THE FOUR WISE MEN

Peter Lovesey

One December morning in the year 1895, Sherlock Holmes tossed aside The Times and said to me with some abruptness, “Stop dithering, Watson. It’s your duty to go down to Somerset for Christmas, regardless of the plans you made.”

I stared at him in astonishment. I had spoken not a syllable of the matter that was exercising me.

He amazed me even more by adding, “An old soldier’s loyalty to his senior officer is a commitment for life. He needs your support and you are not the man to withhold it.”

“Holmes,” said I, when I found my voice again, “your feats of deduction are well known to me, but to discover that you are also a mind reader is truly a revelation, not to say unnerving.”

He made a dismissive gesture with his long, limp hand. “My dear fellow, I can think of few things I should less enjoy than peering into the minds of my fellow creatures. My advice to you is based on observation alone.” As if to provoke me further, he stopped speaking, thrust his unlit pipe in his mouth and looked out of the window at the traffic passing along Baker Street.

I waited. It became obvious that he proposed to say nothing more unless I pursued the matter.

I was loth to give him the satisfaction, but at length my curiosity prevailed. “I hesitate to trespass on your time. . . .”

“Then don’t.”

Some minutes passed before I steeled myself to begin again. I do believe he, too, was finding the silence intolerable, though he would never have admitted as much.

“I thought I knew your methods, Holmes. In this matter, I confess myself mystified.”

He continued to stare out of the window.

“I would appreciate some explanation.”

He sighed heavily. “There are times, Watson, when I despair of you. You are blind to your own behaviour. When I told you to stop dithering, it was after you had removed that letter from its envelope for the third time and perused it with much frowning. By now you know the contents. You can only be re-reading it to see if you can think of some half-decent way of avoiding Christmas in Somersetshire.”

“How on earth do you know about Somerset?”

“The Taunton postmark.”

“Ha!” I chuckled at my own naivety, and I should not have done so, for Holmes took it as dismissive of his brilliance. Recovering my tact, I continued, “But the other things. Your statement—which I have to declare is accurate—that my presence is required by an old army colleague.”

“I said your senior officer.”

“And you are right, by Jove. Have you been reading my correspondence?”

He emitted a sound of impatience. “How could I? It hasn’t been out of your possession since the moment you tore open the envelope. The explanation will, of course, disappoint you, as these things do.”

“I’m sure it will not.”

With a show of reluctance, he enlightened me. “The festive season is approaching. We’re all aware of that. A time of invitations.”

“You made an inspired guess?”

Now a look of extreme disfavour clouded the great detective’s features. “I do not guess.”

“I said ‘inspired.’”

“It does not lessen the insult. Guessing is the province of charlatans. I make deductions. I was about to point out that when you first perused the letter you turned to look over my shoulder at the front page of The Times, which has nothing to interest you except the date.”

“So I did!”

“Today’s date told you how close we are to Christmas, how many days are left. You’re an active fellow, with much to attend to in the coming days. You had to calculate the time at your disposal.”

“Absolutely true.”

“An invitation to the country for Christmas. Need I say more?”

“Please do.” His statements had the force of logic, as always. “What mystifies me most is how you divined that the invitation comes from one of my regiment—and his senior rank.”

“Oh, that,” he said, knocking his pipe against the window ledge and producing a cloud of ash. “It’s training, Watson.”

“Training in the deductive method?”

“Not my training. Yours. In the army. The drilling every soldier undergoes. What did you do when you met a superior officer?”

“Saluted. But I didn’t salute just now.”

“No, no, but when you saw who the letter was from, your free hand snapped to your side with the fingers lightly clenched, the thumb pointing down the seam below your trouser pocket in the military fashion. Highly indicative.”

“Good Lord,” I said. “Am I so transparent?”

“Quite the reverse.”

“Opaque?”

He looked away and I believe there was a gleam of amusement in his eye. “You have made your decision, I see. You will go to Taunton. Loyalty demands it, even though duty no longer applies.”

I took the letter from its envelope once more. Holmes had delivered his advice, and I saw the sense of it, but I felt that a more considered opinion might be forthcoming. The invitation was, indeed, from my old Commanding Officer in the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, Colonel Sloane, M. C., a hero of the Afghan campaign. I offered to read it aloud.

My Dear Watson, (it began)

Some years have passed since we were last in contact, but your admirable strengths impress me still. I always regarded you as utterly dependable.

