Sherlock Holmes and The Sword of Osman (6 page)

The Sultan replied, ‘I can do better than that, Mr. Holmes!'

He gave a signal. Nadir Aga brought over a large album from a side-table. It contained photographs showing the many pavilions and the cultivated gardens and pathways that make up the Yildiz.

‘An American visited us. He was an expert on photography from the air,' the Sultan explained. ‘He sent a camera skyward aboard a silk-string kite from a ship in the Golden Harbour.'

The Sultan pointed out places of interest including the gate where we were to meet the Head Gardener after our audience, and the Harem garden, the Prince Garden and the Sultan gardens. The American's visit must have been in spring. The pathways were edged with a profusion of crocuses and daffodils. Sycamores, olives and lilacs, limes, elms, hackberries, laurels, the cercis, were picked out in sharp detail.

In addition to the aerial views, photographs of the interior of the Palace had been shot at ground level - exquisite rooms with apple green walls, friezes tender rose in colour, the background of the medallions light blue and lilac or rose.

The Sultan gave another order. The Second Black Eunuch returned carrying the most beautiful object I had yet set eyes on, a gift from fellow Sultan Abdul Aziz of Morocco upon our host's marriage to Saliha Naciye. It was an Adams quarter-plate De Luxe with red-leather covered body and 18 carat gold fittings. ‘The most expensively produced hand camera in the world,' the Sultan informed us gleefully. ‘It contains 130 ounces of the purest gold. See - each fitting, every screw and plate sheath is hallmarked.'

Observing our host's delight in his photographic apparatus, I was relieved I had asked Shelmerdine to take my precious new camera with him.

The Sultan rose from his throne and beckoned us to observe the fine view over the three seas surrounding the Sarayburnu peninsular. A telescope was brought into the room and erected near the window. We could see the powerful British fleet amid a dozen or more Turkish ironclads dating from the past Century and the swarm of smaller craft. Several miles out I recognised the obsolete
HMS Devastation
. On the principle of the tortoise and the hare she must have plodded on while we engaged in gunnery and torpedo practice during the many sea miles from Gibraltar.

A grandfather clock chimed the hour. The Sultan looked at the hands of the clock and pointed to
HMS Devastation
, remarking ‘Her crew has been taken off'.

As he spoke one of
Dreadnought
's heaviest guns roared. Every window shook. An immense shell soared upwards, dropping down towards the hapless ironclad, hitting the water just beyond her. This was followed a minute later by a simultaneous salvo of three followed by another ranging shot, and a salvo of four separated by 16 seconds. The gunnery crews had got the range. A mighty explosion threw debris and water high into the air. When it settled,
Devastation
was no longer to be seen. To the watching eyes of the world's ambassadors in Pera and the Kaiser's spies aboard the
S.S. Grosser Kurfürst,
it was a deliberate reminder of the length and destructive power of England's arm.

The Sultan pointed at the Dolma Baghchech Palace below.

‘I shall purchase several of your 12-inch guns and put them above Yildiz. I moved up here because that palace was within range of the guns of even a third-rate Naval Power.'

An ever-lengthening line of supplicants and diplomats had developed outside the kiosk. We were on the point of being dismissed. The Sultan switched to English, less fluent than his French but perfectly acceptable.

‘Mr. Holmes, may I ask how you pointed me out from my look-alikes with such certainty? Both are as identical to me as it's possible for one man to be to another.'

A smile flickered across my comrade's face.

‘There were two clues which would have been conspicuous to anyone with even elementary powers of observation. They are so obvious I hardly dare point them out.'

The Sultan's curiosity intensified.

‘What were they?' he asked.

Holmes waved at me.

‘I'm sure my friend Dr. Watson...'

‘Carry on, Holmes,' I said hurriedly, not having the slightest idea.

My comrade pointed at the bejewelled hubbly-bubbly.

‘First, sir, your water-pipe.'

The Sultan looked askance.

‘But I can assure you, Mr. Holmes, the three were made by the same hands and are absolutely identical.'

‘Certainly the crystal bowls and pipes,' Holmes agreed.

‘Then what gave me away?' our host pursued.

