THE IRREGULAR CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (18 page)

‘No pious last offering this, Watson! See the protective wrapping. Be careful how you lift it.’

Setting up the candles on the edge of the sarcophagus, we unwrapped the canvas. Inside was a layer of heavy, waxed paper, inside which lay an object that Holmes lifted up in the candle light.

The base was a pedestal with small figures facing out from each side. Its top was formed into a cushion on which a decapitated body lay. Standing on the body was a warrior, naked but for a sash and a wonderfully elaborate helmet. His right hand held a sword, his left was raised up to suspend by its hair the serpent-decked head of the Medusa. The whole was formed of gold that glittered in the cold light as though it had been made yesterday. It was dazzling in its terrible beauty.

‘I know this thing,’ said Holmes in a strange, choked voice. ‘I stood before its great bronze counterpart, the Perseus, every day as a child in Florence, pondering the power of good over evil. It can only be the work of one man, the unknown masterpiece of Benvenuto Cellini.’

Holmes started, peered stiffly towards the door, and put his finger to his lips. Gesturing that I should stay where I was, he handed me the statue and slipped out of the door.

After a nervous wait of some moments, I risked a tentative step outside. The foggy vista of tombs that met my eye was quite deserted. I pondered the wisdom of calling Holmes’s name aloud, and decided against it. Instead, I pulled the tomb door shut behind me and took up a position that would give me a view of the path on both sides. I was looking at a mournful angel of bronze on a monument opposite, when I was gripped around the chest by one immense arm, and a huge blade was drawn across my throat.

All this happened so quickly that I could have done nothing to defend myself. What saved my neck, quite literally, was the Cellini Perseus! I had been nursing its substantial weight upright in my arms, and the highest part of the statuette came level with my chin. The blade, slashing across, ground against the statuette instead of making contact with my flesh.

The arm gripping me clenched tighter, squeezing every last breath from my body. The other hand must have relinquished its blade, for it reached to engulf the statuette. A bull-like bellow came from behind me, and the object was wrenched from my grasp as a man might take a toy from a child.

The grip on me loosened enough for me to squirm round and push away, but my attacker’s free hand encircled my throat and squeezed. For one second I saw, looming out of the misty darkness, a huge, big-boned face of chalky pallor, before it turned crimson, as my vision became suffused with blood. The life was all but choked out of me when a sharp crack sounded, and the giant twitched. Again and again the cracks rang out. Only on the fourth did the grip on me loosen. The fifth spun him round a half turn and dropped him to one knee. He tottered a moment, then pulled himself to his feet and staggered off into the mist. Holmes was at my side, his smoking gun still trained ahead.

Crouching to retrieve the big blade, Holmes shouted. ‘Keep him in sight, Watson, I want to see where he is going. He may be our only chance of finding the real power behind this business.’

So we began running through a foggy world of fantastic tombs, pursuing a giant who carried in his hands one of the undiscovered treasures of the world. It was evident at once that he was heading north, away from Venice itself, perhaps to some hidden boat. He was losing great quantities of blood from his wounds, and only super-human strength could have kept him upright.

When he reached the water, we saw that there was no boat. He simply threw himself into the lagoon and began to swim, holding the statuette above his head.

‘He cannot get far in that condition,’ I croaked hoarsely.

‘No,’ said Holmes grimly. ‘No, it is nearly over, I think.’

A wall of mist drifted over and obscured the view, then passed, and for a brief period a wider expanse of the lagoon was visible. The statuette glinted palely, like Excalibur raised aloft from the lake, before the arm that held it went down. A second later the arm rose up once more, but there was nothing in the hand. It sank again. A few bubbles troubled the glassy waters, then stillness returned as the mist rolled back.

‘At least one of the murderers has met a just end,’ I gasped.

Holmes gazed reflectively at the big, heavy blade in his hand. ‘Yes, but he did not lead us to the other, greater villain. This one was hardly more than an obedient animal. The brain behind the crimes is elsewhere, and is likely to escape justice.’

‘At least we can retrieve the Cellini. It should not be difficult to mark points here on the bank, and estimate the distance to the spot where it was dropped.’

This elicited no response from Holmes. He stood with his magnifying lens, examining the edge of the blade. By stepping behind him and squinting through the glass I could make out fragments of brown material and fine slivers of gold all along the honed edge.

‘Put down no marker, Watson. Come, there is something I wish to look at again.’

We made our way back through the cemetery.

‘I wonder why he swam out there?’ I asked.

‘It may be that the poor creature was delirious.’

‘Or that he intended to make certain that we could not question him about the Sect.’

‘Suicide? I doubt it, Watson. His task was to retrieve the hidden treasure and return it to his master, not drop it into the lagoon. He was, at least, faithful. I think he was trying to swim back, but lost his way.’

I rubbed my neck ruefully, and nodded agreement. ‘Yes, running blindly to escape us. He could not have known that in his confusion he was heading for Murano.’

‘Murano?’

‘Yes, the place where all the glass is made. It is a pity that our efforts have come to nothing on this day of all days. Our work may have been a little easier without the crowds. The Carnival ends tomorrow, on Ash Wednesday.’