“True,” Holmes generously interposed.

I never expected to ask for your support after we retired from Her Majesty’s Service, but a strange contingency has arisen here in the village of Bullpen, near Taunton, where I reside.

“Would you repeat that?” Holmes requested.

“Bullpen, near Taunton. May I continue?”

He nodded. I had all his attention now.

I can forgive you if you have never heard of the Bullpen Nativity Service, but it has some celebrity in these parts. Each year on the Sunday preceding Christmas it is the custom for the villagers to take part in a masque and procession to the church, where our Nativity Service takes place. We take turns to play the parts of the characters in the age-old story, and this year I have the honour to be Balthazar, one of the Three Kings.

“Wise Men,” Holmes interjected again.

“It says ‘Kings.’”

“Kings are not mentioned in any of the Gospel accounts.”

“Really?”

“The figure of three is not specified either, for that matter,” said he, displaying a hitherto unrevealed acquaintance with the New Testament.

I resumed reading:

It is a role of some responsibility, for by tradition Balthazar carries the Star. I should explain that the Star is a representation in silver and precious stones of the Star in the East, of Biblical renown. It is about the size of a dinner plate and is carried high, mounted on a seven-foot pole, so that the impression is given that we Kings—and, indeed, the shepherds—are being guided towards Bethlehem. The star is of mediaeval workmanship, beautifully constructed of Welsh silver and set with seven rubies. It is kept in the strong room of the United Bank in Taunton. Without exaggeration it is one of the most valuable mediaeval treasures in England, rivalling even the Crown Jewels in workmanship and beauty. Last summer, it was put on exhibition at the British Museum, and insured for twenty thousand pounds. My task—my honour—is to collect the star from the bank, travel with it in a closed carriage to my home, the manor house, where the principal actors assemble to put on their robes and the procession through the street to the church begins. I carry the Star aloft on the stave, keeping it in my possession until the moment during the service when it is placed over the crib. The responsibility then passes for a brief time to Joseph, who returns it to me after the service.

“Ha!” said Holmes with animation. “He wishes you to be his Joseph.”

I nodded.

“And you will go.” As if the matter no longer held any interest, he reached for his scrapbook and opened it. “Have you seen my paste bottle?”

“Behind you on the mantelpiece.”

“And scissors?”

“Where you left them, in the top pocket of your dressing gown.”

“So I did. There’s an item of passing interest on page three about the theft in Paris of a necklace that belonged to Marie Antoinette. It has features that lead me to suspect my old adversary Georges Du Broc is active again.”

“Du Broc?” I repeated. “You’ve never spoken of Du Broc before.”

“The Jackdaw. A chirpy little fellow half your size. The most brazen thief in Europe.”

“He is unknown to me.”

“Be thankful, then. He’d have the shirt off your back without your noticing. Have I not mentioned the case of the Tsarina’s ankle chain?”

“Not to me,” said I. “I should have remembered a case like that, I’m certain.”

“How discreet I have become,” mused Holmes.

He exasperated me by saying no more of Du Broc, the Tsarina, or the ankle chain. But he was good enough to announce, “I shall attend the Bullpen Nativity Service.”

We took the train together from Paddington on the Saturday before Christmas. A dusting of snow in London became quite an Arctic scene as we steamed towards the West Country. I still hoped to return to London by Christmas Eve, but my confidence ebbed when I saw the snowflakes getting larger by the minute. At Bristol, we changed to the Exeter and Plymouth line.

“I doubt if they’ll cancel it,” said Holmes, reading my thoughts with ease (he was capable of it, I swear). “A tradition that has lasted five hundred years isn’t going to be ended by a few inches of snow.”

“Perhaps they’ll dispense with the street procession and go straight to the church.”

“My dear fellow, Joseph and Mary travelled scores of miles over mountains and across deserts from Nazareth to Bethlehem through the most inclement conditions and you complain at the prospect of a ten-minute walk in the snow.”

I turned aside and faced the window.

We were greeted at Taunton by Colonel Sloane himself, little changed from the gallant officer I had last seen in Kabul, six feet tall, with a fine, erect bearing and a cropped iron-grey moustache. He walked with a marked limp, the result of a stray bullet that had shattered his left kneecap. I had patched him up myself, and he always maintained that I saved the leg from amputation.

I introduced Holmes.

