Chapter 1

June 1907

It was at the beginning of June in 1907 that Sherlock Holmes sent me a rather cryptic message, indicating he might require my assistance in a matter of some delicacy. I knew that despite his retirement to Sussex a few years earlier to tend to his bees that he had retained the rooms at Baker Street and could be found there occasionally. (Truth be told, I was under the impression he had purchased the lease from Mrs. Hudson and settled a rather handsome annuity on her to remain there.)

In his communiqué, Holmes had requested that I meet him there on a Sunday night, so we could discuss the matter over dinner—just as we had so many times in our halcyon days. Since my wife was on an extended visit to her family in Scotland, I dispatched an equally cryptic wire to her, instructing her to remain with her relatives until she had heard further from me.

Upon arriving at 221B that Sunday night, Mrs. Hudson greeted me warmly and said, “Mr. Holmes instructed me to give you this as soon as you arrived. I shall have your dinner ready at 6.”

I trudged up the stairs to our lodgings, and after settling myself in my favorite chair, which still stood exactly where it always had, I poured myself a brandy and ripped opened the envelope to discover a single sheet of paper bearing a terse message from my old friend.

Watson,

Have been called away on business on a matter of some urgency. I may be gone for a week or more. I am, counting on you to hold down the fort. I will be in touch. Feel free to make the place your own, I am assuming your wife will have no objections.

Sincerely,

S.H.

Initially, it felt quite invigorating to be involved in the hunt once again; however, my enthusiasm soon began to wane after I had neither seen nor heard from Holmes for nearly a week.

Normally, such a prolonged absence would not have overly concerned me, but Holmes had not even bothered to send a wire much less write a letter. While his message had indicated that he expected to be gone for several days, there is still a significant difference between “gone” and totally incommunicado.

And so it was with some relief on that following Saturday evening, I heard his familiar tread on the stairs. I noticed he was ascending quite slowly, and when he finally entered our lodgings, my joy at seeing my old friend was nearly offset by my concern for his appearance.

Always lean, Holmes now looked almost frail. His clothes appeared to hang loosely on his frame, and his face, invariably gaunt, now seemed more lined and sallow then I could ever recall.

I jumped up and said, “Holmes, what on Earth . . .”

However, he cut me off with a dismissive wave of his hand, and managing a façade of bonhomie, said, “Watson, I cannot tell you how good it is to be home.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“I should very much like a brandy,” he replied.

“Have you eaten?”

Pausing to consider his answer, he replied, “Not in two or three days, I believe.”

“My word!” With that I rang for Mrs. Hudson. Upon entering the sitting room, she took one look at my friend slouched in his chair and said, “I’ll be back shortly with some nourishment for Mr. Holmes.”

Sipping the brandy that I had given him, I saw Holmes relax somewhat. Although I was curious, I refrained from peppering my friend with all the questions that were dashing about in my head. I knew that he would relate his adventures when he was ready, and there was nothing that could make him speak until that moment.

So we passed the time in a convivial silence. Eventually, Holmes did break the stillness by remarking, “I do hope the bees are faring better than I. My neighbor has agreed to tend to them in my absence.” He then relapsed into silence.

Some 20 minutes later Mrs. Hudson knocked on the door and entered with a tray bearing a platter of sliced beef, a bowl of hearty brown gravy and several thick slices of bread, which she placed in front of Holmes.

“I was planning to go to the market tomorrow,” she said, “so things are a bit short in the kitchen. If you’d prefer, I can prepare you some eggs and a rasher of bacon.”

“No need, Mrs. Hudson,” replied Holmes with his mouth already half full. “This is wonderful, but I do hope the eggs and bacon will make their way up here in the morning along with a pot of your best coffee.”

“Indeed, they will, sir. And may I say, sir, it’s good to have you home.”

With that, she curtseyed and left. Had she stayed another few seconds, she might have seen the beginnings of a blush creep into Holmes’ cheeks. I watched as he eagerly consumed everything that had been set before him.

I have often remarked about my friend’s seeming indifference to sustenance. All I can say, after witnessing Holmes devour the beef and sop up every last bit of gravy with the bread provided, is that every man has his breaking point.

Well-fed and fortified with a second glass of brandy, Holmes settled himself back in his chair and reached for his old clay pipe. I watched as he filled it with shag from the Persian slipper, and a few minutes later it was as though he had never been gone.

After several more minutes had passed, he looked at me and said, “I suppose some sort of explanation is in order.”

I merely smiled, and said, “That is entirely up to you.”

He nodded and then began, “You know the state of affairs in Europe at the present.”

“All too well, I’m afraid.”

“At this very moment, there is another Peace Conference being held in The Hague. The heads of state of several nations are hoping to reach an accord regarding the conduct of war. As I am sure you will recall, this second conference in The Hague had originally been scheduled for 1904, but had to be postponed due to the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Japan.”

“How ironic that a peace conference should be delayed because war had broken out.”

Holmes cast a wry look in my direction. “Indeed,” was all he said.

“As a result of the Russo-Japanese conflict, the Japanese have emerged as a force with which to be reckoned on the world stage.”

“True,” I said, “Russia had every opportunity to save face and bring the war to an early resolution, but convinced of its superiority, it pressed on and suffered a number of humiliating defeats. Still, what has all of this to do with you?”

“I have often spoken of the power my brother wields within the government.”

“Unless, I am mistaken, you once remarked of Mycroft that, ‘Occasionally he is the British government,’ adding that at times, he is ‘the most indispensable man in the country.’”

“Bravo, Watson! Well, this is one of those times. Mycroft hand-picked the delegates to the peace conference, and he has been in constant contact with one or another of them since they departed for the Netherlands.”

“My word!”

“Yes, apparently shortly after they had left, my brother learned that an attempt would be made on the life of one of the French representatives, and all the evidence would point to the German delegation.”