We had walked on a few paces before Holmes stopped, as if thunderstruck. ‘Watson, you have solved the problem. I know where the other killer is to be found.’

‘How could I have solved it? . . . I . . .

‘The answer is pulverine, Watson. Pulverine, with sea shells for added strength!’

I was utterly bemused, but Holmes was adamant that we were once more on the scent, and had no time to lose. Back at the jetty, Holmes eschewed the gondola. Paulo managed to commandeer a small motor vessel, the owners of which were absent. Soon we were heading for Murano. Holmes was first to break the silence.

‘Fate is a strange thing, Watson. We live our lives as if in a mist; briefly the veil lifts, and we are granted glimpses of some greater picture before our partial blindness descends again. If my conclusions are correct, we are not only entering the final stages of a great drama that began centuries ago, but of a personal one that began, for me, decades ago, when I stood before the great Cellini Perseus in Florence and committed myself to the triumph of good over evil. Who can say what threads were already being woven then, to lead us here!’

‘And all because of something called pulverine, and seashells!’ I exclaimed.

‘All will be explained in good time,’ laughed Holmes.

Murano is a magnificent town in its own right, a Venice in miniature. I doubted the possibility of finding anything without days of searching. Holmes did not agree.

‘Remember this fragment of paper I retrieved from the grate in the lodging house? I observed then that it might be the letter head for some company. We puzzled over the letters that survived the flames: “Ar . . . in . . . Ve . . .” I would suggest the solution
“Articoli in Vetro.”
The Italian term for glassware, Watson! The design at the head is a Salamander. Let us seek a glassworks with that sign.’

With only a day to go before the end of the Carnival the
calli
and
campi
were populous with celebrating crowds. The grotesquely masked figures poured past in the lamplight with much laughter. Holmes’s requests for directions were met with a variety of humorous responses. In the end it was a mournful old workman, obviously trekking home from a long day of toil, who nodded and gestured that he was walking that way, and would show us the place we sought.

Many corners were turned, and many bridges ascended and descended, before we came to a
‘Calle de Magazen’.
Here the old man turned off with a wave. At the end of a row of shops selling all manner of glass, we came upon a glass foundry bearing the sign of the Salamander.

The front doors were locked, but it was short work to gain entry to the foundry. It was at once apparent that the place had lain unused for a long time. Dust covered the glass-making equipment, and the furnaces were choked with drifts of ash. A great iron staircase ran up the far wall. We climbed the dusty treads and opened the door at the top.

The room we entered was dizzying in its luxurious splendour. The eye wandered from Greek art to superb Renaissance sculpture, and then to the huge carvings of old Egypt. The walls were hung with rich tapestries, and the senses were overwhelmed by incenses that reeked from censers in the form of grotesque figures. Curtains rolled like waterfalls of silver on to carpets of gold. At the far end of the room, a masked figure reclined on an ottoman, heavy golden wine cup in his hand, for all the world like the embodiment of Bacchus.

The figure raised itself slowly to its feet and said, ‘Young Master Holmes. You have grown.’

‘And you, Mentoni, have not.’

The mask prevented me from seeing the reaction to this jibe, but the figure stiffened and stood up straight. ‘You do not seem to be surprised to see me.’

‘I somehow expected as much, the moment I saw . . .’

‘The Cellini Perseus? Yes, I know that much about the great treasure. Rumours have persisted so long. So you are not surprised to see me. You
are
surprised, I think, to see that I am not surprised to see you. Always you forget Second Intention. The first move is never for the purposes it appears to be, but to enable the attacker to deceive the anticipated reaction. It was always my intention that you should come to
La Serenissima,
Master Holmes. Who else should I engage to solve so great a mystery but the World’s greatest consulting detective?’

‘You have murdered two human beings for that end?’

‘Rosselino was not compliant, and could have named me. But the other, in London, was to present you with a locked room mystery you could not resist.’

‘Could you not have engaged my services at a less terrible price?’

‘You always were very dull, Master Holmes. I chose not to. I engaged you at no cost, anonymously, and can dispose of you now your work is done.’

‘You will not have the assistance of your large friend. He is no more.’

‘Ah, poor Toto. A small price for a great purpose. We, the
Salamandra
, are the true kings of the Serene Principality, just as Venice is the true capital of this unhappy new creation known as Italy. And Murano, Master Holmes, will once again be what it always was. The true seat of power in Venice. We
Muranesi
had our own laws and our own coin. We were a law unto ourselves. The Cellini will stand once more as a symbol of our sovereignty. It will become the focus of a new Sect of the Salamander.’

‘The Perseus is somewhere you can never find it.’

‘There are torture chambers under this building. All men are open to persuasion.’

‘We would defend ourselves to the death,’ I said. ‘And, if taken alive, we would die with our lips sealed.’

‘There is another solution, Master Holmes, if you have the courage. Let us see if you have improved as a swordsman. Win, and you have me, and go free without a fight. Lose, and you tell me the location of the Perseus.’

‘Are you not afraid that I may have surpassed you?’

‘A graduate of the Salon of the so-called Maître Alphonse Bencin? I do not think so. But I fear your friend might shoot me while I am not looking.’