The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (38 page)

“Sir? I do not recognize your voice. You must speak to my brother,” the young woman said firmly.

“I am Sherlock Holmes, a friend to your brother and I hope to yourself. You are in great danger.”

I saw al-Rasheed approach from the vaguely defined street and make his way boldly to this tent with his two servants behind him.

“Quickly, Your Highness, come out here through the back,” I instructed her.

Al-Rasheed disappeared from sight. I heard the main door of the tent being pulled open. “Come, come, Miss Noura.” His voice carried through the thick goathair felt that made up the tent walls
and partitions. “You know that you are contracted to me, and I have waited all this time. Now come out and do not force me to be impolite.”

A sword cut through the heavy felt like it was butter. “Inside, quickly,” Abdul Aziz's sister ordered me, sword in hand.

In any other circumstance I would hesitate. No woman could ever be alone in the company of a man who was not a relative. The word “haram” comes from the Arabic word for “forbidden.” It was forbidden for a man to even mention the names of women not his immediate relations. Being found alone with a woman was punished by death for both. Noura and I both would die simply for being found here together. It would be the only option allowed, and it would be Abdul Aziz's place to kill us—or else he would lose all honour and respect and position.

But given al-Rasheed's protestations outside her tent, I had no other option. I took the sword from the princess's hand and strode forward to the
majlis
, the men's more public side to the tent where al-Rasheed waited.

“No,” she whispered urgently. “Just marry me and wait here.”

“I marry thee,” I repeated to her three times in Arabic, and looked into her unveiled face without realizing what I had just done.

“That's it, you have forced my hand,” al-Rasheed whined from beyond the black felt partition. “I would not have intruded on any lady, let alone my intended wife, had she appeared decently as commanded by her husband.” He flipped open the entrance drape and took two steps into the women's quarters.

“You are not my husband,” the princess said, snatching the veil over her. “He is.”

Al-Rasheed looked at me for a moment before he sighed. “Well, if he is your husband you shall soon be a widow. And we know that it is an act of charity to marry a widow.”

I raised the sword but al-Rasheed did not move. He appeared unarmed and at ease. Instead he clapped twice and his servants appeared
through the opening, the very servants he would have killed through thirst. Each of them had a pistol in his belt.

“Kill him,” al-Rasheed ordered them.

The servants regarded him for a long moment, then looked at me. Neither of them touched their weapons.

“Fire,” al-Rasheed charged them more harshly this time. “Kill that man. I command you.”

One of the servants dropped his hand to the pistol; the other frowned at him in disapproval and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“I see we shall have to do it the old-fashioned way,” al-Rasheed sighed, then drew the ceremonial sword he wore and waved it about in front of me.

“I take it you were not on the fencing team,” I observed as I launched into my opening attack.

Al-Rasheed dropped the sword and turned to run.

Only he couldn't run very far. Peterson was standing blocking the entrance of the main part of the tent.

“Oh, Khalid, good. You must kill him and let me out of here. And serve as my witness, as you were here to do in any case,” al-Rasheed panted. Certainly he was out of breath quickly for very little exertion.

“No, Ahmed,” Peterson said. “I am here under orders of the Imam, who suspected you of treachery. You will wish that Mr. Holmes had been kind enough to dispatch you here. After the religious courts hear how you took your servants' water in the Empty Quarter and tried to marry a young and royal virgin against her will, I think that you will wish that you had been left on the sands in the hot sun. But I am not disposed to be charitable today. Not when we are only a few hours from the oasis. You could too easily get away.”

“Why did you not shoot?” al-Rasheed asked his servants.

The man was impossible. “They did not shoot because you took their water. They felt no loyalty to you,” I said rather brusquely.

“Oh, that was definitely the final straw,” Peterson agreed. “But
I recruited them into the Imam's religious police. They are now deputies and will help me in making certain that you are turned over to the proper authorities.”

“A royal virgin?” al-Rasheed continued to protest while the two servant-deputies tied his hands. “She claims that this man did not dishonour her and that he is her husband.”

“If she claims that, then I think the matter is quite clear.” A new voice entered the discussion. “He must be her husband. And I for one am very honoured to have Mr. Sherlock Holmes as my brother.”

In the desert fashion, Abdul Aziz embraced me and kissed my cheek. “The fire was a little thing. He is too much of a coward to make a fire that was really dangerous. We shall celebrate this marriage when we arrive in the village. I will buy a whole sheep and everyone will feast.”

The reality of what I had done suddenly hit me. “It is the only way to save her honour, really, under the circumstances,” Peterson said. “You must be publicly seen to be Miss Saud's husband so there was nothing untoward about your being there to defend her in the end.”

“Indeed,” I said, switching languages back to Arabic. “If it is for the princess's good, then I can hardly refuse.”

“Then it is all settled,” Abdul Aziz said. “We leave within the hour.

A
s a matter of record, Abdul Aziz bought two sheep, not one, and everyone in the village as well as the Murrah band feasted our wedding. I did not, of course, visit the bride. And six days later, as the Murrah readied to march on towards their traditional grazing land, I divorced her most privately and with the greatest respect, for she was resourceful and intelligent and had uncommon good sense as well.

Abdul Aziz said as we took our leave, “Though you have divorced
my sister you are always my brother, and hers as well. And I shall always be proud to tell the world that the great Sherlock Holmes is my close and dear relation.”

He laughed as he got on the camel. The bells rang and he disappeared into the desert, and though I read of his exploits often in the papers I never saw him again.