“But to what end?”

“To stoke the fires of hostility and to push Europe still closer to the precipice of war and quite possibly over the edge.”

“But if the Germans were not the ones making the attempt, then who was it?”

“That is where things get murky,” said Holmes. “Mycroft had been provided with a code name for the assassin, Atlas, but little else. He immediately made me aware of the problem and tasked me with foiling any assassination attempt. He wanted me to travel to The Hague and serve as a sort of bodyguard for the French.

“I explained that it would be impossible for a single man to guard the entire delegation as it was highly unlikely the members would constantly be in each other’s company—both day and night.

“Mycroft understood that but insisted he wanted me on the scene, so that when he learned the identity of the would-be assassin, he would already have a man in place. He also told me that everything I was doing was top-secret.”

“So that explains why I didn’t hear from you.”

“I’m afraid my hands were tied,” said Holmes, who then continued, “I arrived in The Hague six days ago and found a cable waiting for me at my hotel.”

“Had Mycroft learned the real name of the assassin?”

“He had but rather than risk putting it in a telegram, he sent me a clue.”

“What on Earth do you mean?”

“The telegram contained but a few words ‘Flambe pied-à-terre.’”

Although my French is poor, I was still able to translate that phrase without difficulty. “A flaming apartment? What on Earth was Mycroft thinking?”

“Actually, Mycroft was being quite clever, and banking on the fact that I would be up to the task.”

“So you were able to discern some secret meaning in his rather mysterious message?”

“Indeed. The fact that he had written the text in French had me thinking of that country immediately. Apparently, Mycroft had become aware of the fact that the assassination attempt would actually take place in Paris rather than The Hague. I immediately boarded a train for that city, and some fifteen hours later I arrived at the Gare du Nord.”

“And the flambe pied-a-terre?”

“You still haven’t figured that out? Although many Parisians are aware of its existence, I am not certain how far that little secret has spread in the rest of the world.”

“Dash it all, Holmes. Can you not come to the point? What secret?”

“When Monsieur Eiffel constructed his tower, he also had built a small apartment for himself near the top.”

“My word! Well, that explains the inclusion of the phrase pied-à-terre, but surely it was not on fire?”

“No,” Holmes laughed. “You correctly translated the word flambe as flames, or as we would say ‘burning.’ However, Mycroft required an extra layer of deception in case the cable should happen to be read by the wrong eyes, so he dropped the last ‘e’ from flambée, which we can also translate as ‘exploding’ or ‘soaring,’ usually with regard to prices, hence the idiom la flambée des prix.

“I must confess it took me some few minutes to figure out my brother’s intent, but once I divined his meaning, I understood he wanted me to find a ‘soaring apartment.’ Fortunately, I knew of one, and as it is located in Paris, I believed it to be the only one that fit Mycroft’s description.”

“So you headed to the Eiffel Tower?”

“Yes. When I arrived, there was a man standing near the base of the tower. I recognized him immediately even though he was doing his best to appear inconspicuous. Apparently, he also was acquainted with me because he approached me and said, “Monsieur Holmes, I have been waiting more than a day for you. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps something had happened to you.”

“I smiled and apologized for any inconvenience I might have caused him.”

“‘Think nothing of it,’” he said. ‘I have been requested to give you these,’” he said, handing me an envelope. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I think my work here is complete. I am leaving tomorrow for Greece, and I shall be gone for at least a month.’”

“What was in the envelope, Holmes?”

“A letter, which I could produce in case my presence in the apartment were questioned, and a set of keys.”

“You don’t mean . . .”

“I’m afraid, I do. Gustave Eiffel had just turned over the most exclusive residence in the City of Lights to me.”

“But why?”

“I rather suspect in some capacity Eiffel is in league with Mycroft. Be that as it may, I was more interested in what I might find in the ‘flambée pied-à-terre.’”

“And what did you discover?” I asked.

“After ascending nearly to the top of the tower, I made my way to the apartment which I entered to discover a fully stocked wine cellar, including some excellent vintages, as well as a cabinet generously stocked with provisions—and another missive from my brother.”

“And what did Mycroft’s letter say?”

“The assassin had been positively identified as an Austrian nationalist named Stefan Lorenz. Mycroft said he had other agents trying to learn anything they could about Lorenz.

“According to my brother, Lorenz is a former soldier who was dispatched to China in 1900 as part of the multi-national force sent to quell the Boxer rebellion. He seems to have been quite the military man, reveling in the plunder and bloodletting that followed the Siege of the Legations in Peking. Once he was separated from the military, he became a soldier-of-fortune and eventually began to hire himself out as an assassin.

“Although there was no photo of Lorenz, something that did not totally surprise me, there was a rather detailed description which was actually quite pointless, for in the last line of the account, he was described as a master of disguise.”

“Sounds rather familiar,” I grumbled.

Holmes looked at me and then grinned, “Yes, in a very real sense, I suppose you could say I was hunting myself. I had just finished perusing Mycroft’s letter for a second time, which also instructed me to make the apartment my base of operations while I remained in Paris. At that point I looked over and noticed something laying on the floor. Apparently, it had been slipped under the door.

“It was another letter, but when I opened the door to see who might have left it, there was no one there. The only person in sight was a young woman just entering the lift to descend.

“A woman, you say?”

“Yes, I can only assume it was she who had delivered the letter. Since pursuit was pointless, I returned to the apartment.”

“What did the letter say?”

“Here. You may read it yourself.” With that Holmes pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to me.

After I had unfolded it, I saw a single line of gentle cursive in an obviously feminine hand. I read it over three times, looking for clues, and then I turned to Holmes. “What does it mean?”

“I think it means exactly what it says:

‘Lorenz uses a crutch.’”