“I have heard of you, of course, Mr Holmes,” said the colonel. “What brings a man of your reputation to our humble village?”

“A bird I seek,” Holmes answered cryptically.

This was news to me. I had never heard my illustrious friend discussing ornithology.

“Most of them migrated months ago,” said Sloane. “You’ll see a few sparrows and chaffinches, no doubt. A robin or two.”

Holmes appeared uninterested. He makes no concession to the social graces.

Colonel Sloane had come for us in a four-wheeler. His former batman, Ruff, a strapping fellow I faintly recalled from Kabul, stepped forward to assist with our luggage. I gathered that the colonel lived as a bachelor in Bullpen Manor House and was looked up to as the squire.

With Ruff at the reins, we were smoothly conveyed through the lanes towards the village. It was like riding on a sleigh, for the hooves and wheels made little sound on the snow.

The colonel wasted no time in explaining my duties. “You will have gathered that I put the highest priority on securing the safety of the Bullpen Star. I have engaged two sergeants of the Taunton police to act as bodyguards. My batman is big enough to handle most emergencies, but I see this as a full-scale military operation, which is why I detailed you to be Joseph. I shall hand the Star to you at the appropriate time in the church.”

“When is that?”

“You will be standing beside the crib with Mary and the Angels. You are not in the procession.”

I could not resist a triumphant glance at Holmes, who gazed back stonily.

“You may stand easy during the service,” the Colonel continued, “but mentally you will be at attention, if you understand me. The procession will march up the aisle with me at the front.”

“March?” said Holmes.

“With me at the front holding the Star,” Sloane reiterated, “and the two policemen, disguised as shepherds, in close attendance. The congregation will be singing a carol, ‘Once in Royal David’s City.’ As the ‘Amen’ is sung, I shall take two paces forward to the crib. The Rector will say the words, ‘It came and stood over where the young child was’—whereupon I shall hand you the staff on which the Star is mounted. You will grasp it firmly with both hands.”

“Military fashion,” murmured Holmes.

My companion’s irony was threatening to discompose the colonel. I gave him a sharp glance of disapproval.

“This is of the utmost importance, Watson,” Colonel Sloane stressed. “Do not let go of that staff until the service is over and I take it from you. No one else must be in possession of the Star at any time. Is that understood?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Do you still have your service revolver?”

The question somewhat surprised me.

“Not with me.”

“No matter. I have guns. I shall see that you are armed.”

“In church?”

“The enemy are no respecters of the Lord’s house.”

“The enemy? Who do you mean precisely?”

“The criminal class, Watson. They will rob us of the Star if we give them the opportunity.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow.

“Are you expecting an ambush, Colonel?”

“Deplorably, there is the possibility,” Sloane answered gravely. “Did I mention that the Star was loaned to the British Museum for several months in the summer? Thousands of visitors saw it. The newspapers wrote of it. The Illustrated London News and the Graphic printed line engravings of it. More of the public know of its existence than ever before. Our simple Nativity Service was fully described. Isn’t it a tailor-made opportunity for the wickedly disposed to attempt a grand larceny?”

“You may well be right,” Holmes was fair enough to concur. “You are wise to be alert.”

The guest room of the Feathers Inn had been booked for us. Bullpen was a modest-sized village of about two hundred souls, of whom a fair proportion crowded into the public bar that night. We joined them. In the course of the evening we met Andrew Hall, the farmer who was to play Melchior in the masque, a massively built individual with the reddish, leathery complexion of one who makes his living in all weathers.

“We take it by turns,” Farmer Hall told us, speaking of the casting of the players. “I were a simple shepherd two year back. Now I’m carrying the gold.”

“Real gold?” I enquired.

“Lord, no. Don’t get ideas, just because our Star is valuable. ’Tis only a box of trinkets I carry.”

“Who plays the other Wise Man, Gaspar?” Holmes asked.

“The frankincense man? Our landlord, Jeb Wiggs.”

“You’re all well known in the village—you, Wiggs and the colonel?”

“That’s a fact, sir. Parts are played by villagers, according to tradition.”

I was beginning to feel uneasy about my role as Joseph, but Farmer Hall reassured me by saying, “Them’s the walking parts I’m speaking of, kings and shepherds. It’s they the crowds come to see and it’s they that gets handed mince pies and mulled wine along the route. We don’t mind who plays Joseph and Mary—stuck in the church for upwards of two hours. They’re non-imbibing parts. We got a Joseph from London this year, old army friend of the colonel.”

