Sherlock Holmes and the Unholy Trinity Page 4

  I passed on my observations to my friend, who was seated close by to me. Almost inevitably, however, his interpretation was vastly different to my own.

  ‘You know, Watson, I find it most difficult to reconcile the sumptuous adornments and the glittering treasures that surround us with the humble origins of the man to whose name they have been dedicated. After all, was he not little more than the son of a simple carpenter? Did he not preach, on many occasions, upon the virtues of distributing one’s fortune amongst those who are in the most need?’ Holmes concluded by indicating the chapel’s adornments with a dramatic sweep of his arm.

  ‘Oh, come along, Holmes, even you, with your detached outlook, cannot possibly cast a harsh judgement upon these wonders!’ I protested, with not a little surprise in my voice.

  Holmes shook his head slowly with a wry smile.

  ‘Watson, it appears that you still have much to learn about the ways of the world. Do you not realize that the basis of organized religion is nothing more than an endless list of laws and precepts, bound within the confines of a book? Surely, when that moment finally arrives, the ultimate judgement upon us will not be based upon the number of times that we have recited from that book, but more upon the manner in which we have behaved towards our fellow man.

  ‘On more than one occasion you have been witness to and recorded for posterity my lack of discrimination between a duke or a king and a man of more humble means. It cannot merely be coincidence that more poverty seems to exist within those countries that view religious doctrine as a form of sacrificial diligence, than those that adopt a more humble service.’

  At that moment Holmes paused while he rummaged in his pockets for a cigarette. I gestured towards our surroundings and as there was still no indication that we were to be greeted by our client, I suggested that we smoke outside.

  I found it very difficult to counter my friend’s controversial hypothesis. At once my mind went back to our interview with the King of Bohemia1, at the outset of the Irene Adler affair, and then to Holmes’s treatment of the ultimately tragic Randell Crosby2 and the kindness that he had bestowed upon him. Save for the waiving of fees, in the case of Crosby, Holmes had viewed them both as clients and nothing more or less.

  I was on the point of continuing with our irreverent discourse when the somewhat ashen face of Inspector Gialli appeared at the chapel door. In the shadows behind him stood a particularly tall figure whose height was exaggerated by his slight build, long flowing robe and the high skull cap upon his balding head. As we approached the chapel door, the tall figure came out to greet us and I could tell from the red cap and robe that this was none other than our client, Cardinal Pietro.

  He held out his long, sinewy fingers in order that we might place a kiss upon his ring, in the time-honoured tradition, while Gialli made the formal introductions.

  ‘Excuse me, signori, but Cardinal Pietro apologizes for his poor English and has requested that I act as his interpreter, with your kind permission, of course,’ Gialli asked humbly.

  Holmes and I nodded our heads in assent and Pietro invited us back into the chapel.

  ‘The cardinal wishes me to thank you for having made so long and strenuous journey on his behest. He also repeats his request for absolute discretion throughout and especially at the close of your investigation,’ Gialli continued while we made our way through the chapel and onward through an absolute labyrinth of oak panel-lined corridors.

  Again we nodded.

  Finally we arrived at the door to an office that was easily identified as that of Cardinal Tosca by members of the Swiss Guard on duty on either side of the door. At this point, the cardinal leaned down and whispered earnestly into Gialli’s ear. Gialli cleared his throat and appeared to be somewhat embarrassed before he made the cardinal’s intentions known to us. He spoke with uncertainty in his voice and with frequent pauses.

  ‘Mr Holmes, it appears that the cardinal did not realize that it was your intention to travel with Doctor Watson and that as a consequence of the delicate nature of the case, he insists that the doctor remains out here while you conduct your investigation in the office.’ As if in anticipation of Holmes’s reaction to this request, Gialli was almost breathless by the time that he had completed his sentence.

  I was on the point of turning on my heels when Holmes rounded angrily upon the hapless detective.

  ‘No, Inspector Gialli, this will not do! It is not sufficient that my colleague and I have been kept waiting for nigh on twenty-four hours, but now you expect us to suffer this fresh insult? Kindly ask the cardinal to reimburse us for the cost of a return ticket to London while we make our travel plans for an immediate departure!’