BY
J
AY
S
HECKLEY
N.B.: this case
not
for publication!—JHW

A
s Irene Adler shall always be
“the woman”
to Holmes, so Miss Madeline Snow shall ever to me remain
“the
girl.” I am not (and surely not in Mr. Holmes's case) speaking of Romance, but of that identity gained simply by virtue of a radiant and unsurpassedly pure “She-ness.” Such a creature can only be underestimated, and one could be on his guard against that danger if she were not so altogether disarming.

Holmes has asked me to write this, and I do so now in his chambers which used to be also mine, not out of any great desire to confess to the sins I've witnessed (and thereby mayhap contributed to?) but because I'm disturbed this evening, shaken to my core, and because my friend Sherlock Holmes has asked me to. I can
not know if authoring a memoir will illumine any of the mysteries on my mind today, but yes, Holmes, I believe that the practice is otherwise helping.

Only yesterday the news came to me, with the day's twelfth visit from the postman. Good that it arrived within the final delivery, for I haven't been able since to concentrate sufficiently to read a letter. My dear wife Mary brought me the post herself, along with a cup of tea, and sat beside me on the striped horsehair divan. I took the envelope from her kind hand and turned it to see the black wax seal. Within, the black-bordered note was without ornament. I have it here:

My dear cousin John
,

Our Randall, Earl of Norris, has passed on from this Life
.

The suddenness of events comes as a shock to all of us, but none is wholly surprised save his son. Let us say the Earl's heart had been troubling him more often than not
.

Your presence in a crisis I have always found steadying. Perhaps you would be good enough to drop by tomorrow to pay a condolence if not console his Widow Lady Jane, and I'd like you to see dear Randall the younger, whose stoicism very much resembles incomprehension
.

Do again convey my regards to your lovely Mary. In any event I do ever remain your grateful admirer
,

Maddy

I read, and at once the strength drained from me. As if the missive were soaking up my power, the document itself seemed to grow in weight until my right hand, which held it, fell to my knee.

Naturally, Mary took this to mean I was handing her the letter, which she slipped out from my hand and quickly read.

“Oh!” Mary said, among a number of other sympathetic noises. It is to my discredit I cannot recall most of what she said then. Noting my distraction, she asked, “Was Randall a dear comrade of yours?”

“No,” I said quickly. “He was not.”

Whatever she mistook my vehemence for, it aroused her feeling.

“Oh! Was he then a patient in your care? His heart—”

“His heart, if he had one, was no concern of mine.” My harshness surprised us both. I took Mary's hand in mine, but found myself unable to speak further to her of the [here the word “man” is scratched out] subject.

Nor could I tell her of Madeline.

I think Mary drank the tea. I'm not sure of much. I remember pacing most of the night, muttering. Mary believed me feverish, but it wasn't that.

Would that it were!

When at last the sun leaked its first weak rays onto the grey city, inspiring a squadron of blackbirds to register complaints, I fell into a hard, dreamless sleep. When I finally awoke I no sooner recalled who I was then I became again quickly agitated, as if an accursed mood could be donned as simply as the previous day's hosiery, and with the same malodorous effect.

Food was of no interest. To please Mary, I ate as if taking medicine, or stowing goods in large quantity for a compulsory journey. When I departed the house without a word, Mary didn't drop a stitch.

I walked and walked as if trying to escape myself.

Twice I passed the house Randall kept in town, where he had lived with Lady Jane and young Randall and Madeline, Lady Jane's constant friend. I could see pairs of callers climbing the front stairs. I wasn't ready to join them. I kept walking.

All of London seemed ordered and reasonable as I stormed throughout it. I was moved by the array of dry goods laid out before the shops, and watched a man leisurely choosing a writing instrument from a bundle of fine white goose quills. Everywhere was the calm relation of the hansom drivers to their horses, hoofbeats and big wheels turning in time, the wheels like perfect cogs in The City's majestic clockworks. Even street urchins seemed at uncommon
peace today. Dazzled at the ease about me, I turned Northwest, and by the time I found myself at Baker Street my feet ached from stamping on cobblestones. I passed one of those small dirty street arabs we called The Baker Street Irregulars. The child appeared to be waiting for someone.

As I mounted the seventeenth stair, Holmes opened the door, holding a large and evidently heavy earthen crock. I stumbled into his lair.

“Bullet severed the aorta,” he said, conversationally.

“Holmes, I—
What??”

“The family is calling it heart trouble,” he said, “but that's what it was.”

I stared at him.

Holmes stirred something noxious in the crock and kept talking. “Proprietary husband it seems, a constable in fact. Bit of an arms collector. Good man in his way. ‘Wild West lead poisoning' they call it. Our Randall was in the habit of visiting other men's wives a mite profoundly. Matter of time, I should say. Tea?”

I sank into a chair. It caught and cradled me like the arms of an angel. “Tea. Yes, thank you,” I said to my friend.

“Hold on,” he said. Holmes was looking me over. He put a forefinger on my lower left eyelid and tugged it down a quarter inch. I blinked involuntarily. He took his hand away. “No tea for you. What is this I see in your eyes? Guilt, yes, but something—Hatred?”

“No.” I sighed. “Yes. That is, I must see Madeline, but—It pains me hating a dead man.”

“Why on Earth would one bother?”

I hesitated. “For the things he did while living, mostly,” I said.

“Hmm, yes. And something else?”

“Well after—after—all that—well, he has his nerve creating a scandal with his death.”

“I wouldn't worry. The man who put Randall down is rather well liked by the parties investigating.”

Holmes's implication was: accidental death, no trial, no headlines.

“Well, there is that.” I didn't feel much consoled by the facts, yet simply being in the flat relaxed me. A small expertly pitched fire was crackling at the hearth. I inhaled the fruity odour of fresh tobacco, then began coughing. “What in heaven is that stuff?” I pointed to the crock.