Holmes’ Astonishing Tale

Holmes then set about recounting the unbelievable events of the previous night. Had this tale been told by any other, I would have immediately sought the man a room in an asylum.

Holmes told me that at precisely twenty-two minutes past nine on the previous night, as he pensively fiddled in the study of his quiet villa that he claimed commanded a great view of the channel, he was shaken to see a rather large man with a deathly serious look on his face suddenly appear in the room. This man was in the company of a man even larger than he, and with equally grey a visage.

Holmes realised that he had no immediate fear of the duo since had they been intent on doing him any degree of harm, they would already have done so. Indeed, Holmes was now utterly intrigued.

“Yes, what do you want?”

“You are to dress, Mr. Holmes, and come with us!”

“I am, am I? Just who are you, and to where am I to accompany you?”

The larger of the two took a step towards Holmes.

“Get dressed, sir. We have our orders.”

“I must say, gentlemen, for two such hulking individuals, you caught me quite unawares in my meditations. If I did not suspect your true profession, I might profess the both of you to be involved with ballet, so ginger were your movements.”

Holmes said that the remark quite passed over their heads, which was probably just as well, considering the size and sheer density of the two.

Holmes asked the two if they would wait while he dressed in his bedroom, assuring them that he had no intention of making an escape, so keenly had they piqued his curiosity. But it was to no avail. They followed him upstairs and waited as he dressed himself.

As Holmes proceeded, he asked in half-jest if there was a particular manner in which he should dress; formally, for hunting, morning coat, etc. And he was quite surprised when a serious answer came back.

“Dress so as not to embarrass yourself before your betters.”

As soon as he had dressed, the two took Holmes bodily, each holding an arm, down the stairs and into a large, black motor car with drawn curtains sides and rear.

The motor car was then driven to Eastbourne Station where a train was waiting. Homes noted just a locomotive and one passenger car with all the curtains drawn.

Holmes turned to the smaller of the two and said “Well, well, what a lovely idea; a train ride in the middle of the night. Charming. But you should have told me, so I could have packed. Will this be a long journey?”

The two men said nothing, physically escorted Holmes aboard, sat him down, one on either side, didn’t say a word and stared straight ahead.

“And I don’t suppose you would be so good as to tell me where this train might be taking me?”

The larger one then said “Home, Holmes” and laughed. The other just smirked.

“Very humorous, indeed,” Holmes said.

The length of the journey was approximately one and one-half hours, and, as he had suspected from the moment he saw the train, he was now at Victoria Station. He and his unwanted companions made their way outside where another black motor car was waiting.

From the direction in which they seemed to be going, and the time quickly elapsing, he was convinced that he was heading towards a rather unexpected destination.

After driving for precisely twelve minutes in the middle of the night, in the middle of the capital of a nation at war, the motor car stopped. And as Holmes alighted, held again by “his nannies,” as he later called them, he was happy to find himself in front of perhaps the most celebrated address in all England, save for Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street.

Holmes wasn’t precisely sure if he was delighted to be at 10 Downing Street because it confirmed his sense of direction or deduction, or because he now knew for certain that he was in no danger.

The door opened before the trio as if triggered by their movements, and Holmes was brought through the hallway and led into the office of no less a personage than the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who stood there, obviously awaiting their arrival.

It was now a few minutes past midnight.

The moment Holmes and “his nannies” entered the room, he was released from their grips and the two closed the door behind them.

“Prime Minister.”

Lloyd George, all nervous business, did not return the courtesy, and though Holmes was not overly surprised to find the Prime Minister at the end of his midnight journey, the reasons for it still intrigued him, and what happened next most assuredly did surprise Holmes.

Lloyd George, still without a word, opened a door to an adjoining chamber, and with the greatest conservation of gesture, bade Holmes enter that chamber.

In the darkened room, only two objects made themselves immediately discernible to Holmes. The first, a fireplace with intricately carved mahogany gargoyles framing a fire too large even for this uncommonly cool June night.