I was about to make myself known when Holmes spoke up first: “And what of Mary? Who plays Mary?”

“Any young girl of sixteen, provided she has a pious expression and a spotless reputation. This year ’tis young Alison Pugh, the church warden’s youngest.”

“And the infant Jesus?”

“A china doll.”

“Does anyone else take part?” Holmes asked, at pains to get the entire cast list.

“The angels. Girls who wanted the part of Mary and had to be overlooked for various reasons. There are only two this year. The Dawson sisters. Winsome little things. Just a mite too winsome, I reckon.”

We spoke no more of the Dawson sisters. By the end of the evening we had a useful understanding of the entire arrangements. At five the next evening, the players in the procession would assemble at the manor house.

“I shall follow the procession,” Holmes declared before we retired.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t care to dress up as a shepherd?” I asked. “You enjoy going in disguise.”

“Dressing up is not disguise,” said he witheringly.

So it was that by five the following afternoon I found myself standing berobed in a “manger” in Bullpen Church, ankle-deep in straw that scratched my feet distractingly through the sandals. Had I been in the procession, I should have been allowed to wear my own shoes, but as a non-moving player I earned no concession. At my side in virginal blue, seated on a bale, was young Alison, in the role of Mary. She kept her eyes downcast and said little. The Dawson sisters, playing the angels, were more sociable. Cicely, the older of the two, golden-haired and extremely pretty, invited me more than once to adjust the angle of her wings, which involved unbuttoning her bodice a little way at the back and retying the satin straps over her shoulders. But when her parents joined the congregation and sat in the front pew, she needed no more adjustments.

The animals around us were constructed by a local carpenter, flat wooden figures of full size that the angels were at some risk of knocking over with their wings. In fact, a donkey fell against me when the organist startled us by launching suddenly into “The First Noel.”

The service was beginning, but my thoughts were outside, on the snow-covered street. The procession must already have left the manor house with Colonel Sloane at its head, proudly carrying the Bullpen Star, its rubies glittering in the light of scores of flaming torches. I hoped the Colonel was not being too literal about the “march” and setting a pace out of keeping with the occasion. As a spectacle, it should have been stately and devout, like an Epiphany procession I once saw in one of the Latin countries.

We reached the last verse of the carol and the rector made his way up the aisle to receive the procession at the west door. The gas was turned so low that we could barely see the words in the hymn books, and the dimness contributed to the charmed atmosphere, the air of anticipation.

A draught of cold December air gusted through the church when the door was opened. The organist started a diminuendo rendering of “Once in Royal David’s City,” with just the trebles in the choir singing, and I do not mind admitting I was moved almost to tears. Hastily I reminded myself that I was on duty for the colonel and ought to be at full alert.

The procession entered the church. With deep satisfaction I saw the Star above the heads, gleaming proudly in the unbroken tradition of five centuries or more. The lights were turned up gradually and the silver fairly shone as it was borne up the aisle.

My role in the service was about to begin. Along the aisle I saw Balthazar gripping the staff with the Star aloft, dressed in a robe of glittering fabric with an ermine collar that would not have looked out of place at a coronation. He sported a crown, of course, fashioned in the eastern style; and a black beard that gave him a splendid Oriental appearance, so his limp did not take anything away from the effect.

Beside him, the two policemen dressed as shepherds were moving with the heavy tread of officers on duty, but this was noticeable only to me, with the advantage of knowing who they were. I spotted my drinking companions of the night before, as sumptuously arrayed as the colonel, playing Gaspar and Melchior with great conviction.

The carol drew to a close and the “Amen” was sung. The rector spoke his few words about the star standing over the stable. Balthazar stepped forward like a colour-sergeant about to hand over the regimental standard. His lush black beard quite covered three-quarters of his face, but our eyes met briefly and I believe I conveyed confidence. I put out my hands to receive the precious Star and it was handed across. Resolutely I gripped the staff with both hands.

The Three Kings—or Wise Men, as Holmes would have it—by turns presented Mary with their offerings of gold, frankincense and myrhh. Having stepped back, they knelt, allowing the shepherds to come forward. When everyone was kneeling I had a clear view of the congregation and I was pleased to observe that Holmes had found a seat at the end of one of the pews. It would do him no harm to have a good view of me at the centre of proceedings, loyally carrying out my duty, just as the colonel had instructed. For once in his life, I reflected, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was obliged to play second fiddle.

