The Empress of India
Read The Empress of India Online
Authors: Michael Kurland
THE EMPRESS
OF INDIA
Also by Michael Kurland
THE PROFESSOR MORIARTY NOVELS
The Infernal Device
Death by Gaslight
The Great Game
SHERLOCK HOLMES ANTHOLOGIES
My Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years
THE ALEXANDER BRASS NOVELS
Too Soon Dead
The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes
THE EMPRESS
OF INDIAA Professor Moriarty Novel
MICHAEL KURLAND
ST. MARTIN’S MINOTAUR
NEW YORK
THE EMPRESS OF INDIA
. Copyright © 2006 by Michael Kurland. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
The quatrain on page 84 is from the
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
as translated by Edward Fitzgerald, copyright © 1859.
The jackal story in chapter 17 was borrowed from a real incident described by W. S. Burrell and Edith E. Cuthell in their book
Indian Memories,
copyright in London © 1893.
The lines of the song on page 214 come from “Going to the Derby in a Four-in-hand,” Alfred Lee, composer, Frank W. Green, lyricist, copyright © 1870.
Design by Susan Yang
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kurland, Michael.
The empress of India : a Professor Moriarty novel / by Michael Kurland.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-29144-2 EAN 978-0-312-29144-0
1. Moriarty, Professor (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Gold theft—Fiction. 3. Scientists—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.U647E66 2006
813'.54—dc22
2005044595
First Edition: February 2006
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Linda—
Let me count the ways . . .
24. The Marquis of Queensberry Doesn’t Rule Here
31. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street
THE EMPRESS
OF INDIA
M
ONDAY, 10
F
EBRUARY 1890
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts . . .
—William Shakespeare
FROM THE UNPUBLISHED JOURNAL OF JOHN H. WATSON, M.D
.
I
t is with a heavy heart and much trepidation that I set down on these pages the incidents surrounding the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Sherlock Holmes. I shall record the few things that I now know, as they happened, and can only hope that later entries in this journal will reveal a satisfactory explanation, and indeed will record the return of Holmes to his familiar surroundings alive and unharmed.
It was precisely one week ago, Tuesday, the fourth of February 1890, that saw the beginning of the incidents that I am about to relate. My wife had gone to Bristol for the fortnight, visiting an aged and infirm distant relation (indeed, she is not yet returned), and so I found myself at loose ends that afternoon after completing my hospital rounds and seeing two or three private patients at their homes. I decided to brave the chill winds
a bit longer and knock up my old friend and companion to see if he was free to share a bite of dinner with me.
“Ah, Watson,” Holmes said, turning around to peer at me as I entered the old, familiar sitting room, “quite recovered, I see.”
“Why, yes, thank you,” I said, hanging my overcoat and scarf on the brass hook by the door. “I won’t bother asking you how you know I have been ill; you probably deduced it from a little spot of grease on my waistcoat.”
“Actually, from that second handkerchief peeping out of your back pocket,” Holmes told me, “as well as the fact that you’re wearing your Windsor hat, which I know even the coldest weather would not cause you to put on unless you were in the grip of the, ah, grippe, or something of the sort.”
“And that I’m recovered?” I asked, pulling off the hat in question.
“Well, look at you,” Holmes said. “Despite the precautions you felt it necessary to take when you left the house this morning, the spare handkerchief seems to be unused, and you seem quite like your sprightly usual self.”
“Quite so,” I agreed. “Quite so. And I’ve come up to invite you to dine with me at the Croydon, if you’ve nothing else on.”
“But I have, Watson,” Holmes exclaimed. “And you shall join me. Your timing is excellent.” He jumped to his feet and strode to the door, clapping me on the back as he passed. “Just give me a moment to throw on my overcoat and we’ll be on our way to a better, or at least more interesting, dinner than the Croydon could supply.”
“What is it, Holmes?” I asked, pulling my own overcoat back on.
Holmes grabbed his cane and bowler from the rack by the door, wrapped a long silk scarf around his neck, and started down the stairs. “Come along, Watson,” he said over his shoulder, “and dine with me at the Bank of England!”
“Really, Holmes,” I said, hurrying after him. “I’m delighted to be of assistance, as always, but what is to be our agenda? Is this to be an evening
of hiding in the cellar waiting for criminals to tunnel up into the vaults? Are we to bring sandwiches and revolvers, and perhaps a jug of hot tea?”
“Not at all, old friend,” Holmes reassured me. “The dinner will be in the private dining room of the Honorable Eustace Bergarot, the governor of the bank, and the meal and the wine will be of the finest his personal kitchen has to offer. In return, I believe, I will be expected to offer advice on some trifling problem of bank security over our postprandial snifter of brandy and several of the governor’s excellent cigars.”
“But, Holmes,” I protested, “you can’t just bring me along, uninvited—”
“Nonsense!” Holmes expostulated, winding a long scarf around his neck against the damp chill of the February evening. “Besides, the Honorable Bergarot mentioned that he enjoyed those little pieces you write about my cases, and warned me that if you joined us our conversation over dinner was to be regarded as confidential, sub-rosa as it were, and you were not to put it in one of your little stories. His phrase, ‘little stories,’ not mine, old chap. So, you see, you have explicitly been invited.”
Holmes raised his arm to hail a passing hansom cab, and we were on our way to visit that ancient institution that has become known as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.
The dining room in the private chambers in the Bank of England was small, furnished with comfortable leather-covered chairs around an oval cherrywood table, rather like a private room at one of the better clubs. Its walls were covered with framed mementos from two centuries of private banking with clients that included dukes, earls, and archbishops, as well as sultans, emirs, aghas, kings, and queens. The Honorable Eustace Bergarot, a short, heavy man with muttonchop whiskers and a totally bald head, put us at our ease immediately with his informal manner and his humorous attitude toward the perils of banking and life.
I should say put me at my ease, since Holmes has long since ceased to be impressed by any man or woman, or surprised by any circumstance that I am aware of.