The second, and the most arresting, was a rather oversized wing chair facing the fire, hiding almost entirely its occupant; except for a perfectly manicured right hand grasping the arm of the chair so rigidly as to turn the tightened appendages almost white.

Holmes noticed the solitary ring on the hand, but before even his lightning mind could grasp its significance, the figure rose awkwardly.

Sherlock Holmes, the king of consulting detectives, now stood face to face with none other than His Imperial Majesty, George V.

“Mr. Holmes, so very good of you to come.”

“Your Majesty, under the circumstances, I had very little choice.”

“Yes, quite so. I do apologize for any inconvenience or disturbance you have been put through. Please sit down.”

Holmes waited for His Majesty to seat himself, and when he did not, neither did Holmes, a fact not even noticed by the King, so deep was His Majesty’s pondering.

“Mr. Holmes, what I am now about to ask of you must be asked by me and me alone. My government can have no official knowledge of this request, and you should know that it was I personally who asked the Prime Minister to summon you to me. Mr. Holmes, I want you to solve perhaps the greatest riddle of your life, and, quite possibly, prevent the greatest crime in history...”

“I understand perfectly,” said Holmes calmly, “you want me to rescue the Tsar and his family!”

King George stared at Holmes in amazement.

“But Mr. Holmes, how did you, how could you...”

“Your Majesty, it is not a feat of Olympian magic, I assure you, but simple logic.

“To be summoned to 10 Downing Street in the middle of the night, I need not have been of significant intelligence to deduce that whatever the government wanted of me, had to be kept in the strictest confidence. And upon meeting with Mr. Lloyd George personally, I, of course, knew that whatever the matter, it was of utmost national importance.

“Upon seeing your fingers so powerfully dug into your chair, I immediately knew that whoever you were, you were deeply disturbed and desperately groping for a seemingly unreachable solution to the matter aforementioned or you would not be here in this room.

“I would have to be an imbecile to be ignorant of your extremely close, familial and personal relationship with His Imperial Majesty, the Tsar, and an oaf to be unaware of the threat to not only his life, but to that of his family, as well.

“As soon as you mentioned a riddle and the prevention of a monstrous crime, it was not so great a leap to deduce the predicament.”

It was at this point that His Majesty broke his tone to whisper to himself, “Alexei, Alexei, poor little Alexei.” There was a brief and uncomfortable moment before the King again spoke.

“Mr. Holmes, because of who I am and what England stands for, I cannot officially ask my government to aid the Tsar and his family.” Here, the King’s anger began to rise with every reason he set forth to Holmes.

“I am reminded, by the Prime Minister, that I am a constitutional monarch, that we are still in the midst of the worst war our nation has ever endured, that the British people are happy at my cousin’s misfortune, that there is, and will be more, violent social unrest here at home, and that because of these things, the government cannot be placed in the position of being a tyrant’s saviour. That my own first cousin and his family should perish rather than reach safety on English soil. Does my own government not know that I am aware of these things? Do they suspect of me a limited intelligence, happily to limit myself to mere functions of ceremony? By God, Mr. Holmes, no subject ever felt chains as biting as mine at this moment.”

The King had now turned to face Holmes directly, his eyes fixed fiercely on Holmes’, a look, Holmes later said, “of commanding Majesty.”

Perhaps for the only time in his life, Sherlock Holmes was held mesmerized.

“Mr. Holmes, I am fully aware of the great service you rendered unto your country in what your Dr. Watson called ‘The Naval Treaty’; and that alone has given you valuable grounding in the delicate and arcane realm of international diplomacy. But you have remained outside of government, retired, untainted, and there would be no reason to suppose another involvement at this time.

“I shall not appeal to your patriotism. I shall not appeal to your loyalty as my subject. But I shall appeal to your sense of humanity and ask you to believe me when I say that in all the Empire, it is you alone who can accomplish this miracle.”

His Majesty finished speaking and took a small, gentle step towards Holmes, his eyes still holding Holmes as fixed as a fly in a web. Then he upturned both hands towards Holmes.

“Will you help me, Mr. Holmes?”

The question was a command; quiet and calm, yet a command nonetheless.

“I will, sir.”