There followed more verses from St. Matthew and then the Rector, an elderly man with a fine crop of white hair and a rather monotonous voice, said, “Let us pray.” I had better explain that I am not in the habit of praying standing up and with my eyes open. On this occasion (may I be forgiven), I made an exception. Primed for any occurrence, I looked steadily ahead, whilst every other head was bowed. I was resolved not to relax my vigilance for a second, even though it was difficult to conceive of anything untoward happening whilst we were at our devotions.

I was mistaken.

There was an interruption, and the offender, of all people, was Holmes!

I spotted a movement along the aisle and to my mortification saw him crawling rapidly and with uncanny stealth, Indian-fashion, over the flagstones and the monumental brasses in my direction, or at least towards the kneeling shepherds and Wise Men in front of the crib. When he was near enough to touch their robes, he dipped even closer to the floor like a ferret.

That it was Holmes, I had not the slightest doubt, or I would have raised the alarm there and then. I knew the man. I knew what he was wearing, the Inverness cape and the brown suit and the goloshes. No one but my Baker Street companion could move with such remarkable agility.

Aghast, I held onto the Star, craning to see what he was doing. He appeared to strike a match.

“And now let us pray for the health and happiness at Christmas of Her Majesty the Queen,” intoned the Rector.

Holmes blew out the match, turned, and was back in his pew before the “Amen.” There was the merest wisp of smoke indicating where he had been. Some of his fellow worshippers must have been aware of some movement close to them, and there were a few glances his way, but by then he was joining lustily in “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Let Nothing You Dismay.”

The Grace was spoken and the service ended. The organ soared in a Christmas anthem and people began to file out. Naturally, I remained staunchly at my post. In all the movement I lost sight of the Three Wise Men, and I must say I felt a trifle neglected. The colonel had promised to relieve me of the treasured Star at the first opportunity.

One of the angels (the winsome Cicely, in fact) asked me if I was going to the vestry to change out of my costume. I shook my head.

She said without much maidenly coyness that she was tired of being an angel and hoped I would help her remove her wings.

Nor without regret, I said I must guard the Star until the colonel came. To Cicely, this was unreasonable. She responded with a toss of her pretty curls.

I remained at my post. Almost everyone had filed out, leaving two church wardens collecting hymn books, and me, still in my costume. My feet itched from the straw and my legs ached from standing up for so long. I am bound to record, self-pitying as it must appear, that I felt neglected. Presently Cicely Dawson and her sister came from the vestry dressed in their own clothes and strutted past and out of the church without even wishing me goodnight.

I could understand the colonel forgetting about me, but how could he have neglected to remember the Star he had been at such pains to protect?

Then a voice echoed through the church. “Come, Watson, time is short!”

It was Holmes. He, at least, had remembered me. He was standing in the doorway.

“I can’t leave,” I called back. “I’m guarding the Star.”

“That thing on the pole?” he said, striding up the aisle towards me. “Paste and nickel-plate. That isn’t the Bullpen Star! The Star is well on its way to Taunton by now. If we hurry we may yet save it.”

“No,” I insisted. “This is the Star and those are my orders.”

To my horror he reacted by grabbing the staff above my handhold and shaking it violently. The Star, loosened from the shaft, fell, hit the flagstones and shattered into three pieces.

“Does solid silver break like that?” he demanded, eyes blazing.

I stared at the fragments in amazement. He was manifestly right. The plaster of Paris was laid bare. I had spent the evening guarding a fake replica of the medieval treasure.

“Where’s the Colonel?” I asked hoarsely. “We must inform him at once.”

“No time, Watson, no time. Do you have that gun he gave you?”

“Under my robe.”

“Capital. I’ve borrowed Farmer Hall’s dogcart. We must be in Taunton before the next train leaves for Bristol.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“Nonsense.”

Without a notion as to the reason, I presently found myself seated beside Holmes exposed to the elements on a light cart behind a black gelding that fairly raced through the night. Fortunately the snow had stopped in the last hour. A full moon and a clear sky made the going possible. I was chilled to the marrow in my biblical apparel, yet eager for information.

“Who exactly are we pursuing, Holmes?”

