save for that. The three of them stared at him wordlessly.