‘The mouthpieces. The mouthpiece you have in your hand is made from amber and set with precious stones, gold and enamels. Only the true Sultan would use it. Perhaps to avoid the spread of consumption your aide-de-camp ordered the imposters to bring their own. They are by no means men of your immense wealth. Theirs were made of simple clay.'

The Sultan laughed. ‘Now that you explain it... I promise next time no-one shall catch me so easily. And the second clue?'

‘You wear the archer's ring.'

I too had noted the ring on his thumb sparkling in the late-morning light flooding through the window. Unlike Holmes I had not realised it followed the tradition that even while a Sultan smells a rose he is symbolically ever-prepared for battle.

‘I have further advice if you wish to keep your identity secret in any similar test,' Holmes continued.

‘And what is that?' the Sultan demanded.

‘Cut off your ears and those of the other ‘sultans'.'

The Sultan looked shocked.

Holmes continued, ‘In London Dr. Watson and I were shown a painting of three remarkably powerful people deep in conversation. One was our late Queen Victoria, another the late French Emperor Napoleon, and the third...'

Our host's face lit up.

‘...the third was my father, Sultan Abdul Mejid,' he interjected. ‘I know that painting well. I presented it to Her Late Majesty when I visited Balmoral Castle.'

‘Then you'll recall in the painting your father was standing sideways on, looking to the observer's right?'

‘That's correct,' came the puzzled reply.

I adopted a knowing smile as though privy to Holmes's secret but in reality I was as baffled as our host.

‘You will also recall your father wore his fez above his ears...?' Holmes carried on.

‘Of course!' the Sultan tittered. ‘You would not wear a fez down over the ears.'

‘Nor your turban, sir,' Holmes pursued.

‘As you say. So?'

‘A further question first... you call Sultan Abdul Mejid your father, by which you mean he was your biological father rather than simply a father to you?'

‘He was my natural father, yes,' came the reply.

He paused warily. Then, jokingly, ‘Unless you have information to the contrary, Mr. Holmes!'

‘I do not, sir.' Holmes smiled. ‘Indeed, the opposite. Your ears are identical in almost every respect to those of the sultan in the painting. Through the ear the authenticity of the descent can be clearly observed. I've written two monographs on the subject. We know there are a number of inherited likenesses - eye colour, freckles, the shape of the chin. The shape of the ear is also passed down - whether oval, round, rectangular or triangular, and perhaps length and width.'

Our audience had come to an end. Next we would meet the Head Gardener to discuss plants to take back to England in the pile of Wardian cases.

‘I should particularly like you to visit the Star Chalet Kiosk to see Kaiser Wilhelm II's Ceremonial Room,' the Sultan said. ‘Much of the furniture was made by my own hands. The Head Gardener will arrange a guide to take you there.'

The Second Black Eunuch closed the door of the Mabeyn Pavilion firmly behind us. With the Sultan's permission to wander unaccompanied, we were by ourselves in the quietude of the Royal Garden, the gaggle of noisy white-fronted geese around our feet. Male and female golden orioles fluttered in the surrounding trees.

I blinked to adjust my eyes to the brilliant overhead sun. Holmes touched my arm.

‘Over there, in the shade' he murmured. ‘I think she has a request to make. It's clear she wants to avoid prying eyes.'

It was the Sultan's thirteenth wife, Saliha Naciye. Hardly more than the outline of her face was visible, small and delicate.

Her words came in a whisper.

‘Might I trouble you to draw a little nearer?'

Wasting no time, she said, ‘Today. The Tuesday bazaar. There's a Daughter of Abraham by the name of Chiarezza. She will be wearing a lace-trimmed dress beneath a black çarşaf. You would have no difficulty identifying her.'

‘And what should we do when we find her, madam?' Holmes asked in a low voice, both he and I pretending a great interest in the watch-tower on the wooded slopes above Yildiz.

A nosegay was thrust out of the shadows.

‘I beg you to give this to Chiarezza with my compliments. She will know who sent it. We women are like song-birds in a cage, seldom able to leave Yildiz, never able to speak to outsiders. Yet, you see,' she added with a sudden tinkle of laugh, ‘we like to be remembered by the outside world.'

I reached for the posy. Saliha Naciye paused as though looking around for watchful eyes and added, ‘Chiarezza sells trinkets and ribbons and lace to the seraglio. And she tells us news of those scandals which keep us amused in our isolation. Please take every precaution not to be followed. It would be bad for her. She'd be sent away.'