“The thief,” he said, through bared teeth.

An appalling thought struck me. “Not Colonel Sloane?”

“No. Sloane isn’t our man.”

“But what happened to him? He promised to see me after the service.”

“He’s at home, at the manor house. Could be dead, but I think not.” He cracked the whip, urging the horse on.

“Good Lord!”

“Trussed up, more likely. He never left home.”

“How can that be so? I saw him in the church. He handed me the Star.”

“No, Watson. That wasn’t your colonel. That was the thief.”

“Are you sure?” I asked in disbelief. “He was limping like the colonel.”

“Naturally he was. The robbery was planned to the last detail. Almost the last, anyway,” Holmes added on a note of self-congratulation that I picked up even with the wind rushing in my ears.

I hazarded a guess. “Was he limping on the wrong side?”

“Ha! Nothing so obvious,” said he.

“Wearing a built-up shoe? I saw you creeping up the aisle behind him and lighting a match.”

“No, Watson. His shoes were a perfect pair. That was the detail I went to some trouble to ascertain. Whilst Balthazar knelt in prayer, I examined his heels. The heel of a lame man always shows wear on the edge of the shoe that takes most weight. This pair of heels was evenly worn. So the wearer was not lame. Whoa!”

We were going too fast, and the wheels skidded towards a hedge. Holmes pulled on the reins in time to avert a disaster.

“Deucedly clever,” I said. “But you must have had your suspicions already.”

“I knew if the Star was to be stolen, it would be well-planned. The weak point in the Colonel’s arrangements was when he had brought the Star from the bank to his house. He needed to change into his costume. He wouldn’t want the bodyguards in his bedroom watching him dress.”

“Lord, no.”

“But he wanted the Star in his possession at all times, so he took it in with him.”

“And that was when the thief struck?”

“Yes. He was hidden in the room, waiting. I hope he didn’t injure the colonel seriously. My guess is that he tied and gagged him.”

“If that was what happened, why didn’t this scoundrel—whoever he may be—escape with the Star across the fields at once?”

“Too risky. The bodyguards were outside the bedroom waiting. The hue and cry would have been raised within minutes. His plan was more ingenious. Under Balthazar’s robes and behind the black beard, he was well disguised. He’d gone to the trouble of making that cheap, but convincing, replica of the Star. He made the substitution, tucked the real Star under his robes and went out to lead the procession.”

“What nerve!”

“He’s audacious, I grant you.”

“And resourceful. How did he know what the Star looked like, to manufacture the fake replacement? Of course!” I found myself answering my own question. “He saw it for himself in London last summer, and used the illustrations in the press as blueprints. Diabolical.”

“And at the end of the service,” said Holmes, “he walked quietly away, dismissed the bodyguards, slipped off Balthazar’s robes behind the church wall—where I found them a few minutes too late—and helped himself to one of the carriages lined up in the lane.”

“And escaped!”

“Just so.”

Our dogcart slithered over the snow for some minutes more. The lights of Taunton were showing across the fields.

“Holmes.”

“Yes?”

“How shall we recognize the thief?”

His answer was cryptic. “He’ll be waiting at the railway station—if we’re in time.” He whipped up the horse again.

The streets of Taunton, being more used by traffic than the country lanes, glistened black under the street lamps and our wheels clattered over the cobbles as we raced the last minutes through the town and into the station yard, where several carriages were waiting.

“Take out the gun and be ready to use it,” Holmes ordered. He sprang down from the dogcart and strode into the booking hall, his cape billowing. At such times, in pursuit of wrong-doing, he was like a hound, fearless and unstoppable.

I followed as well as I was able, hampered by my New Testament robes. I wondered how well I could use a revolver these days. Of one thing I was certain: my heart had not forgotten how to thump as it always did in battle.

“Has the last train left for Bristol?” Holmes demanded of the ticket collector.

“Due in two minutes, sir,” came the answer.

We hurried onto the “Up” platform, which appeared deserted, save for an elderly couple.

“He’s hiding up,” said Holmes.

“The waiting rooms?” said I.

“We don’t have the time to check. He’ll have to make a dash for the train when it comes in. Take up a position halfway along and to the right. I’ll be up here.”

“Shall I use the gun?”

“Wing him, if you have to.”