  I was not certain if it was I or Gialli who was the most dismayed at Holmes’s violent although not altogether surprising reaction. Nevertheless, in an instant Holmes began to retrace his steps and I followed in his slipstream, while reflecting upon the use that the Castel Sant’Angelo had been put to in a bygone age!

  I found my friend pacing back and forth outside, in a state of great agitation, while almost chewing his way through a cigarette.

  ‘We shall have to walk back to our hotel if the carriage doesn’t return for us at once!’ he snapped angrily.

  I was mortified and speechless, secure in the knowledge that nobody, save for Sherlock Holmes, had ever spoken to a Vatican cardinal in such a fashion. I waited by my friend’s side while he attempted to regain his composure.

  ‘Watson, I am afraid that I might have seriously jeopardized our further involvement in a case that promised to be one of our most intriguing and challenging to date!’ Holmes glanced apologetically towards me for his anger had now subsided into deep regret.

  ‘Do not judge yourself too harshly, old friend. You had demonstrated great patience up to this moment and their treatment of you has been decidedly shoddy, to say the least. I do appreciate the stand that you made on my behalf.’

  Holmes smiled half-heartedly at my attempts at consolation and stared reflectively towards the entrance to the Sistine Chapel.

  We stood in like fashion for what seemed to be an eternity when, to our great relief, we saw Gialli walk tentatively towards us.

  ‘Signori, the cardinal deeply regrets any distress that he may have caused you and hopes that you might reconsider and return to Cardinal Tosca’s office to solve the mystery of his untimely death!’ Gialli interpreted by way of a proclamation. Then he dropped his voice as he continued, ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Holmes, I sincerely hope that you might reconsider as well. This case is clearly beyond my abilities.’

  Not surprisingly, this last statement of the inspector surely had the desired effect. Holmes put his arm around Gialli’s shoulders and said encouragingly, ‘Oh, come along, Inspector, it is as much an assault upon the truth to denigrate one’s own abilities as it is to overstate them. We shall embark upon this case in tandem!’ Holmes called this last statement over his shoulder as he strode purposefully back towards the chapel, while Gialli and I followed.

  This time, as we approached Cardinal Tosca’s office, the Swiss Guardsmen immediately stood aside and Pietro invited us to enter with a bow and a wave of his arm. As soon as he had entered the room, Holmes was transformed and he became oblivious to his surroundings and his audience. His eyes seemed to take in every detail with a startling rapidity and he motioned to us all that no one else should enter the room while he conducted his initial examination.

  It was most gratifying for me to observe the looks of awe and admiration upon the faces of Cardinal Pietro and Inspector Gialli as my friend went about his work. One moment he was scrabbling around upon the floor with his magnifying glass in hand, while the next he was examining the window sill in the most minute detail.

  It was at this point that a moment of startling realization seemed to come upon him and he ceased from his frantic movements while emitting a low subdued whistle. Not wishing to disturb any potential clues that lay upon the desk, Holmes sank down upon the flo
or and sat on his haunches. He turned his attention towards Gialli, seemingly unaware of the raised eyebrows that his unusual situation had provoked.

  ‘Inspector Gialli, please explain to me, with absolute accuracy, the events and the exact circumstances that led to the untimely demise of Cardinal Tosca.’ Holmes closed his eyes and pursed his lips with a raised forefinger.

  Somewhat nervously, Gialli rummaged in his inside pocket for his notebook.

  ‘From the account of the cardinal’s personal assistant, Father Roberto Bettega, it appears that of late the cardinal had been spending an unusual length of time locked away alone within his office. This change of routine seems to have coincided with the arrival upon his desk of a large number of unusual scrolls of ancient papyrus—’

  Holmes halted the inspector with an urgently raised arm and a suppressed laugh of surprising pleasure.

  ‘Ancient papyrus, you say. That is a rather unusual description, would you not say, Inspector?’