***

We came to the Third Gate, our place of rendezvous. The Head Gardener - the Bostanci başi - stood by an ancient granite column in gardens overlooking the Marmara Sea. He was surrounded by empty cages and Wardian boxes awaiting their cargo of birds and rare plants culled from the deserts and mountains of the Turkish Empire. I presented him with my copy of Hooker's
On the Vegetation of the Galapagos Archipelago
and waved an admiring hand at the perfectly-kept formal arrangements of blossoming plants around us. I asked how many men he had at his disposal. He replied ‘Two thousand pairs of hands and eyes'.

‘Two thousand pairs of hands and eyes!' I repeated in wonder.

He explained the powers of the Bostanci başi extended far beyond the supply of flowers to the rooms. The Head Gardener commanded a corps of the Sultan's bodyguards. His responsibilities included watchmen and guards at the gates and in the grounds, porters, grooms and bargemen. Under his direction, delinquent officials were interrogated and executed.

‘I look after the flowers and fruits,' he explained, smiling broadly, ‘and it's also my job to prune the court of its bad apples.'

A guard arrived to take us to the Star Chalet Kiosk, the Yıldız Şale Köşkü. The 60-room imperial palace of wood and stone was intended as a residence for visiting royalty and heads of state. Kaiser Wilhelm II's Ceremonial Room was known as the Mother-of-Pearl Salon from the nacre covering much of its surface.

We stepped into yet another wonderland - nine richly decorated rooms with silk carpets on inlaid wood floors, Bohemian crystal chandeliers and Italian marble fireplaces. Here at the heart of the Turkish Empire the style and taste of the last of the Napoleons reigned in the heavy gilt mouldings of the mirror frames and window cornices. Except for ourselves there was no-one else in the entire edifice. The reception room was a vast space with the largest silk Hereke carpet in existence, hand woven by sixty weavers. Shelmerdine told me later that somewhere in its 500 square yards there was one tiny fault, just a knot of white intruding into the ground of another colour, a deliberate mistake to deflect the malice and envy of the Evil Eye - ‘the emptier of palaces and the filler of graves' - which was otherwise bound to fall on any object of perfection.

With our ceremonial duties over and the horticultural credibility of our mission reinforced, Holmes proposed we deliver the nosegay. We would return in the early evening to view the Sword of Osman. I reflected on the number of watchful pairs of eyes at every part of the Palace. Precisely as the Sultan claimed, it seemed inconceivable a plotter could gain access to the heart of the complex where the magnificent weapon was stored.

***

We arrived at the bazaar and sent word of our presence to the Jewess Chiarezza. We were quickly approached by a middle-aged woman. Strong, dark eyebrows shaded hard, bird-like eyes. She was dressed exactly as the Sultan's wife had described, a long loose robe covering her clothing except the sleeves on the lower part of her arm. I explained we were from England and with as gallant a gesture as I could muster handed her the nosegay, whispering its origin. The Jewess took it with a smile of recognition, twisting the posy round and round. Quickly the smile faded. She gave a supernatural shiver. Her hand went to her throat, touching a necklace of beads with the same concentric pattern of dark blue, light blue, white, then again dark blue circles as on the prows of Mediterranean boats in the harbour, safeguarding them from bad luck.

A second later she recovered her poise and broke into a voluble welcome. We were led into the interior as though in triumphal march, past tanks of water and fire-pumps and sellers of mastic and antimony, and shelves of roots, dyes, seeds and sandalwood. Her stall was piled high with richly trimmed opera cloaks, exchanged or purchased second-hand, she told us, from the ladies of the harem. Assuming we were in search of souvenirs for our wives or mistresses, our hostess offered us pins for head ornaments called Titrek or Zenberekli, depicting tulips, roses, violets, birds, butterflies and bees. She pointed at box upon box of tea gowns, slippers and the finest hosiery sent by the Orient Express or brought by steamer from Marseilles.

‘This is the latest merchandise from Paris,' she explained. ‘French bodices and tight hip-skirts are replacing gauze chemisettes and sagging Turkish trousers in the harems of wealth Turkish signors. Very popular with Englishmen too,' she added coquettishly.