The sound of the approaching express carried down the line before the engine came into view. My throat was dry and my legs felt like jelly. I’m sure Holmes, at the other end of the platform, was as steady and primed as a hunting lion. I looked about me, at the waiting rooms and cloakrooms of different classes from which the thief might emerge.

The rasp of the locomotive increased. It would be in sight now, snorting pink steam and sparks into the night sky, but my eyes were on the doors nearest to me, expecting a figure to dart out any minute and dash for the train.

Somebody did emerge from the ladies’ waiting room, but it was a young woman carrying a child. I saw nobody else.

The train steamed in and came to a halt. Several people opened doors and got out, bringing confusion on the platform. I couldn’t possibly use my gun.

“Watson!”

I turned, hearing the shout from Holmes.

“Behind you, man! The end of the platform!”

I swung about, in time to see a tall, male figure in the act of opening a compartment door near the front, away from all the station buildings. He must have left it to the last moment to climb over the paling that extended along the platform. I gave chase. When I got to the compartment and swung open the door, no one was inside. He had gone straight through, opened the door on the other side and jumped onto the line, dashing along the rails. I followed, shouting to him to halt.

The man turned, saw me, a horrified look in his eye, and redoubled his running.

As I tried gamely to catch up, a movement at his side caused him to veer off course. He was powerless to evade the tackle. Holmes felled him with a grab that was as good as anything I ever saw on a football field.

I hastened towards them, gun at the ready, but Holmes, a master of baritsu, the Japanese system of wrestling, already had his man in a stranglehold. And there in the snow, between the railway lines, lay the precious Bullpen Star, thankfully undamaged.

“You see who this scoundrel is?” said Holmes.

In the poor light I had some difficulty recognizing the fellow, particularly as most of his face was pressed into the snow. However, I hazarded a guess. “Is it the Jackdaw, Georges Du Broc, the most brazen thief in Europe?”

“No, Watson, it is not,” said Holmes on a petulant note. “I told you Du Broc is a short man. He couldn’t possibly impersonate Colonel Sloane, who is quite six feet in height. This is Ruff, the Colonel’s own batman.”

“Oh, my hat!” I exclaimed in horror.

“Only a servant,” Holmes charitably pointed out.

The shock I felt was nothing to the colonel’s when he was apprised of the news. He had known Ruff for twenty years and the man had given no hint of dishonesty.

“Yes, but when did he become your civilian employee?” enquired Holmes, over a late glass of claret in the manor house.

The Colonel had by this time recovered from being trussed and gagged, and lying in his bedroom, just as Holmes had deduced.

“About eight months ago. He turned up one afternoon. I was delighted to see him again, the first time in years.”

“By which time you were already chosen for the part of Balthazar in the masque, I presume?”

“That is true,” the Colonel admitted. “The service has to be arranged a long time in advance.”

“And it was in the press?”

“Yes.”

“So he learned of the opportunity and insinuated himself into your employment.” Holmes flapped his long hand as if that answered all questions.

“You’re an amazing detective, Mr Holmes.”

“If you insist.”

“But one thing still puzzles me,” the Colonel went on.

“What is that?”

“You said when you arrived that you had come in search of a bird.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Did you find it?”

“Certainly. You may not be aware, Colonel, that there is a member of the sandpiper family known as a ruff.”

“Oh.”

Not one of us had thought of that.

We returned to London by an early train next morning. The landscape was still seasonably white, without any overnight snowfall. The prospect of Christmas at home cheered my spirits no end after the shocks of the night before.

Holmes, too, was in festive mood, and appeared to have acquired a present in his short stay in Somersetshire, for there was a large, interesting parcel on the luggage-rack above his head.

With Holmes in a buoyant mood, I taxed him on a matter that had not been explained to my satisfaction.

“Now that we’re alone, old friend, will you admit that it was pure chance that the thief’s name happened to be that of a variety of sandpiper?”

He laughed. “Total coincidence, Watson.”

“Then your remark to the Colonel—the one about seeking a bird—was the merest eyewash.”

He gave me a long, disdainful look. “Is anything I ever say eyewash? Of course I was seeking a bird in the country. And I found one.” He pointed upwards to the parcel on the luggage rack. “Thanks to Farmer Hall, who you will remember as Melchior, the Wise Man, we shall have a twenty-pound goose for Christmas luncheon.”

I shook my head in admiration. “Truly, Holmes, there was a fourth Wise Man this year, and he is sitting opposite me.”