  ‘That is exactly what I thought, Signor Holmes, but I assure you that I am merely quoting from Father Bettega’s statement. Apparently the scrolls were delivered to the cardinal personally by way of a special courier who had arrived unexpectedly from Egypt.’

  ‘This would have been how long ago?’ Holmes indicated that I should be making good use of my own notebook by this time and rather impatiently invited me to join him in the room.

  ‘Exactly three days before the cardinal’s death. Since that time the cardinal had been working tirelessly at his desk, both day and night, in an effort at translating the scroll from its ancient Aramaic script. He regarded it as a task of the utmost importance and urgency and it was work that demanded total vigilance on his part. Consequently no one was allowed to enter this room when he was translating the scroll.’

  ‘Not even Father Bettega, or Cardinal Pietro here?’ Holmes asked while closely observing the cardinal for his reaction to Gialli’s reply. In this Holmes was not entirely without success, for Pietro ground his teeth and turned away rather petulantly.

  Gialli shook his head gravely.

  ‘No, Signor Holmes, Cardinal Tosca would only allow access to one member of the Swiss Guard on those rare occasions when he permitted himself some food. At all other times the scroll would need to be secure within his safe before Tosca would grant admission to another soul.’

  ‘Yet it appears that someone else did gain access to the room while the scroll was out of the safe,’ Holmes said quietly and almost to himself.

  ‘Who might that have been, Signor Holmes?’ Cardinal Pietro asked from the doorway, by way of Gialli’s translation

  ‘Why, the murderer, of course,’ Holmes replied with a cursory smile.

  ‘But Holmes, the murderer would hardly have been invited into the office by Cardinal Tosca himself!’ I protested. ‘Besides, did the inspector not inform us earlier that the murderer had gained access to the room by way of forcing the window? You were certainly examining the blade marks upon it for long enough.’

  ‘Quite so, Watson, quite so …’ Holmes’s voice tailed away for a moment while he seemed to gather his thoughts. Then he leapt back to his feet in a single fluid movement that clearly alarmed the cardinal with its abruptness. He invited Gialli to continue reading from his notes with a crook of his finger.

  ‘How was the alarm first raised and by whom?’ Holmes asked impatiently while the inspector rummaged through his book.

  ‘Father Bettega was now used to the cardinal’s irregular hours, so when he discovered that he was still hard at work, even at such an unseemly hour, Bettega decided to retire for the night, in dismay but with little surprise.

  ‘On the following morning, however, when Bettega arrived at the cardinal’s room with his breakfast, he found the room empty and the bed not slept in! At once he raced down to the office and when his constant beating upon the door produced no response, he summoned the Swiss Guard to force their way in.’ Gialli indicated the broken lock to Holmes, who examined it briefly with his glass. It must have been a surprisingly weak lock for the efforts of the guards had produced very little structural damage to the door and its frame.

  ‘This is all very well, Inspector, but where is the key?’ Holmes asked in a state of some exasperation.

  The colour drained from the face of the hard-pressed inspector, once he had realized his uncharacteristic omission.

  ‘I do not know, Signor Holmes.’ Gialli shook his head disconsolately.

  ‘Was it not discovered when the body of the cardinal was examined, nor when you had the room searched?’ Holmes persisted.

  Again Gialli shook his head.

  ‘I do not understand – there simply must have been a key!’ I exclaimed. I was as confused by the absence of the key as I was by Holmes’s calm and almost gratified reaction to this fact.

  ‘Mark that well, Watson, for unless I am very much mistaken, it may well prove to be a fact of the utmost significance,’ Holmes instructed.

  At this juncture Cardinal Pietro whispered in Gialli’s ear a few agitated words of Italian. To everyone’s surprise, Holmes responded with no apparent need of interpretation.

  ‘No, Cardinal, my outlandish methods have not brought us any closer to the solving of the mystery, just yet. There is still much work to be done and I am not a miracle worker! Do not look so surprised, Watson, you forget that Latin lies at the root of the Italian tongue and I had my head filled with that ancient tongue from a very early age.’ Holmes smiled when he noticed Pietro’s obvious discomfort, but instead turned his attention towards Inspector Gialli.

  ‘Now, Inspector, to the desk. Kindly indicate to me, if you would, the exact location of Cardinal Tosca’s head when he was discovered by the Swiss Guard.’

  Despite Holmes’s smile of encouragement, Gialli was most hesitant when he entered the room. He moved to a position behind the desk and once he was satisfied that Holmes had completed his examination, Gialli sat upon the wooden swivel chair and with a pencil drew a rough outline of a head that lay adjacent to a large, dry bloodstain.

  Once he had completed his task Holmes joined him behind the desk and examined Gialli’s crude artwork.

  ‘You are absolutely certain as to the position of Tosca’s head?’ Holmes queried.

  Gialli nodded his head emphatically.

  ‘As you can see, Signor Holmes, the parchment that the cardinal was working on is inexplicably distant from where the tragedy occurred, hence my assertion that the murderer had been interrupted in his task,’ Gialli repeated.

  ‘Yet he appeared to have had enough time to lock the door and take the key away with him,’ Holmes said quietly, almost under his breath. ‘Oh but, Inspector, there are many papers missing from this desk!’

  Once again Gialli appeared to be greatly perplexed.

  ‘I assured you earlier, Signor Holmes, that nothing had been removed from this room prior to your arrival. How can you possibly make such a statement with any certainty, when the parchment is still sitting here upon the desk?’

  Holmes picked up a cardboard tube, wrapped in brown paper, which had hitherto been sitting unnoticed on the edge of the desk. He examined the open end of the tube with his glass before bringing it to Gialli’s close attention.

  ‘See here, Inspector, how each twist of the tube has begun to gape under the pressure of its bulging contents. Again here, observe how strained the string that secured the wrapping paper has become.’ Holmes picked up the remaining pile of parchment and dropped it disdainfully back upon the desk top.

  ‘Do you honestly believe that these few sheets would have caused such an effect upon the tube?’

  Gialli shook his head once again.

  ‘I do not know how I should have overlooked this, and what has become of the missing parchments?’

  ‘That remains to be seen, Inspector, however if you were to get the remaining sheets translated and bring them to our hotel, I should be able to enlighten you further. I assume that the relevant parties have all been inter
viewed and that none of them speak a word of English?’

  ‘You are correct, Signor Holmes.’

  ‘Can I also assume that the body of Cardinal Tosca has been cleaned, dressed and made ready for his funeral?’

  Again Gialli nodded his confirmation.

  ‘Therefore any examination by Doctor Watson would be a complete and utter waste of time! Watson, I believe that we have concluded our business here. Inspector, perhaps you would also bring the transcripts of your interviews with you when you drop by with the translation.’

  Before the inspector had a chance to respond to this latest request, Holmes was bustling his way through the office door and with barely a cursory acknowledgement to Cardinal Pietro, he was gone. I smiled apologetically before following closely behind him.

  Chapter Six

  An Audience

  Gialli waited with us until the landau had returned and we used that time in making our arrangements for the delivery of the translated scrolls. We were on the point of boarding that stately carriage when a Swiss Guardsman ran urgently and somewhat awkwardly towards us. He spoke breathlessly to the inspector while his awestruck eyes remained firmly fixed upon my friend.

  ‘Signor Holmes, it seems that His Holiness the Pope wishes to grant you a private audience!’ Gialli announced with a hushed, reverent excitement that was entirely understandable under the circumstances.

  Without a glimmer of emotion, Holmes stepped down from the landau once more.

  ‘I do not recall asking for an audience,’ Holmes mentioned quietly while the guardsman led him back towards the Vatican. We all believed that it would be more appropriate if Gialli and I waited by the carriage and we both smoked in an anxious silence.

  Once or twice we touched upon the subject of Holmes’s examination of Tosca’s office and we agreed that it was a pointless exercise to speculate upon my friend’s conclusions. However, Gialli did mention the fact that Tosca had always been seen as the Pope’s natural successor and that his recent erratic behaviour was potentially throwing this assumed succession